My Midnight Snack and Dan Almost Kills Someone

Actually, it took place at abou 4:30 AM, but midnight snack sounds better. Last night Andrea came over; she arrived around 10:30 and when we looked at the clock after quitting Boggle, it was 1:00 AM. In the course of this time, I beat her maybe twice, by pulling out such revered crossword treasures as "fen" and "ort," not to mention the occasional bigboy like "worker." We then spent another hour playing "Fuck, Marry, or Kill" in which I made Andrea tackle such scenarios as Pope, President, Speaker of the House--Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini--and Tom Cruise in Rainman, Minority Report, and Vanilla Sky. All this while passively keeping an eye on Roseanne. When she left, I dove into some more David Sedaris essays for an hour and then went to sleep only to awaken at four. I padded down to the downstairs bathroom where my flush wouldn't disturb the padres and then stopped at the refrigerator to look over its contents, smile at the stars (smoked salmon, diet coke with lime, everything bagels, rhubarb) and finally retire some pariah (curdled sour cream.) I spotted two cold pieces of the pizza I had made for lunch in the style of my senora in Spain--take a frozen pizza, cover it with tomato slices and extra cheese, and I also added a lot of salt, garlic, and a few chopped up shrimp. When it comes out of the oven its good, but later when it's cold or been sitting on the counter for eight hours until you've returned home from the marcha, it's incredible. The first bite hits your palette like some sort of super food, so rich and salty and savory with a little tang from the tomato--even after you swallow, you swoon from the lingering fragrance on your breath as the bolus inches down your esophagus and arrives satisfyingly in your stomach. That said, how could I stop after a bite? My appetite was whetted, so I couldn't stop after the first piece, either. Both pieces went down the hatch with gustatory abandon, though actually looking to get back to sleep, I refrained from washing it down with diet coke.

The salty appeased, I needed something sweet! Therefore, I removed from the refrigerator the 10'' wheel of flan that my mom bought from Costco for her bridge party with tapas for which I performed pro bono consulatation. I am convinced that you couldn't find a flan that big in Spain, that is unless the French challenged them to make one that big. Only Americans would so overdo something that was meant to be eaten in miniscule quantities. Anyway, I expected the flan to be shit, mainly because I'm not a big fan of flan, but when I took my first bite, fork plunged straight to the edge of the vast, quivering wheel, it was rich and dense and likely the best flan I've ever had, coming from someone who doesn't usually get flan. I proceeded to eat my way an inch into the wheel, free hand gesturing wildly in delight.

Earlier at work, while experiencing the slowest night yet, I got an order for an Endive Salad without nuts. Well, there was another salad on the order and I made the mistake of starting with it and forgot about the no-nuts caveat when I got to the Endive. Realizing my mistake after the salad went out, I grabbed the waiter in the kitchen and told him, a grave look coming across his face. He rushed off to the table immediately, while I returned to my station, wondering if I still had a job. He returned a minute later--"She ate the whole thing! But she saw the nuts and picked around them. Yeah, she's got (insert some word with maybe gastro and dict and ending in -itis) and that could send her to the hospital." Surprisingly, the waiter seemed to say this without malice, which is strange considering that when people have to hurry to the hospital they forget to leave 20% tips. Nonetheless, the lady seems to have been alright, and I still have a job. I imagine that when you have such a disorder, you're always on guard against absent-minded line cooks, mislabeled products, and passive aggressive in-laws.

What I've Been up to

The past week saw something of an Almodovar marathon; starting Wednesday, I went through Bad Education, All about My Mother, and Live Flesh, highest marks going to Bad Education for twists, turns, and plot within a plot complexity. I thought that the portrayal of the Church would be more political, but by telling that part of the story through the movie that the director was making, it distanced the whole thing; the Church came off as just another set of conventions in a movie. The real gritty part came when the actual priest told the real story; it was like two movies in one--bitter tale of revenge and gritty crime melodrama, all in one. All about My Mother wasn't nearly as good as I remember, and I really enjoyed it the first time I saw it. Between All about My Mother and Live Flesh, Almodovar seems to have a thing for getting Penelope Cruz pregnant and then killing her off. I guess the woman has the look of a martyr. How she got a career in America, I'll never understand. I think she's incredible (and incredibly beautiful) but still her star power eludes me. Live Flesh was recommended to me by an old Jewish lady for its sex scenes, and she was right (as I imagine old Jewish ladies tend to be in these matters.) However, the cop drama aspects of it seemed a little unbelievable. Spanish drug addicts you believe; tough Spanish cops...it's a stretch. And the best thing about these movies: SPANISH! Good ole lispy espanol with expressions like el que corta el bacalao and occaisions to call anyone a cunt!

Last night Andrea, Vince, and I went to the Art ($3 entrance) to see Bewitched. Considering all the ways they could have made that movie, it was pretty good, though a bit too long. Annoyingly, we were sitting behind a group of pesky teenagers that pulled out their cell phones to text message during the movie. And according to Andrea, the guy sitting directly in front of us reportedly jacked off behind his cello during a Portage band rehearsal. The nerve. Afterwards, we dropped by my house to check up on my mom's bridge club, but after asked to clear away a plate, I quickly led us out the door and over to Andrea's. There, Marcy and her 9-year-old neice Kaitlin were watching Law and Order. Marcy soon went to bed, and we switched to playing Boggle and drinking margaritas. Triple points were given to curse words. A good time was had by all.

Saturday my dad and I went down to Lake Maxinkuckee where spent the evening at a hog roast fundraiser for the lake association. The hog roast itself was fine, but it was followed by an auction, during which, rather than chuckle "Too rich for my blood!" and elbow bystanders, I chose to catch some shut-eye at the table, keeping one eye open in case an MBA or PhD came up on the block. Back at the lake house, I saw Stripes for the first time and then polished off the evening by getting rip-roaringly drunk and finished American Splendor: Our Movie Year and some laugh-out-loud-funny David Sedaris essays from Naked. I liked the American Splendor comics so much that I've been searching the library catalog for some more graphic novels to try. I just finished Naked, and although it's the only one of his books that I've read cover to cover, I feel knowledgeable enough to declare it his best. Excellent stuff!

Sunday, the parents and I went on a pleasant little bike ride, and then I made dinner: smoked salmon canapes, halibut with herb butter, pasta with a boursin portabello sauce, asian green beans, salad. Then I indulged myself in my favorite night of television--60 minutes, FOX animation, and rounding out the lineup with a cocktail or two, Intervention, the show that college students watch to make them feel better about the bad decisions they have as of yet not made. This week was different though because one of the addicts was an anorexic. Everyone else on the show is an addict of some kind, there is something which they need to have each day, but an anorexic is nearly the opposite, it's an avoidance, an addiction to behavior that doesn't involve eating. And of course she had a pleasant intervention--even though I'm surprised she left her daughter behind with her friend--because she knows that she can always drop her food in her napkin and rub her tummy--"Mmmmm, this food sure is good!" That's goooooood television!

Cyclists=Punks

That's right, you heard me--punks! I came to this conclusion this afternoon as I was running (I've been running a lot lately) down the bike path that goes from Wisconsin St. past Robinson Lake into Gary and Griffith. Anyway, as I was running back from the lake where I took an eerie lap--reliving/unliving high school, perhaps--these three guys on bikes (cyclists!!! grrrr!!!) came up behind me. I'm guessing they were smack dab in the middle of high school. One was wearing an Insane Clown Posse t-shirt. Another had several chains hanging down his pants which I could hear rattling as they approached. I don't want to overstate this story because it's not that good: one yelled "You better keep running away!" and I thought "Okay, yes I will keep running," and they passed.

However this comes on the heels of another incident, an incident involving oldies!!

That's right, last week as I was running on the bike trail that goes through Portage, a group of elderly--I don't mean middle-aged, I mean bona fide over-65ers--cyclists were behind me, and I didn't realize it. After all, I was jamming pretty hard to the Stop Making Sense soundtrack when the leader placed his arm on my shoulder, gently pushed me to the side, and loudly told me to stay over farther and maybe something else--this was all very sudden, you see. The group of about ten cyclists passed in their spandex shorts, fancy helmets, and pimped-out bikes, and I could see the leader glancing back at me in the little dental-size rear-view mirror clipped onto his helmet. I don't know exactly what to call what he did--it was somewhere between a tap and a shove--but whatever it was, it was done from a moving bike making it a drive-by. That's right, Dan has not only been the victim of a terrorist attack but also a drive-by! After a few minutes I caught up with the bikers on the edge of Rt. 6 where they had stopped for a water break. I could see Grandpa Drive-By eyeing me as I ran up to where they had clogged the path with their bikes. I could see Pushy McGee make an effort to herd the bikers to the side in a burst of organization and then recede into a bout of let-the-idiot-run-around-us, mountain prospector stick-to-it-ive stubborness. I didn't say anything.

BUT IF I HAD, it would have gone something like this:

"Excuse me, sir," Oh how they love the "sir"; that'll keep 'em listenin'. "Aren't you--well, maybe I'm not such a good judge of age, but aren't you part of the Greatest Generation?" Oh, I'm sincere, as if I just met the guy who played Carlton on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air but couldn't quite remember his name. "That is my generation, but I wasn't in the war--" And I'd have to keep cutting him off, otherwise he would succumb to the social pressure to show off his skills at rambling. "Oh well, still! Everyone did his part! But what I don't understand is" and here I more or less would lower the boom "is why in all those years you couldn't just buy a bell or horn for your bike instead of pushing runners off the road!" And here he'd sling a slur about runners as well as a disturbing reference to all the sexual activity he had before my parents were born. "So you can't be polite? What if I pushed you right now? I'm sure the AARP would never hear the end of it!" Then he'd tell me he could drop me like a bag of dirt, and we would get into a race-off. He'd take off across Rt. 6 with me close on his tail. While sprinting out my daylights I'd grab a stick, or flagpole, or baseball bat, or hand-crafted walking stick off the ground, wait til he went around the bend in the trail, then gain on him and stick in his spokes. As I would run away he'd shout, "I get the last laugh--you're paying my social security checks," to which I would shout "I'm unemployed, haHA!!"

And that is why cyclists--of all ages--are punks.

And I don't hate old people. I find them very entertaining. As a child, not understanding the concept of a nursing home all that well, I wanted to go to Miller's Merry Manor because I swore that they were partying in there. Why else would it be Merry? And a Manor!

And so Dan wants to party with old people.

America! Lists!

Since Americans love lists and lists are easy to write, I'm going to kick this off with a list of the contents of an old wallet that I recently found and have catalogued for your (you right there!) enjoyment:

1 Coke Card circa 1999
1 Andrean High School I.D. circa 1998-99
1 receipt for $20 for a computer lab fee, signed Mrs. Wolozanski (now deceased)
7 slips of paper with phone numbers, multiple without names
4 slips of paper with email addresses
2 business cards
3 sets of Burger King coupons, expired 2000
1 coupon for Hungry Howie's Pizza
1 coupon for McDonald's
1 coupon for Hot Dog on a Stick
1 regular season pass, Andrean Varsity Football 1999-2000
1 class schedule, spring of Junior year
1 slip of paper reading "BOYCOTT THE LUNCH GET THE DEAN OFF OF HER POWER TRIP see how long they can last"
1 receipt from J.C. Penney for a pain of bleached Levi 505s
1 receipt for a Dorfman Pacific soft straw hat
1 membership card in the Boy Scouts of America, Jan. 2000
1 Totin' Chip
1 Firem'n (sic) Chit
1 recipe for Dulce de Leche hand-written on a sheet of Embassy Suites notepad paper

Taking stock of these items will give you a brief peek at what kind of person I was (ostensibly circa 2000, when the wallet appears to have been jetisonned) and now, though note that I no longer carry a wallet as a precaution against the sticky-fingered denizens of the Madrid metro, but instead carry what I need to carry in my hip pocket--cash folded and cards in a slim nylon sleeve. Also note that the appearance of copious fast food coupons does not indicate an excessive consumption of crap but the opposite. As for the Dulce de Leche--I think I tried making it once, and it didn't come out very well.