HARD-BOILED EGGS

I just boiled the fuck out of nine eggs. I had set them in the pot on the stove and racheted up the burner and then I came in here and got...distracted. Damn computer! Damn internet!

I think--I'm not entirely sure--but I think that I had the eggs in the boiling water for about 15 minutes longer than they should have been in the boiling water. I have the eggs on simmer, now. Kinda like whistling up at the sky and kicking at some dust, I am hoping that my brain-fart will be overlooked and that the eggs will not be ruined. That would be horrific.

I'll check in later with the results.

It's a wild and kah-RAY-zee Saturday night, here, in Adamland. Cooking eggs (badly). I have to beat the paprazzi of with a stick, I tell ya.

DEAR MR. WILLIAM CLAY FORD,

Dear Sir,

I am a long-suffering Detroit Lions fan and, I have to say, I am pleasantly surprised with the Lions' recent success. If you'll allow me the vulgarity, it's about fucking time...Sir.

However, I have an issue with the team that I would hope that you, a savvy businessman, would have the good grace to address. I am dismayed by the fact that a professional football team--one which sells out every damned game--has no cheerleaders. Is it too much to ask, Sir, to plop a team of scantily-clad women, dressed in the beloved Honolulu-blue-and-silver, on the sidelines so that the fans--men and women alike--can goggle and appreciate the beauty and atheletic purity of cartwheels and pantomimed bumps-and-grinds?

I must congratulate you on the omission of the 13-year-olds with batons in recent years--that's just wrong--but I must, again, plead with you to get some T-and-A on the sidelines.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this important matter.

Yours in Sheepdom,

Adam [last name redacted]

HINDENBURGUS: THE DOGGY DISASTER

Simply put, today was a disaster. A canine disaster. Like the Hindenburgus Caninus, but on a smaller scale. Okay. Much smaller. Like two-dog small.

Last night, Louie was asleep on the La-Z-Boy in the computer room. Ollie was sleeping with me. Before I acknowledged the Sandman, I was aware of Oliver bouncing off the bed and trotting out to the kitchen. Before I fell asleep, he was back, nestled at my feet, breathing deeply, an unconscious dog-log. I thought nothing of it--perhaps he wet his whistle?--and succumbed to the night.

I woke blearily this morning and slammed off the Superman alarm clock. After the Morning Porcelain Ritual, I staggered to the kitchen and let the dogs out. As I walked to their food dishes, I was assaulted by the ripe smell of dog feces. "Shit," I said.

Exactly.

A nice smooth soft pile of dog shit lay, in all its Stank glory, about a foot from the empty food bowl. A smaller "tip" of dog excrement lay a few inches away. Shaped like an arrowhead, it pointed to the larger pile. Two seperate piles, one of which seemed an almost-afterthought? [Or forethought?] Oliver! That sumanabit....

Paper towel in hand, I crouched to scoop the interloping fecal matter and, what to my wondering eyes should appear? But a puddle of moisture, 'neath the table, oh dear. Okay. So...to recap. While I slept--or slightly before--Oliver had sprung from the bed to see what was the matter and had said, ah, fuggit, here's good.

I cleaned up the offenses and bid the dogs a good day. I left Oliver, the cute shitting chewer, ensconsced in his small cage and I left the door to Lou's cage slightly ajar. His choice. He could stay in the cage or he could wander about the house as I worked in the dirt.

At work, we did some tractor-trailer training. In the cab of the truck, my nostrils flared at the unwieldy odor of feces. Like the malaise from the morning was trailing me, following me, white gossamer tendrils of Stoonky-Stank adhering to my nose-holes, giving me not a moment's peace. I crinkled my nose. "Damn," I said to Robert, "smells like someone took a dump in here. Jesus." He told me that he had a cold and that he could not smell it. I told him that he was probably lucky. After he had practiced a bit, I got back into the cab and right away I was struck with the smell of manure. And it seemed stronger. I figured someone must have stepped in a pile last night and smeared a bit on the floorboards on accident.

Rob wrinkled his nose the next time he got in the cab. "Yeah, I smell it now," he told me. "Pretty bad." I agreed and sat on an adjacent trailer to watch as he practiced his reverse 90-degree angle alley dock. The smell was insistent. A lightbulb must have shone above my head as I did the obvious thing: I looked at the bottom of my boot. Yup. There it was in all its glory: Poop. It must have been hiding in the tall grass and I must have stepped in it. Laughing to myself and at the alacrity at which I had passed the Shit-On-The-Shoe buck, I scraped it off with a crumpled Gatorade bottle. And the day continued.

I ended up working late. There was a gas meter relocation that ended up being a bit more involved than had previously been thought and so I got back to the shop at 6:30 and back to my home at 7:00. The smell assaulted me as soon as I opened the door. Lou was bouncing around like a maniac and Oliver, the cute shitting chewer, was howling/baying from his crate. Oliver! I thought to myself with Seinfeldian angst, my fist clenched, my mouth a slash. Yes. 'Twas true. Oliver had pooped in his crate and, unfortuantely, had scampered (or slid) about in it, leaving little shit footprints. I was running late to meet my sister at the coney island restaurant, so, with little fanfare, I released Oliver, the cute shitting chewer, and Lou to the Great Outdoors, whereupon they could, ostensibly, empty their bladders and jettison their intestinal fortitiude. While they were outside, I took the foul-smelling floor of the crate down to the washtubs in the basement and--quite literally--scoured the shit outta it. Satisfied, I walked back upstairs and walked towards the computer room to survey my Fantasy stats.

On the way to the room, I noticed/smelled a nice splotch of spit-up in the hallway, on the carpet, next to the kitchen doorway. Louie? I asked myself. What the fuck? Grimacing, I crouched and cleaned the puke out of the carpet.

Nice, I thought, poop in the morning, poop in the afternoon and vomit for a nightcap. And then I got into the computer room.

The smell was heavy. It didn't make sense. Why would the smell be stronger in the computer room, three rooms and a hallway, from the pile of poop? 'Twas nonsensical, 'twas. And then there it was: Another pile of shit. This one was arranged nicely on the corner of the Oriental rug, almost symmetrical to the designs of the floor covering. Louie! The good dog?

It isn't often that one can truly say that they are flabbergasted but, there I was, leaning in to scoop another pile of soft-serve shit, flabbered to the motherfucking gasted. I cleaned up that pile, let the boys in, scooped Oliver up immediately, swept down the basement stairs, with him at arm's length, and lathered the fuck out of him in the aforementioned basement washtubs.

And then I went to eat coney island hot dogs. The stuff on the plate looked suspiciously familiar to...something.

So the final tally: Twenty-four hours, two dogs, one explusion of odor-ific vomit and three piles of soft brown-cream-cheesy dog shit. And one extremely exasperated owner.

[And that's not taking into account the shitpile in which I stepped when I was at work.]

But I learned a good lesson today. I really did. And that lesson is this: If one has slices of corned beef, and one doesn't feel good about eating it oneself--due to the fact that it doesn't smell particularly right--one should not feed said corned beef to the dogs, thinking that they will appreciate the Kindness of Meat. If it smells funny, toss it.

Or suffer the consequences.

NEBULA

that river in

africa that river in

africa that river in

africa

dam it

break the dam

send waters--salt--streaming

down the convexities of my face

that fucking river in africa

that fucking river in africa

denial

break the dam

send waters streaming

--salt--

to the corners of my mouth

i raise a cotton-candy

fist

earth shakes

dam breaks

my fist is melted plastic

dry dusty tawny hides

feline grace

be lion-hearted

fight the sorrow

fuck it

let it come

let the tears purge

let it come

GO FOR FOOD, FIND A MUSE

Hollywood grocery stores seem to me to be fertile ground for blog topics. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the Fall of the Middle-Aged Woman, and, today, from a different location, Hollywood Market came through for me again. It all started because I was being conservation-conscious.....

I had picked up one of those fabric bags from the grocery store down the street from me. You know the kind of bag I'm talking about: Made of canvas, the bag is meant to decrease the use of plastics and papers by being reused every time one goes to the grocery store. I bought it for about two bucks and I'm sure all the little chipmunks and owls thank me for saving their homes. Anyway, I went to the store today to purchase some eggs and some shoelaces, some toilet paper (for pooping) and some shaving cream. I took my green bag with me, and filled it with my soon-to-be-purchases. I felt like I was doing my part for the Earth.

After blearily wandering around the store and sticking to my list--but substituting a chocolate cream pie for the unlocatable shoelaces--I wandered towards the front door, thinking that the ATM was probably located around the entrance.

I heard a sharp whistle from behind me. I ignored it and continued to the Chase ATM in front of me, right next to the entrance. Again, the whistle came and I had the sensation of a large mass of a person quickly closing the distance behind me.

I turned around.

A big man stood there, older, paunchy, with receding reddish-blonde hair slicked back from his forhead. "You can't be doing that with the bag," he said, standing about six inches from me. "You gotta use a cart. Take the items out of the bag and flatten it and use a cart. Or a basket."

His proximity annoyed me. I like my space. "Oh," I said, and stepped back. "I see."

I gathered that he was the Loss Controls Ossifer, or whatever the hell they're called: Big, invading my personal space, sweating Authority. In retrospect, I reckon I might have looked a little nefarious and a little guilty, the way I was walking towards the door with my bag filled with items, looking around, over my shoulder, looking for the ATM. I guess I was sweating Guilt.

"People gotta use baskets," he said, his voice a gravelly mess. [He might have had a cold. Thought and prayers to him and his family.] His eyes were baggy and it looked like he had high blood pressure, all squinty eyes and red florid face.

"I...understand, man. No problem," I said. I set my bag down on the ground, next to a caramel apple display and wandered over to the ATM. "I just had to get some money," I added.

"Or use these," he said, striding bowleggedly over to the baskets near the front door. He grabbed one and walked over towards me. I met him halfway and took the proffered metal handbasket.

"I wasn't going to steal this stuff, you know," I said.

"Yeah, well, we just gotta keep everything under control."

"I...understand, man."

I walked around the bananas and oranges and slid the basket across the floor, where it came to a rest next to my illicit green recyclable bag. That was my nonverbal smack-talk, as if to say, All right, dude. I got your fucking point. Now can I please use the ATM so that I can buy this shit?

Rebel roar.

TEST, TEMPTATION OR A TIGHTROPE?

I was driving home from work today, anticipating the unbridled joy of a three-day weekend. Friday. Fun-day. And, in the past, "Time-to-Crack-the-Unending-Beer" day. This is the phenomenon in which one cracks a cervesca upon opening one's front door on Friday afternoon and not stopping the beverage-fest until around 11:00 on Sunday (or, in this case, Monday) night. Suffice it to say, one feels a bit woozy and sick by the end of the "party." So one cracks a hair of the dog on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and--whee!--we're right back to Friday again. It's a viscious cycle, and it is a cycle that I am pretty happy to have broken. On the 7th of December, I will have not drank a truely alcoholic beverage for 365 days, also known as 8760 hours or 525,600 minutes. Or, for all you Minutians out there, thirty-one-and-a-half million seconds. So, yes, I am glad that I have a lot of clean time behind me.

But I still get cravings. Obviously, I still get cravings. Be it because I am happy or because I am sad or because the day ends in a "Y," I still get cravings. Like today, for instance.

I was driving home and I was listening to the radio and I was feeling pretty good, driving along Woodward Avenue with my arm out the window and I thought to myself just how damn good a beer would taste. And then I realized I needed cigarettes, so I pulled over at a liquor store and went inside. When I was drinking, this store would have been heaven. They carry all kinds of beer: microbrews, imports, domestics...you name it, there's a good chance that they have it. The beer didn't really interest me, though, as I walked past the coolers to the small freezer section and selected a frozen burrito that goes by the name "The Bomb." I walked up to the counter, behind which there were oodles of different types of liquor and I bought my burrito and a pack of smokes and I got my change and I left the pit of snakes.

When I was walking to my car, I noticed a blink of blue out of the corner of my eye. Damn, I said to myself, that looks amazingly like a tall-boy of Labatt Blue. And something seems strange about it.

So I executed a picture-perfect double-take and my suspiscions were confirmed: It was indeed a big ole can of Blue and there was something different about it. It was unopened. I looked up and down the sidewalk. There was no one around. No cars, no pedestrians, just the can o' Blue, unopened and dripping with cold heavenly condensation. I would like to say that I said, "Oh, fiddlesticks," and returned the beer to the man behind the counter with the explantion that someone must have left it outside when they got into there car. That would have been the logical thing to do, sure, but when the hell have I ever been logical? I am an alcoholic in recovery and I have just passed my eleventh month of sobriety. It's not always easy to be black and white about some things. So I pocketed the beer and got in the car and slid it in next to the frozen burrito.

[Let me pause here to say that if that is not a delicious slice of irony--putting a virtual life bomb next to a foodstuff entitled The Bomb--I am not a bald man who wears his pants too high on occasion.]

Bombs in place, I pointed the car towards home.

The drive from that liquor store to my house takes about ten minutes. It seemed much longer. What're you doing, Adam? I asked myself. You're not going to drink that, are you? You've got eleven fucking months, man. Don't be a fool. You know what happens. You know how you get. Do you really want to start all over at the beginning? Will it be worth it?!

Of course it wouldn't be worth it. But.... But, come on, one fucking beer? 22 ounces of water and barley and hops? What the hell could it hurt? I am not a dummy. I knew what it could hurt. It could hurt all the progress that I had going for me and, even if I stopped after drinking that one beer, it would pave the way to future weaknesses. It would--yes! just having that one beer!--it would make it so much easier to rationalize relapse on a later date.

"Then why the hell is that beer in there?" I asked the brown paper bag. "Because you want it," I answered.

And the fulcrum teetered.

I got home and put the burrito in the freezer and lit a cigarette and looked at the can of beer. The angel and the devil were fighting on my shoulders, pointing sharp little fingers at each other from around my bald pate. In the end, the angel won.

I took a picture of the beer, snapped in an ominous light, and I walked the Labatt to the bathroom and cracked the top and--after inhaling deeply of the ambrosic odor--dumped the motherfucker into the toilet. That seemed fitting, to me. I know without a doubt that going down the Drinking Path will only lead me and my life into the toilet. So what more fitting grave could there be for the delightful beverage than a commode?

But--holy catfish!--that was a close one.

OLIVER HASKELL: "WHO? ME??"

So I was in the kitchen, laying out my wallet and cell phone and keys for the bleary-eyed morning, when I heard the rapid light bass of approaching beagle footsteps. I set down my wallet and turned from the counter and reached the doorway just as Oliver was skittering around the stove and into the kitchen.

His tail wagging furiously, Oliver skidded to a stop and simultaneously dropped at my feet the snack-sized bag of M&M's that heretofore had been mocking him from the living room table. With that declaration of his omnipotence, Oliver turned on a dime and trotted back into the front room, whereupon he hopped up onto the chair and curled into a beagle-ball.

The kid is Eddie Haskell. Had I not been in the kitchen, I'm sure that I would have found little brown pieces of an M&M's wrapper scattered about the floor and Oliver would have had chocolate candy chips in his chaw. But I was there. And so Oliver improvised. He shifted plans in mid-skitter and laid the offensive delicacy at my feet, my fearless beagle knight.

[And I'm sure that Lou watched the goings-on from the living room, thinking to himself, Okay. It's been fun. But when does this buzzkill leave?]

FOOD OF THE PAST

I was thinking, today, about some of the food choices I made in my youth. We three kids were brought up on unfailingly healthy and nutritional food, so it's the food that I snuck that I was remembering.

I used to make myself peanut butter-and-butter "sandwiches"...when my mom and dad weren't looking, that is. What I would do is cut off a couple of pats of butter and use those as the "bread" of the sandwich. Then I would take a spoonful of the all-natural (just peanuts and salt) chunky peanut butter and spoon it in between the two slices of butter. Voila! A cholesterol sammich was never better.

I also liked sweets. I still do. But now I have all kinds of money to go to the store and buy Reese's peanut butter cups or Heath bars (to dip in peanut butter) or Three Musketeers, or whatever. Back then (when candy bars were twenty-five cents) I had only my allowance to satiate my sweet tooth. My sisters and I would walk the quarter-mile to Sav-On Drugs and load up the small paper bags with contraband like Coca-Cola and candy bars and Doritos. I was partial to Mallo Cups, too. If you've never had them, they come in a yellow wrapper and they're like whipped coconut cream in a chocolate cup. Just like a Reese's, but with coconut chips. Ambrosia.

I also remember secreting away the Minute Maid frozen concentrates of lemonade and orange juice. I would take a grapefruit spoon (with the serated tip) and I would scrape at the tangy sweetness (um, not that tangy sweetness) until it was melted enough to squeeze out into my mouth. And then there was that container of frozen strawberry pie filling that I, over the course of a month or two, surreptitiously scraped at until all that was left was a sort of frozen sweet red backwash.

Ah...good times.