St. Louis, Meet Isaac

52 Weeks of Dresses -- Week 40

Otherwise titled: dress fail

Last night I went out to dinner at Meadowbrook Country Club.  I had never been there before, and it's lovely.  We even lucked out and were able to enjoy the hurricane-free evening under an outdoor fan, and it wasn't too hot.  Then I had Fudgsicles (yes, plural - I will leave it at that) for dessert, which are every bit as wonderfully, almost-like-the-real-thing satisfying now as they were when I was five.

What I forgot to do, however, was take a picture.  This is not me:

However, it is a pretty close approximation of my outfit, nude pumps and all.  The only obvious difference is that my dress had a deeper cowl neck.  I looked good, and  you'll just have to take my word for it.

Ugh.

Sometimes it can be a chore to remember that there are, in fact, good things.  But I try.

What I'm Reading Now -- Seabiscuit: An American Legend

I have a confession to make: I've already seen the movie; I know how it ends.

But I've been meaning to read the book version of Seabiscuit for a couple of years, and my desire was renewed when Laura Hillenbrand's new book, Unbroken, came out last year.  (Yes, even still, it has taken me this long. And it's an audiobook! The hits just keep on coming.)

But finally, I will hear the story of the little horse who could.

Goal #35

Goal #35: back up computer

Every now and again, someone's computer crashes and they lose everything.  Hopefully, when that happens, it's not to you.  It didn't happen to me (at least not this time), but such an occurrence is always a good reminder and motivator.

Recap of Goal #34: yes!!  Books are sorted, re-boxed (except for a few strays that I'm holding on to for various reasons), and waiting to go to storage.  I was even going to take them there today, until it started raining.   But soon....

Quote of the Day

In light of my last two posts, my occupation, and just general good sense (and good cents), I share with you the following:

"Discourage litigation.

Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can.  Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser -- in fees, expenses, and waste of time.

As a peacemaker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man.

There will still be business enough."

 -- Abraham Lincoln, c. 1850

52 Weeks of Dresses -- Week 39

Otherwise titled: Springfield, Day 2

After all the mid-19th-century history we got on Saturday, we started out Sunday with something just a tad bit more recent: the Dana-Thomas House, a Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece.  You aren't allowed to take pictures inside (there are some here), but you should go yourself and see it.  The house is about 12,000 square feet, and there are so many great rooms to see.  You can tell FLW thought through every detail of the architecture and design.  It was an awesome spot!

The courtyard

The reflecting pool

Me (in my dress!) in front of the "entertaining" entrance, which Mrs. Dana demanded.  The house also had FLW's signature hidden entrances.  Rumor is that he refused to use this main door because he didn't like the style.

The streetscape

Our third and final roadfood.com suggestion was our brunch stop: Charlie Parker's Diner.  It was the best of the three, I'd say.  There was quite a line when we arrived, but like any good diner, they moved people through pretty quickly.  I had the stuffed cherry French toast, which is basically the breakfast version of cherry pie - how can you go wrong?

It was such a lovely day (we had perfect weather the whole weekend, actually) that we decided to get some fresh air, so visited the Lincoln home.  The National Park Service has closed off the four blocks that meet in front of the house and is working on restoring many of the buildings, so there's lots to see if you walk around the neighborhood.  Score!  You actually can take pictures there, but the NPS also has some good ones here.

The back parlor

The sitting room, where the family spent time together

Could I cook in that kitchen?

Our last stop was the Lincoln Library, right across the street from the museum.  The reading rooms are closed on the weekends, but they have some exhibit space in the main hall.  It was okay, but if you have to pick one, go to the museum.

Psych!  Did I say that was our last stop?  Since we didn't want to feel like we missed anything Lincoln-related, we drove north of town to Oak Ridge Cemetery where Lincoln's tomb is located.

Abraham and Mary Todd are buried here, as well as all of their sons except Robert, who's at Arlington.

52 Weeks of Dresses -- Week 38

Otherwise titled: Springfield, Day 1

I find it hard to believe that, despite the fact that I've driven through Springfield, Illinois, dozens of times, I'd never actually stopped there for anything other than maybe to get gas.  Until this past weekend.

After my trip to Nashville last summer, I realized that there are so many interesting places to see which are not too far from home.  I mean, exotic travels are still wonderful, but if you can't spare a week or two, why not just go for a weekend?

T and I drove up to Springfield on Friday night.  We were staying at the delightfully Mad Men-mod Statehouse Inn.  So mid-century, and so great.  I'm not sure I could live in that style, but fun for the weekend.

The sitting area in our hotel room

The new state capitol, just a block or two down the street from our hotel

Saturday morning we set off for the Lincoln-tastic tourist sites. On the way, we stumbled across the Springfield Farmers' Market (Wednesdays and Saturdays, FYI), so we strolled through on our way to the Old State Capitol.  We happened to step inside just as a tour was starting, so we jumped in.  Sort of a plain building, architecturally-speaking, but so much history!

How quaint!

How awesome!

Fresh local produce at the market

Chillin' with the Lincolns in the town square - and you can see my dress!

Architecture of the old capitol

The State Library?  I get the names of the rooms mixed up.

And old hand-drawn map hanging on the wall.  So cool, and so not right anymore!

The bench of the Illinois Supreme Court

Storage for government and legal papers, which were literally...

...tied up in red tape.  That's where that comes from.

An original desk

A little used state office (executive something or other) which wasn't in use at the time, so Lincoln used it as his campaign headquarters.  That carved wooden chain in the corner was sent to him by a supporter in Wisconsin; it was carved from a single piece of wood, so the links have always been together as one piece.

Lincoln's desk in the Illinois General Assembly.  The desks were cleared out of this room, which is where his body was laid in state at the end of his long funeral procession.  The clock in this room is stopped at 7:22, the time of his death the morning after he was shot.

Our next stop was the building that housed the Lincoln-Herndon Law Offices (how could we not?).  It was, for a time, also a dry goods store and the home of the circuit court.  Talk about redevelopment opportunities!

One of the offices used by Lincoln and his partners.  A custom-made couch long enough for someone who's 6'4" to take a nap on is in the far corner.  There is a trap door in the floor (intended to allow the dry goods store on the ground level to hoist stock up to the top levels for storage) which Lincoln would prop open to listen to arguments going on in the circuit court on the floor below.

Food for the weekend was 100% inspired by Jane and Michael Stern of roadfood.com fame (mostly because I remembered hearing them talk about Springfield on one particular episode of The Splendid Table).  Their first recommended location was Joe Rogers' Chili Parlor.  The chili had a good flavor and was heavy on the meat - a good thing - but way too oily.

A little further on up the road (props to you if the song came to mind), we visited the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum, which was fascinating.  Best of all, they had so many audio clips of speeches, excerpts on the walls, etc.  Sometimes I forget how brilliant Lincoln was.  Silly M.  How is that possible when he was probably one of the best orators of all time?

With the Lincolns again, this time outside the reproduction White House inside the museum.  Unfortunately this main lobby is the only room in which they allow pictures.

We were unceremoniously ejected from the museum (okay, it was closing time, but still), so we headed back to the hotel for a quick workout.  Dinner was another roadfood recommendation, Cozy Dog Drive-In.  You know what?  For all the hype, they're just hot dogs, and not even as good as the Hebrew National dogs at Busch Stadium.  But what are good are their french fries.  Fresh, hot, crispy.  Delish.  And they have ice cream sandwiches, so no complaints there.

We had had quite enough culture for the day, so we went go karting after dinner, which I haven't done in forever and is so much fun! We also tried out the mini golf (which I am so bad at T finally stopped counting how many strokes behind I was) and the batting cages.  And always remember kids:

Your gas peddle is on the right.

Goal #34

Goal #34: finish the book project.

I mean it this time.  I knew when I said I was going to sift through all the books in one week that it wouldn't happen.  I've been pretty good at continuing to work on it, but I've reached the end of my patience with it.  It's going to be hard this week because I already know I'm going to be super busy, but it needs to happen, even if I give up my Saturday to do it.

Recap of Goal #33: espresso is the best ever!  Anyone know why I can't stop shaking?

Random Links

I'm guilty of more than a few autocorrect errors myself, but can't we just all agree to learn to spell?

Even Keys wasn't this bad.

Your entire high school education, now available on YouTube.

Great photos from the Olympics.

The honey badger way of life.

Love the tiny desk concerts!

What I Read -- Clementine

Oh, Clementine.  So much trouble.  Which is probably why I like the book.  I don't know whether it's true or not, but I imagine myself as having been a bit like Clementine as a child.

I picked up Clementine at my bookstore when we had a copy we were getting rid of.  I read it once way back then, and tucked it away in a box of books.  It turned up when I was sorting books last week, and I'm so glad I kept it.  It's the first book in a series, but I'm pretty sure I'll never read the others.  This one is simple, quick, funny, wonderful.  That's good enough.

Curiosity on Twitter

Personally, I don't tweet.  However, @MarsCuriosity and @SarcasticRover have been entertaining me immensely lately!

What I Watched -- The Amazing Spider Man

T and I had a low-key but totally great Saturday evening!

First we had a super-grubby but enduringly delicious dinner at Woofie's.  Woofie's until recently was a bit of a mystery to me.  It's not too far away and apparently beloved by St. Louisans, although I've only been there twice now.  Anyway, good dogs.

Then we went to see The Amazing Spider-Man.  Why did we do this?  I don't know.  Who would have thought the world needed another Spider-Man movie?  Not me.  But I'm glad we did.  It doesn't rank quite as high as The Avengers did earlier this summer, but it was totally enjoyable, and I think better than the Spider-Man which came out ten years ago.  Although it's really probably only fair to compare the first of the earlier series with this one, since things went downhill by the time the third one came around.  (Opinions vary on whether the first or second was better, but the third was pretty universally hated.  Yes, that does make four Spider-Man movies in 10 years.  Think we're in need of some heroes among us?)

It's pretty close to a toss-up between Andrew Garfield and Tobey McGuire as Peter Parker.  They're both oddly endearing in their own nerdy ways, but the rest of the cast in the new version was better.  For starters, Emma Stone, who is adorable and likable, is a far superior choice as Gwen than the perpetually mopey Kirsten Dunst (remember Melancholia?).  The Garfield-Stone chemistry seemed to work better, too.  I generally like Denis Leary and his crotchety, grumpy ways so I was happy to see him as Captain Stacy; ditto for Sally Field and Martin Sheen as Aunt May and Uncle Ben.

As for the story, it's just as you would expect.  Giant lizard created by mad scientist, Spider-Man saves the day.  I don't think I'm giving anything away by saying that.  Although this time there's a little bit less saving of the girl, which I like!  She's smart and funny and that's good enough.  Go Gwen.

Bottom line: another enjoyable brain-candy summer blockbuster.  Don't expect greatness and you won't be disappointed.

Goal #33

Goal #33: make espresso.

T happened upon an espresso maker which is currently sitting on the kitchen counter, and it's a disgrace that it hasn't been used yet!  It will, this week.

Recap of Goal #32: we made some progress, not as much as I'd hoped, but operational change is almost always slow, even when the business is small.

In related news, I made major progress sorting through my books this week!  I'm still not finished; there are six boxes still sitting at my feet, but I started out with probably 20 boxes or so, and I think I'll have about 15 by the time this is all over.  Still a lot of reading to do, but I've trimmed a lot, and what books are still in boxes are much more organized.  Now at least I can find something if I'm looking for it!

Low Expectations

At work a couple of weeks ago, I was sitting in the break room and the August 6th issue of US Weekly was looking lonely on the table.  I started flipping through it and came across a column called "The List."

I don't know enough about US Weekly to be sure about this, but my guess is that this is a weekly column with a different topic each week. For that particular issue, the topic was "celebrities married at least 10 years."  There were about a half dozen of them.

Is this really the goal we're shooting for now? A marriage that lasts 10 years? Wow, we are so much worse off than I thought.

Tax Dollars

If you got to allocate all your federal tax dollars to go to one program, which one would you pick?

What I Watched -- Forks Over Knives

Sorry guys.  I watched this movie (along with Safety Not Guaranteed) way back when I was in North Carolina.  I made a few notes while I was watching Forks Over Knives, so this will probably be a bit disjointed as I try to weave those thoughts together.  Having said that, here goes:

The basic proposal in this movie is that a whole-food, plant-based diet is the answer to our obesity epidemic, our worst diseases, our constant fatigue, and our skyrocketing healthcare costs.

For example, in the first half of the last century, it was thought that we needed a diet of protein, protein, protein.  "Milk.  It does a body good."  Then a doctor involved in pushing this protein diet to his patients discovered that, compared to Asian and Indian diets, us Americans were way less healthy.  Some additional research showed evidence that all this animal protein turned on the "cancer gene," causing increased rates of breast and prostate cancer.

Ditto for generational differences.  A few generations ago, Hawaiians lived long, healthy lives on traditional, Asian-leaning diets.  Now it's one of the most overweight states in the country.

To investigate further, some researchers did a study in rats.   Rats were fed either a 5% (Asian) or a 20% (American) protein diet.  Rats on the 20% diet rather quickly showed early cancer tumor growth.  Rats on the 5% diet showed no such growth.  What's more, when rats on the 20% diet were cut to 5%, they actually showed improvement - tumors got smaller. What?  Can that happen?  Apparently.

And here's another problem: dairy products cause acid buildup in body.  When acid content is too high, your body draws on its most available source of neutralization, which is calcium in the bones. Over time, this constant depletion of calcium weakens the bones.  Probably not coincidentally, rates of osteoperosis are higher in countries where milk consumption is higher.

A little historical research turned up some evidence on cardiovascular disease in WWII.  When the Germans invaded Poland, they needed food.  The German army confiscated all the livestock from Polish farms to support their army.  If they weren't killed by the soldiers, Polish life expectancy skyrocketed.  Subsequent studies showed that the removal of animal proteins and dairy products from a diet allowed endothelial cells in the blood vessels to repair themselves. Those endothelial cells release nitrous oxide into the blood stream, which in turn helps remove plaque and prevent clotting, which in turn prevents heart attacks.

P.S. Boys, pay special attention to this: ED is the canary in the coal mine for heart disease, which is so obvious if you think about it as a circulatory problem.  (The magic of Viagra is that it adds extra nitric oxide to the blood stream, which your body needs in order to direct blood flow.)  So eat healthy food and keep your endothelial cells healthy!

One of the two physicians who started this trend wrote a book called The China Study (hence all this info about Asian diets).  Another point he focuses on is that processed foods and sweeteners are more calorie-dense than the whole foods they're made from. As a consequence, we take in many more calories before the volume of food in our stomach causes the brain to realize that you're full.

Now, it's been shown time and again that statistics can be twisted to prove any point the user wishes.  I decided to consult my expert to make sure I got all this stuff right and get her opinion:

Overall, I think that Campbell’s and Esselstyn’s research is sound. Although I haven’t read the original study manuscripts (the one that The China Study is based on is over 1,000 pages long!), I did read the book and got some idea of the quality of the research.

Now, as a nearly lifelong vegetarian, I am a little biased here. I tend to agree with the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics when they say that a vegetarian or vegan diet can actually be healthier than an omnivorous one. I think that there is a lot of research to back this up (examples here, here, and here). In science, though, extrapolation can be dangerous, and this is where my biggest criticism of this particular research lies. The researcher uses one animal-based protein - casein, found in milk – to make statements about all other animal-based proteins. To say that a study of casein in mice proves that not just milk but also meat is bad is a sweeping overgeneralization. A good scientist should always limit his conclusions to what he has studied. If he suspects a connection with something else, he should pursue further study before making recommendations.

That being said, I would argue that Campbell and Esselstyn’s work did something absolutely crucial. While research on the healthfulness of vegetarian versus omnivorous diets abounds, there is substantially less research on the healthfulness of vegan diets. To me, these studies begin to fill that gap. Where the nutrition world had previously assumed that milk was vital to health because it was a source of protein and calcium, the opposite may actually be true. These early discoveries point to the need for further research and, maybe, a change in what we recommend that people consume for optimal health.

Random Links

Rare book school.

Olympic trampolining is a thing, apparently.

Yay!  There's another one!

Gymnastics like you've never seen.

Are you stylish enough to be on the Stylelist?

Atlas Obscura.

Goal #32

Goal #32: implement changes at work.

I spent the last few days at a conference on family law.  Some of them are legal - some tips on things I can research - and some are administrative.  Going to conferences is great, but implementing the changes and the ideas is always the hardest part.

Recap of Goal #31: Have I gotten myself together?  A little.  I still have a long way to go, but after being away for a few days (even if it was for a legal conference), I'm at least more relaxed!

What I Watched -- Safety Not Guaranteed

I enjoyed this movie.  I like Jake M. Johnson, so that helps.  (I mean, how can you not love someone who plays the adorable dope on a show starring TV's most adorable dope, Zooey Deschanel?)  As for Aubrey Plaza, I am not much of a Parks and Rec watcher, although I understand that is Ms. Plaza's true claim to fame.  She annoyed the heck out of me in this movie though.  I liked her character, but she always had her face down, and would look at other characters out of the very top of her eyes, without ever lifting her head.  I just wanted to yell, "Pick your stupid face up!"

That aside, Safety Not Guaranteed is a cute modern adventure story.  The plot starts with the classified ad: "WANTED: Someone to go back in time with me.  This is not a joke.  You'll get paid after we get back.  Must bring your own weapons.  I have only done this once before.  SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED."  A magazine reporter (Johnson) with an ulterior motive offers to investigate, with every intention of sending an intern (Plaza) to do the work.

She does, and gets more involved in the scheme than anyone ever intended.  But just when you think everyone in the story really is crazy, it turns out there might be something there.

Bottom line: an unexpected reminder to focus on appreciating what you have now.