Thursday, March 27, 2008

Gleanings: Non-Twilight Related

It is Thursday for the rest of the world but it is Friday for me, because I am taking off tomorrow morning for a few days of high-altitude luxury on the shores of Lake Tahoe.  (Side note: The thing about Tahoe is that it is amazingly, heartwrenchingly blue, without the chemical appearance of some limestone-laden, cupric or volcanic bodies of water.  Seems like that’s on the way to being history, because changes in lake temperature are making the water “stratify” and it’s not mixing properly, so it’s likely to start growing green algae and to go from a turquoise gem to “another goddamn lake” pretty soon (though it’ll still be big enough to cover Texas to a depth of nine inches, to which I suggest, let’s get started already).)

ANYWAY.  Busy long week, with upcoming indolent long weekend (and let’s not forget it’s Cesar Chavez day on Monday the 31st, so I’m off work for a full four!).  I doubt I’ll have much cyberaccess while I’m roughing it up on the mountainside in my four-story hot-tub-enabled gourmet-kitchened 270-degree-lakeside-viewed pleasure tower, but I bet y’all get along just fine without me.  No, no really.  Don’t butter me up.  My cardiologist hates that.  Of course, the guy on the bus with the little moustache might be okay with it, but he’s not setting my priorities ever since the “sausage sandwich” debacle. 

SO: instead of writing up a nice chewy piece of text for your enjoyment (or whatever it is you might get out of it), I am going to resort to a handful of notebook gleanings and you should be grateful for them.  These are all gleanings having to do with things I’ve seen over the past few months which have somehow amused me.  I am easily amused, of course, but let’s see if I can share the joy.  Such as it is. 

ITEM: A new Russian grocery is getting ready to open near my house on Geary, which would be great if we didn’t already have, like, five of them.  There’s only so much discount caviar a man can (or should) eat.  More saddening, though, is that the wooden construction barrier walls will soon be coming down, depriving me of poster advertisements for the following musical phenomena:
* The Spill Canvas, and their album “No Really I’m Fine”
* Serj Tankian, and his album “Elect the Dead”
* Silversun Pickups, and their album “Carnavas” (featuring the single, “Well Thought-Out Twinkles")
* Avenged Sevenfold, and their album “Avenged Sevenfold.”
I don’t know if any of the music is any good, but the posters sure are tasty. 

ITEM (related to tasty posters): There’s a karaoke bar on Clement that’s been around for so long that it was almost invisible, with a blank windowless front wall featuring a faceless metal door and a photo of the Hong Kong skyline at night.  Except they recently went and replaced that nice architectural photo with one of a skanky-looking female Caucasian lounging next to a glitzy ‘70s-style wetbar, wearing a slinky dress and holding a handful of strawberries - which, as it appears from the photo, she’s trying to snort.  It is a very strange photo, but it arouses in me an unquenchable desire to sing along to unauthorized remixes of “Country Roads” and “Evergreen.” Strange how these things work. 

ITEM: In my office building, restrooms have been thoughtfully provided on every floor.  The restrooms have sinks, which I always thought were for doing laundry, draining abscesses, and quick cookery.  Not so, it turns out: The new warning signs thereon warn as follows [with my comments in brackets]: “These sinks are for washing your hands and face.  [So keep your ‘nads out of the sink, sicko mcstinknads.] For sanitary reasons and in consideration of your coworkers, please be sure to rinse your personal debris from the bowl and wipe the sink of any remains with a paper towel.  [Personal debris: sounds unsanitary, all right.  Then again, I got my debris from DeBrie and I’m on my way!  “Remains”?  You mean like, when we try to rinse some dead guy down the drain?  And I wonder why you distinguish between the “sink” and the “bowl.” Is some debris sinkworthy but not bowl-appropriate, and are some remains bowl-okay but sink-counterindicated?] Tissues should be discarded in the appropriate waste receptacles.  [I fell for the old inappropriate receptacles trick once too often, I’m ashamed to say!] Thank you for your consideration – Building Management.” Well thank you, building management!  Things seem more sanitary already.  But I am getting that sinking feeling.

ITEM: at a friend’s house, I encountered a German bubble-blowing product entitled “Pustefix Seifenblasen-Spiele.” I don’t know about the wisdom of marketing that out this-a-way.  “Pustefix” just doesn’t sound like something I want my kids to play with.  Even if the first one is free. 

ITEM: Driving down to Monterey, we went past the old location of Fort Ord.  With the decommission fever that’s swept the nation (catch it!), many forts are no longer forts.  There’s Cal State Monterey, the Presidio National Recreation Area, Pendletonland (coming soon!), and - now my current favorite - The Ord Military Community.  Because “fort” sounds a little, I don’t know, bellicose? 

ITEM: I took an F-line streetcar a few days ago.  It had been imported from Milan, complete with original Italian-language advertisements.  That may seem sloppy from a marketing standpoint, but I personally appreciate the opportunity to check out the ad for the ladies’ eurospa, “Figurella.” If anyone speaks Milanese, can you tell me if that sounds as dumb there as it sounds here?  Bonus: since seeing that ad, I have had the jingle for “Figurines“ diet bars playing in my head for days on end.  Kill me now.

FINAL ITEM: A dialogue between myself and the Director of my department, just before our last full department meeting, when she’d distributed little easter-y sacks of candy, fluffbunnies, and an envelope of seeds:
Me: Are these delicious candy seeds?
Her: No, just for flowers, but I bet you could eat some of those flowers if you grew them from the seeds.
Me: I don’t know if I want to eat anything grown from a seed called “Burpee."

With this, I leave you to your evil devices.  I will be back later.  Until then, do me a favor and wipe up that personal debris, will ya?  The community needs sanitary sinkage.  Thaaaaanks....

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Tony: En Plein Air

I sort of sensed that something was going to happen.  Each of them had made a distinct impression on me as they’d independently passed me on the way to the back of the bus: the rotund, rollicking mocha dude, the looming pale guy with the crazy track shoes, and the art school chick with the clear eyes and the kilt.  I could see from my bench that the art student had chosen a seat on the right in the last row but one; the two big guys were taking up the three rightmost seats of the very last row. 

Those are all power seats on my bus, and these three riders were occupying them with powerful individual panache.  The student sat primly in a pert cap; her hair was dark and glossy, and her skin was fair and clear.  She’d pulled out a notebook and her eyes flicked from it to the general environs and back in the manner of one making a drawing.  The party dude behind her was in soft denim over a white t-shirt stretched tight by his full belly and generous sub-chin; he sat with his elbows on his knees and stared at the ceiling.  The lummox next to him wore a t-shirt that read, in heavy generic type, “ROYALTY,” with formfitting tapered jeans that did him no favors and fabulous trackshoes in bright and glossy red, white and blue plastic. His expression was that of a sturdy hill that had recently been clearcut.  I returned to my book thinking that those three were oddly-matched.

I got wrapped up in something else for awhile and suddenly it was almost time for me to get off the bus.  I strolled back toward the rear door, since that would let me off closest to my crosswalk.  As I waited there for my stop, I noticed that the art student had taken up a new subject: the guy in the corner was posing for her, head cocked absurdly.  The guy with the shoes was splayed out, glossy bright shoes extended up the central bus aisle.  Earbuds bracketing his monolithic head like a couple of outsize enoki stuffed in his ears, he nodded sternly in time to something. 

The art student softly asked her model for his name.  “Tony!,” he delightedly told her.  His voice rang out in the otherwise quiet bus and I glanced over; our eyes met.  He apologized: “Sorry, so sorry, but this here’s a famous art teacher and I just have to have her do my picture - How’m I doin’, sweetheart?” His attention swerved again to the bit of crumpet doing the sketching, but one glance at her showed me who was in control of that situation.  Her dark eyes locked unwaveringly on her subject much as a cat might eye an obese hamster.  Her pad was pulled up near her face; I couldn’t see her work, but the gleam in her eye was both gentle and merciless. 

Tony was in his element - chin uplifted, profile proffered with the confidence of a fat black Errol Flynn, he reveled in the attention even as the huge dude next to him just kicked back to the jams in his head, iridescent patriotism on his feet and monarchic delusions on his chest. 

I deflected his apology with what was intended to be a low, gruff voice, but which came out weak and squeaky: “not at all.” The student’s laser gaze snapped to my eyes for a moment, and then returned to her sheet and her subject, her sugarfloss smile melting just a touch more warmly on her lips.  Tony was in thrall.  Trying to hold his ludicrous pose, he reiterated, “World famous art teacher.  Now, you don’t be puttin’ any bags under my eyes, righ’?  He shot me a complicit wink, an irrepressible grin forcing itself upon his austere expression.

“No, no,” the art student mouthed, shaking her head delicately.

“You should stick around and see how it comes out,” Tony suggested to me.  I was the only (attentive) witness to his assignation with the hot art student, and I think he wanted me to be able to confirm his story. 

“I’m off at the next stop.” My voice had reclaimed itself and I spoke quietly but deeply. 

“Take another stop!,” Tony cheerfully suggested.  The goon next to him, eyes closed, head bobbing, grinned.  I got off at the next stop anyway but I wish I hadn’t.  It’s killing me that I never saw the finished product - Tony in situ, en plein air.  I suppose this recollection will have to suffice me. 

Sunday, March 23, 2008

The Straight Line - plus bonus photo-delite goodies

It’s been a while since I’ve updated, but not for lack of material - the new notebook is working out well and there’s some good stuff in the pipeline.  However, I had to put my time into other pursuits for a while, of which, a touch more later.  Here, though, in honor of Easter, is a story about Purim, which I failed to mention when it was actually happening.  God Bless Shiva.

She spoke up from behind me; that’s what first attracted my attention.  “It’s not up to me, it’s up to him, he’s the one in front...” I’d left the ‘pod at home in anticipation of one of these moments, in which I’d be tangentially, passively addressed, and my part of the social contract would be to respond to the oblique jibe with polite alacrity.  I’d gotten all the way through my shopping on that overcrowded sunday afternoon without noteworthy incident, though, so I’d started thinking I was home free.  But then I heard her disclaiming responsibility in deference to me, literally behind my back - and I knew all the rest had been a set-up.  Game on. 

I peered behind me.  A slim, somewhat bent woman stood with her sparse cart, large dark glasses accentuating high slim cheekbones, a somewhat underslung jaw, and a narrow chin, all somehow drawing toward and accentuating a very direct gaze.  Behind her, a somewhat older-looking woman, heavier, more formally dressed, looked a bit embarrassed at the end of the express line as she held up a single box of something or other for my assessment and possible mercy.  I had a full 12 items and the hissing woman immediately behind me had about the same.  I nodded the woman with her one box forward with a “come on up” and she scooted ahead of me to the front of the line.  I gazed down at my sugar and flour and apricots and eggs and wondered how long things were going to take. 

The woman I’d let ahead of me began by fumbling in her purse for a saver’s card, so she wouldn’t have to key in her telephone number.  Then she fumbled for her cash, paying slowly and deliberately.  She had change - dollars and cents.  She had a coupon - wrong product?  Really?  Let’s check it again.  What’s this, a raffle?  She buys three postage-stamp-sized tickets, and stands at the register painstakingly filling them all out. 

“It’s always the way.” The voice was a sharp whisper, conspiratorial at my shoulder.  I turned to see her staring fixedly at the next lane over as she kvetched: “You let them through with one and it takes all day.  You’re just trying to be nice, I know it.  You could set your clock by it.  Or, well, you know.” The lack of a sustainable metaphor was no impediment.  “Of course, it’s even worse when it’s people from other cultures.” She pronounced it “othah culchas.” Her gaze swung to me like the boom of a crane, sticking at last right into my eyes.  Her shoulders were rolled forward in her light cardigan; did her t-shirt say something about a library?  I didn’t want to look.  We were having a moment. 

“Like, once, here, in that line there, there was a young lady” - the first syllable drawn out, the second snipped unceremoniously short - “a young lady from anothah culcha, and the fellow in front of me said to her, go on, you go ahead, and boom!  she comes back with a whole cart!” Her brows and shoulders raised up as she gestured with upraised palms.  “One thing, or a couple of things, you can say, okay.  But she’s doing her whole shopping!”

It was a pro forma conversational handoff, a common courtesy in nascent relationship such as this.  “That guy must have been mad,” I ritually intoned.

She had returned to scanning the rest of the crowd by now, having established sufficient conversational intimacy with me.  Her forehead furrowed; she stood with neck craned forward as if to form a straight line from her nostril down to her inward parts.  “No, no, he was from anothah culcha too, he thought she was adorable, so cute, he was fine with it.  But I had to stand there too and wait for them both, and it was a long time and I didn’t care how adorable she was.  Ugh.”

“It’s the way things are,” I solemnly, lamely responded.

“Well, once, when I first moved here, I was in a long line, and this guy walked in, I mean, he was doing fine, he was doing well, he wasn’t any kind of, you now, poor person, and he wanted to get these flowers, they were $10, I remember that, and he came up and handed me a $20 and he told me, ‘keep the change,’ and oh boy were those people behind me sore but I was happy to keep the change, the flowers were only $10 and he game me $20 so my change was $10, that’s as much as the whole flowers were in the first place.”

“Quite a profit!”

“No, it was just, I could keep the change.”

“I see.” We debated the basis upon which others might be antagonized by such behavior.  The conversation sputtered.  She suddenly took a stock-taking step back, eyes fixed on my chest, peering with contemplatively hooded eyes at the legend on my shirt.  “Penn.  Oh.  Okay.  I know… um, yes, it’s um, I know… Chris Tucker!  He went there.”

“Oh, okay.” It didn’t seem to call for more of a response.  Not needing one from me, she went on: “Oh and there was, oh, I’m sure… there was somebody else… at Penn… and of course my son was once in a Ph.D program at the University of Pittsburgh.”

“Ah.” There was something behind what she’d said, something unspoken and possibly terrible, and I didn’t want to know what it was.  I turned my eyes, face, shoulders and undivided attention forward.  I wanted nothing more to do with that conversation.  In a startling karmic coincidence, the woman I’d let ahead of me was just stuffing the last of her raffle tickets into the plastic insert of her gargantuan wallet, and I casually engaged the checkout clerk in small talk much as a drowning rat would casually take to a liferaft full of corndogs.  As I arranged my groceries on the belt we talked a little about nice weather and St Patrick’s Day. 

I had essentially concluded my transaction already, having tried to remedy the slowness of the woman ahead of me through the application of extraordinary efficiency.  By now the clerk was just bagging and I was just waiting for her to finish.  “And get ready for purim, too.” I told her with a grin.  “Jewish St Pat’s day.”

The woman behind me snapped to attention as if awoken from zombieism.  “Yes, purim is coming!  It’s purim!” She said it to me as if she were informing me of something, her voice full of pedantic sincerity.

“Yes, that’s why I’m getting all these hamentashen supplies.  To make cookies for purim.” I picked up my sack; verily, it bulged.  I swung it down and turned toward the door.  “But wait, cried the woman, imploring from her station by the register with her paltry groceries: “How did you know?”

I just turned and left, laughing.  How did I know it was purim?  Such a question!

Okay, so, for your update: Saturday we went to San Rafael to play some mini-golf with some friends.  It was a compact but very entertaining course, to wit:

Mail your unused peeps and cadbury overstock to the Chucklehut.  I’ll be happy to send you back some butterlamb.  While supplies last.  Which at this rate might not be too long.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Through A Glass Darkly

The problem had been building up for a long time, but now I’m not sure that the solution is everything we’d hoped it would be. I guess it goes to show you, but somewhat less clearly than it might.

Things started well, way back in the ‘90s.  We’d been in our apartment for several years already and it really felt like home. We liked the neighborhood, the floor plan, the spaciouness, and all sorts of little details and aspects - and, it bears emphasizing, we especially liked the view.  In cities, “real” cities, one typically looks out on other buildings looking back at you.  We, on the other hand, looked out to a westward view of a narrow but densely-planted greenbelt lined on the far side with a veritable forest of mature trees.  Acacia, pine, euke and juniper tower over a thick border of shrubs and brush; a lawn that starts under the trees rolls right down to the sidewalk.  Our windows slid open to admit plentiful breezes fresh off the pacific, and when the sun set, it bathed our living room in impossibly bright gilded rays.  Big windows, big breezes, big green view.  Of all the good things about our place, these ranked particularly high.

Within a few years, these pleasures began to suffer a diminution: a white residue began to grow between the double panes of our front window.  In wet weather standing water formed there, spattering the inner surface with condensation that eventually dried to a filmy pale map.  The front windows were beginning to remind me of a glass from which buttermilk had recently been drunk.  It got so bad eventually that our lovely trees and blazing sunsets were just the stuff on the other side of the schmutz.  Transparency had been irretrievably compromised. 

We told the landlady; first, she blamed our dog.  When it started happening to her windows too, though, she reassesed.  She admitted that it was a structural problem, leaking from the roofline.  Given the kind of maintenance our home typically received, I could believe it.  Work would have to be done.  When?  Soon. Later, but soon. 

Time passed, at a substantially predictable rate.  The job was put off from spring to summer, and the windows grew ever more clouded.  Winter passed, and spring came again.  We hung streamers to mask the windowstains during Zachary’s birthday party, the party ended, the streamers came down, and the clarity of the windows continued its slow descent into opacity as condensation kept building, covering ever more of the window, covering it ever more thickly.  We’d peer out and mourn our disappearing view, and wonder aloud when refenestration might be visited upon us. 

The answer was, last October, when scaffolding went up.  A few weeks later the stucco came down, revealing plentiful rot in both the lathe and the framing.  It was going to be a big job, but at least it had begun.

It took a long time, by which I mean, now it’s March and the scaffolding just came down this past weekend.  The new windows were installed two months into the process - back in late November.  They’re nice windows, double paned, mullioned, and delightfully bereft of steamy, moldy evaporsation.  Once again, we’ve got our view, our trees, our sunsets.  Sort of.

In a reasonable-sounding-at-the-time effort to enhance privacy and maintain thermal integrity, the new windows have a reflective coating.  From the outside, during the day, they’re mirrors onto the street, bouncing the blue sky and white clouds and green leafy trees to the eye of the passer-by.  Of course, at night this effect is reversed, but I’m okay with that.  Nothing going on here, ma’am.  Move right along. 

However, there is one unanticipated new issue to which we are having some trouble adjusting.  We can see right through the windows, just as god and the glazier intended, but things look different.  The coating on the glass has changed the color of the outside world, rendering everything dull and dark.  The trees are greyer, the sky, less blue.  Out our window, everyday looks like a foggy day, the sun seeming cloistered in clouds even when it’s really shining brightly out.  The only hint we get of its brilliance is when it blazes full-force right into the living room as it descends daily to the horizon - and even then, its glory is constrained, diminished by the very windows through which I view it.  Photons travel from the molten surface of a blazing star through 93 million miles of empty space, give or take, to reach me, only to be reflected and reduced a mere few feet before reaching my eyes and the surface of my skin.  Denied. 

We keep the living room lights on these days quite a bit more than we used to.  I’ll crack a window - they crank open and we need to be careful of strong winds - to see how the outside world really looks; it’s always brighter and more colorful than it seems through the glass.  The view out the window has always been one of our favorite things about our home.  The view, I suppose, is the same, but the windows affording it have changed significantly, and not entirely to my satisfaction.  I suppose it could be worse, but it used to be so much better. 

Things are so rarely as they appear; I now live in architectural proof of that hypothesis.  My house is wearing shades; life has been darkened.  But the sun still shines a full spectrum of color when it shines on my street.  I just need to make sure that I don’t forget, when I look out my front window, that I’m only seeing a fraction of the brilliance. 

Friday, March 14, 2008

Birthday Listing

It being the cusp of yet another delightful weekend, it’s high time I regaled you with how much fun you didn’t have last weekend - unless you were among the 30 or so jolly souls who crowded into our apartment that sunny sunday to do the Zakparty Mambo.  Last Sunday was Z = 3 day and we cut loose with festivities that were so rambunctious and ecstatic that they can - and will - only be recounted through a series of lists:

List of Lists:
* Games
* Art Supplies
* Popcorns
* Salada
* Pizzas
* Beers
* Desserts

Games Played:
* Cooties
* Connect 4
* Chutes and Ladders
* Hi Ho Cherry-O
* Twister
* Trouble

Art Supplies Utilized:
* Crayons
* Pastels
* Pastel crayons
* Colored pencils
* Poster paint
* some other damn kind of paint

Popcorns:
* Salted
* Sugar-salted
* Garlic-salted

Salads:
* Kim’s everpopular dinner salad with spring greens, orange-essence craisins, pear, and chevre (and of course special Kim dressing)
* Corn, red onion, red pepper, and jicama with coriander in spices and apple cider vinegar
* Fruit (banana, papaya, kiwi, strawberry, blueberry, clementine - with fresh key lime juice and sugar)

Large Pizzas from Pizza Orgasmica:
* Brazilian chicken with brazilian cheese and corn ("Girl From Ipanema“)
* Shrimp, basil and tomatoes*
* Canadian bacon and pineapples
* Broccoli*
* Sausage-mushroom*
* Plain cheese (plus 2 medium plain cheese for the kids)
(*: thick sicilian crust)

Beers:
* Rogue Brewing Company half-gallon growlers:
> Kell’s Irish Lager
> Imperial Red Ale
> Mocha Porter
> Dead Guy Ale
* Bottles:
> Pyramid Thunderhead Ale (plus Hornsby hard cider, limoncello and bourbon for good measure)

Desserts:
cupcake* cupcake cupcake cupcake cupcake
cupcake cupcake cupcake cupcake cupcake
cupcake cupcake cupcake cupcake cupcake
cupcake cupcake cupcake cupcake cupcake

cupcake cupcake cupcake cupcake cupcake
cupcake cupcake cupcake cupcake cupcake
cupcake cupcake cupcake cupcake cupcake
cupcake cupcake cupcake cupcake cupcake
(*: all cupcakes were of unexpected and startling enormity and we were totally overstocked, but managed to work through the pain tyvm)

Upcoming party occasions include st pats, easter, purim, an unexpected weekend vacation break in Tahoe, the Pennsylvania primaries, passover, and national lungfish day.  Get your dancing pants pressed, it’s going to be a long season. 

(BONUS LIST! “Great Philosophers“ from my office wall calendar, which consists of educational posters from India, cited verbatim left to right, top to bottom:
* Budha
* Jesus Chirist
* Elangho
* Thiruvalluvar
* Vivekanandah
* Bharathi
* Mahaveer
* Sri Ram
* Kambar

By Bharathi’s Kambar, that’ll have to hold’em!)

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Trans-It

It was a heavy ride, as the drivers say, all the way out from downtown.  The bus was a tube of light and life, rolling back to the outer ‘hoods where I reside. I wore my buds in my ears and planted my butt in my self-appointed seat, doing what I could to smooth the passage of time as we bumped and stuttered along, potholes disturbing my orthography and the tempo of my tunes. 

At stop after stop we waited interminably for deboarders to wriggle their way down to and out of the doors as new crowds clamored for a piece of the floorboards and a handful of strap or pole.  You couldn’t avoid hearing conversations, noticing wardrobes, smelling things you’d just as soon not have smelled.  Such environs drive people one of two ways - towards or away.  I’ve seen it happen both ways. 

“Away” is tough because there’s really no place to go; the distance folk seek to create is therefore psychological and they build scowlwalls around themselves in ineffectual attempts to push back the crowd.  Such rides linger in my mind and on my palate as angry, acrid experiences. 

More often it doesn’t go down that way.  What usually happens is that we reach a point where most all of us recognize, individually, that the crowd around us has overwhelmed our proxemic limits, and despite our preference for defensible personal space we respond by reorienting our attitude toward the crowd.  It takes too much energy to resent our unwilling neighbors, and to do so would merely invoke their reciprocal resentment in return.  So we glance around and see our compadres, cheeks by our jowls, glancing back at us, and despite ourselves we start to laugh. People talk, first in commiseration but then in solidarity.  People find themselves more willing to listen to each other, to share, to communicate.  We become allies.  These incidents are less uncomfortable than they might be, thanks to a rapid reweaving of the social fabric. 

This was one of those rides.

It’s unusual for things on board my bus to stay so crowded that I need to give up my seat as far west as Masonic, but this time I was forced vertical by an old woman boarding with shopping bags just fifteen minutes or so from my home.  I’d been lucky to have had a seat for so long but I wasn’t going to sit while ol’ Po-Po stood with two sacks of produce, so there I was, up in the thick of the mobscene at last. I found some space near the door, where just ahead of me a lovely young office wench had established a spot for herself.  We stood and swayed along with everyone else and I kept my earbuds in and the volume high.  Sure, we were all getting along fine, one big happy mass transit family and all that goodness, but I was there to get home, not to make new friends.  Nobody held it against me.  However, I did have to shut down the ‘pod eventually.  It was making eavesdropping impossible.

A ragged man had boarded at the door near which I stood. His hair was kinky and greasy; his skin shone with grease and dirt.  He was short and slightly built, his clothes shabby and his eyes restless.  He smiled widely and frequently, using his whole face.  He seemed inappropriately eager to bond with his fellow passengers. I sensed instability and kept him at arm’s length. 

The young lovely ahead of me was less circumspect, and I watched as he snared her into a conversation. I had to admire his technique.  Though I couldn’t yet hear them through the music in my ears, I could see that he was asking about our coordinates - what street, what time, what next.  She was unable to extricate herself, mired in adjacency, too friendly and helpful to shut him down like the dog he was.  And true to his ravenous canine nature, once he’d gotten in a good bite he was not about to let go.  I hit “pause” and hovered attentively. 

“Too crowded, hee, what a lot of people, eh?” His question was pointless, inviting no response and merely bringing her attention to the circumstances without which she would never have spoken to him in the first place.  Her rueful grin required no further amplification.  He regrouped and assayed a fresh tack.  “Thas’ a nice coat.” She glanced down to her well-formed, well-dressed self.  “Wazzat, wool?  Wool’s warm.”

She nodded.  “Yes, wool.  Like yours,” she added, drawing a comparison between her designer outerwear and his old pea coat, blue yarn pilling and stained with blots and dribbles.  He seized on the connection.  “Oyez, this is a nice warm coat, I got it at the Salvation Army, nice an’ warm.” Her tight little smile spoke volumes to me but to him it appeared to be unintelligible.  His manic conversational train careened along, dragging her with it like an unwilling stowaway. 

He lowered his eyes to his haphazard wardrobe, opened his coat, plucked at the nondescript garment beneath it, and asked: “What about this shirt?”

“What about it?” It was the closest thing she had to a snappy comeback. 

“It’s a woman’s shirt, isn’t it?  Isn’t this a woman’s shirt?”

I took a gander too. The shirt was collared, buttoned left-over-right, unpatterened, unpressed.  It was expressly unspecial.  I didn’t notice anything feminine about it.  The woman, whom I suspected possessed a keener eye than I as to such matters, knit her brows a little.  “I don’t think so,” she earnestly replied.  “No, you’re okay.”

“Naw you can tell me, I arready know.”

“I would tell you.  It’s not.”

The dirty greasy man cast his gaze upon his clothes, seemingly trying to reconcile the advice he was getting with some lingering sense of sartorial impropriety.  The bus was, by now, waiting at the light at Park Presidio, and I snuck a little closer to the door for my impending escape.  The young lovely caught my eye as I eased past.  “My stop’s next,” I explained.  In palpable relief to be speaking to a person of demonstrably regular personal maintenance, she admitted, “Wish mine was.”

“Get off here,” I suggested, “and catch the next one.”

But she didn’t.  She chose, for some reason, to stay on the still-crowded bus, talking to the greasy man.  When I left her, despite her expressed discomfiture, I think I saw her crack a tiny, but genuine, smile. 

Friday, March 07, 2008

Little Big Little Man: Zach’s Third Birthday Poem

Time is short, my friends - much to do this morning, today, and this weekend.  Good folk are coming from hither and yon, we’re hosting houseguests for a few days, and on Sunday my little man is having a birthday party on his actual birthday, of all the crazy ideas.  In honor thereof, and because I have no goddamn self control anyway, here’s the annual birthday poem for Zachary!

3 is a fabulous number of years
one less than a dog’s legs, one more than its ears
it’s a workable pretext for drinking some beers
for 3 is how many is Zach.

It’s half a half-dozen, or two over six
a minimum number of havdalah wicks
the owl’s sum total of tootsie-pop licks
yes 3 is how many is Zach.

Three-quarters of one U.S. president’s term
birds (in hand) plus (in bush), all pursuing the worm
it’s the number of times you should call to confirm
O, 3 is how many is Zach.

So sing and make merry this ninth day of march
have a nosh if you’re hungry or drink if you’re parched
get down and get funky however you’re starched -
it’s time to hang banners from all of the trees
to dance in the temple anointed with ghee
throw the tiller to starboard and shout “helm’s a-lee”
for Zachary Passachadmanik is 3
Today is a fabulous day.

See ya monday.  Party hearty!

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Instant Cioppino, with caveats, warnings, and bonus visual treats

Let’s start with a recipe, then a precaution, and then some nice visuals. That should hold you till Friday.  Unless you’re especially slippery, I guess.

My recipe is for people who like to eat but not to cook.  Caveats (not to be confused with precautions, which will follow the recipe and might therefore be considered postcautions except that they caution you before you eat the product of this recipe, so there) include:

* This recipe is ONLY for people who can shop at Trader Joe’s.  So those of you logging in from Benin or North Dakota, I am very sorry but you have to go on eating plates of damp sand.  I’ve had your damp sand and it’s fine, fine stuff.  But sometimes I need a little variety and sometimes I shop at Trader Joe’s, which still feels like *my* personal store even though it’s freaking nationwide these days, effectively.  But not entirely.  So if you don’t have a TJ’s visit in your future, you can skip to the photos.  Or to my lou.  Whatever floats your Joat. 

* This is a recipe that involves shellfish and other non-kosher seafood.  So if’n you don’t hang with the scallops, calamari, and shrimpies, well, maybe you can substitute in something else.  LIKE A LIFE.  No, like pollack or shad.  You can shad your pollack, frankly, it’s all the same to me.  I like the oceanic invertebrates and it’s not going to slow me down if you don’t. 

This recipe came about when I got home from work, tired and hungry and covered in traildust and cobwebs, and realized that nobody had made any preparations for supper.  That meant we were going to eat whatever could be microwaved in the least possible time, which I think meant chickenfingers and brown rice.  I wasn’t ready for the ricey fingers dinner, physically or mentally, so I ransacked the fridge and cupboard, found ingredients, and made a really good meal in about ten minutes. 

Here’s how I did it:

The ingredients I found were a box of organic tomato-roasted red pepper soup (ready to serve), a jar of corn-chile no-tomato salsa, a frozen sack of “seafood blend,” and a bag of orzo.  (Orzo is much more than the dyslexic brother of a famous latino swordsman, it’s also pasta in tiny rice-like pieces and it’s plenty good, though not good’n’plenty, which is not really recommended as a substitute.) First, I got some water boiling for the orzo, and added some rosemary to the boiling salted water for extra flavah.  Then, in a separate pot (yes, I have two pots, I have a head for such things) I poured some soup and chunkified it up a little with a few spoonfools of the salsa on medium high heat.  Once that was steaming, I poured in a bunch of the seafood and cooked it all together till the shrimp were a cheerful pink color.  By this time the orzo had orzo’d and was ready to drain; I used a slotted spoon to remove a bunch of the rosemary (it floats; come to think of it, a small strainer would have worked better) and then poured out the water, shook the orzo mostly dry, and poured the pasta into the soup.  Wala: instant prefab cioppino!  Plus - added bonus - it was delicious!

Okay, now here’s your warning: the salsa is not just well-spiced, but it’s got coriander in it.  I like coriander but I usually use it in powdered form - this was actual coriander seeds, which are little round suckers.  Yes, suckers is the word I use and I use it advisedly.  One of these seeds seems to have split in two, forming two tiny hemi-spheres.  As I wolfed down my supper, one of these half-seeds apparently (and without my knowledge or permission) landed curved-side-up on the very very back of my tongue, and got pressed down by my powerful manly epiglottis.  This resulted in a suction being formed underneath the half-seed - a suction more powerful than you might imagine it to have been.  I noticed it was back there within a second or two, though I had no idea what it was, but I could not dislodge it.  I couldn’t reach back to work on it without gagging, and I couldn’t wrestle it free purely by dint of tongue-action, much as I enjoyed trying.  The next morning it was the first thing I noticed when the alarm went off.  Not “damn I’m awake,” but “what’s that stuck on the back of my tongue damn I’m awake.” I spent a good part of the next day clucking and thrusting my tongue in fruitless efforts to remove the mystery object from the upper margins of my throat.  I must have looked like a goddamn chicken on the bus ride home, straining to fix whatever it was that was so irritating me.  It wasn’t till more than 24 hours had passed that the blasted seed fell apart and I could pluck it with my fingers without invoking nausea.  “Oh,” I thought as I finally examined the foreign object I’d removed from my oral cavity, “a cardamom seed.  (I get cardamom and coriander mixed up.  But it was coriander.  So sue me.) Delicious.  But dastardly!” And that’s your warning.  Now, eat hearty!

FINAL TREATS AND DELIGHTS: I recently gained the ability to process RAW images.  For those of you who know what I mean, you may deride me for my lingering ignorance; for those who don’t know, don’t worry - it just means I can make some of my photos a little sharper and more “pro” looking.  As examples, here are some I took a few weekends ago at and around the Golden Gate Park Conservatory of Flowers:

the Arguello Gate:

a spherical capital from the fence surrounding the dahlia garden:

inside the conservatory, which is a really magical place:

evidence of a recent rainfall, and of a young person eager to disturb the placid surfaces of standing water:

further evidence of the second item mentioned immediately above - please note the height to which Zach’s pants have been puddlesoaked:

Now, to finalize the mix for his birthday party and burn a disk for his friends at daycare, where he’ll be feted tomorrow.  You’ll get his official birthday poem on Friday.  Yes, of course you can wait that long.  Stop pestering me. 

Monday, March 03, 2008

Strategy Session

You know what Mark Clemons said: there’s three kinds of lies - lies, damn lies, and politicians.  And then there’s you.  What was that, conjecture?  You know, from the Latin, “with jecture?” Well, you’re just making this jecture up, aren’t you?  It would be one thing if you were actually trying to misrepresent the truth; there’s consistency there, honor among thieves and pearls before swine and all that.  But you?  This?  That?  You don’t even care if what you say is true or false.  I don’t think you know what you’re going to say until you hear it yourself.  I can’t just disagree with you; you might be right.  But you’re usually not, of course.  Law of Averages and Planck’s Constant and all that.  You might be right.  I don’t know.  You don’t know.  I have to listen to you to figure it out.  And I don’t have time for that kind of nonsense.  I need to concentrate on other things.  Some of us have work to do.  I’m not just talking to make pretty noises.  I’m making necessary noises.  I’m trying to get you to open your eyes to the words that are coming out of your mouth, but your head’s too far up your ass to smell the roses.  Well smell this and smell it good: I can see right through you.  I see just exactly what you’re bringing to the table and it’s a pig in a poke, it’s an unknown quantity at best and more likely some kind of unpredictable x factor that might work but usually doesn’t.  It’s worse than not making sense - it’s making sense randomly, intermittent reinforcement, Skinner boxes, exobdurate conditioning, and now I’m stuck with you and it’s all I can do not to bitchslap you right here right now.  But I’m bigger than that, I can work with that.  I just want you to do me a favor, just one favor and if you can do it for me it’ll make everything so, so much better: please, if you can do it - please don’t say say anything out loud that you don’t want me to hear.  Do you think that you can do that for me? 

I can’t promise miracles, but I’ll see what I can do.