Oh reader(s), you are just so smart!

Dear Reader(s),

I think you are brilliant. I value your comments and think they are all fascinating and insightful. I recently heard the phrase "Blogs are the reality TV of the Internet." And while sometimes that is true, I like to think my blog is far less insipid and obnoxious than Reality TV as a genre. (Ok, I have my moments for insipid and obnoxious, but I like to think that's not the overriding theme here, ok?)

St. D of the E posted a comment yesterday that I thought was wonderful, and I'd like to post the best part here where everyone can see it so its not hidden in the "comments" section. Maybe you have to know St. D of the E to really see the beauty of this comment and how it clearly influences his decisions throughout each day, but I think it will strike a chord with everyone. Or at least I hope it does.

"When our principled actions seem ineffective, and we become haunted by our inconsistencies, let us remember that a single candle can illuminate a room, and
we are more significant than we can see. Let us not become weary in well-doing,
but, persistently pressing on, let us constantly and firmly hope in the indomitability of a life lived with integrity."

Oh, so you "found" my transcripts!

I called TU again the other day to see if they had "found" my "misplaced" transcripts. I had originally told JS that I didn't want to resend them, as that is a hassle and it costs money. (Mostly, I just didn't want to resend them on principle. I did the right thing, YOU lost 'em, and now that's YOUR problem, not mine. But I wasn't about to cut off my nose to spite my face and tell JS that.) I also called to see if the misplacement of my transcripts would result in a longer wait for a decision on financial aid (read: fellowship moneys). The conversation went something like this:

LR: Hi, JS, this is LR from Madison, WI. I am just calling to see if you had located my transcripts yet.

JS: Oh, hi, LR. No, we have everything except your transcripts. We're still waiting for them to arrive.

[LR thinks, "ARRIVE?"]

LR: Um, well, Mr. S, I'm pretty sure they are there. They were sent in December. I can't imagine that both of them got lost in the mail.

JS: [Getting more annoyed by the second] Well, they must have been sent to the wrong place. This is a small office and there aren't too many places they could be. If they were here, we'd know.

LR: [rolling her eyes at obvious incompetency] Well, they were sent to the EBCofM at TU. I can't imagine there's more than one of those. I'm really just wondering if this is going to affect financial aid decisions.

JS: Well, it might. [Getting more and more aggravated.] I'll look one more time and check with the faculty and call you back.

LR: Great, thanks, I appreciate it.

Now, reader(s), why do you suppose JS was so pissy? Is it because I was politely challenging his claim that they had not received my information? Its certainly not because I was argumentative, because (and I'm being as objective as possible here) I really wasn't being pissy. I was really just asking if it would affect the date that I would hear about financial aid awards. Perhaps JS was mad because he's having a bad day. Or perhaps I'm not the only person this has happened to. But anyway, in the meanwhile, I called UD and UW and found that my transcripts had indeed been sent to the correct place. I was armed and ready for him to call back and blame me for this.

*RING, RING*

LR: Hello?

Voice: Is this LR?

LR: Yes.

Voice: Hi, I'm calling from Temple. I just wanted to let you know that we found your transcripts. They were misfiled under "LRi" instead of "LRo." [Note to readers: LRi is my middle name, LRo is my last name.]

LR: Well, that's a relief. I'm just glad they're not missing.

Voice: That was my fault and I apologize. We'll proceed with your application.

LR: Thanks so much for calling, have a nice day.


Funny things about this exchange:
1) JS did not call me back. His secretary did.
2) Kudos to the secretary for admitting fault and apologizing.
3) Is "RI" really so far from "RO" in their obviously meticulous filing system?
4) Why did I have to call three times before this relatively obvious problem was fixed?
5) Reference JS's comment in first conversation, "If they were here, we would know." Um, yeah, I now don't believe a word of ANYTHING you say.

Why are we reinventing the wheel here, people? What is so damn hard about this? If this was a pretty easy problem to fix, why did it take so long to do!?

Razom Nas Bahato!

I'd like to give a shout-out to AB for providing fodder for this post. He sends me all sorts of interesting stuff. Thanks, AB.

Remember that pesky little news blurb that might have gotten about 35 seconds of time on the Nightly News with Brian Williams around December? This is post-November 2nd fallout and pre-tsunami devastation... the blurb was about Kiev. Where's that? In the Ukraine. Where's that? It used to be part of Russia, remember? Iron curtain and all that? Got it? With me?

Good.

In a nutshell: they had some election fraud issues. (Sound familiar?) Lots of people protested in the square in Kiev, and finally they declared Yushenko the new leader of the country. Well, AB emailed me this link to a protest song called Razom Nas Bahato which means "Together we are many." The song is a euro-hip-hop remix of protest songs that were being sung, and besides being politically interesting, some the minor-keyed Russian folk melodies make for interesting music. The site it came off of is a very interesting blog to peruse called Orange Ukraine, and it's written by an American who lives in the Ukraine. "Orange Ukraine" refers to the color used in Yushenko's campaign.

Reading through the contents of this page has really made me think about protest movements. It makes me ponder the power of organizing, and also the importance that one person can have on a "movement." Protests in Kiev had the power to make a positive change on the Ukraine, and possibly on the world. But protests are made up of people who have strong beliefs and talk about the things that are wrong and right in society. And while I've been known to protest on occasion, I think that, for me, the way to go about changing the world is by trying to live the way that I feel is peaceful and responsible. I try to make sure that all of my actions are in line with the way that I think that the world should be run.

Does that always work out? Definitely not. We're all hypocrites at some point or another. But I have had this feeling lately that people feel defeated, like one person can't possibly make a difference. But that's just not true. If I recycle and try to be environmentally responsible, perhaps it'll make others think about doing so too. If I speak up when I hear something that I disagree with, perhaps it will encourage others to think for themselves and will therefore effect their actions on this earth.

Protest are great. But that doesn't mean that one person can't make a difference, too. One of my all time favorite quotes is by Margaret Mead:

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful,

committed citizens can change the world.

Indeed, its the only thing that ever has."

The 11th circuit court of appeals in Atlanta is my new favorite.

(When did my blog get so overtly political? Oh yeah, about three days ago. Cool.)

Here I go, people, I'm going to blog about Terry Schiavo. Everyone else is doing it, why shouldn't I?

First, let me say this: My heart bleeds for Terry's parents and husband. What has befallen their sister/wife is a tragedy. But what is also a tragedy is the fact that no one will let her die in peace.

I can see both sides of the coin here, but at some point, I would think that the "right to life" movement is also the "right to death" movement. It seems like they're all arguing the same thing. Why isn't there a "right to live with dignity and die in peace" movement? I like that one. Even for one who doesn't join things, I'd join that.

I applaud the 11th circuit court of appeal's decision yesterday not to reinstate Terry's feeding tube. As far as a religious motivation for it all, I don't know; how about just a human motivation for it?

That's all I'm really sayin'.

I had no idea that when I posted AB's email that it would spark this much interesting commentary from my friends, and I want to weigh in on some things that have been on my mind.

I'm not a joiner. I don't join groups, really. I'm a musician, so I spend a good deal of my professional life trying to "play well with others." But besides my professional commitments, I don't join clubs or societys. I'm not really a "member" of anything. Hell, I even let my International Horn Society membership lapse. So its not a surprise that I don't really align myself with any religious group. If you want to join a church, go right ahead. Hell, this is America, we were founded on the principals of religious freedom. But I'd like to point out that we also have the freedom FROM religion as well, so if I don't want to go to church, I don't have to. God bless America.

I see a lot of ideas coming from religious groups that bother me. I know that individuals within that group are not all the same and may not have the same principals as the group does. But it is these groups that hate my gay friends and deny them their civil right to be married. These groups think I'm going to hell because I am pro-choice. These are often the people who use God to preach hate and greed. I have difficulty being tolerant of intolerance. So that is part of why I have a problem with organized religious groups.

I don't have a problem if you want to wear a wristband that says "WWJD" if you really want to think about the teachings of Jesus and how they might impact your life. But I also don't have a problem making a statement like "WWJB," because I think that Jesus' message has been obscured and misinterpreted. I think that things like "WWJB" serves to point out the hypocrisy of WWJD. WWJB serves the same function for me as WWJD bands serve for others. It makes me think about how we use the teachings of Jesus to dictate our actions. Is it ironic, snarky, and mean? Yes. Will it alienate some people from listening to what I have to say? Most likely, but were they going to listen, truly listen, to what I have to say anyway? Recent experience tells me probably not. I can't be tolerant of intolerance, and for that reason, I have no problem with the idea that I might alienate some "Christians" by using irony and humor to point out one of the reasons that I disagree with them.

I think Jesus was a really great guy, no matter how you think of him (God, Son of God, visionary, cool dude with great hair, whatever). I have a problem with the way Jesus is used to justify things that I don't think he would have been in favor of. Are people going to disagree with me? Yes. Is that ok? Yes.

This is all serious stuff, but I'd like to close this post with the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. I keep this quote above my desk, as a reminder.

Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it.
Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it.
Hatred darkens life; love illumines it.

Jesus preached love. That's all I'm really sayin'.

WWJB?

WWJB is a clever take on those annoying "WWJD" bracelets that the so-called Christians wear/tout as their mantra. "What Would Jesus Do" is a reminder that Jesus will take you down the right path, and if you just do as you think that Jesus might have, you will make the "right" decisions.

I hate to point out the obvious, but Jesus was a pretty radical guy, the way I see it. Jesus preached love, civil disobedience, questioning authority, and he had a knack for turning water into wine. I don't think that Jesus preached hate or war, and though I'm not an educated religious scholar by any means, he seemed more into talking about problems than taking down those who disagreed with him. Heck, weren't his last words about forgiving those who murdered him? How much more loving can a person get, really?

So it is with great pride that I introduce today's "guest blogger," AB. One of my oldest and dearest friends from York, PA, AB and I go back a long way. He emailed me this post about his recent experience with an anti-war protest, and gave me permission to post it here.

For the 2-year anniversary of Bush’s illegal war, the Thomas Merton Center had a march and rally, starting in Shadyside and coming to the Pitt Union. I showed up late, following a Palm Sunday rehearsal at church. I walked around, getting the vibe of the place, before I walked back to my car, parked on Bouquet Street, to get my sign. It said "WWJB" on one side and "Join Us" on the other. As I was walking back to Pitt from the car, I was just holding the sign down at my side, and a guy from a group asked me what it meant. I told him, in a surprisingly loud and confident voice. Yeah, it was me who was surprised, because about 10 other people heard me. After that, I wasn’t nervous, because I’d already “put myself out there” without any problems. When I got back to the Union, I talked with a lady name Nia who asked me how long I’d been saved, among other things, and an older lady whose sign and mouth both claimed that all war is imperialism. That’s her talking point, apparently. When the marchers showed up, it was impressive. They were chanting the usual stuff, and I joined in at the cathedral of learning and walked back with them. About 3,000 were there, it was estimated. The Raging Grannies started the show, with some poorly-sung anti-war songs. For the whole thing, I just wandered around with my sign, turned it several times a minute, and looked for attractive protestors. I stayed for an hour, until 5:00, and then I decided that I’d both done and had enough. I answered the question of what WWJB stood for about 10 times. Not enough, I estimated. Looked like some people wanted to ask, but weren’t brave enough. Perhaps I should put the answer in smaller letters underneath it. On my way to the car to leave, a girl walking with a couple of guys said, “What was the protest about?” I answered matter-of-factly, “anti-war”. “Oh!” she said, and suddenly regarded me with very slight but noticable fear and respect. I will protest again. It was painless, interesting, meaningful, and enjoyable.

And so I ask you, reader(s), during the Easter season, WWJB?

Who Would Jesus Bomb?

Re-inventing the Wheel.

Disclaimer: This post is an obnoxious rant. Thank you.

I got a call from an administrator at TU yesterday to congratulate me on my acceptance into their program. I was delighted to hear from this individual (we'll call him JS), because I hadn't received anything in writing from the institution yet and was getting concerned. We made a bit of small talk and he finally got to his point: they had not yet received my transcripts or a letter of recommendation from DH. That seemed a bit suspect, as I recalled sending out transcript and a recommendation requests. I told him as much, but decided to check to make sure it wasn't my mistake before pointing any fingers.

I checked. Yup, the UofD sent my transcript on December 17. UofW sent it on December 20. DH sent my letter of recommendation on December 1.

Now, JS said that he wasn't sure if my transcripts had been 'misplaced' or not. Misplaced? You misplaced all official record of my academic work for the past SIX YEARS of my life? Lemme tell ya, JS, there's some great shit on those transcripts: There's freshman theory and sophomore history, the graduate renaissance music history course I took (great class), the infamous winter session "Intro to Bra Burning and Man-Hating," and don't forget the ever popular "oh shit I need a science requirement" nutrition class that last semester at UD. The graduate transcript is even better: at an institution where stem-cell and other cutting edge research is occuring, an institution that draws some of the most brilliant scholars and researches from all over the world, with a student body totally over 42,000 young minds, I took..... orchestra. And post-tonal music theory. I'm about as academically motivated as a cow.

See, I'm not that motivated!

All joking about my lack of academic enthusiasm aside, I have done some pretty neat stuff during my tenure at two really great state universities. And I have some pretty nice numbers to show for my hard work. I take a certain amount of pride in that cum laude beside my name.

That's some important shit, JS, and I don't really appreciate that you can't seem to find it right now. Now, I don't have the time or inclination to see just how many colleges there are in the United States, but lets just say that its A LOT. Applying to college is something that lots of people do every single year. Lets see, I applied to five schools for my undergrad and one for my grad work. That means that this is the seventh school that has received an application from me in my academic career. All the other ones managed to keep all of my sh*& in the same place. Is there some reason that TU can't seem to do that? This is not rocket science, people! If I wanted rocket science, I'd walk a few blocks to the west side of campus where they do that sort of thing!

The bottom line: Applying for school is not reinventing the wheel. TU doesn't have much of a graduate horn program and although I might not be "all that and a bag of cookies," they should be happy to have me, and happy that I'm willing to give their school in a bad neighborhood a second glance. (Yes, I have an ego. Sorry.) And even if I wasn't a good horn player, they should still have the common courtesy not to MISPLACE MY SHIT. They aren't doing themselves any favors by showing me how grossly disorganized they are.

It's two transcripts and a recommendation. This should not be hard. This is not the reinvention of the wheel.

Another wheel. See? Not worth reinventing, people.

A Wheel. Wow. Someone already invented it so we don't have to...  

I do not suck at playing horn.

Today was a great day. Let me list the great shit that happened to me as of late:

1.) I was accepted to the Banff Centre's Summer Music program. So for five weeks in July-August, I will be hanging out in the Canadian Rockies, playing music and admiring the mountains. I also received a full scholarship to this program, so the only thing I'll be paying for is airfare. They even pay for three meals a day! I don't even eat three meals a day!

2.) I scored two free tickets to see the Mark Morris Dance Company next week, a group that I've always wanted to see but never had the funds to patronize. Turns out, there are two tickets over at the office, and they are mine!

3.) It is the beginning of spring break. Now, granted, I don't have that much to do ANYWAY, so a week off isn't as much of a treat for me as it is for some of my more academically minded colleagues. However, that doesn't mean that I don't relish the chance to lay about on my ass and stare at the ceiling.

4.) Last night was my last performance with the UW Symphony Orchestra. I don't know if I should be sad about that, but I'm not. I think I'm ready to move on.

5.) With the solidification of my summer plans, I now feel that I can get on with my life: moving back to PA, subletting my Madison apartment, planning my life.

6.) I received official notification of my acceptance to the Performance Certificate program at Temple University in Philadelphia. (See accompanying post for more info.)

7.) I'm going to Florida. Plane ticket is bought!

So while rejection may still suck, and I am still sad that I didn't get into Tanglewood, things are looking up. Like LB and I always say....

Everything is ok in the end.

If it's not ok, its not the end.

Truer words were never spoke, my friends.

I wrote a poem today.

It goes like this:

BEACH BEACH BEACH
I LOVE THE BEACH
THE BEACH HAS SAND
THE BEACH HAS THE SUN
I LOVE THE SAND
I LOVE THE SUN
THE BEACH IS FUN.
FUN FUN FUN.
BEACH BEACH BEACH.
(audition)
BEACH BEACH BEACH
(audition)

JOB JOB JOB
JOB AT THE BEACH
HOORAY FOR A JOB
HOORAY FOR THE BEACH.
I LOVE JOBS
I LOVE THE BEACH.
JOBS ARE FUN
FUN FUN FUN
JOBS JOBS JOBS
(in Florida)
BEACH BEACH BEACH
(in Florida!)

Now, you may be wondering why its all in capital letters. That is because I'm very excited about going to the beach in April.

Or, as I should say, I'm very excited about auditioning for the utility horn position in the Florida Orchestra. Which happens to be based in St. Petersburg, Florida. Which is a BEACH town. I'm going to go down and take the audition and treat myself to an extra day in the sun and sand. Why? Because I @#$%^&* deserve it, that's why! Going to go down there with RG, who is also taking the audition. I'm not sure he's as excited as I am about the whole BEACH thing, but if he wants to be a party pooper, I truly don't care. I'll have fun in the sun and sand all by myself.

I'm currently working on a melody for my BEACH song. Please email suggestions to boylaurenisawierdo@ilovethebeach.com.

I'm going to complain about my job. Sorry.

Yesterday was really strange. And I'm really glad its over. Now its tomorrow, which is actually today, and right now, I want to blog about yesterday. (Haha, Captain Semantics strikes again!)

Yesterday I was crocheting a scarf whilst waiting for MSO rehearsal to end and one of our violinists came up to me to say hello. She isn't playing on this concert series because her string quartet is doing some touring and she can't make the concerts, so I presumed she just stopped by to say hello. I rather innocently asked her how her quartet stuff is going and she burst into tears.

Um....

I didn't exactly know what to do, and I certainly didn't anticipate that response. Seems that there are some personnel issues within the group that she is taking pretty hard. Someone's not speaking to someone else, won't accept an apology, blah blah blah. This is not some hack violinist, y'all. This is an extremely talented violinist who seems to have a fantastic career, complete with two orchestra gigs, a teaching position, and a nearly full time string quartet, complete with recordings and tours and the like. And all I could say was, "Wow, I'm really sorry." And give her a hug.

***

Craziness in the horn section. Next week is the March Young People's Concerts and I'm playing 3rd now. I wouldn't care, except that DB is conducting, and he scares me. I don't want to take my complex about playing in University Orchestra and apply it to my "professional career." I can't help it, though, the dude scares me. When he is on the podium I become a shaking, scared, timid horn player who can barely slur an octave.

And on the topic of the horn section, why won't LK be a leader? Why won't she tell BM or MS or me that we're out of tune? Why won't she make comments regarding articulations or style or line? Its her job as principal to make decisions and tell us to change stuff. And I wouldn't care, but the lack of leadership is starting to mean a lack of quality, and that bothers me. Especially since I'm sitting fourth and can hear everything from the other four bells. Trust me, I can hear that we aren't matching and aren't sounding cohesive.

***

Went to the White Horse with JJ and KK, two musicians who have spent some time playing abroad. And they think I should do it. They think I should go to Jerusalem. And when they talk about it, I think that I should go, too.

Unless a job in America presents itself, this blog will probably change its title to something like, "But I'm not Jewish" sometime in August. Why the hell wouldn't I take a job like this? I'm young, single, and have no better options here. I can lay around and freelance in Philly or I can take a JOB. A full time orchestra job. The thing I've been working towards since I started playing horn when I was TEN YEARS OLD.

A job. Playing. Every day. And getting paid to do it.

So there.

Sothere.com is a forum for people to write letters that you never intend on sending. From their website:

From first loves to last goodbyes, So There is your chance to get it off your chest. To say what should have been said a long time ago. Or yesterday. It's a chance to take it back, or to finally say it out loud. So There is your forum. It's about getting it out and letting it go. It's about closure.

Sometimes they are to relatives or friends, but often they are letters to those we love; breakup letters, proscriptive letters, etc. I think my favorite type is the "postmortem letter," the type that you write when you are telling someone off. The site posts a new letter every day, and sometimes they are really really poignant and beautiful. Today's really impressed me, though I'm not sure why.

I read this site every single day last summer, after ZS broke up with me. Reading about someone else's pain sometimes helps me to realize that I'm not alone, even though I don't know these people. It helps to know that I'm not the only one who is lonely or sad sometimes.

I guess I only tend to go to this website when I'm feeling a little bit lonely. That pretty much fits the bill for today. My day has barely even started and I don't have a good feeling about it, though. I haven't gone to the site in awhile, but today's letter really warmed my heart. It might even have put my day on a new track....

Alligators. Alligators are my problem.

So, I just woke up from a not-terribly-restful sleep. Why, you ask?

Alligators.

I had a dream that man-eating alligators were chasing me. I saw them from a bridge and they turned around and started following me and some other people I was with. (I don't know who those people were, but at this point, I'd really like to know.) They chased us all through a house and a yard until finally someone (again, don't know who) saved us by killing them.

Now, I'm not HUGE on dream interpretation, but I do agree with the conventional wisdom that this is your unconscious way of working shit out in your life. So I pulled an RG and Googled "dream interpretation." Turns out that alligators are pretty problematic in your unconscious world. Oh hell, you read it:

Alligators most always symbolize a problem! To kill or conquer one means you have overcome a problem. To be surrounded by one means you have to choose one bad thing to get out of a lot of bad things. (any way you run you will encounter at least one). To be eaten or killed by an alligator means the problem that is haunting you is likely to do you harm if not cured. To have a pet alligator symbolizes great control over one's problems.

Ok, those alligators (there were five) were going to eat me. These were not pet alligators. But they were trained to kill people, I know that much. Someone else killed them at the end. What does that mean? I guess that being surrounded by all five of them (and they were BIG FUCKING ALLIGATORS) means I have to make a choice of some kind....

Thoughts? Comments are welcome.

The sweet smell of... rejection.

When I was a sophomore in high school, I didn't make district band. At the time, I really thought that my world was going to crumble. I thought it meant that I would never get into college and never be a professional musician. I thought it meant that I didn't deserve to play principal in my high school band, and I thought that it meant that I was a failure. In the fall of 1995, I really believed that. And now, ten years later, I can still recognize those same feelings that I felt back then. But I can look at all that has happened since then and see that I've been pretty successful. I graduated with a Bachelor's of Music cum laude, I'm about to receive my Master's of Music from a pretty decent school, I've won a few awards here and there, I've given many successful recitals (some more so than others, I think!), I make money playing horn... The list goes on and on.

I never knew how hard it was going to be to be a musician. I knew that it would be hard to make a lot of money, and I knew it would be hard to have to move where the job is, and that it might put a strain on my family life. What I never realized is that what is hardest about being a musician is the blow to your ego. I never really thought that when they said "being a musician is hard," that they meant that sometimes I would question that I'm doing the right thing, whether or not I'm emotionally strong enough to handle this, whether I have what it takes to get my ass back in a practice room so that NEXT TIME it will be different.

So the fact that I didn't get into Tanglewood this year (I'm an alternate for the second year in a row) makes me feel like I'm a sophomore in high school again. But I know that I'll wake up tomorrow and I'll still feel sad that I don't get to go. But I know that I am not going to let this stop me. My acceptance or rejection from summer programs doesn't make me a good person, and while it helps to confirm that I'm a good horn player, it doesn't mean that I won't get a job. Its another line on a resume, but if you read down in this blog, you'll see my rant about how it doesn't matter what your resume says. It matters that you can play.

"If I'd known then what I know now..." its such a cliche, but how would I finish that sentence? Well, I would know that being rejected from District 7 band in the 10th grade may have been one of the greatest things to ever happen to me. Because I can look back on that experience ten years later and see that it was FAR from the end of the world. From that, and from all the rejection that has come since then, I know that I'll come out of this a better person and a better horn player. If I'm still standing when the smoke clears, I'll be fine. And I've been standing this long, so I might as well just march myself back into my practice room tomorrow and remind myself that I have chosen the greatest career in the world. If the next ten years show as much improvement and success as the past ten have, its going to be great.

Fifteen pounds of potatoes!

Ok, so I gave you the punchline before the joke...

I went grocery shopping today. The backstory here is that my New Year's Resolution was to make more "one-pot meals." You know, soups, casseroles, etc. Things that can be made in one pot and have lots of leftovers for me to take for lunch. Its working out great so far! I've been eating some really great healthy and tasty lunches and enjoying learning to cook more things. Last year my resolution was to recycle more. (I try to keep realistic goals....)

So where was I? Oh, yeah, I went grocery shopping. And one thing about cooking these meals is that they tend to be bean/potato/pasta based. (I mean, you need something to hold it all together!) So I put "potatoes" on my list without checking the fridge to see if I needed potatoes.

I got to Copps and saw that potatoes were on sale! Two 5 lb. bags for $4! I thought that was a pretty good deal, and I like potatoes. I figured it would be good to stock up as they don't go bad quickly. And if you figure that a potato weighs about one pound, that works out to roughly 40 cents/potato. That's a cheap meal!

Unfortunately, I forgot that mom and I went food shopping when she was here last week and I already have one 5 lb. bag of potatoes in the fridge. So now I have 15 lbs. of potatoes. That's a LOT of spuds, ladies and gentlemen.

Please send any potato recipes to: ILoveSpuds@potatoes.com.

That's not a real email address. Please post any suggestions.