GO Lance GO

A remarkable image appeared on a story about Lance Armstrong deciding to work toward competing in the 2009 Tour de France. So another world class athlete is deciding to return to competition after retiring. And of all those lately in the news for doing this, Lance is probably the most deserving to rest on his laurels. After all he’s a twelve year cancer survivor. He won seven Tours since then. He’s raised almost $300 million for cancer research through his foundation.

A great article in this month’s Vanity Fair recounts a dinner at Lance’s home with Vanity Fair’s contributing editor Douglas Brinkley, a professor of history at Rice University. "http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/09/armstrong200809?currentPage=5"

Mr. Brinkley happens to live literally in Lance’s neighborhood and finagled a dinner. Lance speaks of many issues from Texas politics to what his local paper had to say about his water consumption. But through what seems to have been a relaxed evening of conversation he makes it plain he has not forgotten the accusations of doping that surrounded his titles. He doesn’t like that taint. He doesn’t want to leave things as they are. He wants to win again and do so under the highest scrutiny.

I wish the man well. I don’t believe he was doping when he won his titles and I don't think we will start now. My last words are about the picture that initially caught my eye on the evening news.

Go Lance go!!!

The Back of the House

Sitting on my bench I see the back of the house. I like the back more than the front. The front is what those living there imagine all seeing. The front is formal and neat. The toys are put up in the front yard and no one would think to leave out the garden hose there. All window curtains and shades are directed to the eye of the invited guest and uninvited sales representative. Only those intimate with the people are allowed through the side or the back.

The back of the house has the laundry line and there hang the red shirt and pants and underwear. There hang the bedspread that is fraying around the edges and only used for picnics and that one time we spent a Sunday afternoon in the shade of a maple tree on the berm of the lake, talking and dozing and making love.

The back of the house shows me the reality of the people living there. I enjoy sitting at the back and recalling all memory revealed there.

Any road to profit.

On my mind this week even more than a bright hope of a better America, has been the idea that a corporation, even in a capitalistic economy, should not take any road to profit. This question leads in an Associated Press article this past Thursday:

What does a company do when there's anecdotal evidence that two of its drugs are equally effective in treating a leading cause of blindness in the elderly, one costing patients $60 per treatment and the other $2,000?

What this corporation did was not seek FDA approval for the less expensive drug. They chose outrageous profit over making available a cure for blindness in a wider population. The whole article is here for you to read:

Those two carat flawless square cuts that women are told they must have to marry Mr. Right are still dug out of the earth with slave labor. This story was well documented in the movie Blood Diamond. The corporation, concerned with they profit, accumulated diamonds and withheld them so that they could control the market and get the highest price.

Along the shore of a remote country derelict ships are abandoned by design. Imagine being the pilot of a ship you are driving to its death. Children work in breaking up the ship. The parts are sold for scrap. The corporation has no care about the consequences. The children have no childhood. The corporation gets the profit without the responsibility for their actions.

This activity is done worldwide. When American corporations do this, it makes me mad. We should be better than that.

I am not finisihed.

Dara is back home today. She had been away from her daughter for seven weeks while she worked to win a medal at the 2008 Olympics. This morning it was back to making breakfast and taking her daughter to school for her first day of pre-school. When Dara walked down the school hall to her daughter’s classroom, the teachers applauded.

Later in the morning she went to the aquatic center. Her friends there congratulated her as she showed them her medal. After that she began training again. She says she is not finished and is thinking of competing in the 2009 World Games. A forty-one year old Florida mother is going to lift weights and swim and train and I have no doubt that she will swim and win and give an example to many of just what you can accomplish with hard work and determination.

Oh, and next month she’s speaking to the AARP !

A place to sit.

The bench I finally moved from the garage to the tree, calls to me each day. It’s the only spot I can enjoy outside, as there’s nothing like it near where I live. Hidden, unless you know where to look, yet affording me a full view of the place. I sit with my newspaper after I return from the mall and if I’ve been forward thinking enough, I have a cup of McDonald’s coffee with me. Evenings, I’ll bring a glass of wine or a cup of water and ice, sit reading my Audacity of Hope book. If it is a humid evening, I’ll light a citron candle to discourage the flying bugs.

In the mornings the sun rises behind me, over the berm that protects the land in this holler. In the evenings the sun sits behind the building and in both times the bench is in shade. I’ve thought of putting a metal mobile fire pit nearby so I may enjoy the bench later in the year when evenings are cool, even cold. I may do that.

Rain

Rain among other things is heavy and loud and wet.





Approaching rain in the country is smelled as well as announced by the sound coming through a field or a copse of trees in a wood. In the city rain is not heard until it arrives.

One day this week after some time of dryness, rain fell just as I left the front door. As I pulled on socks and tied my shoes I had put the ear buds in for the iPod, so instead of rain I heard a poem read by Garrison Keeler. Stepping out the door turning to lock up, I stepped from under the roof into sprinkling rain. I walked to the garage and stood just inside the door watching as that little bit of rain tuned into a downpour. I’ve heard rain and thunder and lightening described in mythological ways; thunder was God bowling or lightening was anger being thrown and rain was water poured from a bucket onto the earth.

Rain in summer is welcomed to satiate a thirst.

That morning I was accompanied by hard rain. Into and out of buildings, the rain seemed to slow when I was under cover. Out the door of the mall or the post office, it started again dampening me and beating onto the truck so hard it filled my ears with its sound. I stopped for gas putting in my usual ten gallons. All the while the rain fell onto the asphalt outside the metal cover at the pump. I pulled into the bank drive-in up close to the window and my favorite teller called my by name remarking on the rain.

I arrived home again and put the truck in the garage. When I again stood at the garage door the downpour had become a gentle sprinkle. I walked over to the door and as I unlocked the rain stopped.

Cake

It won’t be long until the cake time is here. I’ve practiced twice with the two cakes I’ll enter in the state fair August 11th. I made the big white cake and the pineapple upside down cake for the cake booth at the St. Agnes Carnival two weeks ago. Then the week after I made both cakes and gave them away. Reports were good so I’m hopeful again this year.

During a re-run of Martha’s Show this week, a man made an astounding coconut cake. He didn’t separate the eggs. He put the whole eggs in the batter. He used 2-10” cake pans. He also split his 2 baked layers into 6 layers. His filling was different from his frosting. He used European butter that cost $6 a pound! Consider the cost of this spectacular coconut cake; 6 eggs, 6 ½ cups cream, 2 ½ pounds of butter, 6 cups white sugar and 5 cups confectioner’s sugar. The completed cake weighs 15 pounds, and a single slice weighs one pound! He sells 20 a month and ships them overnight anywhere. The cake cost $100. I’m not going to check out the shipping.

The white cake recipe I’ve been using the past four years is a variation of another “Martha” cake. To keep it a white cake I separate the eggs, saving the yokes for something else and whipping the whites. Then for the final assemble I gently fold the whites into the batter. This adds height. I use 3-9” pans and split each baked layer into two. I make the frosting from a traditional 7-Minute Icing recipe but split it into two bowls. To one I add either raspberry or apricot preserves, using this mixture between the layers. I finally cover the outside of the cake with the pure white frosting.

One thing he does is as he assembles the layers is drizzle simple syrup over the layers to make them moist. I may do that myself with a variation.

I’m going to cut down the coconut cake recipe and make a 1 layer version as a test. If it tastes better than my recipe, I may make the investment and bake the coconut cake without the coconut!