Liquid lunch

Boy, it's been a loooong time since I used that terminology. Like, fifteen years. Probably longer... But I ran some errands today and went out of my way a little bit to Millersville and lunched at the House of Pizza- always reminds me of my first year at school, hangin' with Curt Gilbert in his loud Camaro with the Scorpions blaring -decided to go all out and have a small pitcher o' the golden grain as long as I was freewheelin' and in no particular hurry. I could take my time plus it was a good sized stromboli for a small. No problem.

It amounted to three and half glasses and it was all I could do to finish it off. And it still isn't sitting well twelve hours later. Uuuu-uugh!

When I was on a landscaping crew back in the day we loved local jobs where we could scoot over to the Papertown Inn in Spring Grove for, ahem, lunch. Suffice to say, the rest of the workday was not highly productive after those midday breaks.

Of course, we had at least one real, live alcoholic leading the charge and he was a foreman, after all. A cool little character, reminded me of a knee high Mark Twain, but with an angry streak, I'm not sure what mental bugs he had, other than the alcoholism, but there was something about life that didn't sit well with him, fer sure. But with a few beers he took on a real glow, lightened up considerably.

It's funny- not funny 'hahaha' -how hooch treats different people differently. Some get happy, some get angry, some get sleepy. I got happy then sleepy in short order. But if I was kept awake then I could get angry. Not a pleasant state to recall at all. Of course, some of the 'happy' times were less than pleasant too! Things you'd like to change if you knew better. Oh, but wait, I knew it all then; that's right, I forgot.

When I think about it now I wonder what the big attraction was. I didn't have any great things weighing on me that I needed to escape, really. I think more than anything it was just to be sociable. It did get me to open up a little, become a little less frightfully backward. Of course, under the influence that wasn't always a good thing.

Plus, you know, everybody was doing it- although there were plenty of other substances going around that I never touched. Which is probably a good thing because my long term memory has suffered in large part, I believe, because of those intemperate bouts. I'd likely be a complete vegetable if I'd gone the whole nine yards of substance abuse! -and it gave your hands something to do besides stick in your jeans pockets.

Nowadays I rarely bother bringing beer home because it just takes up too much room in the fridge. For a looooong time. Summertime, maybe a few times. One with a steak off the grill. Then it's like a minor celebration, woo hoo! Lookit me! A steak! And a beer! Livin' large, baby! I drink about half of it...

...then I fall asleep in the lawn chair...

 

Taco salad y gato

Man, my overnight visitor didn't show himself until sometime late in the evening- I was tucked under the blankets reading David Lee Roth's autobiography by flashlight, the room lights are too dim and the bedside lamp is flourescent, too bright, I gotta remedy that one day, until 11, 11:30 and called it quits -so my careful taco preparations were for naught when he slipped in sometime after I faded off to slumberland. But, hey, that just means leftovers for today and the next day or so which are always better anyway.

So, having turned in that early I woke an hour earlier, almost 6:30, and re-discovered The Andy Griffith Show for a few minutes before venturing out for a stroll 'round the neighborhood. Only took about twenty-five minutes to decide the risk of frostbite was too great, temps of 24 with wind chills making it seem half that, and fairly jogged back into the warm.

I've got some mail to shoot out and may take a drive up country to find a Dick Blick's Art store which until recently I had no idea was fairly local to me in Lemoyne PA. Their online catalog says they stock the casting urethane and various other supplies for my homespun enterprise  so perhaps with a little drive time I can save the expense of home delivery. Besides, you never know what else you'll find that'll be useful for some goofy project in the craft emporiums or dollar stores.

Plus there's a fabric outlet close by and three or four music stores, actually, more to the point, guitar stores. A little window shopping may be in order.

Meanwhile Miss Pussis has gone into hiding. She has a funny habit of investigating the cabinets under the sinks in her bathroom cell- it's comical the way she noses and paws open the doors and slinks inside, slowly dragging her fuzzy tail inside as the door closes on it -and so, having suffered the slings and arrows of my displeasure for having unrolled two full rolls of toilet paper into her litter box in as many days, has been retreating to that dark recess when I make my presence known.

She may be cowering but neither did she leave me unscathed,  might be we can have those claws trimmed at the same time as Monday's feline snip-and-tuck. A double whammy. Meee-ow!

After that non-elective surgery she'll be at large, granted run of the house and freedom from her confinement at last. That ought to be an adventure too as she goes all 'lunatic kitty' exploring the other five rooms and closets in the place, spaces under and around furniture which she's been denied until now, not to mention all the attendant familiar and unfamiliar smells that are sure to excite her little animal olfactory center, views from unobstructed windows, outdoor distractions and so on and on.

I can hardly wait...

Counters and stuff

Boy, if I had a nickel for every computer or website glitch I've encountered since signing on to this virtual world, well, let's just say I'd have a whole lot of nickels. More nickels than you'd want to fall on your head all at once, that much is certain.

The latest is the counter here on this forum. It looks to me as if it reset itself and now reads single digits, strange. I have no clue where the count was at but I'm reasonably certain it hasn't turned over like a car odometer...

What was I gonna write about here today? Oh, I know, along with my mail run and a trip to the craft store for some supplies I made a pilgrimage yesterday across the bridge to see my old school chum, for the sake of anonymity- he'll appreciate this -we'll call him 'Pete'. Now, 'Pete' is a peculiar fellow, I'm sure he'd agree completely with that assessment and take pleasure in it as well. We knew each other in passing in high school and then got to hanging out in college and have, in spite of his weirdness and sometimes downright disagreeableness, sort of stuck it out in the intervening years due in no small part to our common interest in pop culture, comic books and overlapping musical tastes. That and my own good natured acceptance of everybody else's weirdness- I'm no weirdo! -and Pete's in particular.

Plus his mom says I'm the only friend he's got. I know that's not entirely true but I think she says it because she figures it makes us both feel good having found a fellow weirdo to commingle with for all these years. So we keep in touch largely through email but hang out a coupla times a year and exchange reading material, which is to say 'comics' and pablum like TV autobiographies, and yak about inane topics nobody else will sit still for.

But after sending a dozen or so emails during the last month or so- items of interest, auctions, inconsequential questions -and receiving no response I thought I better trundle over the river and see if he'd perhaps been killed in a flaming wreck or some misadventure. Because you never know, y'know? Unless you live next door to someone how would you be aware of their sudden absence... Sobering but true...

Anyway, Pete turned out to be alive and well, simply closed up his email box for a while to ignore spam(and everything else along with it!)and was, as always, good for a few hours discoursing on various, whattayacallit, 'conspiracy theories': hidden agendas, goverment spying, the dangers of wireless telephones, secret societies, invasion of privacy, who killed Kennedy, the moon landing hoax, fake Paul McCartney and so on.

And so it was yesterday. I have to admit a great many points he presents on these various subjects make a lot of sense and he has no shortage of reading material, internet research and related factoids to back up what might otherwise seem outlandish, tabloid variety assertions.

But we always come back to simpler stuff like the new toy Batmobile, the possibility of a Van Halen reunion tour, what my wacky family members are up to, people and events he reminds me of from our college years which, with his expansive memory, he recalls in unusually keen detail and I have only fuzzy impressions of having been there once long, long ago.

Which would, in fact, be very, very painful if I chose to dwell on it. I mean, besides the obvious joys of recollection what shapes our daily determinations and perspectives more than cumulative experience that is the stuff of life and especially those shared, right? When that whole filing section has become a dimly lit room down a dark corridor of the mind... Well, were there was an experimental chemical remedy or exercise regimen to correct that dysfunction, I'd be standing in line right now, believe me. 

In more mundane news: I've still got to make my tacos tonight. A family friend, a young fellow a few years senior to my son, has been camping out with us a coupla nights a week since we are relatively close to his workplace versus his home down country. He's a great kid, very pleasant and a positive influence on my boy-boy so we're happy to accomodate. I should call him and see if he's coming by tonight, let him know there'll be taco fixings a la carte for us bachelors.

I'll have to have everything in order before Smallville, yay!

Well, I suppose I'll do some crafting before the sun sets; cold, rainy right now so it's not exactly a 'bright, bright, bright sunshiney day' anyway. Did you know the guy who sang I Can See Clearly Now, that lovely 70s ditty, Johnny Nash, also sang the theme song to the 1960s cartoon, The Mighty Hercules? It's true.

There's your useless but fascinating factoid for today.

I don't remember much but I can write the lyrics from memory:

Hercules, hero of song and story / Hercules, winner of ancient glory / Fightingfor the right, fighting with his might / with the strength of ten ordinary men / Hercules, people are safe when near him / Hercules, only the evil fear him / Softness in his eyes, iron in his thighs / Virtue in his heart, fire in every part / of the mighty Hercules

Stirring, innit? Ahh, yeah, well, thanks for listening...!

 

Get funky!

Wow, in case you couldn't tell I was in a seriously funk-ified mood earlier and I wouldn't say it had anything to do with my case of DVD mis-information frustration. You'll have this, especially when the house is quiet and there are no distractions and one is left alone with ones thoughts for a few days.

"Wait a minute!", I sez. I should be living it up! So I went out rack scouting for the new Hot Wheels Batmobile... a veritable bust that was. I was so desperate I bought three of the 'Mystery Cars' at the Dollar General- now, I don't even know for sure that these opaque black-bubbled packages are supposed to contain the TV Batmobile but if you're gonna take a chance for a buck, what better vehicle to hide under there than this much-sought-after version, right? Well, that was a waste of three dollars. Not entirely, son boy still has his car collection after all and on occasion he drags them out and crashes them into one another, so he'll be happy to add these to his cache.

Since I was finding no Batcars I made myself feel better with a stop at the Chinese buffet. There are at least six Chinese restaurants that I can think of offhand, I'm sure it's more than that, around town, we favor one in particular, Kevins. Not a very Chinese sounding moniker that.

Although it's changed hands and names at least twice since we first patronized the place we still call it by it's pet name- 'Little Blonde Boy Buffet'. The first owner of record was a middle-aged gentleman who doted on our son as a boy of five, maybe six. He always made a point of stopping by the table, patting him on the head and, grinning from ear to ear, announcing "Little blonde boy! Verrry good boy! He eat verry good, little blonde boy!"

Now there was a man who knew from good customer relations. I imagine he's living like a king back in China by now. Or... somewhere... other than York PA...

I used to like the 'fast food' Chinese at York's Central Market too but they went out years ago. They had great little mushy egg rolls, not crispy at all. And a nice, greasy combo lo mein. Central Market used to be a favorite haunt on one of the three market days, Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday. When we were in the office cleaning business, we'd often stop in as we were finishing work downtown and things were opening up in the market house. Usually we had to find a way to kill some time- like eating breakfast at the teeny diner in the northwest corner of the market -until Mr. Henry was ready to make ham subs or Bair's had chicken parts and potato wedges and chicken livers tumbling out of the fryer or the girl had her Chinese stand up and running.

But the Cookie Man could always be counted on early in the morning. His family had a butcher business just down the aisle and sometimes Mr. Myers would pitch in there but his own enterprise was baked goods. If Keebler has elves, he had... well, I don't know what is superlative to elves making cookies but whatever it is... he had it!

He offered cakes and turnovers and sweet rolls and several varieties of cookies, usually a slightly different assortment every week. But my personal predilection was for his sugar cakes. We always called them 'sugar cookies' at home but his really were more like cake. Big as your fist and, like, there was something, some unknown thing that held the butter and sugar and eggs together because they just seemed to melt... Oh, sorry, I'm drooling on the keyboard... ugh...

One week he had no sugar cakes so I opted for the lesser delight of chocolate chip cookies. Now, normally I'd give three sugar cookies for one chocolate chip but, remember, we're talking about the sugar cake, and Mr. Myers' sugar cake, a thing to which few earthly delights will ever compare...

Suffice to say, the chocolate chip were soon a secondary, but ever-so-slightly secondary darling to the sugar cake. Again, it was like there was nothing holding them together once they passed the lips, all buttery and chocolatey chips and chocolatey chunks... Awww, there I go drooling again...

Alas, like all good things eventually do, that era has passed. Mr. Myers, despite his cherubic countenance, mild persona and confectionary- or 'confectionery', which? -gifts on a par with my own dear Aunt Esther or Grandma Lehr(neither a slouch with a spatula, a dozen eggs and a pound of sugar, lemme tell ya), devised compelling reasons not to continue in his business. Or in life. A dratted shame, and not just because I miss those cookies...

So along with my toy car search today I picked up my taco fixings and eggs and potatoes and milk. I splurged on 2% versus the usual skim while the wife is away. And hazelnut creamer for my tea.

And I brought home some Rainbow Keebler chocolate chips today. Not awful little confections. Just not... not quite the palatable nirvana as a Mr. Myers chocolate chip cookie...by any means... >sigh<

Funny how one thing, one, one thing leads to another, innit?

I could go on, of course, but I gotta get some Boggle in yet- Go, sleepy brain! Go! -and it's getting late. Big mail day tomorrow and a five minute micro-discourse to prepare for tomorrow evening. Not a great big, hairy deal but any public speaking- regardless of the audience or circumstance - well, it's still not my favorite thing. So I wait until the day of... Brilliant strategem!

I remember once... Aahhh... There I go again...

Monday, Monday

Okay, so it's another holiday so there's no mail which in my little world pretty much means no sunshine. Nothing coming in, nothing going out, no fun in that. Great for schoolkids and the government and postal and bank employees, for everybody else it's not so swell.

I've been thinking lately about civility. With regard to the whole framework of human interaction, that is. I mean, if you've got just one person who gives vent to some frustration or says what's really, really- I mean reeeaally -on their mind it will impact everybody within arms reach to some extent and that impacts everybody they know and so on. Like dominoes or ripples from a stone thrown into a pond.

In fanciful time travel stories they've come to refer to the correlative action as the 'butterfly effect'. I'm sure as a teen enamored of the sci-fi genre I read the story- I can't recall the author or title exactly -in a collection of short stories- a company offers hunters the opportunity to travel back in time to bag a T-Rex with the explicit instruction 'Do NOT leave the paved hunting trail!' because any untoward action may impact history as we know it. One overzealous hunter leaves the trail, natch, and upon returning to the present finds a world quite different from what he knew. Squashed on the sole of his boot... a prehistoric butterly. So that small action caused ripples that changed everything he knew... 

No wonder conventional wisdom says the tongue is a 'flaming fire' and it's well nigh impossible to get it under control. So we all do it, leave things unsaid for fear of the avalanche of repercussions, for the comfort or well-being of someone else. Well, not everyone does it. I suppose in a great many instances that's why there are aggravated assaults and murders and wars.

So it's better to bite one's tongue. Of course, sometimes that means stepping on it to keep everything gurgling below the surface from frothing over, erupting, spewing, stabbing forth. But intellectually recognizing the value of self-control doesn't make it easier to swallow all that stuff. An acrid, fetid, bitter pill. >Ble-e-eck!<

So since the local Sunday afternoon TV offerings consisted of NASCAR and basketball and not much else, I screened The Cowboys for myself. I wondered as I watched what became of all those youngsters? I think it was 1972 so we're thirty-five years removed. Are they still acting? Would we recognize them if they showed up on House this week? Or have they become realtors, school teachers or cab drivers? Robert Carradine, of course, went on to Revenge Of The Nerds. Or was it Revenge Of The Geeks? At any rate, he was in a n acting family so it must have seemd like the thing to do for him.

The DVD cast notes feature only the 'name' stars- John Wayne, Roscoe Lee Browne, Bruce Dern, Colleen Dewhurst. Which brings me to another bone of contention.

What careless, moonfaced, slovenly college graduates are they paying to research and put together these 'extras' on the DVD release of vintage movies?!? Whoever it is and whatever they're being paid... it's too much.

Anyone with even a passing familiarity with actors of some repute would recognize a picture of Colleen Dewhurst, am I right? I'm sure the average person on the street would have a hard time putting a a name to the face if confronted out of the blue but we're talking about people whose job it is to put names to the faces and the facts attendant to their career. People with all the vast resources of the film company they're working for not to mention the internet movie resources to help them get it right...

Now, Colleen Dewhurst is an actress of some repute and deserving of proper credit for her body of work. And yet the four pages of notations under the heading 'Colleen Dewhurst' in The Cowboys cast extras all feature pictures not of Colleen Dewhurst but Sarah Cunningham, the actress who played John Wayne's wife in the film!

Means nothing in the grand scheme of things but if I were Colleen Dewhurst- or Sarah Cunningham, for that matter -I'd hope for a higher degree of accuracy in the dissemination of such information.

Well, the rubber doll parts are all setting- got an early start today around seven, been getting to bed earlier and up earlier since I'm on my own this week, a good habit. Now to work on my awful eating habits! -and I've learned a little of Elvis' Suspicious Minds this morning from the oldies' radio to follow up In The Ghetto yesterday. On a roll, last week I learned an imteresting little change I'd been missing for twenty years in my slacker version of Dust In The Wind. At this rate I'll have enough strumming, finger-picking, easy-listening songs to set up on a street corner downtown come summertime and play for spare change.

Buh-waaahhh-hwahahahahahahaha! Now, that's comedy, my friends.

I'll likely forget them all by this afternoon...

 

Weather

...is the big news this week. A few inches of snow finally and some sleety wet snow to top it all off, mmm-mmm-mmm! Swell! It made for some fun shoveling and heaving the heavy wet stuff to get the car out to go nowhere but just in case. I gotta tell ya, after more than a year at a nearly completely sedentary occupation... it was more like work than any snowfall I can recall. And we had some biggies a few years back! Yow! So in order to avoid a coronary event- I didn't want mi esposa to think I was pulling a copycat move! -and force an ambulance to traverse the ice-covered driveway I did what little I had to do at a leisurely pace while my dear son boy was busy helping the neighbors. Wait a minute! This is NOT why I had progeny! Where's my little lawn mower and snow shoveler when I really need him? Off doing it for money at the neighbors!!! His mother calls that enterprising, I say it's only enterprising after our work is done!

In other news: I'm diligently searching the racks of local toy purveyors- WalMart, KMart and Target mostly -for a new Hot Wheels TV Batmobile that's supposed to be hitting the shelves any day now. I've been at the toy and collectible game for a looooong time now but only rarely do I go out of my way for a newly produced item preferring to scout up the playthings that remind me of my youth instead and it is a goofy feeling to say the least to be pawing through those little toy cars - I can only imagine what 'normal' people passing by must think when they see a grown man(that's an estimation that's up for debate, of course...)anxiously groping the Hot Wheels displays! -but the anticipation of maybe actually finding one on the rack is virtually palpable. It really is like being a kid again! Weird, huh?

Still, I'm not exactly optimistic. I think there are too many serious Hot Wheels guys prowling those same racks while the stock people are hanging the cars they're basically grabbing them outta their hands, I'm sure of it.

I'll have plenty of free time to look around this week as the wife and son are off with friends for a wintry beach visit to OBX. It's been nearly ten years since we've been to the NC shore- a powerfully compelling locale, a beautiful, beautiful place -and while funds were exceedingly limited, the opportunity was not to be missed. For two-thirds of us anyway. I'll be right here 'making the donuts' as I like to say.

With afew sales I'll be able to patronize the nearby McDonald's and the Dover Diner- when we were moving in here we practically lived there while the new digs were stacked to improbably full to actually prepare food for ourselves! -versus cooking for myself all week long. I like to cook but when it's just one, not so much. Coupla leftovers and peanut butter and jelly will likely suffice for the first few days, if I get ambitious I'll work up some taco fixings, enough for a few more days, and feed on that between cheeseburgers.

Gosh, talk about compelling journal entries! This is seriously the stuff of life, brother!

Dust bunnies the size of Rhode Island

And tumbleweeds blowin' through this venue! My, my, at the rate I update this forum the aforementioned moon goes 'round and 'round several times 'tween entries.

At any rate, here's the latest news from the home front: Son boy now has a learner's permit to drive, frightening. For all the video game driving he's done over the years, his hands-on-the-wheel maneuvering is herky jerky and tense. He's already managed to add a highly visible scrape to the front of the 'crash magnet', clipping a speed limit sign in the trailer park driveway...! Poor crash magnet can't get a break!

Miss Pussis- remember her real name is...uh... Coco, that's it...! -is growing up in confinement. Just two more weeks until her parole from her bathroom prison. She's more than a little twitchy when she's removed from that cell, hand-carried from one room to the next, I can hardly wait to see how she responds to freedom and full-blown run of the house.

While some parts of the country have been having their fill of winter white we're due here for our first real taste of the stuff in a day or two. If the track or speed of the storm doesn't alter drastically before then, that is.

I'm excited because as word has traveled among the better part of our little neighborhood here that I've been oft appointed 'Breakfast King' on vacation or special occasions, expectations are high that while several vigorous volunteers shovel and salt for the more mature residents I'll have water on the boil and the pancake griddle fired up bright and early for their refreshment. I'm stocked up on sausages and corn meal but I'll have to grab more 'clucker fruit' before the roads become impassable.

Downside of the pleasant prospect of being snowbound for a day or so is a planned road trip right in the middle of the week- and amidst the expected inclement weather -for mi esposa and a pal to parts north and norther. Important business, sure, but I'm hoping it can be postponed, we'll see. I know I don't wanna get out and drive in that junk, who needs that as long as there's bread and toilet paper and the pipes don't freeze...

I could go on, you bet, but I'm practically asleep at the wheel now and, besides, I gottta save something to write next month! Oy!

Oh, I know one thing I wanted to add before I forgot: A little guitar fumbling today produced some familiar chordings that sounded suspiciously like a Rod Stewart song I once knew by heart, You're In My Heart, which, I'm certain, was included on the Greatest Hits LP that I used to have but disappeared somewhere along the road to now. What's worse, I'm sure I replaced it on CD- because I don't own a record player anymore -and I don't know where that copy is either!

I'll have to make a search for it, I suppose, because my primitive ear can't quite figure out the changes at the chorus from memory; a few dozen spins of the song and maybe I'll have something close, enough to fool the casual listener anyway. Now to work on my whiskey-throated falsetto... mi, mi, mi, meee! Yeahhhh, right...