Richard Dansky's Blog, page 23
July 11, 2011
Reason #38 I Love the Crabtree Tavern
They have one of those Internet jukeboxes. It has Marillion on it. Lots and lot of Marillion.
So imagine it. Saturday night, the place is hopping, MMA on the TVs, maybe some foobaw, dudes mixing 20 yearMacallan with Coke and trying to hook up, and then, suddenly, nine minutes of "Script For a Jester's Tear".
The live version. Fish vocals,not Hogarth.
The mind, it boggles from the awesomeness.
Posted via LiveJournal app for iPad.
July 5, 2011
The 4th of Sorbet
Important lessons were learned this weekend about Mom, apple pie, baseball, fireworks, and sorbet.
Ok, mainly just sorbet.
Lesson one is: Do not buy ridiculously overpriced organic blueberries for purposes of crushing them into sorbet during July. There are several reasons not to do this. One is that said blueberries taste faintly of soap even after several washings, leading one to believe they were left on the bush a little too long. Another is that they are ridiculously overpriced organic blueberries, and as such are frankly not worth the scratch. The whole reason my sorbet-making adventure began was to find something to do with fruit that was teetering on the edge of extinction (or at least the compost pile), which means purchasing fruit specifically for sorbeting kind of defeats the purpose of the enterprise. Yeah, it makes sense when I want to dabble in kiwi or mango or papaya, but blueberries? Insanely priced blueberries? The season is over. Time to move on.
Lesson two is: Don't mess with the booze. I've been having good results putting a splash of Grand Marnier into the mix to aid with texture. Because of the utter chaos of our booze cabinet at the moment, I grabbed Cointreau instead this time. I don't know if the issues I had can be laid at the feet of that particular libation, but I'm going back to the other stuff next time.
Lesson three is: Pineapple will fool you. Oh, sure, it looks solid and fiber-y and like it would make a good base for a nice sorbet, but that's just it's cover. Once you introduce it to the business end of a stick blender, it goes to pieces faster than a politician asked a tough question. Unless you're going to mix it with something with a little more gumption - the aforementioned mango is a good idea - the sorbet's barely going to hold itself together, at least until you get it into the freezer. At that point, it will do a sudden volte-face, go rock-hard, and mock your feeble attempts to assault its integrity with something so feeble as a spoon.
In summary: two sorbets attempted. Blueberry-grape, while decent in terms of texture and color, gets points knocked off because the damn organic blueberries were too busy saving the whales to be tasty. Grape-pineapple, while getting full points for tastiness, passive-aggressively let me know that its preferred format would have been "Smoothie", or perhaps "Orange Julius".
Ah well, On to next time.
Ok, mainly just sorbet.
Lesson one is: Do not buy ridiculously overpriced organic blueberries for purposes of crushing them into sorbet during July. There are several reasons not to do this. One is that said blueberries taste faintly of soap even after several washings, leading one to believe they were left on the bush a little too long. Another is that they are ridiculously overpriced organic blueberries, and as such are frankly not worth the scratch. The whole reason my sorbet-making adventure began was to find something to do with fruit that was teetering on the edge of extinction (or at least the compost pile), which means purchasing fruit specifically for sorbeting kind of defeats the purpose of the enterprise. Yeah, it makes sense when I want to dabble in kiwi or mango or papaya, but blueberries? Insanely priced blueberries? The season is over. Time to move on.
Lesson two is: Don't mess with the booze. I've been having good results putting a splash of Grand Marnier into the mix to aid with texture. Because of the utter chaos of our booze cabinet at the moment, I grabbed Cointreau instead this time. I don't know if the issues I had can be laid at the feet of that particular libation, but I'm going back to the other stuff next time.
Lesson three is: Pineapple will fool you. Oh, sure, it looks solid and fiber-y and like it would make a good base for a nice sorbet, but that's just it's cover. Once you introduce it to the business end of a stick blender, it goes to pieces faster than a politician asked a tough question. Unless you're going to mix it with something with a little more gumption - the aforementioned mango is a good idea - the sorbet's barely going to hold itself together, at least until you get it into the freezer. At that point, it will do a sudden volte-face, go rock-hard, and mock your feeble attempts to assault its integrity with something so feeble as a spoon.
In summary: two sorbets attempted. Blueberry-grape, while decent in terms of texture and color, gets points knocked off because the damn organic blueberries were too busy saving the whales to be tasty. Grape-pineapple, while getting full points for tastiness, passive-aggressively let me know that its preferred format would have been "Smoothie", or perhaps "Orange Julius".
Ah well, On to next time.
July 4, 2011
On the wind
Took the long way home from a friend's 4th of July shindig tonight, and by "long way" I mean "randomly made a bunch of turns and figured I'd eventually figure how where I was going when I needed to." The street grid of Raleigh and environs maintains enough of its "this was designed by a drunken lemur with an etch-a-sketch" quality that this is still possible, even with North Raleigh racing to transform itself into something suspiciously Atlanta-like with great and tremulous haste.
All of which means nothing, except that at one point on the drive back I found myself at an intersection that simultaneously was within the city limits and could have passed for middle of nowhere, adorned with a four-way stop. So I stopped. And nobody else was coming, so I rolled down my window, and sat there for a minute, and looked around. For a half an instant, a breeze came up - a rare thing on a night like this.
On it, the scent of fireworks. I waited until it was gone before I drove on.
All of which means nothing, except that at one point on the drive back I found myself at an intersection that simultaneously was within the city limits and could have passed for middle of nowhere, adorned with a four-way stop. So I stopped. And nobody else was coming, so I rolled down my window, and sat there for a minute, and looked around. For a half an instant, a breeze came up - a rare thing on a night like this.
On it, the scent of fireworks. I waited until it was gone before I drove on.
July 2, 2011
Oh, "Jungleland"
Get involved in a land war in Asia. Go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line. Write about something after Joe Posnanski has tackled the same topic. These are things you generally just don't do.
But here goes.
Tonight, I realized I hadn't heard "Jungleland" since Clarence Clemons died. Not a big deal on one level, after all. Many, many weeks have gone by when I haven't heard "Jungleland". But with the Big Man gone, and every article calling that song out as the quintessential Big Man solo. So I thought, well, maybe I should listen to it. Go there, wrap up, stop thinking about it and move on.
"Jungleland" was never my favorite Springsteen song. None of the early stuff was, really, or is, I came to appreciating his music late. "Born in the USA" came out just when I was getting turned on to rock, and its omnipresence (and Bruce's calling a fastball a "speedball") annoyed me. "Brilliant Disguise", "Tunnel of Love", they were good enough songs, but not transcendent. Philly was full of Wall to Wall Sound And Video stores in those days, and Sam Goody's, and their cutout bins were full of cassette copies of "Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ", (lots of copies of Nils Lofgren's "Flip", too) but I never picked one up.
It wasn't until "The Ghost of Tom Joad" that I actually got into Springsteen. At the time, the critics adored the album. A change of pace, a stripped down reinvention of his sound, all that good stuff. Two years on, they were kicking dirt on top of it, but hey, that's record critics for you, and in the meantime "Youngstown" and "Straight Time" still make me sit up straight and listen. And with that under my belt, I went back and listened to the older stuff.
What I came away with, ultimately, was the sense of the E Street Band with Bruce out front as very much the quintessential American band. Not the best, perhaps, but the most representative, part of that long tradition of sprawling, talented, hard-working bands that found a wellspring of joy somewhere and tapped into it while they were playing, and let it wash over the audience when they were onstage. Look around and you see it all over. P-Funk has the same thing. Little Feat had it for a long time. Loose and relaxed, tight and professional, all over the map, each of them carrying with them the sense that at any given moment, you just might be able to climb on stage and be part of that party. And in the middle of it, the Big Man, stomping into songs like Goose Gossage or Mariano Rivera coming out of the pen, putting his stamp on things and sounding like nobody else.
Melinda and I saw Springsteen and the E Street Band in Greensboro a couple of years back. It was toward the end of the tour, and the show wasn't quite sold out, and we had seats behind the stage in the upper deck. From where we sat, we could see where the band walked up backstage, where they gathered and waited to go on. They looked like a random bunch of middle-aged folks. You could see a couple of bald spots, if you looked for them. Clemons looked tired and heavy and old, and he wasn't moving well. There was a chair for him onstage, a throne, really. It was large and orange and empty, and backstage, they were waiting and joking and talking. Danny Federici had just died, the first big blow the band had taken of that kind, and I found myself worrying that Clemons would be next, and soon.
And then that clump of ordinary-looking middle-aged people went up on stage, and joy happened for about three hours. Clemons spent most of it on his throne, watching the proceedings. When the songs called for it, he got up and laid some majesty down, then tottered back to the chair to wait for the next time he was needed.
But when he was up, my God, he was up.
They came through the area again a while back. Greensboro again, not Raleigh - I have no idea what Springsteen has against Raleigh. I mean, Max Weinberg's jazz combo has played Durham, after all. Regardless, we didn't make the show.
And then, tonight. Four times, I fired up "Jungleland". Four times, I got interrupted. The phone ringing. One of the cats doing something unspeakable in the hallway. Another phone call. You get the idea. No "Jungleland", no epic sax solo, not for me tonight. Yeah, I've had plenty of time to listen while wiring this, but clearly the stars aren't right. So maybe I'll let "Tenth Avenue Freezeout" take me home. Or "Rosalita". Or "Cadillac Ranch". Details, really. The sound is there in all of them.
And tomorrow, "Jungleland". For sure this time.
But here goes.
Tonight, I realized I hadn't heard "Jungleland" since Clarence Clemons died. Not a big deal on one level, after all. Many, many weeks have gone by when I haven't heard "Jungleland". But with the Big Man gone, and every article calling that song out as the quintessential Big Man solo. So I thought, well, maybe I should listen to it. Go there, wrap up, stop thinking about it and move on.
"Jungleland" was never my favorite Springsteen song. None of the early stuff was, really, or is, I came to appreciating his music late. "Born in the USA" came out just when I was getting turned on to rock, and its omnipresence (and Bruce's calling a fastball a "speedball") annoyed me. "Brilliant Disguise", "Tunnel of Love", they were good enough songs, but not transcendent. Philly was full of Wall to Wall Sound And Video stores in those days, and Sam Goody's, and their cutout bins were full of cassette copies of "Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ", (lots of copies of Nils Lofgren's "Flip", too) but I never picked one up.
It wasn't until "The Ghost of Tom Joad" that I actually got into Springsteen. At the time, the critics adored the album. A change of pace, a stripped down reinvention of his sound, all that good stuff. Two years on, they were kicking dirt on top of it, but hey, that's record critics for you, and in the meantime "Youngstown" and "Straight Time" still make me sit up straight and listen. And with that under my belt, I went back and listened to the older stuff.
What I came away with, ultimately, was the sense of the E Street Band with Bruce out front as very much the quintessential American band. Not the best, perhaps, but the most representative, part of that long tradition of sprawling, talented, hard-working bands that found a wellspring of joy somewhere and tapped into it while they were playing, and let it wash over the audience when they were onstage. Look around and you see it all over. P-Funk has the same thing. Little Feat had it for a long time. Loose and relaxed, tight and professional, all over the map, each of them carrying with them the sense that at any given moment, you just might be able to climb on stage and be part of that party. And in the middle of it, the Big Man, stomping into songs like Goose Gossage or Mariano Rivera coming out of the pen, putting his stamp on things and sounding like nobody else.
Melinda and I saw Springsteen and the E Street Band in Greensboro a couple of years back. It was toward the end of the tour, and the show wasn't quite sold out, and we had seats behind the stage in the upper deck. From where we sat, we could see where the band walked up backstage, where they gathered and waited to go on. They looked like a random bunch of middle-aged folks. You could see a couple of bald spots, if you looked for them. Clemons looked tired and heavy and old, and he wasn't moving well. There was a chair for him onstage, a throne, really. It was large and orange and empty, and backstage, they were waiting and joking and talking. Danny Federici had just died, the first big blow the band had taken of that kind, and I found myself worrying that Clemons would be next, and soon.
And then that clump of ordinary-looking middle-aged people went up on stage, and joy happened for about three hours. Clemons spent most of it on his throne, watching the proceedings. When the songs called for it, he got up and laid some majesty down, then tottered back to the chair to wait for the next time he was needed.
But when he was up, my God, he was up.
They came through the area again a while back. Greensboro again, not Raleigh - I have no idea what Springsteen has against Raleigh. I mean, Max Weinberg's jazz combo has played Durham, after all. Regardless, we didn't make the show.
And then, tonight. Four times, I fired up "Jungleland". Four times, I got interrupted. The phone ringing. One of the cats doing something unspeakable in the hallway. Another phone call. You get the idea. No "Jungleland", no epic sax solo, not for me tonight. Yeah, I've had plenty of time to listen while wiring this, but clearly the stars aren't right. So maybe I'll let "Tenth Avenue Freezeout" take me home. Or "Rosalita". Or "Cadillac Ranch". Details, really. The sound is there in all of them.
And tomorrow, "Jungleland". For sure this time.
June 30, 2011
Falling Pants and Friendly's
There's something uniquely odd about Friendly's. Maybe it's the strangeness that is their ice cream watermelon roll. Maybe it's the fact that never have I gotten in and out of one in less time than it takes to go to the DMV, even if all I'm ordering is a Diet Coke. Maybe it's the looming pictures of sundaes everywhere - a Friendly's is the only place I've ever seen ice cream look ominous.
This, in part, is why on those rare occasions when one's an option, I avoid Friendly's.
Driving back from Boston with my folks, we sort of ran out of other options. We'd gotten on the road early with an eye toward making good time back toward Carolina, and had opted to skip the hotel breakfast as a way of supporting this goal. Instead, the plan was to find something along 95 as we headed south, presumably within the greater Boston area.
This plan, for various and sundry reasons, failed. Before I knew it, we were well past the limits of the 128 loop and picking up speed, and the prospect of trying to navigate the streets of Pawtucket loomed ominously. So, when the Foxboro exit loomed and there was a sign noting that a Friendly's could be found there, I decided on the better part of valor, or at least keeping everyone's blood sugar up, and stopped.
It was indeed a Friendly's. It was indeed positively plastered with ominous pictures of hot fudge sundaes. Breakfast did in fact take a good long while. And then, just as we're wrapping up, a couple of folks sit down at the table next to us and pick up a conversation they'd clearly started long before.
And the first thing we hear is, "If they'd just looked in his bag, they would have seen that he had other shorts after he took his off."
This, as you might expect, got my attention. The conversation continued with, "His shorts were too big. He couldn't run in them. We tied a rope around them, but he took them off because he couldn't run. They could have looked in his bag."
I wish I could say I turned around and asked "If they fit, why didn't you just put the shorts in the bag on him in the first place?" But to do so was to risk: risk being accused of eavesdropping (though the decibel level the story of the Falling Shorts was related at meant it could have been heard in Newport), risk getting embroiled in a lengthy conversation, risk knowing any more about the situation than I already did, and to be blunt, that notion frightened me deeply.
So we waited for the check. And we waited for the check to come back. And we got out of there as fast as we could.
And before we got in the car, Dad and I both hitched up our pants. Just in case.
This, in part, is why on those rare occasions when one's an option, I avoid Friendly's.
Driving back from Boston with my folks, we sort of ran out of other options. We'd gotten on the road early with an eye toward making good time back toward Carolina, and had opted to skip the hotel breakfast as a way of supporting this goal. Instead, the plan was to find something along 95 as we headed south, presumably within the greater Boston area.
This plan, for various and sundry reasons, failed. Before I knew it, we were well past the limits of the 128 loop and picking up speed, and the prospect of trying to navigate the streets of Pawtucket loomed ominously. So, when the Foxboro exit loomed and there was a sign noting that a Friendly's could be found there, I decided on the better part of valor, or at least keeping everyone's blood sugar up, and stopped.
It was indeed a Friendly's. It was indeed positively plastered with ominous pictures of hot fudge sundaes. Breakfast did in fact take a good long while. And then, just as we're wrapping up, a couple of folks sit down at the table next to us and pick up a conversation they'd clearly started long before.
And the first thing we hear is, "If they'd just looked in his bag, they would have seen that he had other shorts after he took his off."
This, as you might expect, got my attention. The conversation continued with, "His shorts were too big. He couldn't run in them. We tied a rope around them, but he took them off because he couldn't run. They could have looked in his bag."
I wish I could say I turned around and asked "If they fit, why didn't you just put the shorts in the bag on him in the first place?" But to do so was to risk: risk being accused of eavesdropping (though the decibel level the story of the Falling Shorts was related at meant it could have been heard in Newport), risk getting embroiled in a lengthy conversation, risk knowing any more about the situation than I already did, and to be blunt, that notion frightened me deeply.
So we waited for the check. And we waited for the check to come back. And we got out of there as fast as we could.
And before we got in the car, Dad and I both hitched up our pants. Just in case.
June 28, 2011
This morning on Facebook
In the upper right hand corner of my screen, I get asked to "Like" Sasquatch. I mean, not really like Sasquatch, because I have no idea if Sasquatch does things like double-dip chips at parties or root for the Yankees or other stuff like that which might make him unlikeable. But, you know, "Like" Sasquatch.
Which I do, because A)I'm kind of a sucker for all things Sasquatch, and B)I'm all for making my list of Facebook "Likes" as completely random as possible, so as to cause the computer that constantly throws Facebook ads extolling me to "Show my pride in my Southern Civil War Heritage" (Hint: Being from Brooklyn, I don't have any) to melt down as it tries to find a match.
(Five bucks, incidentally, says sooner or later it comes up with something related to "Old Green Eyes", a patently ridiculous local legend that supposedly haunts the Chickamauga battlefield and is the ghost of a Confederate Sasquatch. Seriously. Who needs Deadlands when people come up with this stuff on their own?)
So I click "Like". I do not click "Like" on "Bigfoot", which is sitting just above "Sasquatch" on the page, and which uses precisely the same still from the Patterson-Gimlin film of much-debated provenance as its icon as well. Because, well, I hate being too predictable, and I want some poor benighted data miner sitting there trying to figure out what a preference for "Sasquatch" over "Bigfoot" means.
And after I click "Like", the Sasquatch thingie goes away. It is replaced, nigh-instantly, with "Like Robert Rodriguez!"
I'm not sure what this means. Is Facebook trying to say that the director of Spy Kids is a Sasquatch? Is it hinting that Rodriguez's next film will be Sasquatch-related? Is it saying that Sasquatches were big fans of Shark Boy and Lava Girl, and I should be, too?
I dunno. But if Animal Planet starts broadcasting a show called "Finding Robert Rodriguez", I'm totally there.
Which I do, because A)I'm kind of a sucker for all things Sasquatch, and B)I'm all for making my list of Facebook "Likes" as completely random as possible, so as to cause the computer that constantly throws Facebook ads extolling me to "Show my pride in my Southern Civil War Heritage" (Hint: Being from Brooklyn, I don't have any) to melt down as it tries to find a match.
(Five bucks, incidentally, says sooner or later it comes up with something related to "Old Green Eyes", a patently ridiculous local legend that supposedly haunts the Chickamauga battlefield and is the ghost of a Confederate Sasquatch. Seriously. Who needs Deadlands when people come up with this stuff on their own?)
So I click "Like". I do not click "Like" on "Bigfoot", which is sitting just above "Sasquatch" on the page, and which uses precisely the same still from the Patterson-Gimlin film of much-debated provenance as its icon as well. Because, well, I hate being too predictable, and I want some poor benighted data miner sitting there trying to figure out what a preference for "Sasquatch" over "Bigfoot" means.
And after I click "Like", the Sasquatch thingie goes away. It is replaced, nigh-instantly, with "Like Robert Rodriguez!"
I'm not sure what this means. Is Facebook trying to say that the director of Spy Kids is a Sasquatch? Is it hinting that Rodriguez's next film will be Sasquatch-related? Is it saying that Sasquatches were big fans of Shark Boy and Lava Girl, and I should be, too?
I dunno. But if Animal Planet starts broadcasting a show called "Finding Robert Rodriguez", I'm totally there.
June 26, 2011
Among the Heathens In the Cave of Nnn-CHH
So while the ladies are downstairs doing horrific things to fiber with poisonous chemicals in lobster pots in the kitchen, the mighty Badger finishes wiring in my new turntable so I can start doing things like ripping my late grandfather's much-beloved record collection. Also, my extensive array of pre-Hogarth Marillion 12" singles, but that's neither here nor there. However, when the dust settles, there's something missing, because, well, there's always something missing. Odds are, if you're putting together IKEA furniture it's the Allen Wrench, but since this was a turntable and designed for putting records on, it's the pad - called a slip mat - that sits between the hard, unforgiving metal of the turntable itself and the aging, brittle vinyl and shellac of the records in question. "Don't sit on my Jimmy Shands" sang Richard Thompson; what he left out was "if you do, the damn things will snap and you'll be walking around with a literal buttload of pointy polka bits."
Badger and I discuss going out to get a slip mat, and check the clock. There's some time time before my evening appointment at the ballpark. He says "How much time do you have?" I say "How much time are we talking?" We go back and forth on this a few times, ultimately deciding to see if the nearby Best Buy has slip mats. They should, after all. Turntables are cool these days. Lots of people are buying turntables. Surely they will have turntable accessories.
[For those of you who don't speak Rich-and-Badger, the actual conversation that was being had (as opposed to the spoken one) was "Do you have enough time to make a run to the audio specialty store, which will almost certainly have the equipment we require and at high quality, but which will take a while." "I am uncomfortable with the indefinite notion of 'a while' when I have another appointment this evening, and cannot in good conscience agree to sojourn so far afield without a more specific estimate of how long we may find ourselves indulging in the picaresque"]
We go to the Best Buy at the unnamed, largely unfilled strip mall next to the named-but-not-memorably-so strip mall with the Buffalo Wild Wings in it at Brier Creek, which is across the street from the named-but-best-known-for-its-abominable-parking-lot strip mall across the street from actual Brier Creek, which is, well, Brier Creek. I hate going to this Best Buy, in large part because it is the only store open in this particular strip mall. The rest of the storefronts just sit there in cheerful, ghoulish yellow with nobody inside, their backs turned to the road so that even if there were anything there, passersby would have no idea what the hell they were looking at, and anyway, the traffic patterns leading into and out of that lot that only the Best Buy and drunk teenagers looking to cut donuts in a parking lot sure to be empty ever use.
Also, that particular Best Buy has a lousy selection.
Badger and I walk in. We are greeted by the greeter, because really, what you want when you're about to drop a ridiculous amount of money at a big box electronics store is to be greeted by someone whom you've never met before. The greeter gets about a third of the way through her canned spiel before Badger interrupts with a question as to where we might find slip mats.
"What are they?" she asks.
Badger explains that they are for stereos.
"Oh," the greeter says. "Those are in Home Theater." She points to a very noisy cave on the corner of the floor that is filled with televisions. It is not, near as I can tell from this distance, filled with turntables, or useful turntable-related equipment.
We walk over there. The employee responsible for that department is grooving out to some very loud television. Home theater indeed. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a demo loop playing on a giant plasma HDTV over in the television department. It's Ken Jeong with his double golden Desert Eagle paintball guns from the season 1 finale of Community. This is not a good omen.
He starts into his spiel. Badger waits to the point where all useful information has clearly long been disseminated, then gently interrupts with "Do you have any slip mats?"
The guy blinks. "What are they?"
"For turntables."
"Uh, no. We don't have any. Best you're going to do is maybe the Guitar Center on 15-501, or there's one over on Capital Boulevard." I do a mental calculation. Half an hour to either of those. Alarm bells start going off.
"Thank you," says Badger. We turn to go.
"Did you find everything you needed?" the greeter asks as we head out through the main doors. Clearly, this is a question she has to ask, for fear of being marked down by some malicious mystery shopper whose every scribble carries the weight of Solon's memoirs in a personnel file. Obviously, we did not find everything we were looking for, or we wouldn't be skipping the checkout line.
"No, we didn't." says Badger. "You don't carry them."
"We don't?" gasps the greeter, shocked.
"No, you don't. That's why we're leaving." And we walk out, and debate whether to go to 15-501 or Capital Boulevard. I suggest that we try the HH Gregg across the street in the strip mall two levels of fractal up from the one we're currently in, since we're already there, more or less. Steve concurs.
We pull out of the parking lot. Make a left. And then a right. And then a u-turn. And then a right. And then a left. And then another left, at which point we've finally parked at the store that's just across the street.
We walk in. One of the floor employees greets us. There is no official "greeter" here. Badger introduces himself and me. The employee introduces himself. Badger asks if they have slip mats. The employee says, "I don't think so, but let me ask to be sure." I look around. There is absolutely no other stereo equipment there. The guy we have talked to hails another employee. "Do we have shift mats?"
"Slip mats," Badger corrects him. "For turntables."
"No," the other guy says. "None of that stuff. You might want to try Guitar Center, on Capital Boulevard."
We leave the store and head for Capital Boulevard. En route, Badger suggests we try Sam Ash, which may well also have turntable equipment and which is across the street from Guitar Center, so we'd be passing it anyway. That makes sense.
My phone rings. It's Melinda. She notes that Luna is feeling peckish and wants to know if she should feed her or wait until we get back. I tell her that we are on a Grail-like quest, have been mercilessly taunted and distracted by a grail-shaped beacon, and have no idea when we'll be back except that it will be in time for me to leave again. "So I should feed Luna," she says. "Yes," I say.
We pull into Sam Ash's. It's in one of the innumerable tiny shopping centers along Capital in between the Inner and Outer Beltlines. We walk in.
Inside, someone is trying out a guitar. Someone else is trying out a drum set. There is also music. Somehow, over the din, an employee approaches Badger and asks if he needs help. Badger replies that we are looking for slip mats. The guy nods and points at a dark, noisy cave off the main show floor. "In there," he says. We thank him and go.
The cave is dark. It is loud. It is filled with music going "Nnn-CH Nnn-CH Nnn-CH" at high volume and higher speed. There are turntables under glass in the counter at the front of the cave. Deeper in, there are strobes, and fog machines, and cables, and things I cannot identify. There are no slip mats. There is, however, an employee, who is helping a customer who looks sixteen and wants to get his hands on every piece of equipment in the joint. I go into the next room, which is better lit, looks to be full of stereo-type equipment, and does not have anyone shouting NN-CHH NNN-CHHH in it.
The other room holds cables. Lots of cables. Lots and lots and lots of cables, really. I wander back, to discover that the sales guy has dealt with the 16 year old and is now standing next to Badger, staring at an empty product rack on the wall.
"We....we don't have any left," he says. "I could check in back, but if we did, they'd be out here, and...you want me to steal one off something in here for you? This sucks."
"No thank you," we say. He introduces himself, apologizes for nothing the part we need, allows that he hopes he can help us another time, and suggests we might as well try across the street at Guitar Center.
Which also has a cave full of Nnn-CHH NNN-CHH NNN-CHH. And it has slip mats, which are in a locked cabinet. Pretty much every one they offer for sale glows in the dark.
I note this. I also note that I'm going to be playing Pinetop Smith records from 1923 or so on this turntable, that Pinetop Smith wasn't a big fan of scratching and wouldn't have known a DJ from a diplodocus, and that the number of Nnn-CHHHs on the records I own is somewhere south of zero, because I am a cranky old fart who likes actual instruments. Employee gives me a look of pity similar to the one the mammals gave the dinosaurs toward the end of the Cretaceous, and opens the cabinet. Badger and I look at the contents and pick one. The employee shuts the cabinet. I note that these slip mats do in fact glow in the dark. I also note that I don't give a rat's ass, so long as they do what they're supposed to do, and if there's a record on the turntable we won't be able to see any damn glow anyway.
Badger, wisely, concurs. I pay. We show our receipt to the nice man at the door and leave.
Ten minutes later, I ask Badger to check the back seat to make sure that the slip mats are still there. Because, well, it's been that kind of day.
Badger and I discuss going out to get a slip mat, and check the clock. There's some time time before my evening appointment at the ballpark. He says "How much time do you have?" I say "How much time are we talking?" We go back and forth on this a few times, ultimately deciding to see if the nearby Best Buy has slip mats. They should, after all. Turntables are cool these days. Lots of people are buying turntables. Surely they will have turntable accessories.
[For those of you who don't speak Rich-and-Badger, the actual conversation that was being had (as opposed to the spoken one) was "Do you have enough time to make a run to the audio specialty store, which will almost certainly have the equipment we require and at high quality, but which will take a while." "I am uncomfortable with the indefinite notion of 'a while' when I have another appointment this evening, and cannot in good conscience agree to sojourn so far afield without a more specific estimate of how long we may find ourselves indulging in the picaresque"]
We go to the Best Buy at the unnamed, largely unfilled strip mall next to the named-but-not-memorably-so strip mall with the Buffalo Wild Wings in it at Brier Creek, which is across the street from the named-but-best-known-for-its-abominable-parking-lot strip mall across the street from actual Brier Creek, which is, well, Brier Creek. I hate going to this Best Buy, in large part because it is the only store open in this particular strip mall. The rest of the storefronts just sit there in cheerful, ghoulish yellow with nobody inside, their backs turned to the road so that even if there were anything there, passersby would have no idea what the hell they were looking at, and anyway, the traffic patterns leading into and out of that lot that only the Best Buy and drunk teenagers looking to cut donuts in a parking lot sure to be empty ever use.
Also, that particular Best Buy has a lousy selection.
Badger and I walk in. We are greeted by the greeter, because really, what you want when you're about to drop a ridiculous amount of money at a big box electronics store is to be greeted by someone whom you've never met before. The greeter gets about a third of the way through her canned spiel before Badger interrupts with a question as to where we might find slip mats.
"What are they?" she asks.
Badger explains that they are for stereos.
"Oh," the greeter says. "Those are in Home Theater." She points to a very noisy cave on the corner of the floor that is filled with televisions. It is not, near as I can tell from this distance, filled with turntables, or useful turntable-related equipment.
We walk over there. The employee responsible for that department is grooving out to some very loud television. Home theater indeed. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a demo loop playing on a giant plasma HDTV over in the television department. It's Ken Jeong with his double golden Desert Eagle paintball guns from the season 1 finale of Community. This is not a good omen.
He starts into his spiel. Badger waits to the point where all useful information has clearly long been disseminated, then gently interrupts with "Do you have any slip mats?"
The guy blinks. "What are they?"
"For turntables."
"Uh, no. We don't have any. Best you're going to do is maybe the Guitar Center on 15-501, or there's one over on Capital Boulevard." I do a mental calculation. Half an hour to either of those. Alarm bells start going off.
"Thank you," says Badger. We turn to go.
"Did you find everything you needed?" the greeter asks as we head out through the main doors. Clearly, this is a question she has to ask, for fear of being marked down by some malicious mystery shopper whose every scribble carries the weight of Solon's memoirs in a personnel file. Obviously, we did not find everything we were looking for, or we wouldn't be skipping the checkout line.
"No, we didn't." says Badger. "You don't carry them."
"We don't?" gasps the greeter, shocked.
"No, you don't. That's why we're leaving." And we walk out, and debate whether to go to 15-501 or Capital Boulevard. I suggest that we try the HH Gregg across the street in the strip mall two levels of fractal up from the one we're currently in, since we're already there, more or less. Steve concurs.
We pull out of the parking lot. Make a left. And then a right. And then a u-turn. And then a right. And then a left. And then another left, at which point we've finally parked at the store that's just across the street.
We walk in. One of the floor employees greets us. There is no official "greeter" here. Badger introduces himself and me. The employee introduces himself. Badger asks if they have slip mats. The employee says, "I don't think so, but let me ask to be sure." I look around. There is absolutely no other stereo equipment there. The guy we have talked to hails another employee. "Do we have shift mats?"
"Slip mats," Badger corrects him. "For turntables."
"No," the other guy says. "None of that stuff. You might want to try Guitar Center, on Capital Boulevard."
We leave the store and head for Capital Boulevard. En route, Badger suggests we try Sam Ash, which may well also have turntable equipment and which is across the street from Guitar Center, so we'd be passing it anyway. That makes sense.
My phone rings. It's Melinda. She notes that Luna is feeling peckish and wants to know if she should feed her or wait until we get back. I tell her that we are on a Grail-like quest, have been mercilessly taunted and distracted by a grail-shaped beacon, and have no idea when we'll be back except that it will be in time for me to leave again. "So I should feed Luna," she says. "Yes," I say.
We pull into Sam Ash's. It's in one of the innumerable tiny shopping centers along Capital in between the Inner and Outer Beltlines. We walk in.
Inside, someone is trying out a guitar. Someone else is trying out a drum set. There is also music. Somehow, over the din, an employee approaches Badger and asks if he needs help. Badger replies that we are looking for slip mats. The guy nods and points at a dark, noisy cave off the main show floor. "In there," he says. We thank him and go.
The cave is dark. It is loud. It is filled with music going "Nnn-CH Nnn-CH Nnn-CH" at high volume and higher speed. There are turntables under glass in the counter at the front of the cave. Deeper in, there are strobes, and fog machines, and cables, and things I cannot identify. There are no slip mats. There is, however, an employee, who is helping a customer who looks sixteen and wants to get his hands on every piece of equipment in the joint. I go into the next room, which is better lit, looks to be full of stereo-type equipment, and does not have anyone shouting NN-CHH NNN-CHHH in it.
The other room holds cables. Lots of cables. Lots and lots and lots of cables, really. I wander back, to discover that the sales guy has dealt with the 16 year old and is now standing next to Badger, staring at an empty product rack on the wall.
"We....we don't have any left," he says. "I could check in back, but if we did, they'd be out here, and...you want me to steal one off something in here for you? This sucks."
"No thank you," we say. He introduces himself, apologizes for nothing the part we need, allows that he hopes he can help us another time, and suggests we might as well try across the street at Guitar Center.
Which also has a cave full of Nnn-CHH NNN-CHH NNN-CHH. And it has slip mats, which are in a locked cabinet. Pretty much every one they offer for sale glows in the dark.
I note this. I also note that I'm going to be playing Pinetop Smith records from 1923 or so on this turntable, that Pinetop Smith wasn't a big fan of scratching and wouldn't have known a DJ from a diplodocus, and that the number of Nnn-CHHHs on the records I own is somewhere south of zero, because I am a cranky old fart who likes actual instruments. Employee gives me a look of pity similar to the one the mammals gave the dinosaurs toward the end of the Cretaceous, and opens the cabinet. Badger and I look at the contents and pick one. The employee shuts the cabinet. I note that these slip mats do in fact glow in the dark. I also note that I don't give a rat's ass, so long as they do what they're supposed to do, and if there's a record on the turntable we won't be able to see any damn glow anyway.
Badger, wisely, concurs. I pay. We show our receipt to the nice man at the door and leave.
Ten minutes later, I ask Badger to check the back seat to make sure that the slip mats are still there. Because, well, it's been that kind of day.
The Quest
So while the ladies are downstairs doing horrific things to fiber with poisonous chemicals in lobster pots in the kitchen, the mighty Badger finishes wiring in my new turntable so I can start doing things like ripping my late grandfather's much-beloved record collection. Also, my extensive array of pre-Hogarth Marillion 12" singles, but that's neither here nor there. However, when the dust settles, there's something missing, because, well, there's always something missing. Odds are, if you're putting together IKEA furniture it's the Allen Wrench, but since this was a turntable and designed for putting records on, it's the pad - called a slip mat - that sits between the hard, unforgiving metal of the turntable itself and the aging, brittle vinyl and shellac of the records in question. "Don't sit on my Jimmy Shands" sang Richard Thompson; what he left out was "if you do, the damn things will snap and you'll be walking around with a literal buttload of pointy polka bits."
Badger and I discuss going out to get a slip mat, and check the clock. There's some time time before my evening appointment at the ballpark. He says "How much time do you have?" I say "How much time are we talking?" We go back and forth on this a few times, ultimately deciding to see if the nearby Best Buy has slip mats. They should, after all. Turntables are cool these days. Lots of people are buying turntables. Surely they will have turntable accessories.
[For those of you who don't speak Rich-and-Badger, the actual conversation that was being had (as opposed to the spoken one) was "Do you have enough time to make a run to the audio specialty store, which will almost certainly have the equipment we require and at high quality, but which will take a while." "I am uncomfortable with the indefinite notion of 'a while' when I have another appointment this evening, and cannot in good conscience agree to sojourn so far afield without a more specific estimate of how long we may find ourselves indulging in the picaresque"]
We go to the Best Buy at the unnamed, largely unfilled strip mall next to the named-but-not-memorably-so strip mall with the Buffalo Wild Wings in it at Brier Creek, which is across the street from the named-but-best-known-for-its-abominable-parking-lot strip mall across the street from actual Brier Creek, which is, well, Brier Creek. I hate going to this Best Buy, in large part because it is the only store open in this particular strip mall. The rest of the storefronts just sit there in cheerful, ghoulish yellow with nobody inside, their backs turned to the road so that even if there were anything there, passersby would have no idea what the hell they were looking at, and anyway, the traffic patterns leading into and out of that lot that only the Best Buy and drunk teenagers looking to cut donuts in a parking lot sure to be empty ever use.
Also, that particular Best Buy has a lousy selection.
Badger and I walk in. We are greeted by the greeter, because really, what you want when you're about to drop a ridiculous amount of money at a big box electronics store is to be greeted by someone whom you've never met before. The greeter gets about a third of the way through her canned spiel before Badger interrupts with a question as to where we might find slip mats.
"What are they?" she asks.
Badger explains that they are for stereos.
"Oh," the greeter says. "Those are in Home Theater." She points to a very noisy cave on the corner of the floor that is filled with televisions. It is not, near as I can tell from this distance, filled with turntables, or useful turntable-related equipment.
We walk over there. The employee responsible for that department is grooving out to some very loud television. Home theater indeed. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a demo loop playing on a giant plasma HDTV over in the television department. It's Ken Jeong with his double golden Desert Eagle paintball guns from the season 1 finale of Community. This is not a good omen.
He starts into his spiel. Badger waits to the point where all useful information has clearly long been disseminated, then gently interrupts with "Do you have any slip mats?"
The guy blinks. "What are they?"
"For turntables."
"Uh, no. We don't have any. Best you're going to do is maybe the Guitar Center on 15-501, or there's one over on Capital Boulevard." I do a mental calculation. Half an hour to either of those. Alarm bells start going off.
"Thank you," says Badger. We turn to go.
"Did you find everything you needed?" the greeter asks as we head out through the main doors. Clearly, this is a question she has to ask, for fear of being marked down by some malicious mystery shopper whose every scribble carries the weight of Solon's memoirs in a personnel file. Obviously, we did not find everything we were looking for, or we wouldn't be skipping the checkout line.
"No, we didn't." says Badger. "You don't carry them."
"We don't?" gasps the greeter, shocked.
"No, you don't. That's why we're leaving." And we walk out, and debate whether to go to 15-501 or Capital Boulevard. I suggest that we try the HH Gregg across the street in the strip mall two levels of fractal up from the one we're currently in, since we're already there, more or less. Steve concurs.
We pull out of the parking lot. Make a left. And then a right. And then a u-turn. And then a right. And then a left. And then another left, at which point we've finally parked at the store that's just across the street.
We walk in. One of the floor employees greets us. There is no official "greeter" here. Badger introduces himself and me. The employee introduces himself. Badger asks if they have slip mats. The employee says, "I don't think so, but let me ask to be sure." I look around. There is absolutely no other stereo equipment there. The guy we have talked to hails another employee. "Do we have shift mats?"
"Slip mats," Badger corrects him. "For turntables."
"No," the other guy says. "None of that stuff. You might want to try Guitar Center, on Capital Boulevard."
We leave the store and head for Capital Boulevard. En route, Badger suggests we try Sam Ash, which may well also have turntable equipment and which is across the street from Guitar Center, so we'd be passing it anyway. That makes sense.
My phone rings. It's Melinda. She notes that Luna is feeling peckish and wants to know if she should feed her or wait until we get back. I tell her that we are on a Grail-like quest, have been mercilessly taunted and distracted by a grail-shaped beacon, and have no idea when we'll be back except that it will be in time for me to leave again. "So I should feed Luna," she says. "Yes," I say.
We pull into Sam Ash's. It's in one of the innumerable tiny shopping centers along Capital in between the Inner and Outer Beltlines. We walk in.
Inside, someone is trying out a guitar. Someone else is trying out a drum set. There is also music. Somehow, over the din, an employee approaches Badger and asks if he needs help. Badger replies that we are looking for slip mats. The guy nods and points at a dark, noisy cave off the main show floor. "In there," he says. We thank him and go.
The cave is dark. It is loud. It is filled with music going "Nnn-CH Nnn-CH Nnn-CH" at high volume and higher speed. There are turntables under glass in the counter at the front of the cave. Deeper in, there are strobes, and fog machines, and cables, and things I cannot identify. There are no slip mats. There is, however, an employee, who is helping a customer who looks sixteen and wants to get his hands on every piece of equipment in the joint. I go into the next room, which is better lit, looks to be full of stereo-type equipment, and does not have anyone shouting NN-CHH NNN-CHHH in it.
The other room holds cables. Lots of cables. Lots and lots and lots of cables, really. I wander back, to discover that the sales guy has dealt with the 16 year old and is now standing next to Badger, staring at an empty product rack on the wall.
"We....we don't have any left," he says. "I could check in back, but if we did, they'd be out here, and...you want me to steal one off something in here for you? This sucks."
"No thank you," we say. He introduces himself, apologizes for nothing the part we need, allows that he hopes he can help us another time, and suggests we might as well try across the street at Guitar Center.
Which also has a cave full of Nnn-CHH NNN-CHH NNN-CHH. And it has slip mats, which are in a locked cabinet. Pretty much every one they offer for sale glows in the dark.
I note this. I also note that I'm going to be playing Pinetop Smith records from 1923 or so on this turntable, that Pinetop Smith wasn't a big fan of scratching and wouldn't have known a DJ from a diplodocus, and that the number of Nnn-CHHHs on the records I own is somewhere south of zero, because I am a cranky old fart who likes actual instruments. Employee gives me a look of pity similar to the one the mammals gave the dinosaurs toward the end of the Cretaceous, and opens the cabinet. Badger and I look at the contents and pick one. The employee shuts the cabinet. I note that these slip mats do in fact glow in the dark. I also note that I don't give a rat's ass, so long as they do what they're supposed to do, and if there's a record on the turntable we won't be able to see any damn glow anyway.
Steve, wisely, concurs. I pay. We show our receipt to the nice man at the door and leave.
Ten minutes later, I ask Steve to check the back seat to make sure that the slip mats are still there. Because, well, it's been that kind of day.
Badger and I discuss going out to get a slip mat, and check the clock. There's some time time before my evening appointment at the ballpark. He says "How much time do you have?" I say "How much time are we talking?" We go back and forth on this a few times, ultimately deciding to see if the nearby Best Buy has slip mats. They should, after all. Turntables are cool these days. Lots of people are buying turntables. Surely they will have turntable accessories.
[For those of you who don't speak Rich-and-Badger, the actual conversation that was being had (as opposed to the spoken one) was "Do you have enough time to make a run to the audio specialty store, which will almost certainly have the equipment we require and at high quality, but which will take a while." "I am uncomfortable with the indefinite notion of 'a while' when I have another appointment this evening, and cannot in good conscience agree to sojourn so far afield without a more specific estimate of how long we may find ourselves indulging in the picaresque"]
We go to the Best Buy at the unnamed, largely unfilled strip mall next to the named-but-not-memorably-so strip mall with the Buffalo Wild Wings in it at Brier Creek, which is across the street from the named-but-best-known-for-its-abominable-parking-lot strip mall across the street from actual Brier Creek, which is, well, Brier Creek. I hate going to this Best Buy, in large part because it is the only store open in this particular strip mall. The rest of the storefronts just sit there in cheerful, ghoulish yellow with nobody inside, their backs turned to the road so that even if there were anything there, passersby would have no idea what the hell they were looking at, and anyway, the traffic patterns leading into and out of that lot that only the Best Buy and drunk teenagers looking to cut donuts in a parking lot sure to be empty ever use.
Also, that particular Best Buy has a lousy selection.
Badger and I walk in. We are greeted by the greeter, because really, what you want when you're about to drop a ridiculous amount of money at a big box electronics store is to be greeted by someone whom you've never met before. The greeter gets about a third of the way through her canned spiel before Badger interrupts with a question as to where we might find slip mats.
"What are they?" she asks.
Badger explains that they are for stereos.
"Oh," the greeter says. "Those are in Home Theater." She points to a very noisy cave on the corner of the floor that is filled with televisions. It is not, near as I can tell from this distance, filled with turntables, or useful turntable-related equipment.
We walk over there. The employee responsible for that department is grooving out to some very loud television. Home theater indeed. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a demo loop playing on a giant plasma HDTV over in the television department. It's Ken Jeong with his double golden Desert Eagle paintball guns from the season 1 finale of Community. This is not a good omen.
He starts into his spiel. Badger waits to the point where all useful information has clearly long been disseminated, then gently interrupts with "Do you have any slip mats?"
The guy blinks. "What are they?"
"For turntables."
"Uh, no. We don't have any. Best you're going to do is maybe the Guitar Center on 15-501, or there's one over on Capital Boulevard." I do a mental calculation. Half an hour to either of those. Alarm bells start going off.
"Thank you," says Badger. We turn to go.
"Did you find everything you needed?" the greeter asks as we head out through the main doors. Clearly, this is a question she has to ask, for fear of being marked down by some malicious mystery shopper whose every scribble carries the weight of Solon's memoirs in a personnel file. Obviously, we did not find everything we were looking for, or we wouldn't be skipping the checkout line.
"No, we didn't." says Badger. "You don't carry them."
"We don't?" gasps the greeter, shocked.
"No, you don't. That's why we're leaving." And we walk out, and debate whether to go to 15-501 or Capital Boulevard. I suggest that we try the HH Gregg across the street in the strip mall two levels of fractal up from the one we're currently in, since we're already there, more or less. Steve concurs.
We pull out of the parking lot. Make a left. And then a right. And then a u-turn. And then a right. And then a left. And then another left, at which point we've finally parked at the store that's just across the street.
We walk in. One of the floor employees greets us. There is no official "greeter" here. Badger introduces himself and me. The employee introduces himself. Badger asks if they have slip mats. The employee says, "I don't think so, but let me ask to be sure." I look around. There is absolutely no other stereo equipment there. The guy we have talked to hails another employee. "Do we have shift mats?"
"Slip mats," Badger corrects him. "For turntables."
"No," the other guy says. "None of that stuff. You might want to try Guitar Center, on Capital Boulevard."
We leave the store and head for Capital Boulevard. En route, Badger suggests we try Sam Ash, which may well also have turntable equipment and which is across the street from Guitar Center, so we'd be passing it anyway. That makes sense.
My phone rings. It's Melinda. She notes that Luna is feeling peckish and wants to know if she should feed her or wait until we get back. I tell her that we are on a Grail-like quest, have been mercilessly taunted and distracted by a grail-shaped beacon, and have no idea when we'll be back except that it will be in time for me to leave again. "So I should feed Luna," she says. "Yes," I say.
We pull into Sam Ash's. It's in one of the innumerable tiny shopping centers along Capital in between the Inner and Outer Beltlines. We walk in.
Inside, someone is trying out a guitar. Someone else is trying out a drum set. There is also music. Somehow, over the din, an employee approaches Badger and asks if he needs help. Badger replies that we are looking for slip mats. The guy nods and points at a dark, noisy cave off the main show floor. "In there," he says. We thank him and go.
The cave is dark. It is loud. It is filled with music going "Nnn-CH Nnn-CH Nnn-CH" at high volume and higher speed. There are turntables under glass in the counter at the front of the cave. Deeper in, there are strobes, and fog machines, and cables, and things I cannot identify. There are no slip mats. There is, however, an employee, who is helping a customer who looks sixteen and wants to get his hands on every piece of equipment in the joint. I go into the next room, which is better lit, looks to be full of stereo-type equipment, and does not have anyone shouting NN-CHH NNN-CHHH in it.
The other room holds cables. Lots of cables. Lots and lots and lots of cables, really. I wander back, to discover that the sales guy has dealt with the 16 year old and is now standing next to Badger, staring at an empty product rack on the wall.
"We....we don't have any left," he says. "I could check in back, but if we did, they'd be out here, and...you want me to steal one off something in here for you? This sucks."
"No thank you," we say. He introduces himself, apologizes for nothing the part we need, allows that he hopes he can help us another time, and suggests we might as well try across the street at Guitar Center.
Which also has a cave full of Nnn-CHH NNN-CHH NNN-CHH. And it has slip mats, which are in a locked cabinet. Pretty much every one they offer for sale glows in the dark.
I note this. I also note that I'm going to be playing Pinetop Smith records from 1923 or so on this turntable, that Pinetop Smith wasn't a big fan of scratching and wouldn't have known a DJ from a diplodocus, and that the number of Nnn-CHHHs on the records I own is somewhere south of zero, because I am a cranky old fart who likes actual instruments. Employee gives me a look of pity similar to the one the mammals gave the dinosaurs toward the end of the Cretaceous, and opens the cabinet. Badger and I look at the contents and pick one. The employee shuts the cabinet. I note that these slip mats do in fact glow in the dark. I also note that I don't give a rat's ass, so long as they do what they're supposed to do, and if there's a record on the turntable we won't be able to see any damn glow anyway.
Steve, wisely, concurs. I pay. We show our receipt to the nice man at the door and leave.
Ten minutes later, I ask Steve to check the back seat to make sure that the slip mats are still there. Because, well, it's been that kind of day.
June 13, 2011
Found a Shovel
So I'm in Boston. This is not a social trip; it's accompanying my parents in dealing with some of the ongoing issues from my cousin's passing in January. Details are not for publication, as this is a family matter, and once upon a time I mentioned how I feel about blogging about family matters - namely, I generally don't. I also haven't written much about my cousin; I will do that one of these days. Not today, though. Not the right time.
But that means that while I'm up here, I'm busy doing stuff that isn't particularly social. So if I'm slow to respond to emails, if I'm insufficiently Tweety, if I don't update my Empires or my Allies enough, my apologies. Other things are going on.
In the meantime, here's one story from today.
#
Found a snow shovel at my cousin's house. Found four, actually, ranging from a plastic kids' model with a heavily chewed up bright red blade to a a big ergonomic green one. Tucked in the back was a blue one with a dented blade and a metal handle. I was familiar with that one. When I lived in my cousin's house during grad school, I used that shovel pretty regularly in an unsuccessful effort to keep the lone drain on the cul-de-sac free of ice and snow during the winter. Failure to do so would result in the drain getting buried in snow, which would result in the end of the street turning into a skating rink when snow melted and refroze - and we got a lot of snow in those years. Unfortunately, the neighbors were also aware of the importance of the drain and tried to avoid parking over it, which meant on those rare occasions when the city plowed the street, they pushed all the snow right into the open space, which was to say onto the drain. But I digress.
Which takes me back to the shovel, and a day when i was digging out after a snowstorm, and seeing someone get mugged at knifepoint in the park at the end of the block. This was fairly bold mugger behavior; the guys who worked that park usually waited for nightfall. We'd had the trees in the park trimmed up from ground level so you could see the muggers hiding behind them, and I used to carry a tire iron with me - held out prominently - when I walked cross the park to meet my then-girlfriend when she rode the Orange line in to see me of an evening. But there was a mugging happening in broad daylight. And me, I had a shovel. Which, if you have read All Quiet on the Western Front, is a big sharp metal blade on the end of a long stick.
Which meant I did the stupid thing. I walked over and brike up the mugging. The mugger ran off one way, muttering threats. The victim ran off the other, saying things that were in no language I could comprehend. But hey, I'd done the good guy thing, with a shovel. And that felt good.
But that means that while I'm up here, I'm busy doing stuff that isn't particularly social. So if I'm slow to respond to emails, if I'm insufficiently Tweety, if I don't update my Empires or my Allies enough, my apologies. Other things are going on.
In the meantime, here's one story from today.
#
Found a snow shovel at my cousin's house. Found four, actually, ranging from a plastic kids' model with a heavily chewed up bright red blade to a a big ergonomic green one. Tucked in the back was a blue one with a dented blade and a metal handle. I was familiar with that one. When I lived in my cousin's house during grad school, I used that shovel pretty regularly in an unsuccessful effort to keep the lone drain on the cul-de-sac free of ice and snow during the winter. Failure to do so would result in the drain getting buried in snow, which would result in the end of the street turning into a skating rink when snow melted and refroze - and we got a lot of snow in those years. Unfortunately, the neighbors were also aware of the importance of the drain and tried to avoid parking over it, which meant on those rare occasions when the city plowed the street, they pushed all the snow right into the open space, which was to say onto the drain. But I digress.
Which takes me back to the shovel, and a day when i was digging out after a snowstorm, and seeing someone get mugged at knifepoint in the park at the end of the block. This was fairly bold mugger behavior; the guys who worked that park usually waited for nightfall. We'd had the trees in the park trimmed up from ground level so you could see the muggers hiding behind them, and I used to carry a tire iron with me - held out prominently - when I walked cross the park to meet my then-girlfriend when she rode the Orange line in to see me of an evening. But there was a mugging happening in broad daylight. And me, I had a shovel. Which, if you have read All Quiet on the Western Front, is a big sharp metal blade on the end of a long stick.
Which meant I did the stupid thing. I walked over and brike up the mugging. The mugger ran off one way, muttering threats. The victim ran off the other, saying things that were in no language I could comprehend. But hey, I'd done the good guy thing, with a shovel. And that felt good.
June 11, 2011
A Quick Observation on Relationships In The Age of Mobility
Melinda's coming home! Yay!
I'm leaving in the morning! Boo!
Timing, as they say, is everything.
I'm leaving in the morning! Boo!
Timing, as they say, is everything.
