what's for dinner?

"do you just make these up?" she asked me.

"yes."

middle-eastern-style kabobs

1lb steak (i happened to have rib-eye in the freezer, so that's what i used)
2 green bell peppers
1/2 onion
1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes
4 cloves garlic (i like garlic)
extra virgin olive oil
red wine vinegar and/or lemon juice (i don't have any lemons at the moment)
to taste: ground cumin, ground coriander, salt, black pepper, rosemary and oregano (fresh, preferably ...i should plant some oregano next year)

1. combine the cumin, coriander, salt, pepper, herbs, olive oil, and vinegar in a dish or plastic bag.

2. cut the steak into 1" cubes, trimming off excess fat.

3. marinate the meat for at least an hour to overnight.

4. when the meat is nearly finished marinating, cut the onion and peppers into 1" square slices.

5. thread the onion and pepper slices, whole tomatoes, and meat onto skewers, alternating as your whimsy takes you.

6. pour the marinade over the kabobs.

7. grill or broil using high heat so the meat sears. continue cooking to desired doneness.

8. serve with rice, couscous, or flatbread.

happy equinox.

today is the first day of fall.

or spring, i suppose, depending where you are.

in other news...

my 9 year old aloe plant is undergoing asexual procreation. i don't know what suddenly caused it to start sprouting now, but there it is.

it lives in the bathroom to protect it from the cat. aloes and cats are apparently natural enemies.

i bought it back in 1999 in a farmer's market in montreal. it's lived through 2 countries, and 6 moves. quite frankly, i'm surprised it's still alive. not only is it alive, it's apparently feeling quite vigorous.

from what i can find online, i need to wait until the sprout is about 4 inches, by which point, it should have developed its own root system. then i carefully separate it and re-pot it by itself. this ought to be interesting.

family values.

i've been trying to stay away from this, but it's getting ridiculous. i will try to be as tasteful as possible. warning: a rant does follow. i may offend you. if you genuinely think i'm wrong, please let me know.

it has recently come out in the last few days that the 17-year-old daughter of john mccain's running mate is 5 months pregnant. what's mostly troubling about this to me is that any and all defense of her that i can find consists of, "but she's not going to abort!"

honestly, who cares?

let's talk about the mother. let's talk about teen pregnancy. let's talk about low birth weight, birth complications, life-altering circumstances. let's talk about the difference between a white, affluent, middle-class teenager getting pregnant and an inner-city minority teenager getting pregnant, and the example the former sets for the entire nation. hey, while we're at it, let's talk about a family, a white, middle-class, educated family where the mother and her daughter are pregnant at the same time (do the math... bristol is 5 months pregnant and her little brother is 4 months old). let's talk about what that communicates to women, about women, about parenthood and femininity. let's talk about a society obsessed with sex, a society that values women on their sexual attractiveness and availability, a society that equates love with sex.

why isn't anyone asking if bristol palin is going to college? or how about her soon-to-be husband? why isn't anyone talking about these young people at all? why is all the focus on the fetus?

here's a dirty little secret: heterosexual intercourse doesn't have to lead to pregnancy. really. it doesn't. there is no way that any affluent, middle-class girl who's fucking her boyfriend has to get pregnant. none. especially not if you have health insurance. birth control is fucking cheap. condoms are cheaper. unwanted pregnancies should, quite frankly, be unknown in the u.s. today. i am tempted, some of these days, to say that if you get pregnant and you didn't want to, then you are either a) selfish b) lazy c) ignorant or d) infused with a superficial, false-nostalgic view of sex and relationships. i feel sorry for people in the last two categories, and i don't think they (the categories) should exist.

i was raised an evangelical. let me tell you something, pregnant 17-year-olds are not part of the "family values" platform. i never, thank god, suffered through "abstinence-only" education. abstinence has its place. no one in their right mind can argue that the best way to avoid the problems or side effects of sex (read: diseases and babies) is not to not have sex. but i always wondered about the mindset of parents who didn't want their kids to know other ways to prevent them. when are they supposed to learn? between the wedding and the wedding night? "here are some condoms, honey, let me teach you how to use them before you check in to the hotel tonight." seriously? we're not living on farms anymore.

i don't think the poor girl should have been walloped all over the national news, but obviously, her parents don't agree. either that, or they have no idea how to handle the media. it's bristol's life, and she made decisions, and now she's going to have to live with them, but she's also 17, and she has to live with her mother's decisions too. this whole situation is monumentally unfair to her. but the conversations that should be happening, aren't. all we're getting is 1-dimensional kerfuffle about abortion. abortion is such a fucking minor question at this point, it's insane that that's all people are talking about.