my wake-up song

We have Direct TV out of Puerto Rico and while we get a lot of Caribbean weather reports by a man in a Hawaiian shirt with a fake parrot on his shoulder and a lot of commercials for drugstores in places like the Cayman Islands, the early morning news is from the network affiliates in New York City.

Every morning since the Discovery Space Shuttle launched, the NBC affiliate plays a little clip of the song that NASA plays to wake up the astronauts who are currently docked with the International Space Station. NASA actually held a voting contest and I guess the top songs are being played during the mission. The winning songs include such hits as "Blue Sky" by Big Head Todd, the Star Trek Theme Song, "Magic Carpet Ride" by Steppenwolf, "Countdown" by Rush, "Over the Rainbow" by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole.

As I've heard the news of the wake-up song and actually seen the footage of the astronauts stirring to the music, I started thinking that it might be nice to have my own wake-up music other than that awful, harsh beeping of two alarm clocks. (We obsessive-compulsive Type A personalities always set 2 alarm clocks in case the batteries die in one overnight.)

So then I thought "what could be my inspirational, get-up and get-moving music playlist?" I googled "theme music for housewives" and do you want to know what I got?

1. Desperate Housewives Theme Song
2. The Real Housewives of Atlanta Theme Song
3. The Real Housewives of New Jersey Theme Song

I took out the "theme" and just googled "music for housewives" and got a hit for the "Music for Lonely Housewives" CD and "Music for Desperate Housewives" CD.

Then I saw a top 10 list of "songs for housewives" that was just created in late January. You want to know the list (as copied exactly by one "dunmurry" on About.com? Prepare to be depressed:

10 The B-52´s - Housework
9 Lady Madonna - Beatles
8 Leiber and Stoller's "I'm A Woman"
7 Help me- Sonny Boy Williamson II.
6 Shake Rattle And Roll - Loved Ones / Bill Haley
5 Dust My Broom - Renee Geyer / Elmore James
4 Stan Rogers - Lies
3 My Little Town - Paul Simon ['....hanging out shirts in the dirty breeze'
2 Semi Detached Suburban Mr James - Mannfred Mann['.....hanging things upon the line as your life slips away .....'
1 Dreams Of The Everyday Housewife - Wayne Newton [best version IMO :)]

The astronauts get "Over the Rainbow" and I get "Dust My Broom"???? Are you kidding me?

I'm just sticking to the beeping alarm clock.

NYR 3-3-11 TENNIS

For getting back into tennis (with a new instructor because my old instructor is a master of disappearing), I am truly grateful (even if my body says otherwise).

a funny from my friend Beth K in Sao Paulo

The worm in the broccoli is proof that the early bird really does get the worm!!! Thanks for the chuckle Beth!

and would you like some roasted worm on the side?

I roast just about any vegetable that can be roasted and I roast veggies often, but for some reason, it never crossed my mind to roast broccoli. Then I read a friend's Facebook post about roasted broccoli and decided to try it tonight.

I bought a beautiful head of broccoli this morning (read below for more about that big 10% discount I got on that broccoli!), cut it up and washed it this afternoon.

I put the broccoli on the roasting pan, added some olive oil and salt, and put that pan in the oven to let the magic begin.

Soon the smells of roasted broccoli were wafting around the apartment. I went down to toss the broccoli around to make sure it was cooking evenly and imagine my horror when I found this:


Now you might be saying, "Well Susan, I can't really see what that is next to the broccoli. It looks like it could be a worm, but surely you weren't roasting worms?"

Yes, sadly, I was roasting a very big, very fat, very black worm that apparently had been hiding out in the tree part of the broccoli. I'm ready to vomit. And throw that cookie sheet away forever since it's got roasted worm juice on it now.
I don't know when I'm going to next decide to eat broccoli, but I can assure you that it will be cut into such small pieces before cooking that it won't even resemble broccoli.

NYR 3-2-11 - early bird specials!

This morning I'd planned to go grocery shopping with a friend before our tennis class. The tennis class got cancelled because of rain, but the grocery trip went off as planned, except for the savings we incurred just by shopping early.

Several chains here do a weekly "sunrise special" where you get some percentage off your groceries just for shopping before 9am. Unbeknownst to us, we early birds got the worm this morning at our store.

The worm? 10% off our grocery bills!

It was our lucky day and for that, I am truly thankful!

NYR 3-1-11

For a mother who taught me how to cook and gave me confidence to try new recipes, I am truly thankful.

NYR 2-28-11

For the wonderful healing powers of Zithromax, I am truly thankful.