Monday, August 13, 2007

Multifarious Surplussage: Good Humor Edition

Sometimes change is for the better, though it’s almost always disruptive, and I like a good disruption as well as the next guy.  You just take’em as they come.  For our part, we had a mellow weekend featuring a great trip to the zoo (where Z got to drive electric kiddy cars around a short track as part of a toy company promo, and did a lot of touching at the children’s zoo), as well as a bike ride.  No, let’s make that more momentous – BIKE RIDE!  It’s been so freaking long since I’ve put in quality saddle time, but this short jaunt really felt very comfortable.  The bike moved easily under me, the brakes felt smooth and safe, and I actually felt strong both during and after the ride.  Okay, yes, it was just across the freaking bridge and back, but did you see those overstuffed tourists from Oroville who were wheezing along on rented tandems?  I KICKED THEIR BUTTS.  Yay for me. 

so, instead of dumping out a whole heavyhanded, overwritten essay on some damn thing or other (and I’m ready to turn a corner, the next one is all happy and stuff), here’s three random pad-stuffer items that have been improving my life lately:

ITEM: A gift for Z from the landlady: Haw flakes!!  They’re packed with hand-flaked haw, like you remember from mama’s apronstrings!  Mama’s haw, repackaged for our delectation, and since Z ain’t eating his share, I’m takin’ up the slack!  It’s Haw City, baby, and I’m the mayor and chief of police!  Hawsome!

ITEM: A recent discovery: about the same time I realized that the fake eggs don’t make for very fluffy pancakes, my pancake batter suddenly became about half again more productive.  Even when I tried a test batch with real eggs the phenomenon revealed itself: batter that used to make eight super-heavy pancakes, is now making 12 much lighter ones.  Whatever happened, I like it this way.  Anything that enhances pancakes, enhances life. 

ITEM (MULTI): A few months ago I rode muni with an energetic Russian dude who got me into a conversation about great cities around the world (most of which he’d claimed to have lived in for some time, and I believed him, he was so tanned and wiry that he looked like person jerky).  He went on for a while about Dubai, which I’ve been paying some more attention to myself what with their incredible building spree and the world’s tallest building still under construction there and all the crazy stuff they’re doing with the island building and the petrocash and all.  The Russian guy was talking about how they’re the Las Vegas of the Mid-East – you can drink, carouse, whatever you like.  The Saudis and Omanis and those dudes go to Dubai to let it all hang out.  What happens in Dubai, I suggested, stays in Dubai.  He nodded enthusiastically.  It made me wonder about how we could get some of that good Dubai vibe in our overly-constrained lives of western wanna-be decadence, and I thought the following three options might bring things to the next level without undue feelings of disruption or loss of masculinity:

Ways to Get More Dubai Into Our Ordinary Lives:
* Listen to the music of The Dubai Brothers
* Shop at Best DuBai
* Dubai-Curiosity

Enjoy monday! Back with the plums and lychees soon!