OK, I'll admit it. I'm addicted to porn. Lord, I love the stuff!!! Don't ever ask to use my computer. You'll probably end up putting your brain in the dishwasher. On the pot scrubber cycle. With a couple of scrubbies and a bar of soap of two, just for good measure. Yeah, my hard drive is... well, shall we say, "hard".
I do have my limits, though. Really, I'm not kidding. OK, stop laughing.... The internet is awash in porn. A tsunami of it, if you will. And I love it. It's like my own personal narcotic. I'm all about endorphins and self medicating. Anyway... I have found some of the weirdest porn on line imaginable. Truly twisted shit. Especially all of that stuff coming out of Russia and Eastern Europe. WOW!!! How bloody bad was 7 decades of communism and standing in line for just about everything that they now think incest and rape is warm and fuzzy??? Straight, gay, animals, on the hood of a Zil, hell even farm machinery. And occasionally some bread dough. WTF??? Then there's the kiddy porn thing... I have managed to hit more links to this stuff than I can count. Of course, I back out IMMEDIATELY and shut my computer off. Then I go put my brain in the dishwasher. I have actually found myself on a few sites that were labled as "NAMBLA approved". Just a nano-second on those sites and it was pot scrubber cycle time. TWICE!!! How the hell can you be NAMBLA "approved"??? That's like a freaking thumbs up from Cthulu!!! Yeah, Google that word, you'll be amazed.
Now, as primates with opposable thumbs and well developed frontal lobes I'm willing to cut all of us a little slack. And when you couple those two traits with stereoscopic vision the inevitable consequence is inventiveness. It's just the nature of the beast, I guess. But we have taken it a step further. "Niche" porn. Just how freaking twisted are we??? Apparently VERY much so.
So, here is my list of the scariest shit I have managed to find on line.
1. "Grannies Gone Wild". EWWW!!! Not pretty!!!
2. "Dude, Your Mom Is Hot!". Again, EWWW!!!
3. "Diaper Bioz". I considered cutting off both of my thumbs!!!
4. "Diaper Girlz". I guess it only made sense to have an alternative...
5. "Fun On the Farm". OMG!!! Shoot me out of a cannon!!!
6. "Drunk Teenie Queenies". Brain AND eyes, straight to pot scrubber!!!
7. "Don't Tell Mommy". I'm SO not taking that exit!!!
8. "Daddy's Best Friend". This has both gay and straight sites. EWWW!!!
9. "Felcher's Paradise". I didn't even know what that meant. EWWW!!!
10. "Super Hung Trannies". OK, that is just totally fucking wierd!!!
11. "Chicks With Dicks". Refer to # 10.
12. "Blatinos Do Eastern European Sluts". Wow, TOTALLY niche!!!
13. "Dude, Your Dad Is Hot". OK, I admit, I kind of liked that one....
14. "It's OK, I'm Your Step-daddy". TOTALLY DEER IN HEADLIGHTS!!!
15. "Thia Lady Boys With Bulgarian Miners". I swear to god, TRUE!!!
and my favorite... drum roll, please...
16. "Grandpa's Little Cream Pie Princess". OFMTT!!! Not only did my brain and eyes go into the dishwasher on this one, so did the computer, several pieces of furniture and some large floor plants!!! As well as my desk chair. And my underwear. And the ceiling fan.
All of this has proven to me, beyond a shadow of a doubt, give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up!!! Happily. Gladly. Smiling all the while. As they decide just which hole they can stick that rope up. You just gotta love opposable thumbs...
Friday, December 31, 2010
Saturday, December 18, 2010
OK, it's recipe time.
I gotta tell you, this is something I rarely ever do. I guard my recipes like a she-bear on the brown acid. Ask anyone that knows me well. Hell, it took my best friend 11 years to get the recipes for my baked beans and potato salad out of me. And I like her. A lot. She only got them because I gave them to her at her baby shower. And only after she let me write strange things on her belly with a Magic Marker...
Mexico. Ah, Mexico... This country owns me lock, stock and barrel. And that means a whole different thing down there. It has for almost 2 decades. The music, the people, the strange workability of it all. But most of all the food. OMG, the food!!! It's nothing but corn, lard and lactose down there. It's heaven to me. My blood pressure and cholesterol levels go through the roof while I'm down there and I relish every freaking fork full of it. Early on I discovered an amazing treat that drew me in like a Siren towards the rocks. Tres Leche Cake. (BTW, that means three milks.) Oh my fucking god!!! This stuff makes flan look like Jenny Craig. Bloody amazing stuff. In it's truest form it is Mexican wedding cake. Imagine an incredibly heavy, RICH pound cake, saturated with liquid lactose ambrosia, covered with birthday cake icing, parqueted with a layer of fresh tropical fruits and then encased in the most tooth rotting transparent apricot glaze imaginable. When they serve you a piece of this it is literally bleeding from all sides and surrounded by a lactose moat!!! I would sell secrets to the Russians for this stuff!!!
So I figured if three milks are good then five just has to be better. Right? Yes, I have managed to work two more milks into this thing. To you, my dear friends, I present CINCO Leche Cake... A bit "simplfied", sans apricot glaze but still just as good. Trust me, would I lie to you about dessert???
Cinco de Leche Cake
Cake:
6 large eggs, separated (otherwise they fight)
2 cups sugar
2 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
Half cup of milk
3 tsp vanilla (the Mexican kind, it’s better y’know)
Sauce:
1 can (13 oz.) evaporated milk
1 can (14 oz.) sweetened condensed milk
1 can (225 grams) Crema Media
Half pint heavy whipping cream (oh yeah, baby!)
Some cinnamon sugar to taste. Lots of it!
Frosting:
2 egg whites (don’t ask me what you do with the yolks)
Dash of salt
2 Tsp. white corn syrup (who really has this stuff????)
1 and a half cups sugar
Third of a cup of water (eyeball it)
2 tsp. vanilla (again, the Mexican stuff...)
Beat the egg whites until peaks start to form (just whail on
them cause you KNOW they’ve been fighting). Gradually add the sugar as you continue to beat them. Add all of the egg yolks at once and beat them for 3 full minutes as they have been taunting the rest of the ingredients on the counter. Add in the vanilla. Mix the flour with the baking powder (don’t worry, THEY get along fine) and add to the egg mixture alternately with the milk. When mixed completely pour the mixture into a well greased 9 x 13 inch pan (DON’T believe this, put it into a REALLY big lasagna pan cause this cake expands exponentially as it bakes!) Bake at 350 degrees (you did remember to preheat the oven, didn’t you????) for damn near an hour. Or more. You know the cake is done when the toothpick comes out clean.
Take the cake out of the oven and stab the bloody hell out of it with a large fork to totally perforate it across the entire surface (no, this is not to get back at the eggs, it’s to allow spaces for the sauce to seep into). Pour all of the sauce ingredients into a blender and blend it into a consistent mixture. Pour the mixture evenly over the cake surface and let it absorb in. Toss the cake into the fridge to cool completely before frosting.
Totally ignore all of the ingredients for the frosting! It’s a complete pain in the ass to make and calls for a double boiler and constant stirring. NO FREAKING WAY! Go to Woodman’s, get yourself some ready made Duncan Hines frosting in the little tubs and save yourself LOTS of heartache. I recommend vanilla. Trust me!
Frost the cake, cover with plastic wrap and keep it refrigerated until ready to serve. You can decorate the top of the cake any way you want, just don’t use Jelly Belly’s or Gummi Bears, that’s just nasty. Fruit is nice! Especially LOTS of sliced strawberries and mangos. Or peaches. Or kiwi. Blue berries and raspberries work too. Oh hell, just throw all of them on it and enjoy!
Be warned, this will “bleed” like crazy when you serve it.
And you might want to have a portable defibrillator handy cause this thing will stop your heart. This is best enjoyed with a LARGE cup of coffee that has been enhanced with a bit of brandy, Kahlua, Frangelico and a floater of vodka and eaten under a palm tree while sitting in the sand. Would I lie to you??? Yeah, probably. But not about food...
OMG! OMG! OMG! I have just had an epiphany!!! I can put SIX milks in this puppy. Oh yeah!!! Fuck the Duncan Hines frosting. Make it out of cream cheese , powdered sugar and a bit of Mexican vanilla. Voila, Seis Leche!!! This is a dessert that has just attained "Fabulousity"!!! Hey, Sea Squirt!!! Get 911 on speed dial, 'cause we're gonna need them...
Mexico. Ah, Mexico... This country owns me lock, stock and barrel. And that means a whole different thing down there. It has for almost 2 decades. The music, the people, the strange workability of it all. But most of all the food. OMG, the food!!! It's nothing but corn, lard and lactose down there. It's heaven to me. My blood pressure and cholesterol levels go through the roof while I'm down there and I relish every freaking fork full of it. Early on I discovered an amazing treat that drew me in like a Siren towards the rocks. Tres Leche Cake. (BTW, that means three milks.) Oh my fucking god!!! This stuff makes flan look like Jenny Craig. Bloody amazing stuff. In it's truest form it is Mexican wedding cake. Imagine an incredibly heavy, RICH pound cake, saturated with liquid lactose ambrosia, covered with birthday cake icing, parqueted with a layer of fresh tropical fruits and then encased in the most tooth rotting transparent apricot glaze imaginable. When they serve you a piece of this it is literally bleeding from all sides and surrounded by a lactose moat!!! I would sell secrets to the Russians for this stuff!!!
So I figured if three milks are good then five just has to be better. Right? Yes, I have managed to work two more milks into this thing. To you, my dear friends, I present CINCO Leche Cake... A bit "simplfied", sans apricot glaze but still just as good. Trust me, would I lie to you about dessert???
Cinco de Leche Cake
Cake:
6 large eggs, separated (otherwise they fight)
2 cups sugar
2 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
Half cup of milk
3 tsp vanilla (the Mexican kind, it’s better y’know)
Sauce:
1 can (13 oz.) evaporated milk
1 can (14 oz.) sweetened condensed milk
1 can (225 grams) Crema Media
Half pint heavy whipping cream (oh yeah, baby!)
Some cinnamon sugar to taste. Lots of it!
Frosting:
2 egg whites (don’t ask me what you do with the yolks)
Dash of salt
2 Tsp. white corn syrup (who really has this stuff????)
1 and a half cups sugar
Third of a cup of water (eyeball it)
2 tsp. vanilla (again, the Mexican stuff...)
Beat the egg whites until peaks start to form (just whail on
them cause you KNOW they’ve been fighting). Gradually add the sugar as you continue to beat them. Add all of the egg yolks at once and beat them for 3 full minutes as they have been taunting the rest of the ingredients on the counter. Add in the vanilla. Mix the flour with the baking powder (don’t worry, THEY get along fine) and add to the egg mixture alternately with the milk. When mixed completely pour the mixture into a well greased 9 x 13 inch pan (DON’T believe this, put it into a REALLY big lasagna pan cause this cake expands exponentially as it bakes!) Bake at 350 degrees (you did remember to preheat the oven, didn’t you????) for damn near an hour. Or more. You know the cake is done when the toothpick comes out clean.
Take the cake out of the oven and stab the bloody hell out of it with a large fork to totally perforate it across the entire surface (no, this is not to get back at the eggs, it’s to allow spaces for the sauce to seep into). Pour all of the sauce ingredients into a blender and blend it into a consistent mixture. Pour the mixture evenly over the cake surface and let it absorb in. Toss the cake into the fridge to cool completely before frosting.
Totally ignore all of the ingredients for the frosting! It’s a complete pain in the ass to make and calls for a double boiler and constant stirring. NO FREAKING WAY! Go to Woodman’s, get yourself some ready made Duncan Hines frosting in the little tubs and save yourself LOTS of heartache. I recommend vanilla. Trust me!
Frost the cake, cover with plastic wrap and keep it refrigerated until ready to serve. You can decorate the top of the cake any way you want, just don’t use Jelly Belly’s or Gummi Bears, that’s just nasty. Fruit is nice! Especially LOTS of sliced strawberries and mangos. Or peaches. Or kiwi. Blue berries and raspberries work too. Oh hell, just throw all of them on it and enjoy!
Be warned, this will “bleed” like crazy when you serve it.
And you might want to have a portable defibrillator handy cause this thing will stop your heart. This is best enjoyed with a LARGE cup of coffee that has been enhanced with a bit of brandy, Kahlua, Frangelico and a floater of vodka and eaten under a palm tree while sitting in the sand. Would I lie to you??? Yeah, probably. But not about food...
OMG! OMG! OMG! I have just had an epiphany!!! I can put SIX milks in this puppy. Oh yeah!!! Fuck the Duncan Hines frosting. Make it out of cream cheese , powdered sugar and a bit of Mexican vanilla. Voila, Seis Leche!!! This is a dessert that has just attained "Fabulousity"!!! Hey, Sea Squirt!!! Get 911 on speed dial, 'cause we're gonna need them...
Thursday, December 16, 2010
This one is just WAY too good to pass up!!!
I swear, you just can't make this kind of shit up. Have you heard about this one yet? It's too twisted for bail!!!
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- A Fort Lauderdale man awoke Tuesday night to find his clothes on fire and his girlfriend standing over him with a lighter, according to the Broward Sheriff's Office.
In a complaint affidavit, a BSO deputy said he went to the home of Berlinda Dixon Newbold, 38, at about 9:15 p.m. after police received an anonymous report of a domestic disturbance. Police said Dixon-Newbold and her boyfriend, Sheldon Gonzales, had gotten into an argument. Gonzales told the deputy that he fell asleep after the argument and later awoke to "a burning sensation in the crotch of his pants," according to the affidavit.Gonzales told police he looked down and saw that the bottom of his shirt over his crotch area was on fire, and he looked up to see Dixon-Newbold holding a cigarette lighter.
Police said Gonzales put out the fire with his hands and tried to leave but Dixon-Newbold confronted him and they began arguing. A neighbor overheard and called police.
Dixon-Newbold was arrested on a charge of aggravated assault with intent to commit a felony.
And now, my commentary...
OUCH!!!
OMG, this made me laugh so hard I peed!!! It brings a whole new meaning to the term "weenie roast" that I don't even want to envision. Holy shit, Batman, she singed his sausage!!! I can only imagine what the original argument was about but I'm sure the one that ensued after the flames were put out was a whole helluva lot more heated. Sorry, bad pun I know...
I've been racking my brain though. Aggravated assault with intent to commit a felony? When the bloody hell did a bit of pre-holiday crotch arson become an attempted felony? Frightening? Yes. Felony? No. Why the bloody hell did he decide to curl up on the sofa and take a nap after the first argument was "over"? Dude, are out of your freaking mind??? How much alcohol was involved in this little mishap??? How long had he been fucking her sister???
Nothing says Happy Holidays to me more than a little tally-wacker torching. Ho-Ho-Ho!!! And to all a good night. Just make sure that you sleep with one eye open...
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- A Fort Lauderdale man awoke Tuesday night to find his clothes on fire and his girlfriend standing over him with a lighter, according to the Broward Sheriff's Office.
In a complaint affidavit, a BSO deputy said he went to the home of Berlinda Dixon Newbold, 38, at about 9:15 p.m. after police received an anonymous report of a domestic disturbance. Police said Dixon-Newbold and her boyfriend, Sheldon Gonzales, had gotten into an argument. Gonzales told the deputy that he fell asleep after the argument and later awoke to "a burning sensation in the crotch of his pants," according to the affidavit.Gonzales told police he looked down and saw that the bottom of his shirt over his crotch area was on fire, and he looked up to see Dixon-Newbold holding a cigarette lighter.
Police said Gonzales put out the fire with his hands and tried to leave but Dixon-Newbold confronted him and they began arguing. A neighbor overheard and called police.
Dixon-Newbold was arrested on a charge of aggravated assault with intent to commit a felony.
And now, my commentary...
OUCH!!!
OMG, this made me laugh so hard I peed!!! It brings a whole new meaning to the term "weenie roast" that I don't even want to envision. Holy shit, Batman, she singed his sausage!!! I can only imagine what the original argument was about but I'm sure the one that ensued after the flames were put out was a whole helluva lot more heated. Sorry, bad pun I know...
I've been racking my brain though. Aggravated assault with intent to commit a felony? When the bloody hell did a bit of pre-holiday crotch arson become an attempted felony? Frightening? Yes. Felony? No. Why the bloody hell did he decide to curl up on the sofa and take a nap after the first argument was "over"? Dude, are out of your freaking mind??? How much alcohol was involved in this little mishap??? How long had he been fucking her sister???
Nothing says Happy Holidays to me more than a little tally-wacker torching. Ho-Ho-Ho!!! And to all a good night. Just make sure that you sleep with one eye open...
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
The Night Of The Iguana
OMG!!! This is my favorite film of all time. Unless of course it's really late at night and TBS is doing a rerun of "Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf". But that's a whole other post...
This film is so sordidly twisted it hurts. It's celluloid madness on a grand scale. It has my name written all over it. I love it!!! And amazingly, it doesn't have a god damned thing to do with the original Tennessee Williams short story it is allegedly "based" on. Not a fucking thing!!! Not a single character, plot line or even the location. Why John Huston bothered to pay Tennessee Williams for the rights still amazes me to this day...
It came out in 1964 and I was too young to go see it. In 1969 I managed to catch a rerun of it after the 11:30 news one Friday night. I sat there, power eating popcorn, slamming Fresca, my eyes wide open and my jaw dropping. This was cinematic excellence!!! I was sixteen. My little gay heart was afire at it's brilliance. The sexual tension in every frame was amazing. I giggled for two hours. It was like porn lite...
This film doesn't just have an amazing cast it has a mind boggling pallet of characters. And I do mean "characters". A defrocked priest, an aging, widowed and horny hotel owner that is shagging a couple of maraca shaking pinga boys named Paco and Pepe on a regular basis, a closeted and latent (WTF does that actually mean???) lesbian vocal coach at a private girls school (can you say girls gym coach???), a pot smoking Chinese cook, a fifteen year old slut hormoned out of her mind, a virgin from New England, a demented grandfather writing a poem and a couple of old ladies with intestinal distress. Oh, come on, what's not to love about this??? To me, this is a long lost home movie from my childhood...
I know every line in this film. Every word, actually. Ready for some trivia???
Eva Gardner later said that this was the most enjoyable role she ever did because John Huston let her be herself in the role of Maxine Faulk, the hotel owner. She was, afterall, a South Carolina farm girl by birth and a bit "earthy".
The pot smoking Chinese cook was actually John Huston's private chef. As a thank you for appearing in the movie and cooking for the main cast during filming he gave him the money to open his own restaurant in Vallarta. It's called "Archie's Wok" and is still open to this day and being run by his grand-daughter. She's gorgeous, the food is freaking wonderful and the restroom doors are the strangest things I've ever seen. They involve massively heavy doors, a large carved stone fish and a length of ski rope. Don't ask. It's Mexico...
The hotel was purposely built from the ground up with a small village around it to house the crew during filming. After filming was complete the village was torn down but the hotel was converted into a restaurant called "The Set" that featured wonderful food and bloody amazing views. A couple of years ago it was finally torn down because it was collapsing under it's own weight and age. I ate there twice. Loved it!!!
Every day after filming was complete the whole main cast would congregate at John Huston's house about a mile down the road and drink there brains out for the rest of the night. All except Deborah Kerr. Who did not drink, smoke or get rowdy. Oh, well... there's one in every crowd.
Elizabeth Taylor was NOT in this movie!!! Contrary to popular belief.
This movie was NOT, I repeat NOT filmed in Vallarta!!! It was filmed in Mismaloya, a smaller village about 8 miles south. The main cast stayed in one of two hotels in Vallarta at the time and traveled to the set each day by panga boats. Travel time was about an hour if you they lucky. It still takes that long today. Been there, done that.
Cyril Delevanti, the actor who played the demented grand father writing a poem was 75 at the time of filming and was so overcome by the humidity down there that in between takes would literally sit on bags of ice to recoup for the next shot. His role in the movie was eventually cut down to compensate for this.
Sue Lyon, the actress who played the underage, hormonally charged tart in the film actually was underage at the time of filming. This caused a bit of a problem with the censors who only reneged after heavy petitioning from John Huston who argued that she was never shot nude or shown performing a sex act on screen. Ah, yes, just leave it to the imagination... You may remember her from her screen debut two years earlier. The lead role in "Lolita". She was 15 when she filmed that...
Grayson Hall, who played the frustrated lesbian voice coach got an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress for her role in this. She is also remembered for a 5 year run on tv as MANY characters on the Gothic soap opera "Dark Shadows" in the late 60s. She died in 1985 at the age of 62 from lung cancer. About 3 to 4 packs a day from most accounts. Oh well, shit happens...
Oh hell, rent this movie, it's more twisted than string. It's too twisted for church. Hell, it's more twisted than me and that should give you a clue!!! Any movie with an iguana on a rope, a couple of hot Hispanic studs playing maraca's bare chested while swimming with Eva Gardner in the ocean and some under age nookie will do any one more good than they know what to do with. Trust me. Been there, done that... Would I lie to you???
This film is so sordidly twisted it hurts. It's celluloid madness on a grand scale. It has my name written all over it. I love it!!! And amazingly, it doesn't have a god damned thing to do with the original Tennessee Williams short story it is allegedly "based" on. Not a fucking thing!!! Not a single character, plot line or even the location. Why John Huston bothered to pay Tennessee Williams for the rights still amazes me to this day...
It came out in 1964 and I was too young to go see it. In 1969 I managed to catch a rerun of it after the 11:30 news one Friday night. I sat there, power eating popcorn, slamming Fresca, my eyes wide open and my jaw dropping. This was cinematic excellence!!! I was sixteen. My little gay heart was afire at it's brilliance. The sexual tension in every frame was amazing. I giggled for two hours. It was like porn lite...
This film doesn't just have an amazing cast it has a mind boggling pallet of characters. And I do mean "characters". A defrocked priest, an aging, widowed and horny hotel owner that is shagging a couple of maraca shaking pinga boys named Paco and Pepe on a regular basis, a closeted and latent (WTF does that actually mean???) lesbian vocal coach at a private girls school (can you say girls gym coach???), a pot smoking Chinese cook, a fifteen year old slut hormoned out of her mind, a virgin from New England, a demented grandfather writing a poem and a couple of old ladies with intestinal distress. Oh, come on, what's not to love about this??? To me, this is a long lost home movie from my childhood...
I know every line in this film. Every word, actually. Ready for some trivia???
Eva Gardner later said that this was the most enjoyable role she ever did because John Huston let her be herself in the role of Maxine Faulk, the hotel owner. She was, afterall, a South Carolina farm girl by birth and a bit "earthy".
The pot smoking Chinese cook was actually John Huston's private chef. As a thank you for appearing in the movie and cooking for the main cast during filming he gave him the money to open his own restaurant in Vallarta. It's called "Archie's Wok" and is still open to this day and being run by his grand-daughter. She's gorgeous, the food is freaking wonderful and the restroom doors are the strangest things I've ever seen. They involve massively heavy doors, a large carved stone fish and a length of ski rope. Don't ask. It's Mexico...
The hotel was purposely built from the ground up with a small village around it to house the crew during filming. After filming was complete the village was torn down but the hotel was converted into a restaurant called "The Set" that featured wonderful food and bloody amazing views. A couple of years ago it was finally torn down because it was collapsing under it's own weight and age. I ate there twice. Loved it!!!
Every day after filming was complete the whole main cast would congregate at John Huston's house about a mile down the road and drink there brains out for the rest of the night. All except Deborah Kerr. Who did not drink, smoke or get rowdy. Oh, well... there's one in every crowd.
Elizabeth Taylor was NOT in this movie!!! Contrary to popular belief.
This movie was NOT, I repeat NOT filmed in Vallarta!!! It was filmed in Mismaloya, a smaller village about 8 miles south. The main cast stayed in one of two hotels in Vallarta at the time and traveled to the set each day by panga boats. Travel time was about an hour if you they lucky. It still takes that long today. Been there, done that.
Cyril Delevanti, the actor who played the demented grand father writing a poem was 75 at the time of filming and was so overcome by the humidity down there that in between takes would literally sit on bags of ice to recoup for the next shot. His role in the movie was eventually cut down to compensate for this.
Sue Lyon, the actress who played the underage, hormonally charged tart in the film actually was underage at the time of filming. This caused a bit of a problem with the censors who only reneged after heavy petitioning from John Huston who argued that she was never shot nude or shown performing a sex act on screen. Ah, yes, just leave it to the imagination... You may remember her from her screen debut two years earlier. The lead role in "Lolita". She was 15 when she filmed that...
Grayson Hall, who played the frustrated lesbian voice coach got an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress for her role in this. She is also remembered for a 5 year run on tv as MANY characters on the Gothic soap opera "Dark Shadows" in the late 60s. She died in 1985 at the age of 62 from lung cancer. About 3 to 4 packs a day from most accounts. Oh well, shit happens...
Oh hell, rent this movie, it's more twisted than string. It's too twisted for church. Hell, it's more twisted than me and that should give you a clue!!! Any movie with an iguana on a rope, a couple of hot Hispanic studs playing maraca's bare chested while swimming with Eva Gardner in the ocean and some under age nookie will do any one more good than they know what to do with. Trust me. Been there, done that... Would I lie to you???
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
My Holiday gift to you all...
Yes, I'm a crotchety old fart, hard to deal with at the very best and at most times just a fucking bitch on wheels. But it 'tis the Season as they say. Yes, sometimes I mellow into something almost resembling human...
To all of you I give a great gift. Precious in my opinion. A box full of moonlight. Yes, I said a box full of moonlight. Don't ever open it or it will escape and be lost to you forever. Guard it well, keep it close and treat it as something more valuable than gold. If you do, it will serve you well and keep you safe, warm and full of laughter.
As a child I used to stare up into the night sky and see the moon. (I still do.) It amazed me. It changed shape. It disappeared and reappeared. I could even see it during the day. And the most amazing thing was that it would cast a shadow behind me when it was full at night. A shadow!!! In the middle of the night!!! And I could almost read by it. If that isn't magic then I don't know what is. All of our human cultures have worshiped it in some way or another, assigned gods or goddesses to it, built holidays around it or at the very least named a day of the week after it. Hell, we've even BEEN there and put some foot prints on it.. It has a "face" that we recognize and have even given a name to. It manages to keep us in our orbit around the sun. It is powerful enough to give us tides. And every 28 days it seems to make us go crazy in some way or another. Check the police reports... Or ask your wife/girlfriend what her "cycle" is. Or talk to some grunion. Yeah, it's got some serious influence...
When I found out that the shadow the full moon cast of me was reflected sunlight back to the dark side of the earth I was gobsmacked to say the least. Pretty powerful shit in my opinion. At first, I tried to capture it in empty mayonnaise jars at grandma's house but that didn't seem to work very well. Those jars were best for fire-flies. Which I would later let loose in her house. Much to her dismay. Oh, well, I was young... I later learned I could capture them in one of grandpa's old cigar boxes. But only if I had some tape to keep the boxes closed very tightly. And hid them under the bed. Grandma understood me so when she would find the boxes she would always leaved them sealed. She knew what I was saving. God, I miss that woman so freaking badly. She just knew that I was a "bit" different...
Moon light... To all of you, a taste of magic. A box of something so special, so dramatic and so amazing it should bring you to your knees. From 92, 000,000 miles away, with a 258,000 mile transit stop from the moon, to here. Happily Holidays!!! The Warmest Wishes To You All!!!
And don't you dare open that box. Pass it on. And tell them to keep it safe, sealed and close. It's a box of moonlight afterall... It just don't get much better than that...
Again, Happy Holidays to you all! Stay safe and warm! And keep smiling as you look up at the moon and under your bed...
To all of you I give a great gift. Precious in my opinion. A box full of moonlight. Yes, I said a box full of moonlight. Don't ever open it or it will escape and be lost to you forever. Guard it well, keep it close and treat it as something more valuable than gold. If you do, it will serve you well and keep you safe, warm and full of laughter.
As a child I used to stare up into the night sky and see the moon. (I still do.) It amazed me. It changed shape. It disappeared and reappeared. I could even see it during the day. And the most amazing thing was that it would cast a shadow behind me when it was full at night. A shadow!!! In the middle of the night!!! And I could almost read by it. If that isn't magic then I don't know what is. All of our human cultures have worshiped it in some way or another, assigned gods or goddesses to it, built holidays around it or at the very least named a day of the week after it. Hell, we've even BEEN there and put some foot prints on it.. It has a "face" that we recognize and have even given a name to. It manages to keep us in our orbit around the sun. It is powerful enough to give us tides. And every 28 days it seems to make us go crazy in some way or another. Check the police reports... Or ask your wife/girlfriend what her "cycle" is. Or talk to some grunion. Yeah, it's got some serious influence...
When I found out that the shadow the full moon cast of me was reflected sunlight back to the dark side of the earth I was gobsmacked to say the least. Pretty powerful shit in my opinion. At first, I tried to capture it in empty mayonnaise jars at grandma's house but that didn't seem to work very well. Those jars were best for fire-flies. Which I would later let loose in her house. Much to her dismay. Oh, well, I was young... I later learned I could capture them in one of grandpa's old cigar boxes. But only if I had some tape to keep the boxes closed very tightly. And hid them under the bed. Grandma understood me so when she would find the boxes she would always leaved them sealed. She knew what I was saving. God, I miss that woman so freaking badly. She just knew that I was a "bit" different...
Moon light... To all of you, a taste of magic. A box of something so special, so dramatic and so amazing it should bring you to your knees. From 92, 000,000 miles away, with a 258,000 mile transit stop from the moon, to here. Happily Holidays!!! The Warmest Wishes To You All!!!
And don't you dare open that box. Pass it on. And tell them to keep it safe, sealed and close. It's a box of moonlight afterall... It just don't get much better than that...
Again, Happy Holidays to you all! Stay safe and warm! And keep smiling as you look up at the moon and under your bed...
Friday, December 10, 2010
OH FUCK ME TO TEARS!!!
I hate the northern latitudes. Let me rephrase that, I FUCKING hate the northern latitudes!!! I did an early morning run (well, for me an early morning run... 10:30 am) to the grocery store today to stock us up on essentials so we can survive the next five days without having to eat our own feet to survive. Why? Later tonight an enormous front is going to start slamming us into oblivion. It's very cold here and we have snow on the ground already. This thing is going to dump 6-9 inches of snow on us tomorrow. Followed by predicted rain, sleet, more snow, way below zero temps and high winds on Sunday. Yay!!! Monday will be hell but we "may" get back up into single digits by Tuesday. Sea Squirt and I should be in Mexico right now. Drinking Margaritas. And peeing on the iguanas from the roof.. And finding ourselves "stranded" there because none of the airports up here are open. But NO, we're trapped up here!!! Fuck this shit!!!
Sea Squirt is a victim of Light Deprivation Disorder on an order WAY beyond mine so he has been going all Johnny Depp on me since the whole Day Light Savings Time thing. He stands out in the parking lot staring at the sun while I'm inside talking to the silverware. I'm not kidding. He knows the fork I refer to as "Marco" all too intimately . God, I love that fork. He's my anchor for damned near five months... I sleep with him. We become a truly weird threesome during the winter.
After unpacking all of the groceries and re-alphabetizing the pantry I put myself on self imposed lock down for the rest of the afternoon. With a glue gun. I had to wrap my Christmas present for a six-year old. Two full glue sticks, four hours and ELEVEN layers of paper, cellophane, ribbon layers, metallic curling ribbon and a butterfly later I was finally done. It took four freaking hours to wrap this thing. She's gonna need a bloody ax to unwrap this thing!!! Am I the world's best aunt, or what???
Again, I am facing a LONG weekend up here that can only be imagined by members of a Chilean Antarctic outpost that are trapped on an ice flow. With a Sea Squirt who is not at all happy about his impending 56th birthday tomorrow and me without anywhere near the amount of pasta that I want to consume. I ran to my favorite local Mexican bakery late this afternoon (during rush hour, a great sacrifice on my part I might add) and snagged some Tres Leche for him, some Mocha Tres Leche for me and some of the most amazing chocolate brownies imaginable for us to wrestle over tomorrow while the snow falls.
One of us may be dead by Tuesday. But at least the survivor gets the last of the brownies.... Auntie Donn is SO going to win!!!
Sea Squirt is a victim of Light Deprivation Disorder on an order WAY beyond mine so he has been going all Johnny Depp on me since the whole Day Light Savings Time thing. He stands out in the parking lot staring at the sun while I'm inside talking to the silverware. I'm not kidding. He knows the fork I refer to as "Marco" all too intimately . God, I love that fork. He's my anchor for damned near five months... I sleep with him. We become a truly weird threesome during the winter.
After unpacking all of the groceries and re-alphabetizing the pantry I put myself on self imposed lock down for the rest of the afternoon. With a glue gun. I had to wrap my Christmas present for a six-year old. Two full glue sticks, four hours and ELEVEN layers of paper, cellophane, ribbon layers, metallic curling ribbon and a butterfly later I was finally done. It took four freaking hours to wrap this thing. She's gonna need a bloody ax to unwrap this thing!!! Am I the world's best aunt, or what???
Again, I am facing a LONG weekend up here that can only be imagined by members of a Chilean Antarctic outpost that are trapped on an ice flow. With a Sea Squirt who is not at all happy about his impending 56th birthday tomorrow and me without anywhere near the amount of pasta that I want to consume. I ran to my favorite local Mexican bakery late this afternoon (during rush hour, a great sacrifice on my part I might add) and snagged some Tres Leche for him, some Mocha Tres Leche for me and some of the most amazing chocolate brownies imaginable for us to wrestle over tomorrow while the snow falls.
One of us may be dead by Tuesday. But at least the survivor gets the last of the brownies.... Auntie Donn is SO going to win!!!
Monday, December 6, 2010
Comfort food...
Ah, I love that term. Comfort food. Just thinking about it makes me drool like a Basset Hound. Yeah, I know, not pretty sight. Me or the Basset hound. Those of you who are close to me and the Bassets I have owned know all too well what "stealth drool" is. Nasty shit...
My heritage is southern. Or as I like to say "suth-ahn". And yes, with a drawl. Until I was in college I used to have a really thick one. Really thick. It actually took me FOUR very distinct syllables just to say "ice tea". I used to say strange shit like "what all y'all doin' ". I was a displaced southerner going to college in the north. I was ridiculed down to a nub. And yes, that is a southern term...
Anyway, back to comfort food. From where I come from it comes in an infinite variety of forms that will boggle the imagination. And it all depended upon the situation. Why did you need to be comforted? Were you sick? Did you just get a whoopin'? Dog dead? Daddy just back over your little sister? Still blow up and take out half the house? Just find out that your mom and dad are brother and sister? OK, that one is not such a shocker in the south...
One of my grandmothers made the most amazing comfort food imaginable. She turned me on to strange shit like mashed potato sandwiches on white bread. Cold meat loaf sandwiches on white bread with ketchup as a "dipping sauce'. Leftover cold, greasy bacon. Torn up pieces of white bread (seeing a pattern here? It was usually Butter-Nut brand bread because it was way cheaper than Wonder Bread) that you then drowned in left over gravy. There was always left over gravy at her house. She made the shit in stock pots!!! Lard and radish sandwiches on white bread. Yes, I actually said that. Again, on white bread. As well as the famous toasted butter and brown sugar sandwiches. Why don't I weigh 400 pounds and why am I still alive??? But her most famous treat was mac and cheese. OMG!!! Grandma Flossie did mac and cheese proud. And she took it to a level that was unbelievable. I'm convinced this is what killed two of my uncles early on...
She taught me how to make this stuff when I was still young enough that I had to stand on a kitchen chair next to her so I could help her. It was an OSHA and Family Services nightmare in the making. I've tweaked her recipe over the years but I still hold true to her wonderous over indulgence. She used a full box of regular macaroni shells, I use the jumbo size ones. She used two full bricks of Velveeta, me too. She saved left over ham for two weeks, I go buy two pounds of Canadian bacon ends. She used heavy whipping cream, me too. She tossed in two sticks of butter, ditto me. She'd mix it all up after the macaroni was cooked in a pan big enough to boil a tire in and threw it in the biggest lasagna pan I have ever seen (ditto here, I actually have a restaurant sized one that I bought just for this recipe) and then put a pound of asiago cheese and bread crumbs on the top and bake it on low for HOURS. My god, this stuff came out like mortar. It was beyond a building block, it was a true building material!!! It was like cheese and pasta adobe. It would stop your heart, bring you to your knees, summon the paramedics and had enough fat in it to grease a pig through a BIC pen!!!
Between me and my grandma this recipe has been banned by the AMA in just about everyplace except my kitchen and Sierra Leone. But there they do it with a version of native wild boar that they hunt down and dart. Wrapped in banana leaves and buried in a pit of hot coals for several days. Yes, Velveeta is available in Sierra Leon... Only in much bigger blocks. About the size of a camel from what I've heard. Which I can only think needs a LOT more breadcrumbs and a pan about the size of a Cadillac... Wow, lucky people...
My heritage is southern. Or as I like to say "suth-ahn". And yes, with a drawl. Until I was in college I used to have a really thick one. Really thick. It actually took me FOUR very distinct syllables just to say "ice tea". I used to say strange shit like "what all y'all doin' ". I was a displaced southerner going to college in the north. I was ridiculed down to a nub. And yes, that is a southern term...
Anyway, back to comfort food. From where I come from it comes in an infinite variety of forms that will boggle the imagination. And it all depended upon the situation. Why did you need to be comforted? Were you sick? Did you just get a whoopin'? Dog dead? Daddy just back over your little sister? Still blow up and take out half the house? Just find out that your mom and dad are brother and sister? OK, that one is not such a shocker in the south...
One of my grandmothers made the most amazing comfort food imaginable. She turned me on to strange shit like mashed potato sandwiches on white bread. Cold meat loaf sandwiches on white bread with ketchup as a "dipping sauce'. Leftover cold, greasy bacon. Torn up pieces of white bread (seeing a pattern here? It was usually Butter-Nut brand bread because it was way cheaper than Wonder Bread) that you then drowned in left over gravy. There was always left over gravy at her house. She made the shit in stock pots!!! Lard and radish sandwiches on white bread. Yes, I actually said that. Again, on white bread. As well as the famous toasted butter and brown sugar sandwiches. Why don't I weigh 400 pounds and why am I still alive??? But her most famous treat was mac and cheese. OMG!!! Grandma Flossie did mac and cheese proud. And she took it to a level that was unbelievable. I'm convinced this is what killed two of my uncles early on...
She taught me how to make this stuff when I was still young enough that I had to stand on a kitchen chair next to her so I could help her. It was an OSHA and Family Services nightmare in the making. I've tweaked her recipe over the years but I still hold true to her wonderous over indulgence. She used a full box of regular macaroni shells, I use the jumbo size ones. She used two full bricks of Velveeta, me too. She saved left over ham for two weeks, I go buy two pounds of Canadian bacon ends. She used heavy whipping cream, me too. She tossed in two sticks of butter, ditto me. She'd mix it all up after the macaroni was cooked in a pan big enough to boil a tire in and threw it in the biggest lasagna pan I have ever seen (ditto here, I actually have a restaurant sized one that I bought just for this recipe) and then put a pound of asiago cheese and bread crumbs on the top and bake it on low for HOURS. My god, this stuff came out like mortar. It was beyond a building block, it was a true building material!!! It was like cheese and pasta adobe. It would stop your heart, bring you to your knees, summon the paramedics and had enough fat in it to grease a pig through a BIC pen!!!
Between me and my grandma this recipe has been banned by the AMA in just about everyplace except my kitchen and Sierra Leone. But there they do it with a version of native wild boar that they hunt down and dart. Wrapped in banana leaves and buried in a pit of hot coals for several days. Yes, Velveeta is available in Sierra Leon... Only in much bigger blocks. About the size of a camel from what I've heard. Which I can only think needs a LOT more breadcrumbs and a pan about the size of a Cadillac... Wow, lucky people...
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Lutefisk. WTF???
Allow me to establish a baseline here: lutefisk is FUCKING abhorrent!!! There, I've said it. You don't like that? Then go fuck yourself!!!
Being a west coaster I had never heard of lutefisk until I moved to Minneapolis in 1980 and was managing a restaurant there. Shortly after Halloween we started taking reservations for the annual "Lutefisk Feast". I innocently asked, "What the bloody hell is a 'Lutefisk Feast?' to one of my waiters. And what he told me shocked my shorts off!!! I swear to god, it sounded like two trains colliding, head on, over the middle of the Atlantic. In a storm. In the middle of a cataclysmic meteor shower. With sleet. And Celine Dion singing in the back ground...
For those of you fortunate folks out there who don't know what lutefisk is, let me tell you that it is just plain nasty-ass shit. With all of the wonderfully mind altering things we have outlawed we have somehow managed to keep this stuff not only alive and well but full blown sanctioned. Now, in Minneapolis I found myself totally surrounded by what I called "Scanda-Hoovians". An odd group of immigrants at best but apparently hell bent for leather on self punishment on a dietary level. Yes, they have some wonderful stuff, ebelskivers being my favorite. Think do-nut holes made from pancake batter swimming in butter and fresh jam. Those puppies could stop your heart. But their coffee was so strong you needed to turn it over with a fork and they boiled every vegetable they ate for at least 3 days. Their favorite "sauce" was Campbell's cream of mushroom soup. And they called a casserole a hotdish. Oh, yeah, and pepper was considered a dangerously "sharp" spice. How fucking light-deprived was "Scanda-Hooooovia" to make them all this crazy??? I can only blame the New World. And little Laura Ingles Wilder... I actually have a book titled "Scandinavian Humor And Other Myths". It's so true it hurts...
OK, back to lutefisk... I wouldn't poke this shit with a stick. Yours or
mine. The day before the "Feast" I walk in the front door of the hotel and smell something I can only describe as a chemical spill. I go into the restaurant and it just gets stronger. I walk into the kitchen and damned near puked. Just to cover up the smell of the chemical spill. I actually considered calling in sick while I was at work!!! My eyes were watering and I was gagging. Lutefisk is cod that has been dried. Into something resembling a very old cedar shake shingle. At the holidays they then drag them out of storage and soak it in lye water (LYE WATER??? What are you loonies thing??? Isn't that shit poisonous??? Or at the very least unfit for human consumption???) before they steam it to death. Into something that can only be described as fish Jell-O. It jiggles. And not in a good way... They then compliment this treat with potatoes that have been boiled to within an inch of surrender (drowning in butter with a sprinkle of parsley for "color" ), broccoli that has been boiling since last week, lefsa wedges and lingonberry sauce (truly, the worlds most sour berry prepared with enough sugar to rot your teeth) to cut the taste of the lefsa. Oh yeah... Happy Holidays!!! When does the flogging start???
Over the next week I watched more than a thousand people come through the place every night and gorge on this crap And ask for seconds. Seconds??? This stuff gives a whole new meaning to the term "sloppy seconds". As the wall paper peeled off and the stainless steel discolored and pitted. By day three of of this insanity the stitching on my suit coat had completely dissolved and both sleeves fell off as I seated a table of blue hairs one night. And most of what was left of my tie tack committed suicide. The rest had dissolved in quiet resignation... I had no idea that gold could actually give up the ghost.
Now, I'm back in Wisconsin. Eight miles south of here is town called Stoughton. Pronounced "SsschtO-ton" because everyone there is from Norway. And proud of it, too. Norwegian flags on the light poles, the sidewalks are rosemaled into a stupor and the 17th of May makes the 4th of July look like a wake for a dead president. SERIOUSLY Skanda-Hooooovian down there!!! I swear to god, they have even hand embroiderded the manhole covers. We have some wonderful friends down there. Tonight they Twatter'd us and told they had just gotten back from Ole and Lena's (swear to god!!!) all-you-can-eat Lutefisk Luncheon (WTF???) and were properly satiated on the build your own lutefisk and lefsa "taco" bar. Again, WTF!!! A lefsa taco??? With fish Jell-O??? I'd rather eat shit and die than eat lutefisk and watch the sun come tomorrow. I shudder to think what might come out of me...
Being a west coaster I had never heard of lutefisk until I moved to Minneapolis in 1980 and was managing a restaurant there. Shortly after Halloween we started taking reservations for the annual "Lutefisk Feast". I innocently asked, "What the bloody hell is a 'Lutefisk Feast?' to one of my waiters. And what he told me shocked my shorts off!!! I swear to god, it sounded like two trains colliding, head on, over the middle of the Atlantic. In a storm. In the middle of a cataclysmic meteor shower. With sleet. And Celine Dion singing in the back ground...
For those of you fortunate folks out there who don't know what lutefisk is, let me tell you that it is just plain nasty-ass shit. With all of the wonderfully mind altering things we have outlawed we have somehow managed to keep this stuff not only alive and well but full blown sanctioned. Now, in Minneapolis I found myself totally surrounded by what I called "Scanda-Hoovians". An odd group of immigrants at best but apparently hell bent for leather on self punishment on a dietary level. Yes, they have some wonderful stuff, ebelskivers being my favorite. Think do-nut holes made from pancake batter swimming in butter and fresh jam. Those puppies could stop your heart. But their coffee was so strong you needed to turn it over with a fork and they boiled every vegetable they ate for at least 3 days. Their favorite "sauce" was Campbell's cream of mushroom soup. And they called a casserole a hotdish. Oh, yeah, and pepper was considered a dangerously "sharp" spice. How fucking light-deprived was "Scanda-Hooooovia" to make them all this crazy??? I can only blame the New World. And little Laura Ingles Wilder... I actually have a book titled "Scandinavian Humor And Other Myths". It's so true it hurts...
OK, back to lutefisk... I wouldn't poke this shit with a stick. Yours or
mine. The day before the "Feast" I walk in the front door of the hotel and smell something I can only describe as a chemical spill. I go into the restaurant and it just gets stronger. I walk into the kitchen and damned near puked. Just to cover up the smell of the chemical spill. I actually considered calling in sick while I was at work!!! My eyes were watering and I was gagging. Lutefisk is cod that has been dried. Into something resembling a very old cedar shake shingle. At the holidays they then drag them out of storage and soak it in lye water (LYE WATER??? What are you loonies thing??? Isn't that shit poisonous??? Or at the very least unfit for human consumption???) before they steam it to death. Into something that can only be described as fish Jell-O. It jiggles. And not in a good way... They then compliment this treat with potatoes that have been boiled to within an inch of surrender (drowning in butter with a sprinkle of parsley for "color" ), broccoli that has been boiling since last week, lefsa wedges and lingonberry sauce (truly, the worlds most sour berry prepared with enough sugar to rot your teeth) to cut the taste of the lefsa. Oh yeah... Happy Holidays!!! When does the flogging start???
Over the next week I watched more than a thousand people come through the place every night and gorge on this crap And ask for seconds. Seconds??? This stuff gives a whole new meaning to the term "sloppy seconds". As the wall paper peeled off and the stainless steel discolored and pitted. By day three of of this insanity the stitching on my suit coat had completely dissolved and both sleeves fell off as I seated a table of blue hairs one night. And most of what was left of my tie tack committed suicide. The rest had dissolved in quiet resignation... I had no idea that gold could actually give up the ghost.
Now, I'm back in Wisconsin. Eight miles south of here is town called Stoughton. Pronounced "SsschtO-ton" because everyone there is from Norway. And proud of it, too. Norwegian flags on the light poles, the sidewalks are rosemaled into a stupor and the 17th of May makes the 4th of July look like a wake for a dead president. SERIOUSLY Skanda-Hooooovian down there!!! I swear to god, they have even hand embroiderded the manhole covers. We have some wonderful friends down there. Tonight they Twatter'd us and told they had just gotten back from Ole and Lena's (swear to god!!!) all-you-can-eat Lutefisk Luncheon (WTF???) and were properly satiated on the build your own lutefisk and lefsa "taco" bar. Again, WTF!!! A lefsa taco??? With fish Jell-O??? I'd rather eat shit and die than eat lutefisk and watch the sun come tomorrow. I shudder to think what might come out of me...
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Henry and Emma...
OMG, these two were a piece of work if I've ever seen one. Henry and Emma were my great-grandparents on my father's side. I had the wonderful privilege of knowing Henry until I was 17 and Emma until I was in my late 20's. They gave me more insight into my family heritage than I care to think about today...
Henry was short, only 5-foot tall at the most, Emma was even shorter, even in those little old lady heels she loved to wear. If you tried to hug either one of them you just ended up grabbing open air. In profile he looked remarkably like Woody Woodpecker and face-on she bore a striking resemblance to a dried currant. I swear, she had a face like a topographic map!!! He "puttered" and she canned everything she could lay her hands on. And they both gardened like crazy. The stuff that they grew on that farm was amazing.
Henry was the more "ribald" one. He loved to tell jokes, especially bad ones. He loved a shot of whiskey to "keep him moving" and cigars. Cheap ones. REALLY cheap ones. His workshop was mind-blowing, he loved to make lawn ornaments and he would paint absolutely anything he could lay a brush to. He wore suspenders. And a belt. At the same time. Apparently that 18 inch zipper in the old man pants he wore that came up to nipples must have been really heavy. Up until the time he lost his corneas to cataract surgery he drove a 1957 Plymouth Savoy sedan. Two-tone swimming pool blue. Inside and out. Three on the tree. After that it was glasses with Coke bottle lenses. Of course until the day he died he would go out to the garage once a month and fire that car up just to keep it in running condition. With the garage doors closed. The tires eventually gave up the ghost under the weight of that behemoth but he still kept her in "running condition". Once every six months or so he would have my uncle bring him another 5 gallon can of gas so he could keep her "filled up and ready to go".
Emma was a bit more reserved. She cooked. She canned. Oh god, did she can!!! You name it and she could put it in a Mason jar and preserve it. Her jams were amazing. And everything was from the farm. They grew so much stuff in that garden you could have fattened up Haiti. Her blackberry preserves brought me to my knees and her apple-butter made be pray to a god I didn't even believe in. I would sell what's left of my soul to have those recipes. She taught me how to make homemade noodles and how to can. In the summer kitchen. While we kept an eye on the sheep in the front yard. And shared slices of fresh apples from the trees in the back yard that we dipped in her fresh caramel. Life was so good... And she had a "thing" for salt and pepper shakers. Over 1200 pairs of those things. They were freaking everywhere. Henry built her display cases all over that house. She loved those things. They were from all over the world...
Emma found Henry dead in the workshop one afternoon in 1971. With a paint brush laying next to him. He died doing what he loved best, puttering. I can't think of a better way to go.
Emma live for another 11 years and died in the house that she was born in and that she and Henry had expanded after they had gotten married. The original house was actually a two "room" sod house that her parents had built when they homesteaded the forty acres they were given to develop. She and her younger sister, great-great aunt Betty were born in that house. As were grandpa Glenn and his younger brother Everett. And my dad and his older sister Jeanne. And Aunt Jeanne's three kids. They tried desperately to have me born there too, but I just wasn't ready to have that happen I guess. I came along 3 weeks later in Arkansas. OK, stop laughing. I'm a Southerner and I know it...
In 2000 grandpa Glen died and I went back for his funeral. It was a much needed catch-up time for all of us. At one point a cousin of mine mentioned that a lot of the framed pictures from Henry and Emma's house were upstairs in storage in the attic so we went to take a look. I found amazing stuff and suggested that we should take these things into have copy negatives made of the originals so we could preserve them. I started popping these things out of the frames to get a better look at them. When I opened what they told me was Henry and Emma's wedding portrait I was amazed. I actually found their wedding certificate!!! What I saw next blew all of us away.
We had always known that there was an age difference between them. But we finally discovered which way it went. Henry wasn't Emma's senior, she was his. She was 21 when they got married. He was 14. FOURTEEN!!! FOURTEEN!!! My great-grandmother wasn't just "landed gentry" she was a freaking cradle robber!!! With forty acres, a house and some grazing land. And a boy-toy. Wow!!! How southern is that!!!
As my cousins, Debbie and Becky, lay up in the attic, on their backs, doing a deer in headlights thing I calmly walked downstairs and cracked open another half case of wine. The family was gonna need it. Fasten your seat belts, folks, it's gonna be a bumpy night... Great-grandma Emma was a MILF!!! With a taste for veal... Baby veal...
Oh, god, I am SO from the South...
Henry was short, only 5-foot tall at the most, Emma was even shorter, even in those little old lady heels she loved to wear. If you tried to hug either one of them you just ended up grabbing open air. In profile he looked remarkably like Woody Woodpecker and face-on she bore a striking resemblance to a dried currant. I swear, she had a face like a topographic map!!! He "puttered" and she canned everything she could lay her hands on. And they both gardened like crazy. The stuff that they grew on that farm was amazing.
Henry was the more "ribald" one. He loved to tell jokes, especially bad ones. He loved a shot of whiskey to "keep him moving" and cigars. Cheap ones. REALLY cheap ones. His workshop was mind-blowing, he loved to make lawn ornaments and he would paint absolutely anything he could lay a brush to. He wore suspenders. And a belt. At the same time. Apparently that 18 inch zipper in the old man pants he wore that came up to nipples must have been really heavy. Up until the time he lost his corneas to cataract surgery he drove a 1957 Plymouth Savoy sedan. Two-tone swimming pool blue. Inside and out. Three on the tree. After that it was glasses with Coke bottle lenses. Of course until the day he died he would go out to the garage once a month and fire that car up just to keep it in running condition. With the garage doors closed. The tires eventually gave up the ghost under the weight of that behemoth but he still kept her in "running condition". Once every six months or so he would have my uncle bring him another 5 gallon can of gas so he could keep her "filled up and ready to go".
Emma was a bit more reserved. She cooked. She canned. Oh god, did she can!!! You name it and she could put it in a Mason jar and preserve it. Her jams were amazing. And everything was from the farm. They grew so much stuff in that garden you could have fattened up Haiti. Her blackberry preserves brought me to my knees and her apple-butter made be pray to a god I didn't even believe in. I would sell what's left of my soul to have those recipes. She taught me how to make homemade noodles and how to can. In the summer kitchen. While we kept an eye on the sheep in the front yard. And shared slices of fresh apples from the trees in the back yard that we dipped in her fresh caramel. Life was so good... And she had a "thing" for salt and pepper shakers. Over 1200 pairs of those things. They were freaking everywhere. Henry built her display cases all over that house. She loved those things. They were from all over the world...
Emma found Henry dead in the workshop one afternoon in 1971. With a paint brush laying next to him. He died doing what he loved best, puttering. I can't think of a better way to go.
Emma live for another 11 years and died in the house that she was born in and that she and Henry had expanded after they had gotten married. The original house was actually a two "room" sod house that her parents had built when they homesteaded the forty acres they were given to develop. She and her younger sister, great-great aunt Betty were born in that house. As were grandpa Glenn and his younger brother Everett. And my dad and his older sister Jeanne. And Aunt Jeanne's three kids. They tried desperately to have me born there too, but I just wasn't ready to have that happen I guess. I came along 3 weeks later in Arkansas. OK, stop laughing. I'm a Southerner and I know it...
In 2000 grandpa Glen died and I went back for his funeral. It was a much needed catch-up time for all of us. At one point a cousin of mine mentioned that a lot of the framed pictures from Henry and Emma's house were upstairs in storage in the attic so we went to take a look. I found amazing stuff and suggested that we should take these things into have copy negatives made of the originals so we could preserve them. I started popping these things out of the frames to get a better look at them. When I opened what they told me was Henry and Emma's wedding portrait I was amazed. I actually found their wedding certificate!!! What I saw next blew all of us away.
We had always known that there was an age difference between them. But we finally discovered which way it went. Henry wasn't Emma's senior, she was his. She was 21 when they got married. He was 14. FOURTEEN!!! FOURTEEN!!! My great-grandmother wasn't just "landed gentry" she was a freaking cradle robber!!! With forty acres, a house and some grazing land. And a boy-toy. Wow!!! How southern is that!!!
As my cousins, Debbie and Becky, lay up in the attic, on their backs, doing a deer in headlights thing I calmly walked downstairs and cracked open another half case of wine. The family was gonna need it. Fasten your seat belts, folks, it's gonna be a bumpy night... Great-grandma Emma was a MILF!!! With a taste for veal... Baby veal...
Oh, god, I am SO from the South...
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