Wonder Winterland

I don't know if you heard, but DC got hit with something of a snowstorm. 

...get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton...

There was quite a lot of talk of this storm before it ever started snowing, so many of the District's residents decided to head immediately to their local grocers to procure provisions. Skeptics waited for some proof of Snowzilla before tearing up the road like their cold wet pants were on fire... oops.  

Is it possible there's a link between the absence of fibrous greens and the absence of toilet paper? 

I was a little bummed by the lack of salad, but Amanda Panda, Polies and CRat had a contingency plan. 

CRat's eagle eye spotted some discount havarti.  

On the way back from the store, we saw some other brave creatures... 

...like this puffy cardinal...

...and this frozen squirrel

...and this weirdo. 

Now, I'm not really one for winter, but there is something liberating about being able to walk down the middle of Connecticut Avenue and know you won't get hit by a car. Or, as it turns out, a plow. 

As we trudged home through the blizzard carrying all the promise of a green banana, I was looking forward to a thorough thawing-out. As we got closer to the house, I stopped to wonder idly if I'd see my car again before Mother's Day...

Then I hurried inside to fire up a big cauldron of whatever liquids were available. As I opened the door and struggled to pry my boots off, I heard distinct murmurings from inside the shopping bag. Something about wanting to build a snowman. I guess not everybody wanted so desperately to escape Khione's wrath. 

Close enough...

And can you blame them? 

Hippy Hippy Hooray! Part Deux...

There comes a time in every gardener's life--often, say, early August-- when usually-petite, soft-spoken, and sometimes foreign vegetables become hulking, tough, intractable bludgeons. This is such a time.

Our absent hosts, whose home we are enjoying perhaps too thoroughly, have an excellent little veggie garden bursting with produce. "Eat some zucchini!" they ordered us on the way out the door. And wanting to be invited back next year, we did. We've sliced it into tacos, we've chopped it into frittatas, we've grated it into muffins, we've blended it into breads, we've sent some home with visitors and we've (I've) used it as a prop in an off-off-off-Broadway production of Our Town. 

Dave and F.CRat watch bemusedly as the zucchini fumbles its lines. 

The 'Stock, as all the hepcats call it, is nestled near to some very excellent hiking, so Sophster and I have been doing a fair amount of trekking into the mountains.   

Here's some, now! This is a shot from the top of Overlook Mountain (R). 

Even Pierre, who is a consummate city slicker, joined us on a couple of jaunts. In fact, the three of us have been up Millbrook Mountain three times already. Missing his native France, as he does, Pierre is often on the lookout for truffles (sometimes just inches along sniffing the ground), but really he's just a sucker for fungi in general. Weren't we excited, then, to see such an impressive display of fungal conk as we tramped along the trail at Minnewaska...

Pierre likes snacks you can nap on. Look how he can't believe this fortuitous combo.

He and I have been working on cultural sensitivity this summer (time was when would talk of nothing but French fries, French doors, French horns, and, I'm reluctant to admit: French kisses), so I was quite pleased when Pierre offered up a more charitable summit summation as he and Sophie and I gazed down at Mr. Hudson's valley from the top of a Catskill mountain. He tipped his head toward the east and chirped: "The Dutch do nice work!"

So they do!

Hippy Hippy Hooray! Part Un

Life's been difficult lately. Sophie and I are cat-sitting in Woodstock for the week, and between the tuna and the drum circles and the lounging by the pool, I'm plumb tuckered out. 

Yes, my legs have that hip "ombre" color shading everyone's so big on these days. 

Our charge, Hibou, is pretty good, as cats go. Which is to say that he hasn't yet sucked our marrow as we slept. He keeps pretty busy; half the day is spent splayed out in sunbeams, a quarter is taken up with moth/spider torture, and the rest is divided about evenly between glaring at his dry kibble and glaring at us. 

Hibou wonders why you are not tending to his needs. 

Other than keeping the cat alive, we have relatively few responsibilities, but the ones we do have we take very seriously. Take, for example, the task of emptying the skimmer basket by the pool and saying Kaddish over whatever poor creatures have met their watery end. Usually it's beetles or grasshoppers, some of whom I try to resuscitate with chest compressions, which seems to have a relatively low success rate.  

O, intrepid savior!

But on Tuesday, a critter most precious must have flopped into the pool and gotten sucked into the filter, because when Sophie opened the lid, she yelled to me to bring the tiny defibrillation paddles. I was basically paralyzed with fear, so my clear-headed pal pulled a pail off the fence and bravely scooped the wee beast on to the grass. 

"HHHHHH POOR DEAD THING!!" I wailed. "NOW NESTLED IN THE ARMS OF YOUR MAKER!!"

...and then it moved its leg.   And then, if you looked closely, you could see it breathing...or maybe gasping?  "Oh, rapture!" I yelled. And ran to get my camera before the now hale and hearty organism hopped away. And when I came back, there it was, right where it had been deposited...

Just resting!

The force from the filter sometimes creates a little eddy in the skimmer basket, and I'd like to think Francis Frog was merely very dizzy from spinning around in the whirlpool, and just about to skip home to his family--not simply destined to be hawk food. But I guess if I were a real Woodstockian I'd mumble something about 'circle of life,' and grok some tempeh. 

Maybe one day I'll get the hang of it. But now if you'll excuse me, I must oversee the fermentation of my kombucha before Sophie drives a broken down bus to past life therapy.  

Oedipal Arrangements...

Valentine's Day is here, and it can be a little tricky navigating your way to the perfect gift. 

Cards are great gift for a spouse, and flowers are great for mom, but what do you get the woman who is both your wife and your mother? 

Introducing: Oedipal Arrangements (R) !

Choose from any combination of the following: 

                                                                                                      Juicy papaya

                                                                                                  Luscious strawberry

                                                                                                 Delicious grapefruit

                                                                                                     Subtle oyster

Order now! For 2 easy payments of $29.95 or the cost of accidentally killing your first born, this terrific gift can be yours...If you can't see this is a great deal, you must be blind!!

__________________________________________________________________

And just in case you think I don't have more of these, here are a couple more highly-anticipated projects:

Torte Reform: When confections come undone (a cooking guide to help fix wayward pastry) 

Zen Cohen: Syd Golden's year in Tibet (a libretto based on a dream I had during a meditation class at the JCC)

Waiting (for Jon Stewart) to Exhale...

Who, that? Oh, right-- that's just Jon Stewart. And me. Johnny Stew. The Stewmeister. Liebo. Et moi. 

Over Festivus my mom tried gently to suggest I get some more of my err--junk--out of her house by subtly piling it on top of the bed I was planning to use for sleep. Among the treasures was a thick envelope of mostly embarrassing photos of my college days, and one still-life we shall humbly call Victoire, and which sits above this text like a shining, cockeyed beacon. 

Though it's there in broad daylight-- our proximity, his left-handedness, my record-scratch gesture and sensible middle-aged green market tote-- what this picture fails to convey is that J.S. is about to laugh. At something I said to him. Using my own breathsicles.  

The year was 2004. The month: September. The place: The Borders in Columbus Circle. (*Borders, you see, was a retail outlet that sold non-electronic media, if you can imagine such a thing). I had about three hours to kill before I'd see Jon, and rather than work on my physics lab, like my friend Arien did, or pluck out all my eyebrows, like the lady behind us, I tried to think of a thousand slick things to say to my hero. Maybe something about how um.... Or like, that we both uhhh...  Because I thought errr....  

I had nuthin. Not even after the line snaked past a shelf holding Peoplesmart: Developing your interpersonal intelligence. And then it was time. There he was. 5 people--4 people--3-- no, just 2 (one obese and one medium) ahead of me. My heart was racing, sweat formed beads on my upper lip, fluorescent lights illuminated our facial imperfections as the sun illuminates the craters of the moon. And he looked up at me longingly...

"Listen," I said. You gotta sign the page that has the Supreme Court justices in the buff. It's for my grandma." He furrowed his beautiful brow. Then his dorky publicist chimed in: "You must have a pretty cool grandma, eh?!" "Sure," I said, "for a racist dowager, she's ok."** And that's when the very breath that the Almighty breathed into Jon's substantial nostrils emerged somewhat rhythmically from their passages. 

Having scored that point, I felt encouraged to watch him sign his name right over Clarence Thomas' nethers, and then stare him in the eyes and say earnestly, "L'shanah Tovah to you and yours." To which he replied, "I have no idea what that means. But to you and yours as well." Surely he jests. 

Then I floated away on a cloud of stardust.

So eat my dust, plebs! For I have caused the exhalations of great men. And thanks, Mom, for putting this particular treasure in between me and a good night's sleep. 

*For this line I owe an enormous debt of gratitude and probably quite a lot of money to the hit TV show Will and Grace. In an episode where Karen lets Jack's parrot fly out the window, but offers to get him another, Jack screams: "If my grandmother died would you bring me another racist dowager with a purse full of diabetic candy??"

* I must also point out that my grandmothers, may they rest in peace, were two of the least prejudiced people to walk the earth. 

Heri za Kwanzaa!

Pop quiz: Habari Gani, everyone? 

A. Umoja
B. Kuumba
C. Imani

You're right-- it depends! I can never pull anything over on you people. 

Pierre and I have worried for years now that Kwanzaa has been fading from view. It started in 1966, and I remember a couple friends celebrating in middle school, and then it seemed to lose steam. Or maybe I just need to get with the program. 

Anyway. Not one to sit idly by as meritorious customs fall away, Pierre and I rushed--rushed-- to the craft store to help save Kwanzaa. Sure, I spent 6 hours weaving a tiny clay basket, forming and painting clay fruits and gluing and pinning a tiny dashiki (not to mention getting Pierre to sit still for 2 minutes), but I learned all sorts of interesting...and troubling things in the process. 

Kwanzaa takes a lot of flak for being a "fake" holiday. Totally made up. Not based in fact. Unlike Christmas, an Eternal Truth contained in Jesus' last breath on earth, which Santa carried up to Heaven in a sleigh. Or Chanukah, which we all know is the most important day of the Jewish calendar, and has rested immutably at the center of a 5,000 year old tradition.  

But I digress. Having read at least 67% of OfficialKwanzaaWebsite.org I feel like I'm on Kwanzaa's side. A celebration of pan-African unity, cooperative economics and fresh produce? And after this tumultuous year? Who's gonna stand against that??

Well, this blowhard, it would seem... and this windbag. But something that Blowhard said caught my attention: Kwanzaa's founder, Blowhard types, served prison time for assault-- acts of torture against women. Blerf. 

Assuming this is true, let's call it what it is. I'll leave a blank here, and you can insert whatever you like: _________________________. Vile? Abhorrent? Unforgivable? Monstrous? One can hardly choose a suitable adjective. 

And then...and then we have to consider the terrible villains whose cars we drive, whose poisons we pedal, whose complex lives we absorb and overlook and wrestle with, and upon whose teachings we build our own imperfect moral codes. 

And I come out the other end still on Kwanzaa's side. Because a holiday is a lot more than its founder (just ask Sara Josepha Hale). And no candelabrum is going to light itself.

So in the spirit of the season, I wish you much umoja (unity), kujichagulia (self-determination), Ujima (collective responsibility), ujamaa (cooperative economics), nia (purpose), kuumba (creativity), and imani (faith) in the coming year. And let us say: Amen. 

Someone Told Me It's All Happening At The Zoo...

The monkeys stand for honesty, giraffes are insincere, and the elephants are kindly but they're dumb...

This fuzzy kitty is one of the many inhabitants of the excellent St. Louis Zoo. I felt a little like a criminal just walking through the turnstile without taking out a second mortgage (ahem, Columbus Zoo...) but the St. Louis Zoo is free, and that's the kind of deep discount I can get behind. 

The consequences of a veggie bender. 

Speaking of behinds... I do believe these here are some tortoise posteriors, but it can be a little hard to tell.  

Anyway, as I walked past and noticed the condition of their cage (remind you of Frat Row? is that a Solo cup in the back?) I heard one say, "Lord let me live, and I'll never eat kale again." And, "The light....so bright...ohh God, my eyes."

Blecccchhhh!!

Actually, it was sort of a tough day for many creatures great and small, including these bellicose kangaroos

Girrrl! I will pull your weave out!!

And these...antelope? Bison? Great Horned Mountain Trolls?  were butting heads over control of their paper mache rocks.

Still smarter than the War of 1812.  zzzziing!

I've often wondered what birds like this eat. Fish? Nuts? Smaller toucans?  The St. L Zoo has a lot of helpful helpers, and the aviary was practically empty, so I inquired as to this feathered friend's particular gustatory preferences. Not only did the Zoo Helper tell me the specifics, she let me have a look at this particular species' main source of sustenance : 

  Follow your nose! (Just kidding. They eat real fruit or insects. Actually, there's probably plenty of grasshopper legs in the stuff Kellogg's puts out, so perhaps we've got more in common with our nasally-gifted brethren than we thought.)

Tigers, though, prefer meatier fare.

                                                                                                        They're...grrrross!

This poor woman was visiting the seals but fell into the tank a few months back. I'd say she's really making the best of it. The sign said she's a rare species called Obsessiveus Compulsivus. 

There were actually two animals I couldn't name (maybe some sort of homo  variety?) but which had clearly escaped their confines, and who many visitors took to be wild and unpredictable, but who were, in fact, just brimming with enthusiasm. 

                                                                                     We have our OWN cage in the primate house!!                       

Cross Country Skiing: Oddly Up and Down

Pretty tricky action shot, eh?

Since it isn't Spring yet, (Punxsutawney Phil, I will cut your feet off!) and I can't seem to melt the snow by glaring at it, I decided to glide gracefully on top of it with two tongue depressors strapped to my feet. Les bourgeois call this "skiing," I am told, but I think of it as "stick-walking."

A couple weekends ago, Alice and Mark and their Pakistani pal Gibran and I rented some cross-country skis from the Rec Center, and headed up to a beautiful Metro Park. On the way, we discussed everyone's level of experience with snow sports. 

Me: Well, the last time I went skiing was the Christmas my parents split up, so I don't have great associations with it...

Gibran: You know, I was skiing once at a resort near my hometown in Karachi. We were going to go back the next year, but the Taliban burned it down. 

You win, Gibran. 

I find that my body works better when I fill it to the brim with warm fatty liquids. 

Despite having been away from the snow sticks for 20 years, I sort of got the hang of it. Left, Right, Left, Right.... Alice and Mark are quite good, but they are Canadian, so they have an unfair advantage. And for someone whose winter fun was literally ruined by terrorists, Gibran was doing a valiant job. 

Me: How you feelin, Gibran? 

Gibran: (face-down in a  pile of snowy brambles) Like I grew up in a desert. 

This was Saturday. (I'm actually pulled over here to make way for 3 other skiers who were lapping me: An overweight octogenarian and her six-year-old grand-nieces.) 

Poor guy can't glide along on tongue depressors with alacrity like I can, I thought. But the universe heard me, and I ate my words, and about 10 pounds of yellow snow the next day when Alice and I ventured out again.

This was Sunday.                                                                                                                          (Thank you, OakleyOriginals)!

I'd like to blame the track, which I'm prone to think was packed down and slipperier. I'd like to blame the wood nymphs who pushed me over, even as I stood still in the parking lot talking to Alice. But I can't fairly blame anything other than my big mouth and lazy glutes for the embarrassment that was Sunday. 

At one point, I had tried so hard and for so long to get up off the ground that I gave up on verticality altogether and started to inch along on the snow like a frozen worm. 

Winter's a bear. No--winter's a prevaricating woodchuck from south Philly.

But as cold and sick and miserable as we get, remember: Don't judge a man until you bumble a mile on his skis.  

$700 Ticket to the Ice Capades!

Merry Christmas, chubby birdies!

Just this past weekend, my friend Ativan (tm) and I took a trip from Columbus to Philadelphia and from Philadelphia to... points north. 

I keep Ati between 45 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit, and she keeps me from losing my mind and clawing the tiny tin walls of small airplanes and ultimately being tased and kicked off and made to walk.

We were doing just great--reading magazines, staring into space, etc etc...until just before we were set to land in Bangor, and the pilot informed us that the airport was closed due to icy conditions, and we were going to have to land somewhere else because we didn't have enough fuel to keep circling over Augusta.

Aye- here's the culprit. 

And for a moment I thought, Oh oh please Lord, won't someone just tase me? 

Don't worry. It's just water...

So we landed in Portland, where we got some gas, sat on the tarmac for a long time, and were then ushered OFF the plane and into Portland International Jetport, (also closed), where we all kicked and scratched our way toward the vending machine, hoping to get the last tube of Pringles.  I won. Kiss my chips, Amir. 

Nice try, solar panels. 

Then we got on a bus. 

How do ya like dem apples?

And after only a few hours, we rolled into Bangor Airport at 12:30 am. And Uncle Geoff, God bless him, was there to greet me, and shuttle us safely back to their warm house. Where Aunt Lucy had apparently gotten a jump on some filing that needed to be done. At 1:15 in the morning. She's unstoppable. 

So then I ate a traditional bowl of welcome oatmeal, and started to chat, but Pierre tugged on my arm and told me he had a better idea. 

Shove over, Pierre!

Hello, World!

Fair Is Good! (Part 1)

Last weekend was the 985th annual(?) Ohio State Fair, sponsored by Bisquik and diabetes. Pierre and I were curious to see what would make it into the deep fat fryer, so we piled into Jill's car and made our way to the fairgrounds, where we were greeted upon entry by a 15-foot cardinal and a wide array of even wider people.  

I don't think Ohio's state cardinal has a name, so I'm gonna call him Bucky. Bucky Bird. 

Naturally, our first stop was the pig races, which were hosted by two beoveralled former I-bankers who introduced us to their flock-- gaggle? school? of wee piggies. I bet two dollars on Hamlet, and Pierre rooted for Notorious P.I.G. 

As you can see, Kevin Bacon is in the lead here. He went on to win the Golden Slop Bucket award.  

Things slowed down a little during the potbelly division.  

Pork and Mindy get sabotaged by a mid-course feed bowl.  China Doll took the gold with a gun time of 15 minutes. 

After the races, Jill inexplicably suggested we locate a purveyor of greasy delights, and nobody argued. But what to fry....what to try....?

Gisella says, "In Italy, where I am from, we have an expression for this: "acquistare adesso e paghi" or "buy now, pay later."

Gisella opted for the jambe de dinde, or "leg of stegosaurus," which, despite its obvious violations of the tenets of portion control, was by far the healthiest choice made by the group.  

To wit:  

Gail's corn dog looks good enough to hang on a clothesline as a festive ornament!

Gail ordered a corn dog, which is classic, and probably as safe a choice as any. Gail, by the way, went to grad school at UVA (or "U.Va.," as the style manual requires), so we are sisters in C-ville.   

This is just a preview of the debauchery to come...

Now I might take some flack for saying so, but I swear I could feel Paula Deen's buttery, slightly racist spirit as we waited for our mouths to open and our arteries to close. 

And while the rest of us were squinting up at the signage muttering things like, "fried spray cheese? Is that even legal?" and "doesn't the Fluffernutter catch on fire?" Jill knew exactly what she wanted: Six Oreos, un-boxed, battered and deep fried golden brown. Because there's no sense steaming those puppies.

Viewers of this photo will be forced to make kind of a Sophie's Choice. Which to ogle first: fried cookies or Gail's breast?  Just pick one, people. 

We dainty ladies pretended not to want to eat all of Jill's Oreos, but Matt held up his side of the gender norm bargain. Lest we think he wasn't gender-normal. 

Matt doesn't quite know what to do with himself now that pure evil's touched his lips.  I am referring, of course, to the fried Twinkie. 

And Pierre's eyes bugged out of his head when he saw what I ordered for us to share. 

Why not take a childhood classic and deep fry it, just to throw off those new declining youth obesity stats from the CDC?

That there is fried peanut butter and jelly. (But please note the use of whole wheat bread). And did it appeal to Pierre's Franco-Prussian culinary sensibilities?  

Yes. 

And what goes best with a pb & j?  

Old Bessie here just about had it by the time I got to her.  She felt like she needed to be reconstituted. Maybe in a milk bath? Is that kosher? 

A glass of milk. Fresh squeezed!

Hello, World!