It looks like two pigs fighting under a blanket

I need to watch every movie starring Olympia Dukakis.

I just watched Steel Magnolias for the first time since childhood. First of all, it stars Dolly Parton and I love her, big hair, face lift, boob job and all. And then, my husband's away at the coast, and Steel Magnolias is the sort of film you only ever watch when your husband is away at the coast and there's only the cats to see you cry buckets when Sally Field finally breaks down. The really surprising performance is by Daryl Hannah, who is hilarious in her various manifestations as nervous wallflower, reformed party girl and evangelical Christian. I didn't know she had comic chops like that! What an underrated performer.

But lest you think that I have lulled myself into a Thai takeout chick flick stupor, I'll have you know that I've been mulling over a very deep question for the last two days.

Does knowledge carry moral weight?

No, I'm not stoned. Seriously: is knowledge morally relative; for example, does that fact that NASA recruited Nazi scientists (aka war criminals) to get us to the moon before the Russians somehow devalue the achievement? Should we have left humanity's feet firmly on earth rather than use our least heavenly brothers to reach celestial heights?

This is a good question, I think, especially given the recent and well-publicized prosecution of John Demjanjuk, an 89-year old alleged concentration camp guard now being held in Germany on murder charges. I'm of two minds about this situation. On the one hand, if he's guilty then he should spend the rest of his life in jail. He's lucky to have lived a happy, safe life after denying the same to thousands of innocent victims and it's time to pay the Piper. On the other hand, what's the point? At 89 he's probably repressed or rationalized his involvement in the Holocaust. Either he feels remorse or he does not, but packing his wrinkly butt in prison will only inspire self-pity and put the burden for his care on the German tax payer. Besides, it's hypocritical of the US to aid in the prosecution of octogenarians 50 years after recruiting their colleagues for the air and space program. Are these arrests the result of residual guilt? A tacit acknowledgement of the failure of the space program to establish whatever world stability and happy American hegemony the original Cold War ideologues thought it would?

Thank you for your time and energies, Herr Nazi. You bad boy, you.

I'm sure that the Nazis' contributions to academia weren't limited to rocket science. What about Mengele's medical experiments, how have they impacted modern medicine? Are we morally obligated to eschew this material; or, are we morally obligated to embrace this material as a means for saving future lives? What about Mercedes Benz and Volkswagen's and Doc Martins? Are ideas and items eternally innocent? And, a related question, when does responsibility for the Holocaust end? Will we hunt and prosecute every last member of the 3rd Reich so that we can people the German jails with incontinent Aryans and wipe from our consciences the shame of sending boats of refugees back to Germany?

...

I try not to dwell on the Holocaust. My application essay for the seminary (yes, I have a graduate degree in modern Jewish history...so how is it that I have just learned about NASA?!) was about relinquishing our hold on a traumatic past that does nothing to strengthen modern commitment to Jewish community and culture. I care very deeply about not defining Judaism by what has been done to Jews. Yet, learning that our trip to the moon was the end result of Nazi experimentation, and enslavement, and the careful erasure of war records, tarnishes an act I've always idealized a bit. And this idealization has been aided by an American educational policy to not teach students about the Cold War and to interpret all technological progress as inherently good and ethically neutral. When you separate "one small step for man" from the USA's and the USSR's petty rat race for universal domination it is an amazing triumph. Looked at within its socio-political context, Armstrong's moonwalk was a colossal pissing contest between two countries desperate to do anything besides examine their own moral failings.


So how did I get from Steel Magnolias to Wernher von Braun? It would trivialize both to reduce each to a lesson about life and death, or the impact of independent decisions on a community. Is science like art, heavy with history and continual meaning? Should it be studied for its nuances, for its dalliances with the emotive--something we try very hard to excise from our laboratories and science funding?

Surely yes?

Two Ham Sandwiches

Some days call for nostalgia, even of tastes or sounds we did not experience in their original era. I find that books do this to me all the time; I want to sit at the dinner table with the characters and break their bread, because the author makes those kitchens smell so good.

So it was that I found myself craving a kitschy ham and cheese sandwich with a thin layer of real mayo on white bread all day today. Store-bought bread, too, the kind that tugs at the roof of your mouth tasting like mayonaise and sugar. I'm reading a novel set in the early 1960s, and the children are constantly devouring platters of sandwiches put out by adoring mothers in twin sets and pumps. Several days of such descriptions, and my stomach was growling for Cold War culinary Americana. My reading, combined with my growing disgust with the low-carb, low-everything-that-tastes-good skin diet, made this desire too strong to combat. After work I walked to the store and purchased sliced Virginia ham, sharp cheddar cheese, and Franz buttermilk bread. I came home and put together my white, orange and pink sandwich. I cut it into two triangles.

It looked like elementary school, like childhood. Not my childhood, because we ate crumbly whole grain bread with tuna fish and minced black olives, but the childhood you read about in novels that take place on Canadian air force bases in 1963. Campbell's tomato soup childhoods.

It was so good. I ate my sandwich in the early evening sunshine with a glass of OJ, and then had some cherries. And a couple of hours later, I ate another sandwich, curled up reading on the couch. (I understand now why storybook children eat multiple sandwiches. They're not very filling--probably because they're not very nutricious. I'm already hungry again. And only the grimmest self-restraint is preventing me from going right back to the fridge to make myself an old-fashioned PB&J.)

I know I shouldn't eat like this every day, and tomorrow I have a gourmet meal planned because my parents are coming over (Mussels Marseillaise, baguette, salad, poached peaches) but once in a blue moon you gotta get your Kraft on.

Tybalt

What's little, polydactyl and black all over?

Tybalt, of course! Our new kitten, companion cat to the ferocious Stella (who likes this not at all).

We'd noticed for some time now that Stella gets very anxious when we leave for the weekend, often so anxious that she stops eating and begins vomiting all over our clean laundry. The vet suggested that we get a companion cat for her, but we hestitated, because Stella isn't exactly friendly with other cats. In fact, she's the street bully and enjoys spending her days tormenting the neighbor's dogs. She's sweet and beautiful with us, but she also bites and hisses when she doesn't get her way, and she doesn't adapt well to new individuals.

So.

Knowing all of this, we decided to get a second cat anyway. The lure of a new furry beast was too strong to resist. T's the household animal expert and he's confident that Stella will eventually stop hissing and lunging at Tylbalt; I hope she'll stop making those unearthly Gollum noises while she eats, keeping one violent eye trained on the kitten. In the mean time T and I are relegated to separate bedrooms so that each kitty gets a human and Tybalt doesn't cry all night. Stella has been shirking our company, preferring to make lots of noise under the bed to ensure an unrestful night's sleep and remind us of our perfidy.

Tybalt. The most ill-fitting name for such a merry, prancing kitten! He's joyful and sweet, sleek and black, with the mouth and ears of a Siamese. He talks constantly, which is a little irritating at times (for example, 5am), but he's so loveable and soft that the mewing is more funny than annoying. He likes to meow fiercely at me while I wash dishes. I look down and there at my feet is a tiny little kitten roaring like a miniature lion. Right now he's sleeping against my knee, with one many-toed paw thrown over my leg. How could anyone resist such sweetness?

We think he'll stay sweet, too, because at his age Stella was already a little huntress. She would lurk in corners and doorways for the sheer pleasure of climbing up your bare leg or back, her kitten talons needle sharp. She was completely adorable, but a little scary, too. To me, at least, since I was her favorite victim (T thinks she liked the shrieking).

I look forward to the day when the kitties reconcile. In the mean time, though, we just drink in his cuteness. And give Stella some extra, sympathetic snuggles.

A Post in Need of a Plot

Oy gevalt I've been so busy, you wouldn't believe so busy. Tonight alone I had a rehearsal, went grocery shopping, cooked for the camping trip, consolidated my lesson materials for photocopying tomorrow morning, and began finalizing my plans for Kate's bridal shower. Now I'm waiting for the chickpeas to cool so that I can finish the hummus, shower, and get to sleep.

I have made some tasty treats for camping. In addition to the ubiquitous meats for grilling (in our case turkey maple sausage and burgers) we have watermelon, a brown rice salad with julienned cucumbers, red bell pepper, and napa cabbage in a spicy peanut sauce, and homemade hummus. We also have fresh corn, yams, and russets for slow roasting in tin-foil, Kettle Chips, and rice flour tortillas. I figure if we're going to car camp, we might as well do so deliciously. T is promising a meal out in Manzanita, too, which is very dashing and romantic. In this household, anyway.

I've also been planning my cousin's bridal shower brunch, which is going to be full of all sorts of delicious foods that I shouldn't be and haven't been eating, and so will enjoy with greater gusto than usual. There's going to be a fresh fruit salad with mint, roasted potatoes with sea salt and rosemary, a strata with rustic bread, gruyere and ham, wild rice salad with sundried tomatoes and goat cheese dressing, baked blueberry French toast, scones, cake, mimosas and rose! And lots of silly games and present opening.

This is my first stint as matron of honor, and I'm taking it very seriously.