The Chandelier of Unnumbered Tears

 
Who would have thought that such an innocent little project would be so hellishly difficult? I'm just glad that monstrous fan didn't crash into our morning cereal; the ignint sum-bitch who installed it decided to attach it to the joist with not much more than you would use to hold a picture on a wall.
Oh well, only three trips to Home Depot and a good spell in the itchy, cramped hell that is my attic were necessary to get it done. I swore prolifically, and my wife felt bad for initiating the project. I suppose I would have refused to do it had I known what a hysterically inconvenient installation it was going to be, but I'm pleased with the results. Also, a 30-pound (I don't know, the cursed thing felt heavy, anyway) ceiling fan clattering down onto one's meal is something I'm happy to have prevented.

Evidence Left by the Orange Wino

This is a mere fraction of the corks Luis (Don Luisito), my excellent friend of some years, and I have generated. Don Luisito and I have drained many a bottle to the dregs. Ah, memories. I bequeathed this corkboard to him when I was getting ready to move across the country. He took me out to dinner on my last night in San Diego (La Casa de Guadalajara in Old Town, I had Mole Poblano), and my last glimpse of the Pacific Ocean was through the window of his mid-80's Nissan Sentra.

Yes, many a bottle has been drunk and many a topic has been discussed by Don Luisito and myself, often on my patio in North County San Diego or in one noisy bar or another (Shakespeare's by the airport or Nunu's in Hillcrest most immediately rush to mind).
 

Clam Chowdah

 
I decided to make some clam chowdah on a nice fall day. That's the remnants of a very good glass of Spaten Oktoberfest. I baked the bread earlier and made garlic-parsley butter to slather on it.
Those are Cherrystone clams in there, and yes, the chowder has bacon in it. Fresh thyme, too. The shells from the clams are now part of the gravel next to the house.

Updates to the System

Since things are different now from when our Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution, I suggest some updates to our system of government:

1)Brevity: Since the majority of information we get about our government comes in soundbites of 30 seconds or less, I propose a maximum term limit of one day for all elected offices.
2)No political parties allowed.
3)No campaigns allowed.
4)Television programs featuring people of opposing opinions who argue about politics and interrupt each other shall be punishable by death. Producers and network executives, especially. Death by pliers. On television.
5)Since evidently the United States has elected itself the fucking policeman of the world, I propose we charge the world taxes for our services.
6)End the electoral college. Or, simply declare that each and every eligible voter is in fact a state with the attendant electoral votes. People who talk on cel phones while driving are worth no electoral votes, people who brew their own beer are worth more.
7)Free doughnuts on Wednesdays.

Our Great Democracy

You know what? I just want this crap to be over. I'm tired of campaigns. Thanks to the electoral college, my vote doesn't matter anyway.

Ugh. Cynicism.

Super Nachos, You are Close to My Heart.

 
This causes pangs of nostalgia. My wife went to San Diego recently to visit her family (alas, I haven't yet built up sufficient vacation time to have gone with her), and she happened to snap a picture that had Filiberto's in it.

That hurt.

Filiberto's is a taco shop, open 24 hours, which has a drive through. San Diegans reading this will understand the gravity of my heartache. Those of you in the rest of the world will hopefully find this intriguing and edifying.

Filiberto's is in Encinitas, near the corner of Highway 101 and Encinitas Boulevard. There are a number of them, but this location has happy memories for me. Taco shops in the San Diego area are a wonderful thing, a true cultural distillation. They serve Mexican food, and they are loved by Mexicans and Gringos alike. It is 2,596.72 miles away from my stomach right now. If you're reading my blog for the first time, I'll let you in on a secret: food is an important part of my life.

Taco shops in San Diego usually have orange formica booths and cheesy velvet paintings of Aztec warriors cradling unconscious damsels in their arms. Items on the menu are often misspelled. There is no kid's play area. There is no McCafe. The help does not kiss your ass just because you're a customer. They speak English, but not as well as they understand it. If you're a pain in the ass white person, they understand less and less. I love it. "Kahepyou?" the man behind the counter barks.
"Yeah, hi."(loudly, because people of other cultures can understand you better if you shout) "I want like a bean and cheese burrito or something. And do you have like fat free beans or something? and what kind of sour cream do you use? And hold that stuff. That, I don't know, that hot Spanish sauce. And I hate guacamole. You always put guacamole on it."
"Go straight to hell," the counter man's eyes say, but he muddles through well enough to finish the transaction. Taco shops are in business, and they don't whitewash it with a bunch of bullshit. Order your food and get the hell out. They won't pretend to care about you. That's fine by me; I'm not there for group hugs.

Filiberto's has a couple of outdated video games and a jukebox full of Mexican popular music. It cannot be improved upon, unless they could start serving ice cold Pacifico. The burritos are as big as my forearm (carnitas and carne asada are my preferences there, roasted pork and grilled beef, respectively), and the Super Nachos necessitate a week of hibernation, like a boa constrictor after a nice meal of a whole sheep. It's a pile of chips covered in sliced grilled beef, refried beans, sour cream, shredded cheese, pico de gallo, and guacamole. I get a few little plastic cups of hot sauce (the guy behind the counter, as he's handing me my styrofoam container of goodness, barks, "Hossauce?"), a fistful of napkins, and a large tamarindo (a sweet, brown refreshment that I might describe as a slightly earthy version of apple juice), and head to the beach to gorge myself and watch the waves. It's only a couple of blocks away.

Simple, wonderful, somewhat unhealthy bliss. I miss that.

Sky Captain and the Human Organ Black Market

(listening to "A Shot in the Dark" by Henry Mancini)

Let me begin with a recipe:

White Trash Mojito

Take a pint beer glass or a pint jar. Put a couple of sprigs of mint in the bottom (leave the leaves on the stem) and bruise them with the end of a wooden spoon or the drumstick that was thrown to you at the end of that Helix concert. Pour a couple of ounces of light rum in there. Pour in cold Sprite and top with ice cubes. Drink. Repeat as necessary.

("Buona Sera," by Louis Prima with Keely Smith)

Here's what I wrote in my little dogeared journal this afternoon:

10-11 Rudino's Rooftop. It's amazing what they can conceal in a suburban strip mall. The view is of nothing but suburban strip mall, but sitting on a rooftop on a very pleasant afternoon sipping a Guinness has a lot to be said for it.
Work has been hard, but I have reason to be proud. I have done well, I think.
I went to see Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow this past weekend. Enjoyable film as long as you fastidiously keep your disbelief suspended. Some girl tried to give me her number. Was she looking for something legitimate or just a fuck? Probably just a fuck; women don't hand their phone numbers to strangers in dark movie theaters because they see a potential husband. Or perhaps she wanted to drug me and sell one of my kidneys on the black market? I was completely caught off guard. By the time I finished saying "Uhhhhh," she said, "I'm sorry!" and scurried out the exit. Strange. I'll just take it as the misbegotten ego boost that it is and move on.
Lindsey is in San Diego. I wish I was with her. I miss her, and I want a vacation, and I miss San Diego.

("Return to Me" by Dean Martin)

I was hit on by some poor misguided lass who couldn't see my wedding ring in the dark. She wasn't a wallflower, either. Even if this would have happened to me as a single man, I wouldn't have taken her up on it out of pure uncertainty. What was she smoking? What diseases does she have? Did she have friends a few rows back, daring her to get some stranger in a brown flannel shirt to bone her? Was it a joke? Was she just lonely? Lindsey thought it was funny when I told her about it. I think it's kind of spooky. Lord knows what happens to girls like that when it's not a harmless schmuck like me to whom they offer their number scrawled on a pink Post-it note.

And now I'm sitting at my computer, listening to popular Italian-American tunes of the sixties and seventies, drinking, and wearing my NEW YORK FUCKIN CITY t-shirt that I purchased in Lower Manhattan in 2002. This is a snapshot of a renaissance man.

Life Goes On

Sitting at work. Yes, sitting at work. The calls come in slower at night.

This is pretty damned stressful when it's busy, and I've had some weird calls. All things considered, we're doing pretty well. Friday creeps inexorably closer, bringing payday and the end of a draining week.

I get such a charge out of my nephews. I can't wait to get home and see their little sister, too. I enjoy their company; there's nothing like bright kids to keep you young and simultaneously force you to be some sort of an adult, too.

What has happened to me? I felt so paternal as I sliced cantaloupe and poured glasses of orange juice for the boys. I was genuinely concerned about giving them some nutritious food to eat (of course I also felt a burden of duty to their mother to take good care of them). At some point, while I wasn't looking, I grew up a little.

The Mondayest Monday Ever

(listening to "The Best of the Waterboys 1981-1990)
My brother Scott and my nephews Evan and Peter drove down from Michigan and stayed with us this past weekend. I hadn't seen any of them for a couple of years. Effort had always been required for the members of my family to be together ever since I moved away from Michigan. As a result, we cherish our time together, and seeing the next generation of our family is always a great experience. Their little sister Elise stayed home with their mother Ann because the drive would be a bit too much for a 4 year-old. The boys are bigger and even brighter than when I saw them last, and seeing Scott has helped me feel a bit more connected to my Michigan roots.

They drove away this morning, headed home under a sky which resembled automotive primer paint. How depressing. We fished, we went to the natural sciences museum, we hiked around parks, we did lots of uncle/nephew stuff. I cooked for them. I drank beer with Scott. This was their first meeting with Lindsey, and the boys seem to like their new aunt. Scott tells me I have done well in the wife department, and I agree. Lindsey enjoyed the family visit, and she was justifiably impressed by the tremendous and frightening intelligence of the boys. It was fortunate that I didn't have any fireworks sitting unattended around the house. Something would have been noisily destroyed. Or maybe not, they are as well-behaved and obedient as an 8 and 10 year-old can realistically be.

It's a hollow feeling. It's quiet again. Lindsey has unhappily gone to work, and her boss has turned out to be less mature, less organized, and less able to deal with other human beings than one would expect from an adult. I have no one to make pancakes for. I have no tangled shoelaces to help untangle; I have no hooks to put worms on. I have to go to work soon, and I'm being thrown into a job half-trained due to obvious corporate shittiness. Scott counseled me that this is the way of the world, and he is unfortunately correct.

I would rather continue making quesadillas or hamburgers for my nephews than talk to demanding, lazy pharmaceutical sales reps.

It's so Monday. It's Mondayissimo.

The Texas Chimp vs. The Tall Botox Guy

If I was a Bush supporter, I would have been tearing my hair out last night. He couldn't put a sentence together without using "uhhh" or stuttering at least a few times. He was pretty negative, testy and evasive, just like the Republican National Convention. He totally sidestepped or stalled on several questions, and he used a couple of sentences that were grammatical nonsense. I suppose I should cite specific examples here, but I'd need a transcript to be accurate.

Evidently, his handlers made him memorize the closing statement; that was the only time he made any sense (and then, he just came back up to his corny wooden speech standard of quality). That, along with the word "denigrate" and the phrase "mixed messages," were the only things that would fit in his head.

Kerry, I thought, held up pretty well. He actually answered the questions. He pronounced the words correctly and used complete sentences. His voice didn't pubescently warble with emotion. He made geopolitical references. I don't know, perhaps it's difficult for me to be objective.

When you take the President out of his element (he usually only faces friendly audiences and he only uses one, repetitively rehearsed message on the campaign trail), Bush comes across as slow-witted. What the hell is he doing in the Oval Office?