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In the immortal words of Lucy Van Pelt...

"You stupid darkness!"

The weather guys on TV said, I mean they promised that the rain was over. So what's that I hear on the skylight? Sounds an awful lot like rain to me, and thunder in the distance. Don't get me wrong, I like rain well enough, but every night?

I'm sick of the scrape my wipers make on the windshield. I'm sick of road closures, detours and the associated traffic; I'm just as sick of the little fender benders that happen because nobody around here can drive on wet roads.

I'm sick of having big hair.

The Liars on TV can point at their fancy radar and their maps, but when they promised me--yes, me personally--the rain was over, I so wanted to believe them.

Because I'm a sucker. And it's still raining.

Three Standing Ovations at Sundance! The Al Gore Story

Apparently a film's reception at Sundance is important. Maybe it's kind of ironic, since Sundance happens in one of those ultra-conservative states that starts with a vowel, but it's really just an outpost of Hollywood, so I think the ovations are kind of a given. Nonetheless, the nice people who put the trailer together thought you should know that the Hollywood liberals liked it so much they got out of their seats three times. Truth in advertising, one supposes.

So here's the thing: I don't care about your politics--really, I don't--in fact, I'm pretty sure that your politics, like mine, are completely selfish and informed by the media at large, which often uses press releases and talking points verbatim--and I've written both of these things professionally--I know it's all lies. But you can't not admire Al Gore's comeback from the debacle that was the 2000 election. Yes, even if you're a hard core Bill O'Reilly fan who thinks Al is right next to Hillary "Not Really That Liberal" Clinton in the Speaker's Bureau of Evil, a comeback is a comeback, and Al is sitting right next to Cher in the Comeback Hall of Fame these days.

He's back; and this time, he's interesting. Who'd'a thunk it? He and this little movie called "An Inconvenient Truth" are here to tell us that we're killing the Earth.

Oops. I guess that calls for a collective "my bad."

Anyway, damned fine trailer. Al gives a speech, which is a surprisingly painless thing if you were paying attention to either Saturday Night Live or the actual campaign in 2000. He's shaved the beard, but he isn't wearing a tie, and he seems to be comfortable. Also, he seems to have most of his hair, and this is the part where all the balding guys out there call him a bastard.

His point, aside from the cool quick cuts, is that global warming is our fault, caused by the driving and the factories and stuff that produces carbon dioxide. (I always thought that carbon monoxoid was the one that could kill you, but apparently this is different.) So the snows of Kilimanjaro are melting; that's in Tanzania, which is in Africa, and I'm not sure how it melting is going to cause me here in Washington, D.C, to drown, but Al Gore things so, and he's been here a bit, so I figure he knows we're due for a comeuppance.

The best thing about this movie is that the trailer doesn't give away the answer, so you have to go see it. I'm not sure I believe that Al has a magic bullet, but he's so confident and jovial about the whole thing, I kind of hope he does.

He doesn't come out and say that we ordinary Americans are more dangerous to the planet at large than terrorists--at least he doesn't in the trailer--but he does have some neat graphics showing how Shanghai and Florida are going to disappear into their respective oceans.

Freaky, man.

Bottom Line: I'm going to go see this, because Al Gore being cool is enough of a spectacle that I can't possibly resist. I guarantee that if he were PotUS, Al Gore would not be cool, not even lukewarm. So in that respect, the whole 2000 thing is the best thing that ever happened to him, even if it's the worst thing that ever happened to the free world.

I'm exaggerating, of course. No need to school me on things that are worse.

Recipe Time

I cooked myself some dinner after what seems like a very long time not cooking.

We're not talking about a huge production number, but I made a couple of discoveries, and I'm preserving the recipe so I can remember it. You might want to try something similar, if the spirit moves you.

Lobster Ravioli in Spinach Sauce
Serves One
Total cooking time about 15 minutes

1 cup fresh lobster ravioli (I got mine at TJ's, obviously.)

Slip raviolis into boiling water; cook about five minutes, or until all raviolis float to the top. Remove ravioli from water with a slotted spoon and set aside. (When cooking for one, you can use a small mesh strainer that fits over your pot of hot water, which keeps the ravioli warm while the sauce finishes. This doesn't work well when cooking for more than two people.)

Sauce:

1/4 orange bell pepper, diced medium
1/2 cup frozen spinach
A bit of olive oil
1 clove garlic, crushed
1/4 cup mascarpone
salt and pepper to taste
Grind or two of nutmeg

(Note, I used the red salt from TJ's, which is fantastic.)

Heat oil in a skillet and add peppers. Cook, stirring constantly, until edges turn a little brown, about four minutes. Add defrosted spinach; cook another minute or so; add garlic, nutmeg, salt and pepper.

Reduce heat to low and continue to stir veg. mixture for about another mnute or so to give your pan time to cool down a bit. (I used a regular Calphalon saute pan, which I've had since 1992.) Add the mascarpone, stir mixture until the cheese melts. Remove from heat, toss ravioli with sauce and serve immediately.

(If you think your pan is too hot, remove from heat a couple of minutes before you add the mascarpone. Don't scorch the cheese, because you're not going to deglaze the pan in this version of the sauce.)

Notes: This sauce is not creamy, but it is very rich, possibly too rich. (It does a nice job of sticking to the pasta.) I may substitute a dry white wine and unsalted butter next time I try it. Still want the richness of butterfat, but maybe not as much. The red salt from TJ's has a bit of a spicy aftertaste. If you don't have access to that, a dash of red pepper would provide the same gentle kick. (But if you can get your hands on that red salt, do it. You won't regret it.)

The spinach and orange pepper look fantastic against the orangey-colored pasta in the ravioli and made for a striking dish. Very pleased. I considered pureeing the spinach but since I dined alone, I decided not to--a good decision, I think.

The ingredients in the sauce were things I randomly pulled from the larder. Feel free to make substitutions at will, according to what you have laying around.

Also, I found that I had a bit too much salt for my palate, so I corrected the seasoning with a teensy dribble of grade B maple syrup. You could use a light honey or regular sugar if you needed to do the same thing. ("A teensy dribble is probably about a quarter teaspoon; I don't measure precisely for sauces.)

This Marriage Amendment Thing

I've managed to get all my information on this from listening to CSPAN radio in the car. (You can listen online if you don't live in reach of DC-area radio, or have satellite radio, which is kind of a waste of ten dollars a month.)

Anyway, it's a stupid idea. What I've heard came from a panel discussion hosted by the Cato Institute and the Center for American Progress, and then from a bunch of Senate newbies, mostly Republicans, since they didn't invite Ken Salazar or Barack Obama.

Guess who sounded smarter? That the bunch of law school profs and think tank fellows, both "liberal" and "conservative," have more going on upstairs than a gaggle of Senators should come as no surprise. Anyway, my favorite sentiment was that the amendment was put together by a bunch of very bad lawyers. The guy who made that remark also pointed out that the Federal Marriage Amendment, as written, would not affect the Massachussets decision legalizing same-sex marriage there; it would, in fact, dispense with marriage altogether, in a civil sense. It seems that the Goodrich decision said that same sex couples must receive equal treatment with regard to marriage and the legal benefits thereof. So either the Commonwealth of Massachusetts could raise the standard for same-sex couples or lower the standard for different-sex couples.

The same dude, a professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown, claimed that the FMA "Constitutionalizes" casual sex. I'm pretty sure our Forefathers would have something bad to say about that, as would the Fundies. (Well, maybe Thomas Jefferson would think that was OK. Who knows?)

In the mean time, Jim DeMint of South Carolina is convinced that marriage is under attack because of a Swedish study he (supposedly) read about how out-of-wedlock births increase when the definition of marriage changes. My guess is that a staffer read the study. I'm not entirely convinced that DeMint himself can read.

I still don't understand why some people are frightened of gay and lesbian couples who want to get married. My awe that any two people would choose to stay together for what's supposed to be a lifetime remains, no matter their genders. If marriage and family are so important, why not encourage folks who have not previously been able to be families in the legal sense to get married?

I know, the whole family-as-a-code-word thing is a huge lie. On the other hand, if the Federal Marriage Amendment actually attacks the institution of marriage, well that's the best kind of irony. Unfortunately the Constitution has no room for irony, in between freedom of speech, due process of law, and we're really sorry about that whole slavery thing.

I'm not too concerned about it passing, although weirder things have happened, but I'll be damned if I understand why we're still talking about it, except that certain political factions won't shut up about whatever the current iteration of "family values" is.

I keep losing track.