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Strega Nona Meets Her Match by Tomie dePaola

Wherein Strega Nona defeats her business competition by sending in a saboteur.

I was researching books that I might give to my niece and I came across this gem.

Strega Nona is a traditional healer in a little town in Calabria. Her friend Strega Amelia is a healer from over the mountain. Strega Amelia comes for a visit and sees what a good business Strega Nona has in the town and decides to compete with her. Strega Amelia says, “I see she still uses the old-fashioned ways too. Hmm, I’ll have to think about this.” Strega Amelia goes home and returns a week later, setting up her shop. She offers modern, effective remedies and “free sweets and coffee with every visit.”

Strega Amelia is an instant hit! After a few weeks, everyone in the town has realized that Strega Amelia supplies better products and services than Strega Nona and Stella Nona’s tired old business has dried up completely.

So what does Strega Nona do? She gets her helper, Big Anthony to infiltrate Strega Amelia’s company. Then, when Amelia is away on business, Big Anthony finds his moment and sabotages Amelia’s corporate image. At the height of his attack, he “forgets” how to operate the headache relieving machine and almost kills the mayor.

Strega Amelia returns the next day only to be run out of town. Strega Nona works her magic one last time and makes sure her fingerprints aren’t on the crime.

And everyone lives happily ever after. (?!?!?!) Yes, it really plays out like that. This book sends a very bad message.

In the next Strega Nona book she gets even with her mean neighbor by framing her for a felony. Then Strega Nona orders a hit on the mayor. Hilarity ensues!

Charlotte and I have filed with the state. Our new earthquake preparedness service is to be called Safe and Secure SF.

Our business cards read:

Personalized Earthquake Preparedness Services

We help you be prepared! Safer interiors, safety plans,
food & supplies, financial info & data backup.

There’s been all this talk about buying carbon credits for the Serpent Mother for Burning Man since she burns 500 gallons of propane per night. That’s right, 1 ton of pureed dinosaur per nocturne. And the new theme is “The Green Man” (here I was thinking that was all Walden-Thoreau-y “Man’s interaction with nature” and they’re thinking “Biodisel uber-alis”)

Here’s a perfect suggestion of how to deal with this from Coyoteblog (via TJIC).

By the way, I wonder if it will occur to anyone that if you really want to offset carbon, you probably need to clear cut old growth forests, bury the logs, and plant new trees.

One (or more) of my snazzy WordPress plugins is making my WP2 install run slowly. So I’ll be fiddling with WordPress plugins for a while. I’ll display another theme for a while until I figure out what’s up. Here’s a pretty theme as a replacement, Thirteen.

Check it out!

Swarm web site

( local archive of proposal) (local archive of video)

Charlotte and I will be there

It’s not Valentine’s Day, it’s

PILLOW FIGHT Day!

Where: Justin Herman Plaza (Market & Embarcadero), San Francisco, CA.

When: Wednesday, February 14th, when the Ferry Building clock strikes 6pm.

What: PILLOW FIGHT!!!

How:

1) Tell everyone you know about Pillow Fight!
2) Tell EVERYONE YOU KNOW about Pillow Fight!!!
3) Nothing in your pillow but pillow.
4) Don’t hit anyone with out a pillow.
5) Don’t hit anyone operating a camera.

Last year’s Pillow Fight was *amazing*! Let’s make the magic happen again! Please bring a few trash bags to share and help pick up after wards.

February 14, 2007
Starts at 06:00 PM

Venue Information
Justin Herman Plaza
Market & Embarcadero
San Francisco, CA 94111

Save the date: April 8th, 11am-4pm
Easter, Ostara, and the ancient fertility rite of consuming chocolate, having brunch, Egg-coloring, Scones, Chobunnpegelly, and perhaps Peeps…

We reserve the right to take it to Dolores Park, if the weather cooperates.

More info to follow…..

“I’m in charge of the knives and the wine!”

That was proudly proclaimed by Shani at the height of our impromptu dinner party on Saturday night. I was planning on going out to an Extra Action Marching Band performance at 12 Galaxies and Charlotte was planning on staying in for a quiet evening. But when I opened the apartment door, I saw Shani and Aaron setting the table in the dining/living/bed/office room! And then I heard a voice in the kitchen… it was our neighbor Lori! I walked in and hugged Shani… a moment later, there was a knock at the door. It was our other neighbor, Cindy! Wow!   It was a party!

After we had sat down and had served the Zigeuner Schnitzel, and spaetzele, carrots sauteed with bacon, fresh bread, and homemade coleslaw, the doorbell rang!! It was Cindy’s friend Ken! That’s 7 for dinner!

It was after about the fourth bottle of wine when Shani was returning from the kitchen, implements in-hand that she she said it, “I’m in charge of the knives and the wine!” Happily, Charlotte took one of them out of her hands.

What a great night! Constant conversation, a stone soup dinner (port wine, red velvet cake and other items appeared in our house :-), and seven bottles of wine!

The Hand of God is returning from Australia on a slow boat. The Lotus Girls have all made it back already. I was all excited to see this image at their last show. Do you see the little bracket under the big flexible pipe? It is sitting pretty much right under the yellow handled ball valve. I made that! (image via)

I just finished installing WordPress 2.1. If you notice anything wonky, please tell me.

With the installation of WP 2.1, I was finally able to fix Spam Karma‘s captcha. That should do a good job against the increasing number of almost-false-negative comment spams.