So far, all of my years have been great ones. That is my wish for all of you, my four faithful readers, and to all who stumble into this site on frozen feet, taking a chance on the possibility that maybe, just maybe, this could be something worthwhile, something magnificent. Even if you were disappointed here, worthwhile and magnificent are out there, everywhere – may we all learn to recognize meaningful and wonderful in even the smallest of adventures.
Much love to all, and Happy 2014!
When I first started this post, the big news around here was the weather. It was cold.
I’m not really a fan of extreme weather of any sort, but I am the rugged outdoorsy type, so I bundled up in layer upon layer of fat wool sweaters until I could barely move my arms. I resembled a cross between a sausage and a starfish.Or a starfish stuffed with sausage. Either way.
My little dogfriend loves the out of doors on a frozen tundra, on account of his fur parka and an unkind personality streak which causes him to laugh hysterically when people fall down on the ice because their little bird ankles can’t support and balance at the same time. “Come on!” he cries, trotting in circles and dancing little jigs. “Hold on to the leash and I’ll drag you down this hill! I won’t go fast, I promise!” Then he laughs like a hyena on nitrous oxide. I like him, but he can be a real asshole.
Anyhoo, as I picked my way carefully through the alley, like a stork in stilettos on a mirror slathered in baby oil – and we all know how cautious smart storks are in such situations- I noticed that my belly was warm, swaddled as it was in wool and fat, but my feet were frozen through tights, two pairs of socks and my boots. They were like ice-bricks, I tell ya, and after awhile – not long at all- they started to hurt like I was walking on stalactites. Or maybe stalagmites. Either way. I had to turn back early, much to the chagrin of the dogboy, who charged me and tried to tie me up in the leash. I didn’t raise him to be like that, and I don’t know where he picked up that kind of behavior.
When I got home, it took me awhile to unwrap, so I took it slowly and enjoyed it, playing like I was a star in a mummy porn, as one does. All went well until I got to my still frigid feet. They were still uncomfortably cold to the touch, kinda blue, in a sad Miles Davis way, and I couldn’t move my toes. They were stuck together and stiff, like they could crack off if I messed with them too much. They worse thing was that in the middle of the ball of each foot was a gray dead place that was really cold, and even when I poked them with a fork – as one does- I couldn’t feel anything.
I immediately called my sister, who knows everything. She has suffered from a medical condition called chilblains for several years now, which is this cold foot thing that hurts and makes you complain and buy special socks and waterproof footwear, so I was pretty sure I had them, too. Lil Salty quickly disabused me of that notion. “Chilblains,” she said knowledgeably, drawing the word out impressively to add gravitas, “are a young woman’s disease, so you probably don’t have them.”
She wasn’t raised to be an asshole either, but there you have it.
I checked out my feet again, which were not warming up as rapidly as I felt they should be, but they were getting rosier, which I took as a good sign. The dead spots were kind of fascinating. They were the size of a quail egg, still gray and icy, as if, unknowingly, I had absorbed icicle nails or needles inside of my soles, and once in there, they broke into tiny frozen shards, and just stayed in there, chilling, in all meanings of the word. That happens, you know. In fact, it’s happened to me, remember?
https://smalleradventure.com/2009/12/three-things-you-may-not-know-about-me-1/
So, I lay on the couch and tried to breathe life in my poor tootsies, and decided that if I didn’t have chilblains, I probably had davidblaines, which are cool and interesting at first, but then hang around too long and grow into a major irritation.
Finally, after a long time, longer even than one can imagine reading about someone else’s cold feet, my flesh returned to its normal healthy pink, my toes regained the ability to wiggle freely, and I could walk without pain, so I cursed the dog one last time for good measure and went to Target.
Now, you might not have guessed this about me, but I talk to strangers. I nod and smile sweetly, I engage sad looking people in check out lines, and sometimes, if the mood is right, I’ll chat up some lady in a nearby bathroom stall. I’m a people person. So it was no surprise when I struck up a conversation with a lady in front of the dollar bins.
“Oooh, hand warmers! Do those really work?” I queried. She looked like she would know. As usual, my razor sharp instincts were correct.She was an expert.
“Well, I’m from North Dakota, and we always keep them in our cars in case of a winter storm,” she answered, clearly happy for the conversation. Who wouldn’t be?
“Look,” she said. “They have them for your shoes, too! Feet get cold in North Dakota, you betcha!”
What a fortuitous turn of events! I told her all about my davidblaines, and she nodded and clucked like a hen on a nest. I wish she was my sister. She told me that when your feet get dead spots it’s an early stage of frostbite. That really made me feel tough and rugged; I had braved the frigid, bitter, unforgiving frontier to do what I needed to do, things others would shrink from, in their toasty living rooms, drinking hot rum toddies, all warm and talking about vacations to Ibiza. Not me, though! I conquered the antarctic winter, I barreled through the blizzard, and I suffered for it. I suffered in silence, of course, as I am wont to do, but, like pioneers before me, I paid the price with quail egg sized Paul Bunions.
Don’t pity me, though. I’m fine, now.
…where I comes and where I goes.” – Aerosmith, “Dream On”
That’s the thing about this blog. You don’t know. You don’t know if you’ll come to the site and check it, and here it will be, or maybe months will go by, and you can swim a cyber ocean, and still not find me a’sunnin’ my whitey hiney on this remote interbeach. Maybe I’ve just vanished – POOF- into thin air, as opposed to that fat air you typically find in the winter, when the weather is chilly and needs to add some extra layers, being as weather is not allowed to come inside to warm up. Then, all of a sudden, I’m back, and you’re all excited, expecting something great, something original, a bit of the funky fresh. You log on expecting to find wit, or profundity, or maybe a little of the old knock-knock-who’s-there, and instead of some pirate joke I can’t exactly remember, you get nothin’ but a poop frittata; sometimes several crapcakes in one week. You just never know.
Ayup. That’s just the way I roll. I’m sexy mysterious like that. Like a mystery in high heels and a veil. And a red 1977 Cadillac, for no reason at all.
Why is it that one side of the Q-tip is all puffy like a soft cloud of peace, and the other end is just a lollipop stick with a flimsy cotton comb over?
Is there a physiological reason that I have to make that face when I put on mascara?
Do you ever feel a sharp pain run up your inner arm when you doo-doo? Me neither. That would be weird.
I broke my camera. I dropped it on its little mechanical face. RIP, little Canon with the zoom lens!
Do you think that your clothes get jealous when you constantly choose the pants with the expanding waistband and the loose, flowy blouse over them, in their snug-fitting stylishness? Screw those non-worn clothes, I say, no matter how sadly they hang in your closet! They had their chance to expand!
Two lions suddenly attacked and killed another lion at the zoo the other day, while a crowd of humans watched.The lions had lived together for years – two were even siblings- but the people were mostly strangers. Beware of people -or animals- that you know, especially if they are your siblings. Strangers who watch helpless beings murder each other in cages are safe, and you should stick with that pack.
In a related story, I think my dog is poisoning me in the night. I wake up choking and sobbing with revulsion, and he just lays on the floor near the bed, laughing and pulling his own fingers.
The mayor of Toronto cracks me up,but he has also left me with a deep moral dilemma. I know it’s wrong to anxiously await his next move, on account of he’s just not well and needs help.You shouldn’t laugh at him. I am kind of laughing with him while I’m laughing at him, though. I mean, how great would it feel to say, “Yeah, assholes, who amongst us hasn’t smoked crack when we’re hammered? And believe you me, I like oral sex!” Go, Rob! Hang in there, buddy! I know it’s wrong, and I do feel badly, but that shit’s priceless! Solid gold, I tell ya!
Oh wait…now I feel badly about it again. But also, he’s so funny!
Well, it finally happened. I hate to tell you this, loyal fans, but tonight it became official – I am out of touch. My finger is only on the knee of what is hip and cool and now. In case you don’t know it, the knee is not a pulse point. It’s a bone. Tonight, I didn’t know who the host or the musical guest of Saturday Night Live was. And also, it’s Saturday at 11:00 and I’m home watching SNL. That was cool when I was in 7th grade; it was already uncool when I was in 9th grade. Now I give the grade, and stay home on Saturday night.That’s totally pathetic. Wah, wah.
Last night I fell asleep to a Night Vale ep and had the weirdest dream. That’s not surprising at all, right? I don’t even know why I mentioned it.
Will Thanksgiving vacation never come?
Peace out. peeps. I’ll be talkin’ at you soon. Maybe. Maybe not. You don’t know. Buy me a new camera.
Love,
Me
Ah, the question on all of our minds, the one we never tire of asking, the query that keeps us from our slumber: what the heck have I been up to?
Since we last said our fond farewells I have:
1. Trick or treated. 
Last year I was civil rights activist Angela Davis. This year I was a middle aged lady who handed out healthy snacks to neighborhood kids all hopped up on the sugar smack, and said things like, “Sure I’ll give you a treat…just show me a trick!” My favorites were the little boy who said, “I can run like the wind!”, and took off down the block, never to return, and the girl who said, “He’s fat, so he looks big, but he’s just a baby. He can’t do anything but cry and caca.”
2. I have seen zero movies. This saddens me. I have, however, started watching “The Masters of Sex” on Showtime, which I like a lot. Why wouldn’t I? I like sex, and one day I will master it, so there’s something. I have also been listening to the podcast “Welcome to Night Vale.’ You’ve probably already tuned in, because apparently it’s the most popular podcast in the US and the UK.You can read an article about it here: http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/08/night-vale-podcast-itunes/ , or listen to eps here: http://podbay.fm/show/536258179 I love it. I think it’s deep.
3. I found a twenty dollar bill and then, much later, a ten dollar bill. Both times they were in the gutter, partially covered with leaves, and both times they represented a dilemma for me. See, I know that finders are keepers and losers are rubber and you are glue, but I feel sort of like I’m stealing when I swoop down like a hawk on free money. I don’t know who it belongs to, but I do know it isn’t mine, and maybe whoever lost it will be freaking out, retracing his steps, hoping against hope that some greedy asshole didn’t just look down and pocket the milk money, or the money you owe the mean kid from the playground, or whatever.
The first time I gave the $20 to someone who needed it. The tenner has been sitting on my dresser for a week, but today I’m going to buy dental floss and batteries with it, on account of nobody’s perfect, and if the universe is smiling at me, I don’t want to smile back with something weird stuck in my teeth. .
3. I went to a concert in a big arena with lots of strangers, and ran into friends by the bathroom. I forgot that I love concerts. Also, I went to a club and was asked to sing on stage. I think that will probably never happen again in my whole life, which is probably for the best, but it sure was fun.
I’ve been listening to the latest Queens of the Stone Age and Okkerville River albums lately, but since we last spoke, the cd that’s been in the heaviest rotation is Pod, by The Breeders. I tried to give it to a friend, and he was all “Dude, that’s so 1990!” He has a point, on account of it was released in 1990, but I didn’t care for his tone. Not so with the cd, though; it has a fine tone! It’s glorious. I love the music – at times haunting and stalking, enraged, screeching and snarling, or pure and poppy. It reminds me of a time- I guess one would call that time “the 90’s”- that I had pretty much forgotten. I love the Deal sisters’ voices, especially when you can almost hear the Nyquil dripping off their vocal chords, or when they go from sweet to strong. You can hear the whole album on youtube.
4. I was invited to go to California twice and Niagra Falls once, but didn’t go anywhere. That was probably some stinkin’ thinkin’ on my part. Happy, happy birthday, Jono! I should have come and celebrated with you!
5. An eight year old turned me on to this game called “Dumb Ways to Die.” It’s addictive. Get the free app. Also, while you’re there, check out the video. Doesn’t the lady who sings sound like Edie Brickell? I will point out that perhaps the dumbest way to die is to be eaten by a bear. It’s totally avoidable, if you can figure out how to avoid it. That’s the trick. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: bears are assholes.
6. Trixie had a birthday. Kathie had a birthday. Denichiwa had a birthday. My parents had their 54th anniversary. I’ve been celebrating my ass off, and frankly, I’m tired of giving others good wishes and presents. Still and all, I’m glad all these people were born (or gave birth) to me. My life is so much better (or existent) with you in it, and I love you all.
Oh, hell. Your presents are in the mail.
7. I have probably watched one billion hours of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, because I watch it every single night before I go to bed. Did you know that Rhoda Morgenstern’s parents were Ida and Marvin? That Georgette has great legs? That Mr. Grant and Mary’s aunt had a long on-again-off-again romance? I did. I knew all of that.
8. Umm, yeah. It’s been two months…I’m sure I’ve done something else in all that time…
9. I have not used the following words at all in the last two months: brouhaha, Uranus, rohypnol, Slovenian, verboten, yaw, or zither. I think what we can learn from this is that I clearly suffer from a subconscious revulsion or fear of words that contain letters from the last half of the alphabet. I am an uvwxyzenophobe. Shit. Something else I have to work on.
10. Here is a picture of my dog looking like a wise horse. It was his Halloween costume.
He looks a little forlorn. That’s because he wants a walk. I should do that. I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of all the wildly interesting things I’ve done since last we met, but could you deny this face?
Au revoir, mes amis! Until we meet again!
Special thanks to DM for reminding me that this post was Overdue:30. Happy? Good! Now shut yer piehole! 😉
When I was younger and she was still alive, I used to call my grandmother and we would watch “The Miss America Pageant” over the phone together. I’d call her up and we’d both get snacks – ice cream and pretzels for her, Nyquil and cheese for me- and then hunker down for a night of unadulterated catty judgement about the contestants teeth, legs, walks, hair, IQ – you name it, we cakked about it.
One time, in an effort to make her laugh, I said, “Look at them all! Strumpets, trollops and roundheels, every one of them, especially that Miss Iowa!” Sometimes I liked to talk to her in the vernacular of the 1930’s, in order to remind her of just how hep this cat really is.
“Mmmm, ” Mom Mom replied, sucking the salt off of a pretzel. “You never know about those girls from the Midwest. They look innocent enough, but a lot of them are whores. Your Aunt Edith was.”
Well, that may or may not have really happened, but the point is, I miss my Mom Mom, and I want to watch the whores on parade.Since absolutely nobody I know will watch the pageant with me, I have decided to watch it with you, my blogging public.Hooray! You’re welcome! Here are my observations:
1. OK, so I missed the first 15 minutes. Had to go to the drugstore for the Quil, which now comes in the delicious “Why the Hell Not?” flavor, for when you aren’t sick at all, but you just want to dose yourself. Ah, Progress! Here’s to you!
2.”Even though I’m lactose intolerant, Ben and Jerry are still my two favorite guys!” Those were the welcoming words of Miss Vermont 2013, introducing herself to the TV nation. Check your DVR’s people! That really just happened!
3. Nowadays they have judges and then also celebrity judges who are obviously much more important. With the exception of grown-up boyband singer Lance Bass, I don’t know who any of them are, but there are eight of them, each more qualified than the next.
4. Here are your 15 semi-finalists, America!
Miss California and Miss New York have parents who are immigrants, and they represent the American Dream and The American Spirit. Miss Texas is always in the semi-finals. It’s like a law. But this year she’s also black, so maybe it has to do with the content of her character, and not how she looks on the outside. Dr. King would be so proud! Miss Oklahoma’s last name is Griswold. Miss Connecticut wants redheads to be proud of their freckles. Miss Georgia wants to inspire people to make a difference. Miss Mississippi has wanted to be Miss America for her very whole life. It’s Miss Arkansas’ birthday. Miss Missouri has some friends in the audience. Miss Kentucky is certified in theatrical unarmed fight combat. Miss Maryland is taking business classes so that she can one day open a preschool for disabled kids. One would think she might be taking child development or education classes, but business is good, too. Miss Florida spells her first name Myrrhanda. Her sister is named Frankensenstina. Maybe. Miss Wisconsin has the Barbie doll who is the doctor. Miss Minnesota’s brother has autism. Miss Kansas joined the army when she was 17, and has a big tattoo of the Serenity Prayer covering her left side. It makes me proud that other countries know that the people who are bombing them take, as Jesus did, the sinful world as it is and not as they would have it, and that they are beautiful.
No matter where they are from, their ethnicity, or their cultural background, all the contestants look suspiciously the same.
5. There was a contestant with a deformed arm. She didn’t make the cut. Mom Mom would have would have wished that she would have made it to the semi-finals before she got kicked out..That’s only right.
6. According to what I can observe from the swimsuit competition, all the contestants are slutty Midwesterners. Stacked, slutty Midwesterners, except for Miss Kentucky. She’s just a slut.
So, I instantly feel badly about saying that. Really, she’s not that flat-chested at all.
7. Evening wear time!Guess what? Miss Kentucky didn’t make the cut! She doesn’t even get to wear the pretty princess dress! Coincidence? You be the celebrity judge! Don’t worry, though- the Army lady is still in! Hoo-rah, or whatever Army folk say when one of their guys gets to wear the princess gown. (Do you think they say, Damn, SPF Jones, you’re lookin’ Semper FLY!”?)
8. Evening wear is boring. The dresses are ugly and not nearly slutty enough. Interesting fact: Miss New York’s favorite Disney movie is Beauty and the Beast!
9. Hey, it’s the 50th anniversary of the pageant! Hard to believe that in the same year as Kennedy’s assassination, the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald on national prime time TV, MLK’s iconic “I Have A Dream” speech, the horrific Birmingham church bombings, a historic agreement between France and West Germany that ended 400 years of conflict, the Profumo Affair, and the opening of the “hot line” between Moscow and Washington that allowed direct communication between superpowers to alert each other that imminent and ultimate destruction was nigh, they still had the time, foresight and wherewithal to create a show where women are proud to be objectified and judged like horses!
10. Talent Competition! Here’s what we have this year: a mediocre show tune singer; a “Bollywood fusion dance – I watched it and still don’t really get it; what was she fusing? Bollywood and over-the-top?; a mediocre opera singer (that’s the army lady.She taught herself opera on account of they wouldn’t let her do archery, on account of she might off someone with her perfect kill rate with deadly projectiles. That is one dangerous beauty queen!);a ballerina (Boring! Missed most of it because I got some grapes to go with my cheese and some red to go with my Quil); an Irish step dancer (don’t even get me started!); another mediocre show tune singer; a mediocre jazz singer; a mediocre violinist; another mediocre show tune singer; and, I shit you not, a twirler. I gotta say, she was my favorite. I only wish her batons had been on fire. Or nuclear tipped. That would have been exciting! She hurt her leg in rehearsal, and there was the extra added attraction that her femur might snap, at any moment, right in two. Now that’s entertainment!
11. Oh boy! It’s the Interview Portion! This is where the super beauty smarts come out! I hope they’re real stupid! I just love it when they’re maroons! This year, a special committee made up of special smart people have determined that all of the questions are equally challenging, and I just have to thank goodness that this glaring problem has finally been addressed! Not a moment too soon, either, because I’m not getting any younger and don’t know how much longer I could have lived with the inequity.
Question Number One: About Miley Cyrus and twerking. Answer:”It wasn’t reall twerking for me! Get it?”
#2- Should you stand by your pervert politician husband when he is involved in a sexting scandal? Answer: Yep! You made vows and marriage is sacred! Even if he is a self-centered freak, you should stand by your man forevah!
#3 Q. Is it the US’s job to punish other countries, like, say, if we bomb Syria? (Wait a minute! Just one damned minute, please! Where do the Miss America people get off, asking one chick about Miley Cyrus and another about foreign policy? Since when does Miss America’s opinion on said foreign policy carry any weight anywhere, even in the very competition she seeks to win? This is an outrage, people! Is it because she’s Asian? Give the milky-white twerking and the Asian Syria? Really? I smell a recount!) Answer: Confused rambling about Congressional support and the UN. Not fair!
#4 Q. Julie Chen had plastic surgery to make her eyes less Asian. What do you think about that? A: Plastic surgery is bad. We should all be just who we are!
I think they should have asked a follow-up question: “Who is Julie Chen?”
I’m getting sleepy.
#5. Q. It’s the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and we have a black president.Still, minorities have low incomes and high incarceration and unemployment rates. What should our nation do about that? A. My dad’s unemployed! I truly represent the middle class. We need to have more jobs in America! (Again, an unfair question, but what an on-topic answer! Brilliant!)
I think I fell asleep. In fact, I’m sure of it. Shit. I don’t even know who won.
I wish Mom Mom was here. She always stayed awake until the end.
But the Quil is singing it’s siren’s song, so I must wish sweet dreams, one and all. I’m going to dream my recurring reverie: I’m a beautiful lady with all my lovely lady friends, and we have crowns and sashes, and we are all dressed like sugary cupcakes, shooting our countrys’ enemies with poison-tipped arrows, posing like pretty ponies for our adoring public, and then Lance Bass dances up to me and says, “I’m a celebrity, and you are a frosted unicorn among the ponies! Let me grab on to your unihorn, and I’ll ride you, slut, I’ll ride like there’s no Miss Universe! Woohoo!
Mom and Dad! Stop reading!
Uh oh. Too late.
Try it: close your eyes and concentrate on a picture of your own brain…
Viewed from the top, your brain resembles something from Dante’s Inferno, a pit to which lost souls have been consigned, their fleshy bodies coiled together with hardly a space to separate their agonies of damnation. It is a sight such as might have greeted the liberators of Auschwitz as they stared into mass piles of naked, unburied corpses. A ghastly, pressed jelly of humanity, this pate de fois gras of thought.
Seen from the side, your brain is a dancer, or an acrobat, impossibly muscled – will you look at those biceps and those pectorals – bent into a foetal position, the arm (temporal lobe) wrapped around the leg , the head (cerebellum) resting on the shins (medulla oblongata).
From underneath, your brain is something obscenely hermaphrodite. There are the fronatl lobes meeting like the labia of the human vagina. And beneath them, the pons and the medulla oblongata that reminds you of a semi-erect penis.
*
Dissected, sectioned coronally form ear to ear, the imperfect symmetry is like a Rorschach inkblot, that diagnostic tool of unstructured personality tests once favoured by psychologists.
But where, you say, among all these lobes and hemispheres, stalks and tracts, fissures and bulbs – where are the thoughts, these logical pictures of facts?The plain fact is that we must think on an even smaller scale if we are to find their origin. We must come down to a measurement of one thousandth of a millimetre, to the simplest element of nervous action, the neuron.
Now can you picture them? So quick in their synaptic jumps from one to the other that you could be forgiven for missing it the first ten thousand times. and listen, can you hear the electrical energy that is generated as these synapses take place? You can? Congratulations. You’re thinking.
Philip Kerr, from A Philosophical Investigation, Penguin Books, 1992
*It’s not the size of the ruckenmark; it’s how you use it!
Bonus: Mickey Hart’s brain!
Remember that Anita Bryant/Marie Osmond song, “Paper Roses”. It wasn’t my favorite.
What would you call these? http://twistedsifter.com/2013/08/hand-cut-paper-art-by-rogan-brown/ O’Keefe Cuttings? O’Queefe’s? Be sure to check out the other paper art on the bottom. I love this site. And I said bottom!
Today is Dorothy Parker’s birthday. In my new English III class (American Lit) we read some of her stuff to celebrate. Of course, since Parker married the same dude that she suspected was gay (“queer as a billy goat”) three times (he ended up killing himself), was an alcoholic, constantly underestimated her exceptional talent, had several unfortunate lovers, one of whom impregnated her, which led to an abortion (“It’s just like me to put all my eggs in one bastard”), a deep depression, and several suicide attempts, the celebration was not the raucous in-class party you may have envisioned. It seems the kids caught onto Parker’s angst, and less so her humor or optimism, both of which were evident in the selections I chose.*
At the end of the class, one of the boys came up to me. “Ms. R,” he said to me – the students in my new school know my name after only two days, and actually use it, which is in sharp contrast to those in my own school, most of whom still call me and say, “Hey Miss! How’s it hangin’!”- “Ms. R., I want to tell you something, but don’t judge me! In that first poem we read, I am Dorothy Parker! I feel just like her! My girlfriend just broke my heart, and I have been so depressed about it. Here’s the weird thing – you could have called on anybody, but you called on her to read it, and it was like she was telling me my feelings in somebody else’s words, and she knew I was hurting, and didn’t really care!”
American Lit: It’s brutal, kid. Welcome to my class.
I think that I shall never know
Why I am thus, and I am so.
Around me, other girls inspire
In men the rush and roar of fire,
The sweet transparency of glass,
The tenderness of April grass,
The durability of granite;
But me- I don’t know how to plan it.
The lads I’ve met in Cupid’s deadlock
Were- shall we say?- born out of wedlock.
They broke my heart, they stilled my song,
And said they had to run along,
Explaining, so to sop my tears,
First came their parents or careers.
But ever does experience
Deny me wisdom, calm, and sense!
Though she’s a fool who seeks to capture
The twenty-first fine, careless rapture,
I must go on, till ends my rope,
Who from my birth was cursed with hope.
A heart in half is chaste, archaic;
But mine resembles a mosaic-
The thing’s become ridiculous!
Why am I so? Why am I thus?
The other day I went into an automotive store in search of truck nuts*. I drive a compact, hybrid vehicle, and I was looking for a pair of teeny-tiny ones, maybe covered in a plush, fur-like material – you know, the kind of cojones that say, “Go on ahead! Life’s too short to argue about who is going to be first! After you!”
I couldn’t find them. I looked in the nuts and bolts aisle, Hummer accessories, and hammers (I was confused by a sign advertising “ball peens”). No luck. But I did come across this:
Frankly, I am both baffled and outraged. What does black ice even smell like? Water? Winter? Fear? Why would you want the smell of “Oh shit! What the hell was that?!” stinking up your car? It’s the scent of frantic, of “Crap’s ass! Why me?”, of the unexpected, uncontrollable nightmare fear of too late. It’s pine-shaped panic. What kind of sadistic twisted freak would invent this? Is there ever a situation where black ice is a good thing? “Hooray! Guess what I found? Sudden chaos!” Who would buy it? It’s like a curse waiting to happen. How can someone sell that to someone else in good conscience? They should be outlawed, I think! Who’s with me?!
Please, someone, explain this to me. I’m losing sleep. With all the problems we have in this world, with the violence and the misery, the mayhem and misfortune, I just gotta know…WHY????
Truck nuts, also known as Truck nutz, truck balls, BumperNuts, BumperBalls, CargoNads, Drive-thru Danglers, Trucksticles, HitchNuggets, Balls-on-a-truck, or, as they are known in the United Kingdom, Bumper Bollocks, are plastic accessories for pickup trucks and other vehicles which resemble a pair of dangling testicles.[1] They appeared in 1998 in the United States, and were first sold on the internet[citation needed] in 1999. Truck nuts are usually hung for humor or amusement. They are attached under the rear bumper of the vehicle so they are visible from behind.[2]
Black Ice PSA:I know it’s August…but not in Siberia! Knowledge is power! In the immortal words of my sister when she converted all of the dashboard information in my car to French, “Learn something, stupid!” http://www.wikihow.com/Drive-on-Black-Ice
The other day I was at the grocery store, chatting up Geoff, my favorite checker. “Dude,” he said- that’s the special name he calls only me- “that’s a lot of beets you got there!” I corrected his grammar and told him about this great beet salad I was making for a party, and we talked about how pretty the fuschia and gold beets would look with a verdant garnish on white plate, and about how good they are for you.
“Yeah, dude, beets are great,” he said happily, “except they taste like shit!”
That’s harsh. For some reason, I took his indictment a little personally. “I guess they do taste kind of like dirt,” I offered.
“You know what they say,” my puckish produce handler began, “one man’s dirt is another man’s…”
“Soil!” I interjected. “And I’m a girl, dumbass!”
I’ve been.sensitive, lately. Anyhoo, I’ve also been thinking a lot about beets.
First of all, I heard about this drink called “Beet Me In St. Louis.” It’s a beet infused gin drink. Who doesn’t love the idea of quaffing a magenta martini, boosting your antioxident, anti-inflammatory and detoxification support, and working on a classy drunk at the same time? Nobody doesn’t love that! The recipe was created by a bartender in Florida named Chad Philips, as a gift for his girlfriend. Aww, it’s even made with love! http://www.npr.org/2013/05/30/184872121/beets-at-the-root-of-this-honey-and-tarragon-cocktail
Here’s the recipe:
Beet-Infused Gin
2 large uncooked beets, peeled and chopped into 1/4-1/2 inch chunks
1 liter Beefeater Gin
Combine the beets with gin in a glass container and place in a cool, dark place, shaking once or twice a day. After three days, remove the beets from the gin. Store the infused gin in the refrigerator.
Honey-Tarragon Syrup
Honey
Hot water
Fresh tarragon
Combine equal parts honey and hot water in a container and stir until the two have mixed together. Fill the container with as much fresh tarragon as you can and let sit 8 to 10 hours at room temperature. Strain to remove tarragon.
Cocktail
1 1/2 ounce Beet-Infused Gin
1/2 ounce Domaine De Canton ginger liqueur
1/2 ounce Honey-Tarragon Syrup
1/2 ounce lemon juice
Tarragon leaves
Combine all ingredients in shaker. Shake and strain into a coupe cocktail glass. Garnish with two tarragon leaves.
Someone should make this for me. Quick-like. I’m thirsty. 
I have a friend who just got back from Tbilisi, Georgia. That’s right by Macon. Just kidding. It’s the other Georgia, near Russia, in the middle of the borscht belt. Not the Borscht Belt that was known as the Jewish Alps in the Catskills of upstate New York, but the Borscht Belt near Russia, where lots of people eat borscht. Which is made from beets.
Cold soup that looks like Pepto Bismol! Yum! 
Borscht Belt Comedians include everyone from Jerry Lewis to Lenny Bruce to Joan Rivers to Billy Crystal. Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, Carole King, Barry Manilow and Tina Louise (“Ginger” on Gilligan’s Island) played in the Belt.I tell you what – old Jews know how to party! This illustration is by Drew Friedman, who is fantastic. Check him out here: http://drewfriedman.net/gallery.html and here: http://drewfriedman.blogspot.com
Of course, people get their beets everywhere these days. Britkids get theirs in an inane cartoon called “The Beet Party”.
Pretty cool – if you’re four! Four-year-olds have crappy, unsophisticated taste. However, if you are a four-year-old and you just read that, I didn’t mean it. Just kidding. It’s a joke, and you’ll understand how funny it is when you’re older.
You can go to Shrute Farms for fresh beets: 
Book your stay now!
You can dye stuff with beets: 
beetniks!
This is what happens if you beet off too much. Consider yourself warned!
I heard this Radio Lab about Beethoven, or BEET-hoven, as it is to be pronounced in this sentence. It was fascinating! It seems that Beethoven made clear notes about how fast his pieces should be played, and they call for really speedy tempos, sometimes so fast they can hardly be played. The Radio Lab guys try to figure out why Ludwig would do such a thing; after all, he was deaf, not stupid! In-ter-rest-ing, I tell you what! Listen to it here: http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2013/feb/19/speedy-beet/
Finally, I direct you to the literary beat. The following quotes are from Tom Robbins’ Jitterbug Perfume, perhaps the most beet-centric of all books.
“The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious…Slavic peoples get their physical characteristics from potatoes, their smoldering inquietude from radishes, their seriousness from beets.”
“The beet is the melancholy vegetable, the one most willing to suffer. You can’t squeeze blood out of a turnip…”
“The beet is the murderer returned to the scene of the crime. The beet is what happens when the cherry finishes with the carrot. The beet is the ancient ancestor of the autumn moon, bearded, buried, all but fossilized; the dark green sails of the grounded moon-boat stitched with veins of primordial plasma; the kite string that once connected the moon to the Earth now a muddy whisker drilling desperately for rubies.”
“The beet was Rasputin’s favorite vegetable. You could see it in his eyes.”
Rasputin got the crazy eye!
So yeah, beets. Good and good for ya. Food for thought. Now beat it!
Why are you still here? I admire your stubborn nature and refusal to obey even simple, two word commands! Here is a reward. It has nothing to do with beets. This stuff is so cool and creative I can’t stand it! Check this shit out! Who looks at a bunch of lint and thinks, “Hmm, I wonder if I could…?” Who looks at a cork and says, “Hmm, I think I will devote 12,000 hours to doing this?” Who says, “While passing the salt, I was suddenly reminded of the Joker from Batman?”
These people do. That is why I love them. Yay magical human creativity and innovation! Huzzah! I salute you! http://pinterest.com/thegardenhippie/what-you-make-of-it/
