Sunday, April 29, 2007

Birthday Goodness plus pizza pies

Let’s continue with a theme and get back to run-of-the-mill posts once I put down this blasted centrifuge and write some.  Meantime I’ve had a nice “rolling” birthday and wanted to make special notice of the following birthday goodies:
* Gifties and remembrances from many very thoughtful people - those of you who visit here, thanks!  It’s never a party without you!
* Tani Sushi: Yes, they managed to get another exceptional place to eat - not just in my neighborhood, but actually closer than any other option to date, just directly across Geary.  The sushi is so over-loaded that it’s effectively a big slab of sushi followed by a big slab of sashami - double your fun.  The fish was flawless (though I did have some problems with my nigiri falling apart); standouts include the smoked salmon, succulent and tongue-pungent, and the delightfully hamish Richmond Roll - crab, eel and avocado with four colors (!) of tomiko.  Tani sushi: Not cheap, but a bargain. A fitting sentiment for my birthday, I think. 
* Schubert’s Mango Mousse cake: with the requisite chocolate flowers, white chocolate “happy birthday” plaque, white and milk chocolate zebra sticks, leopared-skin milk chocolate ribbon, and of course two lucky raspberries, atop a layer of mango jelly that floats above a thick bed of creamy, almost fluffy mango mousse that rests on a think layer of delicate white cake.  I held myself to about one-third of it that night, but only because I’d actually overeaten to the point of physical discomfort.  And it gave me certain ideas about breakfast.

Plus, of course, we were partying with bananamonkey.  It’s always good to party with bananamonkey.

And that’s a solid birthday celebration right there for ya.  Maybe a little too solid, but not really.  Moral: Sometimes too much of a good thing is a-okay.  Which is probably why I decided not to memorialize my actual dining-out-with-babysitter whoo-hoo birthday feast, up at the Buckeye.  I will admit that it included maker’s mark and a Marin Manhattan with vanilla-infused bourbon and kirschcherries, and of course we had some of those killer roasted artichokes, and some excellent brussel sprouts and bacon gratin that paired well with mac-n-ham-n-cheese, and an astonishing seared scallop rissotto, and a nice big slab of ribeye, saison farmhouse on tap, madiera (m’dear), something like an ice cream sundae, and something else very much like pineapple upside-down cake with house-made vanillabean ice cream and caramel sauce.  Or something like that.  No, I left the camera behind for all of that so you’re spared the indignity of my crapulence. 

However, I did also recently very very much enjoy some pizza that was sent to me by a pair of evil geniuses who will remain nameless lest they be pestered with requests to do for others what they recently did for me: sent me pizza.  And not any pizza - special super-good pizza from Danny Boy’s in Cleveland.  I did, however, promise them photographic evidence of the enjoyment of said pizza, so here it is.  The box, for starters, was freaking huge - I had to put it in the fridge at work and carry it home with me on the bus, so everybody got to wonder what dangers lurked in my plain cardboard wrapper.  Well soon enough the mysteries were revealed: boxes! No, that doesn’t seem intense enough.  Let’s try again: boxes! Yeah, that’s more what it was like.  And here’s a whirlwind tour of my pizza odyssey: here is what they looked like out of the box (foil’s alien-repelling powers are accentuated in this photograph; antique bottleopener added for scale).  Here, on the other hand, is what the pizzas looked like out of the foil.  Now, for the first one, I must admit, we ate it rather quickly.  I only remembered to take a photo of it when this was all that was left of it.  But believe me, it was tasty.  The second one, it was a bit more to handle.  After we baked it at 325 for about 25 minutes, it came out of the oven looking like this, and a couple of slices on my plate looked like this.  You might ask me if I shared it with zach, but honestly, no, we didn’t.  That first chicken parm pizza didn’t last long enough, and the bridgeport buffalo with the yellow peppers and ranch dressing and taco chips and breaded chicken fingers… friends, that’s no pizza for a child.  I could barely handle it myself.  My friends - you know who you are - thank you, from the bottom of my cholesterol-clogged heart.  That was a really momentous couple of pizzas.

And I think that’s about all we need to say about this for now.  Enjoy monday.  I’ll see if I can come up with something diverting for midweek.  We’ve just finished allocations, which means the world to me, but to you it’s mostly about how I might get a bit of writing done again - instead of just slorping down the calories and taking photos of it, god knows we’ve had enough of that for a while now.... 

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

this one really snuck up on me

39
40
41
42

and yesterday I realized I had barely 24 hours to write a new one.  hell, Jack Bauer can save the free world in less time than that, if you deduct for the commercial breaks.  which brings us to today:

numbered primal, one per POTUS
kick my heinie through my scrotus
wondering if this is really what it means to be alive
optimistic within reason
for all things there is a season
but unclear which one i’m facing now - to sleep or stoup or strive
with potential i’m exploding
is that kierkegaard i’m quoting
i’ll be finished in a minute - can i have some “me” time please
locked and loaded, laser-guided
i will find it if you hide it
and incite a minor riot when i throw away the keys
no one asks me if i’m legal
emperor’s both nude and regal
streaking past the crenellations till they stick me in an urn
give me light and i’ll reflect it
from the dark side i’ve defected
look away or you’ll be blinded by a genius that can burn
deep fried, half baked, hard boiled
in these fields i have toiled
till exhausted fingers falter and i drop my pedigree
let it lie where it has landed
it’s more perfect than i planned it
but for now that must suffice us for today i’m 43!

have a good one, people.  somebody should. 

Monday, April 23, 2007

The Listening Party, and Other Caramelized Nibs

Saturday night was the long-awaited Listening Party.  I drove out to darkest Berkeley where a colleague had set up his dining room with a big mixing board, four huge speakers (two huge in size, two huge in sound), and all the input you could desire: digital, cassette deck, and turntable.  The five of us each had about 45 minutes of music from which to select, and we listened for about four hours.  It was a lot of fun.  We didn’t try to max out the speakers, either – we listened with volume, but not excessive volume.  I was surprised at how much better vinyl sounds than I expected it to, and it was interesting to see where everybody’s musical tastes took them.  I had a handful of oldies and boldies, but I wasn’t able to play several of them for technical reasons (i.e. I am an idiot) and we ran out of time for several others.  I guess that means that I heard more of other people’s music than they heard of mine, which made it a successful educational experience for me.  Add in the excellent bourbon-soaked steaks, five wines and four bars of chocolate, and it was a damn fine evening all around. 

This evening I go to Oakland to retrieve my lost notebook, which was recovered somewhere on BART and is being held for me at 12th Street.  I am delighted and very excited to be back in position to do a little scrivening.  Meantime I can tell you, I rented Zardoz and watched as much of it as I could last night (I dropped off a few times but I don’t think it really made a difference).  Zardoz is a movie that takes itself seriously - so you don’t have to.  Other than giving me a few ideas for “casual Fridays” at work, I don’t know what this movie is telling me.  I do know that it’s about as weird as it could possibly be.  Plus, they kept saying the word “penis.” Logan’s Run vs Land of the Lost.  Makes Dr Who seem high-budget.  The dvd should come with its own peyote.  If you want to know more about it, I’m really not sure what I could tell you. 

Finally, I got my 11x14 reprint of this photo from shutterfly today.  It’ll fit a nice frame we’ve got stashed away.  It’s fun to see my little pix all blowed up big like this.  I mean, not in a “Blow Up” way.  No existentialism or murders or live segments of the Yardbirds or any of that sort of thing.  That I noticed. 

The listening party playlist and other details are in the extended entry.  More - from the recovered notebook - soon!

Friday, April 20, 2007

G-B-U

The Good: Bridgeport Buffalo pizza, delivered to my desk and reheated to perfection.  The prior night’s chicken parm pizza was no slouch; Kel and I finished it off without a second thought, until I guess I was overwhelmed by the thought, Oh god is there no more pizza?  But there was more, the Buffalo Bridgeport, which we engaged last night.  The ‘za was the same size but I could barely get through two and a half pieces.  It was the ranch dressing and taco chips.  It seems wrong exactly because it is so right.  And more to the good, thanks to my dear friends who sent me said pizza as a general token of goodwill toward the entire universe, which I somehow intercepted and got to be a beneficiary of.  Is it still good if I end with a preposition?  I say, this time, yes.  Because the pizza was just. that. good.  WITH.  Ha.

The Bad: I lost both my writing notebook and my memobook on the same freaking day earlier this week.  So, along with being totally slammed with work and home projects, I also have a good excuse for not posting: I’m petulant because I lost two completed handwritten essays plus lots of silly and important notes.  I am sulking, literarily.  Lucky for me I have plenty more of the cool cahiers memobooks so at least it’s a silver lining that I get to start a new one. I just discovered recently that the pages in the back are perforated – but not the ones in front.  So cool! 

The Ugly: I just got my cholesterol checked and it’s higher than it’s ever been in my life or anybody else’s.  Really, it’s sort of ridiculous.  So it’s back on the drugs for daniel, and we’ll see if I have any weird muscle cramping or liver dysfunction or exploding eyeballs this time.  But just to be on the safe side, maybe we’d all better put on protective goggles.  And I’m going to finish that pizza tonight and then go back to eating lichens and burlap.  It’s time to clean house and I’m starting with the coronary arteries.  326 is a hall of fame batting average, not a cholesterol count. 

Addendum: yes, I looked for the memobook.  I left the writing journal on a BART train, I wrote that one off as unrecoverable – but the memo book should be somewhere in the house.  The place is reasonably tidy now, I should be able to find it… maybe it’ll turn up when I next do laundry.  I need to re-check all the clothes in the hamper, I guess.  HOWEVER, I did get back to my desk after the commission meeting today to find an email and voice message from “donotreply” at BART: they found my journal and I just need to go to Oakland-12th street to reclaim it.  Plus, Netflix just delivered my copy of Zardoz.  Yeah, I think April 20 might work out to be okay after all. 

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Oh Yes I Did

Finally, finally, they’ve taken the biggest productivity disenhancer in this office off the net.  Maybe we can get something done now that the entire support staff in this office isn’t sitting enraptured in front of a webcam viewer to watch that damned Knut the Polar Bear Cub stumble and tumble around like the ruthless carnivore-in-training that he is. 

I’ve got nothing against polar bear cubs, mind you, so long as they know their place and keep to it.  Frozen iceshelves?  Fine and dandy. Zoos and preserves?  Sounds good to me.  Constantly charging around the Admin Assistant’s computer monitor so she has to stop working and just gape and coo with delight at his every bowel movement and ass-scratching?  Not. So. Much. 

Well it seems that the gods of dentistry have taken up my plight and put the fuzzy little eviscerator in a bad mood - he’s teething and apparently not so goddamn cute anymore, so they’ve taken him off the air.  And I can live with that.  The internet is for political updates, funny acronyms, and instant messaging.  I don’t really need it to update me on fuzzy bunnies, baskets of baby chickens, or other glurge.  And as far as showing me baby polar bears, I say, no Knuts is good Knuts. 

Monday, April 16, 2007

RASFMBT: RIP

Jules mentioned that I sometimes use words that make typists slow down.  Me too, my friend, me too.  That’s as good a reason as any finally to share this piece of recycling with you:

Maybe I could remember where I found it if I really tried but frankly the memory is too painful.  All I know is that it was a long time ago when many things were very different, and I – yes, I – was one of them.  What a world it must have been – imagine, if you will: for it is no more.  That which tied me to it has been lost, is gone, irretrievable. I am bereft. The era of the Ren and Stimpy Folding Metal Bed Tray now sleeps with our fathers.  RIP.

The RASFMBT, as I affectionately acronomicize, was what I’d call an artifact.  Hell, Ren and Stimpy were artifacts too, I guess, which would make the RASFMBT more like a meta-artifice, which is a concept I instantly totally love and enthusiastically adopt.  So:

R&S, for the very old and the very very young, were an adorable early-’90s animated cat and dog team that engaged in the grossest, stupidest, crudest adventures imaginable to the mind of a boy in junior high school detention.  The stories enacted by this disgusting duo emphasized all of the major body functions and excretions in every imaginable variety and context. 

It was too excessive to be anything but hilarious.  For about 10 episodes – one groundbreaking first season.  A legend was born in the searing heat of a methanous flame that simply could not be sustained.  I think no one at Nick had anticipated the kind of content, or response, R&S would engender - the instant cult status they’d achieved.  They were a force to be reckoned with, to be sure, and that injected new factors into the artistic equation: money and controversy.  People were outraged; they demanded censorship.  Production of new episodes was delayed.  Creative momentum was lost.  The creator himself was fired.  When R&S finally came back on air they weren’t what they’d once been.  There were laughs, sure – but not as many.  Sometimes they seemed to be being gross just to be gross – as if grossness in itself was funny.  Well, sometimes it is, but sometimes it’s not.  With the resumption of R&S, it was increasingly “not.” I didn’t get to see it often, and then I just stopped looking for it. The tide had risen; then it ebbed.  A boogery vomiting sun had set on R&S: cultural phenomena, icons, artifacts of the late 20th century. 

Anyway, at some point after R&S went south on me, I found something, somewhere – as I mentioned, I truly don’t care to reconstruct the details.  The point is that I found a metal tray, about 24 inches across by 15, fitted with tubular legs that folded out into sturdy reliable bed-top support, lifting the tray about 15 inches above the comforters under which I could comfortably lie with my legs out in front of me and a steaming bowl of pho hovering resplendent over my lap as I recuperated cozily from some inconsequential infirmity.  And, beneath that massive bowl of life-affirming broth, intrinsically embedded in the very surface of the tray itself, would be imprinted in clear vibrant colors a vivid promotional depiction of a delightfully benign Ren and Stimpy, smiling and waving at me. Indeed, it was a Ren and Stimpy folding metal bed tray, and it was a damn fine one at that.  It wasn’t just a brilliantly colorful tool of great functional utility – it was a profound expression of the essence of Ren and Stimpy as icons, as artifacts.  It was a meta-artifact, and as such I kept it close to my heart.  Metaphorically speaking, I mean. 

And so the RASFMBT was a treasured possession of mine for more than a decade, I’d guess.  As I said, I’m not really sure when I got it.  Regardless, I know I rarely, rarely used it. The proper occasion almost never came up.  Kel preferred not to break it out when she was occasionally under the weather; she intimated that she doubted that her recuperation would be hastened by exposure to coprophagic cartoon characters.  Consequently, it was up to me to utilize the RASFMBT – and pity my wretchedness and my hale constitution, I didn’t do it.  I maintained it; I preserved it; and I cherished it; but it pretty much stayed in the closet behind the shoes or in the cupboards up above. 

Every so often I’d stumble over it in search for something else or a fit of tidiness: “RASFMBT! Yeah!  Looking good!” I’d fold and unfold the tubular legs a time or two, gaze into the four vacant eyes that stared up from its enameled surface, and then, culturally refreshed, put it back away again.  I reveled in the having of it, and that was enough at the time. 

A little while ago, I found it again – this time, in Zach’s vice-like little grip.  I was confident he wouldn’t fetch himself some traumatic injury with it – no sharp corners, no springs, and Z’s got excellent sense about those things anyway.  And I was gratified, paternally, to be able to add those two delightful characters to the menagerie of his other treasured artifacts, like Monkey George and Ehmo and those blasted puppets from Baby Einstein and all those others with which I have lately grown cloyingly overfamiliar.  Safe tray, great characters, what could be the problem? 

On second glance, the tray looked dirty.  I took it from him for a closer look.  That wasn’t dirt- it was rust.  The thing I failed to mention about this tray was its very low grade of metal.  One might say that it was stamped out of stiff foil, and it had long since begun to show noticeable dings and dents.  I suddenly, that morning, also realized that the bright grinning visages depicted on its surface had visibly faded, looking abruptly washed out and wan.  But most disturbing of all, several big rust stains were blooming in the bosom of the metal itself.  It wasn’t just wearing out, it was actively self-destructing – albeit slowly.  Z was now playing with a piece of rusty metal.  I had to reassess why I was still saving it. 

Kel had been on me for years to get rid of it, frankly, but I’d resisted till then.  I’d clung to it out of a sense of obligation or some kind of compulsive quirkiness or something.  Now, though, it seemed that I had treasured it for so long that it was no longer a treasure.  It was obvious the RASFMBT had bit the dust.  No point mourning it – I just walked it forward to the recycling crate in the kitchen and dropped the tray into its depths.  When I rolled the crate back into place under the shelves, shadow fell over Stimpy.  And also Ren, irrevocably.  The end of an era. 

I saw the former RASFMBT once more time, as I transferred the crate’s contents to the bin in the garage in anticipation of the pick-up early Monday morning.  At that point it was all just recycling – bags of cans and bottles, sheaves of paper, stacks of flattened cardboard boxes, and a faced, dented, rusty metal tray.  I’m not sure exactly where I got it, but I know where it’s gone. 

Saturday, April 14, 2007

field trips

tide hut

Last week we went to the headlands; today we visited the Bay Model in Sausalito.  Good time, cool images.  Click “photos” above for details.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

for those who feel

I was reading the news yesterday and stumbled onto a story of a man just convicted of child sexual predation.  He will serve 65 months behind bars for abusing little girls in Thailand.  It’s an ugly story, not funny in the least.  Yet I couldn’t help but notice that his name was Koklich, and that made me think about how strange things can be, how totally humorlessly funny.  Whereas we’ve just lost Kurt, who was hilarious, but in a very unfunny way.  It is as if the universe is daring you to laugh, while compelling you to care.  And that, for some reason, made me want to share this story with you.  No, not share it with you - I wanted to get it out of my brain.  Sorry, I guess you’re just collateral damage today.

His office was pretty good-sized, but bulging files and bundles of stodgy paper filled so much of the floor and the generous desk that the room felt much smaller.  No windows opened to the outside world; the walls were sparsely decorated.  The only real marks of cheer were a collection of little knickknacks huddled behind an outdated clock radio: a little rolly car, a bendy guy, a figurine of a “dad,” a squeezy stress ball in the shape of the everloving planet earth.  And of course, all the family photos – the kids, the dog, chronologies of holiday gatherings and little league teams....

He sat behind his desk in the traditional position of authority, and though we conversed as peers with easy casualness, he was the expert and we were the acolytes.  When he queried, we answered; when he spoke, we listened. 

So we were listening as he sat back and advised us with avuncular unction that parenthood was full of surprises, you never really knew what was coming next.  “It’s crazy,” he expounded thoughtfully.  “My daughter, she’s in eighth grade now. She cuts.  Well, I think we may have gotten beyond that now but, yeah.  She was a cutter.  You never know.”

We sat for a moment on our respective chairs, not knowing what one says to this kind of revelation.  Then he just shrugged and went on with his spiel.  For him, it was little more than the admission of a condition of living, like where he worked or whether he snored.  It was just another fact for him to share with us.  But hearing it had been like opening a window onto someone else’s private little hell.  The image of that unknown girl mutilating herself grew unendurably compelling to me - yet at the same time it grew vaguer and less distinct in my mind, as I realized how many lurid and critical details I lacked about her.  Why did she do it?  How did he learn?  What did they say when they talked about it - if they ever did?  I didn’t even know which smiling face was hers in the family portrait sitting dusty before me.  It was like he had stubbed out my brains in the middle of our meeting.

I don’t know why he told us that story.  It had nothing to do with our trip to his office.  Honestly, the rest of the visit is rather a blur to me now. 

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Spindrift - Tuesday Edition

1) Listening recently to the local rock radio station’s “A-to-Z” compilation, in which they play their whole library (pretty much) in alphabetical order over about 10 days of airtime, I heard a sort of glitzy 80’s-style pop ballad come up - not really my kind of tune.  But as I listened during the boy’s bathtime, I advised him with loving sternness: “You may not like this song [I didn’t, but there was no reason to think that he didn’t] but that makes no difference.  It’s ‘A to Z,’ so you have to love it.  You have to love it even if you don’t like it because it is everything, and you have to love everything.” This, if I can accept it in my heart, will be my mantra.  At least until I can think up a better one.  I mean, “Come On Eileen” is not a basis for a healthy worldview, even if it is an allegory for broader acceptance of Bhutatathata.

2) I’m enjoying (but not learning much) from this season of Amazing Race. However, I have learned the phrase “Peace Out, Cub Scout” and that is worth every minute I’ve invested so far.  Also, I learn that the network’s web page dedicated to the team most recently eliminated from the race is called the “Elimination Station.” I intend to post this phrase on every public restroom I can find, as well as all facilities capable of, though perhaps not intended for, such purposes.  I’ll start with the coffee rooms on every floor of this building and see if I can start anything. Elimination-wise, I mean.

3) Anu Garg’s word of the day: Titivate.

My Word of the day: Forb. 

My favorite forbs, from here: fringed onion, rough pigweed, raceme pussytoes, littleaf pussytoes, showy milkweed,heart-podded hoary cress, musk thistle, stalk-podded crazyweed, soft bush pea.

That is all.  You may now proceed with Tuesday, and don’t forget to titivate that crazyweed!

Monday, April 09, 2007

Spring Break Memories: Wonderful Bird

Happy Monday, party peoples!  It’s spring break time!  To put you in the mood for a productive week or a diverting vacation, here’s a short tale of a seafood meal gone down the wrong way:

I was visiting my friend Jose at his home during spring break.  Back at school the dug turds were still frozen to the Philadelphia sidewalks, but Jose lived in a different world altogether – a big beautiful hacienda in a ritzy part of San Juan P.R., where we surfed by day and roamed the colonial streets by night.  But one perfect afternoon found us out of our boardshorts and into the island’s version of formalwear: light trousers and a shirt with buttons all the way down.  We were going to go to the Pablo Casals Museum’s Recital Hall, an intimate performance space in the old part of town, to hear some baroque chamber music. 

The show was to start in half an hour or so - time we intended to spend in a tiny 17th-century plaza of worn stone and tall palms, watching the sun play over the enormous old Spanish fort.  It was a warm day and we let the heat seep deep into our bones.

Overhead: a pelican.  I didn’t look up, hadn’t seen it – but we knew it had flown above us because a huge load of cloacal excrement, brown and green and reeking of fish, fell suddenly and heavily onto Jose’s shoulder.  In volume, it may have been as much as a half a quart; in texture, it was like a watery stew of pre-digested mackerel. 

“Shit!,” Jose cried in shock and revulsion.  We both stared, amazed, as the substance soaked into his white linen shirt and dribbled heavily down his chest.  Then, again, but this time with outrage: “Shit!”

There was a drinking fountain in the little plaza and Jose hustled to it in a desperate attempt to deturdify himself.  The visual impact of his soiling was unignorable and the stench was worse, and we were about to go into a very small quiet room full of rich clean people who would undoubtedly notice that one of their number was generously spackled with avian dookie.  I guess he got mostly clean because we were let in and were allowed to stay through the whole recital.  The music was beautiful; the performance was nuanced and flawless.  What I mostly remember, though, was how surprisingly voluminous and odiferous a pelican’s poop can be.  Wonderful birds, pelicans. 

Sunday, April 08, 2007

Redemption: this time with visual aids and a menu

As we stumble toward the end of Passover (tuesday night, for you hard-core holdouts) it seems like time to get more descriptive about what we’ve been experiencing at the seder table.  Let’s start with the visuals: here’s what it looked like to go through the courses at chez chucklehut, starting with the pre-ceremony set-up (with fish plate, seder plate full of ceremonial objects, candles, wineglasses and wine, and mazoh in its silk mazoh cover (with aphikomen napkin at the ready)):

Then we moved on to the soup:

Of course there was a roast chicken (our favorite never-fail recipe):

the chicken seemed quite at home with all its friends on the supper plate:

(sadly, dessert was non-photogenic.  use your imagination.)

It also should be mentioned that, on Friday, Mitch and Cath had us over for one of the finest passover experiences I’ve ever had, winningly paired with some of the finest food I’ve ever et anywhere, anytime.  No photos, but here’s the menu:
* Chicken soup with floating Moroccan chicken and pistachio tartlet
* Hamachi tartar and ponzu granita with radish and watercress, in a sukang maasim vinaigrette (paired with sparkling Vouvray and an angostura sugarcube)
* Chuck blade steak with horseradish greens on a bed of mashed potatoes with reduction gravy
* Five-spice walnut brownies with portwine sauce and vanilla ice cream

Also, Charles brought two versions of charoset - one for general consumption and one for Catharine:
* Regular: Fuji apples, walnuts, pecans, Montana holy clover honey, cloves, cinnamon, black pepper, dried ginger, crystallized ginger, Deglett noor dates, Salamanca wine (with a pinch of salt to trigger the electrolytes)
* Catharine’s: Bartlett pears, pecans, honey (as above), cinnamon, cloves, dried ginger, black pepper, and Knob Creek bourbon. 

As a coda to all this pesachdik deliciousness, yesterday we met our old yoga teacher Nina for a misty morning brunch at Q, where she filled us in on the wild wonderful things going on in her life; and then this morning for easter I set up blueberry buttermilk pancakes with blueberry-maple syrup for the family, which were cheerfully and vigorously consumed:

Then there was the candy: 

(Z’s first peep:)

Then there was the hike in the headlands. 

Then some reading and napping, and now it’s now.  I’m having some coffee; soon I’ll take a bit of a jog in the park.  Tonight - pierogies from the muy autentico Polish deli down the street, with black forest ham and some of that excellent Schellhardt Pinot we just learned about.  I think there’s still some chocolate lurking around for dessert, too.  If this is what redemption is all about, I’m up for it!

Thursday, April 05, 2007

MLHB: The Transiting

From yesterday’s ride home:

I’ve gotten on the bus and picked an in-facing seat - not my usual, but a good one nonetheless.  I don’t really check to see who is sitting across from me - all I really notice is that my chosen seat is one down from my usual, on a small separate “two-fer” bench halfway back, with another empty space to the right.  Perhaps my failure to look across the aisle is careless but it’s been a long enough day already.  I get settled and then glance up to see, across from me, a white man, a little stocky, with noticable shaveshadow.  And also: he’s shaved bald.  He’s wearing headphones.  And a leather coat.

So am I.

Oh My God. 

We’re the Midbus Leather Headphone Baldies.

Should I get up?  All the other good seats are taken, and it would be so… obvious. I decide to play it down and act like nothing’s wrong.  Technically, I’m right, but it still feels weird.

I haven’t yet really looked up from my book as I write these notes.  An unusually attractive young woman takes the seat next to me and slips on her headphones too.  This may yet turn out not badly.

We’re passing another bus.

We’re already at Van Ness.

We’re already at Fillmore. 

We’re already at Diviz.

At home, Kel’s putting pizza in the oven.  It’ll be ready when I get there.  And the beer is already cold.  This is turning out to be a pretty good bus ride, despite my proximity to my fellow MLHB.  It made me uncomfortable at first but now I’m getting to be okay with it.  My regular seat has just opened up a few feet to my left, but I think I’ll just hang here for the duration.  Maybe there’s something to being a Midbus Leather Headphone Baldy after all. 

Monday, April 02, 2007

Redeem at Local Outlet!

Hag sameach, everybody.  Tonight is night ! (that’s “1”, capitalized) of Passover, the festival of redemption.  Once tied closely to the rites of Easter, the relationship has been (probably intentionally) attenuated over the millennia, and now it’s mostly celebrated as a commemoration of the exodus out of slavery.  But we all know that the slavery thing lasted around 200 years, and the commemoration has lasted three thousand – so there is probably more to it than a hearty rendition of “Let my people go” and a fistful of crumbly jewcrackers. 

I really love Passover and its message of a possible better future: redemption comes from personal righteousness, and though all of us struggle through out own “narrow place” of slavery, we can find inspiration for that struggle in the tendrils of new flowers and in the mysteries of wine and horseradish.  It’s a holiday with fabulous symbolism, a killer liturgy and – if done properly – great food. 

For 15 years or so it’s always been a huge social event for me, too – as many as 40 people gathering at friends’ houses to bring specially-baked goodies and carouse and ask four questions and play the part of four students and generally to greet Elijah with a brimming goblet of really good wine.  I’ve officiated at these shindigs for years, with my big honkin’ hagadah (guidebook to the celebration), which I wrote over the course of the last few decades.  We all party and hug and watch our kids knock each other over, and it’s a great time. 

The resonance of this particular festival is so profound that even my friend Simon, the “Jewish as George M Cohan” jew with whom I grew up and remain a child, has gone whole hog to co-host a big ol’ public seder for “second night” (Tuesday, this year).  He’s gone and started (with a friend) a site about being jewish without being zealous or overly religious or getting into people’s faces, and it’s a very funny and interesting site (check my links for “VHJews”), and more power to him, his partner, his wife, and their respective and very lovely families.  Simon is hosting a big seder.  That is redemption of some sort all by itself, though exactly what kind remains under consideration.

I’ll be considering that tonight myself as I sit with my family for a little seder of our own.  This year the burnout done hit and nobody wanted to host the seder.  Too many people, too many details, everybody having fun but you…. It just never came together, and now it’s not going to.  We got invited to Mitch and Cath and Eli’s hipster seder later this week, and I am really looking forward to being there as a guest in their lovely house, listening as a spectator to the litanies and proverbs…. But as for me leading the big old friends’ seder, wait till next year.

It felt so strange to me to be without this annual benchmark in my spiritual loingirding that I decided to mount a little service here at home tonight.  I’ll use my sister’s “not just for kids” hagadah, and we’ll be having all the basics – really good chicken soup with matzo balls, some smoked sturgeon (instead of gefilte fish, as to which, why?), a roast chicken with lemon and rosemary and garlic surrounded by yam-carrot-plantain tzimmis (really tasty), a matzo-mushroom kugel (un-freaking-believeably good), and seared brussel sprouts(shouldn’t suck), and then some panfried pesachdik bunuelos with maple and cinnamon (who knows if these will be edible; I bought a fall-back dessert from Israel’s Kosher Grocery just in case).  We have two good bottles of pinot (one French and one Californian, which I opened last night for charoset-making) and everything else is home- and hand-made.  I’ve got about 3 hours before kickoff and most everything has been made or prepped, and now the boy is up from his nap.  Time to get a little redemption in ahead of time.  I love me a good seder, and tonight will rock – but let’s be honest, nothing burnishes the soul like a really good hug from a two-year-old.  Happy Passover, blog peoples.  May your two zuzim buy you all your heart desires.