World AIDS Day 2010

December 1st, as many of you know, is World AIDS Day.

As such, it is - obviously - a day to consider how HIV and AIDS have changed the face of the world as we know it over the past few decades. To think of the lives lost or forever altered by a disease which knows no boundaries, no prejudices, no borders. A disease which simply needs blood to survive - blood which we all share no matter our colors, our sexual orientations, our heritages, or our religious or political leanings.

World AIDS Day is also a day to think about what we do in the world on a daily basis. To consider how important each and every action we take can be - in our own lives and the lives of those around us. To reflect on how important honest and open communication - between partners, between doctors and patients, between governments and people - can be. To remind ourselves that what we do with our lives is up to each and every single one of us.

It is also a day to think about how we can change the life of another person in an instant - knowingly or unknowingly. Whether we reach out to someone in need, speak up against a bully, talk about the possible consequences of unprotected sex, or make a donation of time or money to an outreach charity, we all make choices on a daily basis which impact those around us. Inaction is also a choice we all have to live with.

A few choices I would suggest for commemorating World AIDS Day 2010:

1. If you aren't sure if you have HIV or AIDS (or if you're simply "pretty much certain" that you don't), please take the time to get tested. Your life - and the lives of those around you - depends on it.
2. Help to educate others in your life about HIV and AIDS. Help them to understand that this is a non-discriminating disease which added another 100,000 people - both men and women, of all ages, races, and religions - to its roster in North America and Western Europe alone in 2009. If they think they don't know someone affected with this, you can bet they're wrong.
3. Consider making a donation to one of the organizations fighting against HIV/AIDS, or working to make the lives of those living with AIDS more liveable. (There are a LOT of organizations out there. For instance, without even thinking about it, I can name: Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, The Minnesota AIDS Project, Baltimore's Moveable Feast, or any number of other organizations.
4. Take a moment or two or ten to really look at the people you have chosen to have in your life and enjoy them for who they are, realizing that they may not always be there.
5. For one day. Just one single day out of 365. Truly try to pay attention to every choice you make in your life.

Here's hoping that someday in the future World AIDS Day will be a day of remembering a horrible disease that once was, and not one that is.

Muppet Movie Monday

No. Not "The Muppet Movie" Monday. Just Muppet Movie Monday.

I happened to stumble across a "marathon" of Movies starring Muppets this past weekend. Or... Well... Maybe not exactly a marathon, since I saw them on different days, but much Muppet mayhem, at least.

I got to see "Muppet Treasure Island," "The Muppets Take Manhattan," "Muppets from Space," and - no surprise - "A Muppet Christmas Carol."

It's been AGES since I've seen the first three, and they were great fun. I actually have a copy of the fourth of those, and I was planning to get it out this weekend so I was thrilled that I didn't have to.

I know I usually write a movie review on Monday, but today I fully admit that I'm just basking in the glow of all of the Muppet-ness that was the past weekend.

Definitely better than a frozen fish fight.

Colossal Black Olives

When I was growing up, all of our big holiday meals included canned pitted black olives and "jarred" green olives with red pimentos in them.

As I've gotten older, I've come to enjoy all sorts of olives, but there is something about those pre-packaged olives that still holds a special place in my heart - and on my table. So, early this week when I wasn't sure what Thanksgiving would bring, I decided that I needed to store in some black olives, at the very least.

Did you know that there are at least five sizes of pitted black olives? And I'm not including sliced or diced.

I immediately ruled out the "small" olives and started looking at the "large" olives. But after seeing the "large" ones then I looked and saw the "extra large" olives. There were something like 48 olives in a can of extra large ones.

Forty-eight olives sounded like fun, but then I saw the "jumbo" olives, with 36 olives in the can. Imagine how much bigger the olives are in that can. Well, I may never know, since I then noticed - at the edge of the shelf - the "colossal" olives.

Yes, colossal.

Only an average of 22 olives in the can. All for the same price as the other cans. I had to have them.

They were amazing. The size of... umm... well... kind of the size of dates. Or small plums. They were large enough that I could fit them not only on my fingers, but even on my thumbs without them breaking (well, without them breaking too much).

I suspect I'll be buying them again for the next festive occasion. In fact, I might even say they were a colossal success.

Thankful Tiz List

On this Thanksgiving Day, I figured it would be good to do a Thanks-themed Tiz List. (Can't remember what a Tiz List is? Click on the "Tiz List" tag at the bottom of this post and you can see the full list of the ones I've posted in the past.)

I'm thankful for...

1) Family and friends who invite me to spend Thanksgiving with them.

2) And for family and friends who understand when - due to weather and non-weather reasons - I opt to spend a quiet cocooning day at home.

3) A 10" pumpkin pie (made with Libby's pumpkin, of course, Libby) in the oven to eat all by myself while cocooning.

4) Cool Whip to put on said pumpkin pie. (Yes. Cool Whip. Which could have been #1 if I wasn't trying to be sentimental today.)

5) Musical theater, for its promise and joy.

6) Sunny snowy days, because there is nothing so glorious as a blue-skied day with white snow on everything. (I'll gripe about it later when I'm freezing cold while shovelling - which I'm already tired of doing even though it's only November.)

7) Real mail.

8) Phone calls.

9) Hand-made afghans and quilts.

10) And scarves. (Yes, even when the fuzzy yarn gets caught in my beard.)

11) See's Candy kiosks in the malls around the Holidays, even though the candy isn't quite as good as when it used to show up in a box from California along with lemons and avocados.

12) Warm flannel pajama pants.

13) Stores that are CLOSED on major holidays.

14) Programmable thermostats.

15) Tear-jerking Holiday commercials. (Which I prefer, frankly, when I'm alone.)

16) Stumbling across great old movies while scrolling channels on the TV.

17) Full-sugar, full-caffeine Coca-Cola.

18) The fact that there are different sizes of canned black olives. Not just different sizes of cans, but actual different sizes of olives. (I have a can of "Colossal" olives in the kitchen right now to put on my fingers later today.)

19) Dr. Seuss.

20) The fact that Christopher comes home in a couple of days - and that I simply have him in my life to miss when he's gone.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Thanks to all of you for reading!

Mental Health Day

Have you ever had one of those days when you just needed a Mental Health Day away from work?

You know, one of those days when you wake up in the morning and just can't imagine going, no matter what? Possibly you've got some errands you really want to run, or some work to do around the house, too. All of which suggests that you might feel SO much better if you just spend the day doing things mainly for yourself.

Things like hanging out with the pup. And organizing some paperwork. And watching random TV (like "Dr. Who" on BBC America or "Gilmore Girls" on ABC Family). And possibly... just possibly... buying the first Christmas gift of the season. And maybe even going out and treating yourself to really bad (and, yet, totally craveable) food.

Really? You haven't?

Nah. Me, neither.

That Pre-Monday Feeling

Why is it that Sunday nights - even though for most of us they are the culmination of a couple of days of relaxation away from work - seem to result in high stress?

I spent Friday night at a concert. I was incredibly productive, yesterday, running a whole bunch of errands, doing some editing, and having a friend over for dinner last night. Today I spent about 6 hours editing, picked up one of the Scotland-travelling friends from the airport and took her home, then came home and had dinner of leftovers from yesterday's dinner (which was still quite good, except for the whole "almost inhaling some of the fried rice" thing).

And, yet, after having a mostly restful weekend I'm having kind of heartburn-y stress feelings. Yes, those feelings could be because of the leftover Chinese food with the fried rice I almost sucked into my lungs, but I suspect there's something more insidious than that. I suspect there's a bit of not wanting to go to work involved. And of not entirely looking forward to another week of Christopher being overseas.

Here's to next weekend - 4 days off, and Christopher home on Saturday night. (But... yeah... I'm popping some Pepto, just in case.)

Idina Menzel in Concert

I had intended to write about something completely different tonight. It was going to nicely tie-in to the whole "Friday Food" theme. And then I went to see Idina Menzel in concert with the Minnesota Orchestra.

I want to say that it wasn't my favorite concert ever. But it was just so good that I suspect I'll remember it for a lot longer than most concerts I've been to. Or, more correctly, she was just so good. She had such an earnestness about her that as an audience member I just had to love her. I had to go along for the ride with her stories, and enjoy the laughter of the patter as well as the tears in the songs.

I've seen performers who were great with the audience patter, but had no personality during songs (have any of you ever seen James Naughton in concert? Great voice. Wonderful patter between songs. NO personality when singing them.). And I've seen some who can, at times, over-emote because they don't have a cast and props to work with (love Bernadette Peters, but she's not subtle). And... yeah... I kind of feared for that a few times tonight, too. But so much of what went on around all of that was just so, well, so good.

She performed "No Day But Today" from Rent and asked the audience to sing the "echos" at the end. She did "Funny Girl" and "Don't Rain on My Parade" from Funny Girl. She did "I'm Not That Girl" from Wicked, and a blended "Love for Sale" and "Roxanne." She did "Poker Face" - the Lady Gaga song she performed not long ago on Glee. And, yeah, she got me to tear up (and start to reach for Christopher's hand, until I remembered he wasn't there) with "Look to the Rainbow" from Finian's Rainbow.

But what kept me going was all the other stuff she did. She spent time talking to Sarah Hicks (the conductor), talking about her clothes and asking where she was from - and really seeming to care. She fussed with a pin that was sticking in her side that she had apparently forgotten to pull out of the dress when it came back from the dry cleaners. And she actively included the ASL sign language interpreter (a guy by the name of Stephen) in her performance - even though he may have been happier being left out.

I realize that we probably could have had another 20 minutes of music if she hadn't talked to these people. But she talked about how this was the first time she'd ever had an interpreter on stage for a concert - and that it was so much fun to watch him. And she openly apologized to him when she was telling a story about breastfeeding her son and he had to sign that. (She also stopped in midsong during "Poker Face" to watch him do the gesture for "muffin" - no, not the baked goods kind.)

Early on, she stopped between songs to pose for pictures. And toward the end of the evening she actually shushed some audience members who wanted to cheer for her while she was making a serious point. She said that her agent had told her that she could play a venue like Orchestra Hall - with an orchestra behind her - and pack it. And that she hadn't believed him until she walked on stage. Part of me realizes that that whole thing could have been staged, but it just felt too real.

She wrapped up the evening with an amazing a capella "For Good" (which she did with no microphone) and "Defying Gravity" from Wicked. Then wrapped it all up in a bow with "Tomorrow" from Annie, which she said was for her dad in the audience (and was part of a story she had told in the first few minutes of the show).

I might just have to put her on my list of fantasy dinner guests. And I won't even make her be the entertainment. (Unless she wants to be.)