Up in the bed room, behind the mirrored closet door was a bag.The bag was filled (it was one of the standard-size, grocery brown bags, with advertising on it) with twenty-five pounds of paper. In there were old bank statements and oil delivery tickets with the number of gallons of oil put in the tank and the price per gallon for the stuff.There were books of checks for accounts that no longer exist, mostly in the name of number 1 son.IRA Investment statements.Receipts for bills paid and bills due-- that one must presume were eventually paid and the receipt thereto was probably in the bag somewhere as well.Ten years or more of the financial documents deemed too sensitive to be discarded via the trash or the recyclables.
When the mail comes into our house it must come up the driveway, inside to the kitchen where it is deposited on the work surface of the kitchen counter.It might sit there for a minute or overnight, but it is eventually opened and half digested and left to sit a while longer.Again, eventually, it either finds it’s way to the dining room table to linger some more, to the computer to be paid electronically or upstairs to be paid by check or to the mysterious bag.I did not know (or really, I did not fully understand) the substance of that bag until a few nights ago when Elisabeth brought down a big, handful of papers which she threw into the fire.We had built a fire for entertainment and to roast marshmallows.On the way into the house at the end of the evening Elisabeth commented cryptically --It didn’t even make a dent!
What didn’t make a dent? I asked.She said a dent in the bag.What bag?The bag full of papers up in the bedroom.The checkbooks and the financial stuff.Oh! I said and later I looked at “the bag”, seeing it really for the first time.Big.Brown.Brimming over the top.I didn’t have the desire or inclination to peek at the contents.I was fairly sure that much of it was not so sensitive that it required a military shredding or a funeral in the bon fire.I know Elisabeth’s much more concerned about paperwork and how it will affect our security than I, but I was certain that there was much in the collection that was benign.No matter. I promised myself that I would get rid of it-sooner or later.
Today it is cloudy and I fully expect (read: hope) it will rain.The eggplant and tomatoes need it.Everything in the garden or out could use a little bit of a washing.I also considered that to be a prime time to make a fire.On second examination that makes very little sense as a raging, out of control campfire or hot embers landing on the roof will not wait to do damage until the rain starts (duh!).So that means either waiting to build the fire until it rains or waiting until after.Naw!I just lit the thing.Some loose paper.Some twigs and some branches.I waited a few minutes and began to burn the papers.Slowly at first a few pages at a time and crumbling each one.Then six or seven pages at a time.Then entire sheaths of papers and half a dozen checkbooks and deposit ledgers.All went well until there was so much paper piled on that I had to take a long stick and flip through the piles like pages of a book, exposing the leaves to the oxygen in the air.One by one the flipping sheets caught flame and again there was a roaring fire.I threw on more wood and kept feeding the documents into the inferno.
It took about and hour from start to finish to burn the whole mess.I was careful not to throw in any plastic or items clearly not of a sensitive nature.There were a few advertising pamphlets and some shipping envelopes that had nothing on them or in them.These I put back into the empty bag.Now that the fire has cooled it looks like a pit with a thousand gray leaves fluttering in the wind.(it still has not rained).In the fall I will shovel out the pit and put the ashes into the garden.It is supposedly good for the soil and inhibits slugs and cutworms.We’ll see.
Back to the mail for a moment.I have a habit of tearing unwanted mail up into strips. Each evening when I read the mail.And then I tear the strips into squares.We have a shredder but I can’t make myself set it up and leave it conveniently out for daily use.I can’t.I am pissed off enough at phone chargers, computer power supplies, power strips and wall warts, batteries, modems, cordless phones, VCRs (yes I still have one) CD and DVD players... one more appliance will tip the scale.I don’t think the most accomplished Nigerian con artist will have the time or energy to bother to try to reconstruct one of my hand shredded phone bills especially once it has been soaked in olive oil or stale cat food in the kitchen garbage.And in the case of twenty plus pounds of ten year old cable bills and cooking gas delivery tickets, it is the low tech fire for them.Good riddance.
Last night we worked together making “shells” and cooking up a batch of sauce.The tomatoes seem to multiplying on the counter top.It reminds me of the scene in Disney’s Soccer’s Apprentice where Mickey is chopping the brooms trying to eliminate them but they multiply with each hatchet whack.Same with the tomatoes.Every time I go out to the garden there are three or four more ripe ones.And that is not counting the tiny cherry tomatoes that come in daily waves of a hundred or even two hundred.It doesn’t matter if I go out to the garden once or twice or three times, there are always more ripe ones and I bring them in and put them in the bag along with ten pounds of others or on the counter-which is now (even though we cooked as many as we could last night) covered in red.
We were both exhausted yesterday after work.Elisabeth had a mildly rejected look that sent me hiding on the front porch.I was in my own world of shit so it was best we went our separate ways for a little while, at least until the question of dinner came up.When we are like that-tired and lost in the outside world-we work!It is just what we do.Some people go bowling.Some might write stupid journals and drink whiskey-we work!We both stood in the kitchen and simultaneously began chopping and clanging utensils and pots until our old selves returned.It only took about five minutes of labor to begin to make us whole again and by then all of the anxiety and exhaustion fell away like Batman’s cape and we swung for an hour on our web of activity and the smells and feel of the tomatoes and the popping oil and crunch of garlic on the cutting board.
At one point She asked me to put the cubes of fresh mozzarella into the finished shells.She was in the process of filling them with the stuffing and there were many stuffed and sitting on a plate.I reached over her arms and picked up a shell and pushed a dice-sized cube of cheese into the stuffing and set it down in an aluminum pan that had a small amount of fresh sauce on the bottom.She continued spooning the ricotta and egg and spinach mixture into the al Dente shells and putting them on the plate.I was on the wrong side of her and our arms cris-crossed as we worked on our separate tasks, but it was somehow orchestrated.Our arms wove a web of work that was funny but awkward.At some point we both recognized the disjointed organization and Elisabeth told me to exchange places with her.I did.It was as if a knot came undone. We worked then with a physical independence that was soothing but, somehow, less intimate.
In a half an hour the pan of bubbling shells came out of the oven and we sat to eat.The air coming through the back door screen had turned autumnal and I felt somber but comforted by the smells of the cooking and the company of my wife.By then we were both very, very tired but it was good tired.The day had passed.
The Recipe
Shells cooked just shy of al Dente.
A mixture of ricotta,
salt,
pepper,
egg-beaten,
and spinach-cooked and squeezed dry of all water (I like to use the water in the sauce but Elisabeth won’t hear of it!)
mozzarella-cubed to ¾” x ¾”
grated Romano or parmesan of ?? your favorite hard cheese
fresh gravy-
put a large tea-spoonful of the ricotta mixture into each of the shells and push a cube of the mozzarella into each stuffed shell.Place the shells into a pan with a little of the gravy and when the pan is all full spoon the gravy over all of the shells.Coat the whole pan with some of the grated cheese and pop into the oven for a while until everything sort of melts and melds. Serve with more sauce on top and some wine. Eat Up!
This year I had one bush of cherry tomatoes that produced more fruit than I have ever seen on any other plant. Every day I go out there with a bag and pick a hundred mature, sweet (but tiny) tomatoes. Now at the end of the season the actual ‘crop’ has come in and this morning I picked about six or seven hundred. There are three times that many still on the plant. It is unbelievable. So I decided to try something new. I am roasting a big batch on the barbeque right now and I think they are going to be wonderful. I prep’d them by putting a couple of tablespoons of olive oil on an aluminum lined cookie sheet and then covered the sheet with a solid field of the little, ripe tomatoes. I rolled them around to get them coated and then sprinkled a little Morton’s Kosher Salt on them. I set the barbeque at low (one burner only) and put the cookie sheet on the top warming rack. I actually started on high on the bottom but things progressed so fast that I didn’t want to end up with stewed/burned tomatoes so I changed the settings as described above. I think they will turn out nicely and I hope they will keep for a week in the fridge. I imagine them on pasta and maybe cooking other things with them in the recipes. We’ll see.
Well, they turned out great. Lizzy says we’ll have them tonight on some pasta. The whole cookie sheet made one nice plate (picture) so will serve about three for dinner. The oil that was left in the pan looked beautiful so I threw on another batch and added one of my ‘devil’ peppers. Hot damn! I like it too much!
I don’t know where it came from. Just a bowel deep growl that took me as I tapped it into first. And knowing I hadn’t seen a cop or commuter or a minivan in a few minutes I felt compelled to twist the grip until the back side slid and caught with a high-sided snap and the rear wheel gripped.
I watched the pointer of the tach jump.
The needle of the speedo gyp’d passed all the lower numbers and the cuffs on my pants danced on my shins and the cool wind flapped up my jeans like water under pressure.
The road took on an amplified quality each tiny motion building on itself each small bump rippling into a panic attack each twist a thought less effort each thought an immediate order to be obeyed-- consequential.
And when I hit the Ton the smallest touch on the grip swore to the road and explained itself like a spy who shit in his pants when the gallows floor dropped. I was affraid to look down. To confirm. I could only see where I was going and had not one care for where I had been.
It is near the end of August.I have not made an entry in about a month.I suppose a rainy, Sunday morning (7:45am) is the perfect time to “catch up”, though sitting here I am not sure exactly what it is I have to say.
Ben and Liz are both upstairs sleeping away.I came down as quietly as I could and fed Sylvester and made a pot of coffee.
The week-long drought has broken with a gentle gray morning rain and the raggedy looking garden is getting what it needs to complete its mission.The fruit was waiting for this boost to push it into final plumpness and color.This year the garden has been amazing in its bounty.All I had to do was the usual weeding and tidying up with stick and string to keep it tied…Oh, and labor like a coolie to keep it watered in the face of Nature’s stingy rationing of rain.But it has paid off.The tomatoes are bursting and red.The eggplant (purple and white) and summer squash big enough to bust the limbs of the plants and plentiful enough that I wish I had another freezer to hold them.There was broccoli and three kinds of peppers (green bell, pale green banana, and the brightest, red-est, devil’s peppers, who’s taste and heat delight me) as well as a crop of butternut squash yet to come.The butternuts are my favorite and they are lying all over the floor and in the fence of the garden waiting for the umbilicus of their vines to brown and wither while they tan in the sun and bath (today, anyway) in the rain.I can’t wait to taste them.
For future reference I allow the following as the reasons for the success of this year’s garden:
1)Hot, dry weather.Without a doubt the single most important factor.Of course if I had not hosed and bucketed amazing amounts of rescue water the whole thing would have withered, but that is not important.There was no blight.The rot that affected almost everyone last year was kept away by the sun and the drying breezes.Last year I got a few middling fruit on each of my tomato plants and the rot took the rest.This year I got pounds and pounds of the plumpest, red-est tomatoes that I have ever grown.The same for the rest of the veggies.The only plants that did not thrive were the peas and the beans, and I blame myself for that.When they needed help I was not in the mind to lend a hand.I was too busy with the other plants and I suppose I am not all that fond of peas and beans.I hope there is no place in hell for people who don’t care about beans.
2)Unusually good placement of the plants and good varieties as well.It was luck, mostly, and the barest bit of intuition on my part that the plants found enough sun and enough room and support to prosper.No, actually it was all luck.
3)The butternut squash found it’s own way to grow up into the space between the fence and the netting around the fence.There it hung like sailors in hammocks and they grew plumb and healthy.The deer fed on the fat squash leaves that grew out through the fence but they had no way to get to the fruit.It looks like a “squash hotel” out there now and next year I am going to try to plan a long fence like that on the inside of the garden and see if the butternuts will do it for me the same way.
4)Fertilizer.Not much-just a spoonful per plant when I put them in the ground-but what a difference.This fall I plan to get a small load of manure and turn it into the soil instead, but I am not ashamed of the fertilizer I used this year.Nor am I ashamed of the newspaper or the shredded Microsoft Word documents, or the chopped leaf mulch I experimented with for ground cover.I have learned that newspaper is my friend while Bill Gates is not.
5)Minute use of insecticide.Last year I had two eggplant.This year I had over a dozen and more are coming on the tree-like plants.The reason-insecticide.Just the tiniest amount at the right time.Last year the flea beetles ate the leaves of the young plants (turning them into lace doilies) while I struggled to defeat them.I tried all the internet/hippie/organic methods to control the pests but nothing worked.I struggled with the tree-hugging instincts of my 1960’s philosophy and returned the unopened box of “Sevin” to Walmart and, as a result, the plants punked out.This year I re-bought the poison and lightly dusted the affected leaves when the beetles struck.One application and the bugs marched down the driveway and ate my neighbor’s dog instead.I ate eggplant!!! I am now a “Goldwater Republican” in the garden.Nuke ‘em!!!
6)God helps them that helps themselves.Especially when it comes to cut-worms.These little buggers chop through the tender trunks of newly planted peppers like chainsaws.Again, thanks to the use of newspaper, they were defeated.A cylinder of newspaper around the base of the new plant stops the cut-worms cold.It seems they are a lazy species and a mere two inches of barrier is enough to send them off to find easier pray.By the way, I do not like to buy newspapers so I steal one of my neighbor’s instead.That seems very ecological to me (toilet paper roll works as well! But again, nothing from Microsoft seems to stop cut-worms).
Well, that is pretty much it for another year of gardening.The fall will be here early this year.The leaves in the trees are already tired of hanging on and are dropping for lack of water.A prelude to the real thing…and then the snow.I am looking for a suitable substitute for my gardening-something that will give me the same sort of occupied feeling during the cold weather.I am open to suggestions.
Coffee is not good for Spaz, but I share mine anyway. his tongue long and blue laps down into the cardboard cup down on the concrete, and he drains it, spilling not one drop. He waits for me to pour him more. I do, and when he is through a spot of the sun breaks past the baggy buttonwood trees between us and the projects and he begins to pant. It's going to be a hot one again today.
We are right in the flight path. White, red and blue tail-sections of the prop planes and the commuter jets on their diagonal way to cities within five hundred miles of LaGuardia, fly right over the projects- right over where I sit- on the curb, in the last of the morning shade, retreating from the gravel and broken asphalt drive, behind Randall and Castle Hill... it promises to be a hot one again today.
Spaz and I retreat from the expanding seven a.m. sun. Into the office painted not white or gray or green but some disturbing color in between. Strangely agitating and morbidly routine. Piles of papers garbage pails of dog food computer screens and dust bunny's bits of hardware and sheets of glass a coffee maker and an adopted family of dish-ware, in the pantry unwashed and waiting... but the portable A/C is running and the ancient stereo is humming. It is cooler here than anywhere else on this block in the Bronx. it promises to be another hot one today.
The phone rings and the other end unswervingly demands. try and try, as best I can, there is no purchase no a-mens sufficient. and I find myself believing it is me. it is my fault I have gotten too old for this grind- If not for Spaz and a laugh now and then I would never come to the Bronx again. Certainly not for the weekly pay. Certainly not during a finite summer's day, and it appears it's going to be another hot one today.
In the crapper there is a penny on the floor it sits in a dust ball below the hinges on the door. it has been there a couple of years (or more) and I see it every morning. Dozens of people must have seen it too but sits there still as if it is glued to the asphalt tile strangely unmoved by human hand, bucket and mop, or broom. Along with the K-mart towel (a new one each year) a florescent bulb an immobile fan the penny lives on on the floor of the can- as a point of focus, an example of inflationary trends, as a testament to those tiny pleasures shared by man- a cup of coffee a toilet a private moment contemplating a single cent on the floor of the can.
The robins started trying to build nests in the empty space above the porch girder about a week ago.Everyday Elisabeth or I will sweep away the previous days collection of twigs, string, bits of paper or tin foil, interwoven leaves of grass.It falls down to the driveway below or onto the deck of the porch.It is one thing to push a small pile of twigs, it is another to push what is obviously a nearly completed nest off into oblivion.It is upsetting but necessary, as the completed nest will fill with eggs.When the eggs hatch they will grow and the mother come and go feeding them and in the process she will shit all over the deck.The chicks will make a mess.They will call out to the mother and talk to each other incessantly.I am sure the cat will find a way to get to them and if not he will probably kill himself, falling off the deck trying.
The robins are so swift in their construction.And persistent.If we miss a day of ‘pushing off the construction material’ we are likely to have to push an almost-completed-nest off the three and a half inch shelf of the girder.When the nest is near completion and must be demolished it makes me think of a near-term abortion.The nest comes down intact (the robins are master constructors and their product is solid) and lays ten feet below along with the other bits of straw and material like a fetus in the afterbirth.One can be sure the mother bird is somewhere very close by, perhaps watching with a bit of grass in its beak.
When we were first together, Elisabeth and I, we moved to Florida and lived in a rented garden apartment in Cutler Ridge.When a pigeon set up housekeeping on the balcony outside our patio door we gave it no thought.Pigeons are not clean animals- at least not as clean as the robins nests described above. Their nests are messy affairs of mud and thick-bladed Florida grass-but we didn't care, at first, and watched the process of the building.Soon it became populated with two eggs and we were entertained with the birthing drama.When they hatched the mother came and fed the pink, featherless, mice like beings and they began to move around in the nest.As time past, the mother bird's excrement mortar’d solid the fluff that grew and was shed by the chicks.Bits of food and, eventually, the chick’s poop larded onto and around the nest as well.Though still fascinated by the process we became less amused with the mess and jokingly named the chicks “Ugly” and “Dirty”.
If I had known how long and putrid was the process of raising pigeon chicks I surely would have erased the nest before they were laid.But we were ignorant and, as I said, fascinated with the process and could not bring ourselves to destroy the family established on the sunny balcony.I don’t remember how the pigeon family story finally ended, whether they flew away or what.On that my memory is vague but I swore to myself I would never let another bird build a nest so close to me again.That is why we are so diligent in keeping the robin’s nests from taking hold.
All the show-off cast of the landscape have rushed onto the Spring. Forsythia, Lilacs and magnolia, Ornamental pear and the bright blue petites gushing under the neon green ground-cover.
And when they are done bragging, The dogwood comes.
The one outside the kitchen window is my favorite. Having been tortured by the grapevines (nearly pulled to the earth in the vines mad climb) Like a Bonsai on my hill, I cut it free and keep it clear now. Even though it is permanently crippled and bent It rewards me with its Geisha bow And silken bloom.
“No one knows exactly what goes on in there, in the mind or body of someone else.Organs often take over for one another when one is a little weak and another is a little stronger.One might think one is experiencing a pain in the stomach when it is really the heart muscle rending under the powerful weight of defeat and disappointment.A tired body?A tired soul?Who knows?”
Herbert Roth
The Last Straw
This is the story of the last straw.The one that broke the camel’s back.
I was going to the RoyalCastle with a pocket full of change.I had carefully counted it out and knew to the penny how much was there.Exactly enough for a breakfast special and a birch beer.It was early on Saturday morning and I had just collected my paper route.I had paid for my papers for the week.I had already put my savings away in my bedroom—snuck in quietly and put eight dollars into a cigar box under my bed and snuck back out to my bike.I had just enough left over for breakfast.I pedaled over to the RoyalCastle.
A couple of blocks away, by the side of the canal Jake Eperson and his brother leaned on their Vespas.They knew it was collection day.Other days of the week they might just steal one of my bundles of papers or pick up my wire cutters while I wasn’t looking.But on collection day they were waiting for me and they were after money.I guess they figured I would have all my collections still in my pocket.I tried to ride right by them but it was no use.They jumped on the motor scooters and caught up to me in a few seconds.I jumped off my bike and put down the kickstand and just waited while they propped their machines up on the center stands.Jake with his sandy colored hair down over his eyes said nothing but reached out and grabbed me by the shirt.His brother got behind me and pushed his hands down into my front pant pocket.He came up with loose change some of which fell into the dirt where we stood.After checking all the other pockets he pushed me into Jake.Jake just shoved me to the ground.
“Fifty cents?That’s it? That’s all you got is fifty stinkin’ cents?”There was another few pennies and a nickel in the dirt.I knew it was fifty-nine cents exactly.That’s what breakfast would have cost.It was pointless trying to explain to them.“You must have collected over thirty dollars today.Where is it?” “None of your business!”I told him.“I already paid for my papers and that’s all I got left.”“No way,” said Eperson, “You gotta have seven or eight dollars left even after you paid for the papers.Where is it?”I just stood there silently, slightly off balance while Jake’s brother tugged on my shirt and pulled me from side to side.
“Next week we’re going to be here again.Next week you bring all your money.Got it?”
I nodded.Jake’s brother shoved me down into the dirt.He held fast to the collar of my shirt so that as I fell the buttons popped off the front.Laying there in the sand in the coral rock and the stickers I watched them swing their legs over their Vespas and jump on the kickstarters.Jake turned to me while he pushed the aqua green machine off the stand and with a smile he tossed the change straight at me.“Go get some breakfast” he said.As they disappeared I got up and searched through the weeds and dirt and found forty-nine cents.I brushed myself off and got on my bike.I struggled to get the big bike with the huge basket and canvas saddle bags out of the sand and back up onto the blacktop and finished the ride to the RoyalCastle.
After parking the bike I went into the air conditioned restaurant and sat on one of the spinning stools at the white and silver counter.The cook was flipping minced onions on the grille next to dozens of small square burgers.The sizzling, steaming smoke was sucked up by the hood over the grille but lots of the smell still reached the spinning seat and me.The saliva was running and I licked my lips.I could taste the eggs and grits and bacon.The mugs for the birch beer were frozen with a crust of ice on them so that when he pulled the sweet root beer out of the tap into the glass it was like ice itself.I put my change on the counter.
“What’ll it be?” said the counter man, though he knew I came in every Saturday and ordered the same thing.“Breakfast.Over easy with grits and bacon.And a mug of birch beer, please.”Then I had to add “but I only got forty-nine cents.Could I owe you the dime?”
I could see his mind working like a mill stone.He absently wiped the same spot on the counter with his greasy white rag.Finally he said, “Naw.Can’t do that.Boss’d be really pissed if I started that kinda stuff.”He just stopped wiping and turned back to the grill.I just sat there no longer salivating.I was starting to shake like I had the chills.Uncontrollable shaking.The smell of the cooking meat became sickening to me.My stomach twisted like a knot.I jumped off of the stool and began for the door.Halfway there I turned and looked back at the cook.I’d worked delivering seventy papers starting at three a.m. and then collected the week’s money at seventy houses.I was hungry. I’d been beaten and robbed and threatened.All this and standing there in the RoyalCastle the only thing I could think about was the dime—one stinking dime—that this guy wouldn’t trust me for.I started back towards the counter but before I got there I was seized by a gut-wrenching urge to scream—but it didn’t come out as a scream.It came out as vomit.Empty stomach vomit.The kind that is sour and liquid with nothing much in it but stomach juices.It formed a little puddle on the floor while the last few drops trickled out of my mouth on little spindly strings of saliva.My stomach was cramped.My skin was clammy and cold.
“Hey!” the guy behind the counter was yelling at me.The other people in the place looked at me with hate in their eyes.I just turned and walked out the door to my bike.
I pushed it off the sidewalk onto the black parking lot, jumped on and rode away.
This guy, Joel, died, I am told in a phone call from Faith this afternoon.He had been sick and now she tells me he is dead.I only remember him from one occasion…no two, and if those two short meetings are any indication of his total character, I would have to conclude that he was a really nice guy.
The first time I met him was at a “Brotherhood” meeting that we had in Barry Sanel’s garage.“Barry Shows Us His Toys”, would have been a great title of the theme of the evening, because that is just what he did.The tour included his motorcycles and his riding mower that was covered with a sheetmetal cabin that made it look like a steam locomotive, and the old muscle car he has owned since he was 17.He showed us a slideshow of pictures of his motorcycle racing and Team —the yellow and brown, "Smokin’ Sanel Brothers YOO-HOO Motorbike Racers. He handed out YOO-HOOs and other soft drinks and we sat in his garage and shot the shit.
It was fun.
Joel was there.He was not a member of the brotherhood or, for that matter, the Temple.He came because Jerry (I think) knew he liked motorcycles and invited Joel to come to the ‘party’.Joel seemed to have a good time and I liked him immediately.We talked about riding and our bikes and when He told me about the Ducati he rode, I admitted that I had never ridden a Ducati.Without a bit of hesitation he invited me to go for a ride.We met a week or two later and when I got to his house He showed me his two, red, Ducati motor bikes, one of which he insisted I ride.I left my black F-650 and rode this sleek, fire-engine red, performance bike instead.What a thrill.When I got back from tearing up the back roads of Bear Mountain state park with this scalpel of a motorcycle and I got on my single cylinder Swiss Army Bike I felt as if I were riding on Barry’s riding mower made to look like a choo-choo train.It was all fun for both Joel and I.I admit that I don’t think I ever saw him again.I think of that ride all the time.
So here is to a Nice Guy!In my mind he’s riding a hot bike some great place now.The weather is grand and the roads are clean and curvy.Oh! And I hope it’s a red bike.He liked red.
Monday, March 15, 2010
I repent! I give up my wicked ways. I will illustrate everything I write without benefit of wealth. Just to show I've really changed, I took this photograph myself! (all rights reserved, not to be used without permission. Copyright Patented Cursed A pox on all who use this artistic representation without paying me first a million scadzillion dollars.)
(for Joel-who wanted to know where the picture came from.)
Steal from me The ideas are not mine They are in my head And gone Quickly if I don’t use them, Wisely, And fast, Than they are gone and past. Or stuck in clay Through heat And under paint In either case Away.
Steal them from me There are a million more out there. Like fruit In the air To be picked Or to fall through time To other fertile soil.
I have food And I am not worried That it will run out On the road. I am never lost It is only at the edge of sleep Once each day That I confront my weaknesses And blink before it becomes light. Steal from me— It is alright.
(Did someone say "Flat Bagels"? The other day someone mentioned them and I remembered the taste and the smell of them baking. I also remembered that I had written something about them-I found it and here it is.)
I thought I had figured out how long it takes for poppy seeds to make their way through my alimentary canal.Thirty-six hours.I ate a flat bagel as I walked through Grand Central and sat on the four o’clock train on Friday afternoon.It did occur to me that there were a lot of seeds on that thing but it wasn’t until this morning that I got the report.A visual inspection of my bowel movement confirmed uncountable numbers of tiny, black, pits and so I said “Ahh Haa!”Thirty-six hours plus or minus.I happened to mention it to Liz.“I know how long it takes poppy seeds to make their way through me…”She didn’t even look up from the Sunday paper.“How do you know?”“I checked.I ate a flat bagel Friday afternoon and the seeds have evidenced themselves just now.Thirty six hours!”I poured a second coffee for myself and got her cup and made one for her as well.“What about the cookies you ate last night?Poppy seed Humentashen!”I detected a hint of superiority in her voice (damn the carb counters of the world) but her grasp of the obvious flaw in my theory could not be denied.
I love flat bagels.It is one of my great weaknesses.One could attribute it to how tired I am when I am heading for the afternoon train.One could say that I deserve it as a small reward for the sacrifice I make all day.I do not delude myself at all.It is just a tactile weakness not better or worse than a heroin addiction or a craving for chocolate, or cocaine or whiskey.I crave the salty mix of seeds and spice and the crunchy, chewy feeling in my mouth.No matter that I promise myself that I will not buy one (they are overpriced), that I do not need the calories (I am not overweight but my physique is not properly balanced), that I must save my self for Liz’s home-cooked dinner (I am not a sexual cheat -my indiscretions are purely dietary), I buy one anyway.
I have been known to stand out front of the bakery for fifteen minutes and debate all the points but in the end I almost always end up in line.“Flat bagel, please.Yes, everything.Wait, I think I have correct change.”I even go so far as to promise myself that I will not take a bite until I have found a seat on the train, gotten my ticket pinned to my lapel and taken out my reading materiel or Sony Walkman and earphones.Would you believe that I cannot even keep that simple promise to myself.I cannot stop myself—as I stride through the huge terminal I cannot help reaching into the bag and ripping off a small bit of the crust.Then another and another.I become ashamed of myself.By the time I finally find my seat the bagel is nearly half gone and I have forgotten my pledge to myself, my embarrassment, my initial resolve to not buy it in the first place.By the time I am done I always wish I had bought a bottle of water and my mouth is full of bits of seeds.
The latest round of diet fads has not helped my sense of guilt.All carbohydrates are bad, I am told.Dinner has been distilled down to meat with a side dish of salad or a vegetable (some vegetables are considered unacceptable on these “low-carb” diets as well though I cannot figure out why.Carrots used to be good for me but no more.)Lunch consists of a sandwich without the bread—there is really nothing on the lunch menu that appeals to me at all.Unless I were to eat the same thing I know we will be having for dinner but then dinner would be a boring disappointment.Breakfast?Eggs.They used to be bad for me, didn’t they?Now they are good.Of course if you want them to be really good they must be yolk-less, food-colored, egg “substitutes”, the ones that come in a milk carton.You whip some of those up and make an omelet with onions and peppers and top the whole thing off with a fistful of low-fat cheese.This is eaten without toast (you may have a slice of “whole wheat, sliced thin, diet bread” but once you taste it you will never be tempted to include it in your breakfast again.It is not worthy.)To truly make this breakfast grand you will want to include a couple of slices of turkey bacon and a cup of coffee with skim milk and sugar substitute.I tried this breakfast.I reverted to raisin bran (with extra raisins) and banana sliced over it.I used to consider this a good, guilt-free breakfast—now I am fraught with over-eaters remorse as I pour the one percent milk over the cereal. But this guilt is nothing compared to the self-flagellation I wish I could inflict about three times a week when I succumb to a flat-bagel urge.
Many people, lately, have become soldiers in the low-carb army.They knot in tiny clusters around the buffet table at parties and critique the selection of food.It is not unusual that there is absolutely nothing for them to eat.It is becoming more usual for there to be a platter of acceptable vegetables and low-fat cheeses for them to munch while they observe the gluttons amongst us eating the miniature quiche and batter-fried shrimp.“It’s amazing…it’s always the fat ones who eat that stuff” they will whisper to one another just loud enough to be heard over the crunching of celery.They will sip their wine while the unobservant will swig a beer.They will not touch the baked potato or the breadsticks or the wedding cake.They will tell each other they can’t wait to get home to a big bowl full of diet Jell-O and artificial whipped cream.On a decadent night watching TV they might eat exactly twenty pistachio nuts.I will make the rounds of the party looking—as I always do at these functions—for signs of intelligent and interesting conversations.“I lost twenty-two pounds and I’m never hungry…”“Have you tried the eggplant casserole?No breading!…”“No thanks, those kind of nuts are very high in carbs.”People used to talk about their cars and their stock portfolios.Remember when there was debate over your choice of Mac or PC?No more.It’s all about diets now.Low carb diets.And here I am addicted to flat bagels.
