Pinwheeling

In other news: I finally undertook last week- after having the recipe posted on the door of the fridge for, quite literally, years -to whip up a batch of my mom's excellent pinwheel cookies. It's a swell variegated chocolate-and-white shortbread that gets the two batches of dough rolled up in what the recipe calls 'jellyroll' fashion so it comes out looking like nothing so much a swirling pinwheel. Hence the clever moniker. Not only are they fun to look at they are another childhood fave 'sense memory' on the order of dryer exhaust, AM radio(Who remembers whistling Winchester Cathedral?) and my recently-recreated vanilla cream soda.

I'm pretty sure if I had a dozen pinwheels and a liter of cream soda while listening to CBS Mystery Theater Of The Air my head would likely explode from sheer nostalgic carbo- and sugar-loaded ecstasy!

They turned out well- SonBoy declared them 'better than Mammaw's' but I'm not going to tell her that! -so I gave about half the batch away fearing my lack of self-control(some would substitute 'absence' for 'lack' in that description)would have me eating two dozen by my own self.

I've stocked up on ingredients for another batch this weekend; I'm going to try white chocolate chips in the white half of the dough this time around(pinwheel pun)and see what happens. "Weird Cookie Science!" Yee-hahhh! Calling Rachel Ward! Who knows, if I don't make them too early in the day on Saturday there may even be some left by the time this week's midnight episode of Lost rolls around(another pinwheel pun!)...

The Circle of Life

...is a funny, funny thing. I guess it was 1985, '86 that my garage band days were at their zenith; playing every week in Denny's garage. I remember playing in the wintertime with a big propane heater that looked like a small rocket blowing superheated air, made it positively balmy despite the prevailing cold outdoors. Anyway, whenever I hear one of the maybe twenty, twenty-five songs we practiced for months- and ended up playing exactly one show -I say 'Here's another golden oldie from the Mean Steak catalog!' "Mean Streak" was the name of the band- we weren't bad dudes, just wannabes -but Denny's first stab at painting the name on a drumhead left out the 'r', hence, 'Mean Steak'. It was comical then and I still have to chortle whenever I think of it.

But I digress. If you been keeping up with newsy notes in my other web venues you know I've a new musical experience in the works. Last week's band practice excitement was the arrival of a potential 2nd guitarist, fellow of Rob, the drummer's acquaintance. Scott seemed to have some great dexterity and a nice crunchy guitar sound while he whipped out a handful of pieces and parts of songs he knew including Judas Priest's venerable early metal standard, The Green Manalishi(With The Two-Pronged Crown).

Gave me a super-retro 'circle of life' flashback and it's reinforced by listening to the song repeatedly this week with a view learning to play it again my own self. Shades of deja vu, indeed.

In another note, while casting about for possible overlap in our respective repertoires, drummer Rob said, 'How about some Van Halen?' Which made me realize that despite their being my fave band- in the Diamond Dave era anyway -I've only ever really learned to play a single VH tune, Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love. (Unless you count my pidgin version of Eruption, Eddie's guitar solo from the first album. Which I don't because I've seen at least a dozen teens play it with real skill on YouTube whereas I've always kinda faked my way through it.)

So I set about learning a couple for real. Dance The Night Away, probably the first song I ever heard from VH. No mindbending guitar spot but a great pop tune that still makes me wanna dance. (Hahaha, no, not really, I can't dance.) Somebody Get Me A Doctor, a power rock fave from way back. I just can't imagine too many bands doing a song like it and it features a cool guitar trick near the end that always reminds me of glass breaking. Beautiful Girls, the ultimate summertime girlwatching at the beach song. The leadoff riff outstrips Walk This Way for catchy guitar crunchiness and is more fun to play than almost anything I can think of right now. I haven't got all the finer points- meaning all the speedy noodling Ed throws in like it's the simplest thing in the world -of the latter two, of course, but I can play along with them without too much finger fumbling. Too cool! Who knows if they'll actually be something the band plays together but it's a major milestone for this former long-haired, bandana sporting, old school rock star pretender. Wheeeee!

What else is new? Man, the kittens are growing! I'll bet they're twice the size they were when they arrived a month ago. Tuco- a strange name for a little girl cat but somebody had to fill out the trio named for The Good, The Bad and The Ugly -is affectionately referred to now as 'Teacup Kitty' because she's the smallest of the three and could probably actually fit in one of the bigger teacups we have in the cupboard. Angel Eyes has warmed up considerably but can still make a beeline for cover when he's not in the mood for 'personal kitty time'. Blondie is just the simplest, sweetest of the bunch, proving that little boy cats are much more personable than their female counterparts. Skinny is alternately playful and determined to ignore their presence. I don't think she likes having to share the food, the couch, the litter box or especially the window ledge where she watches birds at the feeder. Poor 'Granny Cat', I guess she'll have to make the best of it.

Ooops... more later...!

Routine

Boy, I can't recall a time in my life when things have felt more routine. The weeks seem to be rushing by from spring toward the summer and while I get a few things done every week between eating and sleeping there's nothing out of the ordinary going on. I guess that's a good thing, actually, it means there are no car accidents to report or broken limbs on the mend so...

On the plus side I'm getting in lots of guitar practice lately, jamming around with my once and future bandmate, Jimmy, and a drummer of his acquaintance. The downside is that my lack of 'proper' technique- I once proposed 'monkey grip' as the name of a band I was in and that's kinda how I grab the neck of the guitar! -and practice, practice, practice has led to some serious hand cramping. An old woodworking mishap sliced open my left thumb and forefinger, mmm, must have been 1982, I believe it damaged a nerve because after not too much playing that hand goes all numb and tingly, kinda like a charlie horse of the hand. At least it's a pretty good excuse- along with my spotty playing habits -for never becoming a virtuoso on the instrument. But I blame non-musical genes more than anything. Some people just have 'it', my tin ear makes every note and chord a struggle. Fun, but a struggle nonetheless. There are just too many tewelve-year-olds on YouTube who make it look effortless!

Aside from those once-or-twice-weekly asides playing (what can only loosely be termed) music, the highlight of most weeks is Saturday night's schedule of re-run TV. I've even invented a mnemonic so I can recall what's on and when:

MINYHO MOCO GRL

Which is pronounced more or less like it looks, 'miney-ho mo-ko girl'. Looks like a big long vanity plate, stands for CSI:Miami, CSI:NY, House, Monk, Cold Case, Gray's Anatomy and Lost.

While marathon sessions of back-to-back DVD screenings have taken up more than a few of my Saturdays: Wild, Wild West, UFO, Star Trek, Superman, The Big Valley -this stretch of 'couching' is my wife's habit more than my own. I'll watch between computerizing- checking an email box, loading some photos for the Yahoo group, watching my auction items wind down -or crafting something- casting or painting a doll head, for example -until the big draw which is the midnight episode of Lost. A show I'd never watched first run but got drawn into watching late night when there was nothing else to sit and stare at. As I'm sure has been commented upon by many a TV pundit, it's an aptly titled series because after watching it for months I'm still pretty much clueless as to the exact nature of events and timelines. Predict what ultimately might become of these characters? Fuggeddaboutit! So as its network run winds down I'm trying to avoid 'spoilers' and wondering if the re-run schedule will include the last season's episodes or if I'm going to have to break down and buy it on DVD to see how it all turns out!

Ahhhh, now there's some exciting 'life stuff' to write about... "What are you watchin' on broadcast TV on Saturday nights?" Scintillating! Breathtaking! >gasp, pant<

Ohhhh, brudder! What's next?!? Bingo???

Seasonal Affective Disorder

I don't think I have that, not really. But 'cabin fever', maybe. The manager here refers to people who don't come out of their place very often as 'live-ins' and I'm sure that's where we fall on the yardstick of 'out and about-iveness' lately. I don't know if it's the recycled air or lack of sunlight or continuous exposure to the electromagnetism of the computer and television screens or what, something. But, wow, I never feel like leaving the house. Things gets done, I get the supplies I need, make the requisite trips to the post office, take out the trash, retrieve incoming mail from the mailbox and so on. But that's about it. And the recent pair of snowfalls have only intensified that compulsion. The first white stuff I was able to more or less wait until it blew and drifted away from the car before I had to move just a wee bit of snow. This time though I was forced by the second day after the event to actually shovel a good deal more of the white stuff. 'A good deal' meaning the tiny driveway on one side of the car where it was drifted in and almost certainly the tiny vehicle wouldn't have been able to power out from under without some shoveling. It really wasn't much of a job except for the advanced atrophy evident in all my snow-moving muscles. Yaahhh...

On the plus side I can add 'fried apple fritters' to my stovetop repertoire. Did I mention this already? Last big adventure- actually had to leave the house for it! -was a day trip with my pal, Jimmy, to The Green Dragon, a famers-slash-flea market over Lancaster way. Had a giant soft pretzel- I'm not a big soft pretzel guy but, wow, it was the best pretzel I've ever had, with honey mustard, drool -and an apple fritter. Which inspired me to give that confection a try my own self. Surprisingly super simple to do if you have some apples and 'just add water' pancake mix. That's it, nothing else. Just cut the apples into small chunks, mix into the batter and drop by spoonfuls into hot oil and >zing< you've made apple fritters. Just be forewarned, a little bit goes a loooong way and if you have two or three you'll have had enough apple fritters to last you for a while. So be ready to share if you mix up even a small batch. And they're 1000% better warm, right outta the oil, so it's a good treat for a handful of friends of an evening rather than handing them out the next day or the day after that.

What else is new? Well, my hole punches have disappeared. I'm serious, I need one especially today for a small gunbelt I'm working up for one of my doll men- Yul Brynner as Chris from The Magnificent Seven -and the plastic bin of hole punches- I probably have six or eight at least, different sizes and shapes -is nowhere to be found. I just don't get it. My workspace is a mess, no denying that, and it's hard to find anything, I'm in serious need of a day or two of nothing but organization, sorting and filing like materials and small objects, things in the works, molds, tools, brushes, paints and so on and on... but this is ridiculous. They should be in plain sight or at least found after a perfunctory glance in the usual places, under the stuff that stacks up on top of the printer, the stack of mailing supplies in this corner and/or the stack of miscellaneous containers and cardboard boxes of 'might be used one day' stuff in that corner... But I've been over the river and through the woods, looked in practically every drawer or box or bin and on every surface in the room, all to no avail. The punches, the whole lot of them, simply refuse to be found.

So if they don't turn up before I find something of interest in the Saturday night TV lineup- coupla CSI reruns and then Lost at midnight -and get planted on the couch, I'll just try again tomorrow. Of course, I'm working with the 'gunbelt box' on the couch so Yul Brynner will mock me from the coffee table as long as I'm in that room. They must be here somewhere, after all. Right? There are no such things as gremlins... Right???

Anyway... Here's a new cartoon I'm doing for a business card for some friends. Y'know, caricatures have always been one of my favorite things to draw... Until next time then, abby seein' ya!