Friday, May 30, 2008
Not love in a jar, but close
A while back I wrote of homemade apricot jam that it really is love in a jar.
Fresh, homemade strawberry jam made with the best, freshest strawberries of the spring qualifies as, if not love in a jar, at least joy in a jar.
I’d write more, but this is really just an initial test to see if I can make a flickr image link work.
WTF?
Instead of posting here, my lastest blog-entry is over at scrineblog so if you want to see what I have to say and hear my rant (and others’) continued in the comments, well, click over there.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Slowing Down: Everything I Need to Know I Learned From A Truck - Part I
Walter is old enough to be my father. 62. Born in 1946. To my knowledge he’s spent his whole life in California, originally working mine inspections up in the Sierras and more recently working for a contractor who does restorations on old Craftsman homes down in Santa Barbara. Next he’s going to help me with my Bay Area remodel, making dump runs and carrying building materials and tools.
Walter is a truck. A 3/4-ton Chevy long-bed pickup. Original straight-six 216 engine. Four on the floor with a granny gear. Crash-box transmission from the days before syncromesh.
Top speed 50mph.
Interesting things happen when your truck is over 60 years old and your top speed is 50mph. When you have to think about every shift. When you feel and hear the engine and the road. You see more. You hear more. You listen to the engine and transmission to know when to shift. You smell oil drips burning off the old block and you can gauge the truck’s temperature and its health. You crank down the window (or even crank out the front windshield—the original air conditioning) and feel and smell the breeze.
People smile at you and your slow old truck.
You can feel the appreciation of the old timers as memories flood back.
You can see younger people’s eyes light up as they discover the visceral appeal of art deco curves and shiney chrome.
All of a sudden there’s no destination—only a journey.
Friday, March 07, 2008
Advice to my 13yo Daughter
I took my 13yo aside a couple weeks ago and gave her the following lecture (copied from the one my father gave me back in the day):
There are three rules in this household plus a few simple words of advice:
1) Don’t ride with anyone who’s drunk (or drive drunk). Ever. Call home and you get a free pass on the punishment you think you deserve for getting in the situation in the first place.
2) No heroin. Ever. (Expanded for 2008 to include no meth. Ever.)
3) Do anything else and I’ll pretty much let it slide so long as you never get less than a B+ mid-term and an A- in any class. Your grades go down and your ass is grass so do drugs, sneak out and party accordingly.
The advice is: drugs and/or alcohol lead to real stupid decisions about sex - don’t mix ‘em until you’re old enough to fully appreciate the importance of this advice.
Sunday, February 03, 2008
The best aphrodisiac
This from Isabel Allende’s Aphrodite
That men are still closer to the monkey than women, I haven’t a doubt. Men’s sexual impulse is triggered by the eyes, an inheritance from those simian ancestors whom the female summons when she is in heat by means of a noticeable change in her intimate parts, which turn red and take on the morbid appearanc of a ripe pomegranate. For some reason, this works like waving a red flag at the males, should they not be paying attention.
Among humans, visual stimulus is equally irresistible, which explains the success of magazines filled with half-naked women. Attempts have been made to exploit the same publishing market among female readers, but images of well-endowed youths unfurling their charms on full-color pages have been a fiasco; they are more often bought by homosexuals than by women. We women have a better developed sense of the ridiculous, and besides, our sensuality is tied to our imagination and our auditory nerves. It may be that the only way we will listen is if someone whispers in our ear. The G spot is in the ears, and anyone who goofs around looking for it any farther down is wasting his time and ours. Professional lovers, and I am referring not just to lotharios like Cassanova, Valentino, and Julio Iglesias, but to the quantities of men who collect amorous conuests to prove their virility with quantity—since quality is a question of luck—know that with women the best aphrodisiac is words.
Sounds like a good reason to try to hone my skills en-blog this year.
Saturday, September 08, 2007
Thirty-five years ago
[rambling]
Thirty-five years ago I was five. Must have been 1971. I lived in a log cabin my parents had built a hundred yards or so from my uncle’s commune in the mountains above Boulder. For some reason, it was important to my mother that her kids not be raised in a communal geodesic dome where a bunch of folks hung out, smoked dope, and tried to figure out how to make their own LSD.
No running water. No electricity. No refrigeration. Outhouse. Had to hike in at least half a mile through the snow in winter. (Despite popular belief, it was uphill only one way.)
It seems about 1000 years and a million miles from my life today.
Looking at my kids, I can’t say they’re any happier than I was. And looking at myself, I don’t think I can claim to be any happier than my parents were then. Life’s different. Far more complicated. It’s full of lots more material crap. But strangely, it’s not “better.”
[/rambling]