To Be Or Not To Be. That Is The Foolishness.

Today’s Music: Paul McCartney – Hope of Deliverance
Days Til Spring: 27!!!

I’m ecstatic! The temperature is above freezing! The weekend is almost here! And I got to read some great stuff this week too. Here’s some of what I saw…Samantha Hines wrote about a porch that was more than just a porch.T. Dawn gave a great fiction piece about being someone else, and this one’s a little old, but Quirky put up quite possibly the most hilariously disturbing food post I’ve been lucky to read. It has donuts. That’s all I’m going to say.
A great week of reading, from them and everyone else, so thanks for that!

Oh, and TwinDaddy at Stuphblog is highlighting me on Feature Friday! Probably because he’s trying to lose followers. But I hope y’all pop over to check him out and follow. He’s a great voice in the cloud.

But one particular time when it doesn’t seem like anyone was reading was Valentine’s Day. In last week’s poll, we asked how, instead of doing the traditional things, you’d be celebrating. And I don’t think Hallmark makes cards for all your ideas. Here’s what you said. (As always, my comments are dressed skimpily in italics

Catching up on all the foolishness… It is Friday after all (Kanerva)
(So…watching couples fight for parking at overcrowded restaurants?)
Hybernating until spring. Kayjai
(That’s barely a one month nap. Is it even worth it?)
Celebrating Zombie Day instead 🙂 Don’t ask… Andro
(And Jesus appreciates your devotion!)
Searching the TV Guide in hopes of a new episode of Shark Tank. ~Maddie
(In a stirring Valentine’s episode, the judges make a romantic dinner out of the dreams of hopeful contestants!)
No time for Valentine’s Day–I’ll be trading in my iPhone5 for a new iPhone 5S
(Buy now to get the Date-A-Hipster app free!)
Party Hearty on Mardi Gras! (Stacy)
(I thought King Baby came 9 months after Valentine’s Day?)
We went to a SF/fantasy/gaming convention! jaklumen
(Yeah, my wife needs extraordinary circumstances to dress up like Slave Princess Leia too.)
Roadtripping!!! Kanerva
(Better than icesliding!)
Washing my hair (Elyse 54.5)
(You were doing it in slo-mo, with that head flick, right?)
Hunting around in the yard for Cupid’s arrow, since it missed me and my house.
(Doesn’t having a diaper clad sniper in the neighborhood make the real estate values go down?)
to donate my heart, which is like a trampoline- stomped on and resilient. Samara
(It’s the Timex of organs!)
Celebrating National Organ Donor Day, which also falls on Feb 14. Samara
(I wonder how many overused livers they reject on the 15th…)
Hoping none of my friends catch the VD… 1 Jaded 1
(As long as they didn’t sit on a toilet seat…)
Canceling my plans and vomiting all weekend, huzzaaahhhugh –Aussa Lorens
(Funny, those usually are my plans…)
Drinking heavily.
(So…nothing special for Valentines Day.)
Trying to remember what romance was like before children. And drinking. Deanna
(For many of us, it’s the drinking while being romantic that leads to children.)
I will be offering group Commando weekends, well if it’s warm enough 🙂 Andro
(I really don’t want to hear about disassembling the rifles for cleaning.)
Enjoying a Saturday night in alone, strike that idea I want some fun 🙂 Andro
(How about organising an orgy?)
organising an orgy for something else, hopefully 🙂 Andro
(Sure, steal my idea…)
shoveling snow…sigh SnB
(Hey, it’s better than how the elephant tender at the zoo is spending his Valentine’s Day!)
Trying to figure out why my old Christmas tree is stuck to my balcony.
(That holiday spirit is year round!)
Celebrating St. Patrick’s Day early. – Hotspur
(I thought the early partying for that started March 18th?)
Cooking a beautiful dinner for me and the lovely Mr S. Valentine’s rules okay r
(Wait – the rules are she has to cook for him???)
I think instead of celebrating I will be going to the doctor to clear up that annoying rash left over from the last romantic holiday I celebrated…… PMAO
(No one celebrates groundhog day like you!)
(Thank goodness.)
Spending time on C4C with lonely blogging buddies – Benzeknees
(Look, if you’re going to say stuff like that, it’s very hard to mock you.)
(Which doesn’t mean I won’t try.)
But I like Valentine’s Day…dammit, so much for my clever answer.
(Don’t feel bad. I never have clever answers.)
Shoving Cupid’s arrows up his keister, gently of course. polysyllabic profundities
(Downtown, they usually charge extra for gentle.)
Celebrating Valentoons Day watching a PePe Lepu Marathon-Linda Vernon
(Umm…those are episodes of TLC’s Strange Love: Skunks…)
Seeing a flemish bluegrass arthouse flick about cancer. For real (rollergiraffe)
(Sometimes the jokes just write themselves.)
Celebrating all the 50% off Chocolate sales after V-Day! –RoS
(But acne cleanser goes up to 150%.)
I’m french. I am valentines day ya fucker. (Marie Nicole)
(And now I see how “pardon my french” became a thing.)
silly. Same thing I do every day. thematticuskingdom
(But if you marry Punky Brewster, what will the children look like?)
trying to take over the world. Same thing I do every day. thematticuskingdom
(Wait – are you the one that’s the genius, or the one that’s insane?)
stalking people through their blogs. same thing I do every day. thematticuskingdom
(Only then will you prove your mousey worth!)
At Duane Reade, buying Easter decorations. BT
(Better hurry before the xmas decorations crowd them off the shelves.)
Trying to think of something that rhymes with ‘Politically Correct’.
(All I can think of is “erect”. Because apparently, I’m twelve.)
Shoveling snow. Walking the dog in the snow. Building a snow cupid. SNNOOOWWW!!!
(WE HAVE A WINNER!!!)
drinking, big time. Alex A.
(Being single means never having to share teh Valentines booze!)
Trying to convince Al Roker to shovel your place. (Frank)
(He’s too busy shoveling crap on the NYC mayor.)
Buying a box of Valentine’s Day cards and having a bonfire with them – Twindaddy
(Ah, fanning the flames of love…)
working on the other kind of VD – you know the STD kind… Rutabaga
(One Standard Valentines Day, coming up.)
Prepping for my colonoscopy.
(Dinner and drinks with the proctologist first?)
Packing for my holidays! YAY!!
(I hope your suitcase is big enough to fit the whole class.)

Congratulations to the anonymous patron for this weeks winning answer! And from the offered choices, the most popular was a tie between Coming down from the post-Olympics high. (Curling is intense!) and Sending Ben & Jerry’s stock through the roof. (Loneliness never tasted so good.). So congratulations to all you Olympic level ice cream eaters out there!

Much more appropriate than that Thinker guy…

This week finds the Greater Republic of Guapola in a ponderous mood. Philosophical even! But instead of Socrates famous “Like the sands through the hourglass…” (mostly because sand makes me think of chafing in awkward areas) we focus instead on Descartes “I think, therefore I am”. So this weeks question is What do you think?
Answer often, and take your time to ponder, because this one closes in ten days, on Monday 3 March, at 2359 EST. (My brain will need the extra week to recover from all this thinking, so no foolishness next friday. It’s also possible I’ll just be hibernating.)
Try and limit your write ins to four answers, and if you like, leave a name on your write-ins, and I’ll link back to you next week.

And as we had into the weekend, enjoy these!
First, here’s a clever falling domino set up. Turn your speakers down a bit, because the music is electronica.
Unless you like electronica, in which case I forgive you.

And finally, a brilliant ode to the Spiderman Musical. With flying!
(I think the audience member is Exile on Pain Street.)

And until we meet again, have a great weekend, and a thorough foolishness!

More about The Most Wonderful Girl In The Universe (because some is just not enough…)

Today’s Music: Louis Armstrong – What a Wonderful World
Days Til Spring: 34

(This is continued from yesterday’s post)

When it came time to plan our wedding, we both had exactly the same ideas:
– It should be small, so we could enjoy the time with our guests
– It should cost less then the downpayment on a good house
– It should be…unique.

We checked out a
Farm Museum. They include a hayride!
Central Park Carousel. Beautiful, but small, and for a place with fake horses, it smelled a lot like real horses.
Top of the Rock (Rooftop observation deck of Rockefeller Center). Great view, but what would it cost?

It turns out that renting Top of the Rock is $25k. Before food,band, or anything really. Just for the space.
And not even the good space. It’s for an enclosed terrace with a very limited view.
The manager must have seen our crestfallen expression and taken pity on us.
“Of course, if you wanted to”, she went on, “you could just by tickets for the observatory for you party and just show up. the only condition would be” – we held our breath – “you couldn’t block off the space from other visitors,
and you couldn’t bring a professional photographer”.
We looked at each other. No professional and random strangers wandering through our wedding?
PERFECT!!!

The view from the wedding altar

Once we started, the staff couldn’t have been nicer. They did gave us some space on one end of the platform and thanked us at the end for picking their place to have our wedding.
The minister, on the other hand, had no idea what to do with us.
She was a non-denominational minister. Since my girl and I are of different faiths (and neither devout), we chose someone who could bring spirituality to the ceremony without dogma.
Poor woman.
She was hesitant to say “Mawwiage”, but all our friends caught the reference.
At one point during the ceremony, when my girl leaned over to kiss me, she told us (jokingly) to knock it off.
My girl’s response: “Have you met us?”
But she took it in stride when I stuck my tongue out at my girl (when she was telling the story of how my girl turned me down for the Harry Connick Jr date). Because she totally deserved it.
We got married on a Thursday. I took the day off and went in Friday.
Several of my wife’s co-workers took a long lunch and crashed the wedding. Her boss forced her to take Friday off too.

And I'm never letting go.

That was four years ago, eleven since we first started dating. Here are some snippets from our life together…
– Every night ends with the following (both of us say each line)
“Good night (pretty/handsome) (nickname)”
“Happy Valen-(nickname) -day”
“I love you”
I don’t think we’ve skipped more than a small handful of nights.
– I will poke her constantly. She retaliates by scratching my palms. Because that freaks me out.
– I will, when opportunity present itself, lick her nose. She will get back at me by slobbering my entire face.
– She keeps a spray bottle filled with water to squirt me with if I tickle her.
– I can count the number of yelling arguments we’ve had over the years on both hands. Without taking my mittens off.
– If she tells me seriously that I’m being a jackass, I will (after I shake off the frustration) think about and change what I’m doing.
– She has her own custom made action figure, commissioned by a friend.
– When my bungee jumping plans fell through, she found a place in Portland that was reliable.
– She knows how to tie a cherry stem in a knot with her tongue. I carried it in my wallet for years.
– She is the only person who has ever been able to get me to take care of my diabetes.
– I have gone to flower shows because she wanted to see them. (To be honest, she was right – they’re pretty cool).
– She is incredibly well read in history, fantasy and science fiction.
– I will never forgive her for referring to Hemmingway’s The Old Man And The Sea as “A Boy And His Fish”.
– She can quote Douglas Adams with the best of them.
– I love her so much that I have taken her to see both Depeche Mode and Pink live. And before you say “So?”, the Ting Tings opened for Pink. I would rather have gotten ringworm.
– Her only bridezilla moment was insisting we get married on our anniversary.
– My family likes her better than me.
– When separated in a large store, I will yell out “WIFE!” and listen for the answering “Husband!” (Because she has decorum and doesn’t bellow in public like I do.)
– She is queen of saying “Yes dear”.
– And sticking her tongue out at me. (He deserves it – TMWGITU)
– Sometimes, when she reads over my shoulder as I write these posts, she twists my ponytail into a knot. (Like now!)
– She bakes incredible scones. And turned me on to clotted cream.
– Starting a life with her is the smartest thing I ever did.
– Her choosing me is the best thing that ever happened to me
– If you were wondering, yes. The first year we were together, she took me to see Harry Connick Jr. Because she is that cool.

That’s about all I’m going to say. Because it’s been about 45 minutes of me playing on my machine, and I really want to go tell her I love her.
Bet I’ll get a kiss!

Happy Valentine’s Day, all. Have a great day no matter what you do, and every day after too.

The Most Wonderful Girl In The Universe

Today’s Music: They Might Be Giants – Birdhouse In Your Soul
Days Til Spring: 35

A long time ago, I worked at the college bookstore.
There was a girl who worked there. I didn’t know it at the time, but she was the most wonderful girl in the universe.
We were friendly. We teased each other, flirted a bit, but nothing really came of it.
Along the way I developed a crush on her.
One day, I asked her out.
“Harry Connick Jr is playing”, I said. “Would you like to go?”
“No thanks” she answered. “I’m not really a fan”.
“Ok”

She filled in this part later on:
“One of my friends asked why I wasn’t going out with you. I told her that I didn’t really like Harry Connick.
‘You idiot’ she said. ‘He was asking you out on a date’. I didn’t realize it. Oops.”

In the course of our daily teasing, she handed me a piece of paper, with the following poem
The Lollipop
When you come to the end of a lollipop
To the end to the end of a lollipop,
Plop goes your heart.

For when you are through with it,
what can you do with it?
All you have left is a stick.

How can you doubt she was the girl for me?

Fast forward about 10 years or so. I had left restaurants, learned IT and just started a new job.
That very day, I had also moved in with a friend of mine.
So I’m sitting in this bar, at a reasonable hour, having a pint.
I distinctly remember thinking to myself “Ok, what next?”
And the door opened.
These two girls walked in. One of them was pretty cute, so I smiled.
And…she…waved…
I’ve done a lot of stupid things in a lot of different places over the years, and have often run into people who knew (or heard of me) and I had no idea who they were.
I was nervous that would be the case here.

But when she sat down and I looked more closely, I recognized and remembered her. And it was great.
We spent the rest of the night talking (her friend was across the bar talking to some people she knew). When it was time for her to go, I offered to give her a lift (It was ok, I’d just had the one pint).(And she has since cured me of drinking and driving)
I drove her home, and we spent the next couple of hours sitting in front of her home just talking.
Eventually I said I had to go (because I really had to pee), but before she left, I asked her out again.
“I’ll tell you the first naked bar dance story” I said.
“The first?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“You pick the place”, I answered, realizing this might not have been the best lead-off. “Someplace you’re comfortable with lots of people around” I raised an eyebrow back at here. “You know, in case I’m insane”
“Oh, I know you’re insane” she said.
“No, I mean in a bad way”
We went out a few days later. Had a lovely meal. I told her some of my more…colorful stories. She told me hers.
We went for a walk in the neighborhood on a cool clear night.
We were talking about astronomy, stars, planets, constellations. I pointed out a constellation to her.
Where, she asked. I moved closer so she could sight along my arm. As I leaned down to describe the shapes, she looked up. And kissed me.

At the intersection of astronomy and astrology, Orion brings smooches!

It was a good date.

Some scenes along the way from there:
-“It’s my birthday. You can meet all my friends”. Oh joy. And it turns out her friends are just as cool as her. And are my friends now too.
-“Honey, if you want to build a model railroad, then you should.” it’s ten years later, and I’m still working on it, but she has never been anything but supportive.
-Me: “I’d like to take you out on your birthday”
Her”: “I’ll be in Atlanta”
Me: “That’s fine.Let me know where to meet you.”
Best. Daytrip. Ever.
-On a week in January a few years ago when I was having a wicked case of Cabin Fever: “Why don’t we go to Key West for a few days?”

So we were together for several years. One day, it bothered her that we weren’t married, because of the legal implications.
To me, she was my wife, and I her husband in every way but the paperwork. But she wanted to be married. So we went out to find a ring.
We went to a mall and she found the ring she liked. I handed the saleswoman the money and stepped to an empty counter while she boxed it up.
I pulled my girl over.
“Honey, we had lunch before, but not desert.”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out two napkins, laying them on the counter.
I took out a small bag of Oreos, two each, and portioned them on the napkins.
I went back into the pocket for a candle holder and candle.
I lit the candle.
My girl was both laughing and blushing deeply as we ate our cookies, looking deeply into each others eyes.
The saleswoman came over with the ring in a box as we finished the cookies.
I took the box.
“Honey”, I asked. “Will you marry me?”
Some onlookers started applauding and congratulating us. I ignored them.
Because she hadn’t said yes yet.
But then she did.

(This post is turning out way longer than I expected. Part two will go up on Valentines day. Or , at least I’ll try…)

Cooking for Pleasure and Profit, Part 2

Today’s Music: Fountains of Wayne

So after I left the restaurant business, I was a burnt out husk of a man, in dire need of a haircut. And a shave.
And I hated cooking.
If I couldn’t boil it, nuke it, or eat it out of the bag, I wasn’t making it for myself.
When people would ask me cooking questions, I would violently refuse to answer them.

I took a 10 month vocational program, collected unemployment and learned how to maintain computers.
And I didn’t cook.

Four months later, I met the most wonderful girl in the universe, who would later agree to be my wife.
But first I had to hook her.

We went out on a few dates – nights out for dinner, as well as day trips. Then one day, I asked her to come over for dinner. She said yes.
Excellent! But now I would have to cook for her.

We’d talked a bunch about food (I managed to be calmer than I had been, since I didn’t want to scare her off – hey, save the exciting demons to spice up the relationship later on, I say), and I knew what she liked and didn’t, and some foods she just wouldn’t eat.

I settled on the basic chili recipe I had used, and modified it to be neither too hot, nor have beans. She hates beans.
Ground beef, crushed tomatoes, peeled tomatoes, mushrooms, carrots, cumin and some other seasonings (probably salt and sage, among others). Saute the vegetables, add the meat, season and cook that, drain off the fat, add the tomatoes, bring it all up to a nice simmer for a little while, and throw it all over some rice.
Simple.
But even the act of making that simple dish, one I could make in my sleep (even the vegetable chopping), was elevated to me. Here I was, doing something that I had run screaming from, but I was doing it for someone I really really liked, and I had a skill that I could use to demonstrate that affection.
Plus what girl doesn’t like a guy who cooks?

She came over. I may have done something silly with candles. I probably gave my roommate beer money so he would head out. And we enjoyed our meal.
It wasn’t intricate or gourmet. It was two people having a lovely evening over food one of them had prepared for both of their enjoyment.

And I loved it.
And ten years later I married that girl.
She said that me being able to cook wasn’t the reason. But it was a spiffy side benefit..

But not all the dishes we’ve made since then were keepers.

One of the worst:
I had a block of Tofu. And a wok. And some vegetables and rice.
What could possibly go wrong?
SQUEEZE THE TOFU. Put it under a weight and let the water ooze out of it. That’s what all the recipes say. But I cooked for a living. I know what I’m doing. Yea, right.
So basically I ended up with a big wok full of…well…glop, really. The tofu didn’t brown, the rice kept steaming into a blob of starch from all the extra water, and the vegetables (also steamed to hell) were limp and uninteresting.
And there’s only so much damage that can be covered by throwing in Chines 5 Spice.
But there was about $6 dollars worth of food int that pot, and I didn’t want to throw it all away.
So I ate it. For the next 2 days.
Made my wife a delicious peanut butter and jelly sandwich instead.
Because I love her and don’t use food as punishment.

Possibly the worst:
Fondue.

Slice the cheese. Coat it with flour, garlic the pot. Add the wine. Add the cheese. Melt, slowly.
Slice up the bread, vegetables, fruit for dipping.

We had a fondue pot. It was a gift. the difference between ours and everyone elses though, was that we were using ours.
The pot wasn’t the problem. The recipe was.
We followed the recipe. I swear.
Now, I’m notorious for glancing through a recipe, then doing whatever I want. But this time, we followed the recipe.
Used the right measurements. The right techniques. I even measured the wine for goodness sakes. Before I drank some of it.
But the recipe didn’t work.
The fondue wouldn’t thicken.
We added a bit more cheese. Then more flour. Tried some cornstarch.
Nothing.

So, my wife and I, looking at each other over the pot, thought it was ruined.
“Not totally ruined” I said. “Maybe we can turn it into a nice cheese soup”.
I went to the closet, gathered some other ingredients and spices, and went back to the kitchen.
“This should fix it”, I said confidently.
I took lids off everything, started adding various things, adjusting the heat, stirring, whisking..
The soup started to take shape. I tasted it. Needed something. So I popped the lid off the Cajun Spice, and went to do a hard shake – not to overpower it, just to get enough spice to come through the shaker top.
Which it didn’t have.
So half the jar came out.

My wife and I looked at the pot, then at each other, with the same expression of surprise and dismay that I think would happen if I parked my car, got out, then turned to see it rolling off a cliff.

We looked at the pot then back at each other.
“Ok”, I said. “Now it’s ruined.”

For dinner that night, the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were delicious.

Epilogue:
It was the recipe. We’ve since regathered our courage and tried fondue again. It has come out excellently.
And now, whenever we have a cooking debacle, the standard for edibility we use is “Better or Worse than Cajun Cheese Soup”.