Fresh, Hot Wastes of Time

The unholy fascination with tea continues. I bought myself an electric kettle, because you know I:

1) need something else on my counter
2) need yet another gadget, and
3) need something else that does just one damn thing.

I wanted a regular, on the stove kettle but neither grocery store I went to had one.

Please forgive me for any typos. The puppy chewed through the last keyboard cable and I’m on a new keyboard that sucks. I’m fixing to order a new one. I hate mushy keyboards. I liked the really clackety ones that had the tactile “click” when you pressed a key, but the problem was that they were really loud. Not the thing when you’re trying to soothe a baby, a puppy, or a husband to sleep.

Luckily I was not one of the ones who had their name a social secirity number stolen from UT’s computer system last week, but turns out a friend of mine did. Wonder what weird things are going to show up on his credit report.

Today was just the prettiest day outside. About 72 degrees, not a cloud in the sky. Such a nice change from the unusual cold and ice we had recently. I cleaned off the table on the screened in porch and set the kids up with some Play-Doh while I sat in a rocking chair and quilted. I’ve got my nephew’s quilt about 2/3 done, which would normally be good news except I started it six months ago and it needs to be done by the first week in April. Crystal ball points to many sore fingers in the immediate future.

Hopefully the kids will sleep tonight so I can get an early start tomorrow morning and head over to the farmer’s market.

Last but not least. The trick to excellent mashed potatoes is adding more butter than you think humanly possible. A stick per 2.5 pounds. Trust me on this, it’s really worth it. Cooks Illustrated agrees.

*burp*

Thanks to my referral logs, I just found out that my blog is one of only three hits on Google for ‘assasinate “George Walker Bush”‘

Um, if I suddenly stop posting, you know where I am.

Happy Mardi Gras!

Laissez les bon temps roullez!

And remember – party’s over at midnight.

Sometimes I’ll encounter something that totally brings back a period of time. A smell, a song, the feel of the air against my face. Tonight I heard Heartbreak Beat by The Psychedelic Furs for the first time in around 10 years and it brought back my junior year in high school. I was very into the new wave side of music back then – no hair bands, please. The Cars, Psychedelic Furs, The Smiths, U2 (back when they were cool), Cactus World News (anyone even remember them now?).

I attended a very cliquish high school, and although I was “expected” to be in the popular crowd, they would have nothing to do with me and eventually I spurned them even more vehemently than they pushed me away. My school had a reputation in town for being snobbish, and I had several occasions when in UIL competition or something of that ilk people would actually just walk away from me when I said what school I went to.

The summers before my junior and senior years in high school I went to classes at a local university and earned college credits. I met up with a bunch of people, good people, from high schools all over the city. They liked me for who I was, not for my Louis Vuitton purse (the girls in my high school had Louis Vuitton purses, holyshit) or any other material possession. We were the best of friends and called ourselves The Lunch Bunch because we’d go out to eat every other day.

Nef and I kept in touch until we drifted apart completely about 5 years ago. Weirdly enough and unbeknownenst to me, he dated a friend of a friend briefly here in Austin.

Tara and I drifted apart, too – the last time I saw her was about 10 years ago after I found out she also lived in Austin. We got together and started drinking and unearthed Eldridge, who had also moved to Austin, called him up at midnight and pestered him until he came over to visit.

Kevin was in a band and he hooked me up with cool music. Back then about all we could do was a tape to tape recording (mp3 wha?), so I stocked up on dozens of high quality chromium cassettes.

J.C. was my unrequited love. I was so totally stuck on him for 3 or 4 years. He ended up going out with one of Nef’s old girlfriends and none of us heard from him again. Last I knew, he and Kevin were at UC Berkeley, but that was 14 years ago.

God, I really miss them. Nef, Tara, Maria, Kevin, J.C., Eldridge, or anyone else from UTSA’s Honors Program for Young Scholars… if you read this, drop me a line. Let’s do lunch and listen to 80s music and do Breakfast Club quotes.

Things having to do with “rainbow” that make me cry:

Somewhere Over the Rainbow as sung by Judy Garland. My grandmother’s favorite song. I miss her when I hear it.

The Rainbow Connection. No idea why. Nostalgia? Mourning Jim Henson? The lyrics?

The Rainbow Bridge poem. Shit, I can’t even look at the title without choking up.

Sunday night, the best show on all of television starts a new season – Six Feet Under returns for season three. I’ve been spoiler diving and there’s apparently a very interesting twist in the first 15 minutes, as well as some cool stuff happening in the next few episodes.

I don’t feel like I can write particulars, since this isn’t my own tragedy, but a friend of mine just lost someone very close to her today and I’m afraid of slipping into platitudes. Grieving people don’t want to hear about how it was God’s plan or that it’s better this way. They want to rail at the unfairness of it all, to feel like Funeral Blues by W.H. Auden. Oddly enough, having been on both sides – comforted and comfortee – it’s easy to remember what it’s like to experience deep grief, and easier still to say those senseless things that never bring anyone comfort. Even though there is no happiness without sadness, how in the hell is telling that to a grieving person going to help?

Strangely I think that one of the best grief scenes I’ve seen came from Stephen King’s Pet Sematary, where the father loses his son and is so numb that at the funeral all he can do is count how many times people tell him “He’s with the angels now” or other such nonsense.

I’m really taking the Mr. Rogers thing hard. I’ve been teary-eyed all day long. Am I the only one?