Unhappy Father's Day

As a parent mom may have been an excellent hairdresser, but she still beats dad bloody- even a failed attempt at that daunting task accrues more respect than headlong, lifelong flight.
So mom got a Mother's Day post that took some soul searching while dad gets two pictures and a question punctuated by a fat middle finger.

First picture, from my baby book, retrieved from the garage after mom died:

An earlier entry notes dad skipped out two days before my fourth birthday.

Ten or so years back I tracked him down on Google & sent a letter which resulted in a highly unsatisfactory reply. There has been no contact since.


The second picture is of Fuss, a few days ago at four years old.

And the (rhetorical) question:
What kind of person reads this blog (yes, he's read it- anyone downplaying the utility of "metadata" consider the vistas revealed by combining a Google analytics traffic report with a search engine savvy friend), sees that child, their grandson, and remains silent.

So, on this day of universal celebration, with everyone shouting their paternal adoration from the rooftops, allow me to launch a stream of contemptuous piss into that brimming punchbowl of bonhomie:

Fuck you, dad, you gutless worm.
You failed at the most important job you ever had and never stopped fleeing from the aftermath, too cowardly to stop and face the disaster your negligence helped create.

Every year Fuss gets the greatest birthday present in the world- I'm not you.

books: the guy who calls back

One of the realities of a used shop is most of the time you're not going to have what someone is after.  People tend to all be looking for the same handful of books at any given time, and since we can't just order more Great Gatsby, or Game of Thrones or whatever from a distributor when we run out it can be frustrating on both sides of the counter.

One thing I tell people is 'call back'.  There are any number of authors & titles that we see fairly often, but also sell consistently.  So it comes in, and then goes back out almost immediately.  People very rarely call back.  And I get why, it's effort, and the internet is right there if they're in a hurry, and if they're not in a hurry they'll probably forget about the book before long.

One such author is Chuck Palahniuk, most famous for David Fincher's adaptation of his novel Fight Club.  He comes in fairly regularly, but sells almost as soon as he hits the shelves.

A while back I had a fellow come in looking for "anything by Chuck Palahniuk!"
I gave him my spiel about calling back, and to my surprise he actually did.  And not just once, he called back more or less weekly for a good while.. 

And now he's the proud owner of Chuck Palahniuk's complete bibliography, collected a volume or two at a time over the course of a couple months.

I bet there's a lesson in there somewhere...

food: Gluten Free Baked Penne

Something I threw together last night because Fuss requested, out of the blue, that we "make Mama a special dinner."  Running a quick mental inventory of the pantry I listed some options and he chose baked pasta.  It turned out so well I'm sharing the recipe.  If you're in a hurry you can use store bought sauce, but this one is dirt simple and aside from chopping a few cloves of garlic doesn't take much longer than opening a jar.  And its flexible- I made a small portion for Fuss with nothing but pasta, sauce & cheese and it turned out fine.  Sub in your own cheeses, meats, veggies (zucchini works well), whaterver.  And if you aren't worried about gluten just make it with regular ol' wheat pasta.

Gluten Free Baked Penne

1 package brown rice penne pasta (I used Trader Joes, which is cheap & good)
1 28oz can crushed tomatoes
3 cloves minced garlic (or to taste)
2tb fresh basil or oregano, chopped, or 3/4 tsp dried.
2tb olive oil, + more for greasing baking dish
1 ball mozzarella, grated
3 oz crumbled gorgonzola
2-3 pre-cooked sausages, sliced thin-ish (used Aidell's Italian chicken sausages- cooking real ones would generate more flavor at the cost of another step and more time)

Preheat oven to 375.
Start boiling the water while you make the sauce- everything ought to be ready for the pan at roughly the same time.

For the sauce:
Mince garlic while heating olive oil in large skillet over medium-low heat.  Fry garlic in oil just short of browning, about a minute.  Dump in crushed tomatoes & increase heat to medium-high, adding a little red wine if you have an open bottle (as I did).  Simmer until thickened, about ten minutes.  Add in chopped herb (I used oregano because that's what I had, basil is also great) & season with salt to taste, cook another minute or two then remove from heat.

When the water boils salt well (a big palm-full) & add pasta.  Brown rice pasta is trickier than wheat pasta- if you overcook it it turns into phlegm.  I cooked it about six minutes, until just underdone, then drained & returned to the pot.  Dump in the completed sauce & mix well.

Grab a baking dish- I used a square 10" Pyrex, which doesn't quite hold everything.  Grease well with olive oil & spoon in a layer of pasta.  Add layer of sausage rounds, cover with mozzarella, sprinkle the crumbled Gorgonzola, then cover with another layer of pasta.  Cover with the rest of the mozzarella, grate on a little fresh Parmesan if you have it handy, and it's ready for the oven.

I like a brown, bubbly top so I bake for 15-20 minutes, until the smell starts filling up the house, then turn the broiler on 'high' and watch it like a hawk- the window between pleasantly browned & blackened to a crisp is a small one.

Remove from oven, let rest on the counter for a few minutes then serve.

Which all sounds more complicated than it is- it's about fifteen minutes of hands on prep, then a wait while it bakes. Super simple, very tasty.

And it garnered The (gluten intolerant) Wife's highest compliment:  "It didn't make my stomach hurt!"

home: evening idyll

On a personal level encroaching global warming has been a terrific boon, unveiling my perpetually overcast, fogbound hometown.  In days of yore you could usually rely on nice-ish weather in the fall, with a few weeks of non-consecutive pleasantness strewn haphazardly across the rest of the calendar.  All else was gray.  Sure, a five minute drive inland would deliver you to the land of eternal sunshine, but that was small consolation to my car-free younger self.

Now?
It is so improved fog has become a novelty, like a white tiger.  The pervasive overcast has nearly inverted, from a reliable 9-10 months a year to maybe one or two...although in the five years since moving back we've had only one prolonged stretch of cloud cover.

But even by vastly upgraded modern standards Monday night was perfection, a Vermeer of a summer evening.

Having returned from work and sampled the back yard there was nothing to do except mix up a large margarita, lug the BBQ out into the garden & fire it up.  Another measure of how far & fast Fuss has come- last grilling season igniting the Weber necessitated standing vigilant guard, Fuss' muscular obsession with open flame perpetually threatening to piledrive pencil-necked caution into the canvas.  Now there is equilibrium, the fascination tinged with proper respect.  Result: he contented himself with throwing bits of hardwood charcoal at the lit chimney from a safe distance while I relaxed with my drink, able to keep just one eye on him instead of both, along with all my other organs & limbs.
"Hey Dada!" he called, observing the coals, "little wrinkles of fire are coming out!"
And when the wind shifted the smoke column, he raced to the other side, informing me "I ran right by before the smoke could change its mind!"

I grilled bratwurst & two baguettes and we dined at our little metal folding table.  Fuss eschewed the sausages but consumed bread with gusto, pausing only to drop crumbs onto a carpet of ants revealed by the Wife's earlier weeding.

"Dada, I'm sharing my bread with the ants.  I'm sharing it with them for the winter."

After, it became so still that when a Loon flew overhead we all heard the distinct WHOOSH....WHOOOSH....WHOOSH of its wings like it had flown past at head level rather than several yards above the treetops.  One of those nights when the surf sounds like its breaking a few streets over.

I like it better when these things sneak up on you.  Planning a BBQ during a patch of nice weather is fun, but the planning leeches away some of the wonder of being compelled to the grill by an atmospheric miracle.

Books: Foreign Editions

Buying used books is a fuzzy, analog activity.  Yes, the Borg and their bar code readers have made it less so over the last few years, but they miss most of the best stuff and even their binary experience of the trade requires flexibility.  In the shop, we don't have rules so much as guidelines, with our one hard and fast rule being that every rule has exceptions.

One of our more durable rules, trailing Never Buy Christian Science Books but ahead of Never Buy Book Club Editions is this: 

Only Buy Foreign Editions In The Original Language

Because the overwhelming majority of our customers are going to be English speaking readers looking for books 'in the original'.  The market for French language editions of, say, Irwin Shaw is functionally nonexistant, but we can sell the hell out of Proust.

Still, you always need to keep an open mind because sometimes you run across a group like this:

That's the first Italian edition of Salinger's Catcher in the Rye & Burroughs' The Soft Machine.
Sorry for the blurry pic, my phone ran out of battery before I could re-shoot.

So, no, we don't buy English literature in translation....unless they happen to be literary high points or exceptionally collectible Beat authors.  =P

fuss: one afternoon

On our way home from the toy store where he'd refused to pick out his prize for being a good listener all week ("you do it!" he demanded) I asked which he'd prefer, going home or going to the tidepools.
After a lengthy silence he replied "Tidepools."
When I pulled into the cove parking lot he looked up and asked querulously "What are we doing here?"
"You said you wanted to visit the tidepools."
"NO I didn't!  It looks COLD!"
"I've got a sweater for you, come on."

Halfway across the beach he stopped to pour sand out of his shoes and refused to put them back on.  When we got to the shoreline he was shivering because "my feet are FREEZING," so I hefted him up onto my shoulders & held his feet in my warm hands.  Once on high he said "Dada, let's watch the tide for a while...right over there."

I stood with my toes up against the high water mark and we basked in the crashing surf for a time, Fuss squeaking when it a wave pushed up too high or marveling at the swifts nesting in the rocks zipping silently across our vision, like an upper and lower case V glued wing to tail.

Visitors arrived & departed while we stood watch.
Five coeds paused at the creek, four eventually splashing across and climbing to the stone arch where they nested a while, chattering and laughing, feet dangling well above the surf and their timid friend.  A couple strolled up arm in arm but didn't stay, fog & cold spray confounding their romantic sunset vision.  One family, wisely puffed up against the chill, unfurled a picnic dinner across one of the trestle tables bounding the parking lot.  The waves stacked and broke, creeping closer and falling back, wrestling each other across the stones beneath the flashing black birds.

Eventually Fuss requested transport to the rough staircase up to the bluff road.
We sat on the bottom step to put his shoes back on, then climbed.  I paused on the landing halfway caught by the sweep of the cove, a puzzle piece filled with a thumbprint of pewter ocean.

Fuss carried on without me and when I reached the summit he'd invented a fine game.
He tossed a rock underhanded down the stairs, then jumped down that many steps, picked up the rock and began again.  When he reached the bottom he would sprint to the top and pitch his rock back down the stairs.  I relaxed at the summit, half my attention on the vista, half on the copper dot bouncing up and down the stairs.  He'd spanned the time between those stairs being a challenge and making a game of it like a cliff bird diving from its nest to the sand.

And as epilogue to this companionable idyll, the anticipated transitional disaster.

It was getting dark and I had to use the potty.  I followed him down the stairs & cajoled him over to the bathrooms, asking him to wait outside.  I emerged momentarily & he'd vanished, to be discovered hiding behind the ladies' bathroom.  He didn't take my request to not hide like that because it worried me very well, immediately sitting down & dragging off his shoes, then sifting handfuls of dirt into them. Struggling to remain the calm, understanding, ideal parent, I explained the consequences of defiance, and he stood back up.

"Oh good," I thought, immediately before he hurled a dirt-filled shoe across the parking lot and took off after it.

A merry chase ensued, followed by enraged confinement in the back seat & a sullen ride home.

Much later after he'd been read books & tucked in I returned to the room to retrieve my glasses.
A sleepy voice from the bed spoke up.

"Dada, I'm sorry, I'll be a better listener tomorrow."
"Oh, good, thank you Fuss.  I love you."
"I love you too, Dada.

fuss on the family

We were relaxing on the bed a few nights ago, Fuss, the wife, myself & a cohort of Cozy Friends (Peanut, Coodgie Woodgie, Giant Coodgie,  Pelvis, Bomb Bird, Nosey), sharing a companionable interlude.  The Wife was reading, Fuss was wrapped in a blankie & surrounded by Cozy Friends and I was reclining, fielding Fuss' queries and exclamations with a book on my chest.

During a lull in his stream of consciousness I raised my book, then he sighed and said gently, half to himself,

"We have a wonderful family."

What he made of both his parents bursting into tears is a mystery.

fuss in the morning

"Dada, I like this house that Grandma Linda gave us.  It's a nice house.  I like the carpet, and the pictures, and the metal birds on the wall.  Dada, I'm gonna go look for more metal birds, okay?"

"Okay, Fuss."