don't miss the VM!

What are you doing this weekend?



I'll be at the Vagina Monologues show on Saturday. The night show is sold out, but you can still get tickets for the matinee. Maybe I'll see you there!

take your daughters

...or your moms. Or your boyfriends...

Valentine's Day is coming up, and you know what that means... well, yes, mindless consumerism, again. But more importantly, there will be local benefit performances all over the world of Eve Ensler's amazing play, the Vagina Monologues. Here in Raleigh, a fabulous group of community performers will be staging their third annual production of the Vagina Monologues on Saturday, February 9th, with all proceeds going to the Women's Inmate Program of the Wake Literacy Council.

You don't want to miss this! The matinee show at the Rialto is a great place to take your mom, your daughter, your sister, your brother, your dad... to see a show that is hilarious, moving, and will help you start all those conversations that you don't know how to have with the people you're closest to. Sex? Yes. Love? Yes. Abuse? Yes, unfortunately. Hope? Joy? Fun? Yes, yes, yes!

I hear there are still some tickets left for the raucous late-night performance at the Pour House as well... but they're going fast!

Get your tickets at raleigh-vm.org. And make sure you tell some friends about it, too!



By the way, if you don't live in North Carolina, there are plenty of places to see this incredible show. Check out vday.org to find out where!



PS... thanks to Liz Winfrey for the great photos from last year's show.

hoohas!

For those of you who live in North Carolina, I know I will be seeing you tomorrow at the Vagina Monologues show in Raleigh. If you haven't bought your tickets yet, the late show at Kings is SOLD OUT because this show is not to be missed, but there are still seats for the matinee at the Rialto, so go get yours while they last!

So everyone has been to see the Vagina Monologues, right? (If not, it's an incredibly powerful play by Eve Ensler that uses personal monologues from all kinds of women to de-dirtify the vagina's image and get into the love, anger, joy, abuse, courage, shame and transformation that we live as women). The play is usually performed on or around Valentine's Day, so there are performances happening all over the country right now (find one near you!). A group of Raleigh women are performing it tomorrow as a benefit for Planned Parenthood - this is their second year performing the show and they are fabulous.

Apparently some Floridians will be performing the show this weekend too, but the publicity has been a little harder for them. Yesterday's most-watched video on CNN was a news story about the theater in Florida where the show is being performed. The theater had to take the word "vagina" off their marquee because of local complaints. Their solution? The "Hooha Monologues."

How very mature.

They had heard from people who were offended after driving by and had to explain to their little daughters what a vagina is. Personally, I'd consider that a public service.

our war: now bigger and badder

I have heard complaints from many of you that the war in Iraq just wasn't very impressive. Not enough dead bodies, not enough murder and mayhem, not enough scandal. "I want to see more ass-kicking," is the most common criticism that most of us have heard of this war.

Well, fear not. More mayhem is on the way.

Last night our President laid out his plan for Extreme Tweaking of the Iraq strategy, with a great big 15% temporary bump in troop levels that is sure to win the day. Because being a loser isn't an option for Mr. Bush.

Look out, Baghdad! We will kick down more doors! We will smash more houses in! We will stalk more neighborhoods together with our allies in the Iraqi Police-by-day-Militia-by-night squads. Do those sound like the activities of "losers"? I should think not.

With all the ass-kicking that is about to ensue, how could the Iraquis not come to love us American winners? And with that love will naturally blossom peace, freedom, stability, the death of Osama and an end to the terrorist killers that want to murder us in our freedom-loving beds.

If we were to start bringing our troops back now, they would have to miss out on all the fun ass-kicking that they will get to do under this bold new Tweaking, and that would not be fair to the troops or to their families, who at this point are willing to give up another 6 months with their loved ones, or possibly risk death, because of the great first-hand stories they will get to hear about our awesome war later at their dinner tables. I really hope the Democrats don't try to deny them this family experience they so richly deserve.

Also, there will be some kind of diplomacy, or political finagling, or something in Iraq, because of course there will be. It will be really impressive, we just don't have the details yet... I'm sure those are being strategerized right now. But details, schmetails - let's kick some more ass!

go blue

A knit-a-long for Democrats! Inspired left-leaning liberal knit-ranting? Political fodder for your Stitch & Bitch group?

Well, at the moment it's mostly blue stash-flashing... but Knit Blue is up and running and who knows what sort of revolution it might launch, thanks to the inspiration of Emma over at Stitch & Sue. Go check it out! Or better yet, join in!

I have joined, though I have yet to post my rant or flash any blue stash. While I typically vote straight on down the 'D' column, it feels funny to identify myself so strongly as belonging to one party. For my whole life I was registered 'unaffiliated,' and I have occasionally voted for dark-horse third-party candidates (and occasionally even a Republican - gasp! - when they were the best candidate, which really is hardly ever). But of course I am overjoyed at the recent pummeling the D's dished out to the bedraggled congressional Republicans, and can't say there's another party I'd vote for even one-one-hundredth as often as I vote for Dems.

So... I guess it's okay to self-identify this way, even if it's not my whole identity, right? It all feels so conformist... and yet, so good to be on the winning team - for a change.

Post-Script
Something weird is happening over at Blogger, as you may have noticed. My font has been changed - with no notice! How I hate serifs. Ick. Hopefully I'll get this straightened out soon... in the meantime, enjoy the new look, I guess!

your gavel, madam speaker

Hot diggity Democrats! What a night. We are doing the happy dance over here at Chez Pea. I am happy to report that of the handful of friends of ours who were running for various state and local offices, all of them have won their respective races. Yay! And on the Big Scene, well, you don't need me to tell you that we have an historic first woman Speaker of the House, or that the R's had kind of a bad night.


goodbye Charles Taylor, don't let the door hit you on the way out


hellfire & brimstone for Santorum


best Governor ever (I'm considering moving to NY...)

It's a good thing I practiced up on my dance moves over the weekend, cause I used them all up watching these election returns come in! I was thinking of knitting Nancy Pelosi a nice gavel cover for Norovember. What do you think?

best war ever

Go watch this web movie! www.TheBestWarEver.com

John Stauber & Sheldon Rampton have a new book out, The Best War Ever: Lies, Damned Lies and the Mess in Iraq. These are the guys from PR Watch, and I have long been a fan of their books, including Toxic Sludge is Good for You, one of the books that led me down this path to full-time environmental health advocacy (what I do when I'm not doing most of the stuff I blog about).

The concept from this book that freaks me out the most: infectious propaganda: When you actually believe your own spin, and it leads you down the path to defeat.
[shudder]

mountains alive, morbid fascinations

Sunday was a great day. We took a long hike along Slate Stone Ridge in the high Pisgahs. It felt so good to push hard up the mountain, get really sweaty and tired just walking and seeing beautiful things.

We did see a lot of beautiful things, too; lots of wildflowers: bluets, galax, fairy wand, flame azaleas, mountain laurel, and sundrops were all blooming, along with a lot of other things I can't name. We flushed up some quail, and we saw deer and red-tail hawk and heard lots of songbirds.

One thing that was unusual for us, was that HWWLLB and his family had never been on this trail before. They all grew up hiking in the Pisgahs and seem to know every hill and holler, but this was a new spot for all of them. And the view! When we came out to a big bald rock we had about a 200 degree view, with nothing but hills and trees as far as you could see. Sitting there looking out, you could imagine that the whole world was just forest. It was a wonderful feeling.

In the car on the way home I made the little hat to go with the baby wrapper.


luckily there's a model head in my attic for just such occasions. thanks bugeart!

And here's a shot of the wrapper - finally finished.


i love love love the blue sky alpacas organic cotton

I'm excited about the small world of knitting projects open to me right now. I could finish the colorbox sweater, or make a pair of socks from my new copy of Knitting Vintage Socks and some lovely Secret Pal sock yarn, or get out the ribbon yarn I ordered eons ago to make a crazy but elegant top I've been planning for this fall's Stitch & Bitch charity fashion show/auction (gotta start early). (I'm not using that awful rainbow yarn color, by the way).

But I also have my eye on the little Dia de los Muertos dolls they have in the crazy summer edition of Knit.1. There's not a picture of them on the website, but they are at the end of the cool Frida Kahlo section. I like this Knit.1 - at least, I like all the crazy colors and photography and wacky patterns. But I kept checking the cover thinking it was an advertising circular for Lion Brand - since every single pattern is knit with Lion Brand yarn. But no - it claims to be a Vogue Knitting magazine. I don't get it - looks like the spawn of an unholy alliance to me. But I still love those dolls anyway... so morbid/cute!

Although you know, as much as I love Frida Kahlo and her paintings and all her chunky jewelry and morbid fascinations, she did not look like Salma Hayek in real life! Not at all! She was short and squat and had a big moustache and a unibrow, so stop it with the willowy babes already!

Whew, rant over. Thanks. I just hate how beauty has only one shape these days: skinny chick with bazoombas. There are other beautiful shapes besides that one. In fact, that one is kind of freaky if you ask me.

So what was this post about? Mountains or something, I don't know. Anyhow, thanks for reading. And check out the espresso art. So cool!