Sassistas! Our dish on the social soup.

Flu or Fear Virus?

FLU FEARS SPUR GLOBAL TRIAGE!

NATION BRACES FOR WORST AS NEW STRAIN EMERGES!

HOG WILD!

These are just a few of the alarming newspaper headlines we've seen over the past couple of days regarding the outbreak of what the White House is now terming the "H1N1 Flu" as no pigs have yet been infected.  Interestingly, click on the tab for more information about the outbreak at the White House website and you are taken to a Center for Disease Control and Prevention web page which (as of this writing) is still referring to the outbreak as "Swine Influenza."

So far the virus (again, as of this writing), has spread to 11 U.S. states from coast to coast and swept deeper into Europe.  Total American cases have surged to nearly 100 with one death -- a Mexican toddler who had traveled with his family to Texas.  The World Health Organization (WHO) said yesterday that "the swine flu outbreak shows no evidence of slowing down and is moving closer to becoming a pandemic."

So what's the REAL outbreak?  The flu or coverage of the flu that has led to a full-blown outbreak of fear?  According to Dr. Marc Siegel, author of False Alarm: The Truth About the Epidemic of Fear (pictured above on the toilet), "We hear about an unseen killer and we worry that we will be next.  The best antidote for this kind of fear is the facts."  Siegel cautions that even if the current outbreak is upgraded to a pandemic, it will likely be of the 1968 variety which killed only 32,000 in the U.S. and 700,000 worldwide, less than many yearly outbreaks.  It will not be the 1918 variety that killed over 50 million people worldwide.  He also notes that this is the end of the flu season, not the beginning.  "Flu viruses thrive in the low humidity of winter, not summer.  It is very likely that this outbreak will die out automatically as the summer comes" (The Fox Forum, Fox News.com).

What's your opinion?  Is this flu something to be feared?  Or has the sheer volume of media attention suggested a full-blown crisis?  Any sista or mista think we need a tremendous outbreak of calm?

100 Days and Counting

O, O, O, yes we can! 

The Sassistas!^TM can ride the vast wave washing over the media landscape about today -- the 100th day of Obama's presidency.

For a succinct look at key events during those first 100 days compiled by the Associated Press, click here.

For a "behind-the-scenes" look at those first 100 days from CBS news that includes a link (at the very end of the article) to the official slide show of being released today by the White House, click here.  Or go to the official White House Web site.

For a typically fussy British assessment of the economy and Obama's first 100 days, click here for a BBC article.

How about Michelle Obama's first 100 days?  Click here.

And how about some adorable photos of Sasha and Malia Obama?  Click here.

Let's not forget this guy.  

To understand what the first 100 days of a Presidency can reveal, click here for a Wall Street Journal article. 

For spring gardening tips, click here.

To learn how many clowns can fit into a Volkswagen Beetle, click here.

Okay, sistas and mistas . . . what's your assessment of Obama's First 100 Days? 

You can tell us.  O, O, O, yes you can!

Eva

Meet Eva . . . Flannista's guardian angel. 

Eva (named after the Eva in "Wall-E") is a six-pound miniature, long-haired dachshund that befriended Flan about four months ago while Flan was out walking all 86 pounds of Huckleberry.  The moment I saw Eva, I was like Wall-E -- completely smitten.  Huck was a bit confused at first, but then he too saw the love.  At lunch time, we always walk by Eva's house, hoping to catch her in the yard.  When she's there and sees us, she races to her yard fence and leaps up to lick my face.

Like I said, I'm completely in love.  Sometimes I think Isaac sent her to me as a way to say, "Who loves ya, kiddo?"

In addition to that, I think the I-Man put Eva in my life to teach me about judging too quickly.  About a year ago, the Sassistas!^TM published a post called, "The Strangers Among Us."  Here is a portion of it:

There she is again.

About four times a day, a woman walks up and down the street outside Flannista's study window. She's been doing this for about seven months now – through rain and snow. Every day she wears the same pants, the same shirt (always mis-buttoned) and the same bedroom slippers. Depending on the weather, she'll also have on a sweater or a coat (always the same ones, also mis-buttoned). Flannista often passes her during day-time walks with the dog. The woman does not comb or brush her hair. Her complexion is alarmingly ruddy and her frozen, forward gaze never deviates. The first few times they passed each other, Flannista said hello. The woman did not look and did not break pace.

Who is she? Where does she live? Flannista asked several community long-timers and no one knows.

Guess who owns Eva?  Guess who I've gotten to know?  Yep, the stranger.  Her name is Trisha.  Her husband's name is Michael.  Their 24-year-old daughter's name is Katie.  Their dachshund's name is Eva.

Meet Eva -- Flannista's guardian angel . . . and yours.

One Bite

Beet "Tumbleweed"	Olive Oil "Bon-Bon"	"Bagels and Lox"

Cotton Candy Eel	Sweet Endings

It took two years to get in, but on Friday evening, the Sassistas!^TM with two other couples, bellied up to Cafe Atlantico's famous "Minibar" -- 27 mini-bites of deconstructed food that our three chefs recommended we eat in one bite or two.  Here was our menu:

MUNCHIES:  Pisco Sour/Beet "Tumbleweed"/Olive Oil "Bon-Bon"/"Mojito"/"Bagels and Lox"/Blue cheese and Almond/"Dragon's Breath" Popcorn/"Cornbread"/Boneless Chicken Wing/Steamed Brioche Bun with Caviar/Cotton Candy Eel.

FLAVORS & TEXTURES: "Sun-Dried Tomato Salad/Zucchini in Textures/Green Almonds and "Raisins"/Parmesan "Egg" with Migas/"Guacamole"/Salmon-Pineapple "Ravioli" with Crispy Quinoa/Smoked Oysters with Apples and Juniper/Sea Urchin with Hibiscus New England Clam Chowder/Breaded Cigala with Sea Salad/"Philly Cheesesteak"

PRE-DESSERT: Kumquats & Pumpkin Seed Oil

DESSERT:  Frozen Yogurt and Honey/Thai Dessert

SWEET ENDINGS: Chocolate Covered Corn Nuts/Mango Box/Saffron Gumdrop with Edible Wrapper

The photos above were taken with Flannista's iPhone.  She ate the beet thing, by the way, and loved it. The Olive Oil "Bon Bon's -- just look at those things -- don't you want to decorate a holiday tree with them?  The "Dragon's Breath" Popcorn had been dipped in some gas (?) and was served cold and as soon as you bit into it, smoke flared from your mouth and nostrils.  We're not making this up.  Yes, eel was really under the cotton candy.  The "raisins" in the Green Almonds and "Raisins" course were actually raisins from 1979 that had been preserved in port . . . no, wait, they were actually really old port that had jelled into a raisin-like thing that could only be paired with green almonds.  The Philly Cheesesteak -- seemingly the most traditional course on the menu -- was completely deconstructed, meaning the thin slices of steak were wrapped around a small bun filled with melted cheese.

The Sassistas!^TM were quite inspired by the meal and have decided to deconstruct some of the food we typically eat.  For example, peanut butter on an English muffin.  Why can't it be served like a small boat? Small roasted peanuts resting in a bite-size portion of muffin that is floating in melted butter in a peanut shell from 1984?

What about you, sistas and mistas?  How would you deconstruct a hamburger?  French fries?  A Popsicle?  Please share!  And let us know if you recommend one bite or two!

Poem About Light

Yesterday the Sassistas!^TM featured a quote about "light." Today we feature "Poem About Light," the last poem in a collection of poetry called Slamming Open the Door by Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno.  In 41 short poems, Bonanno recounts the murder of her daughter, Leidy (pronounced "Lady"; her nickname was "Ladybug"), who was strangled to death with a telephone cord by a jealous boyfriend.

You can try to strangle light:

use your hands and think

you've found the throat of it,

but you haven't. 

You can use a rope or a garrote

or a telephone cord,

but the light amorphous, implacable,

will make a fool of you in the end. 

You could make it your mission

to shut it out forever,

to crouch in the dark,

the blinds pulled tight --

still in the morning,

a gleaming little ray will betray you, poking

its optimistic finger

through a corner of the blind,

and then more light,

clever, nervy, impossible,

spilling out from the crevices

warming the shade.

This is the stubborn sun,

choosing to rise,

like it did yesterday,

like it will tomorrow.

You have nothing to do with it.

The sun makes it own history;

light has its way.

Light

Once, when I was confined to bed for the better part of a week, I spent hours watching the sunlight that came through the slats of my wooden blinds move down the white wall of my bedroom.  First thing in the morning it made honey-colored rectangles with soft edges.  By 10:00 a.m. the wall was striped with bands of light as straight as rulers.  By noon they looked more like the rungs of a ladder, dappled with leaves from the winged elm outside my window.  By 2:00 they had lost most of their character, as the sun moved over the roof of the house and left the front yard in deepening shadow.

This may sound boring to you, but it was not.  It was beautiful.  It was reassuring.  It gave me a place outside myself to go.  I did not have to do anything to make the light change.  It had a routine it followed all by itself whether I was awake to watch it or not.  If I did not like the way the light looked at a given moment, I knew it would change.  If I loved the way the light looked at a given moment, I knew it would change.  I could not speed it up and I could not slow it down.  Not to put too fine a point on it, the light was my life and I knew it.  Watching it, I became patient.  Letting it be, I became well.

There will always be people who run from every kind of pain and suffering, just as there will always be religions that  promise to put them to sleep.  For those willing to stay awake, pain remains a reliable altar in the world, a place to discover that a life can be as full of meaning as it is of hurt.  The two have never canceled each other out and I doubt they ever will, at least not until each of us -- or all of us together -- find the way through.

-- "The Practice of Feeling Pain" from An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith by Barbara Brown Taylor

April 2009 Open Mic

The sassosphere microphone is open, sistas and mistas. 
Please step up and dish whatever you like.  We're listening.
For those new to the sassosphere, the Sassistas!^TM sponsor
Open Mic the last Friday of every month.

War!

The Sassistas!^TM would like to acknowledge and thank the 10-year-old son of babysis for rhyming today's sass!

Notes on Earth Day

It's Earth Day, sistas and mistas! 

The Sassistas!^TM are certain that we don't need to remind you because every possible media outlet has been reminding you for at least a week now.  The "Today Show" logo, for example, is "green" this week, and if you glanced through your Sunday paper retail circulars, you discovered that everything from laundry detergent to toilet paper has done "green" right.  Not to be outdone, the Sassistas!^TM decided to go green by sprucing up the chandelier in Flannista's living room by making it multi-purpose!

We got the idea from an article in Sunday's New York Times Style Magazine about the chandelier you see pictured here: the Zettel'z Hanging Lamp by Ingo Maurer, described as "a sprightly nimbus of wires with small clips clasping little paper notes."  Our in-depth insassigation did not reveal what the notes actually say (yeah, they are included), but the Sassistas!^TM are assuming that for $1,200.00 (discounted to $821.00 at some websites) the chandelier notes reveal winning lottery numbers and/or nowayasista stock recommendations.

But honestly, is note-holding the ONLY use for this rather expensive home furnishing thingamagig?  We think not.  That's why we have re-purposed it as the Sassistas!^TM Party Sassosphere (SPS)!  Dig it, babies!  Last weekend, we skewered our SPS with Hot & Spicy Cheez-its, tater tots, pigs in blankets, olives and leftover Marshmallow Peeps!  No toothpicks were needed.  No trees were destroyed!  Guests simply stood on their tippy toes, gave the SPS a whirl and bit the bite that passed them!  And no dishes to clean up!  Wa-hoo!

But that's not all, sistas and mistas!  When not in use at parties, the SPS has an even higher purpose!  Guess where all those prayer post-its from Flannista's altar now reside?  Party, er, pray on!

Day of Remembrance

Pictured above is the cover image of a book called, I Never Saw Another Butterfly which features children's drawings and poems from the Terezin Concentration Camp, 1942-1944.

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day, a day established by Congress to remember the victims of the Holocaust.  More than 12,000 children under the age of 15 passed through the Terezin Concentration Camp, with more than 90 percent perishing.  In their poems and pictures, we see the daily misery of these uprooted children, as well as their courage and optimism, their hopes and fears.  Here is the title poem:

THE BUTTERFLY

The last, the very last,

So richly, brightly, dazzlingly yellow,

Perhaps if the sun's tears would sing

against a white stone . . . .

Such, such a yellow

Is carried 'way up high.

It went away I'm sure because it wished to

kiss the world good-bye.

For seven weeks I've lived in here,

Penned up inside this ghetto.

But I have found love here.

The dandelions call to me

And the white chestnut branches in the court.

Only I never saw another butterfly.

That butterfly was the last one.

Butterflies don't live in here,

in the ghetto.

-- 4.6.1942   Pavel Friedmann

Pavel Friedmann was deported from the ghetto to Terezin 20 days after writing this poem, and later to Auschwitz, where he died on September 29, 1944.