Saturday morning coffee

This time last week we were waking up at the farm and drinking coffee around the fire in a light morning rain.

This morning I'm sitting with my youngest daughter, drinking coffee and listening to the rain fall against the windows. We're inside, dry and warm. Yesterday was the last day of school, and we're looking forward to summer. If it ever gets here.

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Who says colonoscopies can't be a source of humor? My mom, bless her heart, had to go through the indignity of a colonoscopy yesterday. She's 79 years old and is proud of the fact that she's in good health and doesn't have to take a lot of prescription drugs or spend a lot of time in doctor's offices. She was born and raised in Ashland, Kentucky, and has a charming accent that hasn't been erased by 45 years of living above the Mason Dixon Line. I was talking with her on the drive home from the gastroenterology clinic, and she got kind of solemn talking about the swift and strong effects of the anesthesia:

"I wonder if that's what dying will be like. One moment you're here, and you're talking with people, and then the next moment there's just nothing. You're just gone, no dreams or anything. Then all of a sudden I woke up and everyone was telling me I had to fart."

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"Do you think this will look okay?"

Those words were spoken to me by our eldest as she prepared for a movie shoot that's underway as I type this. She was putting her stuff together last night and had prepared a batch of fake blood:

"I think it's kind of 70's looking. It's not my best, but it's mostly for some splatter effects so it should be fine. That's why it's so thin. Thanks for taking a look at it for me. It helps having a cop for a dad."

I always knew this job would be good for something.

Return of the suffering bastard

Yes, today's Sunday Afternoon Cocktail was The Suffering Bastard:

1 oz bourbon
1 oz gin
1 oz lime juice
1 dash Angostura bitters

-Mix ingredients and pour over ice, top up with ginger ale or ginger beer
-Garnish with an orange slice and maraschino cherry
(*Normally I make these in a rocks glass, but decided a pilsener glass might be more festive today)

I came in from gardening a few minutes earlier than MizBubs to have these ready for her. You'll see that she's nearly worked her fingers to the bone, and I got this drink to her just in time. She is a girl dynamo.

The tomatoes, pattypan squash and herbs are in. The the sunflowers are planted and the back of the house cleared. Just a few more things to be done now. The de-whitetrashification is proceeding nicely:

Sunflowers

Our humble square foot garden

The herb garden before weeding and planting

And after

Lower left corner is mint, lower right corner is chives, upper right corner is garlic chives, upper left corner is dill. Those are all there from last year. Invisible in this picture are all the seeds that MizBubs planted just moments before.

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The past few days I've been something of a suffering bastard myself. I have an appointment with a new chiropractor on Tuesday, and I'm going to force myself to call the podiatrist this week as well. I suspect I have a heel spur and have barely run since April. I never got adjusted after the three days of defensive tactics training earlier this month, and it's left me creaky, sluggish and stiff.

Tomorrow I begin three days of zombie apocalypse preparedness training. I was told to bring a gas mask. We'll see how that goes.

Hope y'all had a nice weekend.

What we're up to this weekend

It can't always be tropical drinks in exotic destinations with fellow bloggers. Next week we'll be attending as much of Pilcrow Lit Fest as we can, and the weekend of the 23rd-24th brings, in rapid succession, Pilcrow's finale, my niece's first birthday party, and a Retro Zombie Tiki Terror party (more on that later.)

But for now, it's garage sale time. This is the weekend for the annual Mount Prospect Garage Sale: 500 + garage sales in one weekend. You can read more about it here.

We cleaned out (mostly) the basement and (pretty much) the garage, and we'll be peddling our crap on Friday and Saturday. We'll be taking Sunday off to go to church and then sacrifice a hog.

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Mark your calendars now for Sunday, May 24th. The Chicago Horror Society is presenting Retro Zombie Tiki Terror! at the Tiki Terrace in Des Plaines. There will be drinks and contests and pinups and zombies, and a certain lovely and talented young woman will be working the event. Come out and party like it's 1959. You can sleep in on Memorial Day. More info here: Retro Zombie Tiki Terror!

Meme, redux.

I just did this meme the other day, but whaddya know, I've been tagged again--this time by Katie Schwartz! So I thought, hey, why not? Here we go.

Meme, redux:

1. Five names you go by:

a. Buzz
b. Dumbo
c. Bubs
d. El Martillo
e. Sarge

2. Three things you are wearing right now:

a. A very comfortable fleece bathrobe
b. Very comfortable plaid flannel pajama pants
c. A 2005 Shamrock Shuffle long sleeve tee shirt

3. Two things you want very badly at the moment:

a. To successfully resolve a beef I've got with the administrators of a medical flexible spending account I have through work
b. To get back to brewing our own beer this winter

4. Three people who will probably fill this out:

Forget my last answer. Let's see, MizBubs, the eldest and Lulu

5. Two things you did last night:

a. Watched the movie Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.
b. Slept like a rock.

6. Two things you ate today:

a. Pumpkin pie
b. Pecan-crusted pork tenderloin stuffed with apples and Maytag blue cheese

7. Two people you last talked to on the phone:

a. The eldest
b. My brother

8. Two things you are going to do tomorrow:

a. Meet with my human resource director about the beef I mentioned earlier
b. Attend the first of several work-related Christmas parties.

9. Two longest car rides:

a. Chicago to San Antonio--about 1200 miles, more or less
b. Chicago to New Orleans--about 950 miles, more or less
(well, neither of these things changed in the last couple of days)

10. Two of your favorite beverages:

a. Bourbon
b. Smoothies with yogurt and frozen berries. I make good ones.

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Stay tuned. Later this week I'll be featuring a new Germany or Florida amputee criminal holiday edition!

Post-holiday resonses to pre-holiday tags

Jin ran by and tagged me so quickly and surreptitiously that I almost didn't catch it, what with all the holiday hubbub and all.

1. Five names you go by:

a. Joe
b. Joseph
c. Bubs
d. Dad
e. Sir

2. Three things you are wearing right now:

a. Reading glasses
b. My 2008 Lincolnwood Turkey Trot long sleeve tee
c. Black Chuck Taylors

3. Two things you want very badly at the moment:

a. To weigh 20 pounds less than I do
b. To not have a painful bone spur on my foot

4. Three people who will probably fill this out:

Holiday season. No time for tagging now. Move on.

5. Two things you did last night:

a. Taught the palm-heel strike to my 4 year old niece.
b. Slept like a rock.

6. Two things you ate today:

a. Mi Xao Do Biên
b. Spring roll

7. Two people you last talked to on the phone:

a. My brother
b. Mizbubs

8. Two things you are going to do tomorrow:

a. Sleep late
b. Put up Christmas decorations

9. Two longest car rides:

a. Chicago to San Antonio--about 1200 miles, more or less
b. Chicago to New Orleans--about 950 miles, more or less

10. Two of your favorite beverages:

a. Ice water
b. Strong coffee with half and half

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Right around the same time Jin tagged me, I got hit with another one.

Tim Broderick, a really cool writer/artist who's a friend of Johnny Yen, tagged Johnny and I. Tim asked what movies we'd watch if it was just a dad's night--no mom around. You can see Mr. Yen's response here.

Depending on the time of night, and night of the week, we might just watch Metalocalypse on Adult Swim. The youngest votes for watching Eraserhead again, as soon as I replace the copy that got lost. The eldest votes for any awful exploitation movie that MizBubs wouldn't bother with. The final possibility would be to go with sentimental favorites from the girls' younger years: The Nightmare Before Christmas or Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Or Freaks.

I lack the will right now to tag others, but if you'd like to play, consider yourself tagged with either or both of these little exercises.

Enjoy your weekend!

Give a child some sugar, and a camera...

The final head count for dinner Saturday was 24. Five of those were kids ages 10 and under. Here's what the evening looked like through the eyes of our nieces and nephews as they ran through our very tiny house screaming and taking pictures:

Here's a duck with a half-full can of Miller High Life stuck up his fundament, mid-roasting.

Fried turkey there.

MizBubs works the stove.

And, like these events always do, it ends with a brother-in-law sleeping on your couch:

Everything has a shelf life

"Everything has a shelf life."

-Our friend Sam during my recent trip to Kentucky, referring to restaurants that have closed, shops that have gone out of business, and people who have died.

Sam (and his lovely bride Thelma) are our family's oldest friends. One of the greatest memories I have as a child was the time Sam put me in his lap and let me steer his car while driving on the Bluegrass Parkway. I felt like such a grownup. My dad, sitting in the front passenger seat, was considerably less than happy with the arrangement but remained a good sport about it until the next stop. I love to tell this story to kids as an illustration of how things we took for granted 40 years ago would now get you locked up, or at least get you showcased on the news as a cautionary tale.

Sam's shelf life comment was, I think, perfect and beautiful in its simplicity, and in its recognition of the inevitability of time's passing. That phrase has stuck in my head for the past couple of weeks, especially now that the leaves are falling, the days are shorter and the air colder. Tempus fugit, y'all. Everything has a shelf life.

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Today was the last day for our local farmer's market. The high winds meant that a lot of the vendors didn't set up their usual tents, and that made it look even more sparse on the last day:

What is it about the quality of sunlight that changes so much this time of year? A sunny morning in June bears so much promise; a sunny morning in October feels like a reproach-a last glimpse of all that warmth and sunshine about to disappear for the next few months. A reminder of all the warmth and sunshine you didn't take advantage of when you had it, and now it's gone, or about to be.



We loaded up on peppers, the last of the real tomatoes we'll see until next summer, some Brussels sprouts and carrots. We said goodbye to the farmers we've been buying from every Sunday for the past four months, and then we left.

This was one of those weeks that just disappeared.

T.G.I.F.

Who wants to get freaky?!

*This is not photoshopped. On this YouTube clip of the debate, you can see this moment at around 1:29:57.

Enjoy family life

The other day, right around noon, I went out for a run and the eldest rode along on her bike to keep me company. The sky was blue and the sun was shining, and it was a good time. We talked as I wheezed and flopped along for 3 miles.

We got done and walked back. As we turned the corner and could see the front of our house, I saw what I thought were two fat gypsy women approaching my front door. My heart started beating faster again as I looked around for a vehicle, but I didn't see one. What the f*ck are they doing at my house, I thought--does our house look so run down and unkempt that it looks like a feeble old person who'd make a good target for a gypsy scam lives there?

I told the eldest to slow up, but before I could figure out how to approach, the suspects walked off my front porch and toward the neighbor's house. I got a better look and saw that they weren't gypsies after all.

Aha, I told my daughter, they're not scam artists, they're bible thumpers going door to door. Nothing to fear. We still went in through the back door so we wouldn't have to deal with them if they saw us from the neighbor's front porch.

I found that they'd left a pamphlet for our spiritual uplift, which was thoughtful of them. To tell you the truth, I haven't even read the pamphlet yet because I've been so fascinated by the picture on its cover:

Where do I start with this? My first question was, is this meant to look like a formal family portrait, or just a snapshot taken by a kind stranger on a family outing in the park? Is the essence of the happy family conveyed by their whiteness and one son/one daughter perfection? Are pleated khaki trousers and a moderately short, but not so short it's intimidating haircut essential to being a good dad?

The family does look happy, no doubt about that. And why wouldn't they be happy--they have an enormous macaw! An enormous macaw that looks poised to crap all over mom's head. And let me tell you something--a bird that size produces some truly impressive droppings.

Maybe the bird is empty and mom's not worried. I'm still somewhat concerned by the use of a large bird to symbolize happiness. The bird is even blue--the blue bird of happiness? I don't know. What I do know is that when I see someone holding a bird like this I think someone's about to get bitten, hard, in the face. We have experience with this.

Junior is clearly pleased, excited and fascinated by the macaw. Mom is smiling the smile of the medicated and is either looking blankly (but pleasantly) at junior, or thinking of undoing dad's belt with her teeth. I'm not sure. The dogs appear oblivious to the presence of the bird, which I'm telling you, as the owner of small dogs, is not likely. The dog in the center of the frame looks off into the middle distance, somewhere past the girl. The girl seems pleased to be in charge of the dogs. The little dog in the right corner stares straight at the camera. I can't read that dog's expression. He's inscrutable.

None of the people in this picture appear to be interacting with any of the other people around them: dad's looking at the bird, junior's looking at the bird, or at some point vaguely between the bird and dad's face, mom--well, I mentioned her already--and the girl has the dogs.

Maybe a happy family is a symmetrical family. You get the whole nuclear family and their prop animals and set them up in a balanced way, and from that balance comes harmony, and from the harmony, happiness:

Left, looking right:

Dad
Junior
Dog #1

Right, looking left:

Macaw
Mom
Daughter

Looking straight at the camera:

Dog #2

Maybe I should actually read the pamphlet and see what this is all about. Well, I hope y'all enjoy your own family life, or at least enjoy your weekend.

Sunday morning coffee

I fell asleep last night earlier than planned, passing my half-finished Old Fashioned to MizBubs as I lurched up from the couch and headed for bed. Long week.

This morning I was awakened by the sound of the girls talking, loudly, and water running in the upstairs bathroom. In my fog I thought it was around 4 or 5 am and that the girls had stayed up late watching movies. Before I barked out at them I managed to focus on the clock and saw that it was 7:50 am.

They were up early, getting ready to go to the Bristol Renaissance Faire together. Once I realized that the noise was actually my two daughters, who get along famously with each other, up early and talking while they showered and got ready for their day, I couldn't bark. Instead, I had to get up and make coffee for them.



A little while later they were off down the front walk, ready to bear witness to lord only knows what kind of freakery up in Wisconsin. It was all I could do not to give them a spare handgun for the trip.

And so, if we're lucky, this is how it goes: your beautiful and competent children walking away from you, and you standing there, looking forward like crazy to their return.

Sore but happy

I've been thinking of making chocolate chip cookies without chocolate chips. I think that what I want lately is more stuff without stuff in it.

-Youngest Daughter, expounding on her new theories about seeking simplicity in her diet. She said this after a dinner of pan-seared scallops, grilled zuchini and asparagus, and ravioli with a light sauce of butter and caramelized onions. She cleaned her plate while telling us that she prefers "normal" food, and thinks it's a result of the way we cook.

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I still didn't know what to make for dinner tonight when MizBubs, hardest-working gal in suburbia, dragged herself home from the library. Yesterday, while I was at work, she made the first official pork-based Sunday dinner of summer (baked ham, scalloped potatoes, a chilled salad of green beans, herbs and yellow cherry tomatoes, and an amazing fruit salad featuring pineapple, watermelon, mango and blackberries dressed with honey, lemon juice and mint leaves.)



It drove me nuts that I didn't cook any of it, and I couldn't wait more than a day without trying in my very manly and competitive way to match her.

Lucky for me I found a few slices of bacon in a ziploc bag in the fridge, and a frozen bag of Costco scallops in the deep freeze. When you find bacon and scallops you didn't know you had, well--dinner just practically cooks itself.

And I know this is late, but yesterday was also the first mint julep of the season. My bride cleaned up the garden beds, and our mint plant is about a foot tall and a foot around now. We've also got chives and garlic chives from last year, basil, dill, cilantro, marjoram, thyme and some extra lettuce. We've got rosemary, sage, tarragon, lemon thyme and thyme in planters on the back porch. For now the back porch remains the last trashy holdout, so there's no pictures of that.



So, yesterday's official Sunday Afternoon Cocktail is the mint julep:

• 8 mint leaves
• 1 oz bar syrup
• 2 oz Wild Turkey 101 bourbon

1. Muddle bar syrup and mint leaves together (for best results, leave the mixture overnight to bring out a stronger mint flavor)
2. Pour syrup/mint mixture in the bottom of a tall glass
3. Add bourbon
4. Fill with ice (preferably crushed, but we were too lazy to do that yesterday)
5. Top with a splash of water if desired, and garnish with a sprig of fresh mint

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You'll note that the hand holding the mint julep is bandaged and the manicure shows signs of wear. This is because MizBubs, girl dynamo, worked her fingers to dirty nubs this weekend. The de-whitetrashification of the yard continues. We had reached a point a few weeks ago where we were precisely one car up on blocks, one overpriced bass boat and a sofa on the porch away from total trashitude. I briefly considered giving up on cleaning up, and just using the pile of free wood chips as firestarter to end the whole mess.

But we stuck with it, and we're almost ready to enjoy the summer in the yard. The native garden in the front is weeded and doing well:



The vegetable garden is planted with kale, chard, lettuce, haricots vert, burgundy bush beans, Armenian cucumbers, radishes and mixed miniature gourds.

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Want to know the coolest thing that happened this week?

MizBubs, without my knowing, sneaked out to the backyard, back where the biggest bunch of wood chips had been piled. Under cover of night and early in the morning she worked swiftly and silently. With some basic hand tools, a 5 gallon tub of varnish and a sketchy plan from a 1949 Popular Mechanics she shaped those wood chips into a 17 foot long canoe! Boy, was I ever surprised!




On Saturday, when we got done with our chores, we took the new canoe out to Busse Lake and paddled for around an hour or so. Man, did it feel good. We haven't been in a canoe together for about two years, and we've missed it bad. We floated around and saw a raccoon nosing around the water, and saw a bunch of cool-looking birds that we thought were cormorants. Mostly we just paddled around grinning. At one point the wind kicked up and we were paddling directly into it. We both went quiet, and without saying anything we each started paddling harder to keep going into the wind. The feeling of shared exertion, outside, is perfect.

It wasn't until later that night that I realized that following several hours of shoveling and yard work with an hour of vigorous canoe paddling is probably not the brightest idea. Oh well. Sore but happy is not a bad way to go through life.

For those about to blog...

WE SALUTE YOU!

That Doctor Monkey Von Monkerstein is a sick simian bastard. But we love him.

I got home on Saturday from the last day of the ILEETA conference and found this in the mail. What a card.

We've never won, or even attempted to win, a vintage postcard from the Doctor. And still, this masterpiece arrived, unsolicited, at our front door. Amazing...

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I woke up this morning feeling about 15 years older. Why?

Well, for starters, I made the mistake of entering a 5k race on Saturday. Specifically the Flatfoot 5k, which is a fundraiser for the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund and the ILEETA scholarship fund.

I've run a lot of 5k races, so I thought "no big deal." I haven't trained much since December when I ran in Las Vegas, and have barely run at all in the last 2 months. I compounded my mistake by deciding to run with a 25 year old coworker, one of our newer officers, and I started toward the front of the pack, with a bunch of other tactical officers there for the conference. I started out way too fast. I am a doofus.

Boy, the start of the race was glorious. It was a 60 degree, sunny day. Gosh, it was beautiful. I provided some welcome comic relief to my fellow runners by declaring, about 100 yards into the race, "boy, I wish I hadn't stayed up so late last night smoking and drinking." I kept up for the first half mile or so, then started lagging back. I pushed on, chugging away. Then the wheezing and the coughing started. Then the fatigue. And the pain.

At 2 miles the body said f*ck it. I was just this side of a full-blown asthma attack. Thank God they didn't use the Champion Chip or any other timing system; I would have been forced to gut it out and actually finish the damn race.

As it was I was able to quit like a man at 2 miles, with a time of 17:50, and congratulate myself for having donated to a worthy cause. I was there to cheer on my younger and more athletic coworker as he finished in under 25 minutes.

When I got home I joined MizBubs as she started in the annual de-white trashification of our yard. We raked out the front beds, and also cleared the flower and vegetable gardens on the side of the house. We're now way ahead of where we were by this time last year. At least in the front and side yards.

The back yard is still a disaster area of dog shit and debris, highlighted by the wreckage of our beautiful screen house that we put up last year. The first harsh winter storm caught me by surprise, and the roof of the screen house was demolished by the snow. The back porch is a hillbilly jumble of turkey fryers, lawn furniture, snow shovels and propane tanks. It is a mess.

But I aim to get it cleaned up, and pronto. Anyway, I joined MizBubs, girl dynamo, in her yard work, and as a result there is not a part of my body that is not aching and fatigued this evening. At least it's a good ache.

I got a few more New Orleans bits, and then a whole lotta freaky goodness for posting this week. I leave again for Dallas on Tuesday, and then I'm off again for the rest of the week. There is so much I want to tell you about. Really.

Hope you had a good weekend.