WASTE NOT, WANT NOT

Yesterday I wrote with Steve. Afterward, we strolled down Broadway to The Wok Express, a Chinese/Vietnamese carryout place run by a handful of friendly Asian folks. I’ve never asked their nationality, but going by the menu and their small stature, I’ve thought they might be Vietnamese.

Steve and I got half-orders of the special fried rice, which is cheap there, plentiful and very good. We sat in the back, talking about gravity and relativity, Pluto and John Updike, and the strangeness of working for a living. The female proprietor, a slight cheerful woman, brought our hot pepper sauce without our asking. She remembers things. If I come in alone, she says, “Where your friend?” I don’t know whether she means Steve or Becky, so I usually reply, “Working today.” I do appreciate her asking.

A group of young professional men came in and took the table behind us, sharing appetizers and slurping up Vietnamese noodle soups. They ate with less leisure than Steven and myself, and when they got up to leave, I noticed they’d left behind, intact, a crab Rangoon and a spring roll.

Crab Rangoon I can take or leave, but I do love spring rolls. The ones they make at this place aren’t fried; they’re wrapped in rice paper, a translucent, slightly tacky membrane that reveals three plump shrimp coiled end-to-end, a wafer of roast pork, tucked in with long dark stems of cilantro and mint. Who could leave behind such a work of art?

Perhaps the fare was a casualty of manners; the gentlemen may have practiced the etiquette of refraining from taking the last piece. Or maybe they were just in a hurry, or full.

I thought about sanitation. I thought about my grandmother, who scolded me to wash everything before eating it. “You don’t know where that’s been,” she’d say. “You don’t know who’s touched it.” If my parents weren’t around, she’d use a racial epithet to postulate exactly whose dark hands she feared.

My grandmother, bless her racist heart, surely rolled over in her grave yesterday. I saw the proprietor (I ought to ask her name) coming to clear the table, so I took a napkin and wrapped it around the appetizer. “They left behind a perfectly good spring roll,” I explained. “I love these things.”

A grin lit up her face, and she nodded vigorously. “Oh, please,” she said. “You take.” She started to pick up their plates, then added, “Want sauce? Two minute.”

Steve and I both started to laugh. I felt a little adventurous, a little embarrassed. He said, “This might be the very best place to do something like that.” I pointed out the crab Rangoon, and he ate it while we waited.

In far less than two minutes, the woman rushed from the kitchen with a plastic tub of sweet peanut sauce, and a small waxed paper bag. She held open the latter, instructing, “You put in here. Is better.” I unrolled the spring roll from the napkin, and she packaged my treasure in a paper lunch bag. I thanked her, then Steve and I left. All three of us were inordinately pleased.

I’m not sure why my taking the spring roll made the woman so happy; on reflection, though, it may have been the first action by an American that made much sense to her.


(image from www.kidsregen.org/howTo.php

Trickster

The pavement is wet. Local trails are mushy. This is a day for the Coyote work-out.

These Rollerblade brand skates, with their big rubber tires, can go anywhere a bicycle will. They sneer at wet pavement; they lap it up.

I love it that Rollerblade named their trail skates after the Trickster.

(photo from starbulletin.com/98/08/25/...ory3.html)

Religion

My dad called Sunday. Among other things, he told me that he got a bag of dried corn to feed the squirrels in his backyard. Four days in a row, he placed an ear of corn outside and it would disappear; the squirrels would snatch away the entire thing. On the fifth day, he was tardy in bestowing the offering upon them, so the squirrels brought back an empty cob. Seems to me that this is how religions are born.

(image from www.birdsforever.com/squirrel.html)

Why I Write Prose

Been trying to rhyme "vertical"
Not having much success
I'm really not expertical
In trying to express

A synonym for vertical
Is something up and down
Stripes on an umpire's shirtical
A lamppost seen downtown

When trying to rhyme vertical
It's best to keep it short
To draw in like a turtical
Might be my best resort

Another rhyme for vertical
--but this keeps getting worse
I'd rather have dessertical
Than write another verse

Cat TV

Becky and I visited my mom over Christmas, and as usual we brought Batman and Tempest. When we got to Mom’s house, I fed the cats and gave them water. Once they were settled, Tempest got on Mom’s lap. She seemed uneasy, though. Her tail kept twitching and she had not put down her head.

I noticed that she kept looking toward the TV. Mom was reading a magazine, and the TV was off. I told Mom that I thought the cat wanted to watch TV, so she turned it on. Immediately Tempest gave out a rumbling purr, then she lay her chin on Mom’s thigh and watched the news until she fell asleep. I've never had a cat that would stay with programs like she does. She must like the visual stimulation.

What I Did This Weekend

Rather than celebrate the holiday, I primed and painted the kitchen for the second time since we moved in this past July. The former owners were such heavy smokers that even with primer, smoke damage showed through. Then I put up the pot & pan rack and the hanging basket.

Becky has been asking for a pan rack for years. I tried an inexpensive one, but it was too small and we kept banging heads on it, so I came up with the design pictured above. I feared a pegboard in the kitchen might look rather, ahem, white trash, but was pleased with the result, both in form and function. Becky pronounced it "a work of art," which might be a bit of hyperbole, but it was nice of her.

Proust Questionnaire

This questionnaire was invented by the noted French author Marcel Proust. You can use these questions for self-exploration or to flesh out characters.

• What do you consider your greatest achievement?

• What is your idea of perfect happiness?

• What is your current state of mind?

• What is your favorite occupation?

• What is your most treasured possession?

• What or who is the greatest love of your life?

• What is your favorite journey?

• What is your most marked characteristic?

• When and where were you the happiest?

• What is it that you most dislike?

• What is your greatest fear?

• What is your greatest extravagance?

• Which living person do you most despise?

• What is your greatest regret?

• Which talent would you most like to have?

• Where would you like to live?

• What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

• What is the quality you most like in a man?

• What is the quality you most like in a woman?

• What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

• What is the trait you most deplore in others?

• What do you most value in your friends?

• Who is your favorite hero of fiction?

• Whose are your heroes in real life?

• Which living person do you most admire?

• What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

• On what occasions do you lie?

• Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

• If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

• What are your favorite names?

• How would you like to die?

• If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?

• What is your motto?

Courtesy of Grady ...

MOUTH-OLOGY

Q. What is your salad dressing of choice?
A. ranch

Q. What is your favorite fast food restaurant?
A. one chain’s about like another, but for quick fried rice I like the Wok Express on Broadway

Q. What is your favorite sit-down restaurant?
A. pan-Asian

Q. On average, what size tip do you leave at a restaurant?
A. 20%

Q. What food could you eat every day for two weeks and not get sick of?
A. milk

Q. What are your pizza toppings of choice?
A. sausage, green pepper, onion and mushrooms

Q. What do you like to put on your toast?
A. butter and apricot or blackberry jam

TECHNOLOGY

Q. What is your wallpaper on your computer?
A. Land of Oz map from WICKED

Q. How many televisions are in your house?
A. Too many; they were all over the place when we moved in.

Q. What color is your iPod?
A. iPod? No $$ for that

BIOLOGY

Q. Are you right-handed or left-handed?
A. right

Q. Have you ever had anything removed from your body?
A. just some teeth

Q. When was the last time you had a cavity?
A. over a year

Q. What is the last heavy item you lifted?
A. boxes of books

Q. Have you ever been knocked unconscious?
A. a few times, mostly at judo

RANDOMOLOGY, pt 1

Q. If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die?
A. not sure about that

Q. If you could change your name, what would you change it to?
A. “Best-selling author Bridget Bufford”

Q. What color do you think looks best on you?
A. Burgundy or red

Q. Have you ever swallowed a non-food item by mistake?
A. Numerous insects: ants, gnats, a couple flies.

Q. Have you ever saved someone's life?
A. Not in any direct way; I’ve been a blood donor many times

Q. Has someone ever saved yours?
A. not directly, but I’ve had some good influences

DAREOLOGY

Q. Would you kiss a member of the same sex for $100?
A. I’d even kiss a member of the opposite sex for $100

Q. Would you allow one of your little fingers to be cut off for $200,000?
A. just the left one

Q. Would you never blog again for $50,000?
A. definitely

Q. Would you pose naked in a magazine for $250,000?
A. Probably, but it would be tough

Q. Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1000?
A. yes.

Q. Would you, without fear of punishment, take a human life for $1,000,000?
A. a couple worthy candidates crossed my mind, but I wouldn’t do it for the money

DUMBOLOGY

Q: What is in your left pocket?
A: cell phone, change

Q: Is Napoleon Dynamite actually a good movie?
A. don’t know

Q: Do you have hardwood or carpet in your house?
A: hardwood

Q: Do you sit or stand in the shower?
A: Stand

Q: Could you live with roommates?
A: I do.

Q: How many pairs of flip flops do you own?
A: 0

Q: Last time you had a run-in with the cops?
A: It’s been a long time

Q: What do you want to be when you grow up?
A: “Best-selling author Bridget Bufford”

Q: Who is number 1 on your top 8?
A: Becky

LASTOLOGY

Q: Friend you talked to?
A: Carole

Q: Last person to call you?
A: one of my workshop members

Q: Person you hugged?
A: Becky

FAVORITOLOGY

Q: Number?
A: 7

Q: Season?
A: Fall

Q: Book?
A: Wicked

Q. Website?
A. Tribe or Free Will Astrology

Q. Month?
A. I don’t know

Q. Alcohol?
A. nope

CURRENTOLOGY

Q: Missing someone?
A: Yeah, all but one of my close friends left town this past year

Q: Mood?
A: Good

Q: Listening to?
A: Hildegard von Bingen

Q: Watching?
A. computer

Q: Worrying about?
A: money, publishing

RANDOMOLOGY, pt 2

Q: First place you went this morning?
A: To make coffee.

Q: What can you not wait to do?
A. Sell my next book

Q: What's the last movie you saw?
A: Across the Universe

Q: Do you smile often?
A: More than I used to

Q: Are you a friendly person?
A: More reserved than friendly

Q: Someone you wish you never met?
A. I’m not going to post her name on the Internet

Lucky Lucky White Horse

Sunday I was driving through the country with Becky and her friend Carol. When we saw a white horse, Carol had us all lick our right thumbs, touch them to our left palms and then cup our right elbow with that palm so that the white horse would make us all lucky.

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