So here we are, 365 days later, facing yet another Valentine's Day. Woo Hoo! Last year I pointed out a few places where Valentine's Day goes off the rails... well lets not talk about them now . Instead maybe the best thing I can do is to try and fight the consumerism and destructive thinking that have overtaken yet another, should really be wonderful instead of sucky, holiday. Now I know that I am a poor choice to fix a holiday about love. For one thing I was completely wrong about love until just 2 months ago. For another all of my love encounters end with me leaving $200 on the nightstand then doing the walk of shame back to my car. Still I think any holiday that has a well armed baby as its' main symbol must have at least a sense of humor. Well armed winged babies being almost as funny as monkeys with guns. Actually upon close examination the resemblance to me is uncanny... maybe I can contribute something.

I do wear cooler glasses though.

So lets just eliminate the bad stuff that the holiday has accumulated, blood diamonds, slave chocolate, drug lord flowers ( I told you I'm not talking about it this year. If you are curious take the link above to last year), and instead make for a kinder, gentler Valentine's Day. Now I'm sorry ladies, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave the blog at this point. Yes, leave. Face it, if it were up to men February 14 would just be another calendar day. This whole holiday and a huge part of its corruption ( I said check last years post) is on the ladies. You couldn't just be happy with what team Y chromosome was able to come up with unprompted so you had to guarantee at least one emotionally rewarding day a year for yourselves. Plus presents. Now I want you to go out and think about how emotionally unrewarding it is to try and mandate an emotionally rewarding day.( Presents are always good so you don't have to think about them unless of coarse you find presents emotionally rewarding, which makes you a sociopath who should dump whomever you are currently dating for their own sake .) This kind of thinking is a koan, a zen puzzle if you will. The only way to get the answer is to just get it. Men already do which is why we don't get much else. So you ladies get on that Valentines connundrum and leave the boys with me. You can come back for the recipe at the end. Sociopaths please just leave.

I know, I know... you can't believe how smart I am.

OK boys, are they gone? Good, because we have to get out in front on this Valentine's Day thing. Face it, we don't really have a very good track record on the whole treating women well thing. No wonder they grasp at a soulless corporate holiday front-loaded with faux emotions and backloaded with 3 products that make veal look like the moral choice. Don't worry, all we have to do is try a little harder, or perhaps just try a little differently. She's the love of your life, the mother of your children, your better half, she's certainly worth it, right? So, an occasional hug just because. When you hear that Wa,Wa,Wa, while you're watching TV focus so that you'll realize that those are actually real words she is making. If you are lucky they will be in a language you understand and organized in some fashion that imbues them with meaning. You know what? Put the seat down. I know that it is stupid that she keeps falling in, but is it really any trouble to lower the seat? You raised it in the first place after all. Do it for selfish reasons; aren't you tired of that wet bottom when she climbs back into bed? Take the kids for at least half a day every weekend. What do you mean why? They're your kids dumbass and if there is one thing I know about kids it's that the greatest gift you can give a person is free time away from them. I could go on but the sad truth is you know all the crappy things you do to the woman in your life Mr,"I'm done so I'm going to sleep now." Work on it.

So that leaves us to fix Valentine's Day until all that improving we do makes Valentine's Day unnecessary. Now the first thing you can do is save the restaurant trip to pretty much any other day of the year than February 14. Friday's and Saturdays are crowded year round but they don't have special "romance packages or menus" except when they want to screw you (cough Mother's Day) (cough Easter) (cough New Years). The only one you want screwing you on Valentine's Day is your soul mate so skip the restaurant and eat at home. You'll need a menu, a soundtrack, entertainment, and a gift. We'll keep it simple so you'll have plenty of time for all that good loving you'll be getting.

For diner I'm leaning toward pumpkin or sweet potato ravioli in a brown butter sauce with a composed salad on the side. You should be able to handle this if you can make grilled cheese without hurting yourself, but if you can't take-out, artfully served, (Dude! you have to use real china for this) will probably pass muster. Do not try and pass the take-out off as your own cooking. Women can smell liars from miles away. Just serve it without comment. If she presses you tell her where it came from, but that you wanted to make tonight special.

Composed

1. Hard boil 4 eggs.
2. Put the eggs in a pan( that has a lid) of water, bring to a boil, turn off the heat, put on the lid. When the waters cool enough to touch you have hard boiled eggs.
3. Blanch some asparagus
4. Re-boil the water, meanwhile bend an asparagus spear until it snaps, line it up with the rest of the spears and cut off the  parts that stick out past the break, these are the woody stems, toss, salt the hell out of the boiling water, add the spears, 4 minutes later bring the pot to the sink and fill with cold water. Let sit then drain. The spears should be bright green and crisp tender.
5. Spread a layer of greens on two salad plates. Bagged pre-washed greens is fine.
6. Place the asparagus in the center.
7. Peel the eggs, slice in half, arrange at the corners of the plate, you can make them ahead, but the salad is better if the eggs are still warm.
8. Vinaigrette is 1 part vinegar to 3 parts oil. Salt is good. A dab of mustard will keep the dressing from separating after you give it a mix. Drizzle over the salads.
9. Grate a good asiago or parmesan cheese over each plate.
10. A crumble of bacon takes things to the next level. You want to take things to the next level.

Obviously with something like a composed salad great components make all the difference. Bacon bits from a jar will work but things aren't going to be as good as they could be. The simpler the preparation the harder it is to hide the flaws in the ingredients.

Ditto for the Ravioli!

1. Melt one stick of unsalted butter in a fry pan over medium high heat. At the same time boil another pan of generously salted water.
2. After the butter foams add a finely chopped shallot and 8 to 10 sage leaves to the pan.
3. Turn down the heat to medium low.
4. Watch the pan, take it right off the heat once the butter turns brown. The smell should be outstanding. Fish out the sage leaves and slice thin.
5. Meanwhile cook the ravioli (Store bought is definitely better than the ones I make, but if you are a kitchen whiz homemade would be nice.)
6. By cook I mean toss them into the pan of boiling water. Stir. When they float to the top scoop them out with a slotted spoon and toss them into the butter sauce. 
7. Plate.
8. Again, a quick grate of asiago or parmesan.
9. A sprinkle of that bacon....!
10. Finally sprinkle the sage for color and an herbal undertone.

Bang, dinners on. Do the eggs and asparagus ahead and the whole thing is only going to take 30 minutes fridge to plate. So have the lights low, a few candles burning, and tunes. Now you can certainly play any music you like, this is America after all, or if you are very observant you could play the music she likes but I doubt you can do that or you wouldn't be wasting your time taking advise from me so I am going to suggest going old school. How old? 40 years at least. I'm thinking doo wop old, I'm thinking soul, or maybe just some lush orchestral jazz. Face it, at first she'll probably think it's goofy, but at least it won't be wrong. Then if you play the good stuff that I'm going to point you towards and she gets to watch you go all iron chef on some brown butter, and the house smells amazing, and she sees her gift, (later, we'll get to that later) and a 20 piece band soars in the background she will forget about Carly Ray Jepson. If not give her the boot, eat the ravioli, pawn the gift, and contemplate why your broken soul wants to get frisky with a woman whose soul is made of plastic.

Besides you really should have some of this stuff on your music player. Do you really want the soundtrack of your life to be nothing but Green Day?

Sinatra without all the mean

Start with Tony. It's jazz music with pop arrangments. Ear candy for adults.

She was one of the first to bring pop to the bedroom.

It's not soul, but it's getting there. You're still dancing in the living room.

60's hair, you could bounce pennies off of that.

It is soul, but white girl soul. Adele's mom brings the feeling but it is still happening in your head not her hips.

Now you're still dancing close but the heat is in your hips and the bedroom calls.

You can play your sound track in any order you want but if you go with Reverend Al before dinner you might end up filling up on something other than ravioli. The beauty of this soundtrack is if it doesn't work it is not because of your age, it is because you or your girl are pinheads. Lush is always lush. The things that make these albums perfect for romance now are exactly what made them perfect 45 years ago. It's exactly the same stuff that works for contemporary music and it is the stuff that made Greensleeves the go to seduction song after a joust. Trust me, if it doesn't work it is not the music that is broken.

Now somewhere in here you are going to have to let her open her present. Here I defer to you. The only thing I ask is hold off on the chocolate because I'm going to show you how to avoid the whole child slavery problem in a second. Then if a diamond is a must (repeat after me "Diamonds are evil") promise me it will be an antique (used) diamond. Me? I just give cash which is the best gift ever every time, or if you put some serious thought into it ( really the best gift ever every time) go with what you know she likes. A word of advice; grown women that love stuffed toys are disturbing on several levels so if a Vermont Teddy Bear is the first idea that pops into your head you might want to either run for it and try again next year with a different woman, or slam that head into a cinder block until it thinks of a better gift.

We will assume that everything went well. We will assume everyone got what they needed out of the holiday. We will assume that some cuddling is now in order. I know, I know, you just want to sleep. Well, we are trying to do better so some cuddling is now mandatory. That's why we brought entertainment. That way the cuddling doesn't have to include talking. I told you we were trying harder, but I don't expect you to stay awake, cuddle a clingy woman, and talk. I'm trying to make things better, not kill you.

Funny Romantic War movie. Perfect!

So while Rick and Elsa battle the Nazis and their doomed love you can wrap your arm around your girl and if she starts getting talky just offer her one of these...

She'll love your balls.

These will have to be made in advance because the ganach needs to set up. If you want to surprise her you will have to figure out how to keep your balls secret. First you will need 2 pounds of fair trade chocolate. You might have to search around. Despite the whole child slavery thing of the big 3 chocolate sellers in this country Nestle has signed a pledge that only covers price not working (or slavery) conditions, Mars has agreed to accept fairtrade but only with a gradual step down which means that until 2020 their bars could be 70% from a tainted source. Hershey refuses to talk about their sources or sign the pledge. So what do we do?

Divine chocolate distributers are owned by a farming collective in Ghana. You can order chocolate from them at a rate of $16 a pound which is about twice as much as the same amount from Hershey. Hey, it's your call. I can only give you the information.

1. Chop 2 pounds of 70% cacao chocolate. Put 1 pound and 3/4 pounds in separate heat proof bowls. Save the other 1/4 pound anywhere you like.
2. Heat a cup of heavy cream until it just starts to boil.
3. Mix the cream and the 1 pound of chocolate, stir until smooth.
4. Put the ganache  in the fridge for a few hours. Do something else.
5. When the ganache has set use a small scoop to make balls of ganache. You want them golfball size.
6. After you make each one place it on a sheet pan covered with parchment paper.
7. When you have used up the chocolate you will have a sheet full of balls, pop them in the fridge while you prep everything else.
8. Take the other bowl of chocolate and microwave it on high for 20 seconds, stir.
9. Microwave, stir. Microwave, stir. Keep doing this just until the chocolate is completely melted.
10. Immediately dump the cold chocolate into the bowl and stir until it is incorporated with the rest. This tempers the chocolate so it will harden up nice and smooth instead of grainy and gray.
11. Pull the balls from the fridge.
12. Use a table spoon to roll each ball in the chocolate coating then return to the parchment.
13. You could also give each ball an additional roll in some chopped nuts, chopped hard candy, coco powder, go wild.
14. Let them set in the fridge.
15. Give to your girl if she tries to talk over Dooley Wilson singing As Time Goes By

Happy Valentines Day. Got to run. I need to get to an ATM for nightstand money.

Lost Boys

So December found me wrong about love, what other things have I been wrong about over the years. I started thinking on it hard after that last post ( and hard it was since I know just about everything) but then work took off, projects came in a torrent along with Christmas and New Years, time flew by as it is want to do, and I sort of forgot about the possibility that I might be wrong about things. Me wrong? Ha! The next thing you'll be telling me is Payton Manning would lose a football playoff game by playing weeny football, or that the NRA wouldn't quietly go away after the Newtown CT shootings, or that Christmas wouldn't be as emotionally and financially satisfying as it usually is. Me wrong? Then why would fate involve me in  a huge project relocating the good Fathers of our local Jesuit collage into temporary digs while their cozy residence hall is being renovated? Damned fate, I've been avoiding the catholic church for thirty-five years, nay all religions, because they're evil. Maybe there are occasional anomalies in our multi-verse where true love can thrive but religion? Bah!

Just a comfy little crash pad paid for with gold extorted from the poor. Each brick washed with alter boy tears.

So me, still not wrong. I'm sure you have managed to glean from my previous posts that I have a strong aversion to organized anything and the Catholic Church sure seems organized. Organized enough to hush up their pedophile scandal for more than 30 years, organized enough to turn a profit off of orphans in the Montreal dioceses, organized enough for the Magadelene laundries in Ireland. So maybe a few good eggs managed to surface in Latin America in the 60's, ( you know; feed the poor and comfort the suffering) just don't tell Bill O'Rielly and American Catholics about it. I still consider it a good policy when you meet a priest, or minister for that matter, to consider them guilty until proven innocent and I was about to meet 41 priests, Jesuits at that. Why just search the internet for a few moments and my righteous anger is nothing compared to the heaping piles of Jesuit conspiracies about to engulf us. I was wrong once, but me and the internet? Come on!

My preconceptions about the clergy weren't disappointed when the project started in September. I was introduced to a steady stream of imploded vaguely Irish looking little dudes in their 60's and 70's, minus 2 young guys from Africa and 1 from India, who didn't so much inhabit that cottage in the picture above as seem imprisoned there. It was as if the Lost Boys were living in a Neverland built by Charles Addams. They were lost Boys too. Somehow their insular lives and bonding to the church had rendered them strangely adolescent in their demeanor. Giggly, occasionally petulant, peckish with the disruption and a little helpless outside of their safe places. These Lost Boys were not waiting for Peter and Wendy... no they were a little different...

Not that different!

Sorry about that. Wrong lost boys. My preconceived notions must be getting the best of me.

Just like this, but lots older, and no Wendy.

I was tasked with relocating their offices, an activity made harder because each office required a photo shoot so they could be packed up, relocated, and restore to exactly the same state the good Fathers left them. In addition I was told that the offices contained many objects that were "irreplaceable" which is a transportation code word for expensive. ( not hard to believe, I once moved a whole room of 17th century and earlier manuscripts at one of the BC libraries because the leaky roof was dumping water on the open shelves ).The Fathers all felt the need to quiz me directly as to how I would proceed so they would feel comfortable that the disruption of their lives would be manageable. They especially were concerned that the photo shoot would interfere with their daily routines, a fear I relieved them of by assuring each one that he didn't even have to be present for the cameras since he wasn't nearly as important as his stuff. (Word it the right way and say it with the right inflection you can insult people and they can't do a thing about it.)

Turned out that every single one of them showed up for the photo shoot of his office because all their stuff really was irreplaceable. There were all kinds of things there that once destroyed would be gone forever. There were computers that still had floppy drives, lectures recorded on beta-max tapes, music on LP's, 8 Tracks, and cassettes. One father's phone was a rotary dialer! Are you kidding me? They must have been spending the big money on... no the furnishings were old, but not antique old, more like 40's military old. Stout wooden desks that would become antiques someday unless they were burned for firewood first, green pleather chairs with only four wheels at the bottom instead of the OSHA mandated 5, there were typewriters...typewriters! all files where vertical. There was no pressboard only items waiting to be made into pressboard. It would have been hard to replace the stuff if it was destroyed, it would be harder to find somebody that would want to.

Those church bastards were just living it up! Word.

By the time I was on my forth photo shoot I had to ask "They spent hugh money on this building, they're spending tons more on this renovation, the chapel, the dinning hall, the foyer, everything is immaculate couldn't you guys get better furniture? Father F didn't even have to think about it, "The building is for the glory of God, the furniture in here is what we need to work. " He put it out there so fast that I wasn't sure I was buying it, but he seemed so sincere it would have been bad form to continue  my inquisition ( ha, pun! the office of the inquisition, yes that inquisition, still exists at the current vatican). Haters hate, it's what we do.

I was a little flummoxed though. On first visit and especially when they were in a group they definitely seemed to conform to my expectations which is to say, "a bit off", but they were getting around my anti-religion, anti-priest defenses by being friendly, by feeding me every day at their dinning hall, by openly drinking scotch and other adult beverages, by checking out cleavage (got you Father A!) , and by generally just being regular people in a very WTF situation. Don't judge you say? How else would you categorize a man that gave up cleavage even though he was still giving it the hungry side look 40 years later. That's straight up tragedy.

...and did I say regular people? That would be true until you got to the irreplaceable flotsam that they had saved to brighten their offices. There were none of the high are crucifixes that adorned the public areas, but there were dozens made from old metal, bits of rubber and wood, hand painted pieces of furniture, pretty much anything that could be used for crafts, or house building, can be used to fashion crucifixes. Crucifixes that each had a unique story. Crucifixes that came from every ripped-off beat-down third world hell hole on this planet. Crucifixes that weren't the spoils of colonialism or conquest, but gifts to the only men that brought food, medicine, and education to places where hope was a commodity that no-one had enough money to buy.

... and it didn't stop there. Each of them had little pottery things or carved wood items crafted just for them. Crafted by people that had nothing else to give. People that filled the pictures that covered the walls. Pictures of baptisms in jungle ponds, pictures of half built schools on rugged mountainsides, pictures of trucks full of food surrounded by people patiently waiting their turn, pictures of festivals, parties, and feasts that reminded me of nothing my own catholic childhood could remember. These guys were not regular people.

I gave up on organized religion over 30 years ago. Church is where thinking goes to die. That doesn't mean I get to pass blanket judgment on millions of people just because they are part of something that has gone off the rails over and over again... but I did. The Fathers at St Mary's made me feel small about it though. Who have I helped? Is the world a better place because I live my reasonably moral but safe life while churning out a snarky blog, or because someone in the grip of what I consider a delusion builds an infirmary in the Sudan?

There's all kinds of lost boys.

If good people belong to a bad organization does that make them not good? Can an organization even have a moral component? Can we do good things if we do them for bad reasons? Can we judge and not be judged? I wasn't wrong about the church but I was dead wrong about the Fathers... or maybe just lost?

An Early Gift

So here we are. Christmas is back. Christmas is big. Christmas is bad and nation wide. (Which is cool for a ZZ Top lyric, but potential trouble for a holiday about Christianity) Christmas is so big it has its' own secular holiday called Black Friday that is so big it is trying to horn in on Thanksgiving. I'm not even sure who spawned their fierce love child, Cyber-Monday, but I'm betting that Amazon and Walmart were less than discreet at a National Chamber of Commerce Christmas party in the late 90's. You let two retail giants get all nogged up and there's no telling what might happen.

Must...get...50inch...flat screen!

Well, I'm not going to complain about that. I'm not going to complain about Benghazi. I'm not going to complain about right wingers complaining about Benghazi. I'm not going to complain about the fiscal cliff because if I'm going to complain about things that don't exist it'll be about land sharks, honest lawyers, and good tasting margarine. I'm not going to complain about "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" even though it isn't butter, Mmmm butter! I'm not going to complain about how stupid everyone is even though some of you are really stupid. I'm not going to complain about the filibuster, girl pop stars, global warming, the fact that Ben+Jerry make 41 overpriced flavors that are all somehow chocolate, the death of the bookstore, my love life, the fact that the Mayan calender and the world end in 2 weeks, the fact that people actually believe the world will end in 2 weeks, the fact that Boardwalk Empire both conflicted with The Walking Dead time slot and was kind of a mess without a plot. I'm not going to complain about the dearth of good home fries in our nations breakfast joints, I'm not going to complain about the end of the Twilight Saga or any part of the Twilight Saga.I'm not going to complain about the fact that Peter Jackson is making 3 (3! are you kidding me!) movies out of The Hobbit or  that in retrospect Dark Knight Rises was pretty dumb, or the fact that Beasts of the Southern Wild was a better movie than all of them combined even though technically it was only one step better than a flip book, blah, blah, blah...

Although someone should do something about those land sharks.

I'm not going to complain about any of those things because I got an early Christmas gift this year. The funny thing was the gift wasn't even for me but for my best friend from high school.Now most of you that know me know that while I play a jolly fat man in real life in my heart of hearts lives a jaded cynic who thinks that the human species is either hopelessly corrupt, willfully stupid, shamelessly narcissistic, or some combination of the above. This works for me. I get to be smug, I don't have to try, and I can put all of my emotions and beliefs on lay-a-way.

54 years and counting.

Duh! Wrong again! I was down Sunday morning visiting M+D. I've known both of them for 40 years, M longer than that. I was an usher at their wedding which explains why they can't show their wedding pictures to anyone that actually likes weddings. I have been going by their house with coffee on random Sunday mornings since Reagan was president. Me and M were BFFs since before there was such a thing as BFFs.

That's me on the right.

So  we were having conversation. No, we were not conversing, we were having conversation. Big heaping helpings of give and take about whatever subject happened to pop up. It is one of the things I truly look forward to in my life. Not talking, not pontificating, not flapping, certainly not rag time, and spare me the gossip, no I want, crave, conversation. I want to be wrong, I want to look at things in a new light, I want to have my ideas tested, I want to laugh and I want to come away a smarter person. We aren't the Algonquin Round Table, but we can hold our own.

... just like this except in jammies and sweat pants,

Now at one point the conversation turned to "bucket lists". I'm against bucket lists for the same reason I'm against so many other things in our society  because I'm a crank , because it's always about sky diving or flying to Paris for brunch or sky diving to Paris for brunch. In other words a to do list for all the people that put unreasonable expectations into their on-line dating profiles, got married anyway, then realized that you have to have plenty of free time, be rich and be an excellent athlete if you are going to sky dive to brunch in Paris. Climbing Everest is so passe! Of course after you hit 50 and the kids are gone you will have money to burn  and a rocking physique so turn those thwarted dreams into a bucket list. It's never too late to over indulge yourself or triple you carbon footprint or ditch family for empty thrills. Hell! You're getting old so do all three. I myself plan on bathing in chocolate ganache while entertaining twin 20 year old playmates.

Hey, I'm kind of a loser, the best I could do was fraternal twins.

I was all warmed up to take the whole conversation to new levels of absurdity and excess. Of course my world view is correct, of course people are self indulgent narcissists, so therefore Bucket Lists are about spoiled middle-class Americans quantifying their meaningless lives with expensive "Hey look at me" stunts. Then D threw a monkey wrench into my whole rant. Her bucket list was for her and M to get an RV so they could see the country. That backed me up right there; Bucket Lists, Hell, self-indulgence, isn't supposed to include other people. It's supposed to be about me, me, me. I looked at M but he just shrugged and smiled. I pressed, "Well, what else is on your list?". D seemed confused. Apparently that was the whole list. M piped in " I'd still like to build a smelter". For some reason not even D can fathom M has always wanted to make his own iron, an affectation for which I have seriously goofed on him over the years. So, traveling as a couple in a way that is more about freedom than comfort, and learning to make iron, that's the bucket list. All my preconceptions crushed in one fell swoop.

Some people just know how to party.

The conversation just flowed on from there, the morning got late, we solved the worlds problems, and finally it was time to go off and do chores. It wasn't until I got in my car and thought about the Bucket list one more time that I realized that D had really shattered my world view. I'm a guy so I find the whole "True Love" thing uncomfortable to talk about and the years have not been kind so somewhere in there my world view shifted to the idea that the whole love thing was a kind of myth started by out of control body chemistry then perpetuated by financial and social necessity i.e. it was merely a pretty label for some biological and social conventions. But D included in her bucket... No, D didn't have a bucket list without M. After 30+ years together she wanted more. I have convinced myself I can't stand anyone for more than 4 or 5 hours yet D had had a lifetime and wanted more. Even more important it was as natural to her as wanting more air. She wasn't putting on a show of love she was just in love. With the same guy. For 30+ years. WTF!

When I got home I googled Bucket List+RV. You will get thousands of hits for sites that pander to the hearts and flowers crowd. Thousands of sites for people that could no more think of going on a journey without their partner than they could think of leaving their left arm behind. It was my moment of Zen; love is real and it is part of the everyday fabric of out lives.  More importantly to really see it you need to strip away the bombast and showmanship that is our cultural legacy and wait for the quit moments when the truth is just another part of the conversation, when the love exists outside of any talk or thought of love. When you are walking along, or working, or having a conversation and you think "look there's a dog","look there's a sunset", "look there's love". I was sitting at the computer when I realized that I was misting up...

What the hell! Wrong for 40 years, so what!

That's better!

It's a funny thing about the gifts we get. They don't always make us happy but being happy isn't as important as we think. Nor do we always see them coming, but they show up just the same. When they do show up embrace the truth, the biggest lies we construct for ourselves aren't as important as the smallest truths.

Mele Kalikimaka!

Disclaimer: If you read this, tricked your significant other into making a bucket list as a test, and they didn't include you for their last hurrah you as naturally as breathing do not despair. Discovering that love exists is awesome, but that doesn't mean it is going to be easy to see. Just watch out for the fake stuff and if in an unguarded moment the real thing manifests itself in this sometimes cruel world don't get weepy about it. High five yourself and feel great for the rest of the day.

Coming Home

Thanksgiving! HooHaa! If there is a holiday that feels more like home you could have fooled me. Christmas? Maybe if you are a Kardasian and narcissistic consumption is your religion. July 4? It's hard to go wrong with cookouts and bombs, but the nationalism can be a little more 3rd Reich than Bob Vila. (Does anyone remember Bob Vila?) Easter? Torture, death, zombies, and chocolate eggs, it's sort of like my family gatherings but I'm looking for something a little warmer. New Years? No day that involves puking need apply. Valentines? Ditto ( does anyone remember ditto machines?) for any day that bums out as many people as it makes happy. Nope Thanksgiving is the best.

Thanksgiving! Heehaw!

We need thanksgiving, because we need "Home". Sore loser Republicans are right, "It's not your grandpa's, Hell, it's not your pa's America anymore." I find this mostly a good thing; no need to bring back racism, sexism, the cold war... I could go on but you get my point. But the new America comes with its' own set of problems. Nothing feels like home anymore. On the job front you are averaging 13.3 jobs over your lifetime . As far as residences go the number is around 16. At these rates can you even recognize the woman sitting across from you at the breakfast table? I'm not even going to mention your 600 friends on facebook because nobody has 600 real friends. You have nothing anchoring you to a place, you bop around more than an aborigine during a drought, and you are backed up with "friends" that you wouldn't recognize if they were sitting next to you. That's not home, thats a Dali painting.

Although it does remind me of my 9th birthday party.

When I was a wee lad my Dad was a high school principal, but not in the town where we lived. Every Thanksgiving he would take me to the football game and we would watch the action from a school window. At half time we would go down to the field, mingle with the crowd, have a hot dog, but while the game was going on it was just me and Dad. I didn't get much one on one time with the old boy as a kid, there were 3 other brothers to compete with and a whole school full of youths that required his attention, but if I close my eyes and just breath my mind can conjure up every way those Thanksgivings felt. It felt like home. Too bad I got older and wanted to go to my hometown Thanksgiving games. He was waiting in the car when I told him I was going with the guys. He was cool, and a few years later he came to watch me (every game for 4 years) when I played myself, but that was really the last time me and Pop had something that was just for the 2 of us. Time flies, the world changes.

A million years later I was doing political work with a friend of mine when he introduced me to a bunch of younger, hopelessly progressive, not yet cynical group of democrats. One of them lived with a bunch of other late 20s post grads in a big rambling house in Somerville. They called it the Wilfred because that was what was printed on the doorknobs. The first thing you noticed was that the whole place smelled of books. I liked everyone well enough but I tend to be a rules guy and it seemed like I was too old to just hang there. Didn't want to be the creepy old guy. Well it turns out that the place had been a revolving group home for young adults for 20 years and every year they cooked a turkey and had a pot-luck and partied like it was 1968. I was persuaded to show up for parts 1 and 2 with the intention of leaving the partying to the young-uns. Turns out that no-one knew how to make gravy, or fix the kitchen lamp (I didn't either but it got me involved), or control my friend who was also too old but definitely not a rules guy.

Great meal!

So I made gravy, took a shot at the lamp, kept P from running amok and had a really great time. I went there for 4 more Thanksgivings until Tufts bought the place, kicked everyone out, and gutted it for housing. Everyone scattered literally across the globe, but it turns out the only rule about age was in my head, so if I close my eyes and just breath my mind can taste the gravy, smell the books and conjure up every way those Thanksgivings felt. It felt like home.

There are other things that make me feel that way. There was Rolling Green, The 466, Harwich house, Mark's, Meadow Ln, Oscar's, Mad River... many places, many circumstances, but always that sense that there is a place where you belong in this world. If modern times denies us one definitive spot in geographic space hadn't we better embrace the home that we can carry with us, that pops up in our path? When a pot luck comes your way go with it. We all need as much home as we can get.

Now when you get invited to a pot luck if you are the new kid you are probably going to get stuck bringing a vegetable. Face it, the host is going to be all about the meat, dessert is too important to leave to chance, nobody knows how to cook anymore so everybody will be backed up with salad,  vegetables it is. Now the important thing to remember about vegetables is that people don't really like them, but with a little thought you can make veggies taste great while removing all that nasty nutritional value.

It even looks like dessert.

Now if you are a punk you can just make the version from the Campbell's cream of mushroom soap can. People will eat it, some of those less fortunate than you will actually jones for it, but you are trying to create a "Home" moment and pre-made slop, no matter how tasty, does not say home. Put a little effort into it. Part of what gives things that extra edge that says "home" is effort.

1. Start by blanching a couple of fistfuls of fresh green beans. You know the drill if you have been reading this blog. Clean the beans, boil for 3 minutes, plunge into cold water to stop the cooking. Are they a vivid green with a nice snap to them? Good job!
2. Clean and slice a package of button mushrooms. Fry them in butter, Mmmm butter! (2 tablespoons full) until they give up their liquid and start to brown. Remove them to a bowl.
3. Cut a large onion in half then slice thin. Fry the onion in 2 tablespoons full of butter, Mmmm butter! until they turn golden.
4. Add some minced garlic, 2 or 3 cloves, fry for 30 seconds.
5. If things are looking dry add 2 more tablespoons of butter, Mmmm butter! and when it melts 2 tablespoons of flour.
6. Work it in the pan for at least 2 minutes to get the raw taste out of the flour.
7. Add whole mile, 1/2 and 1/2 would be better, stirring the whole while. Get it to a gravy consistency or the second cook will make it gummy. Gummy is always a bad idea.
8. Add the mushrooms and stir.
9. Add a serious pinch of salt+ other flavor enhancers. Soy sauce? Worcestershire? Noc ma? Tabasco? Sirracha? Go nuts.
10. Add a tablespoon full of chopped fresh thyme and stir.
11. Add the green beans. Mix well then find an attractive casserole that will hold the whole mess. Butter it, Mmmm butter! then add the beans.
12. Cover with foil and bake in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.
13. Now Funonions in a can are just fine, but what would be better is if you know a restaurant that makes good onion rings. Buy an order while you are transferring the cool casserole to your pot luck home activity. 
14. You have to reheat this bad boy so check with your host then pop it into a 350 oven after you spread the onion rings over the top.
15. When the onions are brown and the rest is bubbly pull it out of the oven. Unlike mashed potatoes this stuff will taste good even if it is not screaming hot so don't sweat it if people don't start eating right away.
16. High-five your new family.

Election Day

So after all the shouting, all the lying, all the promises, and all the money wasted election 2012 is finally upon us. WooHoo! This was easily the most divisive election since... since... since... the last one? Fine, well it is definitely the most important election... until... until... until... the next one? Damn you reality, always messing with our common knowledge. Still, this election minus the hyperbole deserves your attention. There are very real differences between the candidates. Mitt Romney ran as a right wing ideologue, but is really a corporate owned centrist. Obama has presented himself as a leftist healer but is really a corporate owned centrist. Amusingly being a corporate lackey still leaves a lot of play in the tone and reality of running the government so the two candidates  provide a clear voting choice to everyone but the 5 morons in Ohio that still can't make up their minds. So what if the difference between democrats and republicans is that democrats let poor people in on the stealing. It's still a major difference.  Good for those Ohio folks or this thing would just be a formality and all that media frenzy would be back on Snookie or Honey Boo boo.

The funny thing is that when this thing is over approximately 50% of Americans will believe that order has been restored and we will return to being the utopia we were when back viewed with rose colored glasses. The other 49% (got to factor out those 5 people in Ohio) will be sure that the only right thing to do is flee the coming demon apocalypse for some other place that they glimpsed with rose colored glasses.

...and everyone gets a pet monkey!

At least for one day everybody in the country is going to be wrong. Yeah, common ground! Don't mistake my point though. Choosing between Barack and Mitt is going to affect your daily life in hundreds, maybe thousands, of ways. Planning on a bacchanal of a retirement fueled by all that social security cash you have coming? See who's going to cut the most out of the program. Taking your sick kid to the emergency room? Will that be one option of many or a last desperate rush ahead of the Grim Reaper? Will you be making your own decisions about your lady parts or will the government be doing that for you? (careful, the anti-government party says I am using trick questions) Will you be making your own decisions about love and marriage or will the government be doing that for you? (careful, the anti-government party says I am using trick questions) Will the targeted executions of people we don't like in countries we are not at war with continue or... wait, that's one they both agree on. Will banks continue to be allowed to play roulette with your money or will they be allowed to play roulette with your money while getting stern looks from various regulating bodies? See, all kinds of real differences. So vote the difference but give up on the miracle results because most of the problems are about me and you.

Plain bellied loser!

We love to think we are special when what we really are is unique. Special is, "Hey universe! Look at me! Save your random cruelty for a lesser being. I am after all, special!". Unique is, " Breaking Dawn? of coarse Love, I'll still owe you 2 choices for the 3 times we saw Avengers." Every single American, every single resident of this globe, perhaps every sentient being in this universe is a unique combination of knowledge, experience, and desire that deserves the right to exercise their uniqueness as long as they don't cause harm to others (actual harm, not imagined harm fringe lunatics!). On the other hand every single American that thinks they are special because of their moral choices, taste, skin color, status, fame, wealth, education, background, etc, etc, etc is a narcissistic sociopath who diminishes themselves and makes the road forward more of a slog... and speaking of slogs...

...because I am the 1%

How are we going to fix the country if we like to think you can earn the right to be a dick!  Too many of us do. Even if we let you call yourselves "job creators" instead of "rich assholes" that really doesn't come with any bragging rights. For the foreseeable future, and despite wall streets experiments at eliminating this step, creating jobs is a necessary component of becoming wealthy. The more jobs created the more wealth created. You are not doing the rest of us a favor you self important jackass! Creating jobs is a generally  karma neutral situation that does not in debt us to you, free you from any social contract with your fellow citizens, or shield you from our right to negotiate for a bigger piece of that created wealth. The vast majority of us  have been  good employees and good citizens. Rich people owe us more than a paycheck. A little gratitude for helping you build stuff to start and we can work from there.   Why a bigger chunk of the 99% don't understand this mystifies me everyday.

1 state, 2 state, red state, blue state.

Of course if we are going to have a better tomorrow we are going to have to like the truth more than being right. When we don't like something we don't want negotiation or compromise we want something done about it. By rule of law if possible, by blunt force trauma if necessary. Mmmm! blunt force trauma! The other guy is always going to be the thug even if he is offering you free ice cream. "Free ice cream! Damn you! Don't you care about the obesity epidemic in this country? First it's a little free ice cream, then slowly everyday it's your birthday, until suddenly everyone is riding around on a pony and they're sick from too much candy whether they wanted to eat it or not. You bastard!" Free ice cream my ass! Note: both parties like to pay in ice cream since living wages, a future for our kids, and a comfortable retirement seem like pipe dreams.

Cut defense spending? Why, whatever for?

George McGovern died last month. He was a progressive liberal that served his country well in WW2. He was the first presidential candidate that I ever worked for. ( sadly Carter's was the first election I could vote in and despite his Nobel Prize Carter was no George McGovern). Why do I bring this up? Because when you folks get scared you want to kill some shit. Even lefty Senators like the late Teddy K who routinely voted against wars did not vote against war appropriations. 90% of you were behind Bush when he decided to blow up Iraq. At least 100,000 people died because you were scared. Now almost ten years late, and depending on what day of the week it is,  Mitt is banging the war drums for Iran while Obama is drone killing wedding parties in Afghanistan. The only peace politicians left are dudes like Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul but it's hard to get traction in a general election when you are wearing a tin foil hat.  When you ever get serious about peace, and I am definitely talking to you collage kids and soccer moms as well as belligerent white males, maybe real change can happen. Rest in peace George.

The American dream for everyone, what could go wrong?

Even progressives in this country think that everyone, even in other countries, should be able to pursue the American dream. I will not be the one to say they shouldn't with one caveat. Unless we plan on some sort of technology breakthrough to produce exponentially more clean energy while simultaneously removing the waste, or severely redefineing what constitutes the American dream we will burn this planet to a crisp. Mmmm crisp! We are not serious about either of these choices. Republicans just put their hands in their ears, go La la la la la la, and wait for free markets to save the day. Democrats push for new technologies but drive home in their SUVs without addressing the consumerism, waste, and consumption that got us into our current state of affairs. Having more stuff = having a better life? No, just no. That's what corporations feed us and that is what we have been buying. I call shenanigans.

Monsanto says, "Trust us, it's just fine".

They feed us more than that. Think tanks find some dimwitted town that requires bike helmets for dogs.  PR firms make sure that information gets into the " all government is bad" narrative on talk radio and Fox news. Mainstream media outlets fearful that they will lose even more customers report the story as a referendum on government instead of as an amusing aside about a town full of dopes. Anti-regulation politicians rev up their constituents to elect them to office. Then a year later nothings changed in the dog helmet town, but the banks can still sell unregulated derivatives, Con Agra can genetically modify your food without telling you, Monsanto can spray Roundup next to your water supply, Weyerhaeuser and Plum Creek can clear cut the entire northwest, your pension can be funded by worthless credit default swaps... blah, blah, blah at least you won't have to buy a helmet for your dog.

No, not a 1%

You're tired, you're angry, you work hard every day, you play by the rules. You also made your own bed. You don't run for office, you don't read up on what the government is doing, you think that rich bastards that tool on you for 47 minutes will make your life better, you have a huge problem with government over-reach on health care but no problem with Guantanamo, domestic surveillance, and drone strikes in neutral countries, and you love, love, love buying stuff. Well you're getting played because you think being right and holding on to yours is more important that the solutions to our problems.

We're not done yet!

Vote Tuesday, support the status quo, but talk to your neighbors. With very few exceptions most people know that killing and cruelty are wrong, that anybody that says "Just trust me" doesn't deserve to be trusted, that the people that write your paycheck owe you a little more than just the cash they pay you, that it's wrong to deny access to health care to people that need it, that women... in fact everyone has a right to make their ownn decisions about their own bodies, that we don't need small government we need good government... I could go on but it would just be an ever growing list of things we almost all agree on. They have the money and the guns but if we stand together instead of joining tribes we have the power. No government has ever stood without the tacit consent of it's people, none. So what did you do when things went bad?

12,000 Page Views!

Gee, I took a little summer Hi8tus and suddenly I hit 12,000 page views. No bragging though, since a Giff of 2  kittens picking each others nose will literally get millions of page views in a week.  -No! I will not post a nose picking link. If I do most of you will be out of here right now without finishing this post-. Still, if I close my eyes and hold my breath and pinch off my nostrils and ignore all evidence to the contrary, just before I slump over unconscious I feel like I have important things to say. When I come to I ignore the nose bleed and the ruptured capillaries in my eyes and carry on.

Oh, I am impressed with me, yes I am!

So what has been going on while I was lounging around trying to enjoy the summer? What? Egypt elected the Muslim brotherhood to run the government but fortunately, fortunately?, the military is still running the country instead (that's called a coup in the dictionary). Syria continues to slaughter their own people despite some hard core "tut tuts" from the international community. I'm also pretty sure that every email we send there ends with :( you'd think they would get the message . Mitt Romney wants to blow up some crap in Iran. It might be because Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said we should, but I just think Mitt wants his very own war if he wins the presidency. W had 2 wars. Then Obama has been making due with one of W's thread bare used wars, he's such a democrat... lets face it, Mitt wants the best for himself. After a disaster and a mindless quagmire (over 100,000 total deaths in Iraq, over 3000 coalition deaths in Afganistan and still counting) Mitt needs a shiny new war he can call his own.  Then there was the terrorist attack on our embassy in Libya. At first we thought it was because of something stupid like an offensive video tape about Islam, but then we found out it was a preplanned terrorist attack instead. Looking good Middle East, doing things because you're evil is always more impressive than doing things because you're  stupid. You go revolutionaries! Middle East! Middle East!

On this side of the ocean the Supreme Court upheld Obama care with good justice Roberts ( surprise, surprise, surprise) casting the deciding vote. Poor judge Scalia of the pithy comparisons, will they be forcing us to buy broccoli next? No, they will be taxing us if we don't buy broccoli. See? It's different. Isn't it cool the way law works? Speaking of the law our last major military appropriations bill, the NDAA, had provisions in it that allows indefinite internment for Americans suspected of being terrorists. No trial, no lawyer, no habius corpus. No problem.  Even though Barack though it sounded a little unconstitutional ( because it totally is) he signed it anyway. Got to feed the troops, NDAA is an appropriations bill, and  the Prez gets some cool dictator powers?... Oh, well.  NDAA, Gitmo, and drone strikes Oh my! We're not in America anymore Dorothy. New world order! New world order!


Jerry Sandusky got the 30 to 60 years he deserved, but what about everyone else? It turned out that everybody but the cheerleaders at Penn State knew what Jerry Sandusky was doing for the last 15 years! So along with the Catholic Church, the Congress of the United States, The President, the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, Wall Street, the Supreme Court, every presidential candidate since 1980, an elite University has let you down. Thank god we have a rigorous free press to count on. You know the 4th estate wouldn't turn a senseless atrocity into a chance to bloviate for 2 or 3 weeks about... What? oops! sorry.

One evil/sad crazy person+ 100 round semi-automatic weapons. What could go wrong? 

Is it any wonder everyone just wants to party?

The Red Sox started slow... flirted with mediocrity?... traded the bad apples?... then stunk up the rest of the season? Who cares? If you are a Boston sports fan you have been wallowing in an abundance of riches. Time to let the other kids have some fun too. There is always hockey...oops!

 Kudos for the births in the small circle of people that tolerate me. Yeah births! Kids are awesome as long as they belong to other people. That way you have all kinds of reasons to party; births, christenings, birthday parties, graduations, weddings, blah, blah, blah, but you get to leave whenever you want and the kids stay behind. Woo Hoo! Of coarse trying to get your friends out of the house to party solo becomes problematic. They refuse (mostly) to use the duct tape option out of some misguided sense of decency or love for the child, but finding a quality masochist sitter to watch their little squalling mucus machines isn't always easy. 

Somehow I did manage to do a little partying these past few months. There was the Irish festival in Canton, there was a tasty Blues fest in Gloucester, A sweet little jazz fest in Portsmouth NH, and old standbys Lowell Folk Fest, Newport Folk Fest, and Newport Jazz Fest. I love me a fest. I even OD ed on crustaceans at the Rockland ME lobster festival. Good enough, but even nature helped me chill out this summer.

The best stuff is ofter what you miss.

Big sun spot activity this summer. So big that you were supposed to be able to see the Aurora Borialis down here in the USA. I saw them once up by Hudson Bay during my youth, but that was almost 30 years ago. So the night of August 8th found me in my trusty beach chair out at the end of Plum Island waiting for the big show. It was dark, the sky was loaded with stars, I had frosty adult beverages ready and absolutely nothing happened. Nothing but I got to be alone with myself for a change. No people, no diversions, no pressing matters.  Once you are out at the end of the island you are locked in until dawn, sweet. While I observed I though, then I though some more. I just let my mind wander off  on its' own. Let it run free for a change, let your mind run free! It's an awesome thing to do, as long as you aren't afraid of where it goes. I thought about unified field theory, I thought about  women, I thought about god, I thought about what god thought about women, I thought about what if god was a woman, I though about the way the world works, I thought about the nature of reality, for a brief moment I thought about space people, rock+roll, and green energy.  Finally it was morning, I saw no Aurora, and I was thinking mostly about breakfast. (seafood hash at Maggie's). I though about not getting what you want but getting what you need. Stones rule! No Aurora, no problem.

Less than a week later I was back at the beach with my chair and more beverages waiting on the Perseid meteor shower. Jackpot! At about 3 AM, after a slow start, pop! pop! pop! they started zipping by every couple of minutes. Bang zoom baby! mother nature was putting on a show.

Insert Disney theme music here.

I'm not a big outdoors man, I don't like bugs, dirt, camping, or being cold, but Wow! light up the night sky, or find yourself a spot that gives you the illusion of being one with nature - did he just say, "one with nature."? - and you will have just about the best high in the history of highs. Alcohol, drugs, or glitter covered strippers will be forever ruined for you... and it will be better than worth it. ( in the interests of sexual equality you my insert -well oiled cabana boy - for stripper in that last sentence. If you are gay go with both or neither I don't really care. Actually shouldn't "stripper" work for everyone?) I'm just saying.

Other stuff happened this summer. Dinner with friends, lots of work, beers at the ale house, a couple of trips to see Mom, fish chowder at the Causeway, my brothers birthday party in CT, "Breaking Bad" the last season, the most unpleasant political campaign since the other ones, breakfast with my nephew... man it just goes on and on. How about the restored version of -Casablanca-? On the big screen? With hot popcorn and an theater full of fans? Wow! I can think of tons of things I could legitimately complain about, I'm sure you could too, after all a stubbed toe still hurts like hell even when across the globe whole countries are burning, but don't you owe it to yourself to keep things in perspective?

...and it's pretty easy to be a grasshopper around here.

So keep it simple. Every day and in your cooking. Here comes 4 ingredients that will yield the single best thing you can make on a stove top at home. This is not fancy or expensive, it is just the best period.

Yeah, I know we already did Sunday gravy last year, but this isn't Sunday gravy. It also isn't close to being authentic, it's been making the rounds on the Internet for a couple of years, and it struck me as just wrong when I first read about it. So I am going to be the first one to tell you that despite the fact that you will make millions of other tasty things in your kitchen you will never make anything that tastes better. It is just marinara sauce. God's own marinara sauce.

Any time you cook a recipe that only has  five ingredients or less always buy the best possible ingredients you can. So you will need 2  28 once cans of crushed tomato's, 1 stick of butter, Mmmm! butter! 1 Large onion, and salt. You are using canned tomato's because  in 10 out of 12 months a year they have better flavor than fresh, you are using butter, Mmmm butter! because that is what the recipe calls for, you only have to peel the onion and cut it in half, and you know how much salt you like.

1. Put the first 3 ingredients in  pot with a healthy pinch of salt.
2. Simmer for 45 minutes.
3. Add more salt if you need to.
4. Remove the onion.
5. Use with pasta or in other recipes.

Now this is about cooking, and in a second hand way about eating, so feel free to modify this recipe any way you want. The only thing you shouldn't do is switch out the butter, Mmmm butter! Butter, Mmmm butter! turns this sauce into an umami bomb. I tastes like tomato, it tastes of onion, but it is an absolute party in your mouth because of the butter, Mmmm, butter! I know, I was surprise too. Wouldn't it taste wrong? Wouldn't it separate in the fridge? Wouldn't olive oil be healthier and more authentic? No, no, and who cares? This sauce is so simple and so good that if you dump some on a bowl of ravioli and watch yourself some Perseid meteor shower you will know your place in the universe and it will be a very good place.

There will be more posts in the near future. I'd say "sorry for the delay" but I'd be lying. Best summer ever? No, but definitely the best summer since the last one.