Voted Off the Island

Tomato Killer

The Enemy -- Tomato Horn Worm

This is the evil tomato Horn Worm.  He camouflages himself on your tomato plant and gnaws his way through the stalks, just when plump green tomatoes have begun feed the fantasy of having so many tomatoes you might even have to give some away.  One morning you are lovingly watering your tomatoes, inspecting the blossoms, admiring the fruit, and sniffing the fragrant basil plants thriving in the same pot. Next day you come outside and the whole plant has keeled over...hacked to smithereens by something you'd swear has teeth.

But no, the culprit is not a squirrel, or a chipmunk or a deer. It's a green worm with horns that hides under the leaves of your plant, lays eggs and gets into the soil, so you've got to get rid of them, literally handpick them (UGH) out of the plant. The larvae blend in with the plant canopy, and therefore go unnoticed until most of the damage is done. Wasps are the horn worm's natural predator, but honestly, who would want to even attempt to catch and release a wasp. 

The caterpillar reaches the final maturity in 3-4 weeks, and is 3 1/2 to 4 inches when fully mature. Fully-grown larvae then drop off of the plants and burrow into the soil to pupate. During the summer months, moths will emerge from pupae in about 2 weeks. Moths emerge from the soil, mate, and then begin to deposit the eggs of the next generation on tomato plants. By early fall, the pupae will remain in the soil all winter and emerge as a moth the following spring.

The horn worm likes nightshade plants and will also attack eggplant, pepper and potatoes. This is one hungry and vicious garden predator.  Last Friday I bought two tomato plants to replace the ones my horn worm killed, and they were destroyed overnight before I even got them out of their peat pots!  Tomato lovers beware.

Jenny Sanford, Role Model

By Ruth Marcus
The Washington Post

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Finally, a new model for the wronged political spouse.

It's about time.

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's let-it-all-hang-out news conference was a different approach, too. But a better one? Pick your poison: staged declaration of politically requisite contrition, or meandering mooning of a love-struck adolescent inhabiting the body of a supposedly grown-up politician.

The stomach churns at both -- and from the spousal perspective, I suppose I'd rather have my straying husband (I mean, my theoretically straying husband) driven by a different piece of his anatomy than his heart.

But Jenny Sanford presents a new and improved version of the betrayed political spouse -- neither enabler nor victim.

We're all too familiar with the usual drill, in all its excruciating permutations. In one, the wronged wife stands, looking stricken, by the side of the cheating pol as cameras whir. See Silda Wall and Eliot Spitzer, Suzanne and Larry Craig.

In another, the wife is not on display but issues a supportive, if unnervingly euphemistic, press release. See Darlene Ensign: "Since we found out last year we have worked through the situation" and "our marriage has become stronger." Since we found out? Seems to me that one of us knew earlier about that, um, situation.

And space does not permit me to plumb the depths of spouse-enabling, self-deception and ambition embedded in the examples of Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Edwards, except to say that the latest about John Edwards makes Bill Clinton look like the perfect gentleman. A former Edwards aide, Andrew Young, is reported to be writing a book describing how the one-time presidential candidate beseeched him to falsely claim paternity of Rielle Hunter's child and how Young found a videotape showing Edwards, as the New York Daily News so delicately put it, "taking positions that weren't on his official platform."

I have to confess to, and apologize for, having preconceived notions about Jenny Sanford that turned out to have nothing to do with who she actually is. I heard "wife of conservative Christian governor," saw the picture of her with those four well-groomed boys and figured her for someone who wouldn't have the spine to stick up for herself.

Boy, was I wrong. She is as smart as Elizabeth or Hillary -- trade the law degree for an investment banking vice presidency (Lazard Freres) -- and may be tougher, too, at least when it comes to husbands.

What I admire most about Sanford's response is that she has apparently concluded -- correctly so -- that the person who is humiliated by her husband's affair is, in fact, her husband, not her. And so she is not standing by his side, but she is not hiding in a hole, either.

Instead, she took the kids out to see the tall ships -- and breezily told the press mob, "I wish we had room on the boat for you all, but we do not." He rambled on in a news conference; she crafted an elegant and thoughtful statement.

I admire her mature view of adultery as not a one-strike (or even three trips to Argentina) and-you're-out transgression and her refusal to tolerate its continuation. "We reached a point where I felt it was important to look my sons in the eyes and maintain my dignity, self-respect and my basic sense of right and wrong," Sanford said in her statement. "I therefore asked my husband to leave two weeks ago."

I admire, too, her practical vision of real love and what it takes to make a marriage work. "It wasn't exactly love at first sight," Sanford recalled about meeting her future husband at a beach party in the Hamptons. "It was more like friendship at first sight."

Now she still has her feet on the ground even as her husband is head over heels -- with another woman. "I believe enduring love is primarily a commitment and an act of will, and for a marriage to be successful, that commitment must be reciprocal," Jenny Sanford said in her statement.

And I admire her investment-banker steel. "He was told in no uncertain terms not to see her," she said in an interview with the Associated Press last week about her husband's pleas for permission to visit his mistress. And, on his decision to defy her: "You would think that a father who didn't have contact with his children, if he wanted those children, he would toe the line a little bit."

Wow. Maybe this is a new role model for all wronged spouses, not just political ones.

Crazy Cleomes

Having all but sworn off controversy and scintillating topics like sex, love, adultery and the death of pedophile Michael Jackson, my daily readership has dipped, but I am virtuously clean of heart.  Reduced to blathering banalities, allow me turn your attention to the birds and the bees. To wit...the spontaneous flowering of hundreds of cleome plants in my teeny tiny backyard.  Such fertility! 

Last summer there was one cleome that bravely pushed through a crack in the driveway and survived a brutally hot season with no attention from moi. This year, in a nearby spot where I dumped a few bags of composted manure and then planted collards that thrived through the Fall and Winter, there are now masses of white cleomes.  I swear, I did nothing.  It's nuts. Not a seedpod did I save, sow or scatter.  This wonderful bloomage complements the pots of tomatoes and herbs -- a fecund folly just in time for a 5th of July bash.

Tweets in Farsi

News from Google

6/18/2009 09:00:00 PM

Today, we added Persian (Farsi) to Google Translate. This means you can now translate any text from Persian into English and from English into Persian — whether it's a news story, a website, a blog, an email, a tweet or a Facebook message. The service is available free at http://translate.google.com.

We feel that launching Persian is particularly important now, given ongoing events in Iran. Like YouTube and other services, Google Translate is one more tool that Persian speakers can use to communicate directly to the world, and vice versa — increasing everyone's access to information.

As with all machine translation, it's not perfect yet. And we're launching this service quickly, so it may perform slowly at times. We'll keep a close watch and if it breaks, we'll restore service as quickly as we can.

We've optimized this service for translation between Persian and English. But we're working hard to improve Persian translation for the additional 40 languages available via Google Translate. If you see something you think is incorrectly translated, we invite you to click on the "contribute a better translation" link and we'll learn from your correction.

The web provides many new channels of communication that enable us to see events unfold in real-time around the world. We hope that Google Translate helps make all that information accessible to you — no matter what language you speak. So please visit Google Translate and try it out.

Posted by Franz Och, Principal Scientist

Gratitude

Went for what could be my last blood lab and oncology appointment yesterday at Emory Winship Cancer Institute. The results were unremarkable and aside from having a few enzymes in the "elevated" range, I'm good for another year.  I'm now beyond the 5 year survival mark after treatment for Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma and though there are no guarantees, my chances of relapse are small. Loud exhale.

It's always sobering to go back to the gates of hell -- the infusion center waiting area. Nearly 6 years ago I started treatment at Emory just weeks after Winship opened.  The place was so new they didn't know where to put stuff, and the smell of building was all disinfectant and shiny vinyl -- an odor that would actually sicken me once treatment was underway. Today the place is looking a little worse for wear. And it's packed with people -- rich, poor, old, young, all races and faiths -- cancer being an unrepentant equal opportunity killer. When I step inside the place where I battled lymphoma, essentially all by myself, where my battered veins sucked up the poison and I closed down the infusion center many a night because I refused to have a port and my vein-infusion rate was so slow, I want to hug every gray pallored, bewigged, bald-headed cancer warrior in the place and say, "I know, I know, this is terrible, but you can do it!"

Today when my oncologist released me and said from here on out I could just see my regular doctor or come for labs just once a year, I figured it was time to say a ceremonial adieu to the paver I donated in the Healing Garden at Winship. 

Gratitude, baby, gratitude.  That's what I feel.  I was diagnosed on my 5th day in Atlanta. For all those good southern Temple folks who barely knew me, but still cooked, shlepped, and took care of my family, I say "thank you."  Nina Salkin, yup...that was me back then 2004. Sorry we Salkins didn't quite work out at your synagogue, but I've made the place my home and my roots are deepening.  Thanks for everything you are and were and continue to be to me. 

What Are You Doing Labor Day Weekend?

Summer is here and it's time to make your plans.  Me, I'll be on the shore in July, in the Berkshires in August, and in the Georgia Mountains at Tumbling Waters Resort for Atlanta's first LimmudFest over Labor Day Weekend. This multi-day Limmud event takes Limmud Atlanta to the next level, offering 3 full days of community, performances and learning. The resort offers comfortable cabins, lake and pool swimming, hiking, and all meals are included.

See the amazing list of confirmed presenters and folks we'll be living and learning with. 

Analia Bortz, Congregational rabbi, medical doctor, teacher, and mother from Argentina
Richard Chess, Professor of literature and classics at UNC-Asheville
Marshall Duke, Professor of psychology at Emory University, chrayn-maker extraordinnaire
Barbara Flexner, Painter, weaver, and spinner
Paul Flexner, Teacher, educator, and MG enthusiast
Marcus Freed, Performer, writer, and Bibliyogi from London
Richard Friedman, Professor of Jewish Studies at UGA, author of Who Wrote the Bible?
Shalom Goldman, Professor of Hebrew and Middle Eastern Studies at Emory University
Eric L. Goldstein, Associate professor of history and Jewish Studies at Emory University
Helene Kates, Musician, performer, and teacher, lead singer of The Baal Shem Tones
Linda Nathanson Lippitt
Laurie L. Patton, Professor of Religion at Emory University
Dafna Robinson, Chair of visual arts department at Georgia Southwestern State University, art director at Ramah Darom
Peninnah Schram, Storyteller, author, recording artist, and professor of speech and drama at Stern College
Craig Silverman, Jewish JAG in Iraq
Rae Sirott, Social worker, music therapist, group-drumming facilitator
Click here for full bios

Our host site has been voted "Best Conference Resort" in Georgia for 2009

Feed Station

  Made a pot of turkey sausage with onions and mushrooms last night.  Nothing fancy.  It sat on the stove getting cold until I finally served myself a plate and ate standing up in front of the kitchen TV.  You would think I was home alone, but no. An almost 17 year old boy lives with me still. I called him to dinner several times but he was dug in deep, snuggling in his man cave playing video games. Eventually he lumbered into the kitchen, filled a plate and withdrew to his lair to eat.

Ugh.

School is over, and for the next few weeks until he leaves for camp to be a CIT, my manchild is working as a counselor at Improv Day Camp and doing sound and lights for the grownup shows three nights a week. I'm proud of all that.  But overnight, the civil routines of the school year have evaporated.  He and I actually like to cook together and have generally managed to eat a meal together several nights a week during the school year. 

Last night's dinner felt like animals at the trough.  

You all know what they say about "family meals" as a civilizing influence. I so believe it.  And when our family was whole, the dinner table was where we flowered. I once gave a speech on that idea that made me mildly famous in Atlanta for about 15 minutes, called "Everything I Needed to Know I Learned At The Dining Room Table."  I'm all about the well-set table, the banter, the catching up, the connection and the conversation.

In my favorite book about foodways, Hungering for America, anthropologist Hasia Diner explores what happened to the Irish, the Italians and the Jews, when they left the Old Country and came to America. Rural Italians rarely had meat at the weekday table, but with a knack for turning the humblest of foods -- cornmeal, dandelion greens, wheat, and tomatoes -- into filling and nutritious meals, they developed a rich and varied food culture.  What we know today in America as Italian food -- lasagna, sausage, meatballs -- was festival food served only on Saints Days and major holidays.  European Jews, who also lived in poverty and subsistence, saved the chicken, the challah and the puddings for the sabbath when everything was holy. With sabbath blessings and rituals for everything from lighting candles to bread, and songs for wine and ending the meal, the Jewish table was the ultimate expression of family and finery, even if the weekday table was about cabbage and potatoes.  Like the Italians, American bounty turned the Jewish table into a groaning board where special sabbath foods became daily fare.

Which brings us to the Irish, and I hope I don't offend anybody here.  What Hasia Diner describes about Irish foodways in the Old Sod is not pretty.  She contends that there was no tradition of family meals,  that open pots of potatoes sat on the stove and people sort of speared a potato when they were hungry.  Communal tables were more often found in the pub, not in the farmhouse kitchen.  Even more amazing, when the potato crop failed and people were truly starving, the Irish seemed oblivious to the fish in their streams and the wild greens by the roadside.  So they came to America hungry and found a food bounty there, but had not developed table rituals or family meal habits that could rival the lure of the pub.  A generalization to be sure, but compare Irish food to Italian and Jewish food and I think you'd agree, it's dismal by comparison.

I felt impoverished last night.  Sometimes standing at the stove and eating out of pots, or eating cold leftovers out of containers is just what I want to do.  With a big hungry boy in the house, snorting at the trough was NOT what I wanted for dinner. Wednesday is my CSA pickup day and you can be sure there will be a real meal on my table, with cloth napkins, the Blue Willow china, a hungry mom and a big hungry boy chowing down...together.

[Cross posted at Mid-Century Modern Moms]

Frugalista Friday: Dry Cleaning at Home

  Fru-ga-LEE-sta. noun.  “A person who lives a frugal lifestyle but stays fashionable and healthy by swapping clothes, buying secondhand, growing own produce, etc.”

You know things are bad when you get a phonecall from your dry cleaner saying, "We haven't seen you in awhile."

It's true.  I have a new job and a new route to work, so I don't drop off at the old dry cleaner anymore.  My new dry cleaner is crazy expensive, but they do good work and are located in a spot with easy parking and drive-up window.  I use them judiciously.  Everyone knows that the dryer is "the poor-man's dry cleaner," great for unwrinkling garments and freshening them up.  So I'm also thinking about trying Dryel which lets you freshen up your clothes in the dryer. It also has a stain remover.

Anybody tried it?  Whaddya think?

SotOMayor

Better than the Real Housewives -- Richard Lawson

I'm not especially proud of this, but I've watched nearly every show in Bravo's Real Housewives "franchise."  I always felt a little dirty afterwards, that is, until I discovered Richard Lawson, Gawker's beyond brilliant (and most-read) 20-something chronicler of the ladies who louche.  Richard's recaps of each episode are so much a million times better than the actual show.

Jersey Girls:  (l-r) Jacqueline, Theresa, Danielle, Dina and Caroline.

Richard, Richard, how to sum up your brilliance?   You are Marcel Proust combined with David Foster Wallace, William Faulkner crossed with Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Nora Ephron dusted with Virginia Woolf.  There really is no other way to make my point than to give my readers a sample of your awesome literary chops.

The Real Housewives of New York City: (l-r) Bethenny Frankel, Kelly BenSimon, Ramona Singer, Jill Zarin, Countess LuAnn DeLesseps, Alex McCord.

Richard on the RHofNYC:

Meanwhile at the Hamptons chateau that Ramona has fashioned out of waffles and spirit gum, she and her basically-a-hired-homosexual husband languished in their swimming pool and Ramona sang old sea shanties, hoping that her long lost beloved Captain Redbeard would return to her. She stayed there all evening, floating around, kelp and barnacles slowly consuming her.

Back at the brambles, Alex and Simon were bragging about a large inflatable pool that they bought and put in their broken glass-filled horrid backyard. So much better than the Hamptons, they cooed needlessly. Simon lay there, like the king of absolutely nothing, all night, barnacles and kelp avoiding him at all costs.

Ol' Crackerjacks LuAnn invited Bethenny to lunch on the pretension of talking to her about some silly cancer thing. In actuality, she wanted to brag about her book deal. Yes, someone has actually put their head down on their desk and put their hand out, asking for money, and agreed to publish Class with the Countess, a memoir cum travelogue cum etiquette handbook cum cumstain that Crackerjacks has written in her head bone, drawing on her vast experience writing articles for Hamptons Magazine (exactly as real as Social Life). Bethenny, bless her, was sort of horrified that Crackerjacks continues to exploit her bullhockey Countess status. "Are you classy because you're a countess?" she asked, innocently. Crackerjacks said "No, you know, I'm American Indian." By way of... explanation? She then added that her Indian name was Keeps Elbows Off Table. Which isn't true. Her 'Indian name' is actually Crackerjacks O'Reardon, a nom de plume she used back in her days of scuffling around on a creaking wooden stage, disrobing for out-of-work coal miners at the Canary Club, that place just off the interstate, during the late-morning shift. "Go Crackerjacks! It's your birthday!" she would bellow to herself, wheezing and farting, her Capri cigarette dangling off her lip, the muted sounds of Joe Cocker rasping "Love lifts us up where we belong..." coming lilting from the jukebox, a few coughs, a gust of wind. Creak. Creak. "Go Crackerjacks..." Creeeeak.

Richard on the RHofNJ:

Teresa is also a treat because she has three daughters. Their names are Milano, Asti Spumante, and Prosciutto Royale and they are all beautiful talented little bundles of vicariousness. Teresa claims that she is not a stage mother, no way bucko. She just likes to make her six-year-old daughter, Risotto, pose in sexy rapstress poses and would like her to have an acting and singing and dancing and modeling agent in New York City. Because, you know, the little fucker is just plain talented. And there's no denying that. Why fight the spotlight, you know? You can't. You just can't fight the spotlight.

Teresa is very close to two horrible sisters, one named Dina, the other named Caroline. (Isn't that name a little suspicious? What kind of self-respecting Eyetalian is named Caroline?) These two gals are basically mobbed up, which makes me scared to write about them, but I must be strong in my journalistic integrity. I'm basically Veronica Guerin you guys. Which means I'm one step closer to my life's goal of having Cate Blanchett play me in a movie. Anyway. The Sisters Rosensweigissimo. Dina is blonde and prettyish in that sort of mysterious middle-aged suburban lady way—there's something aesthetically pleasing about her whole appearance but when you look at individual features to try and find the source, you're only met with ugliness. The strange protruding lips, the tired wine-soaked eyes, the floppy mass of hair. I guess she's a classic full-on Monet, much like Amber. Best not to inspect too closely.

Dina is also unpleasant and rude, and makes constant, awful references to her enormous bubbies, creations out of a William Pène du Bois novel. She has children, I can't really remember how many, but there's only one important one. Her name is Briannica or Allybeth or Courtniffani or something and she is about twelve years old and has little round glasses and a Wendy's hairdo and you instantly feel bad for her when you see her. But then she opens her mouth! And out tumbles the binky-bonk cadence and word garbage of a horrid New Jersey woman twice her age and you just put your head in your hands and shudder and feel suddenly sorry for the Skidmore class of 2019. Dina and Ashlissa went to play tennis but Dina couldn't play because her bubbies were too big and she couldn't take them off because she forgot their special carrying case back at the house so Morganriley was upset and said "Next time wear two sports bras!" Poor dear. The same poor dear wants to have a nanny that will call her "your majesty" and you put your head in your hands and feel suddenly sorry for that Filipino kid who's moving here in 2022 to be "adopted" and oh sleeping in the broom closet isn't so bad, if anyone asks, tell them you're an exchange student who cleans to earn a little extra pocket money.

The other sister is Caroline, who I will refer to from now on as Strega Nona (perhaps Nona for short). Strega Nona has a little pixie haircut and wild beady features and she has two overgrown sons who have definitely pumped a fist or two. There is Christopher, a 19-year-old wiseacre who wants to see bare bubbies when he's getting his car cleaned. He's a "get rich quick" type-a guy, Dina explains to us knowingly, because, I guess, when you hang out in made-up towns in New Jersey and everyone lives in prefab mansions you probably know a lot of "get rich quick" type-a guys. I don't know any. I'm just putting that out there. Christopher looks a bit like an Italian Tintin, though not nearly as latently homosexual as my favorite Belgian adventurer. And then there's Albie. Ohhh Albie. He of the million-watt smile and breezy confidence. Albie is the 22-year-old golden boy of the family, the only one going to college (and now law school), beloved by the ladies, creepily flirted with by Strega Nona's ancient friends. As Nona herself isn't all that interesting yet, I'm betting that there will be many high jinx with Chrissy and Albie. Perhaps Captain Haddock will be allowed to tag along.

There is also Jacqueline, who is sad and pompadoured. She's a "Vegas girl," which means she's a foundling child, left to sizzle in the desert but rescued by the Franciscan monks who live in the Bellagio. Then she was married off to Dina and Strega Nona's brother and moved to New Jersey. But not before giving birth to a teenage girl. So the family is transplanted here and Jacqueline has fit in well, bossed around by her sisters-in-law, referred to chillingly as like the cool mom from Mean Girls by her own oblivious daughter, who seems to have failed to grasp that Amy Poehler is a comedienne who was deftly parodying a certain kind of modern American maternal horrorshow. Isn't it terrifying how many children, as evidenced by all these iterations of Housewives, are being raised terribly in this country? And these are the rich kids! The poor ones will be eating out of garbage cans and living in the woods by 2019. Good luck with the townies, Skidmore grads.

Jacqueline is the only one who is friends with Garbanzo, a non-Italian woman who I believe was a face double for Pizza the Hut in Spaceballs. I kid, I kid. Her name is Danielle and she is fit as a fiddle and has three or seven or forty-six children, all of whom are named Primavera, even though, again, Danielle is not Italian. I think she might be Croatian-Dutch, or maybe Albanian-Kiwi. It's hard to tell. Garbanzo has made every effort possible to fashion herself in the style of the Romans she mingles with, down to the straw-like wig and eyelid implants. The entire state of New Jersey needs to put cucumbers over its eyes and take a nap. Y'all bitches look tired. Damn, Gina.

Enjoy Richard's latest RHofNJ recap. If you feel bad about the brain cells you are wasting watching this show, just read it.  Someday you will thank me. :-)