My god, how many years have we been promised this blue wave, the bluenami that would sweep away the chaff.

I thought it was a myth, like a brokered convention.

And now … what happens? I’m sure the governors’ races are a net win. It’s just frightening to think that all the Congressional power is on one side, isn’t it? Even if it’s ‘my’ side. I trust some of them, but power corrupts, and surely some individuals are out for revenge.

Are we just going to end up with the same uncooperative nonsense?

Well, the glow lasted almost a day, anyway.

Look at Der Sausagehaus in a box!

I had to buy, then I had to assemble, and now I have to review.

Buy: At our local store, the Dierbergs.

Assemble: Initially easier than a Gingerbread house. There’s no frosting or sugar mortar: it’s cheese.

It looks big, doesn’t it? No. It is not. The footprint is about the size of an index card.

But, that’s why it didn’t collapse. Half an hour after unboxing I had the basic cracker house above, assembled with the cheese spackle.

But then the decorating began.

If you ever need to be put off of charcuterie, decorate with it. The sausage is greasy and clumsy. Parmesan cheese snow stinks compared to powdered sugar snow. And any effort spent decorating will push the structure apart.

Eventually though, I developed a light touch, and came up with this:

and this …

Review:

It was great at first. Easy success up front. The opposite of a gingerbread house, frankly.

The decorating though … very off-putting. Had I not decorated it I would have gleefully chomped through the peak of the house like Godzilla. But if you are the person snipping the cranberries into window panes and delicately gluing them on, then you aren’t going to want to ever eat a cranberry again.

So, I suppose, good for guests, bad for hosts: my Mom’s very description of a great party.

One: Friend Anne teaches me about literature.

The Barber piece included a poem by James Agee. On the way to the symphony, I said to Friend Anne, “I am fond of Agee because he wrote A Death in the Family, which included a chapter with nothing but ‘My mother is a fish,’ and that was in 10th grade and it was the first time I read something where the author didn’t spell it out for me, and I figured out the puzzle.”

Anne: “That’s Faulkner in As I Lay Dying.”

Me: “You are wrong. They wouldn’t have us read Faulkner in high school.” Checks. “Oh damnit, you are right.”

How is it possible that Faulkner, the man famous for a page-long sentence in The Bear also wrote a sentence-long chapter? And seriously, what curriculum threw that book at me in 10th grade?

(It might have been my Free Reading hour. I might have read As I Lay Dying by Faulkner and A Death in the Family by Agee at the same time. I don’t remember being a death-obsessed Goth, but it’s possible. I also didn’t remember Knoxville: Summer of 1915 is the prologue to A Death in the Family.)

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Two: Anne teaches me a new word.

So, James Agee wrote the words that were set to music in Knoxville: Summer of 1915. Supposedly he was playing with improvisational writing: write once, no second draft. (I gesture expansively at this blog.)

At one point the piece serves up this line:

People in pairs, not in a hurry/

scuffling, switching their weight of aestival body.

Ooo I thought, new word. “Aestival.”

At intermission I mentioned to Anne that I doubted Agee improvised the word “aestival,” because no one pulls that word out of their butt. (Butt, not ass, because I was at the symphony.)

Anne: “Aestival, pertaining to summer.”

She placidly pulled “aestival” out of her butt AND used it it a sentence AND probably would have spelled it correctly without having to look it up every time as I have four times now.

I gaped at her, and then gaped more dramatically, and she smiled the happiest smile I have ever seen her smile.

Anne: “Most animals hibernate, but some animals aestivate: they sleep in the summer.”

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So, I suppose that pumps the TWIL count up to three, because I just looked up what animals sleep in summer.

Aestival animals are: Fish, reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates, Fat-tailed dwarf lemurs (sleeping in tree hollows using tail fat reserves), select hedgehogs, and Unita ground squirrels.

Halloween Symphony. Will the orchestra dress up? Probably not. But wouldn’t that be great? I will be in costume as a person who knows enough about music to attend the symphony. Putting the “phony” in symphony.

The last half will be Beethoven’s 6th, the pastoral, but before that they build the theme with Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915. Samuel Barber is most famous for Adagio for Strings. It is the Theme to Sad.

So, Barber wrote the piece this YouTube contributor aptly tags as “Saddest Song Ever” and he also wrote what we’ll hear tomorrow while his FATHER was DYING.

So, really looking forward to that.

This is what it was last week:

This is what it is now:

This is what it is supposed to be:

Some re-drawing taking place so the contrast starts making sense.

Noah Wylie has been voted Sexiest Man Alive by People Magazine, and we are not having it. (Granted, that link is from Fox news, so take that into account.)

My complaint is not the same general complaint you will find in the article. I feel the beard disqualifies him. It covers half his face. I mean, I could be sexiest woman alive if I were wearing a burqa.

We all know why men adopt beards. Weak chin, double chin, fine, I get it. Let’s say two points off for that. I have a dimpled doctor who’s trying out a beard and I tried to point out that the beard is covering up his dimples, ten points for dimples, c’mon.

I’m sure People Magazine will argue that it’s all about the sexiness involved in championing emergency room staff but sorry, he’s cheating. Not having it.