Ninja Poodles Local

Well, seven of us (Mom, sister, nephew, brother-in-law, Husband, Daughter, Myself) headed up to Greers Ferry Lake to spend the day out on the water. And I will just mention, to satisfy this month's NaBloPoMo "food" theme, that picnic lunches are where the whole locavore thing falls apart, for me. Look, sometimes, I just need some nice fresh bread and stuff to go on it that people will eat, and I don't want to spend 7 hours the day before preparing it all from scratch, or driving around two counties buying it. We formed an assembly line, and slapped together a bunch of sandwiches, bagging and labeling them for the cooler. That was pretty much what we ate that day. As it turned out, we were way too busy to eat, anyway.

First and foremost, some boating and tubing. Some of us have, shall we say, the hang of this.


Arkansas, in case you don't know, is beautiful.


Some swimming at the above spot, and then more tubing. Nephew was a good enough sport to allow his much smaller cousin to ride with him. I'm not sure, but I THINK she appreciated it. She MIGHT have had a good time, but really, how can you be sure?


Did I mention that Arkansas is beautiful? I might not have stressed the fact enough.


We had this spot all to ourselves for most of the afternoon. I can't even describe the peace, pleasure and wonder of just this place. It was like a little miracle. We couldn't bail out of the boat fast enough to all get in that waterfall. Husband was good enough to float in on "Big Mable" and get some nice pictures. Did I play? You know I did.






I may not be able to afford the BlogHer conference in San Francisco this year, but you know what? This, I can have for free, not more than an hour from my front door. This planet of ours, it's something else. This state of mine, I just have to love it, despite oppressive heat and humidity, choking pollen, and legendary biting insects.

So, after the waterfall blissfest, it was time for some adrenalin. Luckily we had the boys for that. With BIL driving the boat, and Husband and Nephew on the tube, it was just a contest of wills--a battle of the hangers-on versus the slinger-off. Husband didn't help matters much with what my sister referred to as his "barbaric YOP," either. I think I heard phrases like "Is that all you GOT?" and "BRING IT ON!!!"


BIL brought it. At one point, I heard my sister asking her husband to "please remember that our CHILD is also out there." I don't believe, judging by his expression, that said child shared her concerns, however. You'd think, from this shot, that this is a guy about to take a drink, wouldn't you?


Well, YOU'D BE WRONG. Say what you will about my husband, he is nothing if not tenacious. He actually came BACK from that near-sling-off, and got re-seated. That lull didn't last long, though.





This literally went on until they BROKE THE TOW-ROPE. And they were fastening on another one, when...we ran out of gas. Out. Of. Gas. In the middle of the lake, surrounded by, well...no one.


Just to make it clear that we're not a bunch of dopes, I give you Exhibit A: LYING, PUNK FUEL-GAUGE.


Remember when I told you how beautiful Arkansas is? Well, I should also report that Arkansans are friendly. And helpful. And kind. We were stranded for all of about 29 seconds, before we managed to flag down a boat from across the lake. These lovely people and their miniature dachshunds came to our rescue.


I can't even tell you how painless it was--a potentially horrible situation resolved instantly, merely through the kindness of strangers. Here is exactly how it went down: We waved. Boatload of strangers came over immediately. We said, "Our fuel gauge is malfunctioning, and we're out of gas!" Their immediate response: "Need a tow?"


And so it was, that a boat full of generous souls surrendered a good portion of their precious tank of gas, along with one of the last hours of daylight on the final day of a holiday weekend in order to tow a stranded boat full of strangers all the way to their home landing.


If you know these people, thank them for us. The would accept nothing from us in return for their good deed but a promise to pay the favor forward to the next strangers in need we encounter. That, we can do.

Husband and BIL somehow got our boat loaded back up, which is no easy task with no engine power, and we left the water for the day. It was a good day, a good weekend, a good time to be alive and a great place to be living.

Whether you venture afar, or stick close to home, I hope you all have a wonderful summer.

Posted by Belinda | Permalink | Comments (0)

The National Blog Posting Month theme for July is "food," so this seemed like a good cause to kick back into gear for summer:  Fried Green Tomatoes.  This is a dish that has as many variations as it does people who cook it, and I'd love to hear yours.

This recipe almost doesn't need words, but I'll use a FEW. Get some of these (I got mine from the Certified Arkansas Farmer's Market in North Little Rock):


I have actually had people tell me that they couldn't find "this kind" of tomatoes, only the red ones. Well, these are the red ones. They're just not ripe yet. The rest of you quit laughing. There are actually people who have never seen a tomato before it hits the grocery store, where it's probably arrived from Mexico or California. Green tomatoes are apple-firm and wonderful to work with. A lot of people seem to prefer the ones that have just a hint of pink blush forming, but I like the pure greenies. I like fried pickles, too, though, so take that into account when you select your degree of green-ness.

Slice 'em up. I like to do them at an angle instead of straight across the middle, but that's just me. I promise the tomato-slicing police will not show up at your house if you do it differently.


Have a shallow dish of buttermilk, salted and peppered to taste, at hand, and as you slice the tomatoes, add the slices to the buttermilk. They don't have to soak or marinate, but a couple extra minutes couldn't hurt, right?


In another shallow dish, combine equal parts cornmeal or cornmeal mix, and flour. Take the tomato slices from the buttermilk, and dredge them in the flour mixture. I usually just lay the wet slices onto the flour, cover them, and lightly press the flour mixture into the tomato a little.


Cook in hot oil until golden-brown, then turn them over and brown the other side. The tomato slices will soften as they cook, but don't let them get all mushy. If your slices are no more than 1/4-inch thick, they should get done about the time your coating is golden-brown.


Drain slices separately on layers of paper towels, or in a wire basket or on a rack (though that won't get as much oil out as draining on paper), and serve HOT. We like ours with cold ranch dressing, but I'd love to hear any other ways of enjoying fried green tomatoes.



An alternate, and equally acceptable method is to simply dredge very thin green tomato slices in seasoned cornmeal mix and then fry them. That should get you a result like these slices, from a popular Arkansas country restaurant (can you guess where?). Also yummy, if greasier and floppier.

Posted by Belinda | Permalink | Comments (2)

My good friend and BlogHer and Huffington Post Contributing Editor, Erin Kotecki Vest, was able to sit down with Senator Barack Obama this weekend, to directly ask questions that were chosen by BlogHer members.  I'm button-popping proud of Erin and all of my BlogHer compatriots, and it's a good interview, with real answers.  Let's hope the other candidates follow Obama's lead and provide a similar opportunity for us to get to know them a little better.

BlogHer EXCLUSIVE: Barack Obama Answers Policy Questions From Women Who Blog

BlogHer reaches over 9 million women every month now, and boasts a publishing syndicate (of which I'm part) that is 1,800 blogs strong. 

Just for the heck of it, a couple of Arkansas BlogHer affiliates that you might well enjoy reading are two of my daily favorites:

Notes To Self: Culture. Soul. Laundry.

Arkie Mama: Barefoot, Breeding, and Medicated

Posted by Belinda | Permalink | Comments (0)

The fam, along with a goodly portion of our church membership, caught an Arkansas Travelers minor-league baseball game at the super-fancy new ballpark in North Little Rock the other night, and had a great time. I think my favorite part was watching my mom explain the basics of the game to my daughter, who was fascinated.





I didn't care if we ever got back, but Alex got really tired around the 7th-inning stretch, so we headed home early. Travs won, in their first-ever game against Arkansas' other minor-league team, the Northwest Arkansas Naturals. (OK, it was only with typing that out that I realized the cleverness of that team's name--not just a reference to Arkansas as "The Natural State," but also a nod to the Robert Redford film, "The Natural." Nice.)

Posted by Belinda | Permalink | Comments (0)

On the way home from a recent trip, there were some flight delays. It was the day after tornadoes ripped through central Arkansas, and the weather front had moved all the way through to the East Coast. The worst weather had yet to reach that far, but it was causing problems with flights getting in to some places (like Nashville--just ask poor Jamie about that), so when I got to the Continental terminal at the Newark airport, I was greeted with at least 10 lines of people whose flights had been canceled and were being re-routed on later flights. I lucked out--my direct flight to Little Rock was just late enough, and Little Rock was just enough west of the worst weather (flights into Memphis were being canceled), that my flight wasn't canceled. Of course, other delays with other flights were having a domino effect, so my flight home was delayed a couple times and moved to a different gate, but it still left within 30 minutes of its scheduled time. I considered myself fortunate.


As is usually the case when I'm making my way through the enormous, sprawling, sometimes dirty airports in major "hub" cities, I could not help thinking how very much I love Little Rock's Adams Field. Yes, it's tiny. That can be an inconvenience at times, like when you can't get a direct flight to a major destination, and sometimes the pickings are slim as far as flight availability, but that smallness is also kind of the point. It took me all of 10 minutes to arrive, check in, go through security, and get to my gate on the morning that I left. I love that. It's also a clean airport, with free wi-fi and plenty of electrical outlets for the public (I'm looking at you, Newark--I saw all the black holes where the outlets used to be). Seriously, airports of the world, let's get rid of "Boingo" paid wireless, OK? If Little Rock, Arkansas can do it, then you certainly can, too.


So, back to my flight--it was on a very small plane, just like the one I'd had on the trip out, so I had one of those seats that is, by virtue of being the only one, simultaneously window, middle, and aisle. I was seated at the front of the plane, just behind the cockpit. A cheerful young(er than me) man in a Houndstooth tee and some very blue running shoes sat across the aisle from me, and a woman I'll refrain from describing, for reasons which will soon become obvious, sat behind me. The flight was uneventful, the hostess pleasant, the turbulence minimal considering the weather.  I had a great book to read, the plane was full of fellow Arkies, and I was feeling pleasantly nostalgic for home, despite only having been gone for two days. I'm sappy like that.  And then we touched down in Little Rock.

First, something happened that I've never experienced in air travel before. We were parked out a good distance from the Continental terminal, because there was another plane occupying the spot (remember, this airport is tiny). I didn't think much of it, because, as I said: weather, domino effect, many delays and cancellations. I was still feeling lucky to have been able to get home that night. Then, through the cockpit door, I hear the plane's Captain (who may or may not have been John McEnroe) yelling out the window of the plane, and some mumbled responses from a grounds-crew person with a pronounced foreign accent. I couldn't understand anything the groundsman said, but here is the gist of the Captain's end of the conversation:

"What's going on?"

"How long?"

"Twenty MINUTES? Are you kidding me?"

"Can't you bring out a hard-stand?"

"Are you kidding me?"

"Get me a manager I can talk to on this frequency!"

"Are you KIDDING ME?"

I have to admit, I was chuckling to myself. Because it was just funny to me, an airplane pilot communicating with the ground crew not on a radio, but by yelling out the window. I was smiling to myself, and thinking, "only in Arkansas." And it was only 20 minutes, and in the grand scheme of things, with the perspective of just having had a tornado ravage my hometown and surrounding areas, and knowing that my family was safe and that I'd soon be joining them, I just settled back in with my book. Not a huge thing. The captain was plainly upset, though, and announced the 20-minute delay over the plane's PA system, encouraging passengers to fill out a Continental "customer care card" and express our displeasure at not being able to get to the terminal when we landed. That kind of made me laugh inwardly, too, because honestly--on a day like this? I think the airline had bigger things to worry about. Again, just ask Jamie. 20 minutes? Well, it's not as good as right now, but it's no big deal.

Except to the woman behind me. First, she began just complaining out loud to no one in particular, saying intelligent things like, "Come ON--the weather hasn't even been bad here today." Nah, just tornadoes that flipped airplanes over a few hours earlier, followed by massive power failures and flash-flooding. You know, nothing major.

And then she got on her cell phone, and called some (presumably) loved one to advise them of the situation. Naturally, I only heard her end of it, but she was speaking loudly, apparently wanting the rest of us to hear her conversation. Try to imagine the intonation and nasal whine of Lovey Howell, without the class:

"Well, we're heeeere, but we're just sitting on the taaaarmac. For twenty miiiiinutes."

"This is reason number THREE to get OUT of Little Rock. I swear to Gaaaawd, I am sooooo OUT of here. I haaaate it."

"I don't know; typical Little Rock moronity. Everyone in Little Rock is a moooooron." (At this point I was biting my tongue so hard I drew blood, at the intense desire to inform this paragon of class and manners that if you're going to malign the intelligence of an entire community, including a good many of your cabin-mates, you might want to stick to using actual WORDS.)

The conversation went on for most of the not-quite-20 minutes we sat there waiting, and several things were discussed, but the overriding theme was other people, and how they are essentially wastes of skin. A couple of snippets I can't seem to cleanse from my brain:

"Oh, and when you saaaaaid it, did you just feeeeeel the biiiiiiile rising in your throat?"

"That probably makes me a bad mother, doesn't it? Well, I don't caaaaaare."

And then, excusing the person on the other end of the phone with "I don't guess you need to be entertaining meeeee while I waaaaait," she finally hung up, and began pontificating to the hostess and other passengers about the details of this particular flight, how she took it "aaaaall the tiiiiiime," and that the employees were "aaaaaaaall on a break," because it wasn't this much trouble getting in at 1:00AM, and besides, "they didn't even have any weather here today." That was the only time I broke my silence, since I'd sat up the entire night before and into that morning glued to KTHV's streaming storm coverage on my laptop in a faraway hotel room, worrying for the safety of the family I was unable to contact. I didn't say much, only that I considered tornadoes and flash-floods to officially qualify as "weather." She just sputtered a bit and answered, "Well, that wasn't todaaaaaay." Well, yeah, actually, it was, but I let it go. I could have spit some bile of my own by then, though.

About that time, we were able to taxi up and park near the terminal, and allowed to deplane. While the crew was bringing out the hard-stand so we could get out, my pleasant across-the-aisle flight-mate brought out his cell-phone, and called his wife. His voice was quiet, full, familiar and warm. His conversation went like this:

"Hey, there, Honey. We're here."

"Oh, there was a little delay, and I didn't want to wake you just to tell you I wasn't off the plane yet."

"No, no...don't do that. I'll be there in (checks watch) 20-30 minutes. You just go back to sleep. I just wanted you to know I was on my way."

"I love you."

If that is "typical Little Rock 'moronity'?" I'll take it. I'll take it every. Darn. Time. I only had a brief, small-talk-ish exchange with this sweetheart of a guy, and didn't get his name, but if you recognize these blue shoes, you might tell their wearer that he restored my faith in humanity, one 20 minutes upon a time.

Posted by Belinda | Permalink | Comments (1)

If you're plugged into the blogosphere, particularly the world of "mom-bloggers," you've heard more than enough about The Great Camp Baby To-Do of 2008.  If you've missed the dustup, you can bring yourself up to speed here, and a little Googling will turn up plenty more fallout.

What happened was, Johnson & Johnson and their PR firm, in an effort to "connect" with what is becoming an increasingly powerful demographic, MOMS WHO BLOG, decided to host a 3-day "getaway" for moms, culminating, naturally, in a field trip to J&J headquarters for a product expo.  The hope is that the blogger attendants will return home and write (hopefully glowingly) on their blogs about the J&J products they saw, and how well they were treated by the giant corporation.  They invited 50 "influential bloggers" on this junket, and shockingly enough, Yours Truly was one of those 50.  I'm still trying to figure out quite how "influential" I am, but I registered for the trip based on a few key factors:

1. FREE.  The trip is FREE.  As in, all expenses paid, including airfaire, car service to and from the airport on both ends (though I excused them from sending a car for me here at home), great hotel accomodations, meals, a wine-tasting hosted by Ted Allen (fangirl squeeeee!), lots of pampering activities, a Wii-party and fine dining at The Frog and The Peach, etc.  Yes, apparently, I can be bought--although I have to give props to our sponsors at J&J for making it clear right up front that: a.) We are not obligated in any way to write about the trip or the product expo, and b.) If we DO write about any of it, they ask that, in the interest of total transparency, we reveal that we were there on THEIR dime.  I respect that.

2. The opportunity to visit with scads of my all-time favorite blogger-buddies from all over the continent!  And these are just a few of the ones who I know will be there--I'm sure I "know" a heck of a lot more of the 50 attendees, if only online.  If I had to guess, I'd say that MOST bloggers who accepted the invitation did so with this motivation high on their list of priorities.  That was smart of J&J.  I've heard lots of complaints that "the same group of bloggers gets invited to all these corporate-sponsored junkets," but this is the first time for me.  It will be interesting to see if my participating in this activity gets me on some kind of PR "list" in the future.  I do get PR pitches from time to time, but I'm certainly not inundated by them like some folks say they are.

3. TED ALLEN.  'Nuff said.  I'm a dorky, dorky Top Chef/Queer Eye for the Straight Guy  fangirl.  I'm not ashamed.  Much.

In preparation for this trip, in order to educate myself about exactly who was buying my attention, I did some research into the companies owned by Johnson & Johnson, and the products they make.  I was ASTOUNDED at the sheer number and variety of things made by J&J or one of their subsidiaries which have directly impacted my and my family's lives. They're not just Band-Aids and Baby Powder.  From psychiatric medications that have benefited my bipolar husband to the Interceed fabric that repaired my resectioned colon and protected me from adhesions during a lifesaving surgery in 2000, I've spent enough money with Johnson & Johnson that a plane trip and a few dinners are looking like a nice "Thank-You" note at this point!  Check here to see how much influence Johnson & Johnson has in your life--you might be surprised!

I'll post more on my trip (I leave tomorrow) here, if my editor approves it, and also, with a group of other attendees, on a group blog here.  Expect lots of pictures.

I'm looking forward not only to visiting and schmoozing, but also to doing my best at being a representative of wonderful folks like this amazing woman and others.

Posted by Belinda | Permalink | Comments (1)

I just got an email in my inbox announcing the grand opening of the new CABOT location of Tuesday Morning, on April 1.  I'm assuming it's not an April Fool's joke, and that now those of us out this way might actually be able to make it to the store in time to take advantage of some of the pre-announced sales.  Cabot is growing like crazy, with new restaurant and store openings almost weekly, it seems.  Are we in some crazy recession-proof bubble?

Posted by Belinda | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have been completely in love with the unlikely internet juggernaut that is Twitter for almost a year now, and I am still nearly always unable to describe it accurately to people who do not use it. Yes, it's like instant messaging, kind of. And kind of like a chat-room. And sort of like blogging--instantaneous micro-blogging, anyway. It comes from a wholly simple and straightforward place, asking simply, "What are you doing?" and then providing you with 140 characters worth of blank space to answer that question, as frequently or infrequently as you choose.


When I first entered the Twitter playground last year, most people simply answered the question, using the automatic placement of their username as the beginning of a declarative statement. As in, "ninjapoodles is waiting for the dryer to finish, awestruck at the glamor that is her life." For most folks, Twitter was pretty personal, and we followed mostly people we already knew, either in "real life" or online, and read their updates and posted our own. Then, a few months ago, the Twitter timeline somehow became a conversation. A live, constant, global conversation. New connections were made. In response to the ways that its users were utilizing the service, Twitter made changes to the way the application works. More and more, people were responding to each other directly, by placing '@' in front of another's username. Most of us added more and more followers, as we saw our friends responding to people we hadn't known about, and clicked over to their profiles and found that we liked them, too, and wanted to follow them.

Now, Twitter has added a wonderful little swooshy arrow at the end of each update, so that you can simply click on it to reply to the poster, without even having to type in their username yourself. As of this writing, I have posted a total of 5,836 updates on Twitter, received several hundred "DMs" (direct messages), and I'm following what seems like an insane number of people--458--and adding more daily. I don't automatically follow everyone who follows me, but I do follow anyone who interacts with me directly. In the beginning, I tried to keep a lid on the number of people I'd follow, because I couldn't keep up with a cluttered "timeline," but with the '@' feature, I can easily click on the "replies" tab and see if anyone has addressed me directly, without scanning back through the timeline.

There's also a "favorites" feature, where you can click a star next to a post and mark it as a favorite, for Twitter to save. Tonight was the first time I opened my "favorites" file and looked back on all the posts I'd saved. Here is a samping of updates which I found, for whatever reason, worthy of saving over the last year or so.

This screen-grab is a perfect illustration of how the Twitter timeline can capture the mundane, the angsty, the humorous, and the profound at a glance:


Some of the "Tweets" I save are replies to something I've posted, that made me laugh or meant something to me so that I wanted to remember them. Some struck me as funny:



Others touched me (and probably now have meaning only to me):


And some I save when people speak to me in languages from other planets:


Some Tweets are two-parters (read from the bottom up):


Sometimes an exchange between others is so funny to me that I save the whole thing, like this one (yes, I am so good at screen captures that I left the cursor in the middle of the shot--that word is "idea"). Remember that the Twitter timeline posts the most recent updates at the top, so read exchanges from bottom to top:


But by far, the updates I "favorite" (one thing that really bugs me about the internet is the increasing creation of new verbs) most often are stand-alone posts, usually the ones that make me laugh. These, more than anything else, are probably what makes Twitter worth using for me. Forget "social media," networking, whatever...sometimes, I just want to see what other folks are doing, and hopefully have a chuckle.









So...What are you doing?

UPDATE: Edited to add a link to this video (thanks, Zach!), explaining the bare-bones basics of Twitter to the uninitiated.

Posted by Belinda | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've meant to write about Hulu before, because I've been loving it since Day One.  But while it was in Beta, and limited to invitation-only, I was hesitant lest it not make it.  But now, it's gone public and added a huge amount of content, including more full episode television and even a decent selection of full-length feature films.  Just a cursory glance at that category shows options like "The Big Lebowski" and "The Usual Suspects," so I have high hopes for the future of Hulu. 

Get on over to Hulu.com, sign up, and start browsing.  It's free, and, in my opinion, it's fabulous.  You even have the option of embedding their content on your own site, and the superior quality of Hulu video (compared to YouTube or Google Video) is impressive.

<object width="510" height="295"><param name="movie" value="http://www.hulu.com/embed/JK9tdpQPim1o-aujnb9cOA"></param><embed src="http://www.hulu.com/embed/JK9tdpQPim1o-aujnb9cOA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="510" height="295"></embed></object>

Uh...if someone knows the secret to embedding video on THIS blog, hit me up right quick, wouldja?  That would be the code above, there.

Posted by Belinda | Permalink | Comments (0)

I don't know if this is a purely Southern phenomenon, but I see it all too often around here, and when I do, it makes me feel stabby. This is just BEYOND idiotic. I truly do not understand what people are thinking when they drive around with dogs in the bed of a pickup truck. Presumably, they "love" their dogs and want to take them for a ride. Bollocks.

If you LOVE your dogs, or even care casually about them, you don't set them up to become projectiles in even a minor traffic accident or just a "near miss" in which you must slam on your brakes or swerve. Even if you're the best driver in the world (and observing the judgment you're showing here, you're NOT), you can't predict or control what other drivers on the road with you are going to do.

And if the thought of your dogs going flying into the street only to then be hit by other cars is not enough of a deterrent to keep you from doing something this stupid, then consider something else: If you're involved in an accident, and your dog becomes a 60-pound projectile which causes injury to another person or persons, who do you think is going to be liable for that injury?

To sum up, THIS IS STUPID;  If you're doing it, please knock it off.  For all our sakes.

Posted by Belinda | Permalink | Comments (0)