ON PETS AND THEIR OWNERS

They say that, after a while, pets and their owners tend to resemble one another.

What sort of pet would a Russian general own?  Here ya go:


General Elisson (my great-great-great grandpappy, perhaps) and Commandant Woofer.

The resemblance is uncanny... even unto the Van Dyke.  Or is that the foamy sigil of madness?

[Tip o’ th’ Elisson fedora to Barry R. for the unforgettable juxtaposition.] 

FIVE YEARS AGO TODAY...

...Elder Daughter and I embarked on a most wonderful Father-Daughter Bonding Experience: a ten-day trip to Japan. It was unforgettable.


Lanterns at Asakusa.


Fuji-san, as seen from the ropeway between Togendai and Owakudani.

Would I go back again? In a New York minute, I would. And I would love for She Who Must Be Obeyed to have the experience.

IT’S NOT THAT EASY BREATHING GREEN

Ahhh, Atlanta in the springtime.

There’s no prettier place.  Cherry blossoms, azaleas, dogwoods all festoon the verdant hills. But it’s anything but paradise for allergy sufferers.

Six days ago, the pollen count in Atlanta was a mere 5.  Today it is - count it! - 8024, driven mostly by huge amounts of tree pollen.  Keep in mind that anything above 1500 is considered to be “Extremely High.”  As ridiculous as this number is, it’s not any kind of a record: Last year, the pollen count on March 20 was 9367.  Holy crapoley!

Green dust encrusts everything.  Houses, cars, roads all bear a thin coating of pernicious, powdery pollen.  The stuff hangs in the air like a miasma.  A few minutes ago, driving along Roswell Road, we drove through what appeared to be an entire fogbank of Tree-Spooge.  Yeef.


Pollen covers the SWMBOmobile like talcum on a baby’s ass.

Kermit the Frog once said that “it’s not that easy being green.”  As much a pain in the ass it may be to spend each day the color of the leaves, though, it’s a whole lot worse having to breathe green.

Stephen King oughta come visit.  This has “The Next Great Horror Novel” written all over it... at least, before a line of violent storms moves in this evening to flush it away.

Now, where da Zyrtec at?

NA PO WRI MO, DAY 11: GREEN FOG

Green Fog

Green fog comes
on little frog feet

It sits on our cars
and in our lungs
until a cleansing rain
washes it away.

BYE, ’BOU

No more ’Bou to love, alas. The local Caribou Coffee is on its way out, giving the Evil Mermaid free rein in the immediate neighborhood. Just damn!

The mood was uncharacteristically glum this morning as the Minyan Boyz piled into the local Caribou Coffee outlet for our post-davening breakfast.

We had gotten the word already through the Social Media Matrix, but the printed paper signs plastered to the windows made it official: this coming Sunday would be the last day Caribou would operate the place.  Eventually, thanks to the miracle of corporate buying and selling, it will be reincarnated as a Peet’s Coffee shop... but until then, it will stand mute, defunct.

The baristas were melancholy, as befits people who have just received their walking papers.  The next days would be filled with happy, jovial activities: updating résumés, arranging interviews, checking the classifieds (Does anyone still look for jobs in the classifieds anymore?), and wondering how to pay next month’s rent.  I do not envy them...

...and yet, we will miss them.  We’ll miss the place, too, with its high vaulted ceilings and wooden tables, but it’s the people that made the place special, far more than the caffeinated delights they doled out.  They would always manage a smile, even when the drive-thru line was packed and things got more than a little frantic.  They knew us well enough to have our orders ready within seconds of our walking in the door - often without even having to ask.  (“Hot cereal, no sugar, no salt, with a half-side of craisins, golden raisins, and almonds; mug of coffee, half light and half dark roast, with room.”)  And if our services ran overlong owing to some calendrically driven quirk of the liturgy, they’d notice when we showed up late.

As I was moved to observe when I had a kidney stone some ten years ago, this, too, shall pass.  Things change, and given sufficient time, everything changes... and the things we love (or like) eventually go away.  But we are not obligated to be happy about it.

NA PO WRI MO, DAY 10: ASH

Ash

In the grey ash
Of Popocatepetl
I saw a single
Red rose pepetl

[Originally posted here.]

THE CHEESE AISLE DICTIONARY, Vol. 16

Yet more stuff that should be in the dictionary but isn’t.

Long-time readers of my previous site may recall the Blog d’Elisson Dictionary, installments of which may be found in that site’s Archives.  For other entries in the Cheese Aisle Dictionary, simply click on the sidebar link for Cheese-Dic.

And now, the Word of the Day:

Facedooking [feis-du-king] (n) - Utilizing social media while simultaneously engaged in the act of defecation.

“Oh. My. Gawd!  Did I just see you taking your iPhone into the bathroom with you?  Were you Facedooking?  You totally were, weren’t you?  Did you post your status as ‘dropping the kids off at the pool’?  I think I’m gonna hurl!”

MORE BAGELLY ADVENTURES

Dead Sea Salt and Montreal Steak bagels, fresh out of the oven. [Click to embiggen.]

In the normal course of events, I try not to consume too much in the way of breadstuffs in general and bagels in particular.  Nevertheless, I cranked out a batch of home-baked bagels yesterday... as requested by the Mistress of Sarcasm.  How could I say no to my baby?

Sure, it’s more work than simply cruising over to the Local Bagel and Smoked Fish Emporium, but where else are you gonna get flavors like Dead Sea Salt, Montreal Steak, and Black & White Sesame?

Hot out of the oven and slathered with sweet butter, or bedecked with a few thin slices of smoked salmon, these bad boys were All That. Now: what’s for lunch?

NA PO WRI MO, DAY 9: THE LONG DRIVE HOME

The Long Drive Home

She stacks her luggage by the door,
a staging area.  Soon it will be crammed into
the trunk, the back seat, every available cranny
as she prepares to embark on the long drive home.

A thousand miles separates us,
save for those brief - all too brief - visits
when her laughter lifts us up
out of our everyday cares and routines.

Then comes the tearful farewell,
the ’til-we-meet-again, the embraces, the
wave of the hand as the car pulls away,
the birth pang ever renewed thirty years on.

Godspeed, child.

And don’t forget to wear your galoshes.

NA PO WRI MO, DAY 8: SUSTENANCE

sustenance

on a languid sunday afternoon
the wife and i took a stroll down by the river
there we espied a woodpecker perched high aloft a nearby tree
his presence announced by the staccato tap-tap-tapping of his beak
as he searched for morsels
his head hammering against the hollow bark

how like a human, i thought –
bashing his brains out
in the constant search for sustenance

DORA: A 100-WORD STORY

Dora had traveled extensively in her younger days, but eventually she settled down.

After acing her ESL course, she was graduated from high school with top honors, no doubt helped by her stupendous knowledge of geography. But four years of college helped turn her interests in a different direction: toward the world of medicine.

An ace with a scalpel, she naturally drifted into a specialty in surgical oncology. If there was a tumor, she could find and extirpate it. Her cure rates were astonishing; hospitals the world over sang her praises.

Nobody could do exploratory surgery like Dora the Explorer.

NA PO WRI MO, DAY 7: CHICKEN AND EGG

Chicken and Egg

In Hebrew they say Oaf for “chicken,”
And Oeuf is the French word for “egg.”
I know you may think I am kiddin’,
But no, I’m not pullin’ your leg.

And that makes me think of a riddle,
A conundrum to vex the Ein-Sof*.
Though they both might end up on a griddle,
Which one came first: the Oeuf or the Oaf?

*Ein-Sof (“Without End”) is one of many Hebrew expressions used to refer to the Eternal One.

NA PO WRI MO, DAY 6: GLIDE

Glide

I wish I had some Astroglide
So I could squeeze my Double-Wide
Into that little parking space
About six inches ’neath your waist

NA PO WRI MO, DAY 5: GLASS WASTELAND

Glass Wasteland

It seems, these days, when one turns on the Tube,
Of decent Programs there is quite a Dearth.
Budweiser Clydesdales!  Janet Jackson’s boob!
And ev’ry horny Bachelor on Earth.

“Unscripted” Shows grow ever more inane,
And those with Scripts, they also are but Shite. 
I tell thee, ’tis enough to cook one’s Brain,
And listen to the Radio just for spite.

The Glass Teat on which we suck, ’tis dry and sere:
There’s nought but Ads for Autos and for Beer.

[Tip o’ th’ Elisson fedora to the ever-irascible, ever-talented Harlan Ellison (no relation), who titled his collections of his television criticism The Glass Teat and The Other Glass Teat.]

LOCAL COLOR

The Missus and I always enjoy it when one or both of our usually Remotely Located Daughters comes to visit.  This time it’s the Mistress of Sarcasm who has been gracing us with her presence as she prepares to spend a weekend in Savannah attending a wedding.

It’s a good time to be here in north Georgia.  The cherry trees are blossoming...




...and that means that the dogwoods and azaleas cannot be far behind.  Pinks, purples, reds, and whites.  Nice.

The trees are not the only thing that’s colorful, though.  Lookee:


Macarons - delicate French cookies from Alon’s Bakery. The intensity of the colors is matched by the intensity of the flavors... and that blue one (black currant) was a total knockout.

These jewel-like French macarons bear little or no resemblance to the familiar coconut macaroon that is a mainstay of the Passover dessert table... and yet you could certainly make a pesahdik version if you wished, since the outer shell is mainly egg whites, almond flour, and sugar.  [That was not an issue in any event, since the holiday was over.]

We saw these little fellows over at Alon’s Bakery and Market, where we had gone to have lunch the other day.  It was mainly the blue one that caught my attention.  How often do you ever see blue food - except for those damnable semi-frozen slush drinks that taste vaguely of raspberry and that stain the tongue a horrible cyanotic blue-purple?  Was this little macaron Windex-flavored?  No: It was black currant... and it was intensely flavored without being cloying.  I could have eaten a dozen of those little sumbitches, but they were expensive (and calorific) enough to warrant some degree of restraint.

There was more colorful food yet to come, though.  The Mistress had developed a jones for one of her favorite light supper dishes, a Carrot Apple Ginger soup made according to a recipe she had found at Joy the Baker.  This soup hits all the right flavor notes: The mild earthy sweetness of the carrots is complemented by a bit of apple and given a jolt of warmth by a substantial dose of fresh ginger.  It’s substantial, yet not overly rich... and that bright color is especially appealing on a grey day in early Spring.


Carrot Apple Ginger Soup, one of the Mistress of Sarcasm’s favorites. I can see why.

The Mistress will, alas, have to head back north in a few days.  Perhaps she can take some of our local color with her.

NA PO WRI MO, DAY 4: A LOVE POEM

A Love Poem, Only Mildly Scatological, With Embedded Link

The Missus observed, as we sat down to our meat
That my poetic output with Romance ain’t replete.
Not so! quoth I, and searched all through the files
That reside on my devices in a myriad of piles,
Only to come up empty.  No hearts and flowers,
Just poems about excretion, and flatulence in showers.

* * * Eleven score of poems bedeck my site,
Oft-times I think of doody when I write.
And yet, amidst the poems of poop and piss,
Somehow, I’m proud to say I salvaged this:
A song of love, writ to my Valentine.
Romantic?  Yes, indeed - and it’s all mine.

NA PO WRI MO, DAY 3: ROLE MODEL

[Yes, it’s National Poetry Writing Month.  Have you written a poem today?]



Role Model

Monkey see and monkey do
Monkey pelt you with his poo
Monkey not care who he screw
I wish to be a Monkey too

No Man can take the Monkey’s measure
For Monkey is a man of leisure
In jungle Monkey takes his pleasure
His throbbing Organ is his treasure

Monkey not have sharpest wit
He argue just by throwing shit
Thus demonstrating that he’s fit
’Midst human brethren for to sit.

NA PO WRI MO, DAY 2: A PASSOVER VALEDICTORY

A Passover Valedictory

A truth I have discovered after years of observation
Of the Paschal Season rituals of the Israelitish nation:
Eight days of eschewing breadstuffs, save, that is, for matzah
Is quite sufficient to tie your kishkes up in knots-a.

[Today is the final day of Passover 5773.  Tonight: Chinese food!]

NA PO WRI MO, DAY 1: SLIMMERICK

[April is National Poetry Writing Month: Na Po Wri Mo, for abbreviation enthusiasts.  The challenge: Write and post at least one poem a day.  Anyone?  Anyone?  Bueller?  Janeen is doing it - why not you?]

Slimmerick

Frederick desired to become a slimmer Rick.
He accomplished his goal by resorting to a simple trick:
By paying careful attention to the food that he ate,
And paying a trainer to instruct him in the art of lifting weight,
He eventually lost a few pounds, equivalent to a cinder block-style brick,
And in case you haven’t noticed, this poem in no way resembles a limerick.

MEET THE NEW BOSS (SAME AS THE OLD BOSS): A 100-WORD TALE OF ECCLESIASTICAL SUCCESSION

[I originally published this little piece on April 20, 2005, the day after Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope by the Conclave of Cardinals at the Vatican, at which time he selected the Papal name Benedict XVI.  Given the recent accession of Pope Francis, I thought it would be fun to carve away a bit of the verbiage and convert it into a 100-word story.  Enjoy.]

Mob enforcer Tony “Eggs” Benedict settled himself upon the park bench, the slats groaning from his 325-pound bulk. He took one last draw on his Camel and flipped the butt to the ground, where it smoldered.

“Haddaya like that?” Tony said to himself. “They pick a German Pope, and he goes and names himself after me!”

Later, in the gloom of the confessional, he was disappointed to find that his newly-shared Papal Name swung no weight with Father Rindisi.

Whackin’ a guy still got you 200 Hail Marys, with 50 Our Fathers thrown in if Father R. was feeling pissy.