Just before that first Thanksgiving dinner, a wise Native American woman was overheard to say,
Don’t feed them. If you feed them, they’ll never leave.
Dylan Brody
Image from Awkward Family Photos
Dinner with O
I got an invitation today. For a measly $3.00, I can put my name in to have dinner with President Obama. I thought, hmmmm, interesting. I’d like to have dinner with the guy but what is with the $3.00? I followed the trail and found that it was a campaign thingy, with all of the proper disclaimers and claimers and breezy kinda talk-talk in small print.
Actually — way on the bottom, it says, I really don’t have to send in $3.00 if I don’t want to, I can just put in my name and click away. But, if I did that, I then would send my click to a different site from the $3.00 people. And no — of course not, there wouldn’t be any advantage given to those who coughed up the $3.00.
But I thought to myself. I don’t think so.
Somehow, I think the lucky clicker who gets the grand Poopah prize will go to one of the faithful who sent in $3.00. And I felt sure that the $3.00 people would also be on the receiving end of a great rush of incoming e-mail in the months to come.
Nah, sorry, President Obama — as much as I’d love having dinner with you, frankly I don’t have a thing to wear.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Breakfast
Hey, you got egg on your face.
Playing with Fire
There is a restaurant in New York, the Momofuku Milk Bar, that has a pie so addictive they trademarked its name, Crack Pie. And guess what?
You can order this $44.00 dessert and have it sent by overnight delivery for Thanksgiving as long as you make their November 22nd deadline.
Momofuku’s Christina Tosi dreamed up the recipe; it’s a toasted oatmeal cookie-like crust with a gooey butter filling that has a rich salty-sweet taste. There is also a recipe on Epicurious (image by Christopher Griffith) with a litany of helpful reviews that share cooks’ tips.
Preparation time is 15 hours from start to finish so it’s not a light commitment. The long wind-up probably contributes to the craving sensations that begin to crop up around the 11th hour. I’d make two just in case.
Really?
I got my driver’s license in the mail today. And frankly, I have a bone to pick with the entire government of the Motor Vehicle Division of the state of Kansas.
I can forgive them for the 2 1/2 hour wait in the renewal queue; I can overlook the institutional carpet and the yellowed-beige walls in the concrete waiting pen; I can rationalize their lack of clear signage and, since it’s not their fault – the obnoxious nerd of a guy sitting in front of me whose loud conversation consists mostly of f-ing this and f-ing that.
But, it is Absolutely Inexcusable that the picture on my driver’s license, a document that I will have to safeguard and display repeatedly for the next 5 years, looks like I volunteered for a police line up in a serial burglary spree.
Never mind that the today’s simplest technology enables a third grader to take a National Geographic grade photo, never mind that automatic photo booths are a new art form, never mind that even a dimwit with an iPhone can win a photo contest.
Oh, hi – Clerk-person. I’m afraid I lost my license. Where is the line for duplicates?
Over-look
An orderly at the hospital catches my eye as he pushes a patient past the waiting room to freedom. He is wearing hospital-regulation-issue boxy pants and tunic in a royal blue. And he has thick-soled imported athletic shoes whose construction purposefully pitches him slightly forward as he walks.
The dark hair on his forearms is in stark contrast to his pale skin; several tattooed bracelets circle each of his wrists. He has a single rhinestone stud in his right ear. His face is a narrow oval shape with just a shadow of a beard. Yeah, a fairly regular guy.
His hair, however, is quite fashion-forward. He has doused it with gel of some sort to rake it all upward so that it looks vaguely like a mini great wall of china balanced on the crown of his head. As he passes by, his scalp reflects tiny points of light from the overhead glare.
Move over comb-over, there’s a new dude in town.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Windows
View-Master
Cabin, Kalaloch Lodge, Olympic Peninsula, Washington
Perle des Vosges Hotel, Munster Valley, France
Boulder Mountain Lodge and Hell’s Backbone Grill, Boulder, Utah
Right place, right time
This shot from photos of the day, a regular online offering from the National Post, gets my vote today. He is shaking it at the St. Felicien Wildlife Zoo in Quebec. According to Environment Canada, 15,000 of the estimated 20,000 polar bear population live in Canada, the others roam around Alaska, Russia, Greenland and Norway.
Image from Reuters/Mathieu Belanger.
Saturday in October
We are planning a funeral service for Sig’s mother. She was 91 and died on the couch watching late night tv Saturday night. Thank God. (Not Thank God that she died, of course — but Thank God that she died peacefully while watching a re-run of MASH.)
She hasn’t been in good health for the best part of a year; and her hearing has deteriorated beyond the help of her hearing aid. Never a particularly serene woman, the loss of her independence has made her flat-out cranky and disagreeable although she feigns a charming, gracious public persona.
Ever notice how an abrupt death puffs up the importance of all of the details immediately leading up to it?
For months, she had wanted a coffee table and a rocker-glider combo that could cozy up to her ottoman. As it happened on the Wednesday before the Saturday, she agreed to go shopping and miracles of miracles — found both.
For months, she had been lectured on the use of the tv remote by technicians called in to fix her tv. On Thursday before the Saturday, she learned click tv, click power, to turn on; click tv, click power, to turn off. She did it a couple of times, and said, Why does it have to be so hard, this I get.
For a week or so, she had put off talking to her grandson about his plans to visit because she couldn’t hear him on the phone. On Friday before the Saturday, she used her new phone with a built-in screen that let her read what she couldn’t hear and they had a leisurely conversation. On the Saturday, I got her a new protein drink to boost her energy, magnetic strips to attach her calendar to the refrigerator, a couple of new tv dinners and a half of dozen free wildlife-foundation holiday cards that she loved.
Early Sunday after the Saturday, we heard the news. Which is why we are now planning a funeral service. She’ll be in her favorite outfit, just back from the cleaners, and her black high heel pumps. We chose a picture to go with the obituary of her in her thirties, a little grainy but okay and stay away from anything overtly religious. We keep saying, Yeah, I think she’d like this. Or I think she’d like that.
A lot of love just sits there in the details.
House Cat Auditions
Right around the time of world series baseball, Sig decides the changes he wants for the outside and inside cat line-up roster. Since this has never been a Topic of Conversation, he’d be, no doubt, a little surprised that I consider this time of year as Fall Cat Recruitment.
Last year, Molly, our yellow tabby, died while I was on vacation. (Thank God.) (That’s Thank God for not having to deal face-to-face with her demise, not Thank God she died, as she was a good ole cat.)
But anyway, her movement as it was, opened up an inside slot. So, the porch cats are Gray Balls, Robert Parker, Zach and the newest, Zorro.
Gray Balls and Robert Parker actually belong to the house two doors to the east. But ever since they figured out they can eat when Sig feeds Zach they’ve claimed our porch as theirs. Zach has lived on the porch ever since Sig added a heating pad to the glider; he’s pretty happy where he is and has a major aversion to coming inside.
Zorro is the cat that is probably headed for the inside. He’s hardly ready.
He hasn’t been around very long. He is a coal black cat with green eyes and a winsome little body that has never been nourished. Sig drug him in for testing and neutering and at the end he bolted from the carrier as if from a slingslot.
He doesn’t know that he has already has won the audition.