Peanut Butter

I dashed into Publix today for a couple essentials, one of which was peanut butter. They took a sabbatical on making their own peanut butter (INGREDIENTS: FRESH GROUND ROASTED PEANUTS. THE END.) but they're back on track now and I'm glad. I'm so used to it that when I have regular peanut butter, it tastes way too salty. (Right. Unlike potato chips, which can never be too salty for me.)

At the checkout line, I had to take notes, so I wrote on the peanut butter label with the aforementioned Swiss Army Pen. Publix has festive gift boxes hanging above the checkout lanes with one word on each box:

• encourage
• share
• hope
• warmth

It makes me nuts, of course, since we have three verbs and one noun. It's true that hope could be a noun, too, but that still leaves us with two verbs and two nouns. Either way, I don't like the inconsistency. If we went for the all-noun line-up, it would still be awkward:

• [have] encouragement
• [have] sharing
• [have] hope
• [have] warmth

The gerund sharing throws it off, but it's still better than the all-verb format:

• [to] encourage
• [to] share
• [to] hope
• [to] heat

Or should it be [to] heat up? [to] warm up? Plus, they mean the warm-the-cockles-of-your-heart type of heat, anyhow, not the toss-it-in-the-microwave kind. Maybe [to] comfort. So the copywriter just threw in the towel with the poinsettias printed on it and said no one would notice anyhow, and no one at Publix corporate headquarters did ...

And speaking of consistency, Lee and I went to The Water Witch for breakfast this morning. He, as always, had #10. I, always, had #7.

I wanted to leave the breakfast description right there, and let you do the research, but The Water Witch online menu isn't the same as the on-table menu, so I'll describe them after all.

Both are the organic German Pfannkuchen. I don't know whether to add an S to Pfannkuchen, nor am I certain about that upper-case P. I think the Germans tend towards capitalization, though, so I'll stick with that. Near as I can tell, the poor things are just crepes anyhow.

Lee had salmon and horseradish cream cheese in his. Mine had apples, raisins, cinnamon, and ricotta. Oh my! And then the cook made the horrible mistake of tossing in whole walnut halves (if that's not an oxymoron), so the waitress had to come out and see if that's acceptable. Oh yeah!

It was so good. There's nothing like warm cinnamon this time of year, especially when it's so cold and gloomy outside, something we folks in The Sunshine State aren't used to, no matter what you in Indiana (and you know who you are) have to say about it.

Thank goddess we don't have to choose our fragrances. As we left The Water Witch, we smelled bacon, which is pretty unbeatable. But back to the cinnamon -- what's above that? On the other hand, Andrea -- bless her twenty times over! -- gave me a couple mini-boughs of balsam which her mom had sent from the Adirondacks, mostly in the form of decorated wreaths. Oh man! I'm afraid I'm going to snort a pine needle right into my lungs, but that doesn't stop me from picking one up from my desk here and just breathing in the smell, deep deep deep. The other little branch is on my nightstand.

So yes: no competition for smells. Yay!

Those Pfannkuchen are so big that I brought half of mine home. I also have half the prime rib from last night's dinner at The Pasadena Steak House with The Mahons. Later today, when I've finished huddling under the covers reading the last of Wally Lamb's The Hour I First Believed, I hope to comfort the Pfannkuchen and the prime rib, but I won't share them; I encourage you to get your own.

Perfect!

This is just a paragraph or two to remind you to grab all your buddies and go over to Ybor City tomorrow, Saturday, December 13, for WMNF's Holiday Bazaar. It's open from ten to five, but members can get in half an hour earlier. It's at 2010 Avenida Republica de Cuba at the Cuban Club. If you google that address, though, it'll come up as a no-go because it's only in English on the maps. http://www.wmnf.org/

Besides all my stuff, which will be outside in the courtyard with my car and the food vendors, the whole first floor of the Cuban Club is dedicated to used books, CDs, records, DVDs, and tapes. I've donated heavily to that and I'm grateful. This is paradise to browsers -- boxes and boxes and boxes of reading and listening material!

Myself? I can't stand it. It's like going to Big Lots. Sure. The prices are good, but you can't count on an item being there week after week. You have to be a hard-core browser in order to enjoy it.

I'll browse in a bookstore any ol' day, but I am browsing according to the alphabet and the genre. At WMNF, I think they split things up into a couple genres, but that's as categorized as it gets. Still, I remember a woman coming by my booth last year, hauling a box full of books. She was going back for more and asked if she could leave Box #1 with me. She was psyched. I think she paid less than five bucks for that whole box.

Today I'm going to try one more thing to perfect my tee-shirt technique. It involves being outdoors, though, with water, in this cold, cold weather. And how 'bout this wind? With the wind chill, it's probably forty out there, which is about the temperature of a refrigerator, isn't it? Okay. Because of Olga (drat!), I had to look it up. The preferred temperature of an icebox is between thirty-five and thirty-eight degrees (my queendom for a degree symbol!). It seems to me if we're using the word "ideal," there should just be one temperature, not a variety. I mean, can there be degrees of ideal, of perfection? No. Of course not. This cannot be "more" perfect than that. Perfect is perfect. The end.

Okay, then. In the interest of, um, perfection, let's say that the ideal refrigerator temperature is thirty-six-point-five degrees. And let's also say that that's the wind chill this morning. So let's say Brrrrrr!

Ah, perfection ... I've published this posting TWICE already, and then found mistakes. If you've subscribed (as opposed to waiting patiently for me to email you the link each time), I guess that means you'll get three copies of essentially the same blog. Sorry.

Look at all my Followers! Another one jumped on in the middle of the night. It's very exciting! I wonder if I should start wearing a robe ...

Oops

Goddess bless you, Steven. If you haven't read his comment on today's earlier post, please do so now.

Are you back? Good.

Now, on a scale of one to sixty, just exactly how embarrassed do you think I am, where one is "not at all" and sixty is "shoot me now"?

This is the picture on the postcard mentioned earlier today. Please. Someone agree with me that McCain and Biden look alike.

Here's a further shameful thing. Remember in the Vice-Presidential debates, when That Idiot Woman referred to Joe as Obiden? Well, I think that's easy to do. I'm unspeakably sorry that I have something in common with her, but there it is.

Leone invited me to go up to her place and watch the debate. I only agreed out of friendship, but I was actually glad I did. When I win the Lotto tomorrow, I may buy a television, but then I'd have to hire someone else to watch it for me ...

Clicktivist

My stomach hurts every time I read the magazine from Amnesty International. Happily, it only comes out quarterly. I unabashedly urge you to twist your gut, too, by joining Amnesty and supporting it however you can. http://www.amnestyusa.org/

I've always enjoyed writing the letters the magazine suggests. These days, it's more like an email, but I'll do that, too. I'm a Click Activist, a clicktivist.

Tomorrow, December 10, is the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (www.un.org/Overview/rights.html), signed and agreed to by the members of the United Nations in 1948. The United States was a member then. You know that two-section puzzle in the paper? There are two drawings which look alike at first glance, but then you'll notice that the tilt of the man's hat is different, or the tree has a different configuration of leaves. Well, you can play a similar game by going to the UDHR site provided herein and seeing if you can spot the differences between what we, the United States of America, agreed to, and what we actually do.

And who is this "we," Paleface?

I got a postcard from President-elect Barack Obama and his wife Michelle yesterday. You know I threw out my television in ought-four, so I don't know where the postcard picture was taken. Barack and Michelle are grinning, his right hand high in a wave, his left around her waist. She's holding hands with McCain's wife whose name might be Cindy. She's smiling, too. Her hand is in the under position. I notice these things, having stood in circles for a couple decades, holding hands, not-saying The Lord's Prayer (or The Our Father if you're Catholic or the Who Cares if you're Jewish; I have no idea what a Muslim might think or why s/he'd be at an AA meeting anyhow, and I'll completely ignore Hindus because I know even less about them than about the others; drat! Buddhists, too!). She's holding hands -- or at least fingers, also in the under position -- with her husband, who's belatedly trying to button his suit one-handed, left-handed.

I don't know why the four of them are together. Somebody else knows that.

The postcard is addressed to me with the salutation Dear Obama Supporter. It's signed by the First Couple-elect. The type is pretty small because they have a lot to say and, of course, they're using full sentences, even compound sentences. Basically, they're saying thanks.

I choked up at that. When I was younger, I could assign such a sentimental reaction to PMS, no matter where I was in my cycle. When I was much older, but still younger, I could chalk it up to menopause. I'm pretty sure I'm past all that, too, so shall I blame it on the moon? lack of breakfast? fear of financial insecurity?

Nope. I'm going to blame it on genuine, legitimate emotion. I've been parched for so long, I've forgotten how to swallow. Now I'm offered a glass of water. I'm grateful. Yessir. Oh yeah.

Here's a line from Wally Lamb's The Hour I First Believed, which I'm reading now: Ask any of us cynical bastards to lift up our shirt, and we'll show you where we got shot in the heart. That choked me up, too.

I read Stephen King's Just After Sunset, a collection of recent short stories, but I forgot to tell you about it. There seemed to be more violence than usual, but also less supernatural stuff. More than one story made me wish he'd turn it into a full, King-sized novel. The page headings were the same throughout the book, though: author name on the verso, book name on the recto (Liz and I know what those words mean and we are so pleased with ourselves and each other!). That's not good for a collection. I saw the title of the story once, on that first page, and that's it. I can't even name one story by title. If I ever talk with another King fan about the book, I won't be able to say, "Oh, and how about The Long Walk?" No. I'll have to say, "Oh, you know the one with the Porta-Potty and that weird old man who killed the dog ..."


I'm waiting for the Swiss Army Knife people to contact me. Mine, a gift from Mike many years ago, has a pen in it -- because the pen is mightier than the toothpick. I had it for about a year before I got used to the idea of always having a pen with me. It's great. I love it. Now I want to find another one but I can't, so I emailed the manufacturer on its own email form. A message popped up saying they'd get right on it: "We are attempt to answer." I watched Borat again last night, so it made perfect sense to me.

The Perfect Saturday Night

I wish I could drink lying down. I'd love to be on my back on the couch, sipping a cup of coffee (organic fair-trade coffee, turbinado sugar, plain soy creamer), finishing up a Stephen King short story. There'd be a bolster under my knees. Well, as long as I'm at it, I may as well have my feet soaking in a tub of hot water spiked with peppermint oil and Epsom salts.

Yes. Mmmm ... that's my idea of an ideal Saturday night, at least if I've spent the day at a show, sitting near my canopy, riding that razor's edge between being alert to a customer and being overbearing to a customer. When she says, "How long did it take you to paint that car?" is she really interested or has she simply been trained to Make Nice? They say to answer your young child's sex questions by giving the briefest truth you can, and not elaborating. Perhaps I'll apply that rule to the questions I get at shows.

Don't ask me why I'm calling it a "show." It's a sale. Oh. But I suppose someone has to buy something in order for it to qualify as a "sale." I did get a hot dog combo for two bucks, though, so I can't complain. (Well, of course I can. I just choose not to. This time ... this one time.)

I was the last one to leave, but I also left early. I got to The Longhouse with half an hour to spare. They were having their open house and holiday sale. I'm sorry I missed so much of it. It feels like family over there. I ate cookies and took Isabelle, a deaf French bulldog, for a walk. She's about the size of the cat, but she's got the strength of a four-by-four -- a black one.

I bought a Christmas card from Mo. I'm not sure what I think of it, but I bought two of them and know where at least one is going. It's a picture of Mary giving birth to Baby Jesus. There's no actual placenta, but Mary's legs have assumed the position. And that's not a halo around His head -- that's labia.

I want to tell you Mo's whole name and tell you how to reach her, but it turns out that I only have her email address, which I would give to some of you (and you know who you are), but not to others of you (but you don't know who you are; you never do, do you?).

Speaking of Christmas, here's Amazon celebrating The 12 Days of Holiday. What? What did you just say? Doesn't that just make you want to slap someone?

I've got my December calendar on the wall, of course, but I can't read the teeny print in the boxes from my chair. December 26 through 31 have FULL boxes, lots of text. I get up and peer. It's describing the six, I guess, days of Kwanzaa. I suppose it could continue in my next calendar. I googled the holiday because I don't want to be completely ignorant, but my feet are not in the mood for actual education here.

What caught my attention, though, is that Dr. Maulana Karenga, an American, is the creator of Kwanzaa. Imagine that. Imagine creating a holiday. Granted, I don't know anyone who celebrates Kwanzaa, but the website says "millions" do, both here in the States and in Africa. Still, I really like the idea of creating a holiday. I wonder if we could make our birthdays holidays. Kwanzaa has seven principles (which makes me suspect that it does, in fact, have seven days) and probably seven symbols too ... candles, food, a flag ...

So on my birthday, I could create a holiday that has symbols, too, and special colors. Maybe a bird. Since I'm so verbose, I think a set of lips should be one of my symbols. Maybe my friends would help celebrate by showing up with those big red wax lips they used to sell at Halloween. I'm an afrophile, so perhaps they'd also have to dress in African clothing. The point is, they'd have to do what I say. I'd have to make up a name for my holiday. Barbalozza, perhaps, transposing the O and A in my last name. And if I say the official Barbalozza bird is a woodpecker, then it would be so. Maybe you'd show up at the celebration with woodpecker feathers in your hair. Or I'd be serving woodpecker soup.

Yeah. I'm liking this!

I had a similar thought last Thursday at my writers' club. I've belonged for a year and just found out that we have a president. Well, I think that whoever is voted in as "president" should get to choose his or her title. If I'm made the leader of the club, then I'd want to be the czarina. Maybe you'd want to be the emperor or majority leader. It would be up to you. I think the only restriction should be that you have to hold the title for a year. You can't be changing it every month.

Do you think my blood sugar is too low?

Motherhood

This first bit is not for the faint of heart or glass of stomach (and you know who you are). Just scroll down till the boldface invitation assures you that we're out of bad part.

I don't really want to talk about dog urine, but it's an issue that's in my face, as it were. Poor Sunny, Mike's sixteen-and-three-quarters-year-old cocker spaniel, has reached that stage in her long happy life that it's too difficult to climb the stairs to the bathroom, push open the heavy door, drop her waist-high old-lady drawers, squat shakily onto the seat, and pee. Therefore, the nearest piece of carpet will do just fine, thanks.

I wouldn't mind if it weren't for the smell, which I cannot describe and wouldn't anyhow, although if I had the ability to make you smell it through words alone, I wouldn't be going to the Wednesday Midday Market, would I? No. I'd be sitting at my mink-trimmed computer, drinking that fabulous peppermint hot chocolate from Bob Evans, paying someone else to exercise for me. As it is, the stench kept me awake last night.

To be fair, let's say that it was the absence of Mittens that started it. I woke every couple of hours to pull on a piece of clothing (once it was just a glove) and stumble in the cold, drear night to the screen door, open it -- because you know how sound gets blocked when it has to squeeze through those tiny squares -- and call out, "Mittens! Come on! Come on!"

I sing "Come on!" in a particular way. I wouldn't, for instance, call you in that specific tone. No. It's for Mittens as intentionally and solely as the two-note whistle my mother would use to call my girlhood cat, Tiger.

You might conclude that exotic pet names sort of run in the family, but let me say this, firmly: I did not name Mittens. She came to me that way. If she spoke English, she'd be embarrassed enough to lose all her bunny-soft hair.

I called for Mittens every two hours. I have no doubt that there are neighbors who can attest to that.

Why should Mittens be in her bedroom at night? True, we decorated it just for her -- a pink canopy over the bed, a princess phone (I am not getting her a cell phone!), her own small HDTV, innumerable pastel pillows and cat toys scattered about -- but that's no reason to insist that she be there each night.

I worry about her getting kidnapped. Er ... catnipped. Er ... catnapped. I think someone will steal her and sell her to laboratories for painful experiments, making her, for instance, wear a lipstick that's not her shade. I don't know. I just want to know where she is and that she's safe and happy.

I swear I heard her meow while I slept, so I got up for the third time, groped for some fabric, wended my way through my natural clutter to the door. No Mittens.

The trouble is, although I was worried and half-asleep, I could smell Poor Sunny's liquid mess and that would pop my eyes open. It's simply a smell I cannot bear. Remember my Thanksgiving drivelings? Of course you do. I was grateful for my sense of smell, for the great pleasure it brings me. Lilies! Green peppers! Brut with Camel straights and exhaust fumes (John Beaumont c. 1966)! Fresh air! But last night's smell? Not at all.

I paid ten dollars online to buy the secret formula for getting rid of the smell. But it takes two days. There was nothing more to be done. I wrote Leone a whiny email. That helped. It made me remember all the murder mysteries I've ever read, where the homicide detectives at the crime scene or the morgue apply Vicks Vapo-Rub to their upper lips, stiff or slack. I signed off from Leone and went to my medicine cabinet, which is a basket in the linen closet. I pawed through throat lozenges and aspirin and found a small, squat jar. I opened it and applied the contents, wondering if Vicks actually has an expiration date, because I sure didn't smell that famous menthol.

Yeah. Well. That's because I'd put Vaseline under my nose.

You can look now.

So yes, the Wednesday Midday Market. I made four bucks after the booth fee and parking fee. But no matter! I'm going to that no-name show tomorrow, Saturday, December 6, at that church at 5441 Ninth Avenue North. That's from nine to four.

After that, I hope to go to Sacred Lands again at six, not for business but for pleasure. First Erik will tell an old tale about a rescue. Then there's dinner from six-thirty to seven-thirty. Then Celtic music from then on, by Empty Hats. It's twelve bucks at the door, which is really a fence, ten bucks in advance. I assume there will be a bon fire. I want to go, even though being at craft shows usually makes me want to spend the evening with Epsom salts and ibuprofen.

Tonight, Liz Armstrong -- the Little Bastard's mom -- will be signing books at Gulfport's Art Walk, at Small Adventures.

Don't look!

I wonder if I could somehow work a trade for tonight: Mittens is persistent and clinging, and the smell disappears?

You can look now.

Flat Santa

Look at the picture I took just now, at my neighbor's house and without permission. It's a photo of Santa biting, apparently, the dust. Explain that to your toddler! Santa's sleeping with the earth worms until Daddy gets home from work. Then -- poof! -- Santa grows and grows until he's fat and jolly again. But it only lasts until bedtime.

Kids are going to grow up thinking Santa shares a bloodline with vampires and werewolves and other creepy critters that only come out at night. Maybe a religious nut could found an entire sect on this whole thing, with Santa resurrecting each night during the Christmas season, after having been the Baby Jesus In A Manger during the day but cleverly disguised as a puddle of Italian colors in order to save Him from the Pharisees.

Cruise through your neighborhood in the daytime and see all the colorful but seemingly dead holiday folk spread out on the ground, as if a South American military coup had happened on your own street, innocent Sugar Plums and Reindeer gunned down like anarchists. Or as if a horrible plague came through like a tornado, withering the flesh of Elves and Snowmen but leaving the color untouched.

But hope -- and Santa -- spring.

I'm always puzzled by those heart-wrenching stories about sweet, probably blond, certainly blue-eyed children -- usually girls -- finding out that there is no Santa. I'm puzzled -- and a bit miffed, too, really -- because I don't have such a story. Well, nor am I blond. Or blue-eyed. Or sweet, come to think of it. Perhaps that explains it.

In any case, I was so untraumatized by learning that there is no Santa that I don't even remember the realization. I think that's because I had (and still have) an older (by two years) brother and (by one year) sister. I assume I learned there is no Santa by osmosis, as if I were celery and the not-Santa were blue ink. Well, red and green ink, what the heck.

I would think it's even harder in a city -- instead of my girlhood boonies -- to convince a child that there is a Santa, since each store has one. How do parents explain that to kids? There was an excellent Santa at Sacred Lands this Saturday, by the way. In fact, I'm pretty sure he was the real one.

I don't even know why I'm going on about this. I really don't care. I should think that kids in any generation are pretty good at distinguishing between Make-Believe and Real. If you were traumatized by finding out that Santa is only as real as The Easter Bunny, let us know. Tell us the story. We'll feel sorry for you. Really. Even if you're a brunette.