I'm reading all kinds of things about how to deal with hangovers. And things about Uber peak pricing. About things that happen to drunks during NYE (also known as Amateur Night) and I'm all, "Talk to the hand."
I did none of that.
Rather, I received one of the most touching phone calls of my life. It was very nice.
An old friend called. A person who never does call. Not a feels-type person at all. Not one bit.
He recalled in some detail NYE parties we co-hosted decades ago. My role was basically caterer, even though I new nothing at all about any of that except for what I knew by what I was exposed to. What I saw around me, and my own naturally occurring abilly-tahs. We did pull it off. My little house was packed. It was a good party house due to its circularity. The kitchen could be blocked off by both sides with access to the basement. It created a natural circle around all the rooms. Three bedrooms and two full bath. A very large solarium that used to be a full back porch. Opened to the actual roof so the tallest room in the house. The whole place was packed. Shoulder to shoulder, each NYE, for several years in a row.
It became a thing.
People still talk about it.
They'd come no matter the weather. It could be sub zero and ice all over the roads, and people would still show up.
His role was stock my basement with alcohol. When Mum and Dad visited later they both were shocked at the fully stocked bar upstairs. but that was only a fraction of it. Mum shrieked and imagined me alcoholic. She made a huge fuss with my father. I made a mental note not to allow them to see the basement where all the half gallons were stored. There was always a lot left over to carry over for the next year. We never ran out. Never even ran low. It was a full on bar. Guests ranged in the hundreds, coming and going.
It became a standard thing.
We'd see the same people each year. In some cases only that one day each year. So I couldn't actually call them all friends.
So I'm burned out on NYE. It is a rather stupid holiday. And all talk about it means nothing to me. Amateurs.
The individual calling is some 20 years my senior. He was a bit emotional about recalling all that. I enjoyed our conversation tremendously but I was more interested in talking about what is happening right now. The things that I'm learning about plants and garden design. My experiments that I'm doing right now. This very moment.
He had several questions about cheesecake specifically, about food generally, and about plants. He said he just now showed a photo of blue morning glories that resemble the unattainable cartoonish polyanthus propellers to a whole bunch of people. He had questions about hydroponics, aeroponics, and terrace gardens.
He mentioned the rumaki I made back then for NYE parties. (part of a 4 hot / 4 cold hothor d'oeuvres system that I used) I told him of an obnoxious vegetarian I know apart from all that. The most obnoxious vegetarian of all. Nothing like the other vegetarians we both know. He'd turn his nose at someone else's bacon breakfast. He goes, "eeeew" when a waitress passes a plate with meat on it near him. He fusses about people putting a hamburger on his vegetarian grill. Then after years of that obnoxious nonsense I was passing a tray of rumaki around at a party and he snatched one in passing and popped it in his mouth.
NO RUMAKI FOR YOU!
I protested. He ignored my protestations and popped another in his mouth and gulped it down with a devilish smirk.
YOU SONOFABITCH
I SAID, NO RUMAKI FOR YOU!!111!111
He popped another rumaki in his mouth. He ate six or ten rumakis right there and said, "Eh, rules are made to be broken." As he scarfed bacon-wrapped chicken liver bits saturated in brown sugar with water chestnut crunch.
"You have NO credibility. None. From hereon your sayings mean nothing. Nothing at all. Your most fierce positions on anything at all, especially political, doubly especially anything social, are nothing but nonsense. 100% malleable and fungible."
These were the things my old friend cared to recall. I think he was having an introspective moment of reassessment. He wasn't out drinking either.
My older brother called too.He never does call either. Very odd, both of those things. I told him, how very doubly odd you were just now in a dream, no more that five minutes ago. He just received a bread making machine for Christmas and had questions about sourdough. I discoursed the effort. Why? Because sourdough is more difficult than regular bread, far more trouble, far less forgiving than commercial yeast. It takes too much time, too much patience and some degree of technique that bread machines disallow. Although there are work-arounds for near-sourdough experience that mostly have to do with disregarding the utility of the machine.
(The fact of the machine runs counter to the facts of sourdough culture maintenance)
He instructed me to call my aunt.
Why?
"Because she just now told me nobody ever calls. So I'm telling you all to call her."
He is instructing all of us.
I hate being bossed around. But I hate worse not listening to my older brother. For some reason I want him to be well chuffed with me and I don't know why. I just do. I actually care more about him being pleased with me than I ever did care about my dad being pleased with me. It's psychologically weird but it is so. I'm also well pleased the previous senior person is finally coming around to expressing some degree of humanity. I think he's sensing himself getting old. That must be it.
7 comments:
Where's the Kaboom? There's supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!
A picture wut I dun for you.
I'm reading all kinds of things about how to deal with hangovers. And things about Uber peak pricing. About things that happen to drunks during NYE (also known as Amateur Night) and I'm all, "Talk to the hand."
I did none of that.
Rather, I received one of the most touching phone calls of my life. It was very nice.
An old friend called. A person who never does call. Not a feels-type person at all. Not one bit.
He recalled in some detail NYE parties we co-hosted decades ago. My role was basically caterer, even though I new nothing at all about any of that except for what I knew by what I was exposed to. What I saw around me, and my own naturally occurring abilly-tahs. We did pull it off. My little house was packed. It was a good party house due to its circularity. The kitchen could be blocked off by both sides with access to the basement. It created a natural circle around all the rooms. Three bedrooms and two full bath. A very large solarium that used to be a full back porch. Opened to the actual roof so the tallest room in the house. The whole place was packed. Shoulder to shoulder, each NYE, for several years in a row.
It became a thing.
People still talk about it.
They'd come no matter the weather. It could be sub zero and ice all over the roads, and people would still show up.
His role was stock my basement with alcohol. When Mum and Dad visited later they both were shocked at the fully stocked bar upstairs. but that was only a fraction of it. Mum shrieked and imagined me alcoholic. She made a huge fuss with my father. I made a mental note not to allow them to see the basement where all the half gallons were stored. There was always a lot left over to carry over for the next year. We never ran out. Never even ran low. It was a full on bar. Guests ranged in the hundreds, coming and going.
It became a standard thing.
We'd see the same people each year. In some cases only that one day each year. So I couldn't actually call them all friends.
So I'm burned out on NYE. It is a rather stupid holiday. And all talk about it means nothing to me. Amateurs.
The individual calling is some 20 years my senior. He was a bit emotional about recalling all that. I enjoyed our conversation tremendously but I was more interested in talking about what is happening right now. The things that I'm learning about plants and garden design. My experiments that I'm doing right now. This very moment.
Oops. Too long again.
He had several questions about cheesecake specifically, about food generally, and about plants. He said he just now showed a photo of blue morning glories that resemble the unattainable cartoonish polyanthus propellers to a whole bunch of people. He had questions about hydroponics, aeroponics, and terrace gardens.
He mentioned the rumaki I made back then for NYE parties. (part of a 4 hot / 4 cold hothor d'oeuvres system that I used) I told him of an obnoxious vegetarian I know apart from all that. The most obnoxious vegetarian of all. Nothing like the other vegetarians we both know. He'd turn his nose at someone else's bacon breakfast. He goes, "eeeew" when a waitress passes a plate with meat on it near him. He fusses about people putting a hamburger on his vegetarian grill. Then after years of that obnoxious nonsense I was passing a tray of rumaki around at a party and he snatched one in passing and popped it in his mouth.
NO RUMAKI FOR YOU!
I protested. He ignored my protestations and popped another in his mouth and gulped it down with a devilish smirk.
YOU SONOFABITCH
I SAID, NO RUMAKI FOR YOU!!111!111
He popped another rumaki in his mouth. He ate six or ten rumakis right there and said, "Eh, rules are made to be broken." As he scarfed bacon-wrapped chicken liver bits saturated in brown sugar with water chestnut crunch.
"You have NO credibility. None. From hereon your sayings mean nothing. Nothing at all. Your most fierce positions on anything at all, especially political, doubly especially anything social, are nothing but nonsense. 100% malleable and fungible."
These were the things my old friend cared to recall. I think he was having an introspective moment of reassessment. He wasn't out drinking either.
My older brother called too.He never does call either. Very odd, both of those things. I told him, how very doubly odd you were just now in a dream, no more that five minutes ago. He just received a bread making machine for Christmas and had questions about sourdough. I discoursed the effort. Why? Because sourdough is more difficult than regular bread, far more trouble, far less forgiving than commercial yeast. It takes too much time, too much patience and some degree of technique that bread machines disallow. Although there are work-arounds for near-sourdough experience that mostly have to do with disregarding the utility of the machine.
(The fact of the machine runs counter to the facts of sourdough culture maintenance)
He instructed me to call my aunt.
Why?
"Because she just now told me nobody ever calls. So I'm telling you all to call her."
He is instructing all of us.
I hate being bossed around. But I hate worse not listening to my older brother. For some reason I want him to be well chuffed with me and I don't know why. I just do. I actually care more about him being pleased with me than I ever did care about my dad being pleased with me. It's psychologically weird but it is so. I'm also well pleased the previous senior person is finally coming around to expressing some degree of humanity. I think he's sensing himself getting old. That must be it.
That's because April, as you can plainly see, Marvin forgot to strap on his Illudium Pu-36 Explosive Space Modulator.
I used to post to a blog, before they were called blogs, administered by a big Marvin the Martian fan.
No Illudium Pu-36 Explosive Space Modulator?!?
You've made Marvin very very angry.
|-)
Great comment Chip.
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