Mishaps and other haps

Happy 2012– I hope your new year is off to a good start!

Since I haven’t posted it on my blog yet, here is a list of some of the books I read in 2011:

In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson

The Latehomecomer by Kao Kalia Yang

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

Mockingbird by Charles Shields

American Gods by Neil Gaiman (re-read)

Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef by Gabrielle Hamilton

Bossypants by Tina Fey

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

The House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones

The Wilder Life by Wendy McClure

Storm Front by Jim Butcher*

Fool Moon by Jim Butcher*

* First two books in Butcher’s Dresden Files series– I am enjoying them so far (they are “fluffy” reads– tales of a paranormal investigator/wizard, I guess they fit the fantasy genre), so I will probably be reading more of these in 2012.

One of our goals for next year is to put dollars in more responsible places.  Part of this plan is saving.  Another part is spending.

I have not been a regular Walmart shopper for probably about 10 years because of their business practices.  We did receive gift cards for our wedding to Walmart and a few years back I bought a few gift cards for people there, but it’s not a place we regularly spend our money.  However, I have continued to shop at discount big boxes like Target and Shopko because their business practices seemed better and we have a large Target store only a couple of miles from our house.  A friend recently brought it to my attention that Target channels money toward anti-gay causes, so I have decided (and Michael agrees) that we will try to spend much less money than we currently do at that store.  A one-stop shop is easy and quick, but in the large scheme of things, I’d rather that my money is funneling toward causes that are ethical.  This makes shopping difficult at times because large corporations are a mixed bag and small local businesses may not carry all of life’s essentials (like cat litter).

So now it’s time to do a bit of research and consider the possibilities.  It’s good to be able to shop locally, but the internet opens up a lot of possibilities, as well.

OK, I was just thinking about what I would want in a nationalized system of health insurance if I could design a plan without considering some some key factors such as:

• underwriting risk of the pool of insureds
• malpractice insurance and research costs
• total billed costs of doctors, nurses, equipment, procedures, medications

So, a dream list of what I would want an insurance plan to be:

• allow people to opt-in to different tiers, as well as opt-out entirely if they choose to do so (in which case, they are responsible for 100% of all of their incurred costs if they need medical treatment)
• a FREE TIER (so that people who cannot afford any contribution can still be covered)
• all minors covered (free if their parent/parents/guardian cannot contribute to costs), regardless of parental participation
• ability for those who are employed to still have employer-based benefits and supplement those benefits with other options via the national plan
• guarantee of short turn-around on appointment scheduling and ability to switch physicians easily with transfer of all medical data to a provider who fits their needs (database info helps consumers make choices about their doctors)
• referrals should be instantaneous, when needed, submitted electronically (and same turn-around on scheduling applies)
• tiers of consumer contribution should be based on ability to pay for medical appointments, surgeries, and prescriptions
• perhaps offer some incentives to those who have more money to contribute to research or services that will help those who are less able to contribute to the system

Since the weather has become colder the past few weeks, I have been drinking cup after cup of tea.

Last year I took a couple of big metal canisters full of green tea to work (Sencha and Lung Ching).  I think I was averaging 2-3 cups per workday most of the winter.  My only quandary this year is whether or not to bring in my own thermos of hot water from home to avoid dealing with the busy snack shop in my building (they charge for cups and I’m afraid they’d frown on taking their hot water without paying the paper cup toll).  The desk drawer is once again stocked with a large assortment of tea.

So far I have these tea recommendations for the holiday season:

Celestial Seasonings Candy Cane Lane (it is green tea with very mild peppermint flavor added– I have been enjoying this one for a few years now)

Celestial Seasonings Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride (herbal tea that I tried for the first time recently– caffeine free and it does have a sweet flavor like sugar cookies– I think I could drink it all day)

Harney & Sons Hot Cinnamon Spice (if you love cinnamon, this tea is full of cinnamon– I had to reorder it last year because I drank so many cups of it– I prefer the black tea version, but the company also makes an herbal version– and they have a green tea version that I haven’t tried)

Harney & Sons Holiday Tea (yummy, spicy, almond-y black tea)

Harney & Sons Rooibos Chai (Rooibos is a tea-like herb, so this is another herbal, caffeine-free tea.  The rooibos mellows out the spice and makes it a pleasant, not-too-spicy blend)

I am doing marvelously.  Stitches are out and I am healing up well.

Also, Michael has done the lion’s share of yard work (over a few weeks) to ensure that most of those pesky leaves are on their way to wherever the brush and yard waste taxi may take them.  Hopefully they get mulched and put to some greater purpose than landfill.

We have both been pretty busy at work and that will continue this week.  Michael’s brother is coming into town next weekend for a visit through the Thanksgiving holiday, so I suspect there will be a lot of “boy stuff” going on (“men stuff” at this point?).  There are things I should be working on … passports, plane tickets, more cleaning out … we’ll see how much gets done.  My reading table is looking pretty full and inviting, too.  Might just spend a lot of time over the next few months curled up with a cat or two and a book.

I will be taking a small hiatus from my blog.  This week I am having outpatient surgery on my face for skin cancer that was diagnosed this month.  The procedure shouldn’t be a big deal (it’s a very non-invasive form of cancer with a high cure rate), but between that and the approaching holidays, I am not sure how often I will update over the next few months.

Plus, I am starting to seriously buckle down and work on cleaning, cleaning out, and getting rid of belongings that haven’t been touched in the five years we’ve been in our house.  We’re looking to sell (and buy again) in the next year or two and it just doesn’t make sense to wait until the last minute to try to get things in order for showing.  Why make things hard on ourselves when we can make it very easy?  That’s my “newish” adult motto.

We had a great time this past Friday night celebrating early Halloween antics with some co-workers of mine (and their family members) out at The Dark Side (Glacier Rock Farm in Ixonia).  Everybody enjoyed the scares and the laughs and I think we’re going to make a group tradition of exploring some haunted houses and the like around this time of year.  Work is going very well for me in general and Michael loves his job, though I think his job is generally more stressful than mine.

Life is good– no complaints.  Well, I could use a few more months of good weather before our usual long stretch of winter.  At least we are planning a winter break trip early next year, though.  That’s something I will look forward to doing and blogging about

In our near future (pre-Thanksgiving), I foresee more yard work to clean up after our leafy cottonwood trees.  In our next yard, we’re going to have maybe one or two small maples and some evergreens, and that’s ALL– NO COTTONWOODS and NO BIG TREES.  Mature cottonwoods are pretty messy.  At least they don’t drop gummy fruit that is tracked into the house, but between the fluff they drop in June and the leaves they drop in Autumn, they are a little too high-maintenance for small, suburban lots.  Also, they are too tall– they just don’t look nice.

This week: NOT IRISH MUSIC.

Anar is Czech musician Marketa Irglova’s new album (the title means “Pomegranate” in Persian).  If you think you’ve heard Irglova’s name before, you may well remember her from the film Once, which received a whole bunch of acclaim in 2007.  Glen Hansard of The Frames and Marketa Irglova starred in the film’s main roles and collaborated on the soundtrack, which permeates the movie.  It’s a great film about love and timing, if you haven’t seen it.  The music from Once won both an Academy Award and two Grammys in 2008.

Irglova’s new album is her first solo release.  Piano, paired with her vocals (which I think have improved in quality since 2008), is her main medium of musical expression and this is a very gentle album.  If you listened to the music from Once and thought that Glen Hansard sounded a little whiney and all of the songs sounded the same (as my husband did), good news– this is different!

For this week’s music post, I chose an album that I downloaded a while back.  San Patricio was a 2010 release by the Chieftains.  Michael and I heard some selections from it back in March when the Chieftains performed at the Overture Center in Madison.  I picked up the album back in May.

The Chieftains are arguably the grandfather of the modern Irish music scene, dating back to the 1960s (& celebrating 50 years in 2012!).   Although the members of the group have changed over the years, founder Paddy Maloney remains at the forefront and is still performing after all of these years.  It looks like they are on tour early next year and I would encourage anyone with interest in Irish/Celtic traditional music to see them– they put on quite the performance.  Many artists, both upcoming and well-established, have performed with the Chieftains and some see it as a milestone in their careers (or even a sign that they have “made it” as performers) when they play or record with the group.

The Chieftains have a huge music repertoire, as their extensive discography shows, and the Celtic music traditions they have explored extend well beyond the British Isles.  San Patricio is an example of this diversity.  The title is a reference to the Batallón de San Patricio, a group of European immigrants and Americans who fought against the United States during the Mexican-American War in the mid 1800s.  Some of these soldiers were deserters and many felt a kinship to Mexico because of their shared Catholic religion and traditions.  This album has a definite Hispanic/Mexican sound and the Chieftains’ intention is to tell the story of the Batallón through the music.

This week’s new music is the 2005 album Standards by the Blaggards, a Celtic Rock group out of Houston, TX.  (Truly, Celtic music has made the international rounds– but it helps that the lead guitarist/singer is originally from Dublin.)

I think the title of this album attracted me more than anything.  While there’s a lot of inventive, newly-minted original music coming out of the Irish/Celtic music scenes, you hear a lot of standards– even from groups that are writing their own music.  Essentially, these would be covers, but the songs have been around so long and have been sung by so many that it may be unclear who, exactly, a band is covering.  So there are standards as far as quality is concerned, of course, and then there is your standard set (of tunes).  I like the double meaning.  A standard set can include traditional, well-traveled songs to be sung and played, traditional instrumental tunes, or both.

So, it’s very simple, but quite the awesome title.  It reminded me that you can’t really delve very deeply into Celtic music without taking about the oral tradition aspect of the music, melodies and stories passed through the generations for decades, perhaps for centuries in some cases.  Weeks ago I came across a post that I liked a lot (worth a read) about Irish music sessions, the mechanics and art of a bunch of musicians getting together in a pub– some strangers, some friends– and being able to communicate with each other and create a one-time, unique performance by playing standard songs that everyone pretty much knows by heart.

This week’s new album is A Moment of Madness by Brendan Begley and Caoimhan O’Raghallaigh.  A pretty decent overview of the album can be found here.

I heard about these musicians via Irish Fest this year, although we have not heard them perform.

According to their website, Brendan is a member of the group Boys of the Lough (Scottish/Irish traditional music group) and his accordion is pretty prominent in this album, with some very polka-y tracks here and there.  That in itself is interesting because you don’t really hear that much accordion in Irish music (or I haven’t in my experience , anyway).  Caoimhan is a fiddler and seems to have a pretty decent array of collaborative and solo work.

These two artists seem to have pretty different backgrounds– while Brendan grew up in a Gaeltacht (Irish speaking) area of County Kerry, Caoimhan is a Dubliner.

Anything else to add?  I don’t think so, but definitely more leads to follow