Really, you can both pinch pennies and feed your squeeze! Visualize whirled peas with Clara Cannucciari, 91, host of Great Depression Cooking with Clara, who offers thrifty recipes — those her mother made in the extra-lean 30s — along with salty way-back-when anecdotes. Dig this one about her friendly neighborhood whisky bootleggers. (Sorry, no recipe for that.)

Via BoingBoing.

Heartbreak: docs say it’s not all in your head. (It’s just that songwriters find it hard to find rhymes for “cardiomyopathy.”)

1. Watch venomous anti-gay marriage ad entitled “A Gathering Storm.”

2. Hear lines such as “The clouds are dark, and the winds are strong, and I am afraid. Some who advocate for same-sex marriage have taken the issue far beyond same-sex couples. They want to bring the issue into my life. My freedom will be taken away.” Snarf Frappuccino.

3. Cleanse palate below. UPDATED! N.O.M. was able to have the hilarious Weather Girls remix of their ad taken down! So… 3. You click around YouTube looking for another posting of it and notice with a chuckle just how many parodies there are of this putrid ad and then…

4. Settle on watching Lizz Winstead’s preposterously non-sequitur-filled take on the subject:

someone loses a chunk of their arm!

BG’s zombie-fighting advice: Accessorize!

Inconvenient truths from February 2, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I just broke it off with the guy I was seeing and the reason that I gave him is that we didn’t click. But I also thought that he was annoying. So I told him the truth about that and now he hates me for being honest. Did I do the right thing?

— Turtle Girl

 
Dear Turtle Girl,

Ah, the old “We don’t click.” As Buffy might say, “You wanna vague that up for me?” It is indeed a maddeningly fuzzy thing for a dumpee to hear. Dumpees: you always want to know WHY, like, in the form of an itemized list of grievances. First of all, sometimes dumpers really don’t know why; “gut feelings,” “chemistry,” and “click”-age are mysterious, yet perfectly legitimate phenomena. But when dumpers do have reasons, well, you think you want to know, but you really don’t (much like how we think we want to know how many people our partner has slept with).

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The “Predicament of the Week” from February 2, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

My wife and I have been married for six years. She rapidly became unaffectionate and irritated-seeming. We have had numerous “relationship talks” which take the form of “I know, I act cool toward you. I need time alone.” She is reading A Room of One’s Own. I try to give her space, but she seems to need a lot of space. I am a very low-maintenance type, but I would like to be touched, hugged good-night or told I am wanted at least weekly. She says she does not want to end the relationship, but I think I that’s because I am a good babysitter for her 13- and 17-year-olds, a good companion for going to the movies or Europe, and a good maintenance man for the house. She says we have a good “business” relationship; I want to feel appreciated. Should I cut my losses and look for someone who clearly loves me, or is distand friends a fair deal in this world?

— Norm!

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For some, music is the food of love. For BG, food is the food of love. Which is why she knows she’ll dig FOBG Giulia Melucci’s I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti.

From today’s NY Times: “Her romantic adventures are interspersed with recipes like “Morning After Pumpkin Bread” and “Ineffectual Eggplant Parmigiana” (“Serves the two of you plus the three people you wish were there to keep the conversation going”).

YES WE CAN meet cute guys at rallies! See the evidence at  supercuteprotesters.blogspot.com…

I’ll admit it — I like ABC’s Cupid.

Now, I loved the original Cupid with Jeremy Piven and Paula Marshal. (Has it really been 10 years? Yikes!) So much so, I took note of the creator’s name, Rob Thomas, and when Veronica Mars was making its debut I actually checked it out because it was by “the guy who did Cupid!” Although it lacks the grit and, well, Piven of 1998’s Cupid, the new version retains much of the spirit of the old show, making it a highly watchable hour of TV. (Also available online.)

I’d like to recommend it to readers of this blog because, like Breakup Girl, Cupid mixes rational, practical themes in relationships with an unabashedly romantic, hopeful spirit. The two sides here are represented by Sarah Paulson as a relationship expert/psychologist and her sort-of patient Bobby Cannavale who may or may not be the Greek god Cupid. If you are expecting a show where “Cupid” is always right and the jaded psychologist is always wrong, you would be disappointed. Rob Thomas keeps it real. Ish. And even when the A plot gets their happily ever after, the B plot ends in disappointment.

The show stays grounded because Cannavale’s Cupid-ness is never completely confirmed. This ambiguity is brilliant. Without that grounding, the whole affair could have spun off into a huge mess like UPN’s TheCW’s Valentine. The difference between the two is really Rob Thomas. Let’s face it, without him, Veronica Mars would have simply been Nancy Drew.

We’re pretty sure Vermont’s Republican governor was installed by extraterrestrials in the first place. And in this human v. alien battle, the good guys have won one for civil rights. As Reuters just reported: “Vermont lawmakers on Tuesday overrode a veto from the governor in passing a bill that would allow same-sex marriage, clearing the way for the state to become the fourth in the nation where gay marriage is legal.” [Insert visual: BG high-fiving Ben, Jerry.]