Tag: postaday2011

Dinner with O

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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.

Playing with Fire

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Crack Pie 2There 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?

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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

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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.

House Cat Auditions

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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.

Burd-breyn

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The other day I trailed around with Wes Lyle, a truly gifted photographer, to watch him size up subjects and angles to make the most extraordinary pictures of the most ordinary of scenes.  Nothing beats watching an expert at his craft to hone your own.

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I used his camera to bag this bird. The brick wall canyons in the West Bottoms near downtown KC are free easels for this anonymous graffiti artist.

Marjorie and Glen

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They are a comfortable well-to-do couple whose children have families of their own. As fate sometimes has it, their grandchildren are all girls, a lively bunch of kids who have the run of the house.

Marj admits that she can’t stop herself from buying clothes for them. After all, they grow so fast and girls’ clothes are so cute and — really cheap, at consignment shops. I see what she has been doing when I look in a long closet stuffed full of outfits in ascending sizes.

Marj confides that she’s saved a lot of her daughters’ toys and why not, today’s kids love them. She points to a row of dolls, sitting shoulder to shoulder, legs dangling, their tiny furniture stacked up close to them along with a blue and white tea china tea set with twice as many saucers as cups.

The bedroom near the hallway is painted dark navy. The ceiling has a trail of stick-on stars that glow in the dark and look like the Milky Way. Marj tells me Glen hurried to finish it one Friday afternoon just before the grandkids tumbled into their house dragging their over-night bags.

I’m thinking, who wouldn’t love being here? And Marj yells from upstairs, “Go ahead, take a look. ”

In the basement, there’s a huge stack of holiday wreaths, strings of lights wound tight on plastic reels, and a bunch of plywood stand-up caricatures  —  a giant elf, a witch and an Uncle Sam.  There are candy dishes and bric-a-brac, turkey place holders, candles, swags, banners and doormats.

Their kitchen table expands to seat 12 to 14; a place for the family to come together plus there’s a huge dog pad.

The living and dining rooms are tidy and little bit formal. Open shelves line most walls. Stacked neatly side-by-side are used books on things like insects, birds, and geography. The wallpaper is solid cream with an embossed gold chandelier pattern.

I pick up an orange and black cylinder shaped box with a lid, swivel it in my  hands and decide to bring it home. The lady working the sale, rings up my purchase, says, “I didn’t see that, that’s really nice.”

Yeah, it is, I thought. It’s all very nice and I wonder what it means. And I wish good will on those little girls.

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