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Harvest Love

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It’s beet season! I love beets – their earthly taste, their dente bite, the way they turn everything a deep, rich, fuchsia. With the tough personal loss I recently suffered at the hands of the second son of God (thank you very much Mr. Tebow) I needed some comfy food. My grandmother, the one I fondly remember with her tongue out, used to make these for me. She also pickled cucumbers the way Denveater described them. Well, not quite. I’m sure the taste was the same but the presentation was waaaay different since she wasn’t an east coast Jew but a southern Episcopalian.

Anyway, beets are coming down the TCSA pike and into my veggie bin. Using my considerable(ly limited) skills, I created this short homage for your viewing pleasure. I should probably have let the piece speak for itself. Ah, well. Turn up your sound.

I’m also thinking very good thoughts for a friend of mine with potentially very good news that goes along with a local, organic, communal harvest. Sparkles, Molly!

But We’re Happy Now?

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I decided to quit my job. I thought on it for a couple of weeks. I floated it past my buddies. Then I called two “colleagues” with my firm decision. I thought about what I was going to say and I have to admit, it was perfectly positive. There is no way that I would leave with bad feelings. It would be the best quitting EVER.

My boss is without a doubt my favorite boss ever. She’s a muckety muck in her field and has a vision that can’t be beat. Because I like her personally, I care about supporting her in that work. What I like about her as la jefe is that she’s interested in allowing people their own process. I don’t do well being told what to do, when to do it, how to do it (just ask my dad). She’s never even bothered to define my job.

The job has no tangible benefits – no health, no retirement, no nuthin’. There’s no money in the job. There’s no upward mobility. There’s no prestige. It can be frustrating as all get out. In fact, it feels an awful lot like my VISTA days. I’ve been pushing this rock uphill for two years now. My family is the lucky recipient of my lack of ambition and my abundance of vision. It’s time for me to “get a real job.”

The quitting went well. We had a normal meeting. It was all good news. Things are taking a turn for the better with the project. YAY! And then it was time for me to quit. “My working on this project and your paying for it out of pocket is enabling the University to not have to act while simultaneously hurting our families.” Doesn’t that sound great? It’s so much better than some of the lesser charitable things I was thinking.

She looked at me like I kicked her kitten, agreed with me that the University is taking advantage, and complimented my work. My resolve weakend. Did I mention that I admire this woman and she’s been a great boss for seven years (two years on this project and five years in a previous position)? “What would happen if I left?” I said thinking that she would say a position would be created and the University would do a spousal hire as were the whisperings. Instead she said, “Nothing.” We are being noticed for the work we’ve done and money is finally coming in, she pointed out. “But the bones are here for great things and the fun part of fleshing it out comes next,” I said thinking about the board of advisors we’ve hornswaggled into working with us and remembering what fun it is seeing them. Then with less resolve, “I’d be leaving things on good footing and ready for blastoff and the spousal hi….”

So I stayed, releived that I didn’t have to cancel the kids’ music lessons, sell the car, clip coupons. Did you realize the economy is tanking or has tanked? Thank God I have a job – even one with no benefits. We may be in a depression, but we’re happy now. Right? Yes, we’re happy because I have the best job ever.

Resolution 1 – Keep Tongue in Cheek

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My buddy posted a photo of me on Facebook with my tongue sticking out. The hubster has posted a photo on Facebook and My Space of me with my tongue sticking out. All embarrassment aside about why I’d have “My Face” accounts, I really need to examine my tendency to sabotage photos with my tongue.

My mother used to say, “I wouldn’t want that nasty thing in my mouth either.” In today’s parlance, I think that means, “Whatever.” While she found the stuck out tongue offensive, in one of my most memorable photos of her mother, the tongue is out. Apparently, I’m passing the proclivity on to my own progeny.

Tongue Twisters

This is my kids’ favorite:
Unique New York

This is Guinness’s hardest:
The sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick.

This is the least appropriate for children:
I’m not the pheasant plucker, I’m the pheasant plucker’s son,
And I’m only plucking pheasants till the pheasant pluckers come!

Are these facts true?

* If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee. Anyone wanna come over for a piping hot brew?

* The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds. That’s sad news for bottom feeders.

* Every person has a unique tongue print, though I am sure the blotters don’t taste all that great.

Great Tongues Behave Alike


Mental Note

Sticking out your tongue isn’t the only way to goof in a photo. In the New Year, I will place my tongue more firmly in my cheek in favor of less bacterial photos.

Recognizing Realities

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  • August 27, 1989 – age 18. Too old for Seventeen Magazine.
  • May 22, 1992 – age 20. I would never be on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.
  • May something, 1995 – age 23. No longer eligible for collegiate athletics.
  • August 27, 1995 – age 24. Too old for The Real World.
  • March 8, 1996 – age 24. I would never be Miss America or any Miss.
  • December 2, 1999 – age 29. I hate school.
  • February 10, 2000 – age 29. I should have worn more bikinis.
  • September 1, 2000 – age 30. Oklahoma may not be the only place in the world.
  • September 9, 2005 – age 34. Some things don’t get fixed, but friends surface like cream.
  • January 3, 2009 – age 37. Listy, sell-out, blog cliché.

New Year’s Kiss Off!

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You see that? THAT is how I feel about the new year thus far. It’s only puke, cleaning up puke, and being flipped off at the In-N-Out on New Year’s Eve. Okay, that latter part is actually quite funny, don’t you think? The hubster is HILARIOUS.

I spent forever on an end of the year photo retrospective. It was going to be awesome and you would have loved it. Sadly, I never saved the project and it was gone in a flash. So, too bad for all of you ’cause it would have been the bome (inside joke – too bad for you again)!

Did I mention the puke? As in clean it up with a dustpan volumes of puke. Puke from every member of the family except the person who had to clean it all up – me. Puke in the minivan, which requires 24/7 open windows. Puke on the carpet, which has had to be shampooed twice in the last two days. Puke that you slip on when you hit the concrete floors. Puke. That reminds me, I’m not feeling so well.

Speaking of bodily functions, I visited Milk Breath today. She posts about Google Analytics and requests key word search information from other bloggers. Overwhelmingly, poop brings people here. My most viewed page is the chocolate chip cookie post. It would be easier to just look at the bag of chips for the recipe. In any event, I hope poop searches have nothing to do with my cookies.

That cookie post is about accepting imperfections. Having recently returned home from home, I am reaquainted with all my imperfections past and present. If I cared about continuity in writing, I’d say it makes me feel “pukey”, but really it feels like shame. Shame, shame, everyone knows your name. I wondered about this today with a friend. I’ve done a thing or two that I can’t be proud of, but overall I’ve worked hard to be honorable. WHY do I have to feel shame and why is the shame illusive and not tied into a particular event? My friend said it’s because people have a fixed frame of reference. It’s the you 20 years ago that they can’t let go because it’s familiar. That past you was still trying to figure out how to be and they don’t know the current you. Perhaps, but that’s their problem. Why do I have to feel the shame?

Two days into the new year and here I am. Spinning wheels, puked on, poop reputed, and shamed. Pluck you 2009! I’m resolving to outlast all 365 damn days of you.

Nipples of Venus

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First, apologies to anyone who came here after a google search. No porn here. I just had to talk about this most luscious, luminous, sparkly thumbprint cookie ever.


Isn’t it fantastic? And, OH.MY.GOD! These cookies are so yummy. Add the coldest freshest milk and really, why bother with anything else? It’s my Friday. It makes up for needles flying at my eyeballs, job dramaz, and Yu-Gi-Oh cards that must be Pokemon cards or an 8 YO boy might be too embarrassed and die to go to school because only the butt picker likes Yu-Gi-Oh. Thanks Molly. I needed the purple box with thumbprint cookies in it.

They do remind me of nipples of Venus though I’ve never actually eaten one. These are my nipples. Not the actual… Point is that when I was in 9th grade I was apprenticed to a guy in the drama department at OU who would rather do ANYTHING other than spend a second with some 9th grade alternative wannabe. He told me to hang out with Katie Somebody. Katie was a bitch. I avoided her like the plague. She got to eat nipples of Venus because she was Mozart’s wife.

Speaking of music and theater, a pal o’ mine had a birthday and you know what she did? Well if you were paying attention, you’d know it has something to do with musical theater and that can only mean one thing – GAY MEN’S CHORUS! Yes, you are reading this correctly. SHE had a birthday and gave ME a concert ticket. I’m telling you, I have the most incredible giving friends ever. We went out for healthy Chinese and then to see Reveille Men’s Chorus presenting Holidays in Hollywood. To be fair, I can’t attest to any of the members’ statuseses in the gay community, however, they have the cutest little logo. It’s a cock.

Drowning

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So last night I had to be in the bathroom long enough for a woman to dye her hair. I’m not saying I dyed my hair, I’m just saying I was in the bathroom that long. While I was in there, I removed mineral deposits from the shower head. Soak, scrape, soak, scrape.

After picking at white rock cakes with metal prongs for 45 minutes and then getting into the shower, something glorious happened. Large, soft caresses of water fell down upon me like rain drops. I could actually determine the water temperature because I wasn’t focused on the icy burn of a singe drop of water shooting out at a zillion miles per hour straight into my eye.

My rejoicing was short lived. For one thing, I don’t get nearly the exfoliating I had previously. Additionally, I relied on that bullet of water to blast out hair dye from under my fingernails. I mean, it sometimes happens when my friend asks me to color her hair and, oh, point is that sputtering drop magically removed grime from under my fingernails. Also, we lost the low flow feature of the crusty shower head and my hands pruned up. All that work to make something great just back fired.

That’s how my karma works out at the moment. As with last night’s shower, I had early indications today that my labor may bear bitter fruit. After a series of frustrated errands, tasks, and obligations, I found myself this morning in a public restroom. The automatic flushing toilet provided me with an unwelcome bidet experience as I reached for toilet paper.

I quit.

Warm and Creepy Fuzzies

Warm Fuzzies

So I strong armed Populist Pugilist into posting a new poem – AND HE SURE DID! (Price is Right jumpin’ ya’ll!)

Listen in:

Make room. Make room.
Do not discard the runts of the litter.
Do not leave behind the slow, the old or
the blind. Find a place at the table for
them beside the better able and give
them an extra forkful of food.
Make room. Make room.

Alright, I like this poem and it reminds me of the present with a presence story he posted in under Grateful Jew. I’m not saying the two are connected, but I am saying tables are cool. If you are a poetry liker, go read the whole poem.

Creepy Fuzzies

I strong armed my good ol’ buddy Todd-o into a tête-à-tête today during which he expressed dismay that I haven’t posted a photo that’s been making me giggle for DAYZ! Well, it sorta sounded like approval.

You could go in multiple directions with this photo, but if you know ANYTHING about Todd-o, you know that hair is ALL WRONG. He’s had a haircut since then so all is back to Normal. After this photo, the driver side door of that beautiful Jeep got crunched. Sad memories for Todd-o and HI-larious photo for me.

Journalisticy Caption-like Explanation: After repeated requests for something useful to use as a wedge, Todd-o grabbed a bone. Something told me a photo opp was in the making.

I obviously have the best friends of any one ever in the whole history of time.

How I’m Paying for Christmas

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One of the best gifts EVER is my pal’s help fixing up my minivan. The deal was that I would do the work myself and pay a modest fee for his supervision and use of tools plus parts. The way I figure is I saved $700, but the the experience was invaluable.

Problemo uno: My passenger side window fell down and went boom. But Todd-o, the Hubster, the mechanic, and I all propped it up each time it fell because what are friends for if not that? Guess what we used. WAIT! I’ll show you.
See that? Sure you do. That white thing. Yup, just one of the many uses the wife of an archaeologist has for the many horse, cow, bob cat, deer, coyote, and random and sundry other bones junking up the place. That there bone held the winder up all week. It kep out de scoundrels who udderwise would pilfer the fortune in snack foods ground into the carpet and seeping into the seat stitching.

Problemo dos: The rear break pads needed replacing. This was the main event because it required the use of power tools. My son was giggly with excitement and my pal was uber patient. He probably gets giddy with power tools too. I mean, really, what’s not to love? After the zip zip to the lug nuts, it was a bit of a let down when the boy had to rough things up. Even so, he did a right fine job listening to how greater surface area means greater friction means better braking.
That’s the boy in his white soccer uniform. I just laugh at those laundry commercials in which mom bothers to think about grass stains and what not on jerseys. I tell my kids those stains are a badge of honor. I don’t believe it, but that’s what I tell my kids anyway.

I think it is cool that the boy and I rolled up our sleeves and got our hands dirty. At least I did until, well, check out what my buddy in the background did with his hands and his clothes.
Smarty britches. That’s why he gets the big bucks.

Lessons Learned:
* Proper mechanic attire is a jumpsuit with latex glove accessories.
* Things won’t be perfect. Things will get scratched. Seat heaters will go out.
* That orange mechanic soap hurts. Owie!
* Bones have use beyond yard litter.
* Yes we can, and we did.

Thanks Kurt!