Holy Tamoly, what does that cat EAT?! And SHIGHT I hope she burries it well now that she's done digesting it. That REEKS. Like-- tears to my eyes-- REEKS!!!
Excuse me-- that wasn't how I intended to start this post. It's just a sudden distraction on the road of life here. A sudden smelly kitty distraction that I must now take a few moments to mercifully dispose of. Mercifully for my NOSE.
Well, now. Moving right along.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! It has been an interesting year. Full of self-reflection, self-promotion, and self-denial. I moved (twice), I got snowed in (twice), I integrated myself into someone else's household (twice)... I sense a theme.
I've held workshops, had booths at faires and retreats and festivals, gotten published here and there, and created a loyal client base. I've applied for jobs, I've narrowed my activities, I've tried unsuccessfully to sell my (perfectly great) car and reduce my overall mandatory expenditures. I've been to a lot more friendly get-togethers and outright parties than in the past five years combined. I've enjoyed myself more at each of them than at the most lavish and well-organized military gathering I ever attended.
I've gotten serious about writing my book, too. It's time.
I spent the new year with a new friend. Even had a (friendly) kiss at midnight from someone I respect. Stayed out until nearly 3am. When was the last time THAT happened?! Lots of good conversations, lots of opportunities to grow my network and finally feel that I belong here in town. Reconnected with old friends this year, too, and that felt good in its own way. Old friends are important.
As with each of the past few years, I feel that I've grown and changed SO MUCH over what is really a brief span of time. I've learned so much about who I am, what I'm capable of, and what values/opportunities/realities/activities/ beliefs I really care to pursue or maintain in my life. It's been highly rewarding, and very draining.
More recently, as in last night and continuing through this very moment, the term "draining" refers to what we'd like the basement to do. It's flooded. Check that. It's FLOODING in a seeping run-down-the-walls kind of way. My housemate and I took turns going down to wet-vac the puddle every hour or so all night, to minimize the spread of wet. Thing is, between all that snow and the last two days of heavy rain, there just isn't anyplace in the ground for all that water to GO. After staying up late the morning before, staying up to help until after midnight last night, getting up for my turns at 2am and again at 4am, and getting up this morning to start all over again... I'm tired. You might even say, "drained."
And yet my level of worry/stress has gone down dramatically in the last week. That's good. Nobody wants a heart attack at age 30. I guess I'm really hopeful that the new year, new administration, and new possibilities in my own life will bear fruit that is both sustaining and sustainable. That would be a real gift for all of us. May the new year be full of positive changes, and good luck for all. We need it.
Friday, January 2
Tuesday, December 30
Crashing Into Life
Well, I feel loved. Best thing to feel at this particular time of year, and I feel it. As a good old friend of my family would say, "Shight-Howdy, it's enough to make your big toes wiggle!"
And then we'd all laugh, and she'd look at us and say, "Haven't y'all heard that expression before??" As if WE are the weirdos. This year, my immediate family (me and the 'rents) decided to do JUST STOCKINGS, and look at our traditions to figure out which ones are actually special so we can pay more attention when we do them. And it was really one of the best Christmases we've had-- even Papa thought so.
We made Welsh Pasties (HEAVEN IS WAITING IN MY FREEZER!!!), and Ottonian Sour Cream Cookies (They aren't waiting because I already ate them. All of them.), and eggs on toast. I ran into another one of those situations (I run into these a lot) where two different phrases mean the exact same thing, but I didn't know that, and worked really hard to remember the ONE phrase, so when somebody used the OTHER PHRASE, I had no fugging clue what they were talking about. And how silly is that-- because it was the phrase, "fried eggs."
I mean, I've seen it. I always figured I wouldn't like it because I didn't know what it was. Tells you a lot about my relationship to food, doesn't it. My mom didn't cook those, she made me over-hard eggs in a frying pan, and scrambled eggs. But we don't fry ANYTHING in my family, so I KNEW I'd never had "fried eggs." I was actually shocked that my mom would offer me one-- and on Christmas morning, too!! ... And then she gave me that look. That "you've been drinking out of the stupid jar again, haven't you" look. The one that says she thinks I'm intentionally tormenting her by playing dumb, and she is really not happy with me about it.
I guess the good news is she thinks I'm smart enough to know that "fried eggs" are the eggs you cook in a frying pan-- you know, like over-hard eggs, for example. The bad news is, I really didn't know. You have to understand. When I was little, we didn't eat like everybody else, and mom cooked just about everything from scratch. I thought everybody had vegetarian tomato pasta sauce with beans in it. So she knew what I liked, and I knew what she cooked, and if she asked if I wanted eggs, I knew they'd be scrambled. Or she'd let me cut off the whites and just eat those, since I didn't like the yolks. Even when they weren't the consistency of weird yellow-orange mucus.
So then we'd go to a restaurant, and mom would have to translate everything on the menu for me. What sort of eggs are "over easy" eggs? Do I like those? What is French Toast? You mean it's that weird dry bread you coat with egg and then put syrup on? Eww! (FYI, my food repertoire of "likes" has grossly expanded since the time of which I write. I like food now.)
When, as a child, I got tired of trying to figure out egg-cooking-styles and trying to explain to the waitress what I wanted, I finally memorized two easy kinds of egg-cooking-styles that I KNEW I LIKED, and I KNEW THEY COULD COOK. And always since then, if we eat breakfast out, I ask for one of those. Eggs over-hard, or hard-scrambled. Because I'd learned that this is the most easily-understood restaurant term for the kind of eggs my mom cooked for me at home. And that is literally the extent of my egg-preparation-term repertoire. Oh, plus hardboiled. I know those from Easter. Then mom tells me --right there on Christmas morning-- that she's making "boiled eggs" for her and papa.
WTF?! Does she mean HARD boiled?? Is there any OTHER kind of boiled egg? I mean-- parents always yell at their kids for eating cookie dough with UNCOOKED EGGS in it, so... Is this another trick like the "fried eggs" situation?? sigh... I guess I must have ROLLED in stupid-juice without even noticing last night, because apparently I reek of it. Just look at her scrunched up face when I ask for clarification on THAT one!!
See, fancy literature and books about dragons rarely describe cooked eggs in both visual and restaurantees terms enough to picture what is what-- so eggs are not among the information and vocabulary and phrases that I gleaned from said "literature." I may have told my dad as a pre-pubescent teen that "my cup runeth over" when he gave me too much milk once-- and known both the literal and the poetic meanings of the phrase used... but what has THAT got to do with the price of EGGS?!
Ahem-- so anyway, I felt loved this holiday season. And I was able to hi-jack my friend's car with the walnut-studded tires and the cold weather engine starter and the eco-diesel green gas juice and all, and drive IT through the frozen and bumpy wasteland of insane Christmas-Eve highway drivers to my parents' house so I COULD bake cookies and pasties and eggs with them. It was wonderful.
I also got phone calls from several friends to make sure I arrived there safely, or was doing okay with all the insane snow we received. Can you believe we had a WHITE CHRISTMAS on the west coast? When has THAT happened before?! Even weirder than fried eggs, I tell you! And I'm about to head over to check my mail. There may be Christmas Cards I don't know about. It's been almost two weeks since I could get close enough to the post office to park my car and go in.
And then on Sunday, my extended West Coast Family all mustered together and celebrated, and shared "extended family love" with the little kids. It was the start of another great Christmas tradition that we all want to remember for next year, too. Not quite as grand as the ones we used to have back east (50 people, lots of excellent insanity), but still... And that reminds me-- I've got cheese in my backpack, and it really ought to be put in the fridge here soon.
Merry Everything, and many happy returns of it all to you and yours.
Or, as my family probably will say after they read about the eggs,
"Here's egg in your face!" Which I know is a quote, but have NO idea where it came from. And I'm actually okay with that. Really.
And then we'd all laugh, and she'd look at us and say, "Haven't y'all heard that expression before??" As if WE are the weirdos. This year, my immediate family (me and the 'rents) decided to do JUST STOCKINGS, and look at our traditions to figure out which ones are actually special so we can pay more attention when we do them. And it was really one of the best Christmases we've had-- even Papa thought so.
We made Welsh Pasties (HEAVEN IS WAITING IN MY FREEZER!!!), and Ottonian Sour Cream Cookies (They aren't waiting because I already ate them. All of them.), and eggs on toast. I ran into another one of those situations (I run into these a lot) where two different phrases mean the exact same thing, but I didn't know that, and worked really hard to remember the ONE phrase, so when somebody used the OTHER PHRASE, I had no fugging clue what they were talking about. And how silly is that-- because it was the phrase, "fried eggs."
I mean, I've seen it. I always figured I wouldn't like it because I didn't know what it was. Tells you a lot about my relationship to food, doesn't it. My mom didn't cook those, she made me over-hard eggs in a frying pan, and scrambled eggs. But we don't fry ANYTHING in my family, so I KNEW I'd never had "fried eggs." I was actually shocked that my mom would offer me one-- and on Christmas morning, too!! ... And then she gave me that look. That "you've been drinking out of the stupid jar again, haven't you" look. The one that says she thinks I'm intentionally tormenting her by playing dumb, and she is really not happy with me about it.
I guess the good news is she thinks I'm smart enough to know that "fried eggs" are the eggs you cook in a frying pan-- you know, like over-hard eggs, for example. The bad news is, I really didn't know. You have to understand. When I was little, we didn't eat like everybody else, and mom cooked just about everything from scratch. I thought everybody had vegetarian tomato pasta sauce with beans in it. So she knew what I liked, and I knew what she cooked, and if she asked if I wanted eggs, I knew they'd be scrambled. Or she'd let me cut off the whites and just eat those, since I didn't like the yolks. Even when they weren't the consistency of weird yellow-orange mucus.
So then we'd go to a restaurant, and mom would have to translate everything on the menu for me. What sort of eggs are "over easy" eggs? Do I like those? What is French Toast? You mean it's that weird dry bread you coat with egg and then put syrup on? Eww! (FYI, my food repertoire of "likes" has grossly expanded since the time of which I write. I like food now.)
When, as a child, I got tired of trying to figure out egg-cooking-styles and trying to explain to the waitress what I wanted, I finally memorized two easy kinds of egg-cooking-styles that I KNEW I LIKED, and I KNEW THEY COULD COOK. And always since then, if we eat breakfast out, I ask for one of those. Eggs over-hard, or hard-scrambled. Because I'd learned that this is the most easily-understood restaurant term for the kind of eggs my mom cooked for me at home. And that is literally the extent of my egg-preparation-term repertoire. Oh, plus hardboiled. I know those from Easter. Then mom tells me --right there on Christmas morning-- that she's making "boiled eggs" for her and papa.
WTF?! Does she mean HARD boiled?? Is there any OTHER kind of boiled egg? I mean-- parents always yell at their kids for eating cookie dough with UNCOOKED EGGS in it, so... Is this another trick like the "fried eggs" situation?? sigh... I guess I must have ROLLED in stupid-juice without even noticing last night, because apparently I reek of it. Just look at her scrunched up face when I ask for clarification on THAT one!!
See, fancy literature and books about dragons rarely describe cooked eggs in both visual and restaurantees terms enough to picture what is what-- so eggs are not among the information and vocabulary and phrases that I gleaned from said "literature." I may have told my dad as a pre-pubescent teen that "my cup runeth over" when he gave me too much milk once-- and known both the literal and the poetic meanings of the phrase used... but what has THAT got to do with the price of EGGS?!
Ahem-- so anyway, I felt loved this holiday season. And I was able to hi-jack my friend's car with the walnut-studded tires and the cold weather engine starter and the eco-diesel green gas juice and all, and drive IT through the frozen and bumpy wasteland of insane Christmas-Eve highway drivers to my parents' house so I COULD bake cookies and pasties and eggs with them. It was wonderful.
I also got phone calls from several friends to make sure I arrived there safely, or was doing okay with all the insane snow we received. Can you believe we had a WHITE CHRISTMAS on the west coast? When has THAT happened before?! Even weirder than fried eggs, I tell you! And I'm about to head over to check my mail. There may be Christmas Cards I don't know about. It's been almost two weeks since I could get close enough to the post office to park my car and go in.
And then on Sunday, my extended West Coast Family all mustered together and celebrated, and shared "extended family love" with the little kids. It was the start of another great Christmas tradition that we all want to remember for next year, too. Not quite as grand as the ones we used to have back east (50 people, lots of excellent insanity), but still... And that reminds me-- I've got cheese in my backpack, and it really ought to be put in the fridge here soon.
Merry Everything, and many happy returns of it all to you and yours.
Or, as my family probably will say after they read about the eggs,
"Here's egg in your face!" Which I know is a quote, but have NO idea where it came from. And I'm actually okay with that. Really.
Monday, December 15
The French Translation
Things that mean something, a biographical list of one-liners from breakfast with Big D:
- It'd be nice to date someone intelligent AND funny, you know?
- So, how long have you been a looser?
- Um, no. Actually, I didn't learn that from my grandmother. It's all me.
- Well, I'm just known as "That guy who eats salad for lunch," so they don't think I'm a homo at work-- but there's this other guy who started trying to eat healthy lunches after he'd been there for a while, and it was like, "Man let me show you some tits so you can get over this and eat man-food again."
- Actually, nobody takes you seriously because we know you really DO mean the outrageous things you say.
- God, this sounds retarded; I met her on Facebook.
- Liquid chalk? Actually, I think pole dancers WANT to be able to slide around some...
- He's an ambulance driver with a Master's Degree in Art Criticism. And he eats salads for lunch, too. I just feel compelled to call him my partner-- but only at work!
- Well, actually, I AM a librarian. Explains the ice cube in my hot coco, doesn't it?
- Boy, watching you eat takes me right back to when we were kids.
- I meant to do that.
- When is your Christmas Present officially "late" this year?
- It's like free therapy. Especially when I tell them stories about my marriage. And they tell me, "Gosh. I always wondered how somebody could be stupid enough to end up in that situation. Now I know." At least I get to hear it from my editors before I hear it from everybody else.
- Imagine Jean Claud Van Dam playing himself. He's actually a sad, gentle little man.
- They don't look like cookie rejects to you? Well, taste one. Then you'll understand why I gave them to you.
- Boil down all the wisdom I wish I could go back and give my younger self, and you get this: Eat salad and lift weights-- the rest will take care of itself.
- You have a studded tire for your BICYCLE??
- You've just created another Vin Diesel fan, haven't you.
- Yeah, I know I need some sort of mal-practice insurance for all the great advice I keep giving everybody.
- I think Nateuropathic Medicine is when you're allergic to cats, so they make you eat cat to solve the problem.
- No, really, you WANT to hear this story about eating cat faces in China!
- Dude, people puke on me at work. You spitting when you talk is like NOTHING in comparison. Really. And then there was this guy with a dead mouse on his belly.
- Maybe I need to work on my compassion for fat people.
- ...And then I get the munchies and play stupid video games all day. What side effects do YOU get?
- "Friends with Benefits." That means "free fugck" in french, doesn't it?
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