My last notebook served me well for many months, which is to say, I never lost it and everything I wrote in it stayed where I put it. But maybe that’s just the classic profile of an enabler.  It let me ramble as randomly as I wished, with long (for blog posts) pieces of fiction and poems that represented a month or more of active writing and editing.  My last post was one of those, a labor of love that kept me busy over scores of bus rides and dozens of nights sitting up with the boys while they fell asleep.  Maybe it would have been helpful for me had my notebook asked me to account for myself a little better.  I’m not sure in retrospect if that work necessarily represented the wisest possible use of my resources.

Well, that’s spilled ink that won’t fit back into the pen.  All I can do is close out a well-used, fully-filled notebook, and open up this new one in the hope that I learned something the last time around.  I like the new book, but that’s usually the case.  I’m curious to see if, in using it, my writing changes.  Or if I do. 

It seems a good opportunity to step back and refocus my vision - away from crazy tales of sybaritic excess undertaken by mysterious Europeans I’ll never meet, in favor of over-analytical recapitulations of exceptional little moments from my own experience.  Anyway, I’ll give it a try.  If I hate it I can always go back to distended literary bloviation.  That’s the sort of thing I tend to do, you know. 

So here’s a nugget from the halcyon days of my youth.  It was a time in my life when I would consider myself pre-disillusioned - still energetic and hopeful and able to work with total commitment for a future I couldn’t even pretend to imagine.  I lived in a sprawling megalopolis that fed the world a steady diet of glam and drek (or, as I like to call it, “gleck"), yet I somehow retained an idealistic naivete that today I find hard to credit even though I lived it my own damn self.

My feckless enthusiasm for life had me often checking the skies.  Whether searching for familiar constellations that fought their way through the local light pollution at night, or checking the depth and color of smog layers, or exploring whether the cloudlessness above was more or less cloudless than it had been the day before, my eyes regularly roamed the heavens.  So it stands to reason that I saw the big cool cloud.  What surprised me was that every one else seemed to see it too. What continues to surprise me to this day is that it still seems to be floating around with me. 

The afternoon had been warm and the sky had been, per usual, a cornflower blue bowl overturned upon the simmering pottage of the city.  I’m not sure why I was outside to notice it - it might have been that my mom called me out to see.  She’s something of a skygazer too.  But whatever called me out, I was fortunate enough to be standing in my driveway late one day when a magnificent lenticular cruised overhead. 

Lenticulars are clouds, bearing the same relationship to other clouds that Lamborghinis bear to other cars.  They are sleek and smooth, shaped by winds that pour over mountaintops into forms of exceptional aesthetic appeal.  They bulge, striated, like a bicep clenched in the sky; they cut through the azure like an ocean liner made of dreams.  As of the date of this particular story, I’d never seen one before, but I’ve seen several since - and this one was by far the granddaddy kingpin majordomo of them all. 

It was massive and elaborate, riffled with deep grooves and heavy with sculpted protuberances.  It was, without a doubt, the coolest cloud I had ever seen.  I stood and watched it, openmouthed, as zephyrs pushed it south, gently reshaping it, offering me a slowly-shifting vision of its indescribable fabulousness.  The sun was dipping lower in the smoggy sky, lending the cloud sublime hues of ocher and tangerine set off by rich purple shadows.  Eventually I realized it had moved on and passed me by, slipping inexorably toward the Hollywood Hills where updrafts and errant eddies inevitably degraded it. Come wash-up-for-supper time, some twenty minutes later, it was still a big impressive cloud, but not the cloud it once had been.  With a shrug at its impermanence, I retreated indoors. 

But perhaps that shrug was not entirely called-for.  The local evening news did a short feature on the cloud that night, and the next day lots of my otherwise-oblivious classmates were talking about it.  The cloud was like a celebrity, or (since we were in L.A., where celebrities were somewhat run-of-the-mill) a visiting dignitary or member of royalty. A few weeks later, Los Angeles Magazine ran a photo spread about the cloud, with the same level of breathless fascination that it typically reserved for up-and-coming starlets or fancy hotels, memorializing it with gorgeous semi-permanence. 

I say “semi-” because I have been looking for copies of those photos on-line, and I can’t find them.  I guess 1970s-era local magazine meteorological “permanence” only goes so far.  But in my mind’s eye, I can still see that cloud - maybe not with perfect clarity anymore, but I can see it nonetheless.  It continues to inspire me to look skyward, to watch for that which will disappear before my eyes, if not even more quickly than that.  There are things of beauty in the world and some are short-lived.  I owe it to myself to be on watch for them. 

And that looks to me like a pretty good way to break in my new notebook.  Let’s see how it goes from here. 

*Moju: I didn’t even know it at the time, but this is exactly what I need. 

And for the record, this is based on a true story but it didn’t work for me that the real-life dude was a racecar driver so I changed him to a messenger.  Let’s see how long before the lawsuit hits. 

Indigestion

This world can surely ladle blandly
so I believed it owed me something
Dust my tongue with fiery cayenne
gird my grace with hearty flatbreads
quench my lungs in rich aromas
simmered long cast-iron hours
One small morsel of perfection
opens up a world of meaning
that could never be discerned
in all the porridge ever boiled
This was my philosophy
through it life acquired meaning

By my wits and wheels I wandered
trailing stale paper wakes
repeating like a bad chorizo
till my bag and soul were empty
I dieted on fresh cracked blacktop
but my soul was starved and thirsting
not for chow to clog my maw
but for flavors, scents, sensations
egg yolk, kale, lemon, saffron
sweetbreads, sausage, sole and capon
panfried, sous vide, nitro-frozen
extracts, foams, infusions, glazes
cork and plaster, wood and china
trays with fifteen kinds of salt
that was where my truth resided
all the rest was mere existence
and even then, just barely that
and I but touching it by tangent
till one day I brought a message
that would change my life forever

The address didn’t ring a bell
but as I breached the service entrance
something clicked.  This wasn’t just
Another dreary business office –
I had crossed the threshold of
Paul Bocuse’s Giardet
Three stars from the tire dealer
My every pore drank in the dreamscape:
there, the kitchen; there, the house
where sounds and smells and tastes and sights
sublime beyond imagination
filled the air six nights a week
I stood there in my sweaty knickers
grasping for a hint of what
this place could truly be and do
and had the manager sign off
that he’d received his sheaf of stuff
I turned around and walked back out
although it ripped me up inside
But as I hunkered on my scooter
I resolved that I’d return
and this time I would do it right –
sailing through the patron’s portal
not to leave till I had sated
all of my unnumbered senses

Even this determination
soon shrank to inadequacy:
I could tell already that
my dream would leave me unfulfilled
I’d be dissatisfied again
before I even reached the street -
Exiting, my every step
would leave me hungrier for more
That exit had to be an entrance
Perhaps you’d call it an addiction
I viewed it as appetite
and mine was well and truly whetted

Spartan years ensued.  I worked
long hours, slept but short ones
All I did was bide my time
impatiently, audaciously
When at last I’d earned my nut
Le Guide Michelin decreed
three-and-sixty three-starred restaurants
spangling three continents
I would dine at each of them
one night apiece for three-score days
and three for luck
Too long had I put off my pleasure
to permit one night to pass
except in gratifying my
desire for the world’s best meal
I mapped my route and bought my tickets
made my many reservations
salivating at the mouth
of my omnivorous rebirth.

Late in May I hit the road
and that’s when things began to blur
I took on western Europe first
Pretty quickly it got tricky
A couple courses into supper
I’d forget where I had started
Who’d served me that bacon salad
Had I had that soup tonight
or was I mixing up my meals
They’d set a proud dessert before me
I could barely look at it
I woke each morning overhung
still digesting last night’s marvels
This was tougher than I’d figured
even so, some tables shone
The Hof Van Cleeve, Dal Pescatore,
Enoteca Pinchatorri
Those were meals I remembered
even as the others stuffed me
indiscriminate as headcheese
I began to lose my traction
tongue exhausted, gut chaotic
I’d bit off too much to chew

Forty suppers still before me
Next to go on my agenda
Was a place that, even in
comparison to all the others
stood alone, a pinnacle
atop the rocky Cala Montjoi
a labratory of a kitchen
Adria’s alchemic realm
His gels and spheres were works of art
Emulsified, inverted, decon
-structed, multifarious
foods unknown to normal mortals
magic was their bill of fare
I was now vouchsafed a place
among the angels to partake
of their ambrosia

When I roused myself that morning
Something didn’t feel right
My belly roiled, overwhelmed
By nineteen superhuman meals
Eaten one upon the other
But of more significance
I felt a rankling reluctance
All my years of eager waiting
Ill prepared me for this effort
Facing supper at El Bulli
I just was not up to it
but I had a reservation
So I’d force myself to eat
I entered bravely, took my place
at yet another gleaming table
in the back a corps infernal
bent to wreak their art upon me

For a while I surrendered
reveling in new sensations
pushing me beyond my limits
Soon enough I’d had a crawful
only seven courses in
another twenty-five to go
every one a stupefaction
beggaring imaginations
not to mention appetites
of gastronauts far more intrepid
hungrier and readier
than I to handle what was coming
Each new plate they set before me
threw a gauntlet to which I
responded with decreasing valor
A feast I’d dreamed about for years
had turned before me into an
endurance test, an act
of gustatory self-abuse
each mastication abnegating
all that I had held most dear
The richer, madder, more creative
were the dishes I confronted
the bitterer grew my despair
My supper juggernautted me
it crushed me like a kalamata
Till at last the serving staff
relieved me of the final plate
abandoning me to my questions
What had I done; What happens now

And then a voice fought through my stupor
someone at a nearby table
recognized me on my quest
A journalist, she wanted to
catch up with me when I had finished
my three-star world dining tour
Could she contact me and see
how I had managed to endure
another six more weeks of feasting?
As she spoke my heart collapsed
against the bloating of my gorge
I realized I couldn’t do it
one more meal like this would kill me
part of me was dead already
I had eaten my aesthetics
and they gave me indigestion
I was engorged with emptiness
Yet this woman sat there smiling
asking Could she call me later

With some lame excuse I bolted
spat my dreams into a napkin
ran away from my undoing
ignominious and shamed
found the door and disappeared
The night air hit me like a tonic
lightly salted, rich with vastness
superseding appetite
My journey was at its conclusion
never went back for my bags
just took a taxi to the airport
caught the first plane to Geneva
crept into my darkened bedroom
prayed that I could sleep it off

They sent out tracker dogs in case
my corpse had fallen off the seacliff
Handy though that would have been
I found existence hard to shake
An animal despite myself
borborygmus woke me up
to face a future where my meals
hold no promise, work no wonder
When I sit now at a table
food is all I see before me

Does it sound like an excuse?  I suppose it is one.  A lame one, but that’s sort of my M.O. these days, so let’s get used to it.

And it’s just getting worse, too: I’m in default mode here.  If patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels, and Shaanxi is the last refuge of the Quinling Panda (as I am reliably informed that it is), then cute photos of one’s kids is the last refuge of the blogger.  I’m going to try and round it out with some artsy, if not fartsy, stuff too, but here’s the skinny: I’m actually writing a poem.  I realize that this will somewhat detract from the surprise when I actually post the damn thing, but maybe that much excitement would be too much for you and would fry your delicate synapses or whatever the hell it is you have.  Nodes?  Do you have nodes?  Maybe my suddenly posting a butt-long poem would have fried them.  Do nodes fry?  Can I get fried nodes?  Maybe with an imperial roll?  Am I asking too much?  Are you still listening?  Is this thing on? 

Okay, so I’m like six pages into writing a poem that will challenge even the most ardent of you to wade through it to the end.  But I will not be able to stop till I’m done, and it’s been tough to clear the time I need to do decent work on it, what with the workplace angst and the homelife intensity and the crowded bus rides where I keep on having to give up my seat to elderly ladies with shopping bags full of caltrops and limberger.  I should be able to wrap it up soon, I’m down to the climactic bit and then just a bit of denouement for giggles and I’ll post it, I promise, so you can ignore something with real literary merit.  But in the meantime, I don’t like leaving things here so.... postless. 

So I’m going back to photos, and as it happens, over the past few months there have been some decent photo ops as far as I’m concerned.  But consider the source of this information: a tired, over-extended dad.  You know what’s coming.  Photos of kids.  I’m not proud of myself, but I’m proud of them, and goddamn it you’re going to get their smiling punims jammed down your craw today.  Because my poem isn’t ready.  O the humanity.  Or whatever. 

I’m drawing, mostly, from three photoriffic recent events: a trip to Cornerstone Gardens, a trip to visit inlaws about half an hour outside of Seattle, and a party held this past weekend for my son J’s fourth birthday.  And while I was manipulating those photos with the cuteness intensification tool and the charminator filter that get so much use with my home edition of PhotoShop for Parents, I did stumble across a couple of other random shots that also didn’t suck out loud so I’m throwing them in as well on the theory of why the hell not.  But in the spirit of “blogging without frontiers,” which I believe I just made up (Google proves me wrong, there were fully six results for that search term, so I’m going to go with “blogging without front ears” and that one is MINE, suckers), I’m not going to post these according to where they were taken, but rather, according to which of my children (J, Z, both, neither) are featured.  After that it’ll be a crap shoot, and I sternly recommend you bring your own crap because mine is spoken for.  To wit:

J:

First, you get to see him as I do: rapidly diminishing to an identity at the horizon - in this case, on a path near the Cascade Mountains:

Okay, sometimes he’s somewhat more… visible.  For example, his birthday party was at a gymnastics studio, and here he is learning to yank chains:

And finally (for the J-only shots), here he is with his accountant, going over his annual report:

Let’s move on to Z:

On vacation in WA, learning to hit the sweet spot:

At J’s birthday, having just bounced into a pit full of cubic blueness:

And, further at the birthday party, letting us know that a tramampoline is in our future and not just our current crappy little one either:

You can see, a pre-pre-diabetic like myself has a lot to worry about from each of these supermuffins.  But then, they gang up on me and get even cuter together:

Yes, it’s exhausting.  Thank goodness I sometimes can fix my gaze on some quiet place where their blazing megawatt smiles and wrenching huggability are not immediately apparent.  So, by means of a palate cleanser for the internet (and hell yeah it needs one, the internet never even flosses), I offer you: 

A photo I’ve wanted to take for a long time - I call it, “Straws,” but you are free to call it “Straws” as well if you’re having an uncreative day:

Here’s a few from Washington State, where we visited both an air-and-space museum ...

...  and a railroad rolling stock museum.

Let it no longer be said that I have a uniformly 1-track mind, and lets move on - turning our attention, frayed and abused though it may be, to further visions of Cornerstone Gardens, which we totally love.  They’ve updated since our last visit - got rid of the blue-ball tree and the surreal minigolf course, but some of the new stuff is great, much of the old stuff remains awesome, and their housewares shop remains one of the coolest places I’ve ever taken photos:

(This last one deserves a word of explanation: these are, purportedly, Kewpie Doll molds.  I have a long and valued relationship with Kewpie, and you’re going to have to ask me about it if you want more information than that - but this is by far the second-creepiest Kewpie vision I’ve ever seen.  Number One goes way too far and you can be grateful it’s too late and I’m too sleepy to dig up a link.  These grotesque slag-spattered shells are weird enough, I’d say.)

Finally, a quick phone-photo from Baker Beach, the nearest beach to my front door, at sunset a week ago.  It’s a nice beach, and a nice way to sign off.  I’ll have a goddamn poem or something for you soon.  Or, if not, something else.  Keep’em crossed and we’ll see what shows up here, eh?

According to my seat-back altimeter, I’m at 37,322 feet above sea level, 402 miles from my home landing strip, and traveling nearly 500 miles an hour.  Seems like a good time for an update, because god knows that without semi-regular news reports from the Chucklehut, the internet would just curl up and die, and I can’t handle that kind of responsibility.  Plus, I need your help with an ethical dilemma.  But you’ll have to read through to find out what it is.

(BTW this was all written in flight but I had no way to post it till now.  I’m safely on the ground again, and sorely missing the ability to order a drink by pressing a button over my head.)

We arrived in WA on a Thursday evening, and it took barely 30 hours before we got to visit the brand spanking new emergency room down at the bottom of the hill.  That’s how long it took before Z got his finger caught in the hinge-side of a slamming door.  Now he’s fine, adjusting admirably to life with a big-ass splint on the delicate middle digit of his dominant hand.  He’s been brave and resilient as only the rare six-year-old can be.  I’d still be bitching and moaning about it if it had been me.  To cheer him up, six members of the east-coast side of the family sent solidarity photos of each of them wearing identical middle-digit splints, including Belle the springer spaniel.  It’s nice to know that they’ve got Z’s back, even if they show it by giving him the middle finger.

Other hi-lites of the trip: Railstock museum, stomp-rocket madness, brewpub lunch with full-sized muffeletta, xbox/wii hootenanny, museum of aviation (with tours of Air Force 1 and the Concorde), viewing of massive waterfall, late night campfire s’mores with bonus fingertip ravelight action, seven-head shower stall, meatpie! and applecake!, numerous malt and hop based beverages, Phineas-and-Ferb-athon, New Year’s pizza, 1/2/12 Indian food feast, hailstorm snowball freakout, teeny farm adorableness, woodland trail strolls, and geocaching.  Plus other stuff, I’m sure, that I’m just forgetting.

(Non-lights, being things we did not get to do at all, included: Visiting snowfields for sledding ((no snow!)), Quirkle tournament ((we ran out of energy)), listen-through of the entire Lamb Lies Down album ((man-cave unavailable due to excessive storage needs)), daily exercise ((treadmill is in garage and garage is out of commission due to drywalling project)). Had all that happened as well, I’d still be sleeping it all off.  You can decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.)

Let us also give special notice to our three hour gate delay at SeaTac.  Plus side: The guy making announcements at the gate, “Captain” Paul, was funny and entertaining and held a paper airplane contest and trivia contest to keep us from killing everybody in swinging range of our carryon bags, and as it turns out, when the plane arrived he went on board, put on a snappy cap, and actually piloted the damn thing himself.  Minus side: while waiting, I took J to a kiddie play area to see if I could get him to blow off some steam in a socially sanctioned way.  Among the other parents biding thier time there as their kids went ape, were two amply-framed women with short hair, comfortable jeans, no-fuss hair styles and baggy sweatshirts, sitting together as their boys ran madly up the slides and over the occasional toddler.  They spoke together animatedly about vegetarian recipes they still had to make ("we’re gonna need some full on root veggie pie, for shizzle” - I kid you not).  Then one made an off-hand comment about the other not having gotten anything done during their trip, to which the other took immediate and grave offense.  So for the next ten minutes I was an involuntary audience to an intense discussion about feelings, language choices, and how to be respectful in a relationship.  When I finally got a text from K calling me back to the gate to help Z to a bathroom, my relief was palpable.  Fo’ shizzle indeed.

And now, my ethics quiz.  Don’t worry, there are no wrong answers.  Mostly because there are no right answers.  Let’s set the scene: you’re vacationing at the gracious home of a tech wizard and his lovely family.  A delivery is made by a commercial delivery-making company - some mechanical parts for an auto repair job.  A few hours later, a tiny mini-SD card is found lying near the front door.  Do you test it to see if it’s yours?  Of course you do, that’s not even quiz-worthy - it’s like finding money on the ground (as I actually did, in Snoqualmie) and testing it to see if it fits in your wallet (which by odd coincidence it did).

It becomes immediately obvious that the SD card doesn’t belong to anyone in the house, as it’s full of photos of stuff nobody even remotely recognizes.  The most likely conclusion here is that the delivery man dropped it accidentally.  So, do you look at the rest of the photos?

That’s a quiz, but not a fair one: of course you look at the photos.  It’s like listening to the lesbian couple bickering at the airport - you can’t deny your curiosity even if you wish you could with every fiber of your being.  And this is how it comes to pass that you see, amidst a stranger’s many photos of Pop Warner football teams and random household goods, several shots of said stranger posing in a mirror, trying out a variety of sultry poses such as might be suitable for one of those find-a-soulmate websites. 

And among those putatively-intriguing images, you find two photos featuring this stranger’s unclad manhood, brazenly exposed though amusingly under-impressive.

Hundreds of photos, several of which are a stranger’s self-portraits, two of which are his self-portraits of his personal naked Johnson.  So here’s the actual quiz:

a) Do you return the SD card to the delivery company that likely employs the man who owns it and is pictured, occasionally explicitly, on it?
b) If so, do you print out a small photo of the man’s face to accompany it so his co-workers know who to give it to and don’t accidentally discover his denuded wang?  Or -
c) Is the prong-shot the photo you print out to accompany the card on its return?  Or -
d) Do you just re-format the card, destroying all those precious memories of family gatherings and blenders and sofas and come-hither looks and dick, and score yourself a free SD card?

Mail your responses to the Chucklehut, care of the internet, or feel free to abuse our comment function.  Your prize will be the nebulous benefit of self-satisfaction.  O hell I’ll even buy you a beer if you ask for it in person.  It’s a brand new year and I’m feeling generous.  So don’t ruin it for everybody. Your SASE gets mine.

HENCE: my laser-like focus on holiday-ish cognition and re-cognition.  I perceive, and perceive that I perceive.  Which is not as easy as it sounds, in a house full of lego-flinging youth and healthy snorts of gifted scotch (of which the lego-flingers are happily being totally deprived).  But I’ve forcibly cleared out a frayed scrap of time between cleaning up feasts and getting ready for flights, and I’m going to use it for a traditional “what I ate for lunch” blogpost.  BECAUSE YOU DESERVE IT.  And you can make of that what you will.  Which I’m betting won’t be much.  Which is as it should be.

The theme for this post, since my lunch was a fistful of re-heated pelmeni and hardly worth your attention, is “stuff that came back with a vengeance this festive season, but in a good way.” Because what says “festive season” more than “stuff you remember from way the hell back at the beginning of time, but that has been updated with the funkified twistedness that puts both the ‘new’ and ‘ill’ in ‘new millennium’”? 

1. LATKES: I tried making them for a few years but wound up getting too fancy for my own pants.  By straining out the potato starch and trying to reincorporate it, I just messed up everything and made my latkes heavy, chewy and unsatisfying.  Not unlike myself.  But this year I had latkes at the homes of two different friends, and both made pure, old-fashioned, perfectly fried latkes.  Trader Joes also does a decent frozen version for those who seek ease and simplicity, but I personally ingested handmade examples that included both the old-school DutchMom version and the cutting-edge haute designer version.  Both were almost identical to each other, and totally delectable.  I can’t say enough about how good it made me feel to arrive at a holiday party and smell them frying while I was still coming up the front walk.  Yay latkes.  Really!

2. MENORAHS: I’ve been lighting menorahs even since I was old enough to whine about it till my dad let me take a crack at the giant silver chanukeah that has been in his family since the 19th century.  And that’s been fine, really.  But it’s gotten to the point that I’ve had to double my unctuous commemoration capacity , by acquiring yet a second menorah.  My primary instrument, a sleek chrome model from my maternal grandparents’ household, has done me yeoman’s service for years, but now things have changed.  Now, both my sons are old enough to whine about not getting a fair chance to ignite stuff after supper.  Luckily, a colleague happened to attend a baseball game in July which was, for some reason, denominated “Jewish Cultural Night,” or “Grand Slam Ghetto,” or something like that, and he brought me back his free take-home bonus - a menorah that says “Go Giants” in Hebrew.  Now both kids get to light menorahs, and for the first time since I was four, I’m barely involved in the actual flaminating process at all.  It’s kind of weird, but fulfilling.  The kids so love the flames.  Maybe it should worry me but I’ll get to that next year.

3.  SUPPER: It’s a holiday tradition to eat yourself stupid in honor of the virgin birth, or the triumphant Maccabees, or the returning fecundity of the post-solsticial period, or whatever.  For exmas itself, I fried up some super tasty langostino tails (another TJ’s special) and tiny potatoes and some other damn stuff… and sure, there’s been green bean casserole and eggles and ice cream and all manner of tasty delights.  But nothing - NOTHING - compares with the supper Mitch set down before us on the eve of equesmaz.  The shrimp salad was fresh and tasty, and the desserts were plentiful and guest-hauled, so no complaints on any of that… but when it came time to eat the actual main course of the feast itself, he served short ribs, pressure cooked till they fell off the bones (not unlike myself), heaped in the center of a GODDAMNED HOME-MADE DONUT resting on a bed of fresh greens.  Like the brisket pop-tart with horseradish frosting he made some years back, it was epic.  As the meal before the roadtripping kings show up should be, don’t you think? 

4.  GENEROSITY: It’s always nice, but this year it’s been awe-inspiring.  I know that people don’t give for the sheer reciprocity of receiving gifts of equivalent value, and I’m grateful for that because I could not possibly begin to be as openhanded and deep-pocketed as my many magnificent, munificent, magnanimous friends.  I was totally blown away and I still am.  What a massive haul this year.  All that video, music, clothing and candy sort of makes the Maccabean War seem almost worth it. 

5. PASSING THE TRADITIONS FORWARD: Apart from the candle-lighting, which honestly is just a socially-acceptable way to channel the arsonistic tendencies of all young people everywhere, the boys are actually singing along with the ignition-sanctifying prayers.  And more than that, Z won’t stop warbling the same twisted version of “Jingle Bells” that I sang at his age, right down to the Joker getting away after the Batmobile broke its wheel.  He even adds a verse about broken skis and waking up in the hospital with bullets in his head, that I think I recall the cool kids knowing in grade school but not sharing with me.  If that’s not the holiday spirit, then I’ll need to distill some afresh.  The classics, they never age!

6. FAMILY TOGETHERNESS: For nearly thirty years, which is in and of itself a time period that totally freaks me out if I can be perfectly frank about it, I’ve associated the birth of Jesus with some serious hard partying up in the Poconos with K’s family.  For many years, on and off, we’ve been able to shlep across the country to hunker down in their accommodating digs and blow through several bottles of alcohol of diminishing quality (and subsequently have them blow through us).  The year of Pisco and Pocheen was a watershed period, so to speak, but every year the Christmas shots flew thicker and faster than opening day of deer season - and let me assure you, that family lives in a region where deer are hunted with enthusiastic bloodthirstiness.  But that thirst for cervine exsanguination has nothing on that which I’ve come to associate with celebrating Christmas.  At other times of the year, everything is very much in an appropriate state of celebratory moderation, but on xmas all bets are off and all glassware is in serious use.  However, this year we’re not going to the Poconos, and I couldn’t help but wonder, on that evening of mysteries, what the inlaws were up to and throwing down.  But then I stopped wondering, when a series of texts bounced transcontinentally between our home and theirs, with attached photos and video.  First, there they were on K’s phone, huddled around a table strewn with cups, fumbling with a broken noisemaking ornament.  We reciprocated with a shot of me, doing a shot.  They then sent back a video of three erstwhile wise men, bellowing “L’Chayim” as they struggled to keep each other upright.  What a wonderful memory, and one I’d have totally missed last year when we didn’t have video-texting capacity.  These modern contraptions, they keep us close from far enough away that I don’t have to even think about cleaning up afterwards.  That’s the holiday spirit as applied to holiday spirits!

7.  FUN-N-GAMES: My whole life I’ve cherished the holiday season for its message of peace, joy, and what-did-you-get-me-this-time.  Sure, it was fun to decorate the house with garlands of origami dreyels and spray-snow stars of David on our windows (for reals!), but it was the ka-ching that really captured my attention.  The kids have been young, so far, so it’s been fairly easy to keep them entranced in the same way I once had been, with three-quarters of a hot wheels car and a toy pig made out of a pink eraser and six thumbtacks.  But now the kids are both in school, surrounded by others of their age and ilk, and they keep coming home with illicit knowledge of sophisticated playthings like transistor radios and rockemsockem robots.  So finally, after (literally) two years of their cajoling and whining, we got them something electronic to play with.  Not like when I was a kid and tried plugging my slinky into the wallsocket, either.  This time it’s Wii.  We’re starting with MarioKart and Sports, and I am delighted to say that I’m the second-best cybergolfer and electrobowler in the family.  On the other hand, I’m the worst-but-one in all manner of hallucinogenic racing - and that only puts me ahead of J, who basically just runs his car into a wall repeatedly to see if he can burrow under it.  We’re all starting to get shoulder and neck tension, and I’m having dreams about driving across mushrooms over creepy chasms.  But since that’s so much like my day job at the office, it’s not a big deal.  Congratulations, Wii: you got yourself another family.  Now, what are you going to do with us? - because we clearly don’t know what to do with you. 

Seven holiday revival items is probably enough for now, since I’ve been typing this damn list since early last night.  Yes, it’s nearly the end of the last day of Chanukah, and I’ve had a busy time in the interim getting ready for a relaxing trip tomorrow up to the outer suburbs of one of our major northwestern metropoli, where a member of the extended family has settled down in a new house that has yet to be properly broken in.  By which I mean, partied in, by me.  I don’t intend to break anything, really.  Not intentionally.  Maybe I’ll need to update this on my return? 

Times change, and we had best change with them.  Our options are to live in reality, or not.  Which brings me to Los Angeles.

Actually, what brought me to L.A. wasn’t an ontological exegesis, it was a bilateral laminectomy, which my dad needed to have performed on his poor aching back.  It’s the sort of thing you’ll want a friend around to help with, and that was me.  And I didn’t even really go to the Los Angeles part of L.A.; I landed in the Grand Duchy of Burbank and never left the San Fernando Valley.  Despite that the valley is technically in L.A. county, and is mostly actually incorporated into Angel City itself, the greater urban basin south of the hills feels a world away.

The valley - the east valley, particularly - is where I grew up; it’s a world ostensibly familiar to me.  Much of it still is as I remembered it, too - street names and schools, various “heritage” hotels and churches and liquor stores.  It’s not like they’re untouched by time, but they are mostly as they once were.  They ground me, and I really appreciated that steady presence on this trip.

There’s also the stuff that’s been changing ever since I’ve moved away, that I’ve already seen evolving, incrementally if not cataclysmically.  Ventura Boulevard now has a big stretch where more of the signs seem to be in Hebrew than in English, but that’s been going on for years.  The Galleria mall of my youth (as featured in Fast Times @ Ridgemont, if you care to culturesurf) was replaced a decade or so ago by some new whippersnapper mall at the same location.  Maybe these things are less actual changes than mere differences, but they’re old news either way.  I’d noticed them before so they didn’t surprise me when I noticed them again.  But in a town as fast-moving as L.A. - even the relatively sedate bit where I was raised and to which my peregrinations were restricted on this trip - something will be different every time I visit.  At least, something will seem different, and sometimes that’s for the better.  Other times, I’m inclined to reserve judgement.

My first day with dad at the hospital was long and tiring.  I skipped lunch to keep him company when his surgical slot got pushed back several hours, and there was something about the whole experience that just blunted my appetite.  But as soon as I stepped outside at 8:30 at night and filled my lungs with crisp rainwashed air, I suddenly knew exactly what I wanted - nay, needed: an authentic hamburger like L.A. does better than anybody, crammed with thick tomato slices and viscous chili and all manner of life-shortening but -enhancing goodness.  And for me that meant a cruise east on Ventura all the way from Reseda Boulevard to to Colfax, where Fat Jack’s has always served up the best of the best of this maligned but magnificent meatwitch.

I enjoyed the drive, enjoyed the generally-familiar sights along the way, but was nonplussed, arriving at my destination, to find it… not.  Some other non-burger-related establishment was doing business where Fat Jack’s was supposed to be.  Was I at the right strip mall?  I reconnoitered, first at the wheel of dad’s car (which I was borrowing), and then on my smrtphn, where the inestimable Yelp listed FJ’s as “closed.” Fat Jack’s, for so many decades the alpha and omega of burgerosity, the shop that proudly declared itself to have the best meat in town ("if you can’t eat it, beat it"), a place I’d known since it had been a standalone wooden shack on a sleepy stretch of a minor byway - Fat Jack’s was no more.  And dammit, bereft as I was by this sudden tragic loss, I was still hungry.  So I 180’d it back to Carney’s in its train car out by Coldwater, and ordered up a replacement burger.

Even in my depressed state I had to appreciate that burger’s heft, its pallet of flavors and textures, its coherence as I plowed through its many layers.  The chili fries, too, were crisp, hot, and didn’t wilt under their generous mound of meatgoo.  So I sat, alone and at loose ends, to eat my Carney’s burger in testament to the late lamented Fat Jack’s.  But even in that effort was I thwarted, as the Security dude honed in on me to regale me me with stories of going to classic concerts from the 60s and 70s, and recommendations for obscure music I’d never explored.  We bantered about Scofields’ contribution to MMW, and Vandergraff’s 50 albums, and the ways Jackie Green is like Neil Young… by the time I looked down, I’d already finished my burger; I was mopping up the last of my chili with the last of my fries.  As the security music dude bade me safe journeys and I left the restaurant, I couldn’t help but miss Fat Jacks - but I’d started to reconcile myself to its absence.

Started to reconcile, but still feeling moderately discombobulated.  Dad remained laid up in an antiseptic suite, and my fallback burger had just received a battlefield commission to hamburger prime.  I could see from where I sat - the front seat of my dad’s car - that a drink was in order.  And not another light-ice root beer like I’d just enjoyed. I wanted real beer, dammit, and I wanted it recognizable, low-key, and comforting. 

I’d already seen, just on my drive that night, any number of places that served beer - big busy joints with wide windows, long bars, and hordes of pretty young people trapped inside.  In my day these places had been furniture stores, stationers, jobber outlets, unassuming little shops.  The new boites that had moved in to replace them were too glitzy and garish for my state of mind.  I wanted an old-man dive bar, dammit. I didn’t want those kids all up in my grille whilst I relaxed with a classic midwestern pilsner.

Again my phone had an answer for me - with on-line recommendations of a place right on my short drive back to Dad’s house where I was staying.  The Oaks had always been a shabby old tavern, that had somehow sustained itself at a sleepy intersection across the street from where, at the dawn of time, Raldo’s Burgers had once reigned supreme.  I used to ride my bike past it on my way after school to a now-defunct record store, but I had long forgotten even forgetting those old days.  Yet I remembered this tavern from then, the men who would shamble in and out in the late afternoon, the smell of cheap tobacco and stale beer that washed out their door as I’d pedal past.  I’d never been inside - my recollections predated my seniority - but I immediately felt in my bones that this was the old man dive bar for me.

It was just where I remembered it, looked like it had always looked - a small establishment with a rough brick front and a white box sign over the door that reflected no contribution from any marketing design professionals.  It was just as I’d recalled and hoped.  I pulled into their parking lot, but was surprised to find it packed solid.  I drove across the street to the old familiar veterinary offices since they were closed for the night, but there were no spaces there either.  Their lot was full of cute shiny little coupes and big new pick-ups - not my idea of old-man cars.  A tiny doubt crept into my heart.

I finally found a spot to beach the car up a side street and walked toward the tavern.  A man passed me, wearing a hoodie, a van dyke, and expensive sneakers.  He bade me a polite good evening.  I could tell what he was.  He was a hipster, dammit.  This wasn’t the demographic I remembered from this neighborhood.  Despite all the comforting holdovers surrounding me from my childhood, I might not really be where I thought I was.

Outside the bar stood two young men and three young women - all looking disconcertingly Saturday-night for a Tuesday evening.  The music being played inside sounded nothing like Dean Martin, nor even Nancy Sinatra.  It was some kind of motown mashup.  Young person’s music.  As I pushed my way in, I couldn’t avoid the reality that this was a young person’s bar.  Hordes of pretty young people were all bunched up together with fancy drinks and stylish handbags and beer in at least three kinds of glasses.  Both fedoras and porkpies were in abundance, and heavy-framed eyeglasses rested on a plethora of noses. Irony lay as thick as eyeliner.  The Oaks appeared to have evolved into a hipster den.

I sure wasn’t seeing any grizzled old dypsomaniacs in dungarees.  I didn’t know how I felt about that.  The eye candy was nice enough, in theory, but eye-candy wasn’t really what I’d come looking for.  But that would not dissuade me now.  I’d already been through enough that day - I wasn’t about to give up and leave just because this place was too popular.  Its popularity would have to withstand my social inertia.  I would get me a beer at the young people bar. 

I muscled my way past co-eds in fancy skirts and spied out the row of taps on the far side of the bar.  To my surprise, one seemed to suggest that they were pouring Gulden Draak, one of the best beers anywhere and not typically found at your run-of-the-mill boozehole.  The 25-year-old barmaid in her little red cocktail dress fixed me a glass and I stood back with it against a wall, watching young people posturing extravagantly for each other.  I was as good as invisible.  I’d been hoping to find a place where invisibility was sought by a larger percentage of the clientele, but it seemed the Oaks had turned from a place from which to disappear, to one at which to be seen.

I finished my bulbous glass of beer and took my leave of the Oaks.  It had done its job for me - it had put a beer in my belly, and a damn fine one at that.  If it hadn’t met my expectations of a slow-pickled haven for the seasoned inebriate, well, looks like I’m in the market for some new expectations.  My old ones seem to be somewhat past their expiration date.

Moral: The more things change, the differenter they am.  Get used to not being used to it. 

The morning was already hot - a beer-drinking morning, hair of the dog.  We lounged in shorts, barefoot and languid, full of breakfast and devoid of responsibility.  It had taken a few days, but all of us felt well and truly on vacation at last.  The in-laws’ house felt like home to me, and our little boys were acting like they owned the place; their uncles and aunts and grandfolk delighted to let them own it or anything else they liked.  Lassitudinized by the humid summer, we sheltered from the swelter in the comforting shade of the split-level ranchhouse where my wife had been raised from tender years, leafing through old magazines and waiting for our next nap.

The doorbell’s ring caused a general stirring - eyelids fluttered open, nodding heads rose up.  Some of the family had yet to arrive for that day’s rich schedule of lying around and doing nothing; maybe someone had wandered out the back door and needed to be let in the front.  There were plenty of good reasons, I supposed, for someone to have rung that doorbell.  Since I was the guest nearest the door I figured I’d take it upon myself to see which of those reasons applied.  So I hauled myself off the sofa, shambled down the half-flight of stairs to the entry foyer, and breached our sanctum to see who felt it necessary to make such noise at such an ungodly hour. 

It was much too bright outside, and hotter than hell.  I could tell how hot it was by the way the big woman was sweating - which was prodigiously.  I didn’t recognize either of them - neither the big black woman, nor the slight fair-skinned one. They were both young, dressed in long skirts and modest blouses, with no makeup and unsophisticated hairdos.  They carried voluminous purses and wore earnest expressions.  Both were sweating, but the big one was sweating a lot.  When I opened the door upon them, they stepped together, assumed unconvincing smiles, and greeted me in the name of Jesus.  I had been hoping for my brother-in-law with a couple fresh cases of lager.  Needless to say, the church ladies came as something of a disappointment. 

I was still a little fuzzy in the thinking department and caught very much off-guard, so I don’t recall exactly what they were saying.  Actually, only the smaller one spoke, while the big one stood with a look on her face that said to me that if I wasn’t paying close enough attention Jesus would be very disappointed - and she’d make sure he knew about it.  The pitch was pretty standard - something about wanting to know if I lived with Jesus in my heart, or something like that.  It was a chance for me to let them know whether or not they ought to stand on those brick entrysteps in the pre-noon sun, sharing the good news - or if they ought to hightail it on over to the next house down the street. 

I didn’t even think about playing with them, handing a line like how I’m an animist or that I express my relationship with god through belching or anything like that.  This was not my home, not my town, and not my place to make trouble.  Plus, it all felt like too much effort, and it honestly seemed a bit uncalled-for.  These were women truly on a mission, and I didn’t want to disrespect them.  I just wanted them to go away, unless they had some beer - in which case, I wanted them to give me a beer and then go away. 

Again, my response is not etched in my memory, but it was something along the lines of “I’m a guest in this house, and a visitor to this town.  I appreciate your bringing this message here today.  This is a house of people with faith in Jesus, and it’s not necessary for you to reinforce that.  We’re all set up, Jesus-wise, already.”

I feared they’d respond with enthusiasm, wanting to get into the son-of-god talk and personal savior stuff and all, none of which is really my bailiwick.  I was already thinking sluggishly of my next tactic to move them along, but that turned out to be unnecessary.  Once I was done with my demurrer, they both just sort of froze, their paltry smiles withering on their lips; stepping back, they thanked me in the name of Jesus Christ and walked away quickly without further encouragement on my part. 

I was pretty impressed with myself as I closed the door - I’d heard these folk could be hard to dislodge, yet I’d been able to do it quickly and diplomatically, without resorting to cheap jokes or feigned outrage.  I’d done well, I thought as I turned back into the house to climb the half-flight back to my couch.  But even before I’d completed that turn, peals of laughter made me wonder if I’d had as much to do with this escape from evangelism as I initially believed.  By the time I was facing the stairs, I knew it had not been my doing at all to drive the strangers from our threshold. 

Before me, at the top of the dozen steps leading to the living room, proudly stood our three year old son.  His pride may have had to do with how he’d apparently singlehandedly removed his own trousers and undergarments, so as to display his delicate manhood for all and sundry to appreciate.  I’d seen it before, of course, but not in this context.  He stood before me and above me, unconcerned and curious, wang a-dangling with a big happy smile on his broad flushed face.  My sister-in-law was giggling hysterically, holding him back so he didn’t tumble down the stairs.  I appreciated her solicitude but I could have told her it wasn’t really necessary.  He wasn’t going to fall.  He just wanted to share the good news about his special bodily equipment.  I hustled back upstairs and packed him back into his pants.  We’d all seen well enough what he was showing us, and it seemed a little risky to let him wander about just as his creator had endowed him.

Moral: Just because you think it’s good news, doesn’t mean other people want to be exposed to much of it. 

Given that this is a blog, after all, it seems appropriate to mention in passing that thanksgiving has been thanksgiven.  For us it was a really excellent evening marked by the return, after many years, of some dear friends whose paths had temporarily diverged from ours.  In our hosts’ gracious new home in an old Palo Alto neighborhood, we easily numbered upwards of thirty, what with extended families and neighbors caught short and all the people I count on seeing every year and many I’ve missed for too long.  Sorry was played, fingertip flashlights were frantically waved in a dark backyard, approximately 20 pies and tarts were unbelievingly faced down by bloated and tipsy gastronauts. 

And as it turns out, three bowls of orange goo graced our tables, for only one of which was I responsible.  However, at the gorging’s end and after all the tupperware had been filled with afterfeasts to be hauled home, I believe that only my bowl of geaux saisonaille en orange had been emptied.  And I’m informed by a correspondent that it’s been successful elsewhere this year too.  So I might as well just teach the world how to make it next year, turn it into a meme or something, and then cash in by journaling and then novelizing my year’s journey getting America to embrace this delightful new dish.  But I’ll let you in on the ground floor, right here and now, because frankly I’ve been overwhelmed with things I’ve considered writing about but have not written down, and damned if I can remember any of them.  Something about public art, and nice people at the playground, and a bunch of cool stuff I’m thankful for… but I really can’t even concentrate on that right now.  What I can concentrate on is geaux en orange.  So here you go.

Because, what says “mid-to-late autumn” more than orange goo?  Nothing.  Nothing!  It is decided!  So, I wanted to make one of those seasonal gooey orange things, one that could hold its own on a table full of orange items of various consistencies, and goos of various colors.  And goddamn it that’s what I made.  This goo rocks, as only goo can.  Make it for people who deserve the best.  Such as yourself. 

We - that is to say, I - started with a sugar pumpkin, a butternut squash, and about two pounds of garnet yams.  I roasted all the vegetative matter in foil at 350 for 90 minutes; everything comes out totally creamy cooked that way.  (Hints: to roast pumpkin, cut it into four football-shaped pieces; cut the ends off each piece to make two triangles, and set those down over the main piece that’s now sort of square-shaped.  That configuration is easy to wrap with foil.  With yams, cut them in half and then in half again, so they really cook through.) After everything comes out of the oven, let it cool to the touch, carefully open the foil and use a spoon to scoop the flesh (flesh!) from the rinds and skin and stuff. 

Then - here’s the pain in the ass part - press it all through a strainer.  Work in batches and rinse out the strainer frequently.  If you can find them, get one or two of those nice mushy persimmons that are really ripe; mince them up and stir them in.  Better to leave them out than to use ones that aren’t ready.  Put them in a bag with a ripe banana overnight, that might help.  Helped me, anyways.  Moving on:

In a separate saucepan, heat a cup of cream, three tablespoons of bourbon, and six tablespoons of maple syrup - also toss in a smashed cinnamon stick and a vanilla bean, split in half with the seeds scraped out (use the back of a butterknife, if you feel like it).  Simmer it on a low boil, stirring constantly, for about five minutes.  Stir in some allspice, powdered ginger, salt, and an eighth of a teaspoon of powdered cayenne.  Yeah, that’s nice.  When it’s all nice and hot, pour it through a sieve into a bowl containing four tablespoons of butter and let it all melt and blend.  Then stir it into the veggies and you’re basically done.  My mom suggested pomegranate seeds as a garnish and that turned out pretty well; I’ve heard rum substitutes just fine for the bourbon but I put no stock in such apostasies.  Anyway, it rocks, as has previously herein been intimated, and you should enjoy it in good health. 

I guess I’ll be back later with more stuff written up but honestly I’m just trying to finish book 5 of Game of Thrones and get my damn life back. There has been a lot going on, at work and at home, and I’ve put a lot of effort into catching up with my recorded television.  Oh, and let me share my thanksgiving CD mix list with you in the extended entry, so you can record it for yourself and listen to it while you eat your geaux, or if you really need to you can send me a note and I’ll burn one down for ya like teh internet pirate I always knew i was.  Or were, as the case may be.  Fight the power, and all, eh wot.  Smell ya later. 

Here’s something I wrote anyway.  I can tell you with high confidence, it was not inspired by anything in my real life.  Such as it is.  Sellswords!  Winterfell!

The sun was too bright.  When they’d met at noon-thirty the table had been comfortably shadowed, but that was nearly two hours ago.  None of them liked sitting around for so long, especially with only breadsticks.  And now that fucking bright-ass table.  It bothered them all but nobody mentioned it.

Jimmy C shifted in his chair; Little Jimmy’s knee made a popping noise as he re-crossed his legs.  Trey had already cleaned under his nails with his butterknife; now he was using it as a mirror to check between his teeth.  Each had brought an associate, who scowled at each other across the table. 

Little Jimmy’s stomach gurgled loudly.  Trey and Jimmy C both smirked.  This pissed Little Jimmy off.  “Fuck you both!” he barked.  Jimmy C and Trey and their guys all laughed out loud.  Little Jimmy didn’t like that either.  He picked up the framed cocktail list from the centerpiece and threw it across the room, where it shattered against one of the front windows.  Even though they were the only table seated at the restaurant, the whole place went still.  “Shit, Little Jimmy,” admonished Trey.

Little Jimmy was unappeased.  “I’m hungry, dammit!  I got shit to do!” He raised his voice and his chin.  “Johnny!  Get over here!”

Jimmy C and Trey looked briefly at each other.  Jimmy C asked: “What are you doing?”

“Fuckit, I’m ordering.”

“Bad idea.”

“No no no, I’ll order for the table, family style, and have them hold it for him.  It’ll be ready when he gets here.  It’s thoughtful, dammit.  He’ll appreciate it.”

Trey made a sucking sound against the puckered starfish of the side of his fist.  Jimmy C just shook his head.

Johnny - they were all “Johnny” - sauntered over.  Little Jimmy ordered lunch for everybody.  “But hold it for us, till everybody’s here.” Little Jimmy made sure to tell him.  He was careful.

About twenty minutes later, the table, if anything, had grown brighter as the sun crawled across the sky and shone more directly into their eyes.  Little Jimmy’s stomach rumbled again.  The other guys snorted with laughter.  Little Jimmy was furious.  “I can’t help it ,dammit!  I’m hungry!  I need to eat regular!  God damn it!” He was getting up out of his chair, face red and eyes bulging, when the kitchen doors opened and three waiters walked out with trays of food.  “What the fuck is this?  Who asked for you?  Get back there!  Not yet!” Little Jimmy barked at them but the men in their red jackets did not turn back.  The front door opened.  Little Jimmy had planned this out differently.  Plans mean nothing, though.  Results count, was what William always said.

William was quiet, for a big guy.  He made no sound as he walked, no jangling keys or creaking shoes.  His big overcoat didn’t even rustle as he swept it off his shoulders.  He was the only man in motion; even the Johnnies had frozen in mid-service.  William scanned the scene one piece at a time, meticulous and unhurried.  The waitstaff shifted their feet uneasily under their platters of pasta, fried calmari, and iceberg salad.  William slid his fists into his voluminous pockets and swept his gaze to the table, littered with breadcrumbs and coffee cups, some placesettings askew.  His brow, like an i-beam over those calculating eyes, crept down a scosch.  He sighed deeply, looking into the eyes of those who’d return his gaze, making note of who didn’t Finally he turned to Little Jimmy who stood halfway to the kitchen door with a broad stance and a bent, anxious posture, arms raised protectively, face pale and lurid with a cold sheen of sweat.  “Little Jimmy, what is this?” His quiet voice echoed in the plush restaurant

Little Jimmy turned to face him, knowing full well that every word he spoke would only make things worse.  “Hello boss, good to see ya; looks like we’re behind schedule, an’ since your time is so valuable I was thinkin’... I mean, I hoped...”

When he got to the articulation phase of his confession, his tongue and throat went on strike.  He just flapped his gums, unsure what to say and afraid to say it.  He wanted to smile but not to puke.  William’s eyes didn’t move, change, or blink.  He would wait for Little Jimmy to finish.  Little Jimmy didn’t want William to finish for him, so he forced himself: “Lunch.  Ready for you.  So we can get right on to business.”

William began to inspect the luncheon selections, peering under the silver platecovers, picking a piece of squid out of the bowl and contemplatively masticating.  “What time is it, Little Jimmy?”

“Like, 2:30, boss.”

“So, Little Jimmy, you think I came here hungry?”

“I dunno boss, maybe you didn’t get a chance to - “

“Don’t be stupid, stupid.  ‘Get a chance’?  I don’t get, I take.” He’d said that before.  Little Jimmy didn’t consider it a good sign that he was hearing it again.  William continued: “So you ordered lunch for everybody.  On my behalf.  You just inferred what I wanted. You took it on yourself.  That right?”

When William asked a direct question he wanted a direct answer.  Little Jimmy thought three times before giving his: “Yeah.”

William circled the table, burning every detail into his memory.  “But, boss,” Little Jimmy hastened to add, “I was planing on covering the charge myself.  I took responsibility for the menu, so I gotta take responsibility for the check, right?”

“Are you calling me cheap?” William stared at Little Jimmy from the far side of the table, but he felt much closer.  “Like I can’t pay for lunch?”

“It’s not like that, boss, I’’m a stand-up guy, you know me....”

“Yeah, I know you,” William mumbled, poking through the green salad with a pair of tongs.  “I can’t tell if you’re stupid or presumptuous, but I know you.  You know what you don’t know?”

“No boss what.” It came out as a three-sylable word.

“You don’t know that I fuckin’ hate iceberg.  Romaine, that’s what I like.  Caesar salad with nice fat anchovies.  You like anchovies, Little Jimmy?”

“yeahsureboss”

“So why the fuck didn’t you order any?” This shit’s goat food.  Goat food!” He swung a saucepan hand and knocked the salad tureen clean over the table.  It cut Little Jimmy across the jaw and salad scattered into everybody’s lap.  “Ya need some dressing for that shit, son?” William pulled the carafe out of Johnny’s’ slack fist and chucked it overhand.  It caught Little Jimmy in the shoulder and covered him in creamy Italian.  Little Jimmy sank to his knees.

“Announcement,” William said, wiping his fingers with a linen napkin that gleamed in the afternoon sun, “ - so listen up.  If I’m two hours late for lunch, order something.  It’s stupid to sit around hungry.  I wouldn’t.  But seriously - if you order any food before I’m two hours late, I will take that as a personal insult.  I’m actually pretty pissed right now, but I’ll work that out myself.  I don’t feel like talking anymore.  This meeting is over.”

Everybody stood and shook themselves out, shedding salad, milling to the exit - Little Jimmy was among them.  Despite his bleeding jaw and all that dressing, he didn’t want to draw any more attention to himself by hanging around to clean up before he hit the sidewalk.  He was on his way out when William stopped him.  “Not you, Little Jimmy.” Everyone took their look at Little Jimmy and then they all scurried away.  Little Jimmy returned to the tableside and stared down at it.  Even where his blood dripped on it, it was much too bright. 

I get off the bus at the terminal downtown at 8 am, thinking that the era of interesting bus rides seems to have ended. 

At 5:30 that afternoon I’m preparing for an especially boring bus ride, a BX that makes only two stops downtown and then heads straight out to the Richmond, thirty blocks across town.  The regular 38 is where things get weirdest, but even it has seemed pretty quiet for some time; the L has seen its share of weirdness and that too has been a snooze for months now.  The express lines are full of people who act in the bus like they do in elevators, sitting silently with inward gaze in equally dispersed ranks as the bus lumbers its way over Nob Hill and through Pacific Heights before starting to make stops again at Masonic.  These are people who just shut down during bus rides.  The BX is a boring-ass line.  And I was riding it home, since I’d run an errand that had brought me to where the BX starts.  The empty bus was waiting for me there with open doors.  I climbed aboard, thinking about my book. 

At our only other stop downtown, another tranche of the downtown suitforce marches onto the bus, together with one fellow who clearly does not fit with the others.  He leans heavily on an aluminum crooktop cane, but that’s not it at all.  He’s in ratty blue jeans and a long-suffering denim jacket, worn-out sneakers, rats-nest hair, ragged spotty beard, questionable backpack, long white scarf with red and black stripes.  He’s making a mistake, I think to myself as he boards.  He doesn’t want to go out to Masonic.  He sits on the bench opposite my own near the front of the bus.  He is grinning and giggling as the bus rolls into traffic, and quickly pulls the wire to request the next stop.  We are rolling on up Pine Street and the driver is making all the lights.  The scruffy man realizes that the bus is not going to stop for him.  He becomes moderately alarmed, tries to ask the bus driver what’s going on, and can he be let off?  I’ve got my headphones in but the man’s voice carries; he sounds foreign.  I don’t hear the bus driver at all. 

The man’s questions become louder and more pointed.  He’s from England, the north.  The driver ignores him utterly.  This, as much as anything else, drives the inadvertent passenger to distraction.  “Where are we?  Where are we? The fukin’ Avenues!  Whea ah yew takin’ me?  Ach, you won’t speak!” He’s keeping up a running commentary.  I’m sitting facing him, trying to read.  “If you won’t stop I’ll jest ride ya back round trip!” He chortles with satisfaction. 

The lady next to me is a prim Chinese office lady, demure and stylishly dressed.  She takes out a pink cell phone and has a brief conversation, shielding her mouth with her hand as she speaks.  The man tries to get her attention.  “Hoi!  Lady!  Hoi! Can you get the driver’s attention?  Oi!  Can you hear me?  Hello?  BILL!  Can you hear that?  BILL!  That’s my name, can ye not hear it?” He’s making so much noise my eyes rise from my novel and meet his.  He speaks to me.  I pull out an earbud.  He points to my seatneighbor, at the jewelry she wears around her neck.  “She’s wearin’ pearls!  A pearl necklace!  Ya know what it means, eh?” He makes a back-and-forth gesture with a fist near his face, and then a grotesque kerspoogie gesture across his throat.  Then he laughs uproariously, generously displaying a smile full of empty gum and rotten teeth. 

We get to Masonic, the first stop.  The guy smells bad and he’s bothering me.  I want him off the bus.  So I tell him, Bill, You can get off here, cross the street, ride back downtown. His eyes light up.  Apparently, I’ve invited him to conversate with me.  “No worries there, friend, these are my old stomping grounds now, I know my way around - I can find me a hooker or a drug dealer around here easy enough!” He laughs, hard enough that he drools into his abundant white muffler.  He uses it to dab at his slobbery lips.

I was car-crash fascinated, and so of course was looking right at him when he looked back at me, pointing proudly to his rancid neckwear.  “Manchester!  That’s my team, oi?  Aurgh!  Manchester!  But really, you’re a gentleman, only one who spoke to me, all the rest - nothing, just - “ (hand gestures like duck beaks at his mouth, followed by wide-eyed gape with jazz hands at his jawline) “ - and then this fellow, he won’t even speak to me, won’t acknowledge me, well I won’t curse him in his own language, that I won’t do, I won’t do that, his own language - I won’t curse him in it; No - (here he leaned forward conspiratorially) - the problem is this backpack (twisting to show it to me, still strapped blackly to his back), I’m just doing a man a favor, he said couju watchit, so I’m watching it, but I’ve got nooooo idea what’s in it… could be… could be anything, I don’t know, I’m just watching it for him, and I’ve got no idea on earth where we are, no, I’m just takin’ the ride now and that’s okay, I know where I am now, my old stomping grounds, these are, so it’s alright...”

He paused to wrestle a plastic pint of Wolfschmidts out of his pants pocket and pounded a few swallows; then he washed it down with a longer pull off a malt 40 he’d secreted in his denim jacket.  He belched robustly and seamlessly resumed his comments, “rrrrrhat’s alright, I’m riding and I’m flying… Flying and riding....” His voice trailed off and he stared at the window over my head.  We reached my stop and I got off.  Ride safe, Bill, I told him as I stepped out.  I don’t think he heard me.