PAULA WHYMAN

The pork industry is upset. The rest of us are pretty upset, too. But the pork industry is upset because people are avoiding their products since they associate swine flu with pork. Imagine that.



These industry folks would like a name change to reflect that the flu virus is a combination virus, not just a swine flu.



I bet they'd like to call it "bovine flu." Yeah, the pork industry people were full of sympathy during the whole Mad Cow thing.



The birds, for their part, are like, don't mess with us, don't even think of pinning another flu virus on us, because, remember, we can dive-bomb your car windows the next time you park under that maple. No pig can do that.



So, anyway, what do they suggest? Well, the EU Health Commissioner must've been thinking about prosciutto sales when he proposed that the virus be renamed
"novel flu."



The "novel flu"? I know all about that. I have it. There's no vaccine yet, but don't worry, it's not contagious.


What to do if you've got it? Write a thousand words a day, and call your agent in the morning.






Thanks to CuriousProgeny the Younger for the title to this blog entry.

Some of you know that I can't eat cheese at the moment. While this is lamentable, it's not the end of the world. Not yet. But I think I wasn't aware of just how important cheese is to me. Of course, we don't appreciate things like this until they're gone, that's always how it is. It's been almost 4 weeks, and if and when I get the go-ahead, I'm going to eat an entire wheel of Epoisse at one sitting.



My search for what I hope is only a temporary replacement has led me to the product known as soy cheese. After trying a few brands, I can only wonder what the point is in calling it "cheese," when it's actually tofu, flattened and compressed into something that looks like a slice of Kraft American, which is, itself, decidedly NOT cheese. I have nothing against tofu; I like it in a stir fry, but...



Maybe there is some delectable soy cheese out there that mimics Ste. Nectaire or aged goat cheese or Vermont white cheddar. Maybe, but I doubt it. So, okay, I say to myself, perhaps this stuff is better cooked, when the flavor is less important. But trust me, if you're making grilled soy cheese sandwiches, you're not going to be happy with the outcome. And soy cheese pizza? Bleah.



I suppose my findings shouldn't surprise me. I so hoped it would be otherwise. Soy cheese is for when you can't avoid it, when something that looks like cheese is all that will do, but the real thing is out.



It reminds me a little bit of the time I learned that when they film ice cream commercials, they use mashed potatoes as a stand-in for the ice cream, because otherwise the product melts during the numerous takes. So the actors are making joyous, "isn't this delicious" faces, while eating scoops of mashed potatoes, apparently.



Mmmm! Soy cheese!

(Was that convincing?)

I know I'm not the first one to mock the title of the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). But clearly, the program's title was chosen deliberately, so why wasn't more thought given to the meaning of its acronym?



Granted, TARP isn't as bad as the acronym for the Virginia public school assessments: SOL (I'm not making that up.)



The thing about a TARP is, it's good for covering things up, and for throwing over a wood pile to keep the rain off, but it doesn't materially improve anything or make anything go away--it only hides things. And, as for the wood, it's less work to cover it with a tarp than to build a shed to keep your wood dry, but in the end, puddles collect in it, and mosquitoes breed in the puddles, and then you've got another problem. So, make sure you don't let rainwater collect in your TARP.

A TARP is a quick, temporary fix. As soon as you remove it, the problem returns, the wood gets wet, and then, of course, it's no good at all.



TARP may not be a bad program--I'm not really qualified to judge--but as an acronym, I'd like to throw a tarp over it. (I know, groan, groan.)

Russian media has reported that a man who complained to doctors of severe chest pains was told he had a fir tree growing inside his lung.



I know, I know. I posted this on Facebook, but I just can't get enough of it.

Full Story here



What about photosynthesis? How exactly does that work inside a LUNG?? (See, I took college botany! And that makes me...a person who took the lab science she thought would be the easiest one...)