Jersild Day is fast approaching, and I was discussing plans with Angie. (Note: Alex is Angie's son; Janie is my mother. )

sjerslix: Hey, you going to bring Alex out to El Dia de los Jersilds?
KestingAJ: is espanol the theme this year?
KestingAJ: Donde esta Alex? Alex esta al Dia de los Jersilds. Ah, bueno!
sjerslix: Yeah. Mexican day of the dead meets goth meets come as your favorite Jersild, who does not necessarily need to exist
KestingAJ: Shut UP - come as your favorite Jersild? cool.
sjerslix: Yeah
KestingAJ: goth version of Janie. cool
sjerslix: Knitting with spiderwebs and quilting burial shrouds...

Well, it made me laugh.

(There was also the point where Angie said, in reference to a digression about American Idol and other reality shows, "all this idol talk has me distracted." Idol talk... idol chatter... GET IT?

Well, it made her laugh.)

It's very cold in Chicago at the moment. This is not a great surprise, as it's (1) Chicago, and (2) winter, but it's still a bit of an affront to walk out the door and have the snot in your nose freeze up with the first breath. That's just wrong.

Wendy and I have very different home-heating philosophies. She seems to think you should be able to wear a t-shirt inside your house; I figure you just shouldn't see your breath. What can I say, it's the way I was raised -- I seem to remember the heat being turned off completely at night. I could be wrong about that, though.

Wendy checked in with me yesterday to make sure I hadn't succumbed to the cold. "I just wanted to make sure you weren't just putting on another sweater. And another. And another...." I scoffed. It's not that cold in here, and I do have a heat-producing cat who tends to stay on or about my person for most of the day.

Thing is, I was wearing two sweaters today. That probably counts as a sign I should turn up the heat. It's nicely warm -- ok, it's 68 degrees, which is perfectly adequate -- in the back of the house and the small rooms, but not the big rooms and the office. My office is, in fact, the coldest room in the house. Oops. I planned that badly. However, as half the time I'm working in my pjs and polarfleece robe, it's not that big a deal.

I love freelancing.

Tired. Really should sleep at some point.

It's the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Much consternation abounds. I caught a story on NPR today: The folks who promote abstinence-only sex-ed are apparently taking credit for the falling rates of teen abortions. I have a feeling that has more to do with sex becoming potentially deadly again, and people realizing that teaching a kid to use a condom may not be a bad idea after all.

Not so! say the abstinence educators. Rates of STDs have increased even as abortions have fallen! And maybe that has more to do with (1) better reporting and tracking, and (2) a bunch of kids who don't realize that you can still get an STD through non-penatrative sex. They don't know that confining your sexual activity to blow jobs doesn't actually protect you from STD cooties.

Look, I wouldn't want anyone to have to go through an abortion. I'm grateful as hell that I've never had to. But I'm equally grateful that, if worst came to worst, I would be able to.

What I don't get -- will never get -- is the folks who want to ban abortion and also want to castrate, as it were, sex-ed. You may not like it, but sex is more than just the mechanism by which we perpetuate the species. People are going to have recreational sex. We're hardwired for it -- otherwise, we'd go into heat every so often like the stray cats in my back yard. So, if you really want to end the practice of abortion, shouldn't you be all over safe, available, effective contraception? It just stands to reason.

I can be cogent and well-reasoned onthis topic. Just evidentally not now.

Fun with media, part one:

Saveur magazine runs The Saveur 100 in their Jan/Feb issue every year -- 100 cool food-related things that catch their eyes. They talk about ingredients, restaurants, trends, chefs, tools... whatever strikes their fancy. This year, number 62 is Fernando's Restaurant in Macau. God, that made me smile.

Macau is about a hour or so by hydrofoil from Hong Kong. Like Hong Kong, it's a former colony, a sprinkling of tiny islands just off the vast bulk of mainland China. But the character is totally different. It was a Portuguese colony, and the pace of life was much more Mediterranean than British. We'd go over there for quick getaways, just to remind ourselves that life wasn't always completely frantic. There weren't many high-rises -- I can't remember if there were any at all, actually -- and there was actual empty land between buildings, which was unheard of in Hong Kong. We'd wander the streets and go to the old fortress, where a monk fended off the British with a single luckyu cannon shot; look at the courtyards and churches; and sit under the trees or on the terraces of the big fancy colonial hotel overlooking the water ... what was it called again? I can't remember. I'd try to decipher the Portuguese signs using my pitiful French (It's not as silly as it seems -- and I'd have better luck with Portuguese than with Chinese.)

Macau was also popular for its casinos and legalized gambling. I never saw the point of that.

Fernando's was reason enough to go to Macau. It's this amazing place right on the beach on one of the less-populated islands -- Coloane? -- looking out into the South China Sea. The food is incredible -- I especially remember the garlicky shrimp that had me sucking on my fingers for days. I never knew exactly what I was eating, as the menu was just in Portuguese and Chinese. I loved it there so much.

Now I want to go back, just to taste that shrimp and listen to the waves again.

Fun with media, part two:

A letter in The Economist magazine: Sir - You unfairly depict George Bush as an "enthusiastic, if imperfect, speaker of Spanish." He is, after all, an enthusiastic, if imperfect, speaker of English. Hee.

I love the Economist. Thanks to my sisters and brother in law, who got me a subscription for Christmas.

Dear whoever invented/discovered miso soup --

Thank you.

Love, Sarah