Side effects

I know I haven't been keeping at it for long, but I have been making an effort to write more.  Though it has only amounted to three or four posts so far, you'll have to excuse me for not writing the past three days.  I've been laid up, in a sense, with the third cold of the Winter season.  I'm officially done being sick so I'm hitting this with everything I can.  Zicam all the time, Nyquil whenever possible, Zinc cough drops all day at work, and Breathe Right strips for the evening.  Standing up makes breathing tolerable, but sitting and relaxing usually causes one nostril to clog, so enjoying my evenings is tedious and somewhat painful.

Once this goes away, and it is, I will get back to writing.  I've had one idea and I've been thinking through it while I work every day, thinking of things to put down.  It will be ready for print soon, methinks.  In the meantime, check out Andrew Bird's newest album.  Very nice stuff.  Just discovering him, myself.  I'm gonna go watch a Harrison Ford movie.

Ta ta for now,

Your humble narrator

A reminder

I spent yesterday watching the presidential inauguration and then the documentary Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S. Thompson.  It got me to thinking a lot about the world and where we've gotten since yesterday's historic swearing in.

It seems that the world is now giddy and anxious to put down the lofty plans of our new president.  There's not enough time.  There aren't enough resources to execute his goals.

I stand behind the president of the United States, whoever it might be, and I stand behind our current president.  I believe that this is a great country and can become better at any given opportunity, and I believe this is the man that will try to start that journey.  Whether it takes two terms and several other presidents to come, we can make it.

And I look back at the race, the eye gouging and the name calling.  I look back at Joe the Plumber and Palin's clothes.  We are so much more than the sum of our parts.  If anything, this will be a welcome respite from the stuttering soullessness that has been our charge for the last eight years.

Something of a fantastic weekend.

With Mom out of the house, and the cold pressing on the doors and windows, I decided to take it easy this weekend. Quiet and content, I haven't had a weekend alone in a very long time. Most Saturdays of the recent past have been spent sitting on Martha's couch watching movies from my instant queue on Netflix. She'd get home around 7, and then we'd watch more movies, or grab a bite to eat. Those weekends are nice. Great even. It's nice to go down there and chum it up with the locals for a few days and then beat back to Raleigh on Sunday and do laundry and sit on my couch.

But this past weekend was going to be a guy weekend. I was going to go to Lowe's and look at locks for the doors on the house. Maybe even buy some and drag the drill out of its closet. Screw some deadbolts and chains. Maybe even one of those industrial strength hotel door latches. Maybe a couple slide locks for the top and bottom of the door. Dredge some wood out of a wall and bore screws and throw instructions away. And after that, maybe I'd go to Circuit City and threaten to buy a large flatscreen TV and hook it up and watch the Time Warp guys blow stuff up, or watch some football games with the sound way up, or turn it over to Discovery HD and watch a stream run in high definition. Watch some salmon swim upstream. This was to be a guy's weekend. I had three bottles of Orangina (my recent drug of choice), a pint of Ben & Jerry's and some pizzas. I could sit around and scratch myself and make Tim Allen grunting noises.

Instead, Martha came up. She got out of work early on Saturday, and drove up to see me. I had spent the day watching movies and cleaning up the room after a long week at work, coming home and throwing my clothes on the floor before heading to the shower to wash the flour from my face. As soon as she got here we threw our coats on and headed over to Circuit City. If you haven't heard, and are wondering why that's my new favorite place, they're closing. So, everything is being liquidated. And that means sales. And that means cheap flatscreens. Throwing the dreams of going to DC in March to the wind, we walked in and browsed through the options. I have a new credit card, and the limit was well within the range of buying a TV that night. But, as she tends to do, she talked me off the ledge of irresponsibility. I can't imagine how poor I would be if she weren't around. Actually, when she wasn't around I spent some exorbitant amount of money taking some friends to dinner, and regret it to this day. They could have paid. Well, they probably couldn't afford it, but I had fun, and the food was awesome. I digress. Martha looked at laptops because she refuses to buy a Mac for some reason. Haven't quite pegged that down. Can't put a price on quality. So, dipping in and out of the herds of consumers, we ducked out early, and headed to the grocery store. Martha got a bottle of red, and I got a can of white. Cream of mushroom soup, so not so much white as mushroom colored.

I made Swedish meatballs once home, and it went over well. Apparently, when love is in my heart, I can cook. If it was anything in a sauté pan, forget it, but baking meatballs and heating a sauce is well within my culinary range.

We ended the night by watching Sunshine and eating our dinner. We discussed family as I baked off some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I was running some test batches to find the correct baking temperature and time on a standard oven. I never can seem to get it right. These came out crunchy, so I need to up the temperature, I think.

Oh, and Sunshine; if you haven't seen it please do. It's all I want to talk about these days. I can't

believe it wasn't more popular when it came out. It has an amazing cast and the story is incredible. And the soundtrack is beyond words. Just the right blend of all of those aspects. If you liked Event Horizon, this is the thinking man's Event Horizon, minus black holes and ghosts.

Sunday, we had a plan. We were going to eat well and have cultural experiences. One of those experiences fell through. Durham was the destination, and the Intergalactic (yep) Jewelry and Bead show was in season. But we needed sustenance first. Earlier in the week I had been reading an article in the News & Observer about the hot new restaurants that have made the grade in the Triangle in 2008. Watt's Grocery was at the bottom of the list because of price, but held its own on food quality. Everything is either locally grown, organic or fair trade. So, you don't have to feel guilty eating there, and it probably tastes better than Pizza Hut's new organic, fair trade pepperoni pizza. I had their signature breakfast of two free range eggs, on-site smoked thick cut bacon, a made from scratch biscuit, homemade raspberry jam and hash browns. The portion sizes were responsible for a small restaurant. I didn't want to be too full and have a miserable, gassy day. I was full, but not stuffed when I left. They also had fresh squeezed orange juice which is very good (but how can you screw up orange juice, really?) and their sweet tea is some of the best I've ever tasted. In fact, it's a close second to the Vortex's honey sweetened iced tea. Martha had the bowl of grits, which looked excellent for being grits. It was covered in cheese, an egg and avocado. Some of the other options were bacon crumblings and green onions. I highly recommend checking out Watt's Grocery the next time you're in the Durham area.

And I'm glad breakfast was good because we were about to have our hearts broken. We drove downtown and parked, paying two dollars for a lot that should have been free over the weekend, but they had a sign saying there was an event going on. Indeed, we thought there was an event going on. The Marriott, as the paper said, was going to host the jewelry and bead show from 10 to 5. Martha was psyched, but as we walked further and further down the halls of the Marriott's conference center we grew disheartened. There was no bead show. There were no people, and when we checked with the quiet front desk attendant she simply said, "No." We walked out, and tried several calls to local events coordinators to no avail. We walked back to the warmth of the Marriott lobby where we were greeted by a doorman. A creepy looking doorman with the skin of a red head and pale blonde hair. His facial hair blended seamlessly with his skin tone, and his voice was that of a young, fresh Tom Waits. He informed us that the newspaper had been wrong and the bead show was the previous weekend.

Close to tears we both went back to the car. Now, Durham, it was war. We drove off, with the hope that somewhere something cool was happening. We had some six hours to kill before the central purpose of the trip, which was a play by the Paperhand Puppet Intervention troop.

Chapel Hill was calling us both. Namely, A Southern Season was beckoning with its warm, soft, thin-veined hand and we answered. Not before checking out Trader Joe's. Martha was not impressed as Oscar Wilde was not impressed with the Atlantic Ocean. I purchased a chocolate shake from Evo's, and enjoyed the hell out of it. It was so rich and pure chocolaty. After leaving Trader Joe's we drove on to A Southern Season and picked out utensils for our future home. Teapots, spatulas, pans, wooden plates, etc. They were having a sale of 15-75% off the entire stock of the store. We didn't buy anything. After Southern Season we walked through the mall and dropped in on Cameron's. They had some cool stuff, but nothing too cool. The coolest thing was probably the skirt with Obama's picture on it. Martha was close to buying it.

Dinner rolled around and we wanted to experience Fishmonger's. I've lived in North Carolina for approximately 13 years now, and I've probably known about Fishmonger's for 12. Never been. Never tasted. Not even at the Taste of Durham festival a few years ago when it was right across the street. Oh well. This weekend was it. We walked in, frozen from the cold, and preceded to stay just as cold inside. It's not very well heated, being a very authentic shoreside seafood restaurant. Martha had the sampler platter of crab legs, clams and peel and eat shrimp in Old Bay seasoning. I had a pound of clams. They were massive. Heavy to pick up, even and I'm a pretty strong guy. We also had fried jalapenos, which ended up being the downfall of the meal. We ate them, and they were fantastic, but our waiter, as well as the rest of the wait staff refused to refill either of our drinks. Martha got a second cup of hot tea, but between us we had one iced tea and one water. I needed more. My mouth was on fire and the ranch dressing wasn't helping. I had to stop eating them and wasted a good portion of the bowl, which I wouldn't have done could I have subdued the pain a bit. Oh well, the food was good, and the atmosphere was

inspiring.

Onto the end of the night, we saw the new Paperhand Puppet Intervention show, The Hungry Ghost. It's the story of what happens to the greedy in the afterlife. This would be Martha's first foray into the PPI experience. Altogether, I would say this isn't the best first show to go to. It was heavily reliant on shadow puppetry, which I enjoy and am impressed by when I see it done well, but it can get laborious sitting in a room staring at three little circular screens for an hour and a half. The scene stealers were two life-sized, greed-seized humans that were full-body controlled. They were contorted and blown out of proportion to symbolize their greed and gluttony. Very well done. I enjoyed the story, but can understand how the first-time viewer might be bored. We'll have to go to their summer show when it's outdoors and more visually capturing.

I had a great weekend with my girl. Guy time is every night these days. I sit in my room and watch Batman cartoons. I get to do what I want to do. When Martha comes around I get a glimpse at what life will be like once I've given up some of that freedom to co-habitate. I like what I see so far.

Target: is there anything they don't sell?

I suppose we all have them.  It would just be nice if there were some way to forget them aside from growing old and adopting a policy of Alzheimer's.  If life were more interesting I probably wouldn't sit around and ruminate on these things, but as it is, I have approximately 8 hours a day to do nothing but stand around and think of these moments.

Martha and I have started playing Monopoly online while we video chat.  It's much nicer than phoning one another and the misunderstandings that tends to bring.  One weekend I drove down to surprise her.  I think I was still off work and living it up for one more week.  I took some extra days off near the end of my convalescence to see her for her birthday.  As per usual, I was at her house on Saturday while she worked at the hospital.  I decided it would be fun to go out and run some errands.  While I was out I picked up Monopoly: Here & Now Edition.  It looked cool.  I wanted to use the Prius piece.  I'm a marketing whore.  Put the word "new" on something in a yellow explosion outline and I'll try it.  Well, Martha got home, and she saw the game and got excited, but not as much as I expected her to.  She wanted to return it for the regular old Monopoly.

We got in the car and were on our way to return the game.  In the return/exchange line she confided in me that she felt like a pettish child for wanting to return the game and not being satisfied with the gift she was given.  We talked about the movie Babe and the little girl that cries because she doesn't get the dollhouse from the catalog she saw.  Instead she gets a beautiful hand made dollhouse that is one of a kind and made with love.

I told Martha about when I was little and we were close to poor.  I think this was after we had been using food stamps to get by.  Anyway, we weren't well off by any means, but Mom got us through.  We were shopping at Target for something after school and work.  This was back when Mighty Morphin Power Rangers had just come out.  We're talking old school ones.  Before the White Ranger showed up, so super geeks can calculate a range of years by that information.  The toys were the hottest thing.  Those big action figures that didn't fit the scale of any of your other action figures.  As if to say, "I'm the new kid on the block.  Better get all of these or else you'll have a lone giant amongst your puny hero toys."  The red ranger was my favorite, and I had to have it.  I went back to the toy section by myself and found one!  I took the oversized box back to my mom, and asked her if I could get it.  She looked at it, and looked sad.  Now, I think there might have been something else going on that I wasn't aware of, but I have no idea what.  Perhaps money problems or problems with her current boyfriend.  I don't know.  Anyway, she simply said, "I'm too tired to argue with you about it."  So, being a little kid I was like, "Cool!  I win!  Free toy!"

Even now, I feel a tinge of sickness welling up in me, and I just want to cry and tell her I'm sorry about that.  If I could have I would have paid for it myself.  If I had known what was going on I never would have asked.  If I had been a more mature and caring child I wouldn't have this weight on me now when I think back on it.

I try and go out of my way to be nice to people.  I often give up my own desires and happinesses so that others will feel fulfilled.  I can think back on that incident and mull over how horrible I was as a child and feel sick to my stomach and sad.  I do it often.  Too often, perhaps.  Mom got me two things that day: the red Power Ranger, and a crushing sense of humility.  I think I sold one off, or gave it to one of my friends as the years went on.  The other I keep close at all times.  Whenever someone tells me I've done a good job, or when someone compliments my various talents I think back on that red Power Ranger.  I smile, and thank them, but know that like the Power Ranger, that compliment will fade.  I have to be happy with what I already had, and that will last much longer than any instant gratification.

Quote of the day

Mandy: We should do something non-baby related.

Travis: Yeah.  You know what the opposite of babies is?  Guns.

Idiots

I'm minding my own business slicing today, right.  Just like I do once a week, every week at my job.  I'm slicing, ho hum, dum dee dum, do d'lee doo, and then this story comes on This American Life about not immunizing your kids.

Stupid.  What kind of self-absorbed person do you have to be to think that you have some say in whether you immunize your child?  Is there no greater good?  Are you that person that I smile at and you just walk by like I'm transparent?  Did object permanence never really kick in, and you think that when you shut your eyes everyone else goes away?  Well, you can close your eyes all you want, but it will just make it that much easier for me to hit you.

As I listened to the story it became abundantly clear that these people's ideas had no practical basis in a functioning society.  They talked about not feeding their child hormone infused milk and meat.  They talked about organic foods, which can mean several things, and working at Whole Foods I know this.  They even mentioned Whole Foods, and I almost started yelling at the person being interviewed, as if my headphone acted as a microphone as well, and they would hear me.  And then I caught myself and realized that would be about as stupid as these people.

Apparently, a year or so ago, there was an outbreak of measles.  Awesome.  And sure, there are outbreaks of diseases all the time.  It's just that measles kill if left untreated.  The flu doesn't.  A cold doesn't.  Chicken pox doesn't.  And this family got it by taking their kid to Switzerland on a trip.  One of these idiot families that doesn't believe in immunization.  When Andrew Speaker boarded a plane with drug resistant tuberculosis the nation was enraged.  The CDC got reamed for how they handled the situation.  And yet, children can go overseas and pick up diseases and bring them back here, and no one steps up and says boo?  What?  There are people that can't get these immunizations.  Children under 1 year of age, for instance, cannot get the measles immunization.  Their little systems can't handle it.  Like honey.  But, these anti-immunization parents don't really care about your newborn.  They'd just as soon see their child live with a horrible, and easily maintained disease before they see your weak baby live.  This is one of those instances where Darwin was wrong.  The adapted species did not win out.  The stronger did not conquer.

Let's hope when we are able to manage diseases such as AIDS and cancer, these parents step up and say, "No.  We will die happily knowing our bodies are chemical free.  Give us chemotherapy and radiation, but I'll be damned if I'm going to take a shot that will keep me from getting the disease altogether."  Let's join hands and work to decrease the population of idiots.