April 2007 Archives

Last Day of Summer
April 26, 2007 | permalink

I had an idea this morning, while being buffeted and elbowed by jackass commuters who were running to catch a train that they couldn't possibly make. I think that my idea would help relieve stress and reduce the possibility of falls and injuries during rush hour, as well as cut down on the number of unintentional elbows to the ribs from our fellow travelers.

I think there should be a series of lines painted on the floor of stations, color coded based on their distance from the platform, to help people make rational decisions about whether or not bolting through the station at the sound of that approaching train is a good idea or not. Maybe a green line to indicate that yes, from here, any healthy adult (traveling alone or with other healthy adults) familiar with the station should be able to make the train. Then maybe a blue one a little closer in, for tourists and those unfamiliar with the station. One closer to the platform still for people traveling with children, or the infirm. And maybe one way out there, a point of no return that indicates you shouldn't even bother unless you are an Olympic athlete.

Don't you think that would help?

Posted in Musings


The Transistor
April 23, 2007 | permalink

I remembered this story the other day. Why, I cannot say; I was in the middle of a completely unrelated conversation with two completely unrelated people. Unrelated to the story, that is. Though come to think of it, they are both unrelated to me as well. And each other. But I digress...

I was maybe 14, and had babysitting duty that day. The Old Man had something to do in the afternoon, and I was supposed to make sure to get to the house before the littler ones came home. Upon arriving, I found a note on the door, in The Old Man's hand. The note said:

The dog is loose inside. Be careful not to let him out when you come in.

Gentle Readers, at this time in our lives, we did not have a dog. I was coming home to an empty, unlocked house, like I had a zillion times, and there had never been any weird notes like this left for me. I couldn't decide at the time (though I have a pretty good idea now) if the note was some kind of joke on me, or a strange attempt to deter anyone who might be walking around the neighborhood looking to burgle a house in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon. Either way, I thought it was just so odd.

Anyway, I left the note up for the others to see and went about the afternoon. The Littler Ones came home. The Star and Rockette came home. We snickered at the note, and how weird The Old Man was. And then we forgot about it. At least, I did.

A little bit later there was a knock at the door. I opened it to find a man with a clipboard. He introduced himself and said he was from the Department of Animal Control, told me that they were doing a Census of Household Pets, and asked how many animals were living here.

None, I said. (Remember the note?)

What about this dog? he asked, pointing at the note that I had oh so cleverly left on the door. He starts trying to peer around me in the doorway.

Oh that! I stammered something about how it was a joke, The Old Man is such a prankster, ha ha ha... It was clear that he didn't believe a word of what I was saying, and thought that I was standing there lying to his face. He asked again about pets in the house, saying he didn't care if the dog was licensed or anything- he just needed to know if there were any here. I told him again that we had no pets, and he made a couple of notes on his clipboard and left.

Now, I ask you, what are the fucking odds of that happening? I mean, really? The one day there is an odd, cryptic note on the door about a dog, the Animal Control people come around?

I'm telling you, life is weird.

Posted in Family Matters & Random & The Old Man & The Past
(3) Comments

Vegetable Curry and Nan
April 19, 2007 | permalink

Gentle Readers, do you know how I suffer and toil on your behalf? Slaving away in my hot (and let's face it- cramped) kitchen, testing and refining recipes until they I think they are delicious enough to share? And I do it all for you! *sob*

Well, okay, really I do it because I love cooking, and I love good and tasty food of all kinds. But it is true that I do not share my recipes here until I am convinced of their deliciousness. Today I have recipes for Vegetable Curry and Nan for you, and I promise you won't be disappointed.

Nan Bread

  • 3/4 Cup Very Warm Water
  • 1 Tablespoon Sugar
  • 1 Package Active Dry Yeast
  • 2 Tablespoons Butter, Softened
  • 1 Egg
  • 1/2 Cup Plain Yogurt
  • 1 Teaspoon Salt
  • 3 - 4 Cups Flour

Dissolve the Yeast and Sugar in the Water and let stand for 10 minutes to allow the Yeast to proof.

Add the Butter, Egg, Yogurt, and Salt. Mix well.

Add 1 cup of Flour. Whisk until you have a smooth batter. Continue to add Flour 1/2 cup at a time, until you have a smooth, elastic dough. Place in a buttered bowl, cover loosely, and allow to rise in a warm place for about 45 minutes.

After it has risen, turn the dough out on a floured surface and punch it down with a quick kneading. Divide the dough into 6 - 8 equal pieces, and flatten them out, gently pressing and pulling until each piece is about 6 - 7 inches in diameter.

Bake in a 450 degree oven on an ungreased (but floured) baking tray for 10 - 15 minutes, or until golden brown.

Vegetable Curry

  • 5 Tablespoons Butter
  • 3 Tablespoons Olive Oil
  • 1 Medium Onion, chopped
  • 5 Cloves Garlic, chopped
  • 2 Large Carrots, sliced
  • 3 Tablespoons Curry Powder
  • 1 Teaspoon Ground Turmeric
  • 1 Teaspoon Salt
  • 1 Teaspoon Pepper
  • 1/2 Teaspoon Crushed Red Pepper
  • 6- 8 Cardamom Pods, cracked
  • 1 Head Cauliflower, broken into small florets
  • 2 Large Potatoes, peeled and cubed
  • Water
  • 1/4 Cup Plain Yogurt (exactly what you should have left over from the container you opened to make the nan)

Heat the butter and olive oil in a large skillet (that you have a cover for) over medium heat. When it's hot, add the Onion, Garlic and Carrots, stirring constantly. When the Onions start to cook and give up their water, add the Curry Powder, Turmeric, Salt, Pepper, Red Pepper, and Cardamom. Mix well.

Add the Cauliflower and Potatoes, stirring well to evenly coat with the spices. Add enough water to *almost* cover the Vegetables. Reduce to low heat, cover, and simmer for 25 - 35 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender, stirring occasionally.

When the Potatoes are tender, the curry is done. Remove from heat, Stir in the Yogurt and serve hot with warm Nan.

Posted in Recipes
(0) Comments

Small Black Box
April 18, 2007 | permalink

Kongo Gumi, a Japanese Buddhist temple building company, recently folded, succumbing to debt and a general downturn in the temple building market in these modern times. While businesses close their doors all the time, this particular instance is of special note because Kongo Gumi was the world's oldest continuously operated private business, founded in the year 578. That's not a typo, Gentle Readers. 578 AD. As in 1429 years ago. Staggering, isn't it?

For those of you who are curious, there is an article in Business Week discussing the factors that allowed Kongo Gumi to have such longevity, and how those things might be applied in other businesses. But it didn't touch on what I really would like to know: Did the founder of Kongo Gumi think, even in his wildest dreams, that his company would exist for 14 centuries? Or were his goals slightly more short term? A strange thing to wonder about, maybe, but I wonder nonetheless.

Posted in


A Experience
April 13, 2007 | permalink

The conductor on my train this morning was AWESOME. Not only did he actually say, "Ladies and Gentlemen, good morning and welcome to the Downtown A Experience" at every stop, but he also sounded like Barry White.

Posted in Miniblog
(0) Comments

update friday the 13th
April 13, 2007 | permalink

I have added Brantastic, Gemological Goddess, and This Could Take a While to the links list. Just so you know...

Posted in Miniblog
(0) Comments

Good Thing
April 12, 2007 | permalink

I met my niece (pictured here with my Mother) for the first time over the Easter Weekend. Isn't she cute?

While she is not my first niece (I have several on The Old Man's side, the progeny of my older half-sister, his daughter from a previous marriage), she is the first child born to any of my siblings on my Mother's side, and as such is also Mom and Red's first Granddaughter. You can imagine, then, how she was doted on while she was here for the holiday.

The night before Easter, after dinner, we colored the eggs. It's something we do every year, whether there are going to be kids around or not. The idea is that everyone in the family ends up with an egg just for them, made by someone else (obviously, you can't make your own egg!), which we then eat as part of breakfast the next morning. It's a lot of fun- of course we all try to get artsy and out-do one another, and of course our ambitions usually exceed our talent. Most of them come out fine, but there are a couple of sad looking Easter Eggs, most years.

This year, since The Little One was here, we 'hid' some eggs for her to find. The first few she didn't get it, which is not surprising. But after a bit she got really into it, not least because of all the attention and applause she got whenever she found one. We tried to get her to put them into the basket after she found them, but of course they went right into her mouth, every time... She has a few teeth in, and by the end she was succeeding in gnawing her way past the shell, if we didn't relieve her of the egg fast enough.

Like I said, cute...

Posted in Family Matters & Holidays & Out of Town


Relentless Sun
April 10, 2007 | permalink

I think a lot about myself. I don't mean in a totally ego-centric 'enough about me, darling- what do you think of my dress?' kind of way; I mean that I spend a lot of time examining my thoughts and feelings, and actions and motivations, trying to figure out what makes me tick. Trying to understand what I want and what I am, and what I'm doing and why.

You would think at this stage in my life (being nearly thirty-five) that this would be clear to me. Maybe it should be, and I am hopelessly behind my peers in terms of self-awareness and understanding. Which is a notion that kind of depresses me, to be quite honest. But since I have no way of knowing, I suppose it is equally possible that no one ever really understands themselves as well as they would like. When I am feeling reasonable (and reasonably together), I think that both things are probably true; I should have more understanding of myself by now, but no matter how much I understand, there will always be something else. Perhaps complete understanding of oneself is unattainable, or nearly so; the quest what the Buddhists would call Nirvana, or the Shaolin concept of Enlightenment, for example, were both lifelong quests.

But on reflection, after trying to continue with this post, I think that perhaps I do understand myself more than the above passages would imply. I just don't like what I see.

I suppose that the basic problem I have, if I boil it down to its simplest components, is that what I think is my innate nature (which I obviously cannot change) is in direct conflict with the things that I was taught about the world when I was young (and we all know, I think, how hard those childhood lessons are to shake). And I don't know how to reconcile the two, and resolve the conflict.

If I had to describe my basic nature (the parts of it relevant to this discussion, at least), I would say that in my heart of hearts I was basically an honest and trusting person, who greatly desired to be close to people, and open with them, and all the things that entails- trust in others and faith in the future among them. Not a bad set of traits, I think. Except...

Except that anyone who knows me can tell you that I fall pretty short of this, in reality. Especially in the trust and faith and openness parts. These are things that, even though I have always yearned for, I didn't really know existed outside of fiction. If I had to sum up the lessons of my childhood, they would go something like this: Everyone is out to get you, if they can, so the less you give away the better; keep everything possible to yourself. And you can't count on anything that you have today being here tomorrow, so don't get attached to anyone or anything.

Pretty bleak, eh? Those ideas seem inescapable to me, and color everything I do. And I hate them. I wish I could say that nothing has ever happened in my later life that reinforced them, and that I have managed to escape them, but I can't. The first friend I had set me on fire. My favorite uncle molested me. My father is (as I have mentioned before) paranoid and pretty much crazy, and consistency and stability are things I never knew until I left the house to go to college. (I lived in something like 15 or 16 different places before I graduated high school- on one occasion, we came home from school on a Friday to find out we were packing to move on Saturday.) My mentor killed himself. And I won't even talk about my ex-wife.†

Sometimes it feels like a lot to bear, and my worst fear is that I will never overcome the circumstances of my upbringing. That I will be stuck in conflict, always yearning for things I will not allow myself to have. I don't want you to think I am sitting here feeling sorry for myself; I'm not. I have survived all these things, and I'm not a total basket case. I feel certain that I can get through anything that life throws at me, one way or another. I am a success in my chosen field, and even if I am suspicious of people in general and tend to hold myself back and be a tad anti-social, I do have people that I love and trust.

I guess I just wish it were easier. I would like to be able to let go of all the crap and be able to be open and expressive to the people I care about. I would love to be able to not think of the worst things that could happen, all the time. (Not feeling like a complete cynic would be quite nice, I think).

I suppose the only thing to do is to persevere. I haven't gotten this far by giving up, and I don't guess I will start now. But like I said: I wish it were easier.

† I don't want to give the impression that I am being all 'woe is me, I am a poor sad helpless victim' here... I'm not a saint, and I have certainly done some things I am not proud of. And there are of course people who I have trusted who were indeed worthy of it. I am only trying to illustrate my point with my own experiences. I hope that makes sense...

Posted in Family Matters & Growing Up & Musings & Social Life & The Past
(0) Comments

haiku 141
April 9, 2007 | permalink

Haiku No. 141 (Spring in New York)

white blossoms waver
in the bright sun, defying
the stern and cold wind

Posted in Miniblog
(0) Comments

Paper Kitten Nightmare
April 3, 2007 | permalink

I had a bunch of weird dreams last night. Not bad ones, mind you, which is kind of a switch; just weird.

Each one taken separately wasn't so odd, as dreams go. What was so strange was that they were dreams within dreams, veritable Russian nesting dolls of my subconscious. As they changed from one to the other, I kept thinking to myself, 'That was such a strange dream I was having!' and I would seek someone out, to tell them about it. In each case though, I got interrupted or distracted by one thing or another, and before I knew it I was dreaming a new dream, but thinking that I was awake; and in the middle of something mundane I would suddenly remember that I had just had the strangest dream... It went on like that all night.

Aside from remembering that I was constantly dreaming about dreams, I only remember a very few details of any of them now. Just a few isolated, disjointed bits and pieces: getting caught in bed with a woman I know by her children (a woman I hardly ever see, have never slept with, and who does not have children, by the way); sitting in on a board meeting with people from a production company I work with, sitting next to Turtalia and Smacktalk; panicking over unpaid bills for a credit card I don't have; being at a big party in a barn, where I could hear a lot of people, but could see no one.

I know there were more things that happened- I remember remembering them, this morning. But those few bits are all that I can recall, now. The rest are just out of memory, like a word at the tip of my tongue.

Posted in Musings & Random
(1) Comments

24 Hours at Le Mans
April 1, 2007 | permalink

I've been reading a book called Candy Freak: A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America. It was written by the suitably named Steve Almond (who, it becomes clear, is the Candy Freak of the title), and weaves the story of his obsession with chocolate and candy with the history of the candy industry in the United States and the state of the industry today.

It is fascinating stuff, and well written- I have laughed out loud more than once. But I can only read it in very small chunks, so it is taking me a while to get through. The chief problem is that nearly everything the man talks about is something tasty to eat. If he is not writing about something edible, then it is about some machine or process that makes something edible. I have more than once found myself literally salivating while I read, and all I want when I put the book down is something sweet and chocolaty. The longer I read, the worse the urges become. I think if I tried to read too much all at once I would send myself into some kind of hyper-glycemic fit.

The other thing that keeps me reading in small doses is a little embarrassing, but for you, Gentle Readers, I will bare all. I feel a little dirty, reading it, and don't want anyone to see the expressions that are surely playing across my face as I read. You see, when Mr. Almond describes himself as a candy freak, he's not kidding. The descriptions of the candies and chocolates are almost pornographic. And I am surely his target audience- he is, if you will pardon the expression, hitting all the right spots- I am sure anyone watching me read would agree. Here is a passage, so that you can judge for yourself:

My friend had no such compunction [about opening them]. She unwrapped the [Five Star] Caramel Bar and took a bite. It was clear, simply from the way her mouth addressed the bar, that we were dealing with a different grade of freak. Her bite was smooth and concerted- there was obvious density at play here- though interrupted by two muted snaps, both of which caused her a quarter-moment of anguish, followed by a twinge of delight, registered as a flushing on her cheeks. She moaned. It was a lovely thing to hear.

Or this one, about a Caravelle candy bar:

More so, there was a sense of the piece yielding to the mouth. By which I mean, one had to work the teeth through the sturdy chocolate shell, which gave way with a distinct , moist snap, though the crisped rice (thus releasing a second, grainy bouquet), and only then into the soft caramel core. O, that initimable combination of textures! That symphony of flavors! And how they offered themselves to the heat and wetness of the mouth- the sensation of the crisped rice drenched in melted chocolate, chomped my the molars into the creamy swirl of caramel. Woe and pity unto thee who never tasted this bar!

You see? The whole book is like that. If that's not mouth-porn, then I don't know what is.

Posted in Food and Drink


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