(note: following post dripping with sarcasm).
while trick-or-treating we came upon a house.
when we saw the carefully manicured lawn, pristine paint job, and mccain/palin signs, we thought to ourselves, “well now, this is a house that knows how to party!”
imagine our surprise when we saw this posted on the door:
well, good for you, neighbors! thanks for letting us know! most people figure that a simple leaving-off-of-the-porch-light is a good enough strategy. but not you. you had the bravery to take it the next step. really prove your point. wow.
we’re lame parents.
we are just now furiously completing both the halloween costume and pumpkin carving. it’s 6:30pm. on halloween night.
but we’re feeling in the holiday spirit and – i thought that everyone could use a recipe to turn that slimy mass of seed yuck into a delicious treat.
thanks to hogwash:
TIME: 10 minutes prep (not including seed excavation)
MAKES: 3 1/2 cups roasted pumpkin seeds
3 1/2 cups raw fresh pumpkin seeds
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon kosher salt, and more for sprinkling
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon packed brown sugar
1 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
Place the seeds in a bowl with 1 tablespoon of the salt and add hot water to cover. Let sit for 4 hours (or overnight), until the seeds are puffy. Scoop the seeds off the top of the water, avoiding any leftover pumpkin bits, and transfer them to a large tea towel. Use another towel to pat them mostly dry – they’ll still be a bit slimy, but do what you can.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees; line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
Transfer the seeds to a large mixing bowl, and stir in the olive oil and maple syrup. Blend the remaining ingredients, plus the remaining teaspoon salt, in a small bowl, and sprinkle the mixture over the seeds as you stir them. Stir until the sugar has dissolved, then spread the seeds on the baking sheets in a thin layer.
Bake for about 25 minutes, rotating sheets and stirring seeds once or twice, or until browned and crisp. Remove seeds from the oven, sprinkle immediately with additional salt, and let cool on baking sheets. Break seeds apart and enjoy, alone or on salads. Store cooled seeds in an airtight container.
we just heard the news… one of the greatest american storytellers died today at the age of 96.
i’m sure there are many ways to revisit his work; i enjoyed his appearances on democracy now!, far ranging conversations w/ a man of startling memory and humor.
one of my favorite bits was his account of mahalia jackson standing up for his radio career:
Terkel was blacklisted for his views, and lost his show, “Stud’s Place.” Then legendary African-American gospel singer Mahalia Jackson insisted that he be hired as the host of her show. CBS demanded Terkel sign a loyalty oath. When he refused, they threatened to fire him. She told them, “Look, if you fire Studs, find another Mahalia Jackson.” CBS backed off. Studs recalled: “Do you know what happened? Nothing. You have to face them down.”
terkel’s “i tape, therefore i am” mantra highlights the shallow vulgarity of “reality” tv culture & affirms the value of real life. it’s a great story, and i hope to hear many people retelling studs’ over the next weeks.
¿what to do on election night?
well, we got our tix today at the downtown obama office for the blue nile party–we’ll make our rounds, of course (a nice, cold delerium tremens at clementine is a must), 
but i can’t wait to bask in dem. victory with my hummus & ethiopian butter! then wash it down w/ obama’s own brew of choice: pbr ($2)
and it’ll all taste sweeter if we run around town canvassing until then.
¡cheers!
update (via swing state project)–looks like it could well be a long night. here’s what to expect schedule wise (hope there’s plenty of hummus):
so. just back from an afternoon of canvassing.
we were out at chesnut ridge drive.
75% of the people we talked to were monolingual spanish speakers.
good thing we both speak passable spanish.
i had to go back to the obama headquarters to ask for a special spanish-language info sheet, because everything we had was only in english. i was surprised they had no other literature in spanish – isn’t the hispanic population in harrisonburg HUGE? they printed off a (really good) form from the website and made a few copies.
we ran out oh so fast.
you know how supersaturated you feel right now? how many people have talked to you about obama, about the election, about voting, about registering to vote? how many leaflets and pamphlets have to tossed into an ever-growing pile by your door?
i don’t think that ANYONE had talked personally with any of these folks whose doors we knocked on this afternoon. they were so happy to hear that they were registered, find out where they would be voting, get a ride to the polls.
a few had seen some tv ads like the one below in order to form their positive opinions of obama. but they hadn’t talked to anyone from the campaign.
one old woman from puerto rico invited us inside and told us how hard it is to vote in the u.s.-proper. (although she LOVES obama and now, thanks to the campaign headquarters, has a ride next tuesday to cast her vote) she said that in puerto rico, election day is an official holiday. you never have to worry about a ride. it’s like a big party all day long. with singing. and food. and friends.
another woman, holding her baby, told us as our children played together for a moment, in spanish, “all hispanics love obama SO much. he cares about us. even the ones that don’t have papers. he cares about our children. he knows we work hard. i only hope with everything i have that he wins.”
i was uncertain about canvassing. johan had to be forced to go.
we both walked away feeling elated. hopeful, in fact – to sound cliched.
so, i was hanging out at downtown wine and gourmet last night, (the happening place to be on a thursday night) and a nice guy named martin (he may have made your latte at the dodger at some point) stopped by on his way to play practice to give us all the heads up on The Playhouse’s (harrisonburg’s community theater) new comedy opening up on November 11.
it’s called “almost maine.” (here is the nytimes review of another production, and the official website)
this is the blurb:
On a cold, clear, moonless Friday night in deepest Winter, the Northern Lights hover over the remote, mythical town of Almost, Maine. All is not quite what it seems as the residents find themselves falling in and out of love in unexpected, unusual, and often hilarious ways. An enchanting midwinter night’s dream, ALMOST, MAINE inventively explores the mysteries of the human heart, touching audiences with laughter, heartbreak, and hope. Written by John Cariani.
according to a little leaflet i picked up, if you show up at court square theater at 6:30pm on Nov. 11, and pay $25 (or $20 if you are already a court square member harrisonburg downtown renaissance member – as this is a fundraiser for them) {thanks for the clarification, tina!}, you can enjoy “an evening of wine, art, desserts, and drama.” wine and desserts donated by downtown wine and gourmet. call 540-432-8922 for reservations. i think the ticket cost goes down closer to $10 for subsequent, not-opening-night, shows.
sounds good to me.
funny that martin stopped by with his little blue, tattered play book. i was thinking about the state of local theater a lot yesterday after reading this great article, “Ten Things Theaters Need To Do Right Now to Save Themselves” from brenden kiley at the stranger. a few of the points:
1. Enough with the goddamned Shakespeare already.
3. Produce dirty, fast, and often.
5. Offer child care.
7. Build bars.
9. Expect poverty.
10. Drop out of graduate school.
long live the theater!
word on the street (and confirmed by hburg news) is that luigi’s downtown will be closing it’s doors.
soon.
like, this coming sunday soon.
first l&s, now luigis.
to be honest, i was not impressed with the menu when i went there a few weeks ago. i concluded that the former employees took the good food with them when they ransacked the old luigi’s. but…
makes me hope that newbies such as blue nile and clementine can hang tight.
makes me worry about long-time favorites such as indian-american.
speaking of indian-american…i’m off to order some ponir saag (that is how they spell it…) and naan.
+ 
it’s along the lines of bush telling everyone to go out and shop after 9-11, but risking the association, i’ll encourage everyone to eat out. and choose carefully when you decide where to eat. chili’s and red lobster will be fine…fear not.
but indian-american, clemetine, blue nile, the little grill…they all need us to stay afloat…
sigh. i sort of wish i was going to this:
but airplane tickets are too expensive and i want to stand in slightly drunken anticipatory solidarity with my new red/purple/BLUE state of Virginia on tuesday.
so. i guess these are some of the options:
well. having difficulty locating election parties in town. neither clementine,
or blue nile,
seem to have anything up on their websites. but it’s very possible that there is an announcement out there that hasn’t reached me yet. there better be.
my awesome neighbor, who we were happy to accompany to the obama rally the other day (this is her:)
keeps telling me about some $5 blue nile election night, good food, let’s party, event. but i can’t find the details, or we’d all plan on it. any ideas?
check out this story from the dnr, which combines several of the local stories we have been covering.
+ 
+ 
key points:
- jennie amison (director of the recently shafted, gemeinschaft) got a call before obama’s h’burg rally, offering her VIP tickets.
- amison and her daughter got to meet obama.
- amison’s daughter, guess what?!, CAN’T vote in the upcoming election because of an (oops!) slip up with her voter registration. this is what the story says:
She said on Sept. 26, her daughter went to Obama’s Harrisonburg office on North Main Street to register. On Oct. 8, two days after the registration deadline, she received a letter saying her form was rejected because it had been altered. The number nine had been written over where she had filled in her birth date.
<<<<WHAT THE HELL?!>>>>
- charity (amison’s daughter) got to tell obama her story.
- amison got to tell kaine gemeinschaft’s story.
“He said, ‘The budget is tight but I’m going to take a look at it,’” she said. “I think he took it seriously. I don’t think he brushed it off.”
we’re a little later on the uptake than hburg news, but still – in an effort to get this story as much coverage as possible, we wanted to post regarding the saga of the harrisonburg registrar (remember?) office and local obama campaign head honcho, camron gorguinpour.
in short (you can read the dnr version here, but i would suggest following hburg news instead)-camron’s voter registration was one of the stack “unfortunately” misplaced and submitted late to the city registrar “due to human error.”
so, the local field manager for the obama campaign cannot vote for his own candidate in next week’s election.
a local judge called camron’s claim that circumstances surrounding his and other’s “late” registration paperwork deserved further investigation (as brent finnegan, jason aldrich, and others at hburg news have also been calling for since they broke the story), “almost a conspiracy story.”
super duper, judge lane.
sarah palin evidently has some big plans, after her ticket loses! (thanks slog) at least before, they didn’t try to make the news w/ it:
their rally to survive is about to begin, starting at the home at 10, marching to court square, then rallying at the court house at noon.
so here we were:
and there was barack...somewhere in the middle...
and our fancy camera’s batteries died during the introductions…
so, we’ll comb through some nice shots of long (long) lines and some phone shots of excited maniacs and keep you posted.
the saga continues just days before the u.s. vote…
(luckily many have already been voting!)
but, a storm is brewing after the u.s. strike in syria that threatens to spill over (especially if our government’s escalation of wars coincidentally continues until nov. 4). via the new york times:
The timing was startling, not least because American officials praised Syria in recent months for its efforts to halt traffic across the border.
But in justifying the attack, American officials said the Bush administration was determined to operate under an expansive definition of self-defense that provided a rationale for strikes on militant targets in sovereign nations without those countries’ consent.
Together with a similar American commando raid into Pakistan more than seven weeks ago, the operation on Sunday appeared to reflect an intensifying effort by the Bush administration to find a way during its waning months to attack militants even beyond the borders of Iraq and Afghanistan, where the United States is at war.
Administration officials declined to say whether the emerging application of self-defense could lead to strikes against camps inside Iran that have been used to train Shiite “special groups” that have fought with the American military and Iraqi security forces.
now that’s what i call timing.
i need to break out my old land camera again. or my beloved diana. because of photos like these:
the two above thanks to my polaroid blog.
this polaroid stunner from a sweet little blog found here:
and these, from here, taken by a diana:
{thanks to these strangers who take lovely photos. i hope i’ve given you enough credit…!}
Filed under: -of jhumphrey
from JMU’s website:
Individuals are strongly encouraged to use public transportation throughout the day.
huh?
what public transportation?
i sure can’t depend on harrisonburg’s half-assed public bus system to get me from my house to the obama event today…
(but that’s a discussion for another day)
in case you are interested in attempting to go by bus, here’s the schedule.
i would love to encourage you wholeheartedly, but instead, i’ll just wish you luck.
“let’s get to work”…
i am. tomorrow. right here. in our town. when this guy comes:
are you?
here are the parking/logistics details via hburg news. see you there.
and this too?
seems like a troubling trend to start rolling the dice around the middle east; maybe we can start another war before nov. 4?
i got an interesting call this afternoon. sunday afternoon.
a nice person from the harrisonburg city registrar’s office called to tell me that they were going through ballots and realized that i forgot to fill in “section a” when i went in last thursday and voted absentee in-person. “section a”, i now know, is the part where you give a reason why you cannot go and vote in person on election day. with this section left incomplete, my ballot would not be counted.
luckily, i was able to explain over the phone about working 12-hour shifts in C’ville, which apparently was an acceptable excuse, and was then reassured that all would be well and my vote would be counted.
i’m not sure what to think.
am i happy because they were thorough enough to call me up?
am i upset because the person who sat there in the office and watched me fill out my ballot didn’t tell me that i was skipping an entire section?
what to think?
just thought i’d put it out there in case others are experiencing similar situations. or, if you are unsure if you filled out “section a” and would like to check, maybe you can give the (extremely nice, i might add) people down at the registrar’s office a call at (540) 432-7707.
also- along similar lines – check out hburg news’ coverage of recent questions surrounding the harrisonburg registrar. i’m just sayin’…
