Thinking about England...	Wednesday, July 27, 2005 12:02:13 PM
"It is England we love, we Americans," she had said to her father. "What could be more natural? We belong to it -- it belongs to us. I could never be convinced that the old tie of blood does not count. All nationalities have come to us since we became a nation, but most of us in the beginning came from England. We are touching about it, too. We trifle with France and labour with Germany, we sentimentalise over Italy and ecstacise over Spain -- but England we love. How it moves us when we go to it, how we gush if we are simple and effusive, how we are stirred imaginatively if we are of the perceptive class. I have heard the commonest little half-educated woman say the prettiest, clumsy, emotional things about what she has seen there. A New England schoolma'am, who has made a Cook's tour, will almost have tears in her voice as she wanders on with her commonplaces about hawthorn hedges and thatched cottages and white or red farms. Why are we not unconsciously pathetic about German cottages and Italian villas? Because we have not, in centuries past, had the habit of being born in them. It is only an English cottage and an English lane, whether white with hawthorn blossoms or bare with winter, that wakes in us that little yearning, grovelling tenderness that is so sweet. It is only nature calling us home." --Bettina Vanderpoel in The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett I've been thinking a lot about England lately and our relationship with that country. I've just finished reading The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett. She is probably best known for The Secret Garden (one of my favorite books), A Little Princess and Little Lord Fauntleroy. I stumbled onto the University of Virginia's Online Library that has a great deal of free online books and found a whole set of books by Ms. Hodgson Burnett that I hadn't ever read before. I picked The Shuttle to start with and was not sorry at all. It is very long, so be warned, but it is so interesting to read her account of the relations between America and England. I was very excited that London got the 2012 Olympics, even though I was a sorry that New York City lost out. (For those of you who don't know, I am obsessed with the Olympics and was looking forward to maybe getting an up close and personal view of them if they were to be given to New York City.) But, I love London a great deal and thought it would be very exciting for them and for America as well. It might even be possible to pop over to London and catch some of the fun, although I will have to discuss that with my husband and see where we are in a couple of years. :) The London bombings that happened soon after the Olympic announcements were horrible and terrible events and I was so impressed about how Londoners handled themselves. I loved the London mayor's statement to the world and the terrorists. I was horrified on the other hand to hear comments that froze my soul coming from Fox News. These people need to be severely reprimanded for their asinine comments after the attacks. What the heck??? I cannot believe that people that I love and know to be intelligent actually watch these people and call them unbiased newscasters. The comments that I am referring to I found compiled together at Media Matters. And he [British Prime Minister Tony Blair] made the statement, clearly shaken, but clearly determined. This is his second address in the last hour. First to the people of London, and now at the G8 summit, where their topic Number 1 -- believe it or not -- was global warming, the second was African aid. And that was the first time since 9-11 when they should know, and they do know now, that terrorism should be Number 1. But it's important for them all to be together. I think that works to our advantage, in the Western world's advantage, for people to experience something like this together, just 500 miles from where the attacks have happened. --Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade I mean, my first thought when I heard -- just on a personal basis, when I heard there had been this attack and I saw the futures this morning, which were really in the tank, I thought, "Hmmm, time to buy." --Fox News Washington managing editor Brit Hume The bombings in London: This is why I thought the Brits should let the French have the Olympics -- let somebody else be worried about guys with backpack bombs for a while. --Big Story host John Gibson Someone once asked me to start watching Fox News to get a well-rounded point of view on the world. After hearing these comments, I mentioned to Mike that the reason that I couldn't do that was because the TV would find itself with shoes thrown in it when I couldn't take listening to them for one more second.
Not so certain about THIS tea	Tuesday, July 26, 2005 3:31:14 PM
It is so funny that my last blog was about tea being life and wonderful and all. I'm having second thoughts about all of that. On Saturday, I started following through on my resolution that once the wedding was over, I would take care of my innumerable health issues once and for all. (For all of my lovely fans, there is nothing life-threatening wrong with me. I've been sick with most of these ailments for 8+ years or all of my life, so you probably have heard me mention them a time or two.) I went off to my local acupuncturist and Chinese doctor and herbalist for my first appointment. This was mainly to take care of the back pain that is constant since an injury 8 years ago. My hope was for one pain-free week as a short-term goal and to get totally better as a long term goal. In a random event, right before I went I found out from my mom that my dad started to go to an acupuncturist for his far-worse constant back pain two weeks ago. It apparently is working. Good sign! I was also hoping that my life-long allergies might get worked on so I wouldn't have to take quite so much medication (at least one medicine every day and up to 5 for really bad times). I've heard that people have gotten totally better from their allergies, so that was my next-step goal. Finally, in the quest for dealing with a hormone thing that I was diagnosed with 5 years ago, my "Western" doctor put me on another medication recently. Unfortunately, this is having awful side-effects and I have been feeling very sick for about 2 months. (This coincides with Mike finally getting all of his stuff into our apartment, but I don't think it is related. *grin*) So, I met with the lovely doctor and had a typed-up list of all of my issues and medicines. (The wedding might be over, but the organization skills are still going strong!) She and I went through the whole thing and then she started diagnosing me the Chinese way. I stuck out my tongue and she was very concerned about the fact that it shows that I am not doing well internally. I could have told her that - the medicine is horrific. Then, she felt my wrist and came to the same conclusion. She assured me that she could fix it all with acupuncture and Chinese medicine. I'm all over that, so I stepped into the acupuncture room and she administered the needles all over my back and neck. I stayed like that for about 45 minutes. She would come in and apply herbs and things like that on them and eventually took them all out and put herb patches and heating pads on the areas that had previously been poked. I'm not certain how to describe the aroma of the herb patches, but I was glad that I wasn't going anywhere that day. All in all, if was a cool experience. I went back to the consultation room and she had mixed up 3 lunch bags of herbs for me to take home and make an herbal tea. I love herbal tea, but this is something totally different than Celestial Seasonings. She gave me instructions on how to cook everything and off I went after making an appointment for my next treatment on Wednesday evening. I went back home and located the lobster pot and the largest spaghetti pot to make these two different teas. Tea #1: 26 cups of water and 2 bags of herbs Tea #2: 13 cups of water and 1 bag of herbs Measure out water in large pot and put herbs in pot. Bring to boil and boil for 10 minutes, simmer for 1 hour. Strain out herbs and carefully keep all liquid. Refrigerate and then cook a cup of tea #1 and a half cup of tea #2 every morning and evening. Easy peasy. Mike assisted me with pulling out the lobster pot and then interestedly stuck around while I assembled the water and ingredients. He assured me that my new doctor was lying to me and had raked out her garden for this stuff. It is an unsettling thing when a doctor gives you stuff to just take without being able to look it up on WebMD and decide for yourself if you want to follow their advice and I had to agree with Mike that it did look really weird, but hey - I decided to give this a go. I felt like a Celtic witch doctor with my boiling cauldrons and potions. It was cool until it started cooking and gave off a nauseating aroma. But, I had opted to go in this direction, so in for a penny... (or more like $44 for the herb portion of my visit) I stayed optimistic, although my stomach started feeling very queasy. It turns out that I needed a finer strainer than any of the ones we had and a larger containers for storing the liquid. Darn my short-sightedness with the registry, but who knew? Luckily, Bed, Bath and Beyond had everything I needed, so in somewhat short order, the very thick dark-brown liquid was all strained off and stored. (Adding an additional $22 to the bill) Fast-forward to the evening. Tea #1 got microwaved (must be drunk while warm - not hot and not cold) and ready to go. I was warned that the tea would be terrible to taste and I should drink it while holding my nose. So, I did my best. I seriously have never tasted anything so vile in my life. My body totally rebelled against the liquid and, after I drank just over half of it, my body decided to get rid of it. In an unwise move, I had opted to drink the tea in the living room, so in the body's surprise defensive manouver, I now needed a way to clean up the living room carpet. Welcome to our household, Hoover Spot! (Add an additional $120 to the bill. I can't find a picture of this awesome carpet cleaner on the internet, but will have to include one soon. It is so cute.) OK, better luck next time. Sunday, no luck - although I wisely decided to stay by the kitchen sink this time. Monday, I told the whole saga to Josh who laughed and commiserated. He said that he had never successfully kept his Chinese medicine down either, but it could be done and most likely would be really good for me. His pastor's wife supposedly loves this stuff, but he did say that most people have to hold their nose. I went home on Monday night resolved to keep down a half cup of this vile stuff. I managed to do that, although I came very close to losing it on the very last sip. Victory! I claimed my Hershey's kiss reward to get the incredibly bad taste out of my mouth. *ugh* This morning, I decided to do the same thing (1/2 cup instead of a whole one). I drank it on an empty stomach and soon felt like my intestines were being twisted up. I ended up gasping on the floor and luckily remembered that Josh had suggested possibly eating something with it. Good suggestion! I eventually felt a little better and went to work. The acupuncture was very cool and my back does feel better, but I'm not totally certain about Chinese medicinal tea. I promised myself that I would give this a whirl for about 6 months, so tune in and maybe I'll get up to the full 8 oz of liquid that I need to every morning and evening. Possibly, it will heal me before it kills me. And maybe, just maybe, someone will come up with a cherry-flavored one and I can switch. :)
Tea = life (in this teapot)	Wednesday, July 20, 2005 3:46:52 PM
Interesting tidbit from Josh: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8642038/ I once told Mike that "tea is life" when he asked why my family is so into tea. I have always loved the social interation of tea in my family. Someone would inevitably ask if anyone wanted tea and all of the people desiring tea or talking would gather in the great room/kitchen to wait for the kettle to boil and talk and eat ginger snaps and then drink the tea and talk and eat more ginger snaps. When anyone came home and needed to talk about the mean boy in school or debate about why we need univeral health care or anything else, we would have tea and talk it over. In fact, usually the first thing someone does when people drop in to visit is make tea. I wonder if the people in this cult did the same thing and then felt better and pretty soon it wasn't the gathering together that made them well, but the teapot that created the tea. I can possibly see how that could get started. My "tea is life" statement was totally ripped off from Michelle who used the phrase "bread is (the staff of) life" when trying to thwart a friend from going on the Atkins diet. She always said that she ripped this off of the ancient Egyptians. Jesus said that he is the "bread of life" which was also translated into the "rice of life" in Asian countries by Bible translators trying to maintain the same premise in a country that eats rice all of the time instead of bread. Maybe this group of Malays need to know that Jesus is the "tea of life". I have no idea where I'm going with this, so I will just end it here. ;)
mmm tomato soup	Wednesday, July 20, 2005 1:39:33 PM
I've always thought that I hated tomato soup, which strikes me as odd since I love everything else about tomatoes. I was in the cafeteria today to get some soup because I am miserable with allergies and the head cafeteria guy was putting a fresh thing of tomato soup out while I was dispassionately looking at the weak-looking beef basil barley soup. He said the tomato soup was freshly homemade and I would not be sorry if I tried it. So, I thought what the heck? It definitely doesn't look like Campbell's soup and instead had a slight resemblance to chicken tikka masala. Plus, if I hated it, I could come back and have some of the beef basil barley one for just $2 more. It is sooo good. I love it. I had a dream this morning right before I woke up that I was at the acupuncturist and telling him about my various ailments and he told me I had to stop eating tomatoes. I told him that wasn't possible and tomatoes are very good for me. To add credence to this statement, I told him the story of when I was one year old and I ran over to my grandfather's tomato plants and picked one and ate it before anyone stopped me. Then, I remembered that the end of the story included me breaking out in a rash and my grandfather (who was a chemist) put milk on the rash and it went away. The acupuncturist in my dream was like "See? I told you you are allergic to tomatoes." I woke up thinking "Noooooooooo!" haha - maybe it was all a premonition that I was going to find a great tomato soup and add to my diet today.
More stalker tips	Wednesday, July 20, 2005 1:16:47 PM
In our continuing saga, Ian went on Zabasearch and found his friend's address, but no phone number. I just found a new way to stalk your old friends. Verizon has a reverse phone number lookup where you can put in a phone number and get their address: http://www22.verizon.com/utilities/reverselookup/ However, Whitepages has a reverse address lookup where you can enter an address and find people and phone numbers: http://www.whitepages.com/10001/reverse_address Do you remember that old Saturday Night Live skit where a couple of women went to the bathroom together and looked up all sorts of information on the men that they were with and rated them? I was thinking about that over the last day or two. Nowadays, it can be much faster. A cute guy asks a girl out in Starbucks, she says "hang on", whips out her PDA, connects to one of many search places and pretty much can find everything out about the guy before she says "yes". I was the beneficiary of Googling a couple of years ago. I'm terrible about keeping in touch and a friend successfully found me years after we lost touch. So, I guess this can be used for good and for bad.
To flip or to flop	Tuesday, July 19, 2005 4:33:21 PM
With all of the recent posting, can you tell that my big work project is winding down? :) Courtesy of Josh: You wore what??? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8628616/ The full picture is available here: http://nusports.collegesports.com/sports/w-lacros/spec-rel/071305aab.html I'm not sure what the big deal is - they are all somewhat dressy and appropriate for summer. I wear things like that to work and would probably wear them to the White House. Too bad for you kids in Tampa, though. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8622020/ Continuing the afternoon theme - http://www.seanbonner.com/flipflop/flipflopcatalog.pdf Good ol' Teddy.
Ninjas strike again	Tuesday, July 19, 2005 3:03:05 PM
This is terrible, but it made me laugh when my co-worker John M. IMed me the link. http://www.boingboing.net/2004/12/06/ninjas_killed_my_fam.html
'Every breath you take' (or every home you make)	Tuesday, July 19, 2005 2:01:09 PM
A friend showed me this about 3 weeks ago, but I didn't get around to posting it until now, when I read the sad tale of Ian trying to get in touch with a friend. It is freaky/scary to see how much information they have on you: http://www.zabasearch.com/ Maybe you are below the radar, but when I search on my real name, they have my past 3 addresses and phone numbers in PA (although not the current one). Mike has his past address and phone number (not our current one) and his old DC one. Scary stuff for stalkers, but convenient things for tracking down old friends.
Hurricanes 2004	Monday, July 18, 2005 2:36:19 PM
In honor of Hurricane Emily (has there ever been a hurricane Kathy of Becky?), I am posting a very cool site that I found on CNN. http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2004/hurricanes/interactive/hurricane.paths/index.html (Choose the "click here" link in the middle of the page.) Let's all relive the hurricanes that brought trees down at my parent's house and Rick and Vicki's house. :) Update: There is no hurricanes Becky or Kathy on their list, although we can come close with Rebekah, Kate and Katrina. Interesting fact is that they just keep reusing them over and over until a hurricane is too deadly and then they retire that name. http://www.fema.gov/kids/hunames.htm I guess Alex and Emily will just keep being on the list and Michelle is out of luck forever (2001 - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1637584.stm).
Am fun again	Thursday, May 19, 2005 4:46:44 PM
"It was a fun time hanging out with my sister who is no longer distracted with wedding plans. :)" http://www.emijayne.com/journals_detail.asp?JournalID=119 Boy, that is telling. :)
Very good travel advice	Thursday, May 19, 2005 2:33:40 PM
from our friend Jamie http://www.white-mountain.org/jamie/news/may2005.shtml#2005_5_17 We've used Trip Advisor frequently to find great hotel reviews. I found a cheap rate on Expedia for the Kauai Coconut Beach hotel (now the Courtyard Kauai at Waipouli Beach) and then found the reviews in Trip Advisor to convince us to go for it. It turned out to be the best hotel that either one of us has ever stayed at.
My "key" personality	Monday, May 16, 2005 4:44:52 PM
Brought to attention by Kim. You're a little gold key, and you unlock other people's hearts. Your kindness and willingness to be there for those you care about lets people open up to you knowing they will be accepted. People will rely on you, but be careful not to give more than you have. What sort of key are you and what do you unlock? brought to you by Quizilla
Name changing	Friday, May 13, 2005 5:05:21 PM
One of the details that I couldn't decide before the wedding was "what did I want my new name to be?" My options were: Keep my name (pro: I've been a Fisher with all of the cool nicknames for 32 years, so I like this option, con: if Mike and I have kids, I would have a different name.) Take Mike's name (pro: it's what generations before me have done and Kathy Kullen is a perfectly nice name, con: I feel like I am losing a piece of me) Make my last name a middle name (pro: I keep my identity and don't rock the boat in terms of not taking Mike's name. Plus Mike has 2 middle names and we plan on giving all of our kids Fisher as a 2nd middle name so I would match them, con: none really except Fisher doesn't really count as a "real" name) Hyphenate (pro: I get to keep my identity fairly prominent, con: hyphens have some connotations that I may or may not want to give) Other options included Mike changing his name (He thought this would be cool, but later decided this would be confusing to our friends and relatives. And, I think that he decided that he didn't want to give up his name either.) or both of us hyphenating. I thought that would be cool and British, but it was ruled as confusing again. Out of the available options, I was leaning between #3 and #4, but thought I would put off the decision until I could really think about it instead of what I wanted the programs for our wedding to look like. (Wedding stresses seem so far away now. *grin*) Mike doesn't particularly care what I make my name, so I had time. Especially since it takes FOREVER to change your name, anyway. Holy cow! I had no idea what a can of worms this opened up. I thought that it wasn't going to be any sort of big deal since most of our friends that have gotten married in the past 5 years haven't changed either of their last names at all. Previous to the honeymoon, I got small questions/comments: My mom commented that she couldn't understand why Karen (my cousin) and I couldn't let go of our original last names, but she was generally supportive of the decision. An unnamed co-worker told me that he would have never married his wife if she didn't change her name. (Another reason to marry my wonderful Mike.) The registrar at the marriage license office gave me a name-change packet for "when" I changed my name. (However, I felt better that they had spaces for both the man and the woman to change their names.) Most of my relatives at the wedding teased me about it, but I told them that they could address all envelopes and Christmas cards to "Mr. & Mrs. Kullen" and they were OK after that. (Yes, I do know that is a headache since I had to address at least 15 wedding invitations in a Mr. X and Mrs. Y fashion.) After the honeymoon, it escalated. When I got back to the office, I found a new name tag on my cube for "Kathy Kullen". My old one for "Kathy Fisher" was there, too since my co-worker Russ told the administrative assistant that he didn't think that I was changing my name, so they left both up. I took the Kathy Kullen one down and then had to deal with many, many, many questions from everyone who passed by my desk. My awesome boss Nancy said that she totally understood and would have hyphenated her name if she had the choice again. (To keep her own identity plus have the same name as her husband and kids.) Plus, in the post-September 11th world, she has to jump through a zillion extra hoops that her husband, with his birth name, doesn't have to. However, you wouldn't believe the glares and grumping from most of the married guys! They ranged from accusingly "You're not changing your name? Why not!!!" to plaintively "Why aren't you changing your name? I thought Kathy Kullen had a nice ring to it." Even my pastor left a message in which he told me he was sad that he couldn't call me Kathy Kullen. (Sure you can - I won't kill you if you use Mike's last name to refer to me.) I had no idea that I was going against all humanity for keeping my name as is. I just thought I was saving myself a decision. :) I called my mom at the end of that day and told her all about it. She sent me the following Cathy cartoons that were totally applicable to my situation. (Apparently, the cartoon Cathy got married this year.) Use kathichelle as both the name and the password to log into the site. http://www.mycomicspage.com/member/feature?fc=ca&uc_full_date=20050321 http://www.mycomicspage.com/member/feature?fc=ca&uc_full_date=20050322 http://www.mycomicspage.com/member/feature?fc=ca&uc_full_date=20050323 http://www.mycomicspage.com/member/feature?fc=ca&uc_full_date=20050324 http://www.mycomicspage.com/member/feature?fc=ca&uc_full_date=20050325 http://www.mycomicspage.com/member/feature?fc=ca&uc_full_date=20050326 Most interesting tidbits: http://www.washingtonian.com/weddings/takethisname.html There is a very funny book that Michelle gave me for an engagement present: I Do. I Did. Now What?! The main character goes through a similar decision process, but with a husband that really wants her to change her name. I am very lucky in my choice of husbands. :) From my friend, Beth: http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/18652
Famous again	Friday, May 13, 2005 10:54:35 AM
Wow! Our wedding photos were so awesome that our photographers put them on their website. Yay! http://home.earthlink.net/~sparkphoto/id46.html No worries - we plan on putting many of the professional photographs and honeymoon pictures on Mike's gallery very, very soon.
10! 9! 8! ...	Wednesday, April 06, 2005 4:48:35 PM
10 days away! I told Mike that we need to have people shouting out the days for us like everyone does for the countdown on New Year's Eve. It is both exciting and surreal at the same time. We've been working on getting things done for this wedding for so long that it feels like this day would never come and we'll still be tying ribbons and stuffing envelopes months from now. But, it is coming up fast!!! Yay! :) I love Mike and can't wait to be married to him.