The Dead Acorn

I Never Sausage A Thing!

2012-01-23T11:33:00.000-08:00

[NOTE: This might be sorta NSFC (Not Safe For Church)]

Just a little something from the “All My Friends Are Going To Hell” files …

A couple of weeks ago, a few friends and I drove up to the lovely town of McCall, Idaho (home of the McCall Winter Carnival, featuring the Monster Dog Pull and the Snowshoe Golf Tournament), for a day of skiing and a couple of nights of ~~drunken debauchery~~ baking cookies for orphans. Sometimes a little break from the high-stress life of being an anonymous governmental bureaucratic number-crunching pencil-pusher is needed, doncha know.

The friend that I drove up with is a Sister in the local convent, which explains why she has a plastic Jesus on her dashboard with a mirror in his belly and the words “Look Good For Jesus” inscribed at his feet. It’s very tasteful:

Above: The can had been discarded at the side of the road by litterbugs, so we transported it to the nearest recycling bin. Keep Idaho Beautiful!

Anyway, we had a wonderful Friday night and a great day of skiing Saturday, and gathered at the home of a friend who lives there that evening for enchiladas, all sorts of homemade elk sausages, cheap tequila, and riveting discussion on the folly of the austerity measures being enacted on the continent. A magical time all 'round.

Eventually, the revelry wound down, and a few friends who were staying at a nearby cabin borrowed the car that we drove up in to get back there, giving assurances that they would be back bright and early Sunday morning with multiple vehicles. They were, and we had a nice chat arguing what constitutes “planethood” (Dear International Astronomical Union: Your momma thought I was big enough! Sincerely, Pluto.) before deciding to head back to the Big City. I thought it a bit odd that the friends who stayed in the cabin were so giggly as we departed, but they’re giggly people in general, so I didn’t dwell on it. But then we got in the car …

… and found this:

Above: I don’t care if it rains or freezes, long as I got my sausage Jesus, riding on the dashboard of my car …

It’s going to be lonely in Heaven, what with all my friends being down in Hell and all. I later asked one of them where they got a raw bratwurst, to which she responded “Oh, Sheila-JoMarie* had it in her pocket.” Yes … yes, of course she did. That makes perfect sense.

Sausage Jesus made the entire trip back sporting his new headware, and I suspect that the holy bratwurst has been preserved and will be resurrected sometime in the future for a bit of revenge tomfoolery. I did get an update on the state of Plastic Jesus the next day: “Well, the dishwasher wasn’t enough to wash the blood off of Christ, so I had to give him a sponge-bath.”

That’s Ninth Circle material right there.

* Not her real name … nobody is really named Sheila-JoMarie. That would be ridiculous.

A Frosty Tale

2012-01-19T13:51:00.000-08:00

It’s been a nasty winter, as far as snow goes, here in our little metropolis. Until yesterday, we didn’t have any whatsoever, save for a dusting in October, resulting in the latest Opening Day for the local ski area in its 69-year history*. Fortunately, the Weather Bunny rebooted the computer or whatever it is that she does at the ~~Weather Bureau~~ National Weather Service to make it precipitate, ‘cause yesterday, we got tolly dumped on. The sky was filled with more flakes than a parachuting Elvis convention (you know, why do I even try to make those?), and by the time I was released from my governmental work shackles, there was at least 4"-6” of soft, fluffy, newly fallen powder on the ground.

Ok, 4"-6” of incredibly wet, slushy cement on the ground. But still … it was snow, and that’s all that matters. Further, it being so wet made it ideal for packing, and I, having not lost my child-like innocence and joyful appreciation of the simple pleasures in life (unlike my cynical and jaded friends), decided it was a perfect occasion to build a snowman. (After, of course, throwing back a couple of shots of rye to temporarily mask the pain of knowing that I’m going nowhere, stuck in a dead-end job, and that I’m helpless to change the course of my sorry-ass life, if you can even call it that.)

So after donning boots and gloves, the husky-wannabe and I went outside and began our project. O, how the snow packed so perfectly! “Indy!” I cried with glee. “This will be the best, most colossal, awesomest, ginormousiest snowman ever! People will drive for miles to marvel at its beauty, its enormity, its Christ-like perfection!” And so I rolled and rolled, for what seemed like hours, until I finally felt that I had truly attained my goal:

Above: I knew I’d pay a price for that half-assed job of leaf raking last fall. Whatever.

I stood watching it, beaming with pride, for several minutes, then decided it was time to ~~head to the pub~~ do something or other for the better of humanity. By that time, the snow had turned to rain, and I knew that Elwood P. Dowd (the name he chose for himself) would not be long for this world. A short life, yes, but one well lived, and one that would not soon be forgotten. In fact, as I left the house a short time later, Elwood P. Dowd was leaning rather precariously at a seemingly impossible angle, and I gave him a sad smile and bid my fare-thee-well, expecting to return to nothing but a pile of slush and a handful of fond memories.

Never did I imagine what horrors this world can hold, and what evil dwells in the hearts of some.

It was fairly dark when I got home, but not such that I couldn’t see where Elwood P. Dowd once stood. “Odd,” I thought. “I would have expected a small pile of his remnants to lay where once he stood so proudly.” As I grew closer, I gasped in horror as I realized that there were footprints other than mine surrounding the space he once occupied. A space now flattened, stomped with such apparent cruelty that even the most fastidious forensic investigators would have been hard-pressed to confirm even the existence of Elwood P. Dowd.

After a brief moment of silence and a tearful goodbye, I walked around the corner to the front door, and was shocked to find this:

Above: They … they … they tortured him first … those sick bastards …

Who could have done this? What sort of blackened souls walk among us that can commit such heinous acts? My god ... where was his other eye? “NOOOOOOOoooo …” I wailed into the wet night. “WHOEVER YOU ARE … WHATEVER YOU ARE … I WILL FIND YOU … I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN … ELWOOD P. DOWD WILL BE AVENGED!” Slowly, I walked inside, poured myself a warm brandy, and began to plot my revenge.

The forecast for Sunday is snow. Justice will be served.

* hehehe 69 ...

A Plane Disgrace

2012-01-11T07:39:00.000-08:00

I’m sure that most of us have a few inner demons hanging around from our childhoods (I’m using the plural form of “childhood” as I’m writing about “all of us,” so if you, in fact, had a touch of the ole Dissociative Identity Disorder as a kid, please don’t take that as me singling you out). One of the primary sources of angst for me in adulthood is the fact that not once as a child did I ever successfully assemble one of those goddamn balsa-wood airplane models. (Just to be clear, I’m referring to this type of model, rather than this, though to be honest, the latter type proved quite vexing to me as well.)

Even back as just a wee lad, I already showed signs of the impatience, lack of attention to detail, and complete absence of any sense of pride in my work that essentially defines me as an adult. I would slap pieces of the model together, barely letting the glue set up before attempting to adhere the next. My dad would watch in horror, sobbing, only finding solace in the fact that at least his elder son seemed to grasp the concept of “set tail structure aside to dry” and other such helpful advice provided by the instructions (not that I often acknowledged the existence of the instructions in the first place).

That was then, however, and this is now, and I am completely confidant that my years of experience in dealing with life’s trials and tribulations has finally prepared me to conquer this particular devil. To that end, I purchased this as a Chriskwanzukkahdam present for myself:

Above: I will OWN this balsa beyotch! (The side of the box reads “Guaranteed to fly if instructions are followed!” Well played, Guillow’s, Inc … well played indeed.)

As of this writing, I have all of the body parts glued together, and tonight I begin the most harrowing process of all: applying the tissue “skin” to the balsa skeleton, which involves a substance known only as “dope,” and which, to secure, required driving to three different hobby shops, and eventually conversing with a shady character named “Stukey.” But I can do this. I can DO this.

I also bought my aforementioned brother a similar model. Similar, I guess, in that they’re both balsa airplanes. Whereas mine, however, is of the “Junior Builder” series (I had to convince the store person that it was for my 9-year-old nephew), his has several thousand pieces and requires a Master’s degree in structural engineering to even be allowed to purchase it. Further, he has a family and a demanding job, while I live with a dog and have plenty of free time. I figure that with me ruining at least several kits and having to start over multiple times, we should probably finish up around the same time.

Probably Chriskwanzukkahdam 2014.

Dear Peru: We're Not ALL Like This, I Swear ...

2011-12-29T12:56:00.000-08:00

I’m not a huge fan of Christmas – it seems to be fairly stress-inducing, what with all the shopping insanity starting Thanksgiving evening, the crazy drivers in their race to the malls, those damn Whos down in Whoville with their incessant singing – it just seems like it’s more headache than it’s worth. Every once in a while, however, something happens that really makes me appreciate the season: an unsigned gift left at my door (thank you, dear anonymous gift giving friend, for the delightful copy of “The 50 Funniest American Writers*: An Anthology Of Humor From Mark Twain To The Onion”!), selfless acts of kindness that I suspect may happen less frequently during other times of the year, the kidnapping of young Peruvian adults immediately upon their arrival in the United States … you know, that sort of thing.

The Live Acorn and I drove down to Salt Lake City on the 23rd to spend the weekend with my brother and his family. Trips such as this are always fun, as pretty much everyone involved can legitimately be described as “on occasion, somewhat goofward-leaning.” We were lounging about chatting that first evening, when my sister-in-law (I’ll call her Cindy because that’s her name) received a phone call. After a brief conversation, she hung up and announced “Well, that’s good news! My Peruvians are coming!” My immediate thought was that she might be having a stroke or some other type of medical emergency that has “spouting gibberish” as a symptom, but The Live Acorn and I were quickly filled in on the details behind the pronouncement.

Apparently, Cindy had left her parents’ home the previous day, and had seen a foreign-looking couple walking down the street pulling luggage and looking quite lost. Being the ~~meddler~~ good soul that she is, of course, she stopped and asked if she could provide any assistance. Faster than you can say “didn’t the embassy say something about not getting into cars with crazy Americans?”, she had determined their destination, loaded them and their belongings into the vehicle, and proceeded to deliver them forthwith.

Had this happened to me in a foreign country, especially one as filled with oddballs and weirdoes as ours seems to be, you can bet your sweet bippy that I’d be homeward bound on the next flight out. Perhaps still in a state of shock from being shanghaied, the couple did not hightail it home, but instead, had actually agreed to join us for Christmas Eve dinner! I have never heard that Peruvians in general have a lack of common sense, so I must assume that this particular pair of travelers were simply more naïve than most.

Well, The Live Acorn and I were heading down to a friend’s house for a few hours on the 24th, so we didn’t get to meet them upon their arrival at my brother’s house. That’s probably for the best, as the stark difference between leaving a relatively normal environment and returning that evening to what was happening made for extremely high comedy.

When we returned, the Peruvian guests were in the living room, Skyping with their relatives back home. Meanwhile, my brother, who may or may not have familiarized himself with a glass of wine or three, was explaining his method of remembering their names (oddly, he had seemed to conflate being out-of-sight with being out-of-earshot, as he was quite enthusiastic and somewhat voluminous in describing his mnemonic devices, even though Paola (pronounced pa-WAH-la) and Moises (pronounced moy-SAYCE), both of whom's English was quite good, were just around the corner).

“You see there?” he said, gesturing wildly to a pie tin with a few slices left. “Pie! PIE!” One of my nephews, who could see both the guests and his father, at this point placed his head in his hand and began massaging his temples. “And we said ‘hello’ when they walked in, and Spanish for that is “Ola! OLA! You see? PIE-OLA! PIE-OLA!” My nephew was, by that time, moaning audibly, and I had started to giggle uncontrollably. That moment is now burned into my memory just as strongly as that night with Mary-Margret Schoonamanzer behind the Piggly-Wiggly so many years ago.

Other highlights from the weekend (they joined us Christmas afternoon as well, and even brought a few more of their country-mates … I believe they had come over to work at the ski resorts, who commonly hire internationally, for the season) include such questions as “Do you like to start fires, Moses?” and “Do people respect their mothers in Peru?”* Granted, those may sound a bit odd, but taken in context, they … they … ok, they were just plain bizarre.

I haven’t seen any news about changes in the relationship status of our two nations, so I assume that the Peruvian Consulate is still in the “What the fuck? He said what now? Ok, ok … go through it one more time …” phase of figuring out what to do.

Now that I think about it, a few traffic jams aren't really all that much to endure, if it means getting to experience things like this. Maybe Christmas isn’t so bad after all.

* I swear by the ghost of Bob Feller that I am not making those questions up.

Practicing Safe IPYPIASM

2011-12-15T11:10:00.000-08:00

Oh dear.

As I realize that my contribution to the tally of the United States in IPYPIASM 2011 (International Put Your Poem In A Shop Month) has been woefully pathetic at best, I’ve attempted to enlist the aid of others in restoring our nation’s stature in the international community. Sure, it won’t exactly offset the fact that our government is currently passing legislation that will allow our President to indefinitely detain American citizens without charges if they’re simply suspected of terrorist activities, but a good showing in the final IPYPIASM count wouldn’t just be chump change, either.

Not that it’s a competition, mind you …

The usual reaction to my explanation of IPYPIASM to friends is something along the lines of “You do what now? In a shop? Have you been into the wood alcohol again, Dead Acorn?” Fortunately, there are exceptions, and I’m pleased as punch to be able to present the brilliant work of one such person:

Above: One does not cautiously dip a toe into the pool of IPYPIASM; one cannonballs off the high platform, screaming "COWABUNGA!".

A close-up of the text, which is far more helpful and realistic advice for the youth of the world than “just say no!”:

Above: How can this not be in next year’s high school health textbooks?

It’s knowing people like her that makes life ~~really scary~~ interesting. She is, as they say, “special.” (In that best of ways, course.)

Just A Stranger Passing Through The Night

2011-12-14T11:45:00.000-08:00

I was lounging around Casa de Acorn last night, ~~cowering in fear of the Hell Hound~~ enjoying a nice evening with my canine housemate, when she ran to the window, and then to the door, barking all the while, clearly indicating that there was someone outside. “Indy,” I said. “It’s 10:00 pm. It's highly unlikely that we have a visitor at this late hour. Besides (I stifled a sniffle at this point), no one ever visits me anyway.” (It may have been more along the lines of screaming “SHUT UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP! THERE’S NO ONE THERE! YOU’RE AN IDIOT!” but that’s neither here nor there.)

Imagine my surprise, then, when I heard a knock on the screen door! “Why, that’s odd!” I said to her. “You were correct! I certainly hope it’s a cherished friend stopping by for a lager and some nice conversation, and not a Federal Agent investigating international Beanie-Baby-smuggling activities!” I walked over and opened the door, all a-twitter with anticipation, and greeted …

A dog. A goofy-looking block-headed pit bull/Labrador mix, I would guess. I wasn’t quite sure what to do, as he appeared to be alone, so I let him in. He and Indy introduced themselves (I don’t believe they’d met before, and I hadn’t seen him around the ’03), and she showed him around the house while I stepped outside to see if anyone was around looking for him.

Nothing.

They played for a bit, and after about 20 minutes, I let him back outside, assuming he knew where to go. (He did have license tags, but nothing with a name or phone number. Maybe he’s got those memorized and doesn’t see the need to have them written down.) Fifteen minutes later, however, he knocked once more, and there I was again, sitting befuddled, not only at why there was a goofy-ass strange dog in my house, but also at the fact that Indy has more friends that come to visit than I do. (Actually, that doesn’t really surprise me at all.)

It was, I decided, time to repair to the bedroom for the evening, and I asked them to turn off the TV when they were done and to try not to be too loud (it was extremely cold last night; fit for neither man nor beast, so I certainly couldn’t send him on his way at that point). Doofus (his new Casa de Acorn name) apparently lives with very lenient people, as he felt quite comfortable hopping up on the bed and commandeering approximately 75% of it. He’s a bit of a restless sleeper, as well, and not at all careful about where he steps.

So that’s it. Our odd little evening. I let Doofus out when I left for work this morning, and he meandered off after realizing he wasn’t getting to go for a car ride. I saw nothing on the community lost & found listings, so maybe he’s already found his way home. But Doofus, if you happen to stumble across this humble blog, please know that you’re welcome any time.

And yeah, humans, too (but a little heads-up call or text in advance is always appreciated ... you know, just to have time to clear the ole browser history and whatnot).

Under Where? (IPYPIASM Is HERE!)

2011-12-07T15:44:00.001-08:00

Well, it’s that time of year again! The time when both poets and non-poets alike venture forth from their studies and drawing rooms and take to the shops of the world to surreptitiously foist upon unsuspecting consumers their literary stylings:

IPYPIASM.

International Put Your Poem In A Shop Month is the brainchild of an Irish poet who also blogs here, and you can find more detail about IPYPIASM here. (It’s been rumored that the practice actually goes back to the days of Joyce, whose meandering five-hundred-stanza poems would so confuse Dublin shop-goers in the early 1900s that many shopkeepers would simply close down for the whole of December.)

All that’s required is that you write a poem, put it clandestinely in a shop for others to read, snap a picture of it (Joyce would do wood carvings, I’m told), and post it out on the googlytubez to share. It’s loads of fun, a little heart-quickening, and ultimately the most life-enriching thing you’ll do that day. Such is the emotional peak that the moment at which you take the photo is often referred to as IPYPIGASM.

As always, I’m late to the party, but here’s my initial effort:

Above: No, I don’t normally spend time in the boy’s underwear section.

The text of the “poem” is as follows:

A child awake all through the night,
awaiting Christmas morn’s delight.
A choo-choo train? A pogo stick?
An all-day sucker for him to lick?
There’s so much joy in Christmas toys,
such happiness for little boys!
But please, please THINK! Avoid a rift …
And don’t give undies as a gift.

So give it a try! If you don’t, you'll be denying a stranger a good giggle or a warm moment, and that would make you some sort of holiday monster. Nobody wants that.

Of All The Nerve!

2011-12-02T14:40:00.001-08:00

I went to the neurologist the other day to have her ~~check out my gams~~ take a look at my left thigh, which has been numb for well nigh over a year now. The worst part is that I used to be able to offer some semblance of a refutation upon being called an insensitive, unfeeling bastard, but now I just hang my head and say “Yeah, I know.” Anyway, I haven’t really been able to feel anything there for quite a while, and while it causes no pain*, I want to make sure that it’s not symptomatic of something else. People tell me that my uncontrollable shakes and night sweats are the delirium tremens, but fuck you, Occam ... it could be a horrible degenerative neurological disorder.

So she did her little testy stuff, hitting me with hammers and running a serrated pizza cutter all over my legs (she didn’t seem amused when I asked if we shouldn’t establish a safeword first), and then started explaining what she thinks is going on:

The condition is known as Meralgia Paresthetica, or Bernhardt-Roth syndrome, and is a mononeuropathy of the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve, caused by compression as it passes the inguinal ligament blah blah blah …

And that’s fine, you know - doctors go to school for like, an extra couple of years (and not the way that I was a sophomore for 3 years), so I’m glad they’re very knowledgeable and can use big words. But then I got this:

You see, nerves are like electrical cords. Some nerves are like the big orange extension cords, and some nerves are like little lamp cords.

The fuck? Did she take a semester off or something? Do they have correspondence courses in medical school?

At the end of our little discussion of neurology/electricity, she informed me of the next steps: firstly, I was to go to my regular physician, and have them fax over the results of the lab tests I had gone through during the summer (just a regular checkup – I hadn’t done anything stupid). So I was chatting with the lovely receptionist, explaining what we needed to do, and she looked up my history. “Well,” she said, “you didn’t have all the tests that are required, so go ahead and have a seat, and a nurse will be with you shortly.” After picking myself up off the floor, I stammered “you … you mean … you’re going to take blood? TODAY? NOW? But … but I’m not ready!” “Yes. Yes we are …” she replied, through a sadistic smile. Her pupils briefly closed into slits, like those of a cat, and I swear the temperature dropped 10 degrees.

Secondly, I’m scheduled for an MRI, which means lying inside a tube that’s actually smaller than the width of my body for 17 hours while a giant donut shoots magnetic rays through my core. I’m sure I’ll get stuck to my refrigerator for days after.

Thirdly, I have to have a nerve conduction test, in which the doctor duct tapes the two bared ends of an electrical cord (it’s like a nerve!) to my skin and plugs it in to the wall outlet. I’ve had to go through this before, and it’s almost as bad as stepping on a Lego, or waking up in Nampa. I mean, it hurts.

It all seems like a lot of trouble, but if it can perhaps help me to one day be just a little more sensitive and feeling, then by all that's sacred, it’ll have been worth it.

* I can still feel pain … like if I were to, oh, say, hypothetically jab a pin into my thigh to see if I could still feel pain, then yes, I would most assuredly feel pain. Not that I did that, of course. Why, that would be just plain stupid!

Close, But No Cigar

2011-11-17T10:44:00.001-08:00

The list of things in my life that need serious attention and/or action is not short. A sampling of items on my "To Do" list:

Scour the house in preparation for the Thanksgiving festivities
Participate in activities that will end the existing plutocracy and bring down the filthy rich and their despicable oligarchy
Finish building the master bathroom
Plant bulbs before the ground freezes
Introspect on possible causes of my continued self-destructive behavior and establish a concrete and workable plan for positive life changes
Fix the door handle on the Zuke Of Earle so that I don’t have to roll down the window all winter every time I need to get out

With so many matters needing addressing, it’s difficult to prioritize, which is why I’ve chosen to devote every spare moment in the near future to the construction of the one thing truly missing from my life: a cigar-box guitar.

The cigar-box guitar is - not surprisingly, I suppose - a guitar made out of a cigar box. As with every project I undertake, my first step was to ~~fire up the googly-tubez for instructions~~ painstakingly research the history of the subject and to discover what relevant knowledge has been gleaned to date. Much like Ike Newton, after all, I stand on the shoulders of giants.

I’ve assembled the basic necessities, the sine qua nons, if you will - a cigar box, a stick, and tuning pegs:

Above: Renowned Guitar Virtuoso Buck and Master Carpenter Indy are eager to help!

Sure, there are some additional things that I’ll eventually require – strings, a piezoelectric transducer to turn into an internal microphone and a ¼” jack (much like Dylan at Newport, I’m going electric. Also much like Dylan, I’ll be booed upon playing, but for entirely different reasons), some actual woodworking skills, extra cigar boxes and sticks for when I inevitably screw things up – but as for now, I have plenty of beer and lots of power tools, so I’m off to a good start.

I’ll eventually get to those other big projects, probably. Maybe. But in all honesty, if I can’t sit down at the end of the day and kick out the jams on my patio with a bottle of Jack and a cigar-box guitar, well, then they really just don’t matter all that much now, do they?

Food For Thought

2011-11-11T10:42:00.001-08:00

Well, the local pub that I frequent is doing a seemingly nice thing for the local food bank – for every 16 oz. item of non-perishable food one brings in, (s)he is given a 16 oz. draught beer of any flavor served (limit one per person per day … damnit!). I write “seemingly” because while, yes, it is providing nourishment for those so unfortunate as to need help during these troubled times, it throws a whole new confusing dimension into the time-honored (and hitherto fail proof) method of introducing one’s self to another: the suave and debonair utterance of the phrase “Howdy! Can I gitcha a beer?”

It’s irresistible!

Prior to the onset of the food-for-beer program, such a query would have been met with a shy giggle, an acceptance, some light-hearted banter over one drink, then another, followed by a more intimate conversation about each others likes and dislikes, playfully arguing about bands and books, mocking disdain at the other’s appreciation of cats, both trying to hide the giddiness inside at having finally met The One, then a walk home through the beautiful fall foliage, hands nervously clasped (after several awkward brushes of one’s against the other’s), a promise to call the next day (“if that’s okay?”), a quick kiss on the cheek and a quicker turn to hide the redness creeping into one’s owns, and, eventually, a lifetime filled with love and happiness.

Well, no more. Now it’s “Howdy! Can I gitcha a beer?” followed by immediate and excruciating internal dread and angst. “Oh my god … oh my GOD! I only have a can of Progresso soup … and it’s GUMBO! What the fuck was I thinking? She’s going to think I’m an asshole. Why couldn’t I have some beluga caviar? Or would she think that’s pretentious? I am tolly SCREWED. That guy down the bar has pasta! Angel hair! I can’t compete with that! Stupid stupid stupid …”

So thanks, pub. Thanks for eradicating my dreams of a joyful future. Thanks for all the lonely tomorrows. Thanks for feeding the hungry with food seasoned with the salt of my tears.

NOTE: By the way, if you’re too nervous about approaching strangers and buying them beer with food, you can donate directly to the Idaho Food Bank.

You Can Limit My Words, But Not My Imagination!

2011-11-02T13:11:00.000-07:00

Once again, the seasons have cycled, and, as autumn winds down, the much anticipated announcement of the Boise Weekly’s “Fiction 101” writing competition has appeared – a call for submissions of succinct stories, of truncated tales, of prose painstakingly pared to precisely one hundred and one words. It is an exercise most vexing to the verbose; a bane to those bereft of brevity and curse for those clear of concision.

Choose carefully, one must, one’s adjectives and adverbs and other adjuncts, for the wisdom of words lies not in lavish loquaciousness, but rather in the raw rendering of phrases few but fiery.

Power To The People!

2011-10-28T11:05:00.000-07:00

It’s Fun Friday Quiz Day!

Q: When a driver approaches an intersection at which the power to the signal lights is out, the proper behavior is to:

A) Act as if the signal lights never existed in the first place, and continue through without regard for other vehicles.

B) Immediately stop and become frozen with fear, knuckles white from the crushing grip on the steering wheel.

C) Treat the intersection as though it were a four-way stop.

A fairly large area around my place of employment lost power yesterday (that I was testing a theoretical multi-phasic step-up transformer at the time is purely coincidental, I’m quite sure ...), and as I looked out my window down at the busy intersection below, I saw far more of the first two behaviors than the third. I was quite amazed that there were no accidents. Disappointed, of course, morbid ghoul that I am, but amazed nonetheless.

That’s not to say that I don’t get thoroughly confused when something in the societal infrastructure in which we exist goes awry. In fact, yesterday, as I stood observing the chaos below, I exclaimed quite loudly “Jesus fucking CHRIST! Look at these fucking DOUCHEBAGS!” before realizing that the lack of electricity did not render the 10 or so coworkers/superiors within earshot deaf to my vocalizations.

I meet with Human Resources this afternoon.

The power was off for around 10 minutes when the Director came around saying that he’d heard from Idaho Power that we could expect up to a 2-hour outage, and that people should go ahead and leave for the day. Having no real desire to experience anything resembling the insanity of Pamplona, nor even, for that matter, Ketchum, I calmly sat at my desk, removed my big-boy shoes and put on my Chucks, secured my vodka in the locking desk drawer, and ...

... let out a heavy “fffffuuuuuu ...” as the lights came back on just as I grabbed my jacket.

The other idiots (who, just minutes before, had shared my smug sense of superiority in allowing the masses to crush each other like Who fans upon the Director’s pronouncement) and I looked at each other with sad resignation and trudged back to our desks. Damn it.

Maybe Monday I’ll experiment with the fire alarm.

Of Mice And Men And Dogs

2011-10-24T09:07:00.000-07:00

So I was sitting around the other morning, trying to emerge from my pre-dawn fog, when, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a ~~fire-breathing Komodo dragon~~ ~~Rodent Of Unusual Size~~ cute little mouse shuffling down the hallway. He must have seen me turn my head, for he glanced over at me, then scampered away to somewhere out of view. (I’m sure my blood-curdling scream and subsequent leap onto the dining room table had nothing to do with him being startled.)

I really don’t have any huge problems with mice, or spiders, or whatever other demonic creatures inhabit the crawlspace beneath the house … as long as they recognize the floor as an impenetrable barrier between our worlds, not to be crossed. A DMZ of sorts, if you will, necessary for the continuance of the uneasy peace that allows for our coexistence. I reminded the mouse of our implicit agreement re: living arrangements by shrieking like a little schoolgirl “GET OUT! GET THE FUCK DOWNSTAIRS! I WILL END YOU! I WILL MURDER YOU!”, which I’m sure was very convincing, being delivered from atop a table by a quivering, sobbing guy wearing Sugar Daddy jammies.

Anyway, I knew I had to set some traps to send a message and to reestablish proper order in the world. It was either that, or get a cat, and I’m not sure that I should be allowed to choose animals with whom to cohabitate, given the unfortunate results of my last attempt. Traps it would be.

I loaded them up with peanut butter and several varieties of cheese, as I assume mice have varying palates, and wanted to provide a little something for everyone. I’m a good host that way. I knew that there was a potential issue with Indy, as she also enjoys peanut butter and cheese (with the exception of Muenster … she’s an odd one). I explained the risks of attempting to treat herself to a little snack, and set a couple of traps and sprung them with a pencil in front of her, so that she would realize their destructive force and give them wide berth in her wanderings during my absence. It seemed to work, as she wanted nothing to do with them after the brief demonstration.

Unfortunately, the learning didn’t really seem to take, because I came home after work that day to this:

Above: She really should probably wear a helmet.

In any case, I haven’t seen another mouse for a few days – I’m sure they’re laughing too hard at my boneheaded dog to make the climb. Whatever works, I guess. Good dog.

Everything's A-Croquet

2011-10-14T10:46:00.000-07:00

I went through my first interview in a number of years yesterday.

I’m not looking for alternative employment, of course … I really can’t imagine a more satisfying position in life than my current role as Vice Assistant to the Assistant Manager of Dreary Repetitiveness in a large governmental agency. I believe that my situation is referred to by the youngsters these days as “livin’ the dream.”

No, this was far more than attempting to justify my 30+ year string of less-than-6-months-in-duration jobs; this was an assessment of my character, of my very moral fiber.

You may or may not believe this, but this is the honest truth: I am, on occasion, able to force myself to set aside my official duties while at “work” and peruse the googlytubez, lest my feverish and frenzied zeal for my job overwhelm me to the point of collapse. And so it was, yesterday, that I stumbled across a posting on Craigslist for … a $10 croquet set.

That’s not quite right – it was for a croquet set being sold for $10. There were accompanying photographs, and seeing what was being offered, I thought that surely the seller must have left off a zero or two on the price. Either that, or he was simply mad. It was a Spalding 6-player kit, and was housed in a heavy canvas carrying case. The wickets appeared pristine, and the original documentation was intact. “Sweet honey mustard!” I exclaimed aloud. “I've no time to lose!”

I immediately telephoned Carl, the seller/madman, and nervously asked if the set was still available. “Well, sure …” he replied. “I just posted it a minute and a half ago.” (It’s eerie that at the one time I happened to click on Craigslist, such a gem had so recently been posted. It’s not like I’m surfing the site every 15 minutes or anything, you know.) I told him I’d be over directly, and dashed out to my bicycle, leaving papers fluttering to the ground in the wake of my hasty departure.

Carl was standing out front when I arrived, and I could immediately sense that his was a tortured soul. A certain sadness seemed to surround him, and I approached him with no small trepidation:

Carl: “You the Dead Acorn?”

Dead Acorn: “Y-y-yes sir. Carl. Sir.”

Carl: “Well, let’s get on with this, I guess.”

He led me over to a picnic table upon which the case lay, and slowly, methodically, unzipped it and revealed the treasure within. I tried, unsuccessfully, to stifle a gasp.

Carl: “You can see it’s in pretty good shape. None of the balls are chipped, and the rubber mallet head caps have been well taken care of.”

DA: “It’s … it’s … beautiful.”

Carl: “Well, we’ve had it for a while, but haven’t had much opportunity to play. As a boy, my grandfather and I would play from dawn ‘til dusk. I remember squealing with laughter at his faux rage when I would send his ball scattering after a lucky roquet – I was never near the striker that he was, but he let me in the game. O, those days … that I could live those days again.”

DA: “It sounds wonderful, Carl. Sir.”

Carl: “You know, I bought these to play with my grandkids – they live across the state, but we see ‘em as much as we can, and I thought they’d enjoy it. They tried, I guess, but kids today have their music things and their phones and whatnot, and they’d never seem to stick around for too long. It’s sad, I guess, but things change, and there ain’t no changin’ that."

He paused for a few moments, looking wistfully off at the mountains to the north. He then told me about how he and “the missus” were heading down to Mexico for a spell, and didn’t think it right to just leave the set gathering dust in the garage.

Carl: “So you play the game?”

DA: “Yes sir, but not for a while. I played a lot as a child with my brother and sisters. I don't get to see them too much anymore. I’ve been playing bocce ball more recently – my daughter gave me a set of those a few years ago, and we’ve had some wonderful times throwing them around the lawn. I thought that it would be nice teach her croquet as well.”

Carl looked at me, and I looked him back right in the eye. I knew he was making a decision, and even though I didn’t feel worthy of the set, I hoped that he would see something that would convince him that my home would be a loving one - the right one.

He stood silently for well near three minutes, then finally spoke: “Well, okay then. You treat ‘em how they oughta be treated.” I nodded, and handed him a ten dollar bill. He smiled faintly, and put his hands in his pockets. “It ain’t about the money,” he said. “It ain’t about the money.”

We shook hands, then he turned and walked inside.

Coasting Through Life ...

2011-10-11T09:32:00.000-07:00

Back when I was a youngster, I could stay up for 2 days straight dancing with the devil, drive for 15 hours without a break to get home, and go straight to work without thinking twice about any of it. Well, I’m sure I could have, had auto-mobiles been invented back then, and were I able to maintain gainful employment. The point is that I’m not the tireless young rascal that I’d like to imagine, however erroneously, that I once was.

I drove over to the Oregon coast for the weekend, which, according to the googly map, is about a 9 hour journey. That was fine for the trip westward, as I was stopping at a friend’s house about 2/3 of the way across, and crossing a time zone and all made it a merry li’l jaunt of about 45 minutes. I even took time, in fact, to interact with some of the wildlife for which the U.S. Northwest is so famous (I’m the one on the left with the odd sunglasses):

Above: The fur of the North American Brown Bear is remarkably similar to indoor/outdoor carpet, and their noses have an oddly plastic texture.

The locals were quite impressed by my show of courage, though they must have been somewhat concerned for my safety and called the Bear Containment Authorities, or whomever one would call in a situation of such obvious danger, for as I was pulling back on to the highway, I saw several cars with lights a-flashing race past to where I had just departed. Silly Oregonians ... I was just fine.

The rest of the drive to the coast was mostly uneventful; the number of times I got lost was not in the double digits, and I eventually reached the mighty Pacific Ocean:

Above: I’m not sure if that’s Japan or Korea off in the distance. That’s Oahu in the middle. If you look closely, you can also see, just above the QEII, the arriving bubble that carried Glenda The Good Witch. She gave me directions to the house in which we were staying.

Back to the part about being an oldster: I was going to stay Saturday night and make the entire return trip on Sunday, but the thought of driving 39 hours in a single day (likely with a … umm … touch of … influenza, let’s say) made me a little sick inside, so I packed up my walker and took off early that evening. I know ... what a pansy, right? My friends in Washington were a little surprised at my late night arrival, and by “surprised,” I mean Sherry walked out of the bedroom and asked “Why in fucking hell are you here?” She’s a sweetie.

The next evening, after several rest-stop naps, I finally made it home, where the dog immediately bit me and The Live Acorn didn’t return my call to say hi. I can’t wait ‘til next year - I’m sure I'll be WAY younger by then.

Another Year ... And Another ...

2011-10-03T10:18:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, I stumbled, gasping and wheezing, into the “late” segment of my current decade (I can’t remember exactly which decade I’m in right now, but I’m pretty sure it’s between my teens and my nineties). Accordingly, I realized that it is high time that I began to heed the Good Book (the bible, not The Great Gatsby, though that, too, is a pretty dang good book, and far less fictioney), and put away childish things (1 Corinthians 13:11). No more Hawaiian shirts, no more cheesy jokes, no more slow dancing on the front lawn, sipping mimosas as the sun rises. That south forty ain’t gonna till itself, you know. It’s time to get behind the mule, damnit.

Ha ha! Just kidding. It was another great birthday (albeit another one on which no one rented a Bobcat backhoe so that I could play in the dirt … I’m just going to take care of that myself next year). There was much revelry which shall not be detailed here, as I understand that the courts are generally quite successful at subpoenaing weblog transcripts and discovering the super-secret and closely guarded identities of pseudonymous web-loggers. I will say, however, that the llama is doing just fine, and that I have a whole new respect for the peoples of North Dakota.

As if this past weekend weren’t enough, there’s another one of the three-day variety coming up. I’m not really sure that Columbus Day is an occasion that should be celebrated, and, in fact, the public schools here are in session that day. But hey, if the gubmint wants to pay me to stay away, I will not complain. On the contrary, I will celebrate the day in the traditional fashion, by walking into a stranger’s house and announcing that I live there now, and introducing several new diseases to them. As recompense, I will allow them to stay in a well-delineated section of the back yard.

In actuality, I’ll be heading westward to the coast of Oregon to ~~save Pat from drowning again~~ meet up with some friends who have long been scattered about the country. We'll be staying in a house that has been rented legally, we will not be displacing any indigenous civilizations, and as far as I know, I don’t have any communicable diseases.

The Dead Acorn … classy-ing up America since 2008.

Flowers For The Dead Acorn

2011-09-26T14:05:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite weekend rituals is sitting down at mybreakfast counter, with spuds a-sizzling on the stove and a ~~half-gone bottle of Old Overholt rye whiskey~~ pot of fresh-brewed coffee on the counter,and taking a stab at the crossword puzzle that appears in the local newspaper. I rarely complete them, especially the Sundayedition, as they become increasingly difficult as the week progresses, and infact, the Sunday clues often seem to be written in a language entirely unbeknownst tome. Still, rituals being what they are,I persistently write down squiggly little symbols in the little boxes, symbols which, for themost part, are indeed part of our commonly accepted English alphabet.

It’s well-established that doing (or attempting, in my case)crossword puzzles can be beneficial, at least as relating to certain mental aspectsof our lives. Crosswords have beenlinked to increased memory retention, reduced risk/delayed onset of dementiaand Alzheimer’s Disease, and tolly knowing the name of Nick and Nora’s dog. Of course, they’re of no benefit whatsoever, and infact, can be quite harmful, in the context of getting things done around the house,but there are costs and benefits to all things in life, and I’ll leave it tothe reader to ponder them as they relate to her own life.

Of course, I enjoy doing the crosswords during the week aswell, and even though I am but a “weekends-only" subscriber to the paper, I amfortunate enough to have a coworker who does something called “exercise” beforework, and who brings a gymnasium-supplied photocopied facsimile ofthe weekday version into the office each morning. Thus, I am able to continue to stave off theonset of (further) idiocy the other five days of the week as well.

Or, rather, I was.

Friday was that coworker’s last day, and so, at the time ofme typing this, it’s been almost 30 hours since I did a puzzle. I think it’s like 30 hours, at least, but Ican’t really remember when I did it on yesterday. I’m pretty sure it was yesterday and not theday before, because it had the comics that I like with the colors and I knowthat happens on the Sundays accept that dumb doonsberry that don’t make since andits still in black and wite and my favrit one with pig iz gone. Plus thers lotsof extra pages that look like comics at first but then you go and look for thetalking aminals and their arent any animals at all much less ones talkingfunny stuff. But im gonna go to wendys after i go homefrom werk becuz i no they have the puzzle things and the mazes too i like themazes and i try to stay in the lines but somtimz the crans brake and i never find wutz difrent in the too picherz either but i stilllik the choklat frosty things but Im going rite after i say hi to my dog (i rilly say bark becuz she dont no peepel tok) cuz i dontwant to turn into a stoopid hed so im gon do puzelz

With apologies to Daniel Keyes, of course.

Many Are Cold, Few Are Frozen

2011-09-20T08:08:00.001-07:00

I took a glance at the ~~Weather Bureau~~ National Weather Service website last week, and saw that the projected low for Friday in Garden Valley, ID, was 32 F (273 K). Much like milk goes horribly, convulsion-inducingly bad when the clock strikes midnight on its expiration date, all fluids, including blood coarsing through one’s veins, instantly freeze when the temperature dips below this level, and I recognized that that night might be my last opportunity for a ~~sleepless 8 hours of terror, clutching my axe and waiting for the wolves to attack~~ peaceful slumber in the woods until next spring.

So I went and did a little shopping at lunch, took off from work around 2:00 pm, haphazardly threw a bunch of crap into my car, and headed north. After a stop at the grocery store on the way out of town (“Ding-dang it! I need ice! Oh, and probably some more beer. OOOOH! And pistachios!”), once more in Horseshoe Bend (“You know what would be a good snack? Fritos! Oh, and I probably should get some more beer.”), I neared my destination and saw this:

Above: Undoubtedly the inspiration for Stephen King’s “The Mist.”

I’ve never know the NWS to be wrong before, so I was quite confused, as that, dear reader, is not simply a low-lying cloud, but a fog of razor-sharp ice crystals ready to shred one’s lungs with each breath, otherwise known around these parts as Rocky Mountain Liquid Nitrogen. After a few minutes of somber reflection, I decided that I’d lived an okay life, and pressed on, though surely death awaited.

I must have chosen a spot in a small high-pressure zone, because I was able to function well enough to get things set up in short order. I posted a while back about buying a new camp table, which has independently telescoping legs, allowing leveling of its surface on uneven ground. BEHOLD:

Above: The best $40 dollars I’ve spent outside of Reno.

Note the extreme slope of the ground (almost 70 degrees, I would guess, and akin to bivouacking on Halfdome); and yet, the stove is in no danger of sliding off. (I don’t suggest trying to adjust such a surface while the grill and a lantern atop it are both lit, and after several beers have been consumed. Seriously.) Also note the strategic placement of the camp chair, directly upslope from the fire pit. I really probably shouldn’t camp alone.

I did make my way down to the Dirty Shame to watch a quarter of a football game in which the local collegiate “team” was playing. This was an actual conversation I had with the comely, albeit surly, server after two beers:

Comely, Albeit Surly, Server: “Would you like another one?”

Dead Acorn: “No, I think I’ll square up and head up the road.”

Comely, Albeit Surly, Server: “No, you’ll have one more, then you can go.”

Dead Acorn: “ummm … yes, ma'am.”

Maybe I don’t really go up there for the camping.

I'm Sure Locusts Are Next ...

2011-09-12T11:43:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while, in this otherwise bleak world in which we subsist, something happens that gives me hope, even if it’s just an ever-so-faint glimmer, that things might be improving just a bit, and that continuing on for another day just might be the thing to do. A smile from a blue-eyed baby, the sight of a tatted-up, body-pierced, mohawk-sportin’ teenaged punk holding the door for an elderly woman, the return of $1 draughts from 10 am – noon at the Parilla Grill – it’s really the little things that, while easily overlooked, make it fun to carry on.

What happened yesterday was nothing short of a miracle. I was laying about in the afternoon after a fairly exhausting weekend. The “rock and roll” ensemble in which I am fortunate enough to be a member had its initial public performance on Saturday (I think the kids nowadays say “we had our first gig,” or something like that. Whatevs ...), and there were subsequent celebratory activities long into the evening, as is the custom, I’m told. (The Live Acorn was there and didn’t die of embarrassment, which I’ll take as a compliment.)

Though I had what I’m fairly certain was a touch of the Bubonic Plague upon waking yesterday, I heroically arose from bed and began my traditional fall Sunday activities, which include baking the lasagna that I had assembled a couple of days prior and riding to the aforementioned Parilla Grill to watch some American Football as it cooled. Some rituals are sacred that way.

Upon returning home, and giving thanks that the Plague was merely of the 2-hour variety, I realized that I was both a) hungry, and 2) tired. Now I’m not one to believe in karma, or a higher being, or anything like that, but the fact that my house had both 1) a freshly-cooked lasagna, and b) a couch seemed a little too coincidental. Odd. I didn’t dwell on it too long, however, and soon my hunger was sated and I was fading into a light slumber.

Here comes the miracle part ... consider the situation within my four walls at the time: a sleeping Dead Acorn, the pan with the remaining 7 pieces of lasagna sitting out on the counter, and the iron-stomached food-inhaling Hell Hound eating machine roaming about unrestrained.

And why yes, she IS Italian.

I awoke a bit later, and immediately realized what I had done. I sat on the edge of the couch, my head in my hands, sobbing, and in between tearful gasps screaming “Why? WHY? Why would I not put it in the fridge? Was sleep so important and urgent that I couldn’t take two steps to my left, thereby avoiding this catastrophe? Dear god, WHY?” After a few minutes of soul searching, I got up and tried to prepare myself for the carnage that I knew awaited me in the kitchen. I trudged slowly around the corner ...

... and found nothing of the sort. I mean, the kitchen was a mess, of course, but it always is, as I’m somewhat ... less than tidy, let's say ... in my living habits. But the lasagna pan remained on the counter, and an inspection revealed only a half-layer of one piece missing. That damn dog had finally showed a bit of restraint and only ate half a piece! As difficult as it is to fathom, she must have, at some point, said to herself “You row whut? Ri’ve had eruff!” (I marvel at her ingenuity in realizing that she could take the top half only rather than try to use a knife to cut it. Brilliant!) And getting back to my original point, it’s a miracle such as this that truly encapsulates the wonderment of our world.

Perhaps this is actually a teaching moment. Perhaps this is a lesson meant for me. Perhaps I can learn just a bit from her lack of lasagnatious avarice and incorporate such an attitude of self-restraint toward the 10 am – noon draught special.

Or, you know, perhaps not.

Button It, Blog-Boy!

2011-09-06T08:03:00.000-07:00

Damn, I’m in a tight spot here, clothing-wise, and I mean beyond my acknowledged and accepted utter lack of fashion sense. (By “acknowledged and accepted,” I mean that yes, I understand that the Whole Of Society condemns my assemblage of plaids and stripes. The Whole Of Society is wrong, of course, but I understand and accept that people are not going to change their ridiculous opinions.)

I’ve got a large and ever-growing cache of clothes which share a common attribute: the lack of at least one critical button. On pants, the critical button is, of course, the one that holds them up, and while I suppose I could wear them to work and rely on a belt to avoid any unpleasantness, belts do break, and the resultant trou-dropping and subsequent exposure of my lily-white ass would be both embarrassing and blinding. On the shirts, it’s really just the second-to-the-top button, as that's the one that keeps a person from looking like a disco-era refugee from Studio 54, and a missing lower one just gives quicker access to belly-scratchin’.

In any case, I’ve long promised myself that I would have Button Day, on which I would take a couple of hours, sit down with the entire pile, and sew the damn buttons back on. I’ve long broken, and continue to break, that promise; hence the large and ever-growing cache of clothes. Instead, I opt for a quick trip to Ross (a discount clothier) every once in a while, where the prices are lower than a sophomore’s standards at closing time at the Fireside.

Plus, they have a bitchin’ advertising jingle:

If you spend all your dough
On hookers and blow
And your gambling habit’s your boss

You can save oodles
With Top-Ramen noodles
And irregular rejects from Ross!

Anyway, I’m down to about three pairs of wearable work pants right now, one of which keeps getting shorter with each washing. I thought these types of things were only supposed to shrink up once, but these have gone from just right, to having to skootch them down a bit, to me having to make sure my socks match … they’re currently manpris, and I’m fairly certain that by October, I’ll have a new pair of shorts. Stupid cotton. I never have this problem with my rayon Hawaiian shirts that I get from the grocery store.

So I think that the Day of ~~Reckoning~~ Buttoning is quickly approaching, my epic run of procrastination at long last reaching its end. I could just continue my visits to Ross, I suppose, but I think that it’s time to finally stop taking the easy route, live up to my promise, and mend those things that I can.*

I’ll just need someone to volunteer to come over and supervise, as I am not allowed to be alone with sharp objects. Stupid court order.

* Just talking about clothes here ... this is not a metaphor or anything like that.

The Woods Have Eyes (And Stomachs, Too, Apparently ...)

2011-08-30T10:57:00.000-07:00

This has not been the Summer Of Camping that I had hoped it would be. I think I’ve only made it out four times, and one of those ended with a late night return home, due to the fact that every site but ours was occupied by a large and extremely loud single party, with pit bulls roaming around, the threat of gunplay, and a blood-lusting Doberman pinscher who spent three hours straight staring at us, unblinking, as individual fibers in his ever-taut rope snapped every few seconds with an audible pop. Ah, sweet, sweet Idaho.

Last weekend, a friend and I ventured out for a little relaxation just up the road:

Above: Super Secret Campsite … somewhere in Idaho, but most definitely not 13 miles past The Dirty Shame up FSR 698.

I was especially excited for the jaunt, as I had just purchased a collapsible camp table, and this was to be its initial outdoor use (I did set it up in my living room when I first got it, where it somehow was, within minutes, covered in CDs, dog hair, and old issues of the New Yorker magazine). It performed beyond my wildest dreams (and believe me, my wildest dreams, with respect to flat surfaces that are merely required to support a fairly light camp stove, are pretty dang wild), and a delightful meal of steak (marinated overnight in teriyaki, and served with sautéed onions, of course … being in the woods doesn’t mean one need dine like a heathen) and baked potatoes was thoroughly enjoyed. Of course, being ~~completely liquored up on cheap gin and cheaper beer~~ somewhat exhausted from the exhilaration of collapsible camp table food preparation, all sorts of edible and aromatic items were left about the campsite.

Normally, I think that the forest creatures are asked to not bother the campers (at least through September), but the succulent smells of the remains of dinner must have overwhelmed them, for I was awakened as the person with whom I was camping crashed through the tent door from what I assume was a late moonlit stroll:

Person With Whom I Was Camping: THERE’S A SKUNK! THERE’S A GODDAMN SKUNK OUT THERE!

Dead Acorn: You know, I was thinking about that ... what would you rather encounter at night: a skunk or a porky-pine?

PWWIWC: WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? THERE’S A SKUNK RIGHT OUTSIDE!

Dead Acorn: Neither would be pleasant, I imagine. With the skunk, there’d be no sharp barbed quills piercing your skin, of course, but on the other hand, it’d be kind of a long stinky drive down to the store to get the tomato sauce to get rid of the smell. Tough call.

PWWIWC: YOU’RE AN IDIOT! THERE’S A SKUNK OUT THERE RIGHT NOW! AND IT’S ‘PORCUPINE,’ NOT PORKY-PINE, ASSHOLE!

Bear Outside Munching On Leftover Steak: Could you guys keep it down, please? And did you bring any horseradish?

Both the skunk and the bear evidently grew bored with the discussion and waddled off their separate ways, but I’m definitely going speak to the Forest Service about their manners. If everyone can’t agree to some basic guidelines for a civil society, can we really say we’re any better than the Minnesota Vikings?

I Want You ... To Want ... ME!

2011-08-26T10:18:00.000-07:00

The little hamlet in which I reside has innumerable qualities that make one pause from time to time and say to oneself “Jeepers! The little hamlet in which I reside sure has innumerable qualities! I’m fortunate to have found my way here!” To be sure, it has its negative aspects (not the least of which is that the house in which I live is attached to a foundation, rendering it immovable, and thereby enabling that damn dog to find her way back to it disirregardless of the section of desert in which she is left), but one gaze upon the full moon rising above the foothills renders them all but trivial.

One thing that I particularly enjoy is the broad spectrum of choices available with regards to live music. Boise has everything from large stadium (and quite costly) shows featuring ~~geriatric rockers whose fans’ interest in anything new stopped a quarter-century ago and can now afford to pay $75 to hear Billy Joel sing “Piano Man” again~~ long-established acts to hard-core punk venues in which the sound can barely cut through the haze of smoke from American Spirit cigarettes and the stench of stale PBR. There is a beautiful botanical garden that lends itself to the relaxing date-night sounds of such artists as Lyle Lovett, and an open space downtown where weekly free concerts by talented-but-as-of-yet-generally-unheard-of bands take place so that the masses can dance and rejoice unbound, albeit it temporarily, by life’s realities.

A place for all music, and all music in its place.

Every once in a while, however, there occurs such an odd matchup of music and location that one does a spit-take of the beer one is drinking upon hearing of it, and exclaims “Why, THAT’S an odd matchup of music and location! It’s almost as if there’s a rip in the genre-venue continuum!” Such is the situation tonight:

Cheap Trick is playing the Western Idaho State Fair.

Perhaps “genre-venue continuum” isn’t quite right, as The Fair certainly has had Teh Rock And Teh Roll groups before. Traditionally, however, these tend to be such acts as Loverboy, who had a two-album bright-but-brief moment of greatness but who have since been mid-week attractions in lounges in the border towns of Nevada, or LaToya Jackson*, whom I once saw perform what amounted to a medley of her brother's songs there mid-day to a crowd of about 15. They do not tend to be such acts as THE GREATEST BAND TO NOT BE IN THE ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME. A discussion I had yesterday with my boss’s boss’s boss:

Dead Acorn: I can’t believe Cheap Trick is playing The Fair tomorrow. Clearly the greatest band to not be in the hall of fame.

BBB: Yeah, they were pretty good … I suppose you could make an argument for that.

Dead Acorn: THERE IS NO ARGUMENT AGAINST IT. THERE IS NO RATIONAL POSITION YOU COULD POSSIBLY PUT FORTH SAYING OTHERWISE THAT WOULD NOT MAKE YOU LOOK LIKE A BLITHERING IDIOT DOUCHEBAG.

BBB: (moves slowly away)

In actuality, I’m not a rabid fan (no CT bumper stickers adorn the Zuke Of Earle), but I do have much respect for the fact that they’ve put out great music for so long, and sweet jeebus, I get to see them tonight, in between inhaling Pronto Pups and trying to keep them down while riding The Zipper.

I’m almost as excited for the music as I am to see the pygmy goats, and that's saying a lot.

* Yes, I know that's pop and not really R'n'R, but you get the point.

We Need The Funk ... We Gotta Have That Funk ...

2011-08-22T10:02:00.000-07:00

I’m quite certain that my reader is fully aware of the meaning of “pre-funk,” but on the slim chance that I am mistaken, I’ll include the definition according to the Oxford English Dictionary:

Pre-funk (v): to imbibe alcohol or other mood-altering substances prior to an event, often a sporting event or social gathering.

As mentioned in the OED, pre-funking often takes place before a ball game or a party, but there are few occasions that are not amenable to pre-funking. Weddings, funerals, LSATs, bris’ (though not suggested for the mohel) ... all of these are perfectly fine times to "prime the pump" before the event proper. (The birth of your first child is NOT an acceptable pre-funking opportunity ... trust me on this.)

And so it was yesterday that a number of us showed up in the park an hour before the party celebrating the 5th birthday of Oliver, laden with the necessary trappings to hold the maiden instance of the Bacon & Mimosa Park Extravaganza (we commenced at 11:00 am, as pre-funking is only made better when occurring before noon).

Well, believe you me, missy, it was every bit as good as it sounds and more. I believe there were three pounds of bacon of varying flavors and thicknesses, and plenty of bubbly for all (being conscientious and law-abiding morning drinkers, the champagne was poured into plastic pitchers, as the local constables frown on glassware in the park. It also boosted our white-trashiosity, so it’s really a win-win). We did our best to make sure that the youngsters present only poured from the actual orange juice containers, but some of those kids are pretty dang goofy anyway, so it’s hard to say with certainty that we were 100% successful.

There was a bit of tension when it became known that I had brought both pancake mix and ... sausage. There was an audible gasp from several revelers. “What kind of man brings sausage to a bacon party?” asked a fellow attendee, clearly upset at what he perceived as an unforgivable breach of porkly protocol. Fortunately, I was able to explain my views on non-exclusion, that it was all part of the same pig and that we should embrace differences rather than propagate divisiveness, and convince him that the additional items would only add to the merriment. It didn’t hurt that, apparently, champagne tickles his nose, and he kept giggling.

One of the highlights came when the birthday boy showed up at noon with another pound of bacon, which neither his mother nor her husband had any idea from whence it may have come. That kid has promise.

All in all, it was a splendid Sunday, both pre-funk, funk, and post-funk (now that I think about it, I did have a beer whilst mixing the pancake batter at home … I’ll leave it to you to decide whether that’s a pre-pre-funk, or just a pathetic cry for help). There are calls to make it a monthly, or even weekly, event, rather than an annual one. I can’t say that I see a downside to that notion ... there certainly have to be other children with birthdays we can work with, even if nobody actually knows them.

Interested parents with kids they’d like to volunteer can contact me at thedeadacorn [AT] gmail [DOT] com.

A Different State Of Mind

2011-08-15T09:50:00.000-07:00

I am of mixed emotions in this matter: on the one hand, I am thrilled to have had an enjoyable couple of days in Utah and to have returned relatively unscathed; on the other, I’m a bit upset that my tax dollars are paying the salaries of Federal Agents who are so inept that I was allowed to cross state lines despite having made absolutely no effort whatsoever to conceal my intentions of doing so. Maybe I’ll post a “Looking for flight instruction – Take-off Only” ad on Craigslist and see if they notice.

The purpose of the trip was manifold (though simply traveling with The Live Acorn is reward enough, of course): first, Bright Eyes was playing on Thursday night at the Twilight Concert Series, which is a weekly free music show in a downtown park. I would guess that there were about 30,000 people (22.6 kilopeople) there – my nephew Alex (The Big Alcorn?), who is about 8’4” and around 320 lbs (pretty good-sized in metric, too), said that he’s been up front a couple of times and won’t go again, due to the crushing nature of the frenzied mob. The Live Acorn, oddly enough, didn’t want to hang out with me and my brother, so I consented to let her wander around alone, after extracting a transparently insincere pledge of safety-mindedness and common sense. We met after the show at the exit:

Dead Acorn: So what did you do?

Live Acorn: I just went up toward the stage a little to listen.

Dead Acorn: Yeah? Where were you?

Live Acorn: About 4 people back from the stage, right in the middle.

Dead Acorn: Well alrighty then. (shakes head; gives up last bit of hope)

Friday evening, we attended a friend’s wedding – a thoroughly enjoyable affair all ‘round. It was a fairly short ceremony proper, with fellers in pink-vested tuxedos and bridesmaids in non-taffeta dresses – a lovely sight indeed. The Live Acorn was quite stunning with blue eyes a-sparkling and red hair a-flowing, and many were the occasions that the cautionary phrase “ROB THAT’S MY GODDAMNED DAUGHTER GET THE HELL AWAY FROM HER” left my lips.

Speaking of lips, I think that “drunken attempt at tango, rose in lips, with the mother of an ex-girlyfriend” is really all that needs to be said (and though it was only five steps out, a botched attempt at a turn as she laughed hysterically, and five steps back, she did wear the rose in the neckline of her dress for the rest of the evening).

On a completely different subject, I’ve written a 3-act, 1-person play:

Act 1: (Fade to light … a man, sitting in a Suzuki Sidekick in front of a pub, has just rolled the window up and suddenly realizes his door handle is broken, and he needs to roll the window down in order to let himself out. He sighs heavily and does a facepalm. Fade to black.)

Act 2: (Fade to light … the man has successfully opened the car door, and has rolled the window all the way up, only to have the car door shut upon the final turn of the handle. The man inhales deeply and slowly exhales while rubbing his temples with his thumb and middle finger, muttering “fffffuuuu …” as he tries to abate his frustration. Fade to black.)

Act 3: (Fade to light … the man is sobbing uncontrollably) Why? WHY? My desires are known well to me, and known no less the path to attain them. They are within my visions, the vision both of my eyes and of my heart, yet though it is with great clarity that I recognize the way to pure joy and true nirvana in this life, I find myself unable to render tame the obstacles I face and cross the portal to that happiness. From whence this vile demon, by whom I am kept from destiny?

Some may see this as an extremely poor metaphor for larger issues, but I assure you, it’s just a simple story based on actual events.

I’ll give your regards to Broadway.

BJLMUE Rage

2011-08-03T12:38:00.000-07:00

I think that, in general, I’m a fairly level-headed individual, not usually prone to outbursts of anger. Oh, to be sure, there are the moments when I’m in my car and I’m red-faced, screaming “GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO” to the person in front of me, who had the nerve to sit at the light for more than a split second upon it turning green. And of course, I’ve been known to fly into an assaultive rage whenever I encounter someone who’s* opinion differs from mine. And yes, I’ll routinely throw dishes at my kitchen walls when I discover that I’ve only got one teaspoon of baking powder when the recipe calls for two. But who amongst us can truthfully claim otherwise?

There’s nothing that sets me off more, however, than an error in the daily Jumble. In the August 3rd puzzle, the words were simple enough to unscramble:

I’m sure that you, as cinematically astute readers, immediately recognize what drove me to hurl my bowl of Cheerios through the plate glass window and begin a violent assault on the dog upon reading the clue:

George Lazenby followed Sean Connery, not Roger Moore. George Fucking Lazenby.

I expect this type of sloppiness from the New York Times, but my god, this is the Jumble. I was able to stop shaking after about 20 minutes, at least enough to compose a scathing, violence-threatening, and profane email to the Jumble co-creators, David L. Hoyt and Jeff Knurek, whose internet biography has the temerity to state “Jumble is one of the most widely known and trusted word-game brands in the country …” [ed. - bolding is mine].

Trusted? TRUSTED? Perhaps that was once true, but no more. If we can’t depend on the Jumble to do even the slightest bit of fact-checking research, then how can we depend on anything in the newspaper? Indeed, such is the devastating blow to my faith that I don’t know who to trust or what to believe anymore. Just typing these words is enough to bring back the rage to the point where I am no longer able to maintain my composure.

You will feel my wrath, Jumble co-creators. You will FEEL. MY. WRATH.

* Used in error on purpose, as explained in comments. Ummm ... yeah, that's what happened.

Forecast, Fivecast ... Whatever It Takes

2011-07-28T13:40:00.000-07:00

I find it amazing sometimes that I have a “job.” As I may have mentioned, I’m one of those “shiftless no-good gubmint workers” that suckles at the public teat and provides absolutely no value whatsoever, all the while spending your hard-earned tax dollars on hookers and blow. Alternatively, from a non-Republican/Tea Bagger point of view, I work in a department that houses dangerous criminals and attempts to provide them with needed programming and education so that upon their eventual return to society, they will remain there as law-abiding, employed, tax-paying citizens. Meh … al-KAY-da, al-KI-da, as they say.

One of my primary duties in my position as Principal Number Maker-Upper is the generation of the annual forecast, which, in reality, is about 15 minutes of work just adding a few percentage points to whatever happened last year, but of which I’ve created the impression of requiring several months of spreadsheet manipulation and being left alone. (There’s no way in hell that that sentence is grammatically correct, but I’m going with it.)

Part of the aforementioned forecast generation process is convening an Advisory Committee, comprising several judges (including a Supreme Court Justice), legislators, various members of the law enforcement community, and just a bunch of big-shots in general, in order to get their advice on various legal and policy changes that may influence the prediction of the number of “guests” we may be having over the next year. It’s one of the rare occasions that I shave, put on a tie, and wash my coffee cup.

Unfortunately, the meeting was scheduled on a Thursday (I did not do the scheduling), which, on our Gregorian calendar, follows Wednesday (and comes before Friday, Friday, according to Rebecca Black). I say unfortunately, because Wednesday is the afternoon of Alive After Five, a free weekly beer/music/scantily-clad-people-watching fest held downtown during the summer.

Needless to say, I attended the event, and had a wonderful time enjoying the beautiful weather, partaking of a dram or two of lager, and listening to a great band I’d never heard of (Hey Marseilles – link includes a song you can listen to/download). This led to me smuggling in a bunch of beer to work this morning, using only my bloodstream. Ten minutes into the meeting, this exchange took place between me and the county sheriff:

County Sheriff: You know, Dead Acorn, whatever numbers you come up with for your forecast, I think you can add one to the Male Commitments in the Alcohol crime group.

Dead Acorn: Wha … (hic) … whathafug you mean?

County Sheriff: Just trust me on this one.

I eventually got through it, and, having “nodded off” only once or twice, repaired to my car for a congratulatory “Natty & Vladdy” (Natural Ice beer and Vladimir Vodka). I mean, my god ... I had to tie a tie (it only took me two attempts - a new personal best!), find matching socks, shave, and actually talk to people. What more do they want from me? I mean, I give, and I give, and I give until it hurts ... and then I give a little more.

The fact that I wore my Pez dispenser tie has to count for something.

Go Ahead, Bite The Big Apple ... Don't Mind The Maggots ...

2011-07-22T11:18:00.000-07:00

The Live Acorn has been in New York City for the last couple of weeks, and is finally returning home tomorrow. She stayed with a close friend of the EMDAMOTLA* in some place called Manhattan (apparently New York City is a bit larger than Boise, and is subdivided into a number of neighborhoods referred to as “burros.” I’m not sure if they’re all named after alcoholic beverages). I’m also not sure what kind of parents would let a 15 16-year-old doe-eyed innocent girl from Idaho ride around on the NYC subway by herself, but I AM sure that Social Services ought to be notified.

The primary reason she was there was to attend something called “Camp Broadway,” which I’ve been assured is an essential step in the process of her becoming a star of stage and screen, which presumably will result in great wealth, thereby allowing me an early retirement in which I do nothing but putter around in the garage turning nice pieces of wood into sawdust and watch baseball games (much like Mother Teresa, most of what I do and think is ultimately self-serving). Apparently, one of the workshops was with an actor named Daniel Radcliffe, who, I’m told, was in a series of documentaries about a ceramics fanatic whose love for clay was such that he wouldn’t even take time away from the wheel to shave … The Hairy Potter, or something like that.**

A major milestone for her also took place during the trip, in that she turned Sweet 16. It’s a bit shocking, I must admit, to suddenly realize that ~~“my god, it’s been 16 years and nine months since I’ve had a physical relationship with a woman”~~ “holy mackerel! I have a 16-year-old daughter! Why the hell doesn’t she have a job?” As nice as it would have been to be able to celebrate her birthday with her, though, it’s nice she got to have such a wonderful trip. You know where I spent my 16th birthday?

In JAIL.

Anyway, she’ll be back tomorrow, regaling me with stories of lavish debutante balls, wild nights on the Great White Way, and the general sense of magic and mystery that courses through the Big Apple. She’s been gone too long for my comfort, and I can’t wait to see her at the airport.

If she’s become a Yankees fan, she’s dead to me.

* Ex Mrs. Dead Acorn, Mother Of The Live Acorn
**I’m really, really sorry for that.

Bye! Bye! Cell! Cell!

2011-07-11T11:59:00.000-07:00

For the third consecutive year, I’ve failed to remember my blogoversary (July 10). It’s less a day of celebration, of course, than it is a reminder of the freedom that the googletubez provides to self-publish all sorts of inanity and foist jibberish upon unsuspecting websurfers who find themselves having mistakenly clicked into my little corner of the interwebz. Still, it’s one of my three favorite July anniversaries.

I remembered this belatedly because it was also around that time that I gave up my old rotary telephone and land-line.

Above: Phone sex just seemed ... better somehow back then.

Unfortunately, the reason that this occurred to me is that my cellular telephone is currently not in working order. As soon as it boots up and updates the time, it shuts down and reboots, cycling through its startup routine over and over again, until the last electron in the battery has left the cathode and the anode is bursting with negativity.

In other words, shit doan work.

There have been brief periods where I was rendered phoneless in my relatively short time here in the 21st century, but those times, while stress-inducing, were easily remedied by a quick trip to the local cellular telephone store to get a new SIM card. My current situation, however, requires that a replacement telephone be sent via over-the-ground delivery. Hello? M.I.T.? CalTech? Is anyone even working on teleportation these day? Where the hell are my tax dollars going, anyway?

Anyway, my not-so-enjoyable-to-speak-to service technician (who had quite an odd accent for someone name “Jane”) informed me that the replacement phone would arrive within 6 days.

SIX. FUCKING. DAYS.

One hundred and forty four hours of brutal isolation, of relentless loneliness with no interaction save the nonsensical voices in my head. I don’t even have a soccer ball to anthropomorphize! I mean, yeah, the Jews were out in the desert for forty years, but at least they could chat with each other to pass the time. My god, my god … o, that I had just one more day with my phone. I would cherish every syllable spoken, letting the smooth vowels wash across my ears like a lover’s touch on a soft cheek, anticipating the shock of the hard consonants with the giddiness that one does the impending submersion into a cold mountain lake just before splashdown. Phone, o sweet, sweet phone, on my good dog’s ashes, I promise that never again will I take you or what joy you bring for granted.

*lonely sigh ...*

Under Pressure

2011-07-07T14:50:00.000-07:00

I made my second trip to see Dr. Quacky McQuackenstine in as many weeks yesterday, though this time just for a regular ole checkup (the voodoo antidepressants don’t seem to be resolving my Meralgia Paresthetica, by the way). When you get to be my age, and various vulture-esque great-great-grandchildren email you scary videos and then call to see if you’re still alive on a daily basis, you start thinking about taking care of yourself.

Prior to the examination proper, a nurse asked a few questions and took my blood pressure and pulse. “Yeah, baby … it’s milkshake time!” she exclaimed after the test. “Excuse me?” I replied. “Oh, nothing … it’s just that whenever someone here takes a blood pressure that beats the current highest recorded, the other nurses have to buy her a milkshake. Congratulations … you’re the new number 1!” I can’t remember the exact numbers … something like 560/375 or some such thing.

So finally, McQuackenstine comes in and starts mumbling about and tapping his computer screen like he knows what he’s doing, and asks about my BP.

Q McQ: Your blood pressure seems a bit high … do you eat a lot of salty foods?

Dead Acorn: No, in fact, I do my best to avoid them.

Q McQ: I see. (taps on his computer, no doubt looking up on the internet what else could cause hypertension.) Are you under any stress lately?

Dead Acorn: Well, let’s see … my sprinkler system is all messed up, and I’m going to have to dig up my lawn to repair it.

Q McQ: Well, that doesn’t seem too …

Dead Acorn: And we just finished the fiscal year at work and I’m essentially doing the jobs of four people, as my new boss and coworkers are somewhat clueless.

Q McQ: I can understa …

Dead Acorn: And a friend of mine has been staying with me since the beginning of June, and will be there through the end of July.

Q McQ: That cou ..

Dead Acorn: And his 16-year-old kid.

Q McQ: Yes, I …

Dead Acorn: And their 6-month-old puppy.

Q McQ: Very we …

Dead Acorn: And you’re about to ~~stick your finger up my ass~~ perform a rather invasive colon cancer screening.

Q McQ: I don’t think you nee …

Dead Acorn: And The Live Acorn is going to New York City for three weeks without either parent.

Q McQ: But …

Dead Acorn: And I think I’m out of beer at home. And …

At this point, he got up and shuffled slowly out of the examination room, head hanging low, like George Costanza walking out of Steinbrenner’s office. He returned a few minutes later, actually performed the exam, then informed me that the nurse would be in shortly to take a blood sample for some other tests, and that he’d have her retake my blood pressure afterward.

The nurse came in and got through all of the preparatory procedures (tourniqueting up my arm, pouring some whisky over the vein, wiping the needle on her pants to clean it) … then proceeded to stab at my arm like Tony Perkins in “Psycho.” She wiggled the needle around under my skin for at least a minute, and had the temerity to blame me for “jumping like a little school girl crybaby and making [her] miss” on her first attempt. Granted, there may have been a ~~violent recoil in anticipation of searing pain~~ slight twitch, but she’s supposed to be a professional phlebotomist, not some sadistic stabstress.

She finally gave up on my left arm, which at this point was shredded and bloody (“I can’t use blood that’s already on the outside, silly!” she explained), and at last was successful drawing from my right. At this point, she remembered that she was supposed to retake my blood pressure, and proceeded to take the measurement. “OH MY GAWD!” she squealed. “TWO MILKSHAKES IN ONE DAY!”

I figured that it was time to take this seriously and start addressing the stress-inducing issues in my life, so I bought a keg on the way home.

I’m already down to 120/80.

I've Lost My Nerve

2011-06-22T13:58:00.000-07:00

Well, I went to see my “doctor,” Dr. Quacky McQuackenstine, today. My left thigh has been numb and tingly* for a few months, but, you know, that $20 copay is a 30-pack of Bud Light with enough left over for a bag of peanuts, so I’ve kind of been putting the visit off.

Anyway, he came into the examination room after the AMA-required 45 minute delay had expired, and asked what’s bothering me. I told him that I’m quite disturbed that, by all accounts, President Obama is in violation of the War Powers Resolution by continuing hostilities in Libya, and furthermore, the Minnesota Twins seem to be waking up in the AL Central. “I … I mean with your leg. Jesus Christ.” he said, after a few moments of apparent confusion.

So I explained my symptoms, and … get this … he fired up the googletubez and searched online. Seriously. He diagnosed me using the same interwebs that I use to find talking dogs and pygmy goat porn. After a few pokes and prods that were presumably to give the impression that he was serving some purpose, he gave me the bad news:

Meralgia Paresthetica.

“How … how long do I have, doc?” I managed to ask through the sobbing. He rolled his eyes, muttered something that sounded like “jesus fucking christ, I could have been an accountant ...” and explained that there’s likely something pressing on the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve that innervates that area, and though it could be an issue at the L2-L3 disc, it’s more probable that it’s simply some pressure.

After about 5 minutes of weeping with ecstatic joy over learning that by god, by GOD! I WAS GOING TO LIVE!, and imagining all of the things that I was going to do, all of the places I was going to go, all of the things I was going to say to people that I should have said years ago, he started to explain the treatment:

Q McQ: Well, you should stop riding your bike for a while.

Dead Acorn: HAHAHAHAHA okay. And no more beer or watching baseball, right? HAHA thassa gooder.

Q McQ: Really. (Shows me the web page that specifically lists cycling as a potential cause.) The pedaling motion can put pressure on the area through which the nerve travels.

Dead Acorn: Well, paint me blue and throw me in the ocean!

Q McQ: WTF?

Dead Acorn: Anything else?

Q McQ: Yes – I’ll give you a prescription for Tryptamine, which is an antidepressant, but can be effective in low doses for your condition.

Dead Acorn: How is it effective for a nerve problem?

Q McQ: We're not really sure.

Dead Acorn: So to sum up - I come in here with a numb thigh, and you tell me I can’t ride a bike and put me on voodoo antidepressants?

Q McQ: That is correct.

Dead Acorn: Would you mind if I just took a quick look at your license?

I hopefully look forward to this going away without too much more than a few weeks of pill-popping. Some other possible causes, according to the never-wrong googlewebz, are pregnancy, age, diabetes, and tight clothes - I’m pretty sure I’m not pregnant, I’m pretty sure I AM old, I have no idea about my situation re: diabetes, but I’m damn sure that my “doctor” would agree that it’s permissible for me to continue riding my bicycle as long as I get some of those loose-ass gangsta jeans that will hang down around my ass, like the kids wear.

Tru dat, yo. Word. Acorn OUT, bitchez. (I’ll need to practice my hep-cat phraseology so as not to appear silly on the streets.)

* The saddest thing about this is that I carry my cellular telephone in my left front pocket, so every time I feel a tingle, my heart soars and I get all giddy over the idea that someone wants to interact with me. No one ever does. Dang.

The Politics Of Insanity

2011-06-20T13:15:00.000-07:00

Idaho politics can be a very entertaining thing. Our state has a long history of sending whack-jobs to the U.S. Congress, from George Hansen (who tried to independently negotiate the release of the American hostages in Iran, and who later served 15 months in prison for failing to file disclosure forms), to Helen Chenowith (who claimed that the Feds were landing black helicopters in Idaho to enforce the Endangered Species Act), to Bill Sali (who introduced legislation to reduce the Law Of Gravity by 10%).

State-level politicians can provide laughs as well, as documented in today’s Idaho Statesman. It seems that a state senator got all liquored up after a round of golf, stole a truck and trailer, wrecked them, and appeared to be seeking The Promised Land. He also claimed that the robed woman into whose yard he crashed was an angel (the Statesman did not report on her attractiveness, so that cannot currently be verified).

Anyway, we haven’t had any awful poetry on The Dead Acorn for a while, so without further ado:

We've all played golf like John McGee,
and had too much at the 19th tee.
But angels he did claim to see ...
Was it alcohol? Or LSD?

Seeking God, he stole a truck
But crashed it quickly, darn the luck
So crazily, he ran amok
as his wife (full facepalm) muttered "ffffffuuuuuuuuuuck ..."

I sense that I can delete the “Income From Poetry Sales” line in my cash flow statement.

If It Weren't For Those Pedalling Kids ...

2011-06-13T09:29:00.000-07:00

The Live Acorn and I rode in the Bob Lebow Bike Tour on Saturday. It’s a fundraiser for a Health Clinic in a nearby town that provides care and services to all, disirregardless of a patient’s ability to pay or insurance situation, yeah, yeah, it’s all goody-goody stuff, blah blah blah ... none of that noble charity crap, however, excuses them from creating the situation in which I got my ass kicked by a 15-year-old girl. That’s just bullshit.

I believe that this is the 6th year we’ve ridden it. There are a number of distances from which to choose: 3 miles (mostly training-wheeled 4-year-olds, though I did notice a couple of guys suspiciously sans children), 10, 35, 62, and 100 miles. The 10-miler seems kind of pointless (that’s basically 5 trips to the pub, only without beer), and the 62-miler … well, I’m not the athlete I once never was. So we’ve always gone the 35 mile route, and it’s worked out well (by “worked out well,” of course, I mean “I haven’t thrown up or died…”). Most importantly, I’ve been able to take it fairly easy, avoiding actual strenuousosityishness.

O, that I could live those days again. As it turned out, I got my hat handed to me. She was flying. I tried to be cool about things and all … you know, not gasping or crying, trying to maintain a conversation, but it hurt. In my defense, she wasn’t ~~drunk~~ ~~hungover~~ tired from feeding the orphans at the shelter into the wee hours the night before, and she was on a fairly new sweet ride that a friend had loaned her, whereas my old Colnago is literally twice her age, so as I do so often in all aspects of life, I’ll construct some internal fiction wherein I’m the victim, but yeah, I know … I got smoked. Damn it.

It brought memories of “The Great Santini,” in which Robert Duvall is finally bested by his son in one-on-one basketball, and I would have reacted similarly, except that my house doesn’t have stairs, and bouncing a bicycle off of her head from behind as she walked away seemed like a little too much work anyway.

I think next year, I’ll suggest we do the 3-miler, then loosen up her front quick-release so that her wheel falls off early on. That just might give me enough time to sprint across the line ahead of her.

There’s no shame in drafting off a 4-year-old, right?

A Delicious But Anger Inspiring Taste Treat

2011-05-31T10:33:00.000-07:00

I went to a potluck on Sunday to celebrate the birthday of a friend of mine, and to my utter shock and disbelief, someone I didn’t know became upset with me! Those of you who know me are likely thinking “Dead Acorn, given your annoying mannerisms and social ineptitude, I’m surprised that this doesn’t happen more often.” Those of you who do not know me are likely thinking the very same thing. To be honest, the relative infrequency of occurrences during which strangers react toward me with rage does surprise me a bit, and I must say that I’m impressed with the self-control of the populace at large.

Anyway, the strange thing about the whole situation was not so much that a stranger was upset with me, but the reason for the ire:

Jell-O.

Yes, Jell-O – that wonderfully jiggly treat. (To my reader in Pocatello: yes, Jell-O can be eaten as a dessert. It’s not just for wrestling.) I had made up some Jell-O cups the evening before – not just any Jell-O cups, either, mind you! These Jell-O cups had a layer of green on the bottom, a layer of crushed walnuts in the middle, and a layer of red on the top, all topped off with whipped cream! They were spectacular! (Again, to my reader in Pocatello: Yes, whipped cream can be used outside of the bedroom.)

I arrived fashionably late, and placed the Jell-O cups in the fridge as my fellow party-goers “oohed” and “ahhed” at the magnificence of my contribution. I know that it was really the spoon of Jeebus that had stirred the Jell-O during its preparation, for the creation of such beauty is surely beyond my capabilities, but I cannot deny feeling a bit of pride. I’ll surely burn in hell for such a transgression, I know.

So toward the end of the evening, this gentleman, who had, I sensed, done more than his part to make sure that there would be no beers left over, started getting all up in my grill about making Jell-O cups. I thought he was being facetious at first, as being attacked as less than manly* because I made layered, walnut-infused Jell-O cups hadn’t really ever occurred to me as being possible. But serious he was, and I was told later that he had been pissed off about it since I first unveiled them. Odd.

Eventually, he left in the cab that was there for him. (One funny aspect of the story is that the cab driver came inside and had some dinner and chatted while he waited for this guy for about a half an hour, meter running all the while. He was quite a pleasant fellow.) I have to believe that there exists, somewhere in this stranger’s past, a tragic Jell-O-related tale underlying the day’s happenings. Perhaps he had always wanted a pony as a child, but never got one, and he believes that it was because Kraft Foods used all of the pony hooves to grind up for their product. Or maybe he lost a beloved pet in the Great Jell-O Flood of ought-two. In any case, I hope that someday he is able to face his demons.

I wonder if he listens to Dead Kennedys.

* Yes, that really seemed to be the issue. Seriously.

Damn It! Just When Things Were Starting To Come Together!

2011-05-24T13:54:00.000-07:00

I just read a shocking news story concerning my alma mater, the eminently prestigious Idaho State University. While primarily known as a mecca for underage drinkers, ISU technically does have a couple of other more traditionally recognized collegiate activities; namely, scholastics and athletics.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the story is that scholastics and athletics are loosely related to one another (unlike at some institutions, such as The Ohio State University). There is, I have just learned, a measure known as the Academic Progress Rate (APR), and Division I schools are required to exceed some minimum aggregate score in order to avoid horribly Draconian penalties, punishments so severe that even Magdalene, my cruel and unforgiving dominatrix friend, shudders at the thought of them. (And hey, call me, Mags! The new girl doesn't EVER ignore my safeword - miss you!)

According to the story, the threshold at which a program can avoid the brutal horrors that only the NCAA is evil enough to administer is 925. Since the APR rule came into effect in 2004, Idaho State’s football squad has never scored above 900. So even worse than just receiving whatever penalty would result in just a single year’s transgression, ISU could be facing the wrath of the NCAA administrators for seven years of scholastic sloth! Dear god have mercy on their souls.

So what horrific punishment have these sadistic demons handed down? Read on, if you can think you can stomach it ...

The Idaho State University Bengal Football Team will not be eligible for post-season play in 2011.

For my reader in Tanzania who may not be familiar with the ISU football program, here are their records for the last few years:

2010: 1-10
2009: 1-10
2008: 1-11
2007: 3-8
2006: 2-9

Yes, wins are listed first.

In other sports news, apparently Amaury Sport Organisation has noticed that the level of writing on this blog hasn't really progressed over the past three years and has disallowed me from this year's Tour de France. Monsters.

A Strained Attempt At A Post

2011-05-16T14:11:00.001-07:00

I visited the local “grocery store” the other day, which is really nothing more than a gussied-up Kwikee Mart, but is conveniently close, and so is acceptable for those quick emergency trips, as when I commit the unforgivable sin of allowing my beer reserve to dip below a six-pack. (If you’ve ever seen a grown man in the grips of a full-blown panic attack, you know it’s not a pretty sight.)

While strolling down the pasta aisle, I came upon this display:

Above: Nice to see the store catering to the neighborhood Lilliputians.

Just to be clear: Those are NOT giant packages of noodles. Those are miniature one-serving colanders. Now believe me, I’m appreciative of the fact that the food industry creates different sizes of packaging, so that those of us bereft of human companionship don’t have to buy more than we really need. Avoiding spoilage is just common sense, and really a responsibility of those of us in that situation as planet citizens. I be all down wit dat, as the kids say.

But a single-serving colander? WTF? They don’t cost less than standard sized colanders, and I certainly can’t imagine a kitchen so cramped for shelf space that the actual storage volume advantage would be a considered factor in any colander purchase decision process. I think the only explanation is that the local “grocery store” is going out of its way to tell us solo passengers that, on our little ride through life, we’ll nevah EVAH find ourselves in a situation requiring preparation of a meal for two.

Those bastards.

Well, I, for one, refuse to accept that (it would, of course, be difficult for me to refuse to accept it as more than one ... that's the whole point here). After a brief and calm explanation of my feelings on the matter directed at the checkout girl, who I don’t think was really listening, because she kept gesturing wildly toward the store manager and screaming “CALL 911!” over and over again, I drove to WINCO and purchased the largest colander they had. And while I may not soon, or even ever, have a need to prepare more than one place setting for an evening's dining, I am ready should that time ever arrive. I urge those of you in a similar situation to do as I have done, and reject the oppressive message that the food preparation industry is trying to force upon us. Go! Go buy that colossal colander, the super-siziest sieve you can find! We will stand united in our loneliness (well, metaphorically, of course, because, by definition, we’re not united, duh …) against the cold-hearted monsters who would see us broken had they their way.

In the meantime, the devil dog seems to be developing an Italian accent in her barks. Must be something in her diet.

I'll Wring Your Scrawny Little Necco!

2011-05-09T13:05:00.000-07:00

I really don’t know exactly what I’m feeling right now – it’s an unsettling mixture of anger, sadness, confusion, betrayal … I certainly doubt that there’s any word for this particular emotion in the English language; perhaps not in any language, in fact.

Yesterday, I purchased a roll of Necco Wafers, after realizing that it had been perhaps a year since my last one (by far the longest Neccoless period in my life, excluding my first three years). I was a bit disappointed in myself, naturally, but I worked through it and was eventually able to forgive myself by pledging on my very soul that never again will such an oversight take place.

As is my practice, I prepared to begin sorting through the box in order to select the roll with minimal licorice-flavored wafers. Licorice-flavored Necco wafers, on the Acornian Taste Scale, are just to the bad side of lutefisk. They are, without a doubt, the foulest tasting things I have ever put my tongue on, and I’ve dated some rather Bohemian women in my day.

To my astonishment, the first roll I grabbed was entirely devoid of them! Such was my glee that I could not contain myself, and the store clerk was a bit taken aback upon being hugged by a grown man squealing like a school girl upon hearing that Justin Bieber had been spotted downtown. It was perhaps the high point of my confectionary consumptive career.

“My god, my god, what are the odds?” I asked myself. I quickly recalled the formula for binomial probability calculation and came up with p=6.65 E-5, or about 1 in 15,000. Of course, being one who shuns the sound rigidity of mathematics and statistics in favor of baseless superstitions, I figured that I was on a hot streak and began going through the rest of the box.

To my great shock, the second roll I picked up had no licorice wafers, nor did the third, nor the fourth! “This simply can’t be chance!” I said to myself. “But what else could explain this?” I asked aloud. At that precise instant, my knees buckled, and I fell to the floor, overcome by the realization that had just struck me:

I had won.

For the past twenty-some years, I’ve campaigned for the abolishment of the vile licorice wafer; a campaign involving letter-writing, picket lines, hunger strikes, candlelight vigils, and more than a few shenanigans that, for legal purposes, won’t be mentioned here. And at that moment, I realized that my work has not been in vain. The New England Confection Company had, at long last, succumbed to my demands, admitted defeat, and had rid the world of that most horrific of abominations.

I wept with joy.

Alas, my elation was short-lived, for as I tossed the fourth wafer into my mouth, I nearly gagged and rode into a parked car as I was flooded with the putrid sensation of my old waferious nemesis. They hadn’t gotten rid of it at all! Those bastards had only changed the color! I felt akin to Craig T. Nelson in Poltergeist:

You son of a bitch, you ~~moved the cemetery~~ changed the color but you left the ~~bodies~~ flavor, didn't you? You son of a bitch! You left the ~~bodies~~ flavor and you only ~~moved the headstones~~ changed the color!! YOU ONLY ~~MOVED THE HEADSTONES~~ CHANGED THE COLOR!!! WHY?! WHY?!!!

Well, I got home and did a little research, and discovered that Necco went natural back in late 2009, and the colors consequently changed due to the new ingredients. At least that’s their cover story. I suspect … no, I KNOW … that this was a not-so-subtle escalation in our little war. Well, you’ve won this battle, Necco, but this war ain’t over. Not by a long shot.

Game ON, bitches.

I'm Pretty Sure This Is Scotland's Fault ... They Invented The Stupid Game, After All.

2011-05-02T14:13:00.000-07:00

As I am currently just past the midpoint of my 9th decade on this earth, I am becoming ever more aware of my pathetic frailty. Where once I could battle the cobblestones of Paris-Roubaix on a brisk spring day and carouse with French lasses throughout the night, drinking absinthe from various body concavities, today I am near tears with every movement, thanks to the unnatural twisting and bodily distortions required by the game of golf.

I thought I had prepared properly – I stayed up well past midnight Saturday and long into the morning strategizing, using the time-tested method of trying to drink all of the beer that the Anheuser-Busch Brewing Company had produced and annoying strangers with senseless banter. Regrettably, while such activities can be advantageous for the younger crowd (and John Daly), a man of my advanced years does not fare so well.

But golf we did, a foursome quite comical, as well as odoriferous, I’m sure, as my fellow players also subscribe to these commonly accepted means of golf-eve preparation, as well as the traditional 10 am practice-green Bud Light Tall Boy. Between the ubiquitous four-putts and our tendency to use the fairways adjacent to the particular one we were actually playing, I’m sure it was quite a spectacle – quite a spectacle, indeed.

It probably didn’t help matters that later in the day, I helped move an armoire that weighed in excess of 3000 lbs (13,636 decagrams) and was the size of Rhode Island (but, you know, 3-dimensional). Luckily, the two girls that I was helping were quite a bit stronger than I am, so we were able to accomplish the maneuvers without serious damage.

To the armoire, at least.

And so I sit, whimpering at my desk, arms aching, searing pain shooting through my body with each keystroke, and I think back to last week, when an excursion to the bowling alley, requiring similarly bizarre gyrations for which the human body is not intended, produced a nearly identical result. It's almost as if I haven't the capacity for learning.

The cobblestones of Paris-Roubaix seem like heaven in comparison.

A Bloody Mess

2011-04-27T15:20:00.000-07:00

“2 weeks ago,” reads the line beneath my blog name on other blogs kind enough to include me in their blogroll. Two goddamn weeks.

O, that I were able to fill this post with a fortnight's worth of tales of daring-do, of adventure and excitement, of journeys to far-off lands on missions of mercy, but sadly, empty have been the days and dark the nights, a longing for the renewal of spring denied by the incessant rains and bone-chilling cold, with all-too-brief respites of sunshine serving only to aggravate my yearnings and intensify my aches ...

So yeah, I got nothin’.

I’ll relate an actual conversation that took place between me and The Live Acorn the other day while I try to make up some stuff that would be interesting were it really to have happened:

Dead Acorn: You know, Live Acorn, the intellectual black hole that is the Idaho Legislature actually got something good done this past session.

Live Acorn: Oh yeah? (rolls eyes; thought balloon with “Jesus Christ, why can’t he shut up?” visible above her head)

Dead Acorn: Yep ... they lowered the age at which a person can donate blood from 18 to 16, with parental consent, of course.

Live Acorn: Neato. (thought balloon now reading “maybe I can just walk the last 8 miles to volleyball practice ...”)

Dead Acorn: Yes indeedy ... it goes into effect on July 1st, the beginning of the fiscal year.

Live Acorn: This is quite the informative ride, father. Thank you for the information.

Dead Acorn: So it will be in place when you turn 16 in the middle of July, and I’ve scheduled appointments for both of us on your birthday!

Live Acorn: NO NO NO OH GOD NO NO DAD NO I NEED MY BLOOD I NEED ALL OF MY BLOOD NONONONONONO ...

And I thought I was a sissy.

It Obviously Skips Generations ...

2011-04-12T12:13:00.000-07:00

There are a number of syndromes that occur from time to time in humans in which an extra chromosome is present. For example, while most females have an XX karyotype and most males have XY, about 1 in 1000 people are born with an additional chromosome: XXY (Klinefelter’s syndrome), in which a male carries two Xs, XYY, in which a male carries an extra Y, and XXX (Trisomy X), in which a female carries a third X chromosome and often winds up in the Adult Entertainment industry.

A far less common form of aneuploidy, XXG, is one that affects The Live Acorn, and people afflicted with it carry an extra Goofball chromosome. Unfortunately, while the aforemented three syndromes have little or no effect phenotypically, XXG manifests itself in ways at once sad and hilarious.

Saturday, for instance, she had an all-day volleyball tournament, and therefore, as is the tradition around these parts, decided to put on her grandmother’s old pearl ring the day before so that her finger would swell up, rendering it unremovable by morning, and resulting in her being disallowed in the matches until it was off.

Initial attempts at removal employing bathroom soap as a lubricant were unsuccessful, so I was dispatched to the grocery store for other potentially helpful items:

Dead Acorn, to Store Worker: Excuse me, I’m looking for a bag of ice and a container of lotion.

Store Worker: (brief pause) Umm … aisles 7 and 2.

Store Worker: (under her breath) Sicko pervert.

Dead Acorn: Hey, it’s to get a ring off of a girl’s finger.

Store Worker: Sicko pervert homewrecker.

I made my way back up to the tournament and got the Live Acorn to soak her hand in ice water, which was quite a task in and of itself. After about 20 minutes, a coach came over and inquired as to our progress, and apparently decided that it was time to stop fooling around. She got The Live Acorn to stand up, and gave surprisingly detailed instructions on how she would pull the ring while The Live Acorn would compact the flesh as it was being torn and push it back wristward under the the band.

This operation took approximately 3 1/2 days, with the coach straddling her arm, The Live Acorn trying to stifle her screams, and a team of players surrounding her and wincing in empathic pain. The ring finally did come off, and after some gentle massage, she was able to get into the matches. We had this conversation after:

Dead Acorn: So who was that coach?

Live Acorn: I don’t know.

Dead Acorn: Well, who was that team standing around?

Live Acorn: I don’t know them, either.

Dead Acorn: Ummmm …

Live Acorn: Yeah. You allowed a crazed stranger to nearly rip my finger off while you stood by. Way to go, dad. Looks like Father Of The Year will have to wait another trip around the ole’ sun.

I don’t think I need to rush too fast to clear a spot in my trophy case for that award.

FATHERLY BOASTING NOTE: The team won their final four matches, all against higher-ranked teams. The Live Acorn, while woefully underplayed by her coach (well, so it seemed to me, at least) during most of them, played the entire last game, and did extremely well, making a strong case that she should start. She rocks.

Tick Tock Tick Tock ...

2011-04-07T14:56:00.000-07:00

I’ve noticed that as I grow older, there seems to be less and less time to do the things that I want or need to do. It really applies to everything … huge long-term aspirations (write ~~The Great American~~ A Mediocre Albanian Novel (I'm trying to be realistic here); finally convince Betty Jane Kloppenschleimer to return my calls), mid-size projects (finish the damn lyrics to that song; clean the garage), simple tasks (scratch my itchy belly; ~~get another frosty beer~~ (okay, I get that one done)) … there’s just never enough time.

“I wonder what that’s owing to?” I asked myself, then scolded myself for ending a sentence with a preposition. “I wonder what that’s owing to, dumbass?” I then asked myself, quite pleased with having caught my error, as that particular grammatical faux pas is one I try and watch for.*

My first thought was that as we age, our perception of time changes, and the hours and days just feel like they’re going by faster, giving the illusion of having less time to do things. There is some evidence for this (science-y evidence, not simply that Stephen King refers to time during childhood as “slow time,” though that’s good enough for me), but that cake ain’t quite done bakin’, as they say in academic research circles.

Another thought was that I simply have more things to do. Perhaps as I’ve gotten older, all of the things I keep putting off have been piling up, so that the ratio of activities:time is continually increasing. This seems plausible at first, as I am quite the procrastinator, but my memory is also shot to hell, so my actually remembering things that I would like to do for any extended length of time seems a stretch.

Then, this morning, I figured it out. It occurred to me, after I took off my underwear to turn them around after putting them on backwards, after unbuttoning my shirt to rebutton it in proper alignment, after lying on the ground writhing in agony after stubbing my toe on the bed post, after tripping over Indy and falling in the hallway, after spending 20 minutes looking for one of my shoes, after waking up at 6:00 to get to work by 7:30 and not arriving until 7:50 because of all this stuff … it occurred to me that I have less and less time because I’m a fucking idiot.

I feel so much better now that I know!

* D’oh!

Another Long Season ...

2011-04-04T11:08:00.000-07:00

Baseball is a lot like love: I’m not very good at it, and occasionally, I get fooled by the old “hidden ball” trick. Ok, that doesn't sound quite right ... let's start over: Baseball isn’t really like love at all, other than that the unbounded optimism that one has at the beginning is quickly dashed once it becomes painfully obvious, usually during the first week, that things aren’t going to end well.

Nevertheless, every spring I have high hopes, as I am one to see, upon encountering a woman whose brassiere is too large, the cups as half-full rather than half-empty (Thank you! Thank you! I’ll be here all week!), and I am enthused by the fact that my beloved World Champion (1948) Cleveland Indians are ~~tied for~~ in third (some might say they’re tied for last, but due to the alphabetic nature of how the standings are posted, they are ahead of both Detroit AND Minnesota, and would be even if they were listed in order of team name, rather than the city in which they play their home games. Suck it, Tigers and Twins!).

It is, of course, difficult, and perhaps even foolish, to predict the results of a full 162 game season on the basis of the first three; however, never let it be said that I let foolishness deter me from an exercise in statistical forecasting. I’ve used a simple second-order polynomial to project the results out through game six, which I’m sure you’ll agree is a reasonable modeling approach in this situation:

Above: Things are looking up!

As you can see, the Tribe will soon be scoring in excess of 80 runs per game, while their opponents (in this case, the hapless 0-3 Boston Red Sox) are on track to tally -20 in game six. Of course, one doesn’t need fancy-schmancy trending software to predict that. I mean, come on, it’s the goddamned Red Sox. Luckily for Cleveland, baseball has very little in common with love, for were I to continue with that metaphor, I’d probably have to guess that they may well never score again.

Ouch.

There's Something Fishy Going On Here ...

2011-03-24T08:51:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine bought a house recently, and has been doing all of the things that one does upon buying a new house, like ripping out walls and tearing out ceilings while giggling maniacally, knowing full well that there’s no uptight landlord who’s going to hold back your deposit simply because you’ve compromised the structural integrity of the building. Stupid uptight landlords.

I was visiting her the other day, doing what friends of people who have recently bought houses do, which is drink their beer and make helpful comments using terms like “load-bearing” and “three-phase 220 volt” while having absolutely no idea what they mean, and just generally getting in the way. This may surprise you, but I’m quite proficient at those sorts of things.

One of the projects that’s going on is the planting of a garden. This is something about which I know very little (I will not last a month in the post-apocolyptic corner grocery store-less world), but apparently there are certain protocols involving "soil preparation" and "seeds" and whatnot, and, as I’ve recently learned, there is a tradition of burying a fish head to bring luck and ensure a bountiful harvest. Or for fertilizer. Or something. Anyway, my friend showed me the fish head that her girlyfriend* had procured for this purpose, at which point I thought to myself “Golly, Dead Acorn … a fish head could certainly play a role in some type of practical joke! You should take it with you when you leave!” (Lest you think I’m some sort of fish head thief, I asked my friend if I could take it, and she said “sure,” not realizing the solemnity and importance of the burial tradition.)

As it turns out, my actions were akin to salting the earth, or defiling the mummified remains of Laura Croft, or some such thing, as evidenced by the reaction of the gardener, who purportedly said something along the lines of “Would you please inform The Dead Acorn that I would be oh-so-grateful were he to return my fish head?” only I’m told there were words like “dickhead” and “goddamned fish-stealin’ no-account not-knowin’-what-load-bearing-means” used, spoken in a manner that would require the use of allcaps were I to type them.

I needed a fish head real quick-like.

Luckily, there’s a wholesale seafood place across the street from where I “work,” and though they were a little confused by my request, they were kind enough to save one for me to pick up the next day, and my return to the good graces of the gardener was underway (*whew*). I should mention that the original fish head was from a little baby fish (maybe a very large guppy), perhaps the size of the circle that a pitcher’s thumb and index finger make when throwing a circle changeup. This is what I got from the good people at Ocean Beauty:

Above: Likely caught on the good ship Pequod. And yes, the rest of the kitchen, and, in fact, the whole house, is as neat and orderly as that section of kitchen counter. The beer can is there for comparitive sizing; I have no idea why there's a ruler in my kitchen.

I know even less about fish than I do about gardening, and I certainly wasn’t aware that they are distant relatives of chickens, who can continue to function without heads for up to 18 months. I guess it’s the opposite with fish, and I screamed like a little girl when this one “twitched” just a bit as I was taking the pictures:

Above: An angry disembodied fish head doesn’t care who actually netted him, he’s just pissed at people in general and will exact his revenge on anyone stupid enough to get close to his razor-like teeth.

Finally, after all that trauma, the head has been delivered and buried, and I suspect we’ll see 50 ft stalks of corn towering over the neighborhood by mid-June. My one remaining concern is that I can’t seem to find the original fish head, and I think it may be in the Zuke Of Earle under a seat somewhere rotting away.

It takes a special breed of practical joker to pull one on himself.

* The term "girlyfriend" is used on this blog disirregardless of sexual orientation, so don't be gettin' all up in my grill thinking I'm using it in a derogatory fashion.

Time To Bowl!

2011-03-22T10:51:00.000-07:00

“It’s time to bowl.”

Though she spoke the words quite softly, they hung heavily in the air, and the stunned customers at the bar stopped their conversations mid-sentence. Tommy stood behind the taps in shocked disbelief, unblinking, even as the glass he had been pouring shattered at his feet. From down on the corner stool, Janelle let out a faint whimper, then burst into tears. A dog howled off in the distance.

The night at the bowling alley had been over a year ago, but still I lie awake most evenings, drenched in cold sweat, fearing sleep and the inevitable dreams, dreams with images so vivid, so real, it’s as though it happened yesterday.

“I … I’m not ready. I don’t think I’ll ever be ready ...” I managed to stammer.

I thought back to that night, to the pitchers of stale beer sloshing on the wobbling bar tables, to the teenage painted jezebels with the already fading tramp-stamps on lane 19, to the awkward first date unfolding on lane 8, to the madman on lane 2 drunkenly pontificating about how the holes in the bowling balls represented love, fear, and sin. I remember the words she whispered, words from her lips but spoken with a demon’s tongue, words not of our language, yet clearly conveying sordid tales of terrible horrors beyond our world, and I remember pins flying like gangland bullets and the strobe lights of Disco Bowling and the Ouzo, my god, the Ouzo flowing as she picked up one 7-10 split after another, and Peggy Lee singing “Fever” on an endless loop on the jukebox, and then she was dancing, swaying slowly, and suddenly there was no one but us in the alley, no one but us in the universe, and I remember just wanting it to end and to go on forever …

I remember waking up in the zoo, but I have no recollection of the night beyond what I’ve described. There’s an oddly shaped scar on my chest that seems to change color with the phase of the moon, and I haven’t seen any squirrels in my yard since. I thank God for the mercy shown by keeping those dark hours from my consciousness.

She put her hand on mine and leaned toward me, her mouth so close I could feel the heat of her soft breath. She whispered the words again.

“It’s time to bowl.”

I could feel the tears starting to well up as she stood and led me from the bar. The somber faces of the other patrons weighed upon me, and I wondered with each step how I would find the strength for the next. Billie Ann was sobbing uncontrollably and screaming at her “Why? Why does he have to bowl? Why can’t you leave him alone?” Tommy was able to mutter “be strong, dude …”, but it was without real conviction. He knew.

She led me to the door and out toward the street, continuing to whisper, almost chanting the words.

“It’s time to bowl.”

Surely He Means CHICK Magnet ...

2011-03-21T11:21:00.000-07:00

Apparently I’m something of a “crazy magnet,” or at least I’ve been labeled as such.

I went to see a musical concert last week which featured Teh Rock And Teh Roll as performed by The Drive-By Truckers (with opening band The Heartless Bastards). A friend (I’ll call him Don, because that’s his name) and I were given Very Important Person tickets by another friend of ours, which allowed us access to a private balcony overlooking the stage, and which afforded us the opportunity to feel pretentious and smug, condescedingly looking down upon the unwashed mass of commoners as they fought for air and struggled to find a server to bring them lukewarm domestic light beer, while our delightful private attendant, the lovely and ebullient Skyla, ensured that our champagne flutes were never empty, an opportunity that we declined, as Don and I are jes’ plain folk.

We arrived well ahead of showtime, and were among the first in the VIP lounge. We struck up a conversation with Milo, who was there by himself and who explained that he was a life-long Truckers fan but that never before had he seen them perform live. Milo was very excited! He sat down with us on the balcony, and it became evident fairly quickly that Milo was one strange cat. Within a few minutes, he had explained how he was from Northeastern California (I’m pretty sure that’s commonly referred to as “Nevada”), how he had once owned a 1952 Les Paul Fender Stratocaster Flying V Limited Edition 7-string Guitar (or something like that … Don knew what he was referring to), how he had once, in high school, punched a guy and broken his eye socket, and how he had a custom hot-rod Volkswagon Rabbit that could go 150 mph (241.401 kph).

Seriously.

Milo stuck around for about half of the show, then wandered down to the main floor to get the full concert experience, I guess. A new crowd of people moved forward next to us, and within two minutes (2.53 centihours), I had been informed that Stan was from Ashton, Idaho, had been married twice, had a set of twins with the first Mrs. Stan and two others with the second (and current) Mrs. Stan. I tried to communicate to Stan that as happy as I was that his life seemed to be going well, I was a bit more interested in the band at that particular moment by not looking at him, and instead staring intently at the stage. Stan was a talker.

There were a couple of other encounters with "interesting” strangers throughout the evening, causing Don to make the observation that “we’re like magnets for teh crazy!” I concurred, and we both had a fine chuckle at that, and our night turned out be one of superb music, interesting people, and an awkward but politely rebuffed attempt at wooing the lovely and ebullient Skyla.

So get this: I’m recounting the evening a couple of days later to the friend who had so generously supplied the tickets, and he mentions that “yeah, Don told me that 'The Dead Acorn is a fucking CRAZY magnet!'”

Not “we were fucking CRAZY magnets.” Nosirreebob. Apparently it’s all me.

You know, I’m not quite sure what to make of that. I’ve been called far worse, and not without cause, but I’m pretty sure Don’s got some crazy magnet going on as well. He tends bar at the pub, and I’m in there every night, so I have a pretty good sense of the whack-a-noodle nutjobs that frequent THAT place.

Crazy magnet indeed.

[Note to denizens of the Emerald Isle and other exotic non-US places]: The Truckers make some dang fine music, and they’ll be in Kilkenny on May 1st, Dublin on May 7th, and various other locales in your neck of the globe around that time. The tour schedule is here.

Spring Broke

2011-03-11T13:43:00.000-08:00

The Live Acorn and I were on the freeway the other day, engaged in some light banter about her views on the developments in Libya, and she posed the following question:

“Dad, what are you doing for Spring Break?”

A pall was cast over the car* (the Zuke Of Earle’s first pall! Woohoo!), and, as a tear rolled slowly down my cheek, I said, in a quivering voice, “Li … Live Acorn … I don’t get a Spring Break.”

“Oh, right. Bummer.”

Why would she ask that? Why would she summon to consciousness the knowledge that my carefree days of childlike exuberance were long past, a knowledge that I prefer to be kept stowed away in the dark recesses of my psyche? Why would she remind me that gone forever are the irresponsible debaucheries that came with the annual respite from the burdens of classwork during my 6 ½ years of undergraduate study? Why would she force upon me the recognition and acknowledgement that I am but an old man, worn by the years, no longer party to the trappings of youth, no longer marking time in terms of holidays and vacations and breaks, but instead trudging onward, week by identical week, toward a nondescript and likely unregarded end? Why?

I’ll tell you why, dadgummit. It’s one of two things: either 1) she really didn’t realize (or simply forgot momentarily) that the grown-up worker bees don’t get spring break, indicating an innocent and even endearing lack of knowledge about what it’s like to be an adult, which is, to be honest, something of an enviable way of thinking, or 2) she knew exactly what she was asking, and asked simply to be mean, to drive home my sad lot in life, to cut my heart out with her rapier-like words and revel in the misery of her own father.

I’m pretty sure it’s the first one. I can certainly understand how she could have inherited the personality type that would account for the former from me, as I have been known at times to be blissfully unaware of what the hell is going on in the world around me. If it’s the second, well, that doesn’t reflect very keenly on her mot …

Ok, you know what? This is getting a little long-winded, and I need to get back to whatever I was doing, so just, ummm, nevermind.

* I leave it to you, dear reader, to come up with your own “car-pall tunnel syndrome” joke.

Look Who's Stalking Now!

2011-03-09T14:23:00.000-08:00

I think I’m going to take up stalking. (If a certain auburn-haired Treasure Valley pharmacist’s assistant feels an urge to comment on that, keep in mind that I was acquitted (technicality or not, I was acquitted) and that any public statements you might make about me may be viewed as defamatory. And call me!)

I’m considering this due to a realization that I had yesterday: I’m running out of clothes. This epiphany occurred after I had stopped in for a tasty beverage after work yesterday, and, while perching myself atop my barstool, happened to notice a certain “wardrobe malfunction,” as they say. I didn't think too much of it; being … less than socially adroit, let’s say … I’ve experienced far more embarrasing moments than realizing that my zipper was undone. Far more.

WAY far more.

I stood up (with the bar providing cover for my maneuver), and, as nonchalantly as I possibly could, so as not to draw the attention of the comely server, who already seems to have an abundance of reasons to laugh at me, reached down to rectify the situation.

“Uh oh …” I thought myself, as I realized that the problem was not one merely of undonnage, but of breakage. “And on the one day I decide to go commando! I thought UN approval was needed for a no-fly zone! Ha ha!” Fortunately, I had a jacket with me, and a strategic placement of it afforded me the opportunity to drink my draughts without derision (well, aside from the normal mockery from the comely server).

Ok, back to the stalking: most of the clothes (if we exclude Hawaiian shirts, all of the clothes) that I own have been given to me by various romantic interests. For some reason, women seem to want to have some input on what I wear, especially were we to be going out in public. For years and years, this puzzled me (were they afraid that if I dressed myself I’d be so smokin’ hot that other girls wouldn’t leave me alone?), but yeah, yeah - I get it. I accept it, ok? No, I cannot dress myself in an acceptable manner. There. I said it. Happy now?

So given my complete lack of fashion sense, and my sudden realization that holy mackeral, I’m running out of clothes!, it would seem prudent to find a significant other. And not being one to dream small, I think it’s now time to act on my long-held passion for the enticing seductress rocker Juliana Hatfield*:

Above: See you soon, Juliana (though you won’t see me, at first …)

So if any of you out there have any tips or pointers on how best to go about this, please let me know in comments. Is that Twitter thingy good for this? Do I limit my phone calls in which I say nothing for several seconds before hanging up to certain hours of the day/night? Has that bunny thing become too cliché-ish at this point? Help, people! It’d be nice to lay down a foundation before driving across the country to hide in the bushes outside of her house.

I hope she likes Hawaiian shirts!

* The uncyclopedia entry for her at that link is some funny shit. I highly suggest reading it!

That Is NOT What I Meant And You KNOW It!

2011-03-07T10:50:00.000-08:00

I’d like to apologize to my reader for straying from this blog’s raison d'être*, which is actually two-fold: 1) chronicling my quixotic pursuit of the enchanting-and-not-seen-since-8th-grade seductress Suzy Lynn Hightenschtrödel, and 2) providing up-to-date and in-depth coverage of geopolitical hotspots. It is not intended to be as demon-dog-centric as it has been as of late; however, I would like to relate the latest incident, which has proven quite troubling for me.

I popped some popcorn the other night for a relaxing evening of home theater. Not microwave, mind you, and not hot air popped, but good old fashioned oil-in-a-pan-dumped-into-a-paper-grocery-bag-slathered-in-butter-and-salt popcorn. It’s as delicious as it is deadly! I always pop way more than I can actually eat, of course, as even the thought of running out before the end of a movie is enough to reduce me to a sobbing shell of a human being.

Well, the movie was fine, the popcorn sublime, and, after rolling closed the bag and placing it on the dining room table, Indy and I repaired to the bedroom for a night of sound slumber. The next day, as I prepared to leave for ~~the pub~~ a volunteer shift at the orphanage, I gave her strict instructions, in no uncertain terms, to leave the bag of popcorn on the table. This is what I found upon my return:

Above: ummm … why yes, I AM still working on cataloging my CDs!

Technically speaking, of course, she abided by my directive. What am I to make of this? Is it an indication of improvement in her behavior? Is she actually showing intent in becoming a "good" dog? Might there come a time when I will be able take a shower without hoisting the garbage can up near the ceiling like a backpacker’s food in Glacier National Park?

Oh, that I could bring myself to believe that.

The more likely explanation is that she’s taking her passive-aggressiveness to a new level of annoyance. She’s been following some of the labor union stories in the news, and I suspect she’s picked up on the concept of “work-to-rule” actions, in which union members “strictly observe the employer’s rulebook” in order to … well, in order to fuck with said employer.

I’m sure you can understand my concern over this new development. She shows no signs of aging, or of any vulnerability at all, really … neither chocolate, nor chicken bones, nor barbiturates and alcohol mixed in with her food have had any effect … she seems mystefyingly impervious to traditional canine dangers. If she really has adopted this “annoyance by adherence” strategy in our ongoing battle of wits, I fear for my sanity. The war may be lost.

* French for "raisons of ether," a light and tasty fruit snack akin to trail mix.

That Damn Dog Is Up To No Good ...

2011-02-28T08:48:00.000-08:00

There were some interesting dog-related activities over the weekend. And by “interesting,” I mean “frightening and disturbing, to the point where I am afraid to go to sleep.”

She’s long been prone to taking things out to the back yard, for reasons I have yet to determine. She has a liking for plastic food containers, disirregardless of whether or not they actually contain food. She has also made it clear that I am not to have any spatulas with smooth flipping surfaces unmarred by teeth marks. Fine. I can live with that.

Saturday morning, however, I was getting ready to start my day by cooking up some tasty spuds to eat whilst having my ass handed to me by the daily crossword puzzle. I had gone grocery shopping the day prior, and had purchased a 5 lb (2.27 kg) bag of Idaho’s Finest Russets®, and, with cutting board clean and waiting, I stepped toward the table to retrieve them to prepare my meal. “Hmm,” I said out loud. “This is odd. I clearly remember leaving a 5 lb (2.27 kg) bag of Idaho’s Finest Russets® right here on the table; yet now, they seem to be missing.”

I checked the cupboards and the pantry, in the off chance that I had done a little kitchen clean-up during one of my all-too-common sleepwalking episodes, but the taters remained at large. Indy, at this point, having an uncanny knack of sensing when I’m about to discover something she has [knowingly] done wrong, began to quietly, but quickly, make her way back to the bedroom.

“Oh, goddamn it …” I said, which sped up her exit, as she’s grown quite accustomed to that phrase, and knows exactly what it means.

I went to the back door and opened it, and sure enough, there was the package of purloined potatoes perched on the porch. I was perplexed – she not only would have had to drag the bag off the table and across the floor, but lift it about 6” (15.2 cm) to get it through her dog-door - a tall order for one without opposible thumbs. And yet there it lay.

And next to it: a steak knife.

And next to that: the remains of a bag of about 30 Charms Blow Pop suckers that I had also bought.

I have no idea what she’s up to. I do know that potatoes can be used as a source of electricity, so I suspect that she’s building some sort of powered device to aid in an escape attempt. I’ve yet to figure out what the Blow Pops could be for - perhaps as some sort of McGuyver-esque adhesive, or to fashion a large balloon out of the gum center. An alternative theory is that she’s planning my demise … I know that potatoes are a source of potassium, which is used to stop a person’s heart during executions, as it interrupts the function of the sodium-potassium cellular pump. Maybe she just wants to have some candy while watching me gasp my last breath. In any case, I haven’t slept in two days.

On an unrelated note: Sweet adorable puppy available, free to ~~good~~ any home.

Time Is Not On My Side

2011-02-24T12:16:00.000-08:00

As shocking events continue to occur around the globe (the revolutions in the Middle East, Democratic Senators fleeing Wisconsin to protect the rights of state workers, a woman pitching for the first time to ~~Major League hitters~~ the Cleveland Indians …), I know that one question is at the forefront of everyone’s consciousness: What is a Day In The Life like for The Dead Acorn?

I’ve listed below my normal schedule of events for a weekday morning (weekends usually involve bail bondsmen and/or asking for directions back to the main road):

5:00 am – (alarm sounds) Rise from bed; hit snooze button; return to bed.

5:09 am – (alarm sounds) Rise from bed; hit snooze button; return to bed.

5:18 am – (alarm sounds) Rise from bed; hit snooze button; return to bed.

5:27 am – (alarm sounds) Rise from bed; hit snooze button; return to bed.

5:36 am – (alarm sounds) Rise from bed; hit snooze button; return to bed.

5:45 am – (alarm sounds) Rise from bed; hit snooze button; return to bed.

5:54 am – (alarm sounds) Rise from bed; turn off alarm; return to bed.

6:45 am – Leap from bed in full-blown panic mode, convinced that it's past noon.

6:45:50 am-7:30 am – See that all is not lost; do morning stuff; arrive at “work.”

You probably notice some inefficiency in my timeline, but believe me, I’ve tried to find an alarm clock that has a snooze duration of 54 minutes, and they simply don’t exist. The 5:00 am setting itself is something I can’t seem to bring myself to change, however.

It’s an artifact from a bygone time, a time when I would spring out of bed and marvel at the pale glow beyond the hills, trembling with anticipation at what the day might bring … a time when breakfast was ever-changing, yet always palate-pleasing, lingered over and loved … a time when goals, and hopes, and dreams still burned within and consumed me … when dreams filled my imagination and ambition drove my every thought, when aspirations still existed and the thought of lying in bed wasting time was unimaginable, when visions of what the future might hold were so strong that I would rise from my slumber and leap to the window, throwing back the curtains and crying “YES!” to the new day, “YES!” to the first rays of the sun …

Granted, that bygone time only lasted about a week, and now I’m back to rushing through a bowl of cold cereal while trying to put my clothes on and ~~brushing my hair~~ reading the few comics that I can get through so that I’m not more than fifteen minutes late to "work," but for some reason, I just can’t bring myself to reset that damn alarm to a more sensible time.

So there you have (at least part of) a Day In The Life Of The Dead Acorn. A Night In The Life Of The Dead Acorn, by the way, has, as its final item, this:

4:30 am – wake up on couch; drink full warm beer foolishly opened the night before; turn on alarm; go to bed.

Livin’ the dream, baby.

Hit The Showers, Kid

2011-02-21T10:51:00.000-08:00

I like to think of myself as being somewhat eco-friendly. I could certainly do more, of course, as could we all, but I think I try to minimize the magnitude of my negative effects on the planet. I usually remember to take my own bags when I shop; I try to ride my bike when I don’t need to drive; things like that.

One area into which I’ve really put a lot of work is the adjustment of the temperature setting on my water heater. It’s just silly to have 200° F (366.33° K) water sitting around in a tank that you have to cool down in order to use, right? Right. Astoundingly, it’s been estimated* that the median U.S. houseowner wastes $23,500 dollars annually by keeping their water unnecessarily hot.

To this end, I spent the first several years after purchasing my house getting the heater dialed in to the ideal setting. To understand my definition of “ideal” in this context, a brief primer on thermostatically-regulated di-hydrogen oxide temperature control is warranted:

There’s, umm … some little sensor thingy in there that turns some fire on when it gets too cold and turns the fire off when it gets too hot.

I’m pretty sure that’s how it works. Maybe. I think.

Anyway, the water temperature cycles up and down within some range according to how you’ve set the thermostat. The ideal setting is such that at its coldest, your perfect shower won’t require any cold water mixed in at all.

And so it was that from 2004 to 2007, the primary focus of my very existence was temperature adjustment (which may have contributed to a number of failed relationships, but hey, whaddya gonna do?), and having succeeded in my efforts, I have enjoyed perfect showers since then, while minimizing my consumption of natural gas, and thereby helping to save polar bears.

Until yesterday.

Yesterday, the goddamned water was too goddamned cold.

Being of an inquisitive mind, and having taken Research Methods 101 (twice!), I quickly formulated several hypotheses that could potentially explain the earth-shattering change, which I present graphically below:

Above: Comic Sans MS font was used in order to undermine any chance in hell of being taken seriously by the scientific community.

The pink sinusoidal line represents the temperature cycle prior to yesterday, and the red horizontal line represents the temperature required for the Ideal Shower (the concept of Ideal Shower, for the present discussion, does not take into account the presence of (or lack thereof) 1) beer, or 2) company). As you can see, at its coldest, the water was just slightly warmer than what I required for showeric nirvana.

My first instinct was that something had happened to the water heater itself. The green sinusoid represents an expansion of the temperature range that the water cycles through; that is, it gets hotter before the little sensor thingy turns the fire off, and colder before the little sensor thingy turns the fire back on. The purple sinusoid represents an alternative explanation, in which the range of temperatures has shifted downward. Either occurrence results in the minimum of the cycle being below the Ideal Shower Temperature (IST).

I’ve begun sampling the tank temperature every 10 minutes in order to compare those data to the cyclic pattern that I had previously established and provide support for one hypothesis or the other. I hope and pray that one of them remains a viable candidate, because a third explanation is represented by the blue horizontal line, indicating that my IST has actually shifted upward, no doubt due to a metabolic shift within my body, signaling a rapid deterioration of my physical functioning and being a harbinger of my imminent and certain demise.

Please keep me in your thoughts, because that last one would kind of suck. At least for me.

* Estimated by me, based on no data whatsoever.

Now Sammy ... There's A Great Seal!

2011-02-17T12:00:00.000-08:00

I’ve been a bit negligent in my blogorial duties as of late (I believe the street term for a person in such a state is “blog slacker;” however, since urbandictionary.com is blocked at my place of employment, I can’t say with certainty). My lack of productivity has not been due to any sort of reticence, but rather to an issue that has consumed me over the past week.

I am not a big fan of braggadocio … I see no need to make loud boasts and trumpet one's qualities (be they real or imagined) when those qualities are evidenced by their very existence. (In addition to seeing no need for it, I, personally, lack cause for any boasting, so I luckily am without temptation to do so.)

As to the object of my obsession:

Above: The seal creator was a little full of herself, no?

This is the official Seal of the State of Idaho (actually, with respect to Magritte, I should say it’s an image of the official Seal of the State of Idaho). Note that it’s not the “Seal Of The Great State Of Idaho,” which would be a proper and honest allusion to the reverence in which we hold our home. Apparently, Miss Emma Sarah Etine Edwards, the designer of the ~~Fair-To-Middling-At-Best~~ Great Seal thought so highly of her work that felt the need to label it as such. Gee, Miss Edwards, it’s a miracle that DaVinci has remained famous after failing to title his masterpiece “The Great Mona Lisa.”

As you can see, it shows a woman and a man looking away from each other, obviously not speaking (she seems to be thinking “Fine. Go ahead and wear your god-awful neckerchief … it doesn’t mean I have to look at it.) Also present is our State Motto, “Esta Perpetua,” which is Latin for “Wasted Forever,” and which remains strikingly appropriate even 120 years later, especially for the North End hipsters in Boise. I have no idea why there’s a deer wearing a ridiculously huge badge in the middle – no doubt Miss Edwards was living up to the motto when she drew this.

I’m more partial to the Seal Of The Territory Of Idaho, which was used from 1866-1890:

Above: Awesome without needing to point it out explicitly.

This shows a couple of women just hangin’ out, chillin’, as if they had just sidled up to the bar for a drink. The absence of a male, along with the Star Of David at the bottom, has led some scholars to theorize that Idaho was once a sanctuary for Jewish lesbians. The presence of the wacky badge-wearing deer and the word “Salve,” which is Latin for “Ointment,” which is fun to say when baked (so I hear), suggests that Idahoans were Wasted Forever even before the official adoption of the motto.

It occurred to me that perhaps I should start an effort to change our Official Seal, but we’d likely end up with a couple of rednecks and the words “Votus Republicanus Perpetua” on it. Sometimes the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t.

In Which I Discover My Inner Vegecidal Demons

2011-02-11T10:31:00.000-08:00

Well, another Friday, another self-shattering realization of the sick blackness that lies within me.

A short while ago, I was congratulating myself for saving a bunch of celery that I had purchased last night, but had somehow forgotten to properly refrigerate upon arriving home. (I had stopped at the pub briefly after shopping, and unfortunately, once I get a couple of beers down my gullet, my sense of responsibility with respect to proper vegetable care goes out the window. It’s not something I’m proud of ... quit judging me.) I was reminded of my negligence this morning, when I opened my backpack to the sad sight of spiritless stalks, lying limp and listless, languishing in what, for harvested greens, must be the ~~climatal (I’m not sure of the adjective form of “climate”)~~ climatory* equivalence of the very fires of hell.

After a brief moment of panic, I regained my composure, and calmly recalled the USDA-approved protocol prescribed in such situations, which, in its entirety, reads: “Put celery in water.” I accomplished this with great alacrity, and complimented myself on my ability to keep my wits about me under such dire circumstances. “Truly,” I spoke aloud, firmly and proudly. “I am no less than a Life Giving God, a Savior unto the simple stalks, a Benevolent and Righteous Rejuvenator.”

And with a strong sense of self and worth, I donned my coat and gloves, and headed off to work. The end.

Except it wasn’t the end … the ride into work, while not long, is quite peaceful, and lends itself to the sort of self-reflection not otherwise attainable in the hustle and bustle of everyday life. It was on the ride that I began to ponder what it was that made me forget that the celery was in my backpack in the first place. After all, there were no earth-shaking events occurring in my life that would distract me, no thoughts so important as to monopolize my attention to the point of vegetative neglect. What, then? What?

Could it be that some hideous aspect of my subconscious caused me to intentionally leave it out overnight, thereby creating the opportunity for my morning heroics? Do I so need that affirmation that I would do harm to innocent food just so that I could then save it? Am I suffering from some strange variant of Münchausen Syndrome by Proxy? What kind of sick monster am I?

And so has my day gone**, bringing yet another discovery of the malignance that resides in my soul. Perhaps this recognition will be a step toward redemption, but who knows? I want to be good … I want to do the right thing, but I'm so afraid of what I might really be, deep down at my very core. I’m out of radishes and cucumbers, too … maybe shopping tonight will be the first leg of a journey toward recovery. Give me strength.

* Thanks Niamh B!
** I also forgot to get milk last night, so I had to have my Cheerios dry this morning. Bad day all around.

Lesson Learned!

2011-02-08T07:43:00.000-08:00

I realize that as we wander through our pointless little existences, we should probably occasionally pay attention and try to learn the lessons that life seems to be trying to teach us, but sometimes I get a little confused.

I recently stopped drinking beer for a few weeks, for a couple of reasons, not the least of which was that I seemed to be getting a little soft around the waistline. I am by no means what anyone would call athletic, but I don’t want to have to buy a bunch of new clothes, either, so it seemed like losing a few pounds was in order.

After days of exhaustive research, I discovered a plethora of methods for achieving my goal; unfortunately, most were cost-prohibitive, as my obviously-insufficient health insurance carrier refused to cover liposuction, gastrointestinal bypass, stomach stapling, or any of the other logical (and only mildly intrusive) choices. That left either increasing my level of exercise or changing my dietary habits, and those of you who know me are familiar with my aversion to physical activity – the former was clearly not an option.

So beer-cation it was! Three and a half goddamn weeks without those empty calories, three and a half goddamn weeks of weighing myself every morning, and … nothing. Not one goddamn pound lost. I was understandably confused, and certainly disappointed, but I recognize a lost cause when I see it*, and as wiser men than I have said, “Fool me once, shame on you … continue to not enjoy frosty cold adult beverages when there are no discernable benefits, shame on me.”

And so on Friday, and throughout the just-passed weekend, I had myself a beer or three, resigning myself to a future of doughboyish softness, and trying to maintain something of a good attitude by telling myself that at least my smokin-hot ass was holding its shape (though all the while avoiding full-length mirrors, of course).

Monday finally arrived, and just for kicks, I walked down to the basement at my place of employment where the scale is kept. Three pounds gone. Three pounds gone! It was a ~~Christmas~~ National Fettucini Alfredo Day Miracle! Furthermore, those three pounds took me below a certain integer multiple of 100 pounds, which, while entirely arbitrary, was still something of a convenient benchmark and all the more rewarding.

So back to my original thesis of learning life’s lessons and all that: What the hell am I supposed to take away from all of this? Drinking = good = skinny? Being a data-driven objectivist, I know that the numbers don’t lie, so I guess I’ll just have to accept that, as much as it pains me.

It's tough being so rational sometimes.

* No, I don’t. I really, really don’t.

You're Not The Boss Of Me!

2011-02-04T08:54:00.000-08:00

Well, today is my last day. My last day running amok at work; answering to no one, heeding no directives, hearing no admonishments. Showing up late, drunk, and wearing footie kangaroo jammies … cranking Pantera and doing breakfast shots in the office while the still-nameless girls from the previous night's party do lines on my desk … making book and running odds for the local lowlifes and doing the occasional “trash disposal” contract job, all on the taxpayer dime … it all comes to an abrupt end as of 4:00 pm this afternoon.

I’ve been sans supervisor at my place of employment since last April, when my (then) boss retired. Oh, sure, his boss was still there, but she didn’t wander over my way very often, and I was mostly left to my own devices. In fact, she left the organization about a month ago, so I’ve had a brief window where I’ve been completely off the grid (to be honest, it was only during this time that I did the aforementioned “contract work,” but hey, 200 large in four weeks ain’t chump change, and I’m not the greedy sort anyway).

Actually, I did have one encounter with the person who the Powers That Be temporarily put in her position (I’ll call him Pat because that’s his name):

Pat: Hey, Dead Acorn, you got a minute?

Dead Acorn: (pushes ~~midget~~ little person clowns down behind desk, prays they don’t start giggling again) umm … yeah, Pat, sure. 'Sup?

Pat: This is a little awkward, but the Department is updating background checks on everyone, and something came up in yours from about a year and a half ago. An incident with local Law Enforcement of some sort.

Dead Acorn: Yeah, that’s kind of a funny story. What about it? I’m kind of busy here …

Pat: ummm … okay, nevermind (sheepishly shuffles out).

But as I said, the show is over. As of Monday morning, I’ll have a new boss. I’ve met her a few times, and I’m sure she’ll be great, in that establishmentarian kind of way, you know, that traditional “explicit goals and expectations” way of thinking, where employees are judged on their “output and performance” and their “objectively measured competence” and all the rest of the crapola that goes along with Everyday Life In Normaltown, USA.

Well, I’ll do it, Little Missy New-Boss … I’ll put on the suit and tie, and I’ll show up and shuffle my papers around, and act like a good little puppet, my arms and legs flailing about in grotesque disjunction as you tug the strings afforded you by your State Given Superiority, yes, yes, I’ll dance whatever steps you call, and appear the proper and subservient lackey, and grant you the illusory position of power for which you so yearn.

After work, though, I’m going bowling, and then to nekkid karaoke, and you know what? Huh? You know what?

There’s not a damn thing in the world you can do about it.

Note: The part about Pat having to ask me about an incident that came up in a background check, and the fact that it was his only work-related encounter with me in his short-lived position as my nominal supervisor, is absolutely true.

I'll Soon Be A Roads Scholar

2011-02-01T13:19:00.000-08:00

My name is The Dead Acorn, and it’s been 13 days since I’ve had to have my car towed while returning from the Outback after attending a rally of enraged anti-government rebels.

I’ve been a member of Triple-A for well nigh over a decade now (I may have conflated several “A-abbreviated ” organizations in the first sentence – I’m referring to the American Automobile Association, not Alcoholics Anonymous or the Australian Association of Apoplectic Anarchists, to neither of which I can claim membership, being 1) something of a supporter of law-and-order in society, and 2) far from anonymous in my over-indulgence.)

Given my long history of driving less-than-fully-reliable cars, membership in AAA has been a wise decision, I think, even though I’ve paid in far more than I would have spent in towing charges over the years – the peace of mind that comes with knowing that when the inevitable finally happens, when my ride ups and dies in the dead cold of winter, potentially blocks ... blocks! from the nearest tavern, I’ll just need to make a single phone call rather than have to deal with stressful details about what to do is well worth the expense. It’s not unlike the fact that during times when I happen to have a significant other, I keep a bottle of Maker’s Mark and a CD of Songs Of Love Gone Wrong at the ready for The Night I Screw Things Up™ (an event no less certain to occur than a cracked distributor cap 22 miles down FSR 212 in central Idaho, believe you me!). Think ahead, my friends ... the fewer details you have to think about in stressful situations, the better off you’ll be.

Still, it is a bit of money, and yesterday, it occurred to me that I’ve been remiss in not taking advantage of AAA’s sweetest amenity: FREE MAPS! I was extremely excited as I drove to their office; understandably so, I think, since, while I’m frequently told by friends and strangers alike, and in no uncertain terms, where I should go, Triple-A goes one step further and provides actual directions!*

Though the number of available maps must surely have been several score, I showed a little self-restraint and only requested the Idaho map (as a bonus, it also shows Montana, so if I ever get a hankerin’ to head to the Testicle Festival in Clinton, Mt, I’ll know exactly how to get there!), though Anna, the courteous and helpful employee, seemed to think that I needed a Boise City map as well, and was quite insistent that I not leave without one (I think I might project an "I Get Lost Quite Easily!" sort of aura). Maybe I’ll use that to plot the most efficient bike routes to all the bars in town … I’d like to think that Anna would approve of that.

So tonight, I’m going to while away the hours poring over the backroads of the Gem State, planning some quick one-night camping trips for the spring, and maybe a few longer excursions during the summer, to be spent immersed in the natural beauty that we, as Idahoans, are blessed with, the kind of beauty so awe-inspiring that, when in its midst, we can't help but become the better for experiencing it, moving just a bit closer toward what we can be, if we just let ourselves, and perhaps even finding answers to questions we didn’t even know were being asked, que ...

Oh, fergawdsake ... all the fancy-schmancy faux philosophy in the world ain’t gonna change the fact that I’m going to spend my night alone looking at a goddamned map. I have got to get a life.

* Damn, I loves me some commas!

C'mon, Be A Good Sport

2011-01-27T13:53:00.001-08:00

I watched a video the other day that made me very sad. It showed a young girl extremely upset about the outcome of the Chicago Bears vs. Green Bay Packers National Football Conference Championship game, in which her beloved Bears were cheated out of a berth in this year’s NFL Super Bowl. Get a box of tissues and take a moment to view it:

Click here for video sadness ...

Being a Bears fan as well, I certainly agree with her sentiments (and, in fact, had a similar outburst after the game), but the reason the video brought me such sorrow was the complete dereliction of duty on the part of the "father" to instill rabid fanaticism in his child for the same sports franchises that he holds dear.

I know from whence I speak, for I too am blessed with a daughter. In sharp contrast to the “father” in the video, however, I realize that the primary responsibility of a parent is to imprint their beliefs and opinions onto a child, allowing no room for dissent or free thought. If you want to be questioned, ignored, shunned, and treated as if every word you say merits debate and discussion, if not outright ridicule and derision, you should get a dog.

As evidence I offer this photograph, showing The Live Acorn a number of years ago at a baseball game between my beloved World Series Champion (1948) Cleveland Indians and the Seattle Mariners:

Above: Differences in team allegiance are overcome by disdain for dorky parents who insist on taking dorky pictures. Note the exuberance on their faces, and … hey, why does that kid have the back of his hand turned toward me?

Despite an impenetrable language barrier, the boy’s father and I seemed to appreciate each other’s understanding of the parental role in instilling in a child blind devotion to a team, even if it means breaking said child’s sense of independence and perhaps damning any hope of real autonomy to the waste can of what-ifs, to be dealt with during countless future therapy sessions.

The language barrier was due, by the way, at least from what I’ve since been told, not to the other dad's lack of English proficiency, but rather to the fact that it was in the later innings of a game at which beer was sold, and I couldn’t form a sentence to save my life.

So parents, take heed: Dress your kids up properly, get them the right color of facepaint, teach them the fight songs – you’ll have no shot at Parent Of The Year unless you’re willing to go all the way. Except if you’re a Yankees fan. Then I’m calling Social Services.

Happy Birthday (You Know, Whenever It Is ...)

2011-01-24T11:32:00.000-08:00

I’m not good with dates.

“Well, duh …” you’re most assuredly saying, if you happen to be one of the unfortunate people with whom I’ve asked to spend time in a social setting or public place with romantic or other I-know-I’m-a-dork-but-I-like-you-more-than-just-as-a-friend-so-how-‘bout-dinner? intentions (Eileen - the Downtown Alliance dropped all charges, and I’m sure you would be able to go in to most establishments without too much embarrassment now).

“Well, duh …” you’re most assuredly saying, if you happen to be one of the unfortunate people who was asked to taste-test my attempt at making wine from dates (Sandy - my heartfelt condolences and best wishes on your continued recovery).

However, in this case, I’m referring to the fact that there’s a 50% chance that today is my brother’s birthday (it's either today or was three days ago). In my defense, I should say that I’m fairly certain no one in my family is positive, including him, whether it’s the 21st or the 24th, due ~~in large part~~ in toto, I’m sure, to the fact that our mother was often uncertain herself (this was most likely attributable to my brother being the firstborn and our mother having used a FOFF (first occurring, first forgotten) technique of memory management).

Prior to last Friday, I would have bet a buck on it being the 24th, but I logged in to the Facebook thingy that day, and saw an announcement that it was, in fact, the 21st. “Hunh.” I said to myself. My first thoughts were that it must be true, since 1) it’s on the internet, and 2) he himself would have been the one to have entered it. My certainty was almost immediately eroded, however, as 1) several sports sites on the googletubez claim that the Green Bay Packers were victorious in their battle against the Chicago Bears yesterday, which is, of course, utter bullshit (shut up shut up I can't hear you lalalalalala), and 2) my brother is well capable of, and inclined to, perpetrating pointless but ingenious hoaxes such as this with my further confusion as his only goal (he and my older and younger sisters are the smart ones in the family).

Anyway, I called him on the 21st, and I’ll call him again tonight, so I guess he gets his precious two Happy Birthdays. As for me, I guess being confused over a couple of days is better than not knowing what month it is, so I’ll take it as a plus. Who knows? Maybe five or ten years from now, I'll try making wine again.

The Buck Stops Here

2011-01-18T12:37:00.000-08:00

Oh deer ...

The first time I came across a deer on my ride to work, I was all atwitter about the encounter, thinking “gosh, I must be the only person, like, EVAH, to see a deer on my way to work!” After a couple of more sightings, my amazement shifted toward amusement (while still maintaining my appreciation for the environment in which I am fortunate enough to live, as evidenced, on those occasions, by utterances such as “whoa. That’s pretty fucking cool. I am fortunate to live in an environment such as this.”

But now I see them for what they really are: giant annoying squirrels. Rodent ruminants, if you will. They’re starting to get a bit sassy, too … why, just last week, I was cruising along the path early in the morning, marveling at the dense fog which had blanketed the landscape, and which reminded me of the movie An American Werewolf In London (keep to the roads … stay off the Moors …), which further led me to imagine how delicious a tasty pint down at The Slaughtered Lamb would be (they aren’t open at 6:30 am, but my tastebuds wear no watches) … when I was snapped back to reality as I came around a corner and nearly broadsided a doe. “D’oh!” I muttered.

She stood there and looked at me for a few seconds, from about 5 feet away, then slowly walked toward the grass and started nomming away. I rode past about another 15 feet, turned around, and saw that there were five of them having breakfast together in a little group. They didn’t seem all that interested in me, except for the one with the horn thingies (the boy deer, I’m pretty sure), so I took my backpack off and got my cellular phone out, as it’s equipped with a camera as well, thinking I’d snap a few photos.

A couple of minutes had gone by at that point, and the boy deer kept staring at me, which started to creep me out a little bit (what if he was a were-deer? AND WHAT HAPPENED TO THE ROAD?). Finally, I put my phone away and got my backpack on, and was getting ready to continue down the path, when he lifts up his front leg, puts his hoof up to his face, then points it at me. That threw me a little, and I wasn’t sure what it meant, until I realized that he was doing that eye-finger-point thingy that’s supposed to be some kind of intimidating gesture. (Even though deer have cloven hooves, he wasn’t really spreading them apart like you see in the movies, so I was a little slow on recognizing the threat.)

Having just gotten home from The Fireside Tavern four hours earlier, I was feeling a bit bold and feisty, so I sez to him, I sez “You wanna piece of me, Vinnie?” That was intended as short for “venison,” which I thought quite clever for that time of the day – I’m not sure if he caught it or not, and in truth, it mattered not, because my next remark, which suggested that Bambi’s mom died in a fire because she was a whore, as is prescribed in Leviticus, seemed to push all of the buttons he had to push.

Luckily, I was able to clip in to the pedals without falling over several times, as I normally do, and I only felt his hooves scrape my back once. I do feel bad about having escalated a situation in which we both should have been able to peacefully coexist. Not too bad, though … I mean, they’re merely oversized squirrels, right? I just hope his buddy Moose doesn’t show up anytime soon.

Bad Poetry (Emo Valentine's Edition)

2011-01-13T08:27:00.000-08:00

[UPDATE:] It's been pointed out to me that the current month is, in fact, not February, but January, which somewhat explains Niahm B's comment expressing surprise about how far ahead temporally the US is compared to Ireland. I blame a combination of the shift in zodiac signs and Absynthe.

the bed

i try to sleep, near the edge
as close as I can without falling
it was meant for two, not one
for us, not me
and lying there alone
i feel like a trespasser in my own house
it is not my place, and after fitful hours,
i fumble through the dark and find the couch
and settle for a tenuous sleep, my longings masked
by the noise of late night television

I could SO ace 10th grade poetry class. Happy St. Valentine's Day!

It's The Big One, Elizabeth!

2011-01-06T10:32:00.000-08:00

I almost had my first and second heart attacks of the young year this morning, both (almost) occurring within a 5-minute time span. I had decided to finally get off my lazy ass and ride my bike to work, disirregardless of the Weather Bunny’s admonition that even two minutes spent outside at these temperatures would result in the rapid formation of ice crystals in one’s alveoli, causing a quick but extremely painful death.

I assumed that the bike path would be empty, since, you know, what kind of idiot would be out at 6:00 am on a moonless night in -40 F (-40 C) weather? Einstein is often alleged to have said that “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results, on a moonless night in -40 F (-40 C) weather,” and he was right more often than not (or so I’ve been told). Anyway, I wasn’t too concerned with encountering others, instead focusing on not screaming out in pain with every breath as my lungs cycled between icing up and thawing out.

I sure as hell wasn’t expecting to come across a killer ninja and his deadly kimodo dragon, which was the cause of near-heart attack #1. You may be thinking to yourself “umm, Dead Acorn, are you sure it wasn’t just a guy wearing dark clothes walking his black lab, as is quite common in that area?” Look, I know what I saw, okay? It was a goddamned ninja and his dragon.

Near-heart attack #2 happened a bit further up the path, when ~~a guy I didn’t see, sitting on a bench, said “good morning”~~ an assassin leapt out of the bushes with a machete trying to behead me. I have really got to start being a little more aware of my surroundings. Given my past, I'm surprised that there aren't more attempts on my life.

Other than that, the ride was a success ... one of the reasons I elected to bike in was to test the shoe-cover/booty/foot-warmer thingies that I had purchased on Craigslist last year, and indeed, my little piggies were just as roasty-toasty as could be! The other reason is that the fan belt on my car makes a really loud banshee-esque screeching noise when it's this cold out, and my neighbors have made some surprisingly detailed threats about what will happen if I start it up at that hour one more time.

Mrs. Hamilton can be very intimidating for a nonagenarian.

The Following Post Has Been Tape Delayed

2011-01-04T10:56:00.000-08:00

Let me make this clear: I love duct tape. I always have and I always will. I’ve worn a duct tape sports jacket, I currently have a duct tape wallet, and I’ve read the stories of how duct tape saved the Apollo 13 astronauts and how it can remove warts. Why, just this Christmas, I used it to fashion an emergency oil cap on the drive back from Salt Lake City, after the original one was removed by vandals shortly after I checked the fluids (I clearly remember replacing it after adding a quart, so the only possibility is foul play). That led to this exchange at a gas station in Burley, Idaho:

The Live Acorn: Dad, why are you duct taping the engine?

Me: Well, it ain’t gonna duct tape itself!

Given my lifelong devotion, I’m sure you can understand how disturbed I felt upon my first encounter with Gorilla tape. It was just a chance occurrence – dear god, you have to believe me when I said I never meant for it to happen – I must have been preoccupied with other matters, and I simply grabbed what I thought was a roll of regular duct tape off the shelf. O cruel Fate … what treasure do you gain by your devious trickery?

It was several days before I realized what I had done. I had run out of duct tape mid-job (I can’t recall exactly what I was doing … wrapping presents? splinting a broken finger? no matter, I guess …) and peeled the plastic packaging off of the new roll. “Odd,” I thought. “This tape is black, whereas I was expecting the almost-universally-recognized classic grey.”

And then, using my thumbnail to pry a corner up, I peeled a strip back, and my world was changed. The sound of the adhesive being torn from the layer below was a lower, richer sound than to which I was accustomed – a bold cello, rather than a shrill viola – and the weight! The weight of the fabric was at least three times that of its ductal cousin, and the adhesive itself was tackier than a Garden City bride wearing white.

It felt as though I was taping for the first time again. For a week or two, all I wanted to do was tape things. I called in sick to work, and bought roll after roll, with wanton disregard for my credit card balance. Gorilla tape was strong and I felt alive and on fire and I loved it for that …

… and then came a project that snapped me out of it. I wanted to fashion a restrictive harness for the Hell Hound’s tail, so that she could still wag, but like a regular dog, so that she wouldn’t clear the coffee table as she walked by. Try as I might, I couldn’t come up with a working design. The Gorilla tape was just too rigid; too unforgiving. After fitful days of fruitless attempts, I was struck with the realization that it was my first love, standard duct tape, that I needed, that it was just flexible enough to provide both strength when required and adaptability to the inevitable little changes that should be expected, rather than met with demands of everlasting fixedness. What could I have been thinking to cast it aside, to spurn it without a second thought as to our storied history together?

For those sensing some sort of metaphor here, well, sorry to disappoint, but I now keep a roll of each handy, and use either depending on the task and my mood, which I strongly discourage as a philosophy toward other human beings and your relationships with them. Unless you’re some kind of narcissistic asshole, I guess.

What We've Got Here Is A Failure To Communicate

2011-01-03T08:23:00.000-08:00

There’s certainly more than enough that’s been written about communication issues between parents and their teenaged offspring, and far be it from me to waste both valuable googletubez space and your precious time by dwelling on the subject too long, so I’ll make this brief. The following is a text message exchange that occurred yesterday between me and The Live Acorn:

Live Acorn: Can you take of home today

Dead Acorn: I don’t know what that means.

LA: Will you take of from your house to my moms tonight

DA: That sentence still doesn’t make sense … What do you want me to do?

(a few minutes go by …)

DA: So what’s the story?

LA: Soon ish can you pick me up

DA: Live Acorn … I still don’t understand what you want me to do. Write a txt explaining exactly what you’re asking.

LA: Give me a ride

DA: Live Acorn … Write a long txt. When, from where, to where, and what’s going on later.

LA: Jeez to my moms from my friend jessicas

DA: I don’t know where she lives, and you haven’t said what time.

LA: Its on hill road.

DA: Address and time. Is this really that hard?

LA: No don’t pick me up then sorry

DA: Live Acorn … I will pick you up. I just need to know an address and time. Can it be like 5:30?

(some time later …)

DA: Where are you?

LA: Home

DA: I don’t understand how I can ask 5 times for a time and an address and you DON’T tell me.

I’m not really sure what else to say. The next time you see me looking frustrated and confused, though, there’s a good chance that I’ve been trying to talk to a teenaged girl.

To K*******, Wherever You Are

2010-12-30T13:19:00.000-08:00

I still remember that night like it was yesterday. Most of my memories from back then are gone now, or full of holes, at best, but damned if the scratches from that hedge we crawled through don’t still hurt to where I look down sometimes expecting to see blood. I remember seeing the cop lights flashing from where we hid, unable to keep a nervous giggle down – I’d never done anything like that before, and I swear, I still don’t think I’ve been so afraid and so excited at the same time. You shot me a glance that said “you better shut that thing,” but your eyes were kind of sparkling and you had a little grin that I’ll never forget.

I could never figure out why you asked me if I wanted to do something in the first place. You were about the scariest girl at school – maybe “scary” isn’t the right word, I guess, but I didn’t talk to too many girls anyway, much less someone like you, who was always cutting class when you weren’t suspended and smoking in between classes and that kind of thing. It didn’t help that you had some kind of strange beauty about you, too – you just always seemed a little different than everyone else. I don’t suppose that even half the stories they told about you were true, but I’d heard them anyway, so yeah, I was more than a little scared when you sat down.

You asked me what I was doing, and I told you about some project I was working on for something, and you said you sometimes liked to hang out in the library when you didn’t want to go to class, and that Ms. Jensen never said anything to anybody about it. I don’t know how we got around to it, but I remember you asked if I wanted to go do something later, and for some reason, I said yes. Maybe I was scared not to. I don’t know.

I never told anyone about what we did that night, and I guess you didn’t either. Nobody ever asked me about it, at least, and nobody ever asked me about you, even after what happened a few weeks later. There were all kinds of stories about why a girl would go and do that … shoot her father and then herself … and the police never said anything about what really happened, so people just kept talking and making shit up for a while until they got tired of it. I never did pay much attention to what they were saying. And I didn’t go to your funeral, but I did go talk to your mom a few months later. I told her that I hadn’t known you very well, but that you had been very nice to me once, and that I wished I could have known you better. She just stared for a moment with her hollow eyes, gave me a sad little smile, and went back inside.

The Spirit Of Christmas Is In The Air

2010-12-28T10:32:00.000-08:00

Ah, House Sweet House.

The Live Acorn and I made it back alive from the modern-day Sodom of Salt Lake City, Utah relatively unscathed. We spent a few days there visiting my brother and his family, which is always a good time. Three nephews, five (or so) cats, three big dogs … how could that not be fun?

The hell hound, naturally, caused a bit of trouble … we bar-b-cued steaks on Thursday, and my brother naively (bless his heart) thought that putting the uneaten cuts on top of the microwave pushed way back in the corner of the kitchen counter would be sufficient to deter her and her ravenous meatlust. Needless to say, she made short work of it, which, unbeknownst to us at the time, was the first in a series of dietary events that made the weekend slightly less than ideal.

Cindy, my sister-in-law, is of the opinion that dogs should get to eat anything they want, anytime they want, and, in fact, keeps hot dogs on hand at all times just for treats, and dispenses them in whole form several times a day. I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with this – I only point it out because sudden changes in a dog’s diet can have gastrointestinal effects that manifest some time later as a brutal assault on the olfactory system of anyone within a mile or two.

Indy continued eating anything she could get a hold of all day Friday, and that afternoon, her occasional … ummm … releases, let’s say … started to become stronger and more frequent. That night, sometime around 3:00 am, she actually woke me up with a protracted blast, then got up and left. I now feel a certain kinship with the doughboys of WWI, who endured the mustard gas-filled trenches in the fields of Europe.

Saturday, of course, was Christmas, and the house was filled with many friends and Cindy’s family, all invited over for the traditional holiday brunch. It would have been a monumental letdown, comedically speaking, if Indy’s odor issues had not peaked during the meal, and fate did not disappoint. Furthermore, her body chose that time to collapse from exhaustion, so that she wouldn’t get up when I called her, and I had to literally drag her by the collar from the kitchen, where the guests were gasping for breath and frantically wiping the tears from their eyes.

It was not my proudest moment.

Eventually, people filtered out, and in the early evening, we drove over to another relative’s house for a quick visit. The five pounds of ham that was left on the table would have been lovely for sandwiches and snacks for days on end … as it turned out, the stripped-bare hambone that remained upon our return wasn’t really good for much of anything. It was at this point that The Live Acorn burst into tears, crying “Dad, I really really REALLY don’t want to drive home with Indy tomorrow!”

I’ve been tracking the shipment on UPS’ website, and she’s due to arrive today.

It's Only A Matter Of Time Before She Finds The Liquor

2010-12-21T18:15:00.000-08:00

I know I've been posting a bit too much recently about my stupid dog, but frankly, her life seems way more interesting than mine as of late. And today, I came home to one of her sliest maneuvers yet. This was truly impressive on a whole new level.

I've been leaving the entire house to her these days (rather than closing her in the laundry room, with access to the backyard), and she's been pretty dang good. I do my part by making sure she can't get at the garbage or any (other) food, and she usually leaves me some beer. We're all cool.

Last night, though, I popped up some popcorn to make some popcorn balls (this sentence just ... pops! doesn't it?), and ran out of time, but I made sure it was in the middle of the dining room table so that she couldn't get to it when I left for work this morning. This is what I came home to:

Above: Those apes and their rudimentary tools they show on The Discovery Channel are pretty much a joke compared to this.

I know I exaggerate from time to time here, but not now. The goddamned dog moved that end-table at least two feet in order to be able to climb up on it to get to the popcorn. I couldn't even really get mad, it was such a work of genius.

Clever girl, she is.

NOTE: I did clean my dining room the other day, and it was immaculate for at least 10 minutes before I moved stuff from the living room in to make room for the Channumaskwanstice tree. The dolly usually stays in the garage.

A Slacker Once Shamed, My Honor Reclaimed

2010-12-17T13:41:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, I posted something about International Post Your Poem In A Shop Month (IPYPIASM), which, if you haven't heard, involves writing a poem and clandestinely leaving it in a shop (hence that part of the title) where it will be enjoyed by all and will add to the merry mood of the holidays. My effort was a bit lame at best, as I neither wrote the poem that I displayed, nor did I make any effort to leave the pub to display it. Still, it was something, and actually fit quite naturally with my half-assed approach to things in general.

Well, it turns out we're being graded! "We" as in THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA! In fact, the entire North American continent has provided just two (2) instances of IPYPIASM celebration, while Scotland and Ireland have been slowing down the googletubez altogether with their constant uploading of versal verification.

So to you, 'Murka, my apologies for shirking my patriotic duty. And to the pioneers and tireless poets of this movement across the pond, I apologize as well for not representing my country in the manner that I should have. It is truly appalling that while the U.S. consumes over 25% of the world's oil, it produces less than 3% of the poems posted during IPYPIASM. This is unacceptable.

In my first step toward what I hope is redemption, I wandered down to the 2x4" section of the local Home Depot:

Above: Stopping By Wood On A Snowy Lunch Break (it was a bit Frosty outside today)

Be honest with yourself in life
And think ‘bout what you told your wife:
“I’m just going bowling with my buds …”
But you’re here alone, and eyeing studs.

Yeah, it's pretty bad, but, you know, baby steps toward Poet Laureate.

In Which I Prattle On Endlessly And Without Direction

2010-12-14T10:20:00.000-08:00

It’s often said that the two topics that should not be spoken of at bars are politics and religion (it goes without saying, of course, that if you’re drunk at church just prior to an election, then by all means, go to town). I’m not sure why that is … I’m perfectly capable of having a calm and rational discussion of the issues, as long the backward-ass, sky-fairy-fearin’, no-compassion-havin’, difference-hatin’, Beck-watchin’, war-lovin’, strong-daddy-needin’ dipshit on the other side of the table is as well. I mean, I’m an open and reasonable person when it comes to those sorts of things.

Personally, I think that the taboo is a little overblown, because no matter how vociferously we argue on about "grace of god vs. deeds on earth," "virgin birth vs. best liar EVAH," "resurrection vs. heaven/hell vs. dirt in the ground," or what have you, in almost every case we’re going to buy each other a beer at the end of the night and thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster that we’re not Scientologists.

There certainly are topics that aren’t discussed in bars – not really because they shouldn’t be, but because there’s just no point to it. There are some divides that just cannot be spanned, some chasms simply too deep to be bridged. For example, there will never be even the most begrudging agreement between a real human being and a Yankee fan; nor can there be even the slightest concession between the natural enemies comprising devotees of Red Vines and Twizzlers.

Crap.

Ok, never mind … you know what? This was supposed to be a few words on the new Grape Vines licorice (grape-flavored Red Vines! Woo!). Yet I’m four paragraphs in, and I haven’t even set the stage for that topic. I’m certainly no fan of brevity for brevity’s sake, being a student of the “why use 10 words when you can use 100?” school of writing, but sweet jeebus, this is ridiculous.

Grape Vines: pretty good, though the initial flavor burst could be a tad stronger. They have a larger hollow cross-section than Red Vines, which detractors will suggest is intended to reduce the actual candoric mass while creating the perception of the opposite. Hogwash. The net weight is the same, and the larger bore allows a freer flow of bourbon when used as a straw. Twizzler shareholders should be extremely nervous at this development.

Why couldn’t I just say that in the first place? I swear, the second thing I do upon winning the lottery is hire an editor.

I Move To Table The Motion

2010-12-10T08:49:00.000-08:00

This is it. This is the weekend. This is when I start to begin to initiate the onset of a new tomorrow. I ~~speak~~ write, of course, about reclaiming my dining room table.

Ah, the dining room table … perhaps the most important piece of furniture, with regard to the construct of Family, and thereby Society, that exists. The place where, as sunlight fades, all come together to share their experiences of the day, to laugh as one over silly happenings, to empathize and give support in hard times, to show love and appreciation for what and who one has, where it need not be spoken aloud.

I’ve not seen the surface of my dining room table in months. There are stacks of papers, spindles of CDs, a disassembled ceiling fan still waiting to retake its place in the remodeled kitchen, a substantial portion of my collection of hand tools, an impressive (if unintentionally assembled) beer can collection, a pink cowboy hat (wtf?), several stuffed animals that the dog has liberated from The Live Acorn’s room, a number of pots and pans (also originally put there during kitchen construction and subsequently forgotten), and a banjo.

That’s just the top layer.

But I’m done. I’ve had it. In fact, I started putting a few things away last night, and almost immediately found my favorite 5 mm allen wrench, which I thought was lost forever. Already the rewards are overwhelming! I’m a bit giddy at the realization that, by Sunday, I will be supping in the evening, not at the coffee table staring at the TV, nor leaning against the kitchen counter with a spoon and a can of Spaghettios, but at the goddamned dining room table, listening to the hell-hound recount her day’s adventures, laughing uproariously as she regales me with tales of mischief, sitting together again, after far too long, as a family should.

[Update:] I’m not sure if The Live Acorn still reads this, but if she does, I’m sure she’s thinking “Well, crap. No more Facebooking during dinner, I guess. At least for a week, until the table's covered up again.” She knows me all too well.

Mawwiage ... Mawwiage Is What Bwings Us Togethew Today ...

2010-12-08T11:37:00.000-08:00

I believe I’ve almost recovered from the weekend’s activities, and though there is some residual achiness, I don’t think there will be any permanent scars.

Some friends of mine got married Saturday evening, so of course, the groom was out Friday night pre-gaming the ceremony. It was not a bachelor party per se; while there were adult beverages involved, the festivities took place in a couple of bars populated by numerous members of the various sexes. There were no strippers involved, nor any other practitioners of the erotic arts, nor even, for that matter, a single woman who glanced at me twice without having that “oh god I wonder what happened to him?” look in her eyes. Damnit.

So pretty much a regular Friday, but with a few more shots.

I knew that Saturday had the potential to get a bit messy (I made sure I wrote my sermon on Thursday – I’m fortunate in that my congregation is very forgiving when it comes to me showing up Sunday mornings either hungover or still drunk), and sure enough, somehow I found myself once again forgetting to eat, and at the pub with friends around 2:00, continuing our Sisyphean attempts at emptying the place of beer (sweet suds-a-streaming, it's almost like they keep making more!).

Without going into too many details, the night involved a lovely wedding, getting to hang out with dolled-up friends, playing pool with strangers (one of whom called the next day informing me that they had the hat that I lost – I still don’t know how they knew my number), almost getting into a fight with another stranger (this is why I don’t go south of State Street, people …), a couple of ill-advised text messages, a three-mile slog home in tennis shoes through the slush (which took such physical effort that I am still a bit sore four days later), and a Sunday morning pocket full of crumpled-up receipts that I'm still afraid to look at.

It reminded me a great deal of my own wedding.

So a toast and well wishes to the newlyweds, and to whatever couple decides to go next … please have the common decency to wait at least six months.

MmmmMMMmmm Snow Cones ....

2010-12-06T16:53:00.000-08:00

My goofball dog is no longer wearing the cone of shame, but I was able to get some video of her in it:

Above: She's ... she's just not right.

How 'bout them mad editing skillz, huh?

For Better Or For Verse

2010-12-03T09:26:00.000-08:00

You’re probably already aware of this, astute and culturally attuned readers that you are, but for those still living in prose-bound caves, December is International Put Your Poem In A Shop Month (IPYPIASM – go here for the official announcement). The basic idea is to take a short poem (preferably of your own creation) and post it in a shop in such a location that it will be read by the clientele and passersby, whose spirits will thereby be lifted, causing them to perhaps wear a subtle smile for a time, which will be seen by strangers, who will, as that sort of thing can be somewhat infectious, themselves be uplifted a bit, and so on and so forth, and then the wars end.

So try to avoid anything Plath-esque, if you will.

Since I’m not much of a poet, I opted to share a goofy little piece by Dr. Seuss. As I was intent on going full-bore on this project, I printed off several thousand copies, bought 3 boxes of thumbtacks and 4 rolls of cellophane tape, and headed downtown.

Many of my grand plans have “stop and get a beer at the pub” as a first step, and this was no exception. Unfortunately, it was also no exception in that it was derailed there as well. So no, it wasn’t my own poem, and no, it wasn’t a shop, but yes, it’s in a location that virtually guarantees its reading:

Above: Who doesn’t like a little Dr. Seuss during business hours?

For those lacking the visual acuity to make out the words:

Above: That quacks me up.

So don’t be shy … scribble down a verse and hit the streets, people. These goddamned wars ain’t gonna end themselves, you know.

Credit Where Credit Is Due

2010-12-01T12:54:00.000-08:00

Speaking of procrastination (which I was a couple of posts back), I got a replacement credit card in the mail a ~~month and a half~~ few days ago. My current card had an expiration date of 11/2010, so it occurred to me at around 7:00 pm on November 30 that I should probably bite the bullet and go through the activation process on the new one (those 2 minute phone calls can be exhausting!).

The call itself was not unpleasant; the person seemed very nice, and she walked me through the steps of peeling the label off the front, signing the back, and cutting up the old card. Even the way she said “for the last time, I am MARRIED!” had a certain gentle kindness to it.

We said our adieus*, I walked out to the desk where the scissors are kept, and promptly cut up the new card.

Luckily, I didn’t speak to the same woman when I called back, because such a display of idiocy isn’t all that productive in the infancy of a relationship such as ours. The new person was fairly successful at stifling her giggles, however, and she informed me that a new card should arrive in 3-5 business days.

Consider what that means: I am without credit during the holiday season in the United States of America.

Reckless spending with borrowed money is what we do! It’s what defines us as a people! What if there’s a sale on 60” HD televisions while I’m in my current credit crisis? I’ve never felt so vulnerable; so exposed … I felt naked (and not just because I was). I’ve already paid a price, in fact – I was squaring up at the pub last night around 10:15 pm, and handed N*88 my old card, knowing that I had an hour and 45 minutes before the river ran dry.

Did you know that the credit card companies base their business activities on Eastern Standard Time? Me neither.

To his credit, N*88 was very subtle about handing the card back and informing me that it had been rejected. A bar being fairly close quarters, however, it was inevitable that he would be overheard. The whispers and stares spread like a wave across the room, and while I thought I could sense some sort of sad sympathy from those I would call friends, the overwhelming reaction was pure, hateful scorn.

“Creditless cretin!” they screamed. “Debt-non-enlarging douchebag!” they spat. “Asshole!” (That last one may have been unrelated, though admittedly, not undeserved.)

And so homeward I rode, ashamed and alone, ostracized, a man without a tavern. For without credit, just what is a man? Can he even call himself that? God, these next 3-5 business days are going to be the longest of my life. I only hope that I can soon again gain acceptance in society.

* Gesundheit!

I'm Such A Hipster

2010-11-29T12:41:00.000-08:00

I’m a bit surprised at the speed of the healing process at my advanced age, especially since the area of my body undergoing said healing is one of my hips, a notoriously vulnerable area for us centenarians. I bashed myself up a bit on Thanksgiving, having opted to ride my bicycle around to a couple of parties, rather than drive, knowing that I would be most likely end up being coerced into drinking a beer.

The roads, as it happened, were icier than a woman’s stare at the pub upon being approached by me, and once that front wheel decides to go out from under you (notice the externalization of fault … I love me some anthropomorphization when laying blame), there’s just not enough time to come up with and vocalize an appropriate cry of despair, much less unclip from your pedals. So onto my hip it was. Several times.

I was called out on the folly of my decision at the first stop:

Party Host: Dead Acorn! Glad you could ma … umm, wow, did you ride your bike?

Dead Acorn: Yeah … I’m freezing, and I’ve already fallen once, but I didn’t want to risk driving on these roads with all the kids out.

PH: ummm … kids?

DA: Yeah, the trick-or-treaters. Usually I like to stay home for a while to check out some of the cool costumes, but I just left a plate of sliced beets on my doorstep and a sign reading “Please Only Take One.”

PH: Is … is that why you’re dressed up as Snow White?

DA: Nice, huh? When are you going to get dressed?

PH: I think you're a little confused ... Halloween was a month ago. Everyone will be inside tonight spending time with friends and family.

DA: So, what you're saying is, I could totally drink to excess and drive around and be perfectly fine?

PH: (yelling into the kitchen) Honey, we have to move and find new friends!

Anyway, after a couple of more falls during the course of the evening, I could barely move on Friday morning, even after I was able to wriggle out of the ropes (I’m still trying to reconstruct the evening as to how that happened). I spent the day limping around, mostly just whimpering, but occasionally sobbing openly – the dogs* were confused, but wholly unsympathetic. Saturday, though, I felt surprisingly spry, and by Sunday, I had returned to my baseline level of non-specific physical achiness and my mental mixture of despondence and apathy.

Baby, I’m back!

* Indy's got her boyfriend over for a few days. Two hundred pounds of dog pushing me off the bed at night. Boneheads.

I KNEW It!

2010-11-23T07:44:00.000-08:00

I’ve long suspected that the North American Booze Hound with whom I share a home knows where I keep the key to the fridge and helps herself to the frosty cold beverages while I’m slaving away to keep her fed, but I’ve never been able to prove it, since a few more empties strewn about the house when I get home aren’t really noticeable (imagine trying to discern a few extra grains of sand on a vast beach).

Thanks to the recent necessity of her having to wear The Cone Of Shame, however, I believe I have the evidence I need:

Above: She is SO busted!

I guess I’ll have to start keeping the beer up in the attic or something, though I imagine that whatever plan I come up with (Operation Dry Dog), she’ll figure it out in short order, necessitating a perhaps-daily alteration in hiding spots. She’s a sharp one, she is, and I fear it will take cleverness far beyond me to stay a step ahead of her. My only hope is that my love for lager will unleash some heretofore unknown creativity within me.

Let the battle of wits be joined.

Cone Of Shame information: I think she may have been bitten on the eye by a spider. It heals up pretty well over a day or two, then I get home in the afternoon to find that she’s gotten it off and re-aggravated it, starting the whole process over again. Plus, she walks around behind me poking me in the back of the legs with it … this is getting old.

Above: I’m thinking about just riveting a steel eye-patch into her skull, like that guy in Water World.

There's Always Tomorrow ...

2010-11-19T11:51:00.000-08:00

I am, by any measure, one of the great procrastinators of our age. (I have, in fact, been putting off writing this post for several years.) Being something of a behaviorist, it’s clear to me that procrastination is a rewarding approach to most tasks; otherwise, I would stop doing it. (See? It’s not that I’m lazy, it’s just sciencey stuff about positive reinforcement!) The very fact that I was allowed to go to college, much less graduate, is a testament to the power of the hastily written research paper:

EMDAMOTLA*: Shouldn’t you be working on your dissertation?

Dead Acorn: I’m formulating.

EMDAMOTLA: You’re watching the Bears game, drinking beer in your underwear at noon.

Dead Acorn: I’m a multi-tasker.

EMDAMOTLA: I want an annulment.

I guess my completing college could also be viewed as a damning indictment of our educational system in general, though. The jury’s still out, as they say.

That’s certainly not to say that procrastination always results in mimosas and strawberries, of course. For example, I’ve been putting off raking the leaves, rationalizing this by noting that there are still a few left on the trees, and by god, I ain’t rakin’ that consarn lawn twice! In a related procrastinatory process, I’ve neglected to call and have my sprinklers blown out for the winter. Unfortunately, I’m informed by the Weather Bunny that it’s going to snow this weekend, with temperatures in the 255-260 range (in Kelvin ... 0 to 10 F, -17 to -12 C), so now I’m pretty much guaranteed busted pipes and rotten leaves come the spring. Worse yet, any snowpersons that I construct this year are going to be covered in maple leaves, which will serve as a constant reminder of this country’s blindness to the advantages of the universal health care system enjoyed by our neighbors to the north.

[UPDATE:] I’ve found a lawn-care person who can do the job this afternoon! Woo, I say! Woo, indeed! So let’s see: Stimulating the local economy? Check. Creating an excuse to leave early on a Friday to meet him at my house? Check. Metaphorical mimosas and strawberries once again?

Check and mate.

* Ex-Mrs-Dead-Acorn-Mother-Of-The-Live-Acorn

I Suppose That Unicorns Aren't Real, Either ...

2010-11-15T09:05:00.000-08:00

Do you remember finding out that Santa Claus isn’t real?

(Ok, I should have had a “spoiler alert” at the top of this. To my 5-year-old-and-under readers (and Walter, down at the pub) – I’m sorry. Try to think of Santa not so much as a real person, but, you know, as that holiday spirit that makes people a little cheerier around Christmas, ok?)

Anyway, while things like Santa and the Kwanzaa Kangaroo seem to be important for kids, we eventually grow out of the need for them, and into a more reality-based world. That’s how it’s supposed to work, at least.

I never thought that at my advanced age I would once again have to go through the agony of being told that something wonderful, something that made life really worth living, was simply a lie, but I had this conversation last night:

Dead Acorn: What a great day! The Silo Fairy visited me again last night!

Girl With Whom I Was Conversing: (after a spit-take with the beer she had just chugged) I’m sorry, what?

DA: The Silo Fairy!

GWWIWC: What the fuck are you talking about?

DA: You know … the Silo Fairy! Every once in a while, she visits at night, and leaves a 24 oz. can of Bud Light in the water bottle cage of my bicycle!

GWWIWC: (silence)

DA: Doesn’t she ever visit you?

GWWIWC: Dead Acorn, I need to tell you something. There … there is no Silo Fairy. That’s you leaving here all hammered and buying a can at the Stinker Station and forgetting about it on the ride home.

DA: Wh ... what?

GWWIWC: Yeah.

DA: (putting my hands over my ears) SHUT UP! SHUT UP! THAT’S NOT TRUE!

GWWIWC: Look, Dead Acorn, I know this is hard. But take a look in your wallet.

DA: (fighting back tears) Wh .. why? Why are you doing this?

GWWIWC: Just do it, Dead Acorn. You have to.

I pulled it out and opened it up. Nothing caught my eye at first – there was the customary lack of paper money and the ever-growing stack of business cards from people I don’t recall meeting. Then I saw it … a crumpled up slip of paper wedged way down in the corner. I caught my breath, and slowly drew it out. Deep down, I knew what it was, but I couldn’t make myself uncrumple it, so afraid was I of the horrifying truth I was facing.

My friend reached over and took it from my shaking hands, then flattened it and placed it in front of me. My eyes were filled with tears, but I could still make out the words ... those terrible, terrible words:

Hyde Park Stinker #2754
Date: 11/14/2010 01:37 AM

24 oz. BudLt .......$1.49
Tax ................$0.09
Total ..............$1.58

I think my sobbing caused a bit of a scene, because she led me out to the parking lot so that I could compose myself. “Hold me …” I begged. “There, there,” she said, and while I knew my life had been irrevocably changed, her embrace provided much needed solace, and I knew that somehow, I would be able to go on.

We eventually went back inside and finished our beers. I guess I’m okay with knowing the truth, and in all honesty, I’m sort of pleased that hammered Dead Acorn has the foresight to make such strategic late-night purchases.

There’s no way in hell, though, that I’m going to tell my friend about the Bacon Bunny.

Sh*t Don't Even RHYME!

2010-11-10T10:07:00.000-08:00

[UPDATE:] I've been told by an actual poet that it needed a title ...

a short poem of longing

i see your face when the moon rises high in the night sky
i feel your embrace when the warmth of the sun washes over me
i hear your voice whispering in my ear when the birds sing as daylight breaks
i see your eyes sparkle as the stars shimmer in the heavens
i feel your fingers on my back when the autumn winds bring a chill

i sense you at my side when I am alone

oh, that I knew who you were ...

But I did use all lowercase, at least.

This Is The Last Straw

2010-11-08T13:08:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while, I take a short trip at lunchtime down to the local grocery store and pick up a meal from their delicatessen (while stocking up on Progresso Low Sodium soups for the days on which I don’t take a short trip at lunchtime down to the local grocery store). The fare isn’t bad – I usually go with some type of chicken and cole slaw, which has no relevance to this post whatsoever. What is of relevance is that a drink is included in the price (about 3.59 euro).

The beverage dispenser is around the corner, and next to the soft-drink machine itself is a large rack with the plastic lids, forks (here in Idaho, we drink our pop with forks), straws, and sundry items to assist in transporting and consuming the food. Without fail, I slide the straw behind my ear to carry it, much as one might slide a pencil at work, or a cigarette (if one was a hoodlum in 1950s America).

Also without fail, at the moment just prior to the actual slidage, I find myself gripped with fear that the razoresque seam of the paper wrapper is going to slice my ear open, unleashing a crimson torrent of blood, drenching my clothes and slowly spreading across the tile floor, horrifying the other customers, who will want to turn away but who will find themselves unable to do so, so shocked will they be by the hideous sight of the dark red ooze continuing to pulse from my ear, while I stand there in utter disbelief, like Carrie on prom night.

And yet, rather than place the straw in the bag with the food, the fork, and the sweet’n’sour sauce, I slide that straw back, each time wondering if it’s going to be the last; some dark part of me relishing the adrenalin rush and feeling dangerous and somehow more alive, even feeling pity for those around me who never experience such thrills – those poor souls who go through lunch and life with their straws safely tucked away, far from any vein or artery, never knowing the sheer exhilaration of taunting death with such abandon.

[UPDATE:] I really should probably quit drinking at work.

I Was Blind, But Now, I See

2010-11-05T11:24:00.000-07:00

As my Jewish friends say, oy vey (which, according to yiddish-to-english.com, translates roughly as "jesusfuckingchrist"). This has been quite a way to kick off the weekend.

It being a normal Friday, I was sitting around this morning, and, having pored over all of the new content on the googlewebz, was searching for new methods of procrastination. “Hey!” I said to myself (okay, not totally to myself, but not loud enough to be heard over the music). “I’ll clean my whiteboard! I can avoid actual work, while looking productive to any bosses walking by! And maybe even catch a good buzz off of the fumes!”

I pondered a moment over how little progress we’ve really made as a society, still clinging to our differentiation between “whiteboards” and “blackboards,” but I have hope that by the time the Live Acorn’s children are grown up and procrastinating the day away in their own dead-end gubmint jobs, the boards will all be rainbow-colored and they’ll ride to work on unicorns.

Soon enough, though, I got to the task before me, and with my dry-eraser in one hand and the spray bottle of board cleaner in another (the third was holding my drink), I set about the cleaning proper.

This may or may not surprise you, but I don’t put a whole lot of effort into keeping a tidy office. I like to think that the reams of paper strewn about the floor gives the impression of busy-ness and deters people from wandering in. This being the case, the bottle of board cleaner had not been used in … well, quite some time. Apparently, it was long enough ago that the spray plunger thingy had seized up, so that when I pressed down firmly, rather than emitting a fine mist onto the whiteboard, the top of the sprayer broke off and was forced down into the bottle itself, displacing the cleaning fluid quite violently, which resulted in my face and head being drenched.

Luckily, a coworker was nearby.

Dead Acorn: AAAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!!!!

Coworker: Sup, dude?

Dead Acorn: AAAAAGGGHHH!!! MY EYES!!! MY EYES!!!!

Coworker (clueing in to the situation, and picking up the
broken bottle): Hmm. Let’s see … directions … ingredients … oh, here we go: Mild Eye Irritant. In case of contact with eyes, flush for 15 minutes.

Dead Acorn: AAAAGGGHHH IT BURNS IT BURNS IT BURNS!!!!!!!

Coworker: I don’t know what flushing for 15 minutes will do, but okay. (walking toward bathroom)

Dead Acorn: I think it means flush my eyes, Jim. My eyes.

Coworker: We have to stick your head in a toilet for 15 minutes? Dude …

Dead Acorn (sighing): Just lead me to the sink, please. I’ll take care of it.

So I’ve spent the last little while with my head under the faucet, trying to wash out the hydrochloric acid that I assume they put in that stuff. I’m also wearing my hat at my desk, as that is my primary method of hair management. I’m fairly certain that no one would blame me if I went down to The Flying Pie for a slice and a beer for lunch.

I wonder if they have discounts for the blind.

Another Butchered Post

2010-11-02T10:14:00.000-07:00

In this life, you have to be ready to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves. You know, that business about it only knocking once, and all that. You can hope and fantasize all you want about finding yourself in the perfect situation where something you immensely desire presents itself, where you have a chance to really do something you’ve dreamt of forever, but if you aren’t ready to pull the trigger when that moment is upon you, then just what, really, are you even living for?

Luckily, I was prepared when I found myself over the weekend in a situation for which I’ve been waiting over 6 years. It concerns the hell-hound. I’ve never told anyone this, out of fear of being ratted out by one of my so-called “friends” to her, but I’ve been carrying a meat cleaver around for a long time, harboring hope that she would eventually let her guard down for just a split second and give me just the slightest chance to end her reign of terror.

That time came on Sunday, as we sat in ~~our~~ my living room; she on the couch growling menacingly (as always), and I on the chair next to her, fearing for my life (as always). I’m not exactly sure what distracted her – perhaps a squirrel she caught a glimpse of in the yard, maybe an unfamiliar demonic voice inside her head – but I saw her furrow her brow in what seemed like a bit of confusion, and for the briefest of moments, she took her eyes off of me.

I didn’t even think. Had I hesitated even in the slightest, I’m sure the outcome of the next few seconds would have been far different. I reached behind me and grabbed the handle of the knife ever-so-smoothly, ninja-like, as I’d practiced in my mind countless times, and brought it down upon her neck as swiftly as a guillotine’s blade, ending at long last her cruel, brutal dominance over my entire existence:

Above: The lack of blood only reinforced my belief that she was not of this earth, but a beast from the bowels of hell.

The sad look in her eyes in the picture, at her end, gives me faith that, as she took her last breaths, she regained some part of whatever soul she once had, and somehow felt gratitude for being freed from satan’s shackles. It was as if, while shuffling off her mortal coil, she became once again just a simple puppy, longing only to chase rabbits, romp with the other dogs, and maybe get a little belly-scratching once in a while.

Shoulda thought of that earlier.

Note to my younger readers: That’s not a real knife; she just likes to dress up on Halloween. So dry your eyes, little ones, for the demon dog remains alive and well, my antagonist for many more years, I’m quite sure.

The Ocean Doesn't Want Me Today

2010-10-28T07:46:00.001-07:00

The little weekend getaway to Oregon ended up a success. Of course, by “success,” I mean “no one died.” That’s not to say that the effort wasn’t made.

I certainly won’t bore you with the mundane details of the trip; suffice it to say that there was beer and bourbon involved, both of which were contributing factors in the decision to walk down to the beach during a break in the storm (“a break in the storm” in this instance means “the rain was actually falling toward the ground rather than traveling horizontally”).

I’m fairly certain that Pat didn’t drink too much more than anyone else, so I’m really not sure what caused him to think he could wade to Japan, but for some reason, he started out toward the waves, which led to this scene (click to enlarge):

Above: I could have made it, if it weren't for that meddling Dead Acorn.

(Note: Due to my position as a high-security top-secret gubmint double-naught spy, I’ve chosen to obscure my face in the pictures – my head doesn’t really look like that.)

You can get a feel of how rough the ocean was in the next shot, but you should also note that Pat was still wearing his pajamas mid-afternoon (though just barely at this particular moment):

Above: We all had different ideas about what constituted appropriate attire for the conditions of the day. I obviously prefer fashion over function.

I should mention, at this point, that Pat is a professor of chemistry at The Ohio State University, which really underscores the independence of intelligence (in the academic sense) and everyday common sense. (Pat also coached the swim team for a short period, but was removed from that position after 3 athletes drowned in their first meet, despite the fact that they were wearing waterwings.)

Above: C'mon, big fella ... there's beer back at the house.

I've asked the other guys, and why, yes, we are available for rent!

And The Dish Ran Away With The Spoon

2010-10-22T11:46:00.000-07:00

I think I’ve identified a major source of the angst that fills my every waking moment:

Dinnerware.

I’ll use that term to include flatware as well, so I’ll ask any pedantic kitchen-knowledgy type of readers to let my lack of distinction between the two slide. (Oh, and by the way, if there really are any readers like that – Phil Hartman’s “The Anal-Retentive Chef” was a comedy sketch, not a real cooking show. Sorry to have to be the one to tell you.)

My current “set” of dinnerware comprises bits and pieces of no less than 15 distinct lines, gathered over decades, with such a variety of colors, shapes, and patterns, that compared to it, the U.N. General Assembly looks about as diverse as a cocktail party in the Hamptons. It includes dishes from my childhood, silverware from the Idaho State University dining hall, a silver serving spoon from a certain not-to-be-named royal family in Western Europe (if the Duchess reads this blog, I’m screwed) … it really is a trainwreck (if, you know, trains were made out of a whole bunch of different styles of dinnerware).

“How charming!” you might be thinking. “How delightfully eclectic!” Well, no. It sucks. Try to imagine the ulcer-inducing uncertainty that comes with each meal: the fear of grabbing the spoon that’s too circular and therefore not suited for Cheerio-scooping that gnaws at me in the hours before breakfast … the knowledge that the plates with raised and textured borders make eating a simple green salad nearly impossible ... I mean, sweet fluted flatware! You try meal planning under that kind of stress! Still think it’s charming? No? Not so keen on the Dead Acorn dining plan anymore?

I thought not.

But that’s the world in which I live. And it’s certainly a relief to finally recognize the underlying cause of my anxieties, and know that salvation can be had with merely a drive to Pier 1, or Cost Plus, or wherever it is that people go to buy that stuff (I’d probably have to enroll at Boise State to gain access to their cafeteria). Corelle, Oneida, Royal Daulton … it doesn’t matter to me, just as long as I finally have some consistency, some continuity, as I sup my way through this life.

Waking up to a different cereal bowl every day* can really wear on you.

* Totally not a metaphor, but if it was, it would certainly rise to my historical level of metaphoric atrociousness.

Where's The Beach?

2010-10-19T10:04:00.000-07:00

I’m heading off on a bit of a vacation this weekend, traveling over to the ~~rainy and dreary~~ beautiful Oregon coast to visit a few friends that I haven’t seen in quite a while. We’ve rented a house for a couple of days – just 5-6 buds surfin’ the giants, like we used to do when we ruled the beach down at Big Sur.

Ok, I think maybe Steve has surfed one time - we’ll probably just drink beer.

There was a lengthy discussion in our email exchanges as to whether we were going to bring wives/girlfriends, a topic which I was never really asked to chime in on, like they just assumed that it was a moot point with me, as I, in all likelihood, would have neither at the time of the trip. I mean, yeah, it turned out to be a pretty good assumption, but still, way to drive it home that I’m all alone in this world, assholes.

I've discovered that our destination is a bit farther down the street than I had guessed. I fired up the ole Google Maps to check the distance, and was shocked to find that I’m looking at about 560 miles (9 hours by their estimation – probably a bit optimistic for the Zuke Of Earl, but in the ballpark, I’m sure). My original plan of getting on the road at noon and arriving in the mid-afternoon may need revising.

I was more than a little flattered at their prediction of cycling time (Google Maps now does bike routes as well!). Two days flat – I mean, I ride to work every once in a while, and used to race a little back when I was but a lad, but assuming riding 12 hours a day, that comes out to … let’s see … carry the 2 … just over 23 miles an hour (37 km/h). I’m not sure that I’m up to the task, to be honest. I mean, sure, Eddy Merckx did 30.7 miles in one hour, but his bike was a little lighter than mine, and he was riding at high altitude.

Above: I AM riding from about 2500' elevation down to sea level ... maybe they're taking into account that it's mostly just coasting. (click to enlarge)

Teh Google also provides alternate routes. The time difference for the extra 33 miles in the second route is 3 hours, which seems a bit inconsistent with their initial estimate of my physical prowess, unless they’re calculating that extra distance at the end of the ride. After a 2 day full-on sprint, well, yes, I probably would lose a little oomph there at the end.

I think I’ll go ahead and drive – I don’t need to prove anything to anybody by riding. Google thinks I’m in fine shape, and that’s better than having some stupid girlfriend around making fun of my beer belly.

And A Little Rain, Never Hurt No One

2010-10-18T12:53:00.000-07:00

Well, the little jaunt into the woods on Friday was relatively without incident. No bears, no wolves, no satyrs playing pan pipes as the moon shone through an eerie fog. I did ride the seven miles down to the Dirty Shame Saloon to watch a bit of the ballgame, a ride during which I was reminded that it’s somewhat important to eat during the day, and that nothing but a belly full of beer combined with a little physical activity can lead to lightheadedness and near-crashes.

The Dirty Shame was as charming as ever, and Jenny the Bartender was delightful (I’m afraid Nadine is history – my troth is now pledged to the beer-servin’ beauty of Crouch, Idaho). Unfortunately, her enchanting presence captivated me for an inning or two longer than I had planned to stay, and the ride back to camp in the dark on the narrow, windy, unpainted road filled with people driving home from the bar on a Friday night was somewhat nerve-wracking. (What more do I have to do to prove myself worthy of your affections, Jenny? What?)

That was pretty much it, excitement-wise. Some time later, after one of the best garlic burgers evah, a couple of succulent ears o’ corn, and ~~an eternity staring into the glowing embers of what was left of the fire, reminiscing of loves long lost~~ poking a stick into the fire for a bit, I stumbled into the tent to stare up at the stars. As is always the case, even a night as close to perfect as Friday was can be made better if you get the opportunity to gain a little new knowledge, and after several hours of deep sleep, I was thrilled to learn that the rain fly is likely far more effective when it isn’t shoved down by your feet in the tent when the skies open up.

Heaven, I tell you.

Doing The Write Thing

2010-10-14T07:31:00.000-07:00

According to a number of writers, it’s good practice (more of a requirement, actually) to force yourself to write every day, whether you have something to say or not. I’m not so sure that that’s a healthy approach for someone who posts stuff on a blog, stuff that is generally (at least loosely) related to happenings in their day-to-day life. Sitting and staring at the flashing orange cursor (I type this stuff on a TRS-80 with an 11” monochrome screen – sort of the digital analogue of an author who will only write on a 1943 Royal typewriter) might only serve to force into consciousness the until-now-repressed recognition that your life is pretty goddamned boring.

On the other hand, one might find one’s self typing the words “digital analogue” where one would otherwise not, so if one has a very low bar for defining "accomplishment", that’s a win.

I realized yesterday that I haven’t gone camping this summer (there may have been an early spring trip, but yeah, right, like I’m supposed to remember that far back), due to traveling on most weekends (a practice which has recently become unnecessary). Maybe a trek into the woods will result in a story or two to relate involving an ax murder or stumbling into a fire or getting into a heated argument with a bear over macroeconomic policy or some such thing.

Beats doing nothing, I guess. And anyway, I feel I owe my reader a bit of self-damaging buffoonery, and damnit, I intend to pay that debt. Wish me luck!

I Believe I'll Try Being A Vegetarian

2010-10-07T11:42:00.000-07:00

As I’m usually one to be completely into the cultural thingy du jour, I’ve been more than a little distraught lately that I haven’t fully immersed myself into the whole vampire phenomenon. I mean, I haven’t even decided whether to go Team Edward or Team Jacob yet. And the glitter just keeps falling off … is there some sort of glue or shellac that I’m supposed to use? You can imagine the pressure I feel, knowing that people often look to me as an example of what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable behavior in today’s society.

The best I could come up with is to go give blood (free snacks!), which I did yesterday. (I can’t believe I wrote that whole first paragraph just to get to the point of me going to give blood.)

Down at the local Red ~~Crescent~~ Cross, I went through the whole screening process, after which the nurse led me to the bleeding area. It's very relaxing, with nice comfy beds set up, and small TVs playing to distract you from the fact that you’re doing something that’s entirely diametrical to your normal instincts of remaining 1) pain-free, and 2) alive.

So the nurse was setting up the barbed spikes and whatnot, and I was trying to relax, when I noticed that the TV program was addressing the topic of eating penises (penii?)!

Seriously.

It was some PBS show that explores exotic dishes from around the world, and that episode dealt with varying aspects of preparing and consuming penii (I’m going with that) from a number of different animals and the challenges that each poses. There were several enthusiastic diners, and a host who seemed very knowledgeable about such things as texture and cooking times and temperatures. It was a very professional production, which I'm sure required a large staff.*

The nurse picked up on the audio after a few minutes, and suggested that perhaps we change it. “It’s better than the surgery program you had on last time I was here,” I said. Still, she called out another nurse and asked if she could find something else to watch. The channel-changing nurse said something about maybe putting ESPN on, but then looked over at someone who appeared to be in a position of authority, and said “we’d better not … we got in trouble last time.”

She finally turned the station. And what was the grand compromise between watching Cliff Lee of the Texas Rangers pitch a gem against Tampa Bay on the opening day of baseball's post-season and learning how to best prepare and serve Hippopotamus penis**? An Animal Planet take-off of MythBusters, during which I learned that earwigs do not really crawl into your ear and bore into your brain, where they lay eggs, before continuing across and exiting via the other ear.

Or so they claim. I trust Animal Planet about as much as I do Fox News … the duct tape stays on my ears at night.

* Like I'm NOT going to make that joke - you know I have all the maturity of a 14-year-old.
** Sautéed, served with snow peas over rice. Best with chianti.

My New Nemesis

2010-10-06T08:53:00.000-07:00

Even a chucklehead like me isn’t so naïve as to think that the Trilateral Commission that runs the googletubez isn’t collecting all kinds of personal information based on the online activies of users. Certainly the targeted ads on the various websites I visit indicate that they know all about the goats and the fruit-juicers and the fur-lined bear traps (note to self: clear cache/delete cookies more often). But this email I received really shook me:

Above: They’re apparently able to smell cigarettes and stale beer through this blog. (Click to enlarge.)

I realize that you are a barstools connoisseur :)

That’s pretty spot on, and, to be honest, something of an understatement. “My god,” I thought. “What else does Susan realize about me? Has she the prodigious insight to peer into one’s soul after reading but a few rambling paragraphs?”

As disconcerting as those thoughts were, I was able to calm down after a bit, and I started trying to think through the situation rationally. I realize that she didn’t know everything about me; otherwise, I’d already be dead. No, she wants something from me, and it’s not just opinion/feedback on their bar stools. That’s how a less critical reader might interpret that question – as a request for my opinion about their restaurant furnishings. But someone such as myself, with vast experience reading subtle hints and come-ons into seemingly innocent statements from strange women, sees it for what it really is: an invitation to meet with her and discuss things, over drinks, while on their bar stools.

I’m not sure what I’ll do. She’s clearly dangerous – the use of both “barstools” and “bar stools” indicates some sort of psychosis – but I can’t deny that I’m intrigued. So Nadine (I’m certain that “Susan” is an alias – it’s too early in the game for that level of honesty) – if you read this, know that I’m aware that you’re out there, watching. I won’t visit your website (I can only imagine what kinds of horrors might be unleashed by clicking your link), but you … interest me, lets say.

The ball, as they say, is afoot.

Indeed It Does, Francine ... Indeed It Does.

2010-10-05T08:11:00.000-07:00

I showed up at work WAY too early this morning … somewhere in the neighborhood of 6:00 am (this has been happening far too often as of late, due to my employer seemingly having forgotten that my boss retired 6 months ago, and that an appropriate response to that would be to find someone to replace him, as I’m still only actually being paid to do one job). Anyway, I had forgotten my key to the outer door, and my little swipe-card-magnetic-secret-door-opener thingy was in my desk, doing absolutely no good at all.

I waited around a few minutes, certain that someone a little more prepared than me would come along directly, and sure enough, Francine from Finance came strolling up the walk. I haven’t really spoken to Francine all that much, but she’s always seemed very nice – a sweet little grey-haired grandmotherly type, in her 60s, that kind of thing.

Dead Acorn: Good morning, Francine … I’m afraid it’s a little early for my brain this morning … I’ve forgotten my keys, and I’ve left my badge upstairs.

Francine (pausing for a few moments): Sucks to be you.

The smile that I halfway expected, letting me know she meant it in jest, did not come. She did let me in, eventually, but believe you me, sister, I’ll not be forgetting my key again anytime soon.

Through The Past, Eye-Assaultingly Brightly

2010-09-30T08:25:00.000-07:00

Saying goodbye can be extremely difficult, especially when you know that it’s forever, and it’s to something that’s been in your life for so long that you don’t really have a sense of living without it.

But such times are inevitable; try as we might to pretend that things can last for all eternity, there comes a day when we must face facts and accept that all things are fleeting on the grand stage, and try to carry on with naught but the memories of them that we hold so dear, treasure more valuable than any earthly holding.

Such a day was yesterday. I had let the laundry duties slip a bit, and had become perilously close to not having a clean Hawaiian shirt to wear. Wanting to avoid a fashion crisis, I did several loads, and was preparing to restock my closet – I had a huge stack of bright colors and complex patterns, my favorite clothes hangers polished up and waiting to serve, a frosty cold tallboy, and maybe just the slightest bit of sinful pride, knowing that I was the best dressed guy in the room (Indy, while certainly stunning in her purple collar, does not technically count as a "guy").

And so I began, happily whistling “Aloha `Oe” as I untangled and smoothed each shirt, making sure the sleeves were all right-side out and the collars all creased just so.

It was at about the third shirt that I noticed the first tear … just a small rip, where the fabric around a button had worn thin. I thought nothing of it, at first … but then I noticed some fraying around the shoulder seam on the next one, and on the arm on the next. Panic welled inside of me as I realized just how few of my beloved Hawaiian shirts were nothing more than tattered rags, long past the point where even the homeless shelter would welcome them.

How could I have not seen this? Was I so blind to what had been before my very eyes, so deaf to the words of well-meaning others*, that I literally could not perceive the decay that had taken place? Am I clinging so vigorously to the past, a past likely constructed out of whole cloth and bearing little resemblance to reality, that I’ve kept myself surrounded with ancient relics to support my delusions? Are these decades-old shirts simply serving to prop up this façade, this self-deception, this refusal to let go?

Probably not … it’s more likely that I’m just not very observant about the state of my crappy clothes. That, and the fact that my relatively high level of laziness has kept me from going to all the work of throwing them away.

But on with the purge! Even tossing half of my wardrobe will still leave me with enough to go a couple of weeks without wearing the same shirt twice, and who knows? Maybe this endeavor will lead to a general life cleansing in which I shed all sorts of things I’ve been dragging around for all these years.

(No, P*77 & N*88, the Colnago isn’t going anywhere.)

* Believe it or not, I've had more than one significant other make less-than-flattering comments about my fashion sense. Crazy, I know!

Chain Of Fools

2010-09-24T08:01:00.000-07:00

This is just plain weird.

I wheeled my bike out of the house last night to head over to band camp, climbed aboard, and began pedaling furiously, as I was a bit late (when you’ve hired a string quartet to back you on your latest tear-jerking love ballad, every minute counts). Imagine the confusion I felt, then, when there were no corresponding changes in my visual field, as is usually the case when I am traveling forward.

“Well, Dead Acorn,” you might be saying, “those mountain bikes are geared extremely low for climbing steep grades. Perhaps you were in your 20-36 configuration, and it just seemed like you weren’t moving.” That’s a plausible explanation, especially given my tendency toward exaggeration in these posts, but last night, I was literally making no progress whatsoever. It felt somewhat like being on a date.

After about 10 minutes of spinning in place, I finally looked down, only to discover that my chain was gone. Well then! That certainly explained my lack of propulsion! Mystery solved!

While most people would be satisfied at this point, having discovered the source of the problem, I was not, for I am not most people, and my curiosity led me to ask another question: What the fuck happened to my chain?

There aren’t all that many possibilities. Chains do break from time to time as one is riding, but that’s something that the rider generally notices, as pedaling immediately becomes effortless, the bike begins to slow down, and there’s occasionally a crash involved (or at least an unfortunate interaction between sensitive body and bicycle parts). Unless it broke as I was coasting across my front yard at the end of my last ride home, I’m pretty sure I would have been aware of it (and yes, I’ve checked the yard - it’s not there).

The only other explanation is that someone entered my house and deliberately removed it. But why? Some sort of fetish, perhaps? If that was the case, why would they leave the other six bikes in the house chained? I must assume that it’s not just a case of run-of-the-mill theft, because the Monet that hangs just above where the bike rests was left untouched.

I suppose it could be a practical joke, and while not entirely without a dash of cleverness, the folks I know of the practical joking persuasion tend more toward coming up with them and giggling about how funny they would be while drinking at the pub, not actually following through and pulling them off. (If, by chance, it was a practical joke, then well played, fellas/fellasses! Ummm … can I have my chain back, now? Please?)

I guess it’s just one more thing in life about which I’ll wonder from time to time. I’m not going to go on some epic quest for the missing links (ha!), certainly, and with any luck, it’ll take my mind off of trying to solve the Collatz conjecture for a while. I swear, I've lost more sleep over that ...

No More Anchovy Pizza Before Bed

2010-09-22T09:22:00.000-07:00

I had a terrible dream last night in which this blog played no small role. I’m still trembling a little.

I don’t harbor any secret dreams of becoming an actual writer; nevertheless, I do enjoy taking a few minutes now and again to scribble down some thoughts, ~~especially while I’m at work, being compensated by the taxpayer,~~ in the comfort of my home as evening settles in, to post out here on the teh googletubez. While I certainly don't have any particular schedule I try to adhere to, for some reason, I get a bit anxious as the “most recent post” indicator on the blogrolls that link to me (which is quite humbling, by the way) creeps up through “3 days ago” to “4 days ago” until finally the dreaded “1 week ago” appears.

Whatever the reasons underlying my odd anxiety, I realize that the dreaming mind can do some strange things with just the slightest bit of stress, so the occurrence of my recent nightmare didn't really surprise me. Still, the bizarre nature of it had me a bit shaken.

I dreamt that I received a phone call from a number that I didn't recognize. I often let such calls go to voicemail, as just as often as not, it’s a telemarketer or an officer of the court attempting to serve a subpoena. As Fate would have it, I chose to answer …

Dead Acorn: Hello?

Faintly Familiar But Unplaceable Voice: Is this The Dead Acorn?

DA: Why, yes! Yes it is!

FFBUV: The Dead Acorn who “writes” on an eponymous “blog”?

(note: in dreams, I can actually see the quotation marks around words sarcastically spoken by unseen characters. It's kinda weird.)

DA: That’s me! Who’s this?

FFBUV: This is Mrs. McGillicuddy.

DA: umm … Mrs. McGillicuddy, my high school composition teacher?

Mrs. McGillicuddy: That is correct.

DA: It’s, umm, nice to talk to you, I guess … can … can I help you with something?

Mrs. McGillicuddy: You cannot. In fact, it is the damage you have done and continue to do that necessitates this call. Your incoherent ramblings have come to the attention of the school board here, and they have deemed the atrocities committed each and every time you put ~~pen to paper~~ pixels to screen to be unforgivable, and in an effort to dissociate themselves from your “work,” they have summarily fired me.
(note: text strikeouts work just like quotation marks in my dreams.)

DA: Gee, Mrs. McGillicuddy, I’m sorry, but high school was over 25 yea …

Mrs. McGillicuddy: And as I too am unwilling to let persist even the slightest perception that my tutelage has contributed in any way to the unspeakable crimes against language that you sporadically commit, I have amended your grade, which has resulted in a revocation of your diploma.

DA: But … but … I already went to college, and even graduate school!

Mrs. McGillicuddy: Oh, trust me, they’ve been notified, as has your employer. All are in agreement; the former have revoked your degrees, and the latter has asked me to inform you that your “services” are no longer needed. Thanks to your “blog,” Dead Acorn, you have nothing left in life.

At this point, I sat up, drenched in sweat and gasping for air. There were a few moments of continued panic as I struggled to gain some sense of where I was, and then relief began to wash over me as I saw, in the dim moonlight streaming through the window, the familiar surroundings of my bedroom.

I got out of bed and walked to the kitchen for a drink of water to calm myself before trying to go back to sleep. It was on my return that I noticed my phone blinking … I had a new voicemail, from a number I didn’t recognize. I was unable to stifle the whimper that emerged from my throat, and I stared at the phone for what seemed like hours. “It was just a dream,” I told myself. “A dream, and that’s all.” Finally, I picked it up, and deleted the message without listening to it. I walked slowly back to bed.

“What was that, sweetie? I thought I heard something that sounded like a cry.” Mrs. McGillicuddy rolled over and softly stroked my cheek. “Nothing, Mrs. McGillicuddy … I guess I just don’t feel too good …” I replied. “’Well,’ sugar … you don’t feel too ‘well’. Remember that without the proper use of language, life means nothing.”

[UPDATE:] Several readers have emailed and asked that I not blog while so obviously hammered on cheap vodka. Umm, yeah ... I think that's doable. My sincere apologies.

Sh*t Gonna Get Crazy Now

2010-09-13T13:43:00.000-07:00

I’m a fairly boring person, as is evidenced by my eating habits during the noon meal. Approximately four out of the five “work” days, I heat up a can of Progresso soup (low-sodium because my “doctor” says it will keep my blood pressure down).

Dead Acorn: But doc, since both my systolic and diastolic numbers are high, doesn’t that mean my ratio of good:bad blood pressure is okay?

Doctor: Well, that’s cholesterol, which reminds me ... A) your numbers on those are too high, too, and 2) you’re an idiot.

Dead Acorn: I’m not the one who had to go to some off-shore medical school.

Doctor: Doing an internship in infectious diseases in a developing nation after graduating from Harvard is not generally considered going to an “off-shore medical school.”

Dead Acorn: Whatever. I want a second opinion.

Doctor: Fine, but every physician in town will agree that you’re an idiot.

Anyway, I usually buy a bunch of cans of soup at one time and keep them in my desk drawer, and I generally only eat three kinds: Chicken and Wild Rice, Chicken Noodle, and Chicken Gumbo. I usually stock up more on the first two flavors, as they are more conservative in flavor, while the Chicken Gumbo is a bit spicy (dare I say bold?), which is somewhat antithetical to my rather pedestrian approach to midday sustenance. Nevertheless, I do maintain a small cache of the Gumbo just for those days when I feel like "coloring outside the lines," so to speak, just a little (I think I get this tendency from my Great Aunt Selina, who, every few months, goes on a whisky bender and talks some naïve college freshmen into driving her to Vegas, unfailingly landing in jail (though almost as unfailingly talking her way out of it) … we’re pretty much kindred spirits, she and I (but in spirit only; I don't regularly seduce college freshmen)).

Today was such a day, and to my surprise, there was nary a can of Gumbo to be found. Six cans of Wild Rice, four cans of Noodle, but nothing to sate my yearning for the 1 1/4 alarm heat that only Progresso can provide.

This, of course, got me thinking. I hadn’t altered my shopping list at all – I still bought the same ratio of the three flavors, which for years, has perfectly met my needs and desires – on most days, something safe and comfortable, but every once in a while, something just a little zany and dangerous. So if my buying habits hadn’t changed, the premature depletion of Gumbo could mean only one thing: my lunch, and, by extension, my life, is venturing more and more often into the wilder realms. I must be, without realizing it, bustin’ out of this cocoon of familiarity in which I've entrenched myself … throwing away this security blanket to which I cling … finally removing the safety harness I’ve been wearing my whole life, and goddamn it, walking the wire free of inhibitions, and to the devil with timidity.

Next up: switching to Crest Gel toothpaste, and having a beer in a bar south of State Street. Crazy talk, I know, and I'd be lying if I said I'm not scared. But watch out, world … there’s a new shooter holding the dice.

Lesson Up, You ...

2010-09-09T13:49:00.000-07:00

It occurred to me that rather than simply dirty up the googletubez with incomprehensible drivel as I usually do, at the very least, I could try to impart some wisdom, or, since it seems rather unlikely that actual "wisdom" will be found here, perhaps just some useful information. You know, maybe tell a story with a moral, à la Aesop’s Fables (though I would imagine that for my reader, a more appropriate reference would be to Fractured Fairy Tales).

So without further ado:

Once upon a time, there was a boy who lived all alone, except for a big stupid dog. He had gotten the dog from a place where people take bad dogs so that the bad-dog-place people can clean them up and make them look cute in a picture and tell unsuspecting other people that the dogs are only one year old and are really, really good and will never eat your whole pizza when you step outside for just a minute to talk on the phone.

The dog always wanted to be in the boy’s way, and would do things like walk in front of him in order to trip him, and breathe into his face from two inches away when he would lay on the couch.

She could be a very annoying dog.

One day, the boy was doing laundry, and was trying to pull the blankets off of the bed so that he could wash them. The dog, sensing an opportunity to be annoying, jumped up and laid down right in the middle of the bed. “Get up!” said the boy to the dog. “GET. THE. F*CK. UP!” But the dog continued to lay there, all 350 lbs of her nestled down atop the blanket.

Finally, after several minutes of pulling as hard as he could on the blanket and imploring the dog to move, the dog, with all the impeccable timing of Jack Benny, leapt into the air, causing the boy to slam himself in the stomach with both of his fists and knock the wind out of himself. As the boy writhed on the ground, clutching his belly in pain and gasping for breath, the dog looked at him as if to say "hey, I was just doing exactly what you asked!" and walked away laughing hysterically.

The Moral: Don’t get a goddamned passive-aggressive dog who thinks she’s all funny and shit.

There. I hope you've learned something.

Bringing Down The Oligarchy? I'll Drink To That!

2010-08-31T13:50:00.000-07:00

I went for some lunch yesterday at a nearby fast-food establishment and, while filling up my drink, noticed something that was both sad and somewhat disturbing.

The soft drink industry has had some legendary rivalries: Coke vs. Pepsi and Sprite vs. 7-Up are probably the most well known of these (I happen to be a fan of Royal Crown Cola and Fresca, as most contrarians are), but my favorite war is that which has been waged between Dr. Pepper and Mr. Pibb.

This epic battle of the beverages is, in a sense, symbolic of the class war with which our nation has always struggled. The elitist pretension of the educated, born into favor, against the blue-collar honest pragmatism of the working class. And for decades, the two have squared off against one another, neither able to land that knockout blow; a microcosm of our very society.

Until now.

As I approached the soda dispensary counter, I instinctively reached for the Mr. Pibb lever, as it’s without question the ideal complement to the Burrito Mexicano (con pollo e frijol negro). I was stunned when it registered in my consciousness that I was pouring not Mr. Pibb, but ... Pibb Xtra.

Pibb fucking Xtra. Whisky. Tango. Foxtrot.

I can only assume that the Coca-Cola company is trying to rebrand its product and tap into the youth market, what with their Gen-X and X Games and all things X. (Luckily, the movie industry had the foresight to change the “X” rating to “NC-17,” otherwise, all these kids might be watching pornography! Crisis averted! *whew*)

My first reaction to seeing the letters “XTRA” was that it was an ~~abbreviation~~ acronym for “Xylophones Totally ROCK! Awesome!” - a reaction perhaps unanticipated by the marketing department. I think that the Coca Cola company may want to run a few more focus groups before making a potentially bankrupting decision such as this. They clearly haven’t learned anything from the “New Coke” disaster of the 1980s.

But beyond the lame attempt at being all hep with the youngstas, what really hit me was that Mr. Pibb seems to have given up, and in essence, has said “yes … yes, you ARE better than me, Doctor. I admit it.” But you know what? For all we know, “Dr.” Pepper may have gotten that degree off of the back of Rolling Stone magazine, or worse yet, from some “university” in the Midwest run by Jesuits. It’s certainly not a medical degree – I wouldn’t trust “Dr.” Pepper to clip my nails.

So I don’t know what to do. Maybe this battle is lost, but the struggle for class equality goes on. You’ll be missed, Mr. Pibb, but your fight won’t be forgotten. In fact, the ranks of the upper-class elites have already been infiltrated by a clandestine agent.

Godspeed, Dr. Shasta. The workers of the world are with you.

I'm Pretty Sure It Happened EXACTLY Like This ...

2010-08-30T14:01:00.000-07:00

Something happened today during a lunchtime shopping excursion that happens less and less often these days (and by “less and less often”, I mean that “this is the first time it's happened EVAH”): a beautiful young woman asked for my phone number. “But Dead Acorn,” you might be saying (in which case those nearby may be concerned about your mental health, given such a bizarre utterance, so it might be to your advantage to merely think it). “You were buying a new cell phone and she needed it to access your account and activate your new SIM card.”

While technically, that’s true, still ... you weren’t there to see the slight twitch of her lips as she fought to suppress a shy smile and just the faintest hint of a blush creep into her elegant cheeks. (Ok, I guess if you were in the store, then you were there to see those things … improbable, granted, but if that’s the case, you can verify these things in comments.)

Though our romance was destined to be short-lived, Monique taught me so many things about life that I didn’t know before – where the water-damage detector was, how to transfer saved text messages from my phone to the memory chip – it was if she was looking into my soul and could divine what I needed to hear.

She literally promised me whatever I wanted:

Dead Acorn: So this camera has 1.3 megapixels and this one has 2.0 … will I notice a big difference?

Monique: Whatever.

She told me that whatever choice I made, the world would still be ours, and things would always stay fresh:

Dead Acorn: So I can get to the World Wide Web with this phone?

Monique: duh … yeah, that and every other phone made in the last 5 years. Douche.

But in the end, we both knew that the powers that be would never let us be together, even though she acknowledged that I had crept into her heart:

Dead Acorn: Hey, will you call me real quick so that I’ll know what the ring tone sounds like?

Monique: ummm … I’m pretty sure that’s against store policy. Creep.

As I left, I told her that while I genuinely felt something for her that I had never felt before, something so real and so strong that it might be necessary to stop and imbibe a dram or three of spirits before returning to work just to calm my now-racing heart, that my heart did, in fact, belong to another, and that our yearnings and desires were destined to remain unfulfilled. She seemed a bit taken aback by that, as she was shaking slightly, and seemed somehow ... frightened, for lack of a better word … frightened, no doubt, by the weighty burden of loneliness that, at that moment, she knew she would be shrouded in for the rest of her life.

Monique … sweet, precious Monique … do your heart a favor, and forget about me. Throw away my number ... erase me from your memory ... I’m no good for you, damnit! You’ll find someone someday, and you'll experience the joy and happiness that you so deserve …

… and maybe, just maybe, in a peaceful sleep on a crisp fall morning many years from now, as the morning light washes your face, you’ll see me standing in the shadows of some sweet dream, and you’ll once again show that shy wisp of a smile.

Where's The Consumer Protection Agency When You Need Them?

2010-08-23T15:32:00.000-07:00

It’s probably not illegal, but it is without doubt both immoral and unethical. I speak, of course, of the nefarious business practice of rendering obsolete time-tested and perfectly acceptable products by adding superfluous bells and whistles, forcing consumers to pay for something they neither want, nor need, nor will ever use.

This is nothing new in our greed-driven world by any means. On the contrary – I remember, as a young boy, listening to great-great-grandpa Festus ramble on about the introduction of “safety switches” on rifles. “Consarn it!” great-great-grandpa Festus would cry out, shaking his trembling fist. “If I wanted something that didn’t go ‘bang’ when I pulled the trigger, I’da got me a Winchester!” (Great-great-grandpa Festus was a notoriously devoted Smith & Wesson man.) “When them durn revenooers come around, or god forbid, Ethel catches me takin’ up with the widow Muldoon again, and some new-fangled switchy thing gets me killed or landed down to the jail, I’m-a gonna …”

Great-great-grandpa Festus was over 110 years old at that time in my life, and he never really got further than that without falling asleep. I’m not comfortable speculating on what he would have done in either of the aforementioned situations, had he been unable to discharge his weapon.

Microsoft has long done the same thing with their operating systems (please don’t belittle me for my Windows-based habit … I assume that, since you’re technically savvy enough to navigate the intertubez, you’re either on a Mac or running Linux). There was absolutely nothing wrong with Windows 3.11 (Workgroup For Windows), and even those who found it a bit unfriendly could install Microsoft Bob to make any computing experience as joyful as hugging a newborn kitten.

But just you try calling Tech Support and asking for help for it now … some 17-year-old wet-behind-the-ears greenhorn will claim he knows nothing of a product by that name and will suggest that you spend your money on a new product that has a bunch of "features" you don’t need, like being able to run two programs at once. Seriously, WTF?

My current dilemma has to do with razor blades. I’ve been a Gillette Atra user for years. It’s a simple dual-blade cartridge, and it works perfectly fine. Don’t get me wrong - I’ve got no problem with Schick customers; I’m not trying to start a flame war in comments here. It just happens to be what I started with, and I’m happy with it. The issue is that replacement blades are getting harder and harder to find, and I fear that the manufacturer is purposefully underproducing them to force me to upgrade to whatever seven-fucking-blade system is the douchebag accessory du jour.

Before my older readers call me out as a hypocrite and wax poetic about the days of single solo blades with no lubrication strip that only cost a quarter, let me state that I am fully aware of the history of the razor industry. I know they had a single blade, and I know they were cheap, so don’t accuse me of being a solo-cost denier.* But that’s how they work – they bring in entry-level users with their slick ads for the latest’n’greatest cutting edge technology, and in doing so … this is the truly evil aspect of it … create an army of new hepcat users who belittle us oldsters by shaming us for not being “with it,” thereby minimizing the effect of our righteous and well-founded outrage.

I’ll see you in hell, Gillette. I'll be the one who hasn't shaved in a while.

[UPDATE:] I've thought about it a little more, and I guess I kind of see an advantage of a bunch of blades. It's certainly not a closer shave (... the 19th blade pulls the whisker even FURTHER out ... yeah, right ...), but the blade would be so wide that you could do your whole face with just a quarter-inch stroke.** Being an extremely lazy person, I'll say that if they added a beer holder, I'm in.

*That’s poorly set up and truly horrible even by my extremely low standards, and I hope you’ll have the kindness in your hearts to one day forgive me.
** Go to town with the quarter-inch stroke jokes. This is not the Center For The Refinement Of Humor's website.

A Day Weekend In The Life

2010-08-20T09:02:00.000-07:00

While this blog exists explicitly for the purpose of chronicling my quixotic pursuit of the lovely-and-not-seen-since-2nd-grade Daisy Ann Spinnamaker (it’s in my mission statement), lulls in my progress in that grand effort occasionally necessitate me jotting down some of the things that are happening in the shorter term.

I’m certainly not deserving of such an alignment-of-the-planets type of weekend, but sweet onion chutney, here’s what’s in the queue:

The Tour de Fat (tomorrow) – a crazy-ass day of bike stuff, starting with a parade of hundreds of seriously-not-quite-right people dressed up riding bizarre bicycles, followed by music, food, and general debauchery.

John Prine (tomorrow night) – an evening with The Live Acorn listening to a legendary songwriter. She’s currently in a “my dad has really good taste in music” phase (as opposed to the “can I change this?” phase of a year ago) and is really excited for the concert (hearing her sing the Iris Dement part of “In Spite Of Ourselves,” in which she states of her male counterpart that “he ain’t got laid in a month of Sundays, I caught him once, and he was sniffin’ my undies” is, well … odd, let’s say).

The Western Idaho State Fair (starts tonight) – pygmy goats, Pronto Pups, tube tops, and more blue eye shadow than you can shake a stick at. Imagine if Picasso hung out with rednecks during his blue period.

Purty Girl coming in from out of town (tonight) – She’s purty. And a girl.

And best of all – tomorrow is National Spumoni Day.

mmMMMmmmmm ~~pygmy goats~~ spumoni …

Kids Today ...

2010-08-17T14:15:00.000-07:00

We’ve come so far as a society with regard to caring for our children and providing for them a safe environment in which to grow up. You may hear someone from an older generation bemoan the fact that, for example, more kids wear bike helmets these days, as if safety precautions are somehow robbing them of a crucial element of childhood, but I think that the worry that we have as parents, as long as it isn’t taken to neurotic extremes, is generally a not-unhealthy thing. Had it occurred to someone 35 years ago that letting children ride in the rearward-facing back seat of a station wagon for 400 miles with the window down and exhaust fumes being sucked in might not be the best thing ever, well, maybe I’d be able to grasp such concepts as imaginary numbers, proper usage of who/whom, and the icing rule.

So given the current culture of (perhaps over) protecting our kids, what the hell kind of parents would let a 15-year-old girl go off to San Francisco unsupervised for a week with three of her friends? My god, do we not even have Social Services anymore?

Well, though it perhaps puts off the “Parents Of The Year” award for the EMDAMOTLA* and me for a while, The Live Acorn has been out and about in the City By The Bay since last Wednesday. I asked very nicely if she would be sure to call or at least text me twice a day just so that I could sleep at night, and that went well for the first couple of days. Since then, our phone conversations have tapered off and can be summarized thusly:

Dad, I have a blister on my finger that’s surrounded by a red ring and it’s swelling up. The internet says I’ve been bitten by a brown recluse.

And

Dad, I dyed my hair.

The spider conversation was fairly amusing … listening to a teen-aged girl trying to be nonchalant as she’s asking what actually happens in cases of necrotic arachnidism and if she’s going to die is a bit comical. As for the hair … well, she described her new color as “auburn,” which I assume means that she looks something like Milla Jojovich in The 5th Element.

I did buy her a journal before she left and asked that she write some thoughts and notes about the goings-on of each day. It’s not like she does anything I ask anyway, but with any luck, we’ll have our first Guest Blogger EVAH here within the week, regaling us with ~~sordid tales of the dark underbelly of The Golden Gate City~~ stories about how she was asleep by 9:30 every night.

Like I really want to know.

* Ex-Mrs.-Dead-Acorn-Mother-Of-The-Live-Acorn

Drunk Post, Part I

2010-08-15T19:39:00.001-07:00

Okay, I might be a little tipsy at this point. But I rented "The Bucket List," which is a movie.

By "movie," in this case, I mean (this is my opinion only, and I'm writing this now for the express purpose of seeing if my opinion changes) some goddamned excuse to make money by pairing Nicholson and Freeman together in a feel-good ... well, movie. I'd probably have some other way of stating that using the word "cinematic,", except, you know, I'm a little tipsy.

So I'm going to watch it, because I want to see if it actually turns out that there's some message about doing things while you're alive and having those goals as such, rather than thinking about things you want to do before you die. To me, those are really different questions. I assume that the movie will turn out that way, because, well, Hollywood people do that kind of thing well, and are smarter than me.

Me go watch. Me write later if not durnk.

[UPDATE:] Oh for hellz sake did THAT suck. I'm sorry I wasted 2 hours of my life, but I'm REALLY sorry that I ever even thought about posting about this, and I apologize whole-heartedly to my reader.

Can We Run The Video, Sal?

2010-08-13T15:06:00.000-07:00

I’ve often written about my roomie here … the goofy dog with whom I share Casa de Acorn. To date, though, it’s been just that … simply writing (well, and the occasional photo). To truly appreciate just what a burden it is to try and coexist with her, though, really requires seeing her in her full live Indiocity. Since she’s not allowed to leave the country, however (it has to do with a failed, if ambitious, international diamond smuggling caper … the gag order prevents me from saying more than that), I’ve taken a little video of her so that my readers in the Congo can get a better idea of what I go through, day in and day out.

Above: She’s just not quite … right …

Let me point out a couple of things.

First, notice that she almost took off after I said “O.” I’ve lectured her time and time again on the dangers of making assumptions about what people are going to say, and trust me, it was a fluke that she stopped. Or maybe I was stepping on her tail. But for all she knew, I was going to say “O…..klahoma where the wind comes sweeping down the plain …” (I often burst out into musical numbers while shuffling about the house).

Second, it’s clear that I DID say “OK,” despite the brief inter-syllabic pause. The fact that she had forgotten the “O” part by the time I said “K” indicates to me that she has an attention span of less than a second. My god, there can’t be much more than rudimentary brain stem activity going on in that skull. I think that “breathe,” “eat,” and “literally bite the hand that feeds me” are about the extent of her functions. Not being able to avoid plowing into me upon her return is certainly evidence that there's not a lot of neural activity dedicated to motor skills.

Luckily, she’s got her undeniable beauty to get her through life.

Above: The Paris Hilton of the canine set.

I ask not for your pity, but perhaps now, when you see me sobbing softly in the corner of the pub, tears falling one-by-one from my cheek into my beer, you'll have a slightly greater sense of the world in which I reside.