Fascinated by Fascinators

I confess to ignorance and malaise about ladies hat fashions. I was aware that QE2 always wore a hat, possibly in place of a crown. Outrageous chapeaus are also sported on female heads at the Kentucky Derby and at Ascot's race.

At AME & some other churches, African-American women have kept milliners in business. (The greater number of women in this country prefer to go hatless.) Cool.

I didn't know the hats perched at odd angles on stylish women were called fascinators. Alas, my time spent watching the Kate & William wedding was not wasted. I learned about fascinators.

The cute little feathery thing my daughter in-law wore for her wedding was probably a fascinator but I never heard the term used to describe it. Her's was beautiful.

Some of the commentators on the royal nuptials were not kind in their appraisals of the hats worn by Prince Andrew's daughters, Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice. The hats were so startling that no one bothered to remark what a weird dress one of them was wearing. I'm not sure if this is all about shock value or looking good. I hope it was shock value because I think they fell short in the looking good catagory.

While designers are busy in sweatshops cranking out lace-topped wedding dresses, likely some Chinese workers are heaping birds and flowers and other stuff on hats. I want one for Halloween. The weirder the better.

Pictures: American pop-princess Sarah Jessica Parker and the Real Princesses in Fascinators.

What Kate Middleton and I had in Common

We are / were both "commoners". Her status has been elevated to princess now so we no longer have that in common. He sirname was Middleton and my blog handle has a similar sound. "In-the-middle." Close enough?

I didn't set my alarm to get up at 4:00 A.M. to watch the televised nuptials from London. We did catch the kiss on the balcony. I was surprised at the simplicity of her wedding gown and veil. Perhaps that is due to memories of the pouf 'n fluff of Princess Diana's dress and train.

Kate is a modern bride. This past week media has tutored the masses on the lifestyle of Britain's most famous newlyweds. She cooks. He puts his own toothpaste on the brush unlike his father. No servants. They lead an ordinary life and will live in a five room cottage in Wales.

Barbara Walters said Kate's family didn't meet the queen until last week. QE2 has a very busy schedule. One can only imagine how the Middleton's felt anticipating that. I remember some trepidation meeting our kids future in-laws. For the first son we ordered 9 yards of rock and relandscaped the house. For the second one, we replaced torn screens and touched up the paint indoors. For the third one we replaced a sliding glass patio door. I think it must have been a lot more work for the Queen to get Buckingham Palace ready to meet the Middleton's. I am sure she had help and then she is only the grandmum, not the parent. I am sure she made a good impression.

The US threw off official royal ties when we rebelled in 1776. We kept some unofficial sentimental attachments to the British. No one does pagaentry like England. Even if America's substitute royalty (movie stars) get adulation when they marry, no one would have a spiffy red military uniform to wear when they marry like Prince William wore. Michael Jackson might have pulled it off, but he wasn't interested in marriage. Our military uniforms are more conservative. We are more practical and discovered it is easier to defeat our enemies in battle if we sneak up in camo than march into battle in red. Maybe that is why we must defend the whole world.

If It Quacks Like a Duck is It Aflac?

The horror of hundreds of deaths from tornados in the south is constantly on the news today only to be softened by gossipy chatter about the anticipated royal wedding. Both of these blockbuster stories almost overshadowed news that Aflac has chosen the new voice of their duck. He lives about 10 miles north of us and is a guy who does voice-overs who has hit the jackpot with his quacky version of the company name.

Aflac. We all recognize it. Before the previous guy was fired for making insensitive remarks about Japan's disaster, I didn't even know who did the duck's voice. Comedian Gilbert Gottfreid had that gig. Here's hoping the new guy will be "Minnesota nice" and not offend.

I did a blogsearch to see what people were saying about the Aflac duck. One of the sites was by a blogster named Kyle Affleck who happens to sell supplemental insurance. Yup, he sells Aflac. If I were him, I would have practiced my duckvoice and applied to be the new spokesduck. Maybe he did. Competition was fierce. 12,000 applied.

We Need a Hero

Seinfeld had Superman.
World War 2 readers had Wonder Woman to fight the Nazis.
The Green Lantern fought crime.
Spiderman is doing his darndest to fight critics who are panning the new Broadway show.
Will Smith has stepped up to the plate a couple times in "Independence Day" and "Men in Black" to fight off alien invaders.
These heroes are great, but.... face it. We don't have a big problem with invading space aliens or Nazis.
We have a big problem with bad weather. Floods, mudslides in Australia and South America followed by wild fires. Grade 5 Cyclone (hurricane) in Australia. Ice, frozen water pipes and shortage of natural gas in the frozen southwest..New Mexico, Texas. Oklahoma is setting records for snowfall and ice storms. Atlanta, Memphis, Nashville are all in the snow belt. The citrus crop and strawberries froze in Florida. Sub-zero temps are dipping deep into our country. Alaska is warmer than Texas many days. The Superbowl promoters had troubles with ice sliding off the stadium roof.
We need a new hero. We need "weatherman". I wonder what he could do. Who can control the weather. Where is the one who calms the raging seas? Oh. There is someone who can do that.
His name is Jesus and this might be a good time to seek him for help.

On Marco Polo's Trail

If I remember history correctly, the Chinese invented noodles. Although Italy is more famous for pasta, it isn't native to that country. The famous Venetian explorer Marco Polo first ate spaghetti carbonara in Peking and brought the recipe home.

I receive a daily recipe from a Weight Watcher's site called "Hungry Girl" and have received multiple emails recently touting the benefits of tofu shirataki noodles. They are very low calorie and protein packed. That got my attention and I looked for them at Cub (local market). No tofu shirataki noodles there. Next shopping trip was to our food co-op where you can find a nice variety of organic and healthy foods. No shirataki noodles but the clerk said they have been getting frequent requests for them. "Try Kowalski's" she recommended. I did. Kowalski's carries many things you can't find other places but they don't have any form of shirataki noodles.

The Wiki page on shirataki noodles says there are two types:

The traditional Japanese noodles are made from the konjac plant and have no nutritional value and no calories. They have little flavor and absorb the flavor of the seasoning or sauces used with them.

The health food magazines are currently pushing a variety made from tofu. They are low-carb but a good protein source. They can't be frozen or dried and are packaged wet and refrigerated.

When I communicated with my daughter Mary about my quest , she recommended trying an Asian market a mile from her house. "If they don't have it, I don't know who will". Mary wasn't too impressed with my excitement about noodles made from konjac, a fibrous plant with no nutritional value that you don't absorb. I think she asked if I couldn't achieve the same result with packing peanuts.

Anyone got any good recipes using packing peanuts?

Finding Nemo

Hudson, WI is celebrating "A Hot Air Affair" this weekend. This river town is just six miles downstream. We didn't see the balloons launch this morning because flights were cancelled due to poor visibility. The valley was blanketed in fog. Daughter Mary, Mike and the grandtwins picked me up and we went for the evening display of lit balloons. A couple dozen of the balloons were inflated and tethered at a local schoolyard. They light them by using the gas powered flames. It was a mild night and quite a spectacle. The balloons randomly light up with countdowns every few minutes to synchronize all of them ablaze at the same time.

The two years olds seem to enjoy it and were little troopers trudging through the snow. Amazing sight on a nice winter night. It is always a good thing to enjoy this snowy season.

Before we left home I showed the kids pictures of the balloons that would be on display on the website. They were thrilled to see a clown fish shaped balloon we dubbed Nemo ,like the Disney movie. Nemo was the first balloon we saw as we arrived.

The Farmer in the NFL

I almost choked on the coffee I spewed when I read that Farmer's Insurance is buying naming rights for a proposed new stadium in Los Angeles. It will be called "Farmer's Field".
Backer's are aiming to attract an NFL team to play there. LA doesn't have an NFL team.

Back in Minnesota we have an NFL team buy not a stadium to the owner's liking. They rejected the Metrodome. They rejected the Metrodome when it had an intact roof. Once again supporters, who can't envision Minnesota without the purple ones, are trying to drum up support for a new stadium. Our state coffers are depleted and in deficit. Our people are overtaxed. Our unemployment rate still high. We are more generous with health care for the indigent and seem to attract more indigent. (That probably wasn't pc.) We seem to have a lot of needs more important than a new stadium.
Forget our problems. Our billionaire NFL owners and millionaire players need a new stadium now. If we don't buy it for them, they could be recruited to play at the proposed Farmer's Field in LaLa land. I wonder if this time they would bother to change the name from Vikings to something that reflected southern California. They kept the Lakers the Lakers. Never could figure that. Never will understand how you can name a field "farmer's" in the midst of the biggest metropolitan area in the country.
Now do you understand why I will cheer for the Packers tomorrow? We know where they will be in ten years.