Jenn Martinelli Blogging in Boston

My delicious snack this morning was a cup of vanilla pudding. Mmmmmmmm.

Also, a handful of animal crackers. And half a Diet Dr. Pepper. Also known as "breakfast".

Because later today I will be posting a screaming angry post about the insane lunatics in South Dakota banning abortion, I wanted to at least post a happy little note for now, so there's some evidence that I don't just sit around all day seething and grinding my teeth.

Actually, I amazingly don't grind my teeth at all. I'm sure my body is compensating for it somewhere. I probably grind my finger joints or something like that. Actually, my feet are totally f-d up, so maybe that's where my utter disgust with society is showing itself.

You suck.

Good, a chance for me to not only once again exclaim FAN-TAS-TIC!... I can also add a suggestion from my friend Elaine: CRAPTACULAR!

Read it and weep my friends.

This country is so fucked up.

I'm making this shawl for my aunt, who just had major surgery. I'm also going to make her a fancy scarf, but this will probably take longer so I started here first.

I think I already made a post about this. Anyway, I have most of it done, I just need to go around the edges and straighten them out with a row or two of crochet and then I'll probably do a shell stitch edging like I did with the pink scarf I made (in that same set of photos on Flickr).

I'm of course jealous now and want my own shawl. SIGH. Maybe I can use my pretty new yarn from Rebecca for that. Hmmm. I'd probably have to use a little larger hook.

In light of AJPP's and Heather's recent food discussions on their blogs, I thought I would share my ultra-healthy intake so far today.

1 20 oz. Diet Dr. Pepper

0 calories

0g Total Fat

35mg Sodium 1% RDA

0g Total Carb.

0g Protein

2 Little Debbie Zebra Cakes (this is the info per cake)

260 calories (so 520 total)

110 calories from fat (220 total)

12g Total fat 18% RDA (24g, 36% total)

6g Saturated Fat 30% RDA (12g, 60% total)

0g Trans fat

0mg Cholesterol

140mg Sodium 6% RDA (280, 12% total)

38g Total Carb. 13% RDA (76g, 26% total)

0g Dietary Fiber

28g Sugars (56g total)

1g Protein (2g total)

0% of all vitamins and minerals

Hey, at least no trans fat! Did you know that margarine is loaded with it? You're better off just eating butter. Or some kind of "spread" that doesn't have trans fat in it. Butter, of course has plenty of saturated fat. Anyway, I don't really care that much, don't mistake me for some kind of diet or calorie-counting freak, because I'm not at all. I just think it's interesting. Sometimes foods surprise you. I'll try to find some weird examples to illustrate my point. Right now it's back to the grindstone.

Archived 2006/0218

Just in case you were wondering. Fan-tas-tic.

This site, Overheard in New York, is always really funny. But this particularly cracks me up.

This is pretty funny. This is near my old 'hood, Inman Square. Oh yeah, classy stuff.

Take that, you stupid assholes.

My friend Rebecca gave me a gift certificate to the yarn store last Christmas (yes, 2004) and I finally used it today to buy this lovely yarn. It's soooooooo soft and lovely, I can't wait to make myself a pretty present. But I do need to wait until after I finish 2 gifts for my aunt who just had major surgery.

I'll post those when they're finished too. I'm using Gatsby in the red/orange color and for the second gift I'm using Ingenua in "teal" though it's really a dark greenish blue, not an obnoxious color, which the word teal might bring to mind if it reminds you of the 80's.

1. Because their 70-something year old hunting buddies will probably shoot them.

2. Because they might have a heart attack after they get shot.

3. Because they should be sitting around at home in their smoking jacket and slippers reading a good book and taking it freaking easy. You're 78 for God's sake.

I'd love a lovely cashmere sweater, say, this reasonably priced one in "tidepool green" or "burnt sienna heather". I'm not sure about size... maybe L so if it shrinks at all it won't be too small. But I'm not sure. M might be OK. I don't want it to look really big. Make your best guess and I'll exchange it if I have to.

And, in case you didn't already know, in New England we have a little season called winter. In winter, there is something that often falls from the sky, called snow. The reason I am outlining all of this is because some businesses and people in this city have apparently never heard of either winter or snow before.

Saturday night, overnight, it started snowing here. Sunday it snowed most of the day. Yes, we got about a foot of snow. But because it's New England and we get snow here fairly frequently most winters, that's OK because the snow plows were out from the beginning, the roads were fairly clear and while there were less people out and about than usual, people pretty much went about their business as they normally might.

Well, the following places decided that it was a good idea to close early on Sunday "due to snow":

• Barnes & Noble Prudential Center closed at 6pm. They are normally open till 9pm on Sundays.

• My very own neighborhood beloved Whole Foods. They are open 8am-10pm every day of the week, except this Sunday when there were closed at 9:30.

• India Samraat, where we wanted to order our dinner from. Closed at 9pm when we tried to order, don't know when they closed. Supposed to be open till 10:30pm.

• Red Hat, closed at 9pm, don't know when they closed, supposed to be open late.

And who knows how many other places? Too many I'm sure. Especially given the following facts:

1. It's Boston, where it snows. Everyone should be aware of this.

2. Many of these places are just the kind of place that people might go on a snowy day, or order from (take-out) because they are too lazy to go out in the snow.

3. One is a neighborhood grocery store, where most people go ON FOOT, which people still do when it snows. Maybe they don't drive, but they still walk. It's also the only grocery store anywhere near this area of the city so people depend on it.

OK, now Barnes & Noble gets about half a demerit less because it at least put a sign up. Everyone else loses full credit because they couldn't even put a voicemail on their line or a sign on their door explaining that although they know that they are a business located in a place that gets snow, they are completely unable to deal with snow and close early when we actually get some. (For the record, we've barely had any snow at all this winter. Maybe that's the problem, everybody at these places forgot out to handle it.)

The following get credit from me for not only being open, but being open normal hours and (in the case of the T) running on time even though they might legitimately be affected by the weather (with trains running on lines outside for instance):

• The MBTA

• Starbucks

• Borders

All you other places suck. Oh, and Whole Foods, you'll be off my homepage soon. And I'm filling out a comment card but it won't be a loving note about how much I enjoy your salad bar, although that's what I'd rather be saying.

The crappy family edition, as I have already discussed, totally sucked ass.

Please read this, particularly the section about how the Family Edition of The Amazing Race sucked, and note that I agree completely. According to the add I just saw you're going to go to MORE places this season instead of taking a tour of a couple states in the south of the US.

I hope you're not lying to me.

I found this site because AJPP links to it on her blog. It's hysterical, and so right.

For instance, as of right now Sheryl Crow is the top item on this page, in her frightening skeleton-revealing dress from the Grammys, which we watched about 5 minutes of, and during which we got to see this scary look.

Anyway, it's great fun for seeing celebrities look like morons. Which is what we know they really all are.

In case you were wondering why they were making snow all over Boston Common this morning, here's your answer.

Heather got censored, which I think is pretty funny. Doesn't take much to stir up controversy at KSU vet school apparently.

We just saw this together on TV. Seriously, is it time to move to Canada? Or is that a bad idea now too with their new PM? Where is safe? Switzerland? Australia?

So I had this friend Shannon, who I met when we were both working at Payette. She rented our second bedroom in Charlestown for the summer of 2003 because her lease was up in the spring and she was moving in with her boyfriend in the fall.

Shortly after moving to Watertown with him, he proposed to her and after several more months she quit her job and as far as I could tell, left Boston. They had been planning to relocate to California, but she pretty much disappeared without a word and I didn't know what happened or where they were.

Anyway, not wanting to be a stalker, but curious about where she was, I googled her name yesterday and found not only that her wedding was in a magazine (if you knew Shannon this would probably not surprise you), but she also has a profile on IMDB because she worked on Looking For Comedy in the Muslim World. This is what she moved to California to do so I guess she's getting started. Pretty cool for her but I still don't know why she vanished so quickly from Boston.

Anyway, if you know Shannon you will probably find this pretty entertaining.

I just heard on NPR that 1 in 20 people in Washington DC is HIV positive! What the hell? That's crazy! What on earth is going on there?

(By the way, this is what Heather's referring to in her comment.)

Really, with a capital "E".

Not only does it affect the lives of everyone who shops at and does business there, Wal-Mart affects the lives of everyone who doesn't. Like yours truly.

Hurry up and die, you nasty old jackass and stop visiting your personal version of hell on everyone around you.

Heather, hurry up and get out of Kansas. It doesn't look like they're exactly heading in the right direction.

Especially, for example, shearling purses.

Also, even more so: fur boots.

No, no, no, NO! OK? Just no.

Every time I see some little girly marching through a Boston sleet storm in these I have an urge to push her into a puddle or worse.

Nobody with any fashion sense is wearing these. I know this will be a wakeup call for 90% of the girls who think they are fashionable, but it's just true. They're horrid. They're the leisure suit of 2006.

Hey, guys, guess what other religion bans depictions of holy figures? Christianity. I'm pretty sure I've seen plenty of cartoons featuring God and Jesus. Do you not know that this kind of reaction just makes everyone think that Islam is a religion full of crazy lunatics? I don't think that's true, but this isn't doing anything for your image on the world stage kids. Get it together. Oh, and by the way, just a reality check - France, Denmark, and the rest of the countries that may have published this cartoon don't have to follow Islamic law, just like they don't have to follow Christian law or any other religious tenants. They are free countries with their own laws, which these newspapers didn't break.

It's Groundhog Day, and Punxsutawney Phil says 6 more weeks of winter. Hey, this means at least one channel on TV has to have Groundhog Day on TV for the next 24 hours straight, right? We have to catch it, I love this movie.