The Bi-/Semi- Debate

essay

Thursday July 22, 2010

Friday July 23, 2010

Saturday July 24, 2010

Sunday July 25, 2010

Monday July 26, 2010

Tuesday July 27, 2010

Screw the daily post-- I'm now looking at a weekly. Maybe even semiweekly… or is that biweekly? Or am I trying to say semimonthly? Where is my damned dictionary? Oh, there it is… that icon right there. Interesting! Semiweekly is twice a week, while biweekly is twice a week OR every two weeks.

Well, how the hell does that make sense?

Anyway… where am I supposed to begin?

For one thing, it's more busying than you might imagine joining a dad and his kids up in the boldt of Hum. Especially if there is no school in session and his children are not enrolled in day camp. The kids, aged 8 and 12, need to find something to do other than mindlessly stare at television all day and night. Not that they would mind, thank you very much -- it has been all we could do to tear them AWAY from the idiot box. When we do, the first place they tend to go is the second and even more destructive moron machine -- the computer. Yes, it's true -- all manner of electronic entertainment is available here in the beautiful and rustic Redwoods, and just five miles from the beach. Sadly, the beach doesn't seem to be much of a draw up here on the Northern coast -- the crisp and constant breeze tends to stiffen even the hardiest of nipples. Not really conducive to laying on a towel soaking up the rays. Want to get a tan up here? Try booking a spray booth in a salon. Or, up here in the farm community of Humboldt, one could always tend a vast indoor garden -- those full spectrum HPS lamps will empinken the reddest neck. Not really entertainment for tweeners, though… although give them a couple of years and we'll revisit the issue.

It has been a challenge. One technique that seems to work is keeping them up past their bedtime. The next day they roll out of the room, yawning and bleary-eyed at the crack of noon, which really cuts down needed scheduling. But then when they are awake late at night there's nothing for them to do but watch the TV and abuse the computer, and we find ourselves coming full circle.

What to do, what to do? We burned up an afternoon one day by putting them in bathing suits and telling them to wash our cars. With their naturally adversarial relationship it became less of a cleaning chore and more of a splash match, with one dominating the hose and using it to distract the other while the other tried to recapture it with well-timed and soapy sponge bombs. Their dad and I meanwhile set up two lawn chairs well away from the water's range, downed many mojitos and agreed on politics. We would have argued, but we both shared the same viewpoint -- the best thing to come out of two Schwarzenegger gubernatorial terms was eight years without any Arnold movies. Oh, and his well-meaning bankrupting of the state made passing of the upcoming marijuana legalization measure much more likely. About damned time, I say -- nobody should be in prison for being mellow.

You might not realize it, but things are expensive up here! My friend wasn't an elaborate home cooking chef, which meant that our meals were mostly taken in restaurants, and to keep within my budget I've had to buy a lot of sides and tap waters. Heh, heh... me eating sides -- how silly is that? I partook of all the various specialties which rolled within my eating perimeter. I got a burrito at Hey Juan Burritos, the only death-metal taco stand I've ever been to. Although it cost 50% more than my local place in LA and they didn't serve chips and salsa it was delicious nonetheless, and the clientele were worth the price of admission alone. They were almost exclusively ex death-metal rockers, ironically balding and paunchy and carrying their babies in around-the-neck hammocks covering the faded band names on their stretched-out black tees.

I got a sub at this little hole-in-the-wall sandwich shoppe called, appropriately enough, the Hole-In-The-Wall Sandwich Shoppe. Again I overpaid by half, but I have to admit it beat the hell out of the Subway meatball sub. The bread was fresh and crunchy, the sauce was rich and tangy and the meatballs were mouth-wateringly delicious and the size of horse testicles. That's big, for those of you who haven't held a pair of horse testicles in your shaking and sweaty hands.

Eww. That even grossed ME out.

We went to Los Bagels, a bakery-cum-sandwich shoppe featuring my favorite baked good, the croissant. I lie like a Frenchman (what does that even mean?) -- they didn't serve Frenchmen. The bagels were only 80 cents each, but turn them into a sandwich and you were looking at a car payment. Well, maybe I exaggerate a little. (a point of fact: when I started working in the bagel place on Main Street in New York City at 13 years old, bagels were just 8 cents each!) Again, the food was tasty, and of course, small-town friendliness existed everywhere. I had to be talked town from my belief that every shopgirl was hitting on me, though. "That's how they speak to everybody around here," my friend assured me. I wasn't convinced… I swear she said, "Good morning! How may I hump you today?"

We went to a cheap Italian restaurant and an expensive Italian restaurant. Oddly, the menus were the same at both. The only difference was, at the expensive place they wore suits and at the cheaper place they wore sauce. Oh, and the prices were the same, but the fancy place added corkage fees. At the cheap place we had to pay for the lap dance, but the sauce stains were free. Again I lie… we had to pay for the sauce stains.

We even dined at an all-you-can-eat buffet featuring Oriental food. I don't know what kind of food Oriental is but obviously they do, because that's what they were called: Oriental Buffet. It looked like every buffet I've ever been to. Steam tables and stacks of plates, every third one featuring a crustacean shell permanently stuck to the surface. The food was surprisingly good, and the price was surprisingly more reasonable. Plus they had three flavors of Oriental soft serve ice cream; vanilla and chocolate and a third flavor, choconilla.

So all we did with the kids this week was wash cars and eat. That kind of filled up the days. Oh, we managed to take in nature, which at least kept the dog's nose busy-- the kids were too busy arguing to notice. We went to a lovely marsh with lots of plant and animal life and hiked around the big pond. When we got to the far side I read a sign which explained that these were man-made water features which were a natural way to clean the waste water from all of Eureka's toilets. So that's what that smell was! Actually, all the worst stuff had been filtered out miles away in a treatment plant that turned the solids into fertilizer for the vast farming industry all around here. These ponds were stocked with bacteria and other life that thrived on this water, converting it into something people could use to play horrible practical jokes on their neighbors. Truth was, the bay smelled more pongy than the ponds did.

We took a small trip forty minutes away to walk the protected paths in Giant Redwood forest. It's always fun to cavort among those enormous trees, crashing through the underbrush like the thoughtless humans we are, destroying delicate and endangered species, all while frightening bears and lions away from their goal of claiming the kids. An opportunity missed, I tried to convince my friend. He refused to yield on that issue. Wuss.

I was given a chance to farm, Humboldt style, and I learned a very important lesson after that day: I'm allergic to nature. One look at my horribly swollen, disfigured face not only scared the kids but taught me that some farm products which were fine when you burned them were much more toxic when you rolled around naked in a room full of them. A forty hour allergy attack taught me I was more a consumer than a producer, unless I wished to invest in an environmental suit with its own oxygen supply. I opted out. Maybe there's a place for me in the timeshare business, selling vacations to nonallergic people so they can roll around in farm product like pigs in slop. I'm in the middle of research… I'll get back to you.

Days have gone by and yet I write mostly about eating. Well, that's what is important to me, I guess. Perhaps this is a clue which will lead me to my as yet unrevealed goal-- is my direction:

Sous chef?

Roach coach?

Eating contests?

It's a big question mark to me.

I guess it's okay to end this post weakly. Or maybe just SEMIweakly.