Commercialization & clarification

February 15, & the annual "it's so commercial -- I didn't do anything, you don't mind, do you?" festival has ended.

Certainly the holiday is overly commercialized, & doubtless just another way for florists, stationers, & chocolate-makers to increase their bank balances.  But the best time to propose skipping that routine is after someone has spent two or three hours, on a busted foot, no sleep, & no coffee, stumbling around various neighborhood joints to find cards for you, your parents, & her own parent that are (a) affectionate but not revoltingly soppy, (b) suited to the recipient, & (c) in English (in this neighborhood, the third is by far the toughest).  Even better, suggest it a few weeks after also providing that someone with a high-priced shopping list of suggested presents, including, but not limited to, Skyrim: The Elder Scrolls V, the only appeal of which is that it might possibly decrease the amount of time you spend slouched in your chair playing World of Warcraft, although it should still serve nicely as an excuse for you to avoid any boring, necessary jobs that you've agreed to take on at home.

Suspicions confirmed

I work at night, in midtown Manhattan.  Consequently, engineer -- who works days in New Jersey & commutes by car, thus having more shopping options -- agreed to buy flashlights, batteries, & if possible a battery-operated lantern yesterday, since a massive hurricane is en route.  A nice manly sort of errand, I thought, & one I couldn't run, my office building having plenty of law firms but no hardware stores at all, let alone any open all night.

Why should I be surprised to find out that engineer failed to do so?  "I went to Home Depot.  They were sold out." Well, what about the hardware store?  The Army-Navy store?  "Oh.  No."  You went to one store?  "Yes.  And they were sold out."  So you didn't go anywhere else to get emergency lighting?  And then the wail, "But I triiiiiied ... ."

I recall hearing in some past life -- pre-engineer, anyhow, or I'd never have believed it -- that men by nature persist, they problem-solve, they act.  This proves what I've suspected for ages:  World of Warcrap & similar video fantasies make testicles atrophy.  (Yes, of course he had time & energy enough last night for a few hours of gaming.)

While I suppose I shall have to grow a pair (no wonder I had a horrid nightmare in which I looked down to find that I'd developed chest hair) & go in search of flashlights during the day (after working the equivalent of six days in four, with about 12 or 13 hours sleep total since Monday, I did have other plans), this household owns exactly one working flashlight, mine: the small LED miner's light that I use to read at night, or when the compact fluorescent crudbulbs don't provide enough light.  I laid in a stock of batteries for it a couple of months back, too.

So if the New Masculinity (the sort that causes engineers to believe women should get all moist & grateful because, you know, they triiiiiied) means mission not accomplished ... surely the New Femininity means I don't have to share.  How very tempting.

Festina lente

The poodle is sixteen.  She is fading out too fast now; every day something more disappears: hearing, strength, eyesight, awareness, & even her fur on her sides & lower back (due to Cushing's, which an idiot vet assured me two years ago that she didn't have -- surprise, another vet this year finally recognized it as an atypical type that the standard blood test didn't catch, & wasn't it too bad they hadn't treated it back then when she was stronger: yes, now tell your partner in the practice, not me).  She gets an array of pills every day, like any other old lady; & like any other old lady, half of them deal with the side effects of the others, & none of them can be stopped, & still they are not enough.

Real simplemindedness

From Real Simple's advice on at-home vacations:

"Make staying hydrated a beautiful thing.  Take a cue from Rancho La Puerta, in Tecate, Mexico: Fill your prettiest pitchers with ice water and slices of lemon, orange, or cucumber.  Place them (each with a glass) at various strategic points around the house and in a shady spot outside.  Then, as you go about your day, stop often to take a long, cool, flavorful pull."

Let's see how that plays out:

Click

The part of a relationship -- with a person, a city, a job, whatever -- that no one admits to longing for is the beginning of the end: the moment when the whole contraption shifts & re-forms itself into something that is mildly annoying, at best, & certainly no longer important.  Listen carefully & you can hear the pieces slide into their new places, & the clicking gets faster & more satisfying, like the end of a puzzle.

Of course some relationships never come to this.  I have never stopped loving any dog, for example, or a few human beings, or certain buildings, or the smell of kerosene.  The click comes with the bad ones, the ones that were a mistake to start with & have become parasitic.

All I was promised & more

Last night, a co-worker gave me three dried bhut jolokia (ghost) peppers, claimed to be the hottest in the world.

I cooked a karela (bitter melon) & tore the tip off one pepper (they are rather leathery) & added it to the pan.   The piece was about the size of my little fingernail; the pepper is hottest up toward the stem, so this should have been (relatively) mild.

That was an hour ago.  I ate the karela strips & the piece of pepper, too.  Delicious.  I've had to put the portable air conditioner on, of course, & if I turn the lights out the combination of internal glow & the hideous grin on my face should make for a sort of jack o' lantern effect.

One little matter, though: note the initials of the bhut jolokia.  Don't.  Not for hours, possibly days.  A kiss on the cheek might be safe after a few hours, but I wouldn't chance it.

Crossplay

On the top of the bookshelves in this room is a volume entitled "Jews in the Japanese Mind"; when I caught sight of it just now, however, I read it as "Jesus as a Japanese Maid."

That should boost church attendance nicely.