Say after me: It's no better to be safe than sorry

Well, that was an amazingly boring day. I had planned to go to the mall in the morning, because I figure the mall is not much of a hot spot on thursday mornings and I had a few bits of Christmas shopping I wanted to finish, but I woke up at noon so that didn't happen. Oh well. I would've had to ride the train a half hour to get there anyway. I proceeded to play a little final fantasy, get up and stare out the window for a while, sort through my dvds, stare out the window some more, walk to the kitchen and stare blankly at the fridge for a while, stare out the window, and watch Stray Dog. Then I stared out the window. Now I'm staring at the computer. In a few hours I expect I will be staring at the backs of my eyelids. PARTAY.

It's a little frustrating, because it's not like I don't live a five minute bus ride from downtown, and I know there has to be stuff to do there, I just don't know what. I grew up in Rochester, where your options for fun are A) cruise around Stewartville smoking pot B) go to Walmart and Denny's at 2 AM or C) Sleep. My high school years can mostly be defined by B and C, and some A without the pot. That is all I know how to do for fun, and you can't do ANY of those downtown. I could go wander Nicollet Mall for a while, note the marked absence of a Walmart or Denny's or Stewartville, maybe wander Target aimlessly for a while, then go home and stare out the window. I'm just not convinced that's worth my bus fare.

FWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE goes the kettle and I'm off running

I don't know why still have a whistling tea kettle. I mean, it's useful to know when your water is boiling and all, but it just sends me into such a TURN IT OFF TURN IT OFF AAAAAAAAH panic every time, and I have no choice but to run all breakneck willy-nilly down the hall and around the corner into the kitchen, and frankly that's a little dangerous in my slippers. I'm pretty sure I took that corner at a forty five degree angle just now. Tea is serious business I guess.

Slowly learning that life is OK

Geez, I couldn't believe how heavy the rain was coming down this morning. By the time I got to the bus stop I wondered why I even took a shower before leaving, because I was completely drenched. I had a steady stream of rain running off the tip of my nose. My penguin coat was still cold and sodden by the time I wore it home, which was absolutely marvelous in the cold wind, let me tell you. And I had Axl Rose shrieking mournfully in the back of my head the whole time.

Senior day once again. There's this one elderly customer who scares the daylights out of me. Not on purpose or anything, and I'm sure she's a very nice lady and all, but there's just something about her that strikes fear into my soul. She looks like she was constructed for battle, with a ferocious cast-iron body and an enormous, terrifying bosom like two armed torpedos. She kind of resembles one of those fertility goddess statues from ancient tribes where what a man really looked for in a woman was quantity, except she could also kill you with her bare hands and walk away through a brick wall as the rounds fired by responding officers richochet harmlessly off her massive, rock-hard bulk.

Of course, this is also coming from the girl who is afraid of windmills and routinely checks the toilet bowl before use to make sure Uncle Fester isn't in there (I had a dream once).

So, y'know.

But that's me, stumbling away

Ok, what is this? What is this weather? Lightning woke me up this morning. What is that! November rain. I have to walk to the bus and stand in a freaking Guns'n Roses song.

So needless to say I'm odds and ends

I gotta say, it's a darn shame we don't have any cereal in this apartment. Well, except for the huge bag of cocoa dyno-bites, and the tiny bag of coco-roos, and the two medium sized bags of berry colossal crunch, and the bag of scooters, and the three bags of honeycomb. And two boxes of oatmeal.

NOBODY LEAVES THIS APARTMENT WITHOUT BREAKFAST EVER AGAIN OR ELSE.

It's Friday, I'm in love

Shopping wasn't the crazy mess I was afraid it would be. Not only did I buy underwear, but I found socks as well. And got a haircut. MIXIN' IT UP SO CRAYZEE WOOP WOOP

Now Kori is on his way to pick me up and we're going to meet up with Liz and hang out. One of the perks of being home: having friends again. I tend to forget how much I miss that until the option becomes available for the few days at a time I come home, then I wonder how I get by without them back in Minneapolis. I guess I just forget.

Thursday I don't care about you

Thanksgiving was, as always, delicious. Good job to everyone involved, especially with the range of pumpkin-themed desserts. I am stuffed like a turkey suitcase.

That doesn't make sense. I'll try again. I am as stuffed as a jackalope at an NRA convention. I'm packed tighter than the pockets of a traveling sardine salesmen. I'm as full as a VW Bug in Puerto Rico.

I think the part of my brain that produces analogies is borked. I'm going to stop trying.

Anyway, the Blind Guardian concert? Kickin' rad. You don't even know. Halfway through the concert, after being smashed against a column for the umpteenth time as the mosh pit surged back against me, I just said something to the effect of "oh screw it" and barreled into the fray. Most of the concert after that point is a blur of pushing and shoving and screaming and jabbing metal hands into the air while shoving and screaming and being hit with the sweat-sodden hair of headbangers and at one point I even caught myself playing air guitar, which is horribly embarassing. I can't wait until my next metal concert. Snooty little hipster concerts are all well and good, but people don't hit one another there. You may think this is a point in their favor. You would be wrong.

And Blind Guardian...they played nearly every song I wanted to hear. Out of a career spanning twenty one years, that's pretty darn good. I sang along to every single song. That probably was not very metal of me. I don't care. There's a time to be metal, and a time to be excited for what is likely to be the only time you'll ever get to see your favorite band, and frankly I was a little biased towards the latter on this occasion.

.+0-

Moby just jumped onto the keyboard and typed that for you. Thank you Moby.

So here I am home again, amid the noise and lights and the ubiquitous cat hair that sneaks onto everything at least a little bit despite all efforts to the contrary. Katie and her friends are yelling over a game of Scrabble, which very nearly drowns out what I'm going to guess is Evanescence, mostly because this is the wrong time of year to have mosquitoes buzzing in your ears and they don't usually have backup vocals. I have a pretty low tolerance for Evanescence. I am listening to my ipod in passive retaliation. Dad just walked through the living room and paused to show off his "really neat" blackened thumb nail. I just stopped typing for a minute to watch in horrified fascination as Rincewind barfed on the tile floor.

Yes, this is definitely home. I guess sometimes some of the things you'd rather miss are things you miss the most.

I really want to buy some new socks and underwear while I'm here, but I dunno, I think tomorrow is the only day that'll work to go shopping. Do you think they'll have any underwear doorbuster deals? Can you picture me charging through the doors of Target at five in the morning, thrashing and kicking and having mosh flashbacks all the way through the ladies section, then emerging exhausted, battered and triumphant with a pack of undies two hours later?

Yeah, I can too. I'm not gonna, though. That's way too much effort for the kind of underwear I buy. If I'm going to work up that kind of initiative, there had better be lasers at the very least.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. It's always nice to see the family. I have such a cool one.

And Wednesday too

\m/ BLIND GUARDIAN \m/

Oh man, my ears feel like they're stuffed with felt, I am drenched in 90% not my own sweat, my voice is hoarse, my bosom took a fierce elbowing during one of the mosh frenzies, an earring got yanked out of my ear...

THAT WAS AMAZING

BLIND GUARDIAN I LOVE YOU

<3<3<3

Tuesday's gray

Blind Guardian tomorrow night already! I'm so excited I could bite the floor lamp. Floor lamp, you best be watchin yo'self.

Today was like stupid high school central at the rail station. I don't even know what woodwork they all crawled out of. There was a pack of them smoking on one of the station, whooping and yelling at the speakers every time the "No Smoking" announcement played, which was pretty much every two minutes because they were smoking like chimneys. Two boys were trying to ride their bikes down the up escalator, and when they got tired of that they tried to jump the railing over to the stairs, except apparently that plan didn't work out because they just ended up falling on their faces on the escalator, which was very impressive.

The dumbest was probably just outside the station, as I walked past the liquor store, where two fourteen year olds were white trashin' it up. As I walked past, one of them noticed my hair, and I could almost hear the gears turning as she struggled to come up with something to say about it. All she could manage, after five seconds of intense thought, was the patently stupid "pink, pink, you stink!"

Ok, you worked way too hard for that. That's like spending three painstaking hours making mac'n cheese and forgetting to drain the noodles but trying to eat it anyway. If college admission were based on insult power, that one wouldn't get you into ITT Tech. Frankly I have higher expectations. Go home, think about it for a while, try harder next time.

I don't care if Monday's blue

ARRRGH

So what then, what are you, a cheesecake or a souffle? WRONG ANSWER, YOU ARE A CHEESECAKE. THERE IS NO EXISTENTIALIST QUEST FOR MEANING IN MY KITCHEN. DEFLATE IMMEDIATELY.

That crushing, crashing, atom-smashing, white-hot thing is...invincible.

SO BORED.

Yesterday I drew faces on all the eggs, today I made cookies. Exclusively unicorns, ducks, and hearts. I thought about throwing a few triceratops in there, too, but no. Today was for the ducks and unicorns. And little hearts.

Any more of this sick-but-not-really-sick-just-sorta-sick business and I'm going to go nuts.

(invincible, oh oh oh, you're invincible)

I managed to make it through a day of work yesterday, but today was apparently not going to happen for me. I felt like maybe, maybe I could make it at work, if I didn't have to stand up very quickly and nobody vomited in front of my register (again), but then I asked myself: could I make it a whole bus ride potentially sitting behind Grandma Pee Pee? The answer was no, I could not. So I called in and went back to bed.

I thought about eating something, if only on principle, but I haven't really eaten anything in the last three days and apparently am not going to be allowed to start now, so I just used a sharpie to anthropomorphize the carton of eggs in the fridge and retreated to the internet.

I think Erik and Mara took off to go to Macy's or something, so I am listening to Blind Guardian and getting so incredibly pumped for the concert on Wednesday. Hoooooooly crap. "Imaginations From The Other Side" started playing and it suddenly hit me in a wave of gloriously melodic metal that I am going to finally see my favorite band, almost exactly six years after Paul first discovered "The Bard's Song." I logged on to the forums and started reading the concert thread, and read this post by somebody who had just seen the concert in another state:

"...and also during Welcome to Dying (I think, christ that was a hell of a set) Hansi looked straight into my eyes when he let loose one of his famous banshee screams and I felt cold and a little dizzy like how Frodo must have felt when the blade of the Nazgul broke in his shoulder at Weathertop.

I'm gonna go make some cocoa."

And all of the sudden it was like WHOOOOA and I was up out of my chair and running around with metal hands up and for some reason I don't entirely understand I really wanted to watch Braveheart. This is it! This is Blind Guardian! I'm gonna see Blind Guardian! I never thought it would happen. I mean, for one thing it's hard enough to get a power metal band from Germany imported into the States for a tour of any size, much less have a tour stop in Minneapolis. But this band formed at pretty much the same time I did. They've been active for twenty one years now. They could retire at any time and nobody could hold it against them because hot dog, after two decades of premium power metal who wouldn't be ready to wear earplugs and nap for the rest of forever? I'm just glad I get to see them at least once before they decide to pull the plug.

I'm feeling pretty hardcore now, so I think I'm going to try to eat some soup. Here goes nothin'.

Thousand fahreheit hot metal lights behind your eyes, invincible

It has just come to my attention that Michael J. Nelson, head writer and leading man for the latter half of Mystery Science Theater 3000, has pulled up stakes and moved to San Diego. And frankly, I am wounded.

Neil Gaiman is said to live somewhere near Minneapolis. Richard Dean Anderson presumably takes up at least part time residence somewhere in Minnesota. But Mike! Mike was my only realistic chance for a celebrity encounter! Once there was the fluttering hope that I might glance out the bus window to see that familiar, enormous, Nordic face flash past, and then think to myself, "was that Mike Nelson? That couldn't have been Mike Nelson. Well, maybe if you put him in a teal jumpsuit...oh, man, I have to go blog about this right now!" Now there is only a cold dead patch on my Minnesota heart.

It was just always such a little point of pride, knowing that not only was MST3K born in Minnesota, but through Mike, MST3K stayed in Minnesota. California may have claimed Joel, but Mike remained. Big, blond, grinning Mike even looked the part of the quintessential Minnesotan. Mike was ours.

And now he's up and skedaddled to San Diego. Well, hmph. Go ahead, abandon your robot friends, Mike. See if we care.

:(

And now my money says they won't know about the

I woke up at four this morning with the realization that I would not be going to work today.

That's not entirely true. My first thought, for some reason, was that my arms and legs had turned to dozens of cold gray squid tentacles. But right after that I decided work was out of the question. For one thing, it's hard to operate a register properly with tentacle arms. Mostly, though, my decision was based on the fact that I felt like hell, and that everything I had ever eaten in my lifetime was apparently rushing about looking for a fast escape. But you really can't climb down out of a loft bed when you have tentacle legs, so I just laid there for a few sleepless hours and hoped for the best.

I started feeling a little off last Sunday, after the concert, and at the time I joked that I must've caught Colin Meloy's flu. Now I'm starting to wonder if maybe there isn't some truth to that after all. Of course, I could've caught this anywhere; it's not like I don't encounter hundreds of people every day. But I rather prefer to think that I caught it directly from the man himself. This isn't just any old bug, oh no, this is high quality celebrity flu!

I'm not sure where I caught the tentacles, though. They seemed to have disappeared for the time being.

They'll have to deal with YOU first

Ok, so my ears have been noticing November lately, and I decided it was time to do something about it. Earmuffs! How can I go wrong with earmuffs? They won't flatten my hair into funny shapes and will probably help hold my headphones in my ears. I can't possibly lose!

After a good five minutes spent wrestling with a particularly stubborn pair that kept rolling up and flipping out of my hands like greased soap made out of springs, I have come to a startling conclusion: I don't understand earmuffs at all. Nobody told me these things were so complicated! I mean, even after I get the things on my ears, which is no easy feat, where is the stupid band supposed to go? Over the top of my head? That looks dumb. Behind my head? If it's supposed to go over my head then THAT will look dumb. HELP.

Maybe I should start scanning the bus for people wearing earmuffs and keep track of how they are wearing them, then tabulate the results and wear accordingly, so as to avoid an earmuff faux pas through the power of science.

All hail Betsi, metro transit fashionista.

When they finally come to destroy the earth

I saw the Decemberists last night, and they were amazing. Even considering the fact that the lead singer had the flu and had to run off the stage in the middle of the thing to throw up for five minutes backstage, they still put on such a good show that I can't help but wish I could see them when he's not sick.

They're one of those bands that never fails to astonish me in some way, whether with the lyrics or the music or the way they meld together so seamlessly that one can hardly be imagined without the other. In "The Infanta," the words paint a vivid picture and the music makes it move; even as I see the ostentatiously bedecked palanquin in my mind's eye, I feel the heavy step and sway of the elephants, and I almost find myself feeling the rising thrill and awe of the bystander come to cheer out praise for the Infanta. I'm there. And even having never heard the original fable of "The Crane Wife", by mere artistry of the notes I knew it could be nothing but. They're all like that, each with a sound so unique as to never be confused for another, all the while remaining distinctly Decemberist.

The lyrics are as lurid as Bosch, the songs as comforting as Rockwell; all the grandiose darkness of Baudelaire ever tempered with the innocent hope of Dickens. They're more minstral than musician, a troup of bards guided by Colin Meloy's strangely versatile voice. Sometimes it's a civil war vignette, sometimes a lover's tragedy, sometimes it's just an apology for losing a friend's bike, but it's always lush and cunning and rife with the beautiful tragedy of humanity.

And they're one of those bands where every darn member plays, like, five different instruments, and when I say different, I am not kidding. We're talking everything from a dozen different kinds of guitars to accordions to glockenspiels to some kind of box with piano keys and a crank. Colin played a different guitar every song. I can't imagine what it's like being their roadie. Good lord.

I bet they won't be expecting that

Another hoppin' Saturday night! Mara and I organized the recipe cards that came with the recipe boxes I bought at work the other day. I know, pretty wild, but we were able to keep things under control and nothing caught fire or anything. Here's one of my favorite recipes:

MANGO CHUTNEY

100 half ripe mangoes
2 large onions
2 cloves garlic
3 lbs raisins
3 lbs currants
1 cup preserved ginger
5 qts white vinegar
1/2 cup chili pepper
17 lbs brown sugar
3 tsp each: nutmeg, ginger, cloves, allspice

Bolded to emphasize madness. Forty pounds of mangoes, six pounds of raisins and currants, seventeen pounds of brown freaking sugar. Holy. Crap. Not even counting the other ingredients, that's sixty three pounds of chutney.

Who would ever need sixty three pounds of chutney at one time. Seriously. And this woman had seventeen different recipes for chutney, ten for mango and seven for pineapple. JUST CHUTNEY. WHAT IS WITH THE CHUTNEY. Everything else was fairly standard fare for having been collected apparently across the span of the '60s through the '90s. It was kind of like reading a diary (a chutney diary) of sorts; we determined that she for sure lived in Hawaii, California, Denver, and presumably ended her days in Minneapolis. My guess is she was an army wife (an army fed by chutney). She got a lot of recipes from Leona, several from Ellinore, a few from Doris. And I think we can safely assume that woman loved her some chutney.

After the recipe cards party, we went grocery shopping, and I bought vegemite on impulse. It's one of those things I've always kind of wanted to try but didn't want to spend money on because I was pretty sure I would not be happy. I was wrong. Apparently I love vegemite. Who knew?

When they finally come to destroy the earth, they'll have to go through you first.

I haven't seen Mr. Rickets in ages. Do crazies just disappear when you're not paying attention? Do they migrate to other climes for the winter? And if they do, what do they call a pack of hobos? I mean, a pack of rats is a mischief, a mass of geese is a gaggle, a flock of crows is a murder...I like that, a murder of hobos. That's what I'm going to call it. I'm going to say that someday. "Watch yourself, here comes a murder of hobos!" So do murders of hobos shuffle south for the winter? I don't know, I'm not very familiar with secret lives of crazies yet. I have noticed that the crazy hobo population is like a hydra, though, in that when one disappears two are bound to take its place. Now, instead of Mr. Rickets and his fixation with planes and SHUTTIN' UP THE POW POW THE BOOM BOOM PEEPS TRYIN' T'SLEEP, I have Grandma Pee Pee and Johnny Rotten.

I've seen Grandma Pee Pee a few times now, and every time she lives up to her name. I don't know if it's really eau de incontinent baglady or if the distinctive aroma was donated by a vindictive cat, but wherever it came from, she wears it like it's goin' out of style. And every time I see her, I'm stuck in the seat behind her on the bus. Every time. Lucky me!

Johnny Rotten, on the other hand, isn't a crazy. I just see him often enough that he warrants a name. He is a fortysomething punk burnout with the studded black anarchist jacket and tight ripped black jeans and assortment of metal bits and pieces and sunglasses and everything, and he always looks so delightfully angry. He somehow manages to do all this and not look completely ridiculous, and that fascinates me, because usually when I see my peers dressed like him, I think it looks silly, and he looks like he could be more than twice my age at least. That sort of thing would usually cause a little bit of my soul to die. And yet every time I see him it's like, ooh! It's Johnny Rotten again! I find myself keeping tabs on what his hair is doing. The first time I saw him it was fiercely orange and spiked, the next time it was green, and just yesterday at Starbucks it was bleached out white. Which reminds me, I have to find somewhere that sells bleach and redye my own hair. The nuclear red + neon yellow combo was pretty cool when I first did it, but I'm not too into this faded peach and pink thing I've got going on now.

You know, I just realized that this recognizing people business could easily be a two-way deal. God, I wonder what Grandma Pee Pee calls me.

Keep on rockin' in the free world

I went to the Starbucks at the bus stop today and bought myself a tall peppermint double mocha to drink while I waited. There I was, leaning casually up against the wall at the stop, wearing sunglasses and my The cure t-shirt, the wind blowing my long black suede jacket to the side as I listened to my ipod. On my hands were the black marker X's that indicate to the world that I went to some snazzy little hipster concert last night, and in my hands were a starbucks coffee and a cell phone on which I was sending a text message. I looked around coolly, with an air of aloof detachment, and just as a small crowd of people started to cross the street over to my corner, I raised my drink to my lips...

...and spilled coffee all over my face and front because I am apparently too retarded to turn the cup so the hole in the lid aligns with my mouth.

Yeah, I'm cool.

Got fuel to burn, got roads to drive

Holy crap I just saw Ok Go and somebody better get a spatula because I am completely floored. I love that band so hard. Oh man. Mara and I got there early, and were front and center for the whole thing, so close the band was life size instead of the usual "they were like two feet tall, I was so amazingly close man!" and I completely grabbed Damian Kulash's butt as he surfed overhead. I have neither regrets nor shame. Grab life by the horns, you know. Or I guess maybe the right buttock, if that's the sort of thing life presents to you.

He later explained to us that he didn't actually intend to be surfing anywhere when he stepped off the stage and hopped the little fence. His plan was to wade into the masses and, I dunno, chill or something. I think his exact words were "mingle with the proletariat." But as soon as he got off the stage (directly in front of me, incidently) we swarmed, first playing "touch the lead singer! touch him!" and then the mass of hands lifted him up and started playing "pass the lead singer around! pass him!" with the rest of the crowd. And as he passed over my head the second time, on his way back to the stage, he reached out and grabbed my hand. I totally held hands with Damian Kulash of Ok Go for like five seconds. It was completely awesome. Yeah, I see that look you're giving the monitor right now, and I will have none of that. You would have been pretty pumped, too. And in your heart of hearts, you and I both know that you would also have gone for his posterior on the first pass. It's a nice posterior.

And at the end, they even did their dance.

The only downer was the assortment of particularly tall Eegahs who shoehorned their way in front of us after the concert started. I wound up stuck behind the tallest asian guy this side of the NBA, but I wasn't annoyed with him since he'd been in that spot since before Mara and I even got to the stage. The other guys, however...here's the thing, when you wedge your way in front of me or my friends at a concert just for the sake of being a foot closer when you're taller than everybody else anyway, I get angry. And I will do whatever it takes to make you so uncomfortable you start to edge the hell out of my way.

No matter how much space there is behind me, I will stand so uncomfortably close to you that you can't put your arms back down after clapping your hands over your head. I will scream WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! much closer to your ear than strictly necessary. I'll wait, poised and ready to spring, for you to start dancing around a little bit, and step a bit closer when you're off balance so you have to half-stumble aside a little. I will "accidently" goose you with my purse. I will do these things because, frankly, you deserve it, you absolute arse.

Despite being in the midst of Richard Kiel lookalikes (no matter how I hopped about or craned my neck, I could not see the guitarist, which was very disappointing because I think he's the cute one of the bunch), the show was pretty amazing. Even the weather was amazing; here we're in the second week of November already and I was outside in a t-shirt at night. And then we got home and I finished making my cheesecake and that was amazing.

It was a good night.

We got a man of the people, says keep hope alive

It just occurred to me that I only ever write about two things in here, work and food. At first when I realized this I laughed aloud, thinking about how you all must think I don't ever do anything else. But then I realized that, for the most part, I really don't do much else. I do a whole lot of nothing else, in fact. I'd say a good 40% of my day is spent engaged in just sitting around playing video games or sitting around blogging about food and work. I don't really know what else I would even write about. Hello world, I hit level 10 in Final Fantasy XII? I went to the bathroom twice today? My socks are blatantly mismatched again? I dunno. It's just all so exciting, I don't even know where to begin.

We got styrofoam boxes for the ozone layer

Everything was in order--cream cheese thawing by the sink, mixer at the ready, hastily scribbled-down recipe propped up against the cookie jar, standard array of measuring cups and gadgetry close to hand. Only two elements were missing, the main attraction of tonight's three ring circus of fear, and those were quickly brought forth from the cupboard and fridge. Preparations were complete. Now it was time for action, the moment of truth. With steady hand and focused mind I plugged in the blender, gazing sternly at its white plastic buttons, and as I dropped fistfuls of orange into its glassy interior I said to it, "Blender. The pumpkin has been kidnapped by ninjas. Are you a bad enough dude to beat the hell out of this pumpkin?"

Answer: no, not really. My blender is apparently not a bad enough dude to mangle up a pumpkin without chopping it into tiny pieces first and then adding water. So basically on the scale of bad dudes, my blender is Aquaman.

I guess it's probably not fair to my blender for me to expect it to perform like a food processor, but since I don't have a food processor, it's going to have to do. If my cheesecake turns out funky because of this, I'm going to be very cross with the blender anyway. I'm unreasonable like that.

We got department stores and toilet paper

Oh.

Never mind.

We got a kindler gentler machine gun hand

Ok, guys, I'm not going to start flinging accusations or anything but my pastry blender is missing, so I'm going to just placidly walk into this other room here and when I come back I want to see it sitting in the utensils drawer, no questions asked, ok? Ok, here goes.

...

AAAAARRGH

We got a thousand points of light for the homeless man

Man, here I was thinking it was going to slow down after Halloween was over. Slow down, indeed. I did over $3200 on my register alone. MADNESS. And at the peak of one of the rushes, one woman's elderly diabetic mother collapsed, dragging her cart down on top of her, and all the cashiers raced off in different directions to return with sugar packets and three half-empty bottles of pop for her, while I stayed to help prop her up and tried to release her death grip on the cart. Her daughter is trying to get her to drink the pop and it's spilling all over her clothes and it's fairly obvious to all onlookers that something is going down here, but that didn't stop one man from stepping over her prone form to get to my register and demanding that I open up.

Hey sure buddy I'll get right on that. I got nothin' else going on right now. Lift your left foot, will you? I think you're standing on her hat.

She recovered after a few minutes and we were able to get her over to the bench by the registers until she felt good enough to totter out of the store assisted by her daughter and another customer who had stopped to help, and Myron mopped up the spilled soda, and things returned to business as usual. But so help me, that man does not know how close I came to kicking him square in the nuts.

You saw the whole of the moon

I did it, I took the ultimate masochistic tastebud plunge and ordered a durian smoothie at Hong Kong Noodles. Durian, the alleged "king of fruits," delicious to some and so overpoweringly disgusting to others that in Singapore it is banned from buses and ferries. It kind of smelled like a plastic gasoline fart and tasted sort of like onion custard. Lizard and Mara were revolted. Apparently I do not have a fundamental problem with oniony custard, because I didn't think it was all that bad. If I really really wanted to, I could probably acquire that taste. If I wanted to lose all my friends and spend outrageous amounts of money importing durian, anyway.

I saw the crescent

Having carefully observed a multitude of local political TV ads, I think I can safely say that the key to winning is proving you are the most Minnesotan of them all. That seems to be one of their favorite little attack points: so and so is just not in touch with Minnesota, he doesn't get Minnesota values, how can she be a Minnesota politician when she *clearly* has the soul of a New Jerseyan, ad nauseum. So, if I ever run for political office, here is my little thirty second spot:

"HI! HOW ARE YA? JEET THEM BARS I MADE'JA YET? PRETTY GOOD, HAHHH? YEAH, I WAS OOT ON THE PONTOOON THE OTHER DEE, WITH BARB AN' NANCY, J'KNOW, JUST TALKIN' ABOOT HOW WE'D BE OOT ON THIS HERE LAKE IN A COUPLA MONTHS IN OUR TRUCKS INSTEADA THE PONTOOON, HAH, AND NANCY, SHE GOT TO TALKIN' ABOUT HER TATER TOT HOT DISH WITH THE CREAM OF CHICKEN SOOOUP AN' THE CHEESE AN' ALL THAT, AND I SAYS TO HER, NANCY, IF IT ISN'T THE CREAM OF MUSHROOM SOOOUP IT ISN'T TATER TOT HOT DISH! AND CHEESE, THAT'S SOME WISCONSIN STUFF RIGHT DERE, Y'KNOW? DIS HERE'S MINNESOTA, JA, AND WE SURE GOT SOME GOOD EATIN' WITHOUT GETTIN' ALL FANCY AND BRINGIN' OTHER STATES INTO IT, DONCHA THINK? I MEAN NOT THAT THE OTHER STATES AREN'T AS GOOD OR NOTHIN', UBETCHA WE LIKE 'EM TOO, YEAH.

I'm Betsi Bjoraker and I approve this message."

You saw brigadoon

Ok, so after reading about five completely different apple crisp recipes I just said some naughty words, threw the books across the room, and took an average. I don't think taking an average of five recipes is much of an exact science. But I ended up with a pyrex plate of what amounts to apple crisp, so I guess something worked out.

I was totally going to write something else but I guess my brain has closed shop for the day. A closing announcement would've been awful nice, thanks a lot brain. >:(