The More Things Change

Somewhere on the eastern coast of Florida in the mid 1970s–

— I wasn’t having such a good day either.

Hey, you got your Cabernet on my umeboshi

So:  the Spilt Wine section of Interregnum is now up, although not exactly in the form I had expected…  It seems Chef Yoko had secret aspirations on starting a second journal about food, and Nickykaa prodded her into doing something about them, and I had already groused at some length about the lack of functionality in my original arrangement with recipes, and one thing led to another, and now Spilt Wine is Spilt Wine & Sticky Rice, a whole separate blog about food co-authored by Yoko and myself.  At least eventually.  For the immediate future, while I continue to participate in seeing my family through their various health concerns, you can expect it to be her show, and my participation in it to be limited to posting such recipes as I already had in the can during my lunch breaks at work.  (And she’s away for the weekend, and doesn’t even know it’s all ready to go yet.  Surprise!)

I’d personally like to open it up to anybody who has recipes or writing about eating and cooking or restaurant reviews or whatever else they want to contribute, although we haven’t gotten that far in discussing it.  (We haven’t even put up our nifty title graphic;  expect the look to change, too.)  But either way, we hope it’ll be everyone’s go-to place for all things comestible.  And that it won’t take up too terribly much of our time and energy.

Yeahright.

Vehicular Abstinence

From the comments for Sacrifice:

Yoko:  Nick, weren’t you trying to learn how to drive several years back?

Nickykaa:  Yeah, I started the process of learning. Had about five or six lessons. Dragon Lady really wanted me to be able to drive, and I figured it wouldn’t hurt to know how (though I made it clear to her that even if I learned how, I reserved the right to abstain from putting the skill to use). As it turns out, the lessons confirmed what I’d long suspected – I’m just not neurologically wired to be able to learn that particular skill, at least not easily or well (I function so well in the neurotypical world that even people who know me well have trouble fathoming how much I struggle with abilities that they take for granted – abilities that are important when driving, such as the ability to distinguish between color and sound). Read the rest of this entry »

Drag

It is nominally depressing to order a Greek salad with extra dolmades, and then discover the dolmades are off somehow–  their filling sufficiently rancid to cause a fizzy, caustic, lye-like sensation of burning on the tongue.

If I’m dead tomorrow, you’ll know why.

Shed

Someone knocks “shave-and-a-haircut” on the front door.

The sound brings my attention up from the kitchen garbage can, where I have been focused on scraping the remains of this morning’s French Toast and bacon into a flimsy white bag with red pull-ties.  It is followed shortly by the sound of a handle rattling, then the hiss of the screen door piston, indicating that whomever it is knocking feels the need to announce himself only as a courtesy.  I straighten and turn around, still holding the plate, and lean just far enough to one side that I can see through the living room arch.

Ah.  Mayor.

My older brother is one of those people who never seems to be dressed more casually than a senior vice president on the golf links;  I have memories of him from when the two of us were much younger wearing T-shirts and jeans like I do, but they seem bizarre now, aberrations.  “Hey,” he says, noticing my head.

He gets no farther than this before his cel phone rings.  He fishes it out of the pocket of his khakis and gently unfolds it, holding up a finger to me.  “Just a second,” he says.  I turn back around and return to my scraping, trying not to roll my eyes.  Honey, my mother’s toy poodle, comes shuffling out of the hallway nervously, hearing the new noise;  I see her disappear into the living room out of the corner of my eye, presumably to paw at Mayor’s shins, then cross back into the hallway, a small puff of black disappearing into shadow.  She never barks, which is unusual.  It leads me to wonder how often Mayor visits the house when I’m not here. Read the rest of this entry »

Sacrifice

Today marks one month during which I have not had any caffeine or alcohol.

Objectively speaking, this is not a particularly heroic feat.  There are many, many people who choose voluntarily and with a minimum of fuss not to partake of products containing either substance, for reasons ranging from alcoholism to asceticism to simple health consciousness.   There are people like my father who suffer grave illness, and are carted off to the hospital for months, during which time such things are flatly unavailable to them (although they gave my father a glass of red wine after his heart surgery.)  There are people suffering from deprivation of things far more important, like food, people who don’t have the option to partake of them in the first place.

I chose to make the attempt for three reasons.  The first was out of physical health consciousness:  I have various medical issues, and moderation and/or elimination of caffeine and alcohol is supposed to be beneficial for addressing these issues.  I have done similar stretches in the past, eliminating one or the other for much longer periods than a month, and both for shorter times.  It never makes me feel better (nor has it this time), and I always go back using both of them eventually.  But it isn’t harmful to get a sense of where the zero level lies:  what it’s like not to be running around without some sort of drug continuously in your system. Read the rest of this entry »

As One Gets Older

… declaring that you’re never going to speak to someone again for the rest of your life becomes a theoretically easier proposition.

That which does not kill me

… is probably setting me up for that which will!

Omnivore Meme

Infection courtesy of The Ballad of Yoko.

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile Read the rest of this entry »

Where’s MY million?

I just answered all 11 questions on “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader” correctly.  The same ones the Georgia Superintendent of Schools did.

Phooey.