A Surrealist’s Cookbook, by Salvador Dali
I HAVE BEEN INFORMED
THAT I AM NOT POSITIVE ENOUGH.
FINE.
ROSH HASHANAH IS COMING UP, SO I PRESENT THE ENTIRE WORLD WITH THIS:
I LOVE YOU ALL, FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
The Birthday Party, part I
Ever since my dog got hit by a car the day before my 20th birthday, the occasion has seemed less than auspicious. After all, if the magic of your birthday can’t keep your dog from getting hit, how much power does it really have?
When I was a kid, of course, birthdays were magic. By themselves, they turned a day no different on the calendar from any other into the most special day of the year.Did we have to do anything special in those days, other than cover a cake with candles, sing a song, and open up cards from every relative I knew? I remember that one year we had all my party at the Frontier Inn (of blessed memory), a cowboy-themed hamburger joint, but mostly I remember parties in the house. I remember a lot of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, dropping clothespins into milk bottles (clothespins! milk bottles!), duck-duck-goose, red rover if we could play outside, and then the same games at other kids’ houses. What I don’t remember is coming back from those parties thinking that they were lame, or that the goody bags weren’t good enough, or that the experience wasn’t novel enough. Sure, in time party anxiety crept in–were other people having a good time, was the party a success, but not until late junior high.
At least that’s how I remember it.
My last birthday party, my 50th, was horrid. My best and oldest friend had just died, I wasn’t happy about turning 50, I didn’t like where I was in life, and I sure as hell made it fucking well clear that I DID NOT WANT A FUCKING BIRTHDAY PARTY. But that’s another story.
This story is about my daughter’s forthcoming party, and how difficult it is to plan the damn thing. As a parent, I want her birthdays at this age to still retain that aforementioned magic but it’s getting harder.
On top of it all, there’s even a more than reasonable chance that I won’t have a home to throw the birthday party in.
Packing ‘n’ Moving: I’m too old for this book. Why do I still have it?
It is not a good idea to do what the title suggests. Trust me on this one.
Packing, Moving, Part 6: Letting Go
Into the garbage they go. Off to the landfill for some future archaeologist.
They are little things I had stuck to the wall. They reminded me of a trip I took, and I thought they were interesting looking as well. I have no idea what the package says.
But I don’t need them. If I remember the trip, I remember it. If I don’t, well, that’s OK , too. There is a story in this, somewhere, but I have too much packing and loading to do. My landlady is greedy and evil, and I must get out of here as fast as I can, lest her contagion wreak its havoc on me.
Moving, Part 5: Great Wisdom (you could have figured out on your own)
If you want to live lightly,
Take up the violin, not the piano.
Is LinkedIn Good for Anything?
I’m willing to hear from others, but from where I sit the answer is a simple, “no”.
I have 273 1st degree connections. Some of these people I actually know, but others are just strangers caught in a net thrown in the general direction of my so-called career. I did get one writing job through the site, but–as with most writing jobs since the advent of the internet–it wasn’t worth the trouble. I have found some old friends that I wasn’t able to find through facebook, and for a while I was getting a few notifications of interesting job openings.For some reason, those have stopped, and even if I click on the “jobs” link, I get the following message:
Sorry, no jobs match your current preferences.
This, in spite of the fact that my preferences say that I will work anywhere in the United States, that I will work for any size company, and that I have selected at least six industries that I will work in.
If I do a more specific search, say “veterinarian”, I get 11, 401 results. The first 3 are Medical Records Director, Nursing Assistant, and Physical Therapist.
My favorite (on the first page, because with these results I’m not going to bother going beyond that) is for Senior Management Consumer Insights for Fruit of the Loom. Well, I have been wearing underwear for more than five decades now, but I imagine with just that qualification I have a lot of competition, many of whom may change their underwear more often than I do (once a day, whether I need to or not).
My favorite part of LinkedIn is the endorsements. I have been endorsed as proficient in Social Media, as well as Research, by someone who only knows me from a short and disastrous relationship, and for Public Health by someone my son took tae kwon do from over 5 years ago.
Packing, Part IV
Luciano Pavarotti was a famous Italian tenor whose career spanned LPs, cassettes, CDs, and finally digital downloads. He became hugely famous for being huge, canceling concerts, and having over-relied on a once-brilliant reputation. He made ‘Nessun dorma’ from Turandot so famous that even Aretha Franklin got cheered for destroying it at the Emmies one year–she had to step in for Pavarotti, who had, once again, canceled.
The Case Against Bulldogs (Gross Picture Day)
I’m packing today, so I don’t have time for any deep thoughts.
But if you’re thinking of getting a bulldog (or a Cocker Spaniel, for that matter), feast your eyes on this:
This poor guy just had what is called a Total Ear Canal Ablation (TECA), because his ears were chronically inflamed and infected. Imagine a circle around the ear canal, deepened all the way to the level of the skull.
The Cubs Take My Money, then Waste My Day
I was talking to a couple from Baltimore, who were among the many
who had traveled to Chicago to see their beloved Orioles play, now that they finally are leading a division late in the season, and will in all likelihood be in the playoffs for the first time in a long time. (They lost Machado yesterday, and Wieters is out, but remember that baseball is probably, of our 4 major American sports, is the one where any one single player matters the least. ) The Faithful of Baseball make their pilgrimages to Fenway and Wrigley, and they ooh and ah over the quaint charm of these places. The truth is that Wrigley is interesting and charming, but it is also a dump. So is Fenway. Going to them once or twice is fine, but once you’ve been to Camden Yards or AT&T Park, they just seem like rusting tourist traps, selling history rather than a good place to watch baseball.
So today my son and I made what has become our annual trip down to the “Friendly Confines”. Because weather prediction is for shit in the summer in this part of the world, we decided to go even though there was a chance of rain. And it did rain. It poured. The floodgates of heaven opened up upon us, and we all made for the concourse under the grandstand.
Then we waited.
After that we waited some more.
And after that we decided to do what most of the spectators did: We left.
And on the way out, the cheerful young woman in her bright blue Cubs polo shirt informed us,
“If you leave, you can’t come back in.”
It seems, then, that the Cubs (and MLB) have an internal monologue that runs like this:
We are not only going to make you wait as long as it is necessary for us to finish the game–and we don’t know how long that is–we are going to make you wait in our ivy -covered but extremely uncomfortable stadium where beer costs $8.00 and a hot dog is over $5.
No, you may not go out of the park to wait in reasonable comfort. We’ve got your money already, and frankly, we’re on a very tight schedule.
So according to the Powers That Be in Major League Baseball, it’s perfectly OK to make 30,000 people wait for an indefinite period of time in a ball park that has no accommodation for it. Even though attendance has dropped by nearly 700,000 over the past 6 years, MLB seems to be using the same strategy that the airline industry uses: We are going to just bluster onward, regardless of how it makes you feel about us.
Next year, we may go to a Cub game when we visit Chicago, but we probably won’t. We’ve seen Wrigley enough, and if I want to flush $100 down the toilet, I can save the trip on CTA.
The Meta-Bug 