Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving day is sunny and hits 45° before falling back. I’m at my computer when I become aware that I smell smoke. My thought is: smoke? I spin my chair around and look behind me: living room, dining room, and kitchen are filled with clouds of smoke. Holy crap! I have a fire! I jump up and run to the kitchen where the smoke is thickest.

I have a pot of vegetarian chili simmering on the stove, and I momentarily think I must have inadvertently set the burner to maximum heat and the pot has boiled over and the food is burning, but no; the temperature knob is set to simmer and nothing is boiling over. I turn the burner off anyway.

I am still in emergency mode. My house is on fire! But where the hell is the fire? Is it inside my kitchen wall? Was it started by electrical wiring? If it’s inside the wall, how is all this smoke getting through the wall and into the room? It’s a funny feeling to think your house is on fire and you’re powerless to do anything about it. Suddenly my brain clicks into gear and I know what is happening. You’ve probably already guessed.

Let’s back up to the day before Thanksgiving, a day that was cold and rainy. I had gone to the grocery store to pick up a half dozen items, and the store was slammed. It might have been the day before the Apocalypse. Or the day before a zombie invasion. It was so crowded it was difficult to move around. But everybody was in a good mood. I got stuck behind a lady who was gabbing and waving at other people she recognized instead of moving along. So I said to her, in a voice loud enough that she would know I was addressing her, “Are we moving forward?” And she half turned toward me and said, “We don’t know.” We both laughed. It was that kind of atmosphere in the store. Busy busy, but people were making allowances for the situation.

I bought my half dozen items including, for a new batch of experimental chili, a can of diced tomato with green chilies, a can of Mexican style stewed tomatoes with jalapeño, cumin, & red pepper, a can of red kidney beans, and a can of black beans. I had a white onion at home that I would dice and add to the pot, along with chili powder and my secret spices. I remembered I had some pimento cheese at home, so I bought some sandwich rounds, also called sandwich thins. I rarely eat bread, but I can pry apart a sandwich round and put pimento cheese on one half and get half the carbs of a slice of bread.

The next day, Thanksgiving Day, I make my chili and put it on the burner to simmer, and I decide to toast one half of a sandwich round for pimento cheese spread. I separate the halves and put one piece in the toaster, I seal the bag and put it back on the shelf, I clean a couple of utensils I used in making the chili, and I go merrily on my way to the computer. Meanwhile …

Yes indeed, I forgot about the bread in the toaster, and due to a mechanical issue, my toaster does not eject bread when it’s done. It sits there toasting away until I manually popup the bread. From seeing smoke and running to the kitchen, to remembering the bread in the toaster, probably no more than ten seconds passed, though it seemed longer.

I unplugged the toaster. The bread inside was almost completely converted to ash. A black fragment of toast still glowed like a fireplace ember. I opened a door and a window and went upstairs and switched on the whole house fan. It’s powerful draft cleared the air in about five minutes, though a faint whiff of burnt bread lingered in the air for a few more hours.

I hope your turkey day was enjoyable, with less charring than mine.

Three Songs

‘Tis the season, you know. So, let us have seasonal music. Though I’m not a fan of The Little Drummer Boy, this a cappella cover by Pentatonix is just so well done, with Kevin Olusola doing his beatboxing thing. Have a listen.

Now that the seasonal music is out of the way, here’s Radioactive (an Imagine Dragons cover), this time with Lindsey Stirling performing her violin magic and Kevin playing his cello. (Factoid: Kevin graduated from Yale and speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese.)

Speaking of Lindsey Stirling, I’m going to segue right into Spontaneous Me, because I like the music and I like the video.

Thanksgiving Week

This is Thanksgiving Day week in America – or as I call it, National Say-hello-to-the-weight-gain week. I don’t participate in the annual mass turkey slaughter; the novelty wore off long ago. I do, however, throw dietary restraint to the wind and over-indulge in various ways. At the store yesterday I bought a box of little chicken sandwiches (they’re small; two constitute a serving). Nuke ‘em and hose some ketchup on the chicken patty, and you’ve got a reasonably tasty treat, suitable for middle school kids and live-alone geezers. I bought fixin’s for chili, which I enjoy but rarely make. I kept feeling there was something else I needed to buy, but nothing came to mind. Then last night, as I prepared to watch TV, it came  suddenly to mind – I forgot to buy the beans. (Technically, chili doesn’t have beans, but that’s a whole other blog post; read it here.) I checked the time: 8 PM. The store was still open, so off I went to purchase beans. I bought pinto beans, dark red kidney beans, and black beans.

Today is cold and rainy, as will be tonight and tomorrow. It’s a good time to make (and eat) chili with beans. When I make chili I like to add, in addition to the chili powder and ground cumin seed, a wee bit of cinnamon and sugar. But only a wee bit – it’s easy to overdo. You don’t want cinnamon flavored chili; you want only a hint of the cinnamon. A little cinnamon goes a long way. And I buy diced tomatoes with “zesty” green chilies – zesty being a code word for “spicy-hot”. Chili should be hot. After all, it’s seasoned with chili peppers which are, by definition, hot. Heat-less chili is like fat-free mayonnaise or fat-free cheese. It’s like low-carb waffles. Which is to say, it’s not natural! You only live once, and when you die, you’re going to be dead a long, long time. Enjoy real food now!

Right now, I’m going to go and make some real food. It’s past noon and I haven’t eaten yet today. May your Thanksgiving be both tasty and fattening. Remember: if you don’t put on a few pounds, you’re doing it wrong.

<< Slow cooker loaded with chili fixin’s. It’s about to slow cook for 2 ~ 3 hours. It takes a long time to reach simmering temperature. When it starts to simmer, the veggies (onion, pepper, tomato) are cooked and it’s ready to come off the heat. Smells good, too!

 

And the proof is in the bowl. >>
Mmm … mmm … good!
Who needs turkey?

Great Spiral

When I was about four years old, my tonsils were removed. The doctor knocked me out with ether. At one time, ether was a common anesthetic, but when safer anesthetics were invented, ether was dropped because it is very toxic. Ether depresses breathing and can damage the liver and kidneys.

Unfortunately, ether overdoses were common. That’s because the LD50 of ether, the dose of ether that produces death in 50 percent of the population, is only slightly higher than the dose of ether required to reduce consciousness sufficiently for surgery.

That’s what happened to me. The doctor gave me an ether overdose.  On the outside, I was very peaceful – a little too peaceful, in fact. On the inside, it was quite another story.

I was unconscious, and perhaps my breathing had stopped, but I felt anything but unconscious. I could feel myself lying on the operating table in a dark room. Although I could not see them, I could sense around me the presence of others whom I took to be doctors and nurses. Above me in the blackness was a mighty, glowing spiral. It glowed with an intense white light as it slowly rotated. The spiral was unbelievably intense and seemed to burn its brilliance into my brain. I struggled to get off the operating table. The doctors and nurses fought to keep me on the table, but I lashed out at them with all my strength: kicking, flailing with my arms, thrashing, fighting. They held me down on the table while the burning white spiral spun slowly in space above me with an intensity beyond words.

When I awoke from surgery, I remembered how I fought to get off the operating table. I hoped that my struggle with the medical staff had happened only in my mind, but I couldn’t be sure; the struggle seemed so real. I knew the spiral had existed only in my mind, and therefore wasn’t “real”, but the memory was extremely vivid. For years afterward whenever I remembered that spiral I experienced its intensity all over again.

For a long time I wondered if, on some level of reality, it might have been real. Maybe something happened that my young mind tried to make sense of in the only way it could. With an overdose of ether in my brain, was I subconsciously fighting those who were administering it? Was my soul about to leave my body? The beings around me that I assumed were doctors and nurses ... perhaps they were guardian angels, or spirit guides and teachers, working to keep my soul in my body to prevent me from dying. I’d like to think that, but I have to believe that most likely – in fact, almost certainly – the experience was simply an intense, drug-induced dream and nothing more.

I don’t know why I saw the spiral, but the spiral shape is surely a fundamental part of the Cosmos. From the design of a seashell to the shape of our galaxy, from the design of the inner ear’s cochlea that allows us to hear, to the Spira mirabilis (marvelous spiral) in mathematics and the golden spiral in geometry, spirals – both real and abstract – are truly abundant. Now there is a clue to something important.

Kennedy

I was one of the first to read the news headline that proclaimed John Kennedy had been elected President. At the time, my job was delivering the morning newspaper, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, so I read the election headline shortly after 4 AM.

I learned of Kennedy’s death in my high school classroom. News of Kennedy’s assassination came over the intercom system. Everything stopped. Teachers stopped talking. Students stopped talking. Some of the girls in class were really upset.

During the three years between Kennedy’s election and his death, a lot of history took place. The Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. The Cuban missile crisis (newspapers showed anti-aircraft missile batteries on Florida’s beaches). The beginning of Project Apollo. The Berlin Wall was built (I remember American and Russian tanks facing each other across the border, guns pointed at each other). Freedom Riders rode into history. The March on Washington drew a quarter million people wanting jobs and freedom. Peter, Paul, and Mary began singing songs about freedom (and would soon also sing about war and peace). Military advisors went to Vietnam. It was a turbulent period in America.

Now it’s 50 years later and what surprises me most, next to still being around, is that all the people I know who remember those things like I do – they’re all old people. Unlike me.  Okay, so I’m on the wrong side of forty. But I’m not actually old. Not yet. So how come I seem to be the only not-old person who remembers all those things? Time is strange. Who would have thought a half century would seem so brief at the end, when it seemed so very long at the beginning.

In the News

I see in the news that a freshman U.S. Congressman from Florida got caught buying cocaine in Washington, D.C. Being new to Congress, he didn't know he was supposed to send a staffer to do that for him. That way, he could not only deny knowledge of the activity but he could put the onus on the staffer by telling police he always suspected that staffer of being a doper.

Congressman to cop: "He has a shifty look. I never trusted him. But I try to give everyone a chance, because that’s the kind of person I am."
Staffer: “Say what?!”
Cop to staffer: “You’re going down, dirt-bag!”

Although getting caught buying or using drugs may not hurt one’s political career, it’s still frowned upon in high places.

There’s a lot of stuff in the news that I really don’t want to hear about, but the news media just won’t let go of certain stories. Stuff I really don’t want to hear about includes:

• George Zimmerman’s latest brush with the law.
• Kanye West
• Kim Kardashian.
• Kanye and Kim having sex in a music video.
• Anyone who uses a single letter of the alphabet for their last name.
• Miley Cyrus’s latest publicity stunt.
• Twerking, whatever that is.
• Lady Gaga, no. But Stephanie Germanotta, maybe.

Ah well, it’s a long list. I’ll stop here.

Say Hello to My Little Friend

Today the sky looked like the picture above, except the sun was brighter and the sky was bluer. Ten days from Thanksgiving, the afternoon temperature reached 75° F. A chill is on the way, though. Tonight’s low will be 36° and tomorrow’s high will be 53°. The Prophesies claim Monday’s high will be 43°. December is near. But there may be a few more comfortable days before Old Man Winter gets an icy grip on the land.

(Speaking of Old Man Winter, “Old Man” is a seasonal winter ale brewed by Southern Tier Brewing Company. It’s 7% ABV – alcohol by volume. That should give it some kick. I mean, for beer.)

At quarter past 5 I decided to go to the store and bring back a salad from their salad bar. So I did, and it was delicious. I think the garlic croutons and craisins put it over the top. Anyway, the day was dusky dark as I left the house, but the western sky still glowed orange above the horizon. As I walked to the garage I saw, at the far end of my back yard, a small black and white animal that I assumed was a cat. As I got closer it ran from me, and I saw it was a bunny rabbit, the kind kids have as pets. I went to the store, got my salad, and drove back home. As I steered into the alley that runs behind my house, I saw a gray rabbit – a wild, “country” rabbit. It hopped along the alley beside my Jeep, veered into my yard ahead of me, and hopped out of sight.

As I write this blog, the TV is on and a rerun of The Big Bang Theory is airing. In this episode, Howard comes home and sits on the sofa beside Bernadette and shows her the tiny model of himself that he made at work with his new 3D printer. He holds mini-Howard beside his head and utters the line, “Say hello to my little friend.” And I thought, “Where have I heard that line before?”

“Say hello to my little friend” is one of those lines that is too good to use just one time. It was the name of:

• a first season episode of “Wise Guys?”
• a third season episode of “Scandal.”
• a first season episode of “Awake.”
• a first season episode of “Hillbilly Handfishin’.”
• a fifth season episode of “Run’s House.”

It was also the line uttered by the Huge Goon (Stu ‘Large’ Riley) in the 2010 movie “Kick-Ass”, as he hefted his bazooka and aimed it at Hit-Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz).

And most famously, it was the line uttered by Tony Montana (Al Pacino) in the 1983 movie “Scarface”, just before he blew away the mobsters.

So now Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg) is speaking that line in “The Big Bang Theory.” It’s that moment of recognition as well as the juxtaposition of context that gives the viewer the momentary realization, “I’ve heard that before,” followed by the momentary satisfaction of knowing where and of being “in” on the inside joke. Like on NCIS, when Agent Todd (Sasha Alexander, who incidentally is the real-life daughter-in-law of screen legend Sofia Loren) asks Gibbs (Mark Harmon), “What did Ducky look like when he was younger?” And Gibbs answers, "Illya Kuryakin.” (David McCallum was Illya in the 1960s and is Ducky now.)

Or like on the cult series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, a show filled with insider lines and pop culture references, when Xander (Nicholas Brendon) opened the illustration of the Mayor’s demon form and it unfolded like a renaissance triptych, and Xander says, “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.” If you hadn’t seen “Jaws”, that line was wasted on you. Of course, Roy Scheider’s actual line in “Jaws” was, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.” But close enough.

I notice lots of little things like that – insider jokes, pop culture references – in the best American TV shows. I wonder how many of those insider lines go right over my head. And I wonder if viewers in other countries could possibly recognize those references, especially when the dialog is spoken in another language. Because if they don’t get them, they’re missing a lot of the show they’re watching. Maybe the best way to think of those insider lines and pop culture references is that they’re Easter eggs. And that is another pop culture reference – from the 1975 movie "The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

See what I mean?

Prison Time

I saw on the TV news that a mobster received two life terms plus five years. And I thought, “Only five years? After two life terms, he only has to serve five more years? I bet he can’t believe his good luck.” Of course, I don’t know whether the two life terms have to be served concurrently or consecutively. But as the mobster is 84 years old, it’s probably moot.

There was another man in the news recently who received one life term plus a thousand years. And I thought, “Which is worse: two life terms plus five years, or one life term plus a thousand years?” After thinking about it, I decided that the latter sentence is worse. Because people always say, “Life is short.” But a thousand years: that’s a millennium. Of course, just because a judge sentences you to a thousand years, it doesn’t mean you must actually spend a thousand years behind bars. I bet they would let you out after eight hundred years, and maybe after six hundred with good behavior. That assumes a mobster can be good for six hundred years straight.

And then a court observer made this observation: the mobster with two life sentences will spend the rest of his life in prison only because he’s 84. If he were a younger man – say, 25 – they’d have to let him out some day. This tells me that in the justice system, words have very different meanings than the words people use on the “outside”. It reminds me of dog years. The judge says, “I sentence you to fourteen years behind bars.” And the prisoner serves two years and is released.

Of course, there is also the possibility that time flows faster inside prisons. Perhaps the prisoner really does spend fourteen years in his cell, but on the outside only two years pass. For further clarification of this possibility, I point you to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 3 episode 1, “Anne”. I’m sure the show is still running on one of the less prominent cable channels – Logo, maybe. (Or you might find it on one of those broadcast channels that has a number ending in something other than “.1” – like 6.3 or 12.2 or 101.404 – digital TV’s equivalent of the old UHF knob that had 80 channels and no click-stops; Kevin James once said that tuning in a UHF station was like cracking a safe. But I digress.)

Sorry, I have this stream-of-consciousness brain that just rambles on making connections and associations until it’s out of control and I no longer remember the topic I started with or why I wanted to write about it. I should probably be on some kind of medication. I’ll look into that.

Janelle Monáe

I decided it was time once more to post some music. So here is Janelle Monáe Robinson, known as Janelle Monáe. I think she’s pretty good, as you would expect from an android. You see, Janelle is an android from the year 2719 who happens to enjoy 21st century American R&B and soul music. You don’t have to take my word for her being an android, though. You can ask Janelle; she doesn’t deny it. Her android name is Cindi Mayweather. Janelle Monáe is actually Cindi Mayweather’s alter ego. She’s here in the 21st century because she’s hiding from the law back home. She broke the law by falling in love with a human named Anthony Greendown. But that’s another story.

This song, “TightRope”, is from her 2010 album The ArchAndroid. Note the dance moves – they’re a tipoff that you’re watching androids. Humans don’t move like that.

November Days

Sunday was sunny and breezy, and every breeze blew a shower of brown leaves off the willow oak standing in the yard of the house across the street. The tree rained its acorns a week earlier. I stood on my porch and listened as acorns thudded on the roof and dinged off the awnings of the house below the tree. The tree’s yard has a blanket of brown leaves, and every breeze helps spread those leaves across the street and into my and my neighbors’ yards.

The street’s gutters are full of crisp, brown and yellow leaves. Sometimes a strong breeze marches them in straight lines across my yard, and sometimes a small whirlwind will pick up the leaves and spin them in the afternoon sunbeams like a luminous dust devil – a devil made of leaves instead of dust. It’s a harbinger of cold weather which will be here soon and a reminder of things that come with cold weather: holiday rituals, fire in the fireplace, hot apple cider with cinnamon and nutmeg (and maybe a hint of rum), hot soup on cold days, starry skies on cold nights, snow falling silently over city and countryside.

I’ve  been watching the TV news reports about those poor people in the Philippines, and I was reminded how fortunate I am to be here in central Virginia, in a house with food and water, with a roof over my head, protection from the weather, a car that can travel open streets to stores stocked with food, clothing, and anything else I may need, and doctors and clinics ready to help me should I need help. Hundreds of thousands of Filipino people have none of those things now. They wander like lost souls, hungry, thirsty, wounded, owning only the clothes they wear. Many have lost their families and have nowhere to go. They meander amidst miles of death and destruction where once stood homes, shops, theaters, office buildings, parking garages. They’ve suffered a calamity so great that the agencies struggling to help them are overwhelmed. “Help us now,” they plead. And indeed, it is now, not tomorrow, when help is so urgently needed. But for many, help will arrive too late.

In America, Thanksgiving Day is 16 days away. Amidst the grumbling, bickering, blaming, and criticizing we read in news media and hear on TV, most Americans must know their problems are mere inconveniences compared to the real misfortunes that exist in the world. We need not wait for Thanksgiving Day to ponder, and be thankful for, the good things that Providence, or destiny, or chance, has provided us. It is unwise to take those things for granted.

Losing My Mind

I’m pretty sure that until Sunday, November 3, my home was operating on Daylight Saving Time. Which, incidentally, about half of all Americans incorrectly refer to as Daylight Savings Time.  It’s probably the same people who refer to a safe deposit box as a safety deposit box.

Daylight Saving Time ended Sunday at 2 AM. The local TV news advised everyone to set our clocks back an hour Saturday night. Alas, I was watching TV Saturday night and forgot all about setting my clocks back an hour. My computer and cell phone automatically adjust their time, but the other clocks in my house have to be manually set. One clock is on the front of an old VCR that sits on a shelf below my TV. The VCR no longer works, but I keep it because its clock still keeps time, and it’s in a convenient location. The VCR clock used to automatically adjust for the start and end of Daylight time. But I bought it prior to 2007, which was when the start and stop dates for Daylight time were altered by Congress. So I turned off the clock’s “auto-adjust” feature so it wouldn’t change its time on the wrong days. Now I manually change the VCR clock twice a year by using the remote control.
I adjust my bedroom clock radio twice a year, too. That involves holding down a button (Time Set) while pressing another button (Hours). It only goes forward in time, so to go back an hour, I have to go forward 23 hours (to get back to the correct AM/PM setting).

The living room wall clock is analog; I have to carefully wind the minute hand backward one complete revolution. There’s a clock on my microwave oven and a clock on my electric stove. There’s even a clock on my cordless phone – a small LCD window that displays date, time, and other info such as caller ID and phonebook. (That phone plugs into a gadget that plugs into my Internet router.)

You get the picture. Setting all these clocks back an hour takes a little effort and it isn’t something that, after you’ve done it, you aren’t really sure if you did it. It’s easy to be unsure whether you took your nightly pill two hours ago. It’s virtually impossible to be unsure whether you set all the clocks in your house back an hour.

And yet.

Sunday came, I remembered that Daylight time had ended and I needed to adjust all my clocks accordingly. I went to my computer and looked at the time. I looked at the VCR clock and saw that it agreed with my computer. I got up and looked at the clocks on the microwave oven and the kitchen stove; they, too, agreed with my computer. I looked at my analog wall clock. All my clocks agreed with my computer. I knew I hadn’t adjusted the clocks, so I concluded that for reasons unknown, my computer didn’t adjust itself to the end of Daylight time. To verify that, I grabbed my cell phone and clicked the power button. The screen lit up with the date and time. It, too, agreed with my computer. WTF is going on?

If all my clocks are still on Daylight time, I reasoned, then my computer and cell phone must be displaying incorrect time. I typed “time” into Google’s search box and instantly Google presented me with the local time: it was the same time that my computer and cell phone – and all my clocks - were showing. It was the same time that my cordless phone was showing.

My Jeep has two clocks on its dashboard and I don’t bother changing them to Daylight time – they stay on Eastern Standard Time year round. Before Sunday, those two clocks were one hour slower than my other clocks. If all my clocks had been somehow set back an hour, then they should now agree with the clocks in the Jeep. So I went to the garage and checked the clocks in my Jeep. They displayed the same time as the clocks in my house. So my clocks were set back an hour between Saturday night and Sunday morning. But how?

Let’s be clear: I did not set all those clocks back an hour on Saturday night. On Saturday night, I watched TV and I went to bed. I live in this house alone, and if I don’t do it, it doesn’t get done. And I didn’t set those clocks back an hour on Saturday night. But on Sunday, all my clocks had been set back an hour.

Here are the possibilities:

1. Space aliens adjusted my clocks remotely from their mother-ship.

2. Friendly gremlins live upstairs.

3. I set all the clocks while I was asleep.

We’ve all heard stories of people sleepwalking, and even doing somewhat complex tasks while asleep, such as fixing food in the kitchen or driving a car. The reason these things can happen in our sleep is because it is possible for a part of our brain to awaken while the rest of our brain is asleep. When that happens, we may be able to do certain things like walking, driving, making a meal, but we are not conscious of having done anything because the conscious part of our brain is fast asleep.

Until Sunday, the clock on my VCR had been a minute fast. But Sunday, when I compared the VCR’s clock to my computer’s time, I noticed the VCR clock was two minutes slow. So it definitely had been tampered with. Those two minutes were the time my sleeping self needed to:

Turn on the TV and use its remote to set the input to the VCR.

Turn on the VCR and punch up the menu screen.

Navigate the menu to the Clock settings.

Set month. Set day. Set hours back.

Exit VCR setup menu.

Maybe it is the Ambien I took a little while ago so I can sleep tonight. It is doing something to me. It took several long days to type that last word. I’m in Ambien land and it is very F*CKED. In this world of Ambien land, I see people trying to help me. I see them with my peripheral vision. If I look directly at them, they disappear.

I dream reality now, and reality dreams me. It’s one great mandala, slowly rotating through time and space and reality and dreams and wishful thinking which all blends: the real, the imaginary, the symbolic. It’s over my head. It’s out of my hands.

Thank you, my sleeping half, or you thoughtful gremlins who I know only want to help me, for your efforts to keep all my clocks running on time. It looks like you did a thorough job. But let’s try to leave it at that.  Let’s not sell the house to strangers while I think I’m in bed sleeping. Let’s not move to southern California while I think I’m asleep. These are Big Things. For now, let’s practice on Small Things while I learn to control this new power.