Laughter for Hard Times...and Grammatical Ramblings That Interrupt My Flow of Thought as I Try to Blog

These are not funny times, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't still find ways to chuckle.  Tonight, while looking for some random thing on the web, I came across CakeWrecks.  Check it out.  I laughed out loud. Of course, maybe this isn't any sort of recommendation given the fact that I'm given to laugh out loud at all sorts of things (usually at inappropriate times).

Other things:  Themes:  Fat.  Somehow I keep catching these documentaries on TLC of the fattest so and sos and their journeys to lipo or gastric bypass or some other such sort of surgery to rid them of such fat.  Amidst all this I came across this website (much more funny--or is it funnier...Single syllable adjectives form their comparitive and superlative by adding "er" or "est". ..funny is a double syllable...I'll have to look that one up...and, btw, it's perfectly okay to end a thought or sentence with a preposition, so stop sweating me for that last thought!)  Skinny Girls Who Have it Out for Fat People.  That, of course is not really the name of the site, but they really do seem to take the piss out of fatness.  

If this banking crisis continues on this same path, we may be able to cure this country's problem with obesity.  People may have to cut back in all sorts of ways.  Maybe we'll re-learn how to grow our own food.  Everyone of us will understand the joy and flavor of home-grown produce.  But if all this doesn't bring you warm fuzzies, rest assured we will always have satire--and if you can't handle hard core dry humor, DON'T click on the following link:  Highly Controversial Satire.

You Don't Know Jack, Dorothy!

Way back, when I was a young, ambitious, high school debate coach (as opposed to now--where I'm old and contentious), my star debate students introduced me to, "YOU DON'T KNOW JACK!"  Actually, I really DIDN'T know jack, which was made all the more evident because, try as I might, I couldn't get them to leave my classroom after school so I could be home at a decent hour to walk my dogs and maybe cook dinner and do other things not related to high school. Instead, I would grade papers and organize the room, put the desks back in line with the tape marks strategically placed on the floor (see why I couldn't stay in the public education system?), and listen to these four tragically intelligent teens roar and banter over the computer game that loves to talk smack when the players aren't speedy or witty enough for the game...

Fast forward 9 years to now:  

"You Don't Know Jaques":  The new shade of taupe polish in O.P.I's Paris collection.  

When I saw this in the nail salon in Portland last Friday, I had to have it--mostly because the grey so matches the sky in that city (it's a much cleaner grey than the smog in my own town, but it's grey nonetheless...let's not kid ourselves about that.)  Anyway, I opted for this shade because it's a really pretty glossy grey, and I thought the color would serve as a befitting reminder of my food trip to P Town (more on that in a later post).

As is turns out, it's the Polish's title that has really stuck with me--because of course the finish is already chipping, ay yai, yai!  Today for instance, I completely blanked out in COSTCO and couldn't provide the pin numbers for my bank cards; the worst of it was that the more I tried to conjure up the four magic digits, the deeper into the abyss of my memory the numbers would slide.  Worse still, I was holding up the line!  I hate being held up in line by people who have no business leaving the safety of their homes.  

Sometimes, we just don't know how good we have it until we leave home and wish to return with a mere click of our heels.  Ruby slippers are pretty...

I wore these red moccasins on the plane ride home.  I don't have the power to click heels for a speedy return.  

Should Have

I should have been out and back from my Monday morning run. Instead, I'm wasting time online...looking at recipes for possible side dishes for tonight's dinner, catching up on blogs (BTW, Andi needs to update), wondering how Ali has time for such a clean house AND cute nails, and now jotting down a blog detailing how I waste time in the morning. Stalling.

"What's Cooking Mother?"

I wish I could take credit for that title, but really it belongs to Kim Stafford--the son of the great poet William Stafford. And if I remember his story correctly, he got the line from a student who wasn't so good with punctuation. Stafford's point to the English teachers at his lecture was that a mere comma--or in this case the omission of one--can make all the difference. But what's got me thinking about this brilliant line over and over again all week is the incident inside my own very retro Kenmore stainless steel drop-in range.

It was like this: The oven was pre-heating in anticipation of roasting the beets which I had just scrubbed. Meanwhile, I was using my newly purchased mandoline to make pretty, uniformly-sliced to 1/8" thick sections of eggplant and zucchini. (Yes, I purchased this slicing tool with the express intent to use it on this recipe for Zucchini, Eggplant, and Tomato stacks from the Williams-Sonoma catalog.) I was having fun with my new toy when I smelled something metalic and very much unlike food burned onto the oven rack--which is what my olfactory senses are accustomed to observing when the oven is warming.

I opened the oven door to investigate and was immediately pleased to see that my husband had decided to clean the oven and surprise me! It was a brilliant hot-white. Absolutely glowing. So bright I had to shut the door before I blinded myself...

"Did you clean the oven?!" I queried.

"What...? No?...Why would I...What's that smell?"

What, indeed. The oven wasn't newly cleaned. The bright light calling to me through my oven wasn't heavenly, afterall. It was all too terrestrial; A Saggitarian knows fire when it dawns on her that her husband didn't clean the oven, and even if it were clean, it wouldn't glow like that! After turning the old nylon button to the off position, we opened the oven door to witness the baking element burning its last red ember.

Still unable to comprehend that an oven can burn itself out, I reasoned that the fire resulted from orange marmalade which had boiled out of the pear tart I baked a week earlier; there were suspicious black bubbling lines forming in several spots on the heating element. This must have seemed a reasonable explanation to my husband as well because he grabbed a spoon and began scraping at the black scar. At this point, the heating element snapped along with my motivation to make dinner.

Somehow, when the oven is on fire, everything else seems hopeless. What else is there to do at a time like that other than to feel sorry for yourself? So that's what I did. While I'm not so good at dealing with a sudden change in plans, I'm very good at sulking. So, I sulked, and sliced, and changed the menu to grilled veggies. While I sat across from the grill sulking still, I remembered Kim Stafford:

"What's cooking, Mother?" and I contemplated what happens when we take out that little unassuming comma and whether the result makes for a more interesting story:

"What's cooking mother?"

I think it does.