Pot Training

Tea: Yunnan Gold

Music: Weezer, "Buddy Holly"

Time: Night

I'd been putting off this talk with my youngest daughter. I don't know why. She's been old enough for a while now.

Her 17-year-old sister has shown no interest in the subject whatsoever. In fact, it repels her. Their brother, almost 16, has tried it. He can take it or leave it. But at 14, the youngest can't get enough. She has whole bags of the stuff.

I guess I finally figured out that I have two choices: Let her work things out on her own, finding her own way by trial and error, or give her some fatherly guidance.

So today ... I taught her how to run the coffee maker.

She chose caramel, one of 12 flavors she got as a gift. I showed her how to put in the filter, measure out the coffee, fill the pot with water and pour it into the machine.

Then she flipped the switch, and the running commentary began.

"How long is this going to take?"

"It's taking too long."

"Is it done yet?"

"How can I tell when it's done?"

(No, she hadn't been hitting the caffeine before that. She just has little patience when she wants something.)

Finally, the pot was done, and she got down her gigantic mug from Alice's Tea Cup in New York. (We've both been there, but she likes to gloat about being first by several months.) This is her mug. She doesn't share. She has the youngest child's ethic -- she might have had to share her living space all her life, but her stuff is sacrosanct.

She filled the mug, got out the milk and then stopped short.

"If I put milk in now, it's going to go all over the place," she said. "You want some of this coffee, Dad?

"You sure? It's your coffee."

"Yeah."

"Can I wait until you're done, wash out your mug and then use it?"

Her eyes narrowed, and she clutched the cup to her chest.

"My mug. Get your own."

I got out another mug, poured some of her coffee into it, and sipped. Could have been stronger. Couldn't have been more pleasurable.

"Thanks for sharing."

"You're welcome."

As Hallmark moments go, it was pretty darn good.

Next week, maybe the week after that, I'll get out my ibrik and show her how to cook up the hard stuff.

Who knows? Maybe I'll even let her use one of my little cups.

A Little Common Sense, Please?

Tea: Apricot

Music: Potato Moon, "Ghost Man"

Time: Night.

So the president's bailout plan went down in flames, and fingers are pointing every which way. The way I see it, though, it's a chance for Congress to do the right thing (for once).

I didn't come up with this idea, but it's brilliant:

Instead of bailing out the big lenders, use that $700 billion to pay off the home loans themselves. Then let homeowners pay the government back, as they can. If it takes a while, it takes a while -- but people don't have to worry about losing their homes, which lessens a huge stressor on the middle class.

Obvious benefit: People who aren't desperate are less likely to do desperate things. As home foreclosures soar, watch for the crime rate to shoot up, too.

Okay, so maybe expecting that many people to do the right thing for the right reason is unrealistic. So put it to them as Bill Murray might have phrased it in Ghostbusters:

"If this works, you will have saved the homes of millions of registered voters."

Radio, Radio

Tea: Jacob's Dream

Music: Gorillaz, "Feel Good Inc."

Time: Night.

I don't know if I've plugged this yet, but you seriously have to check out Pandora if you haven't already. (Yes, I did mention it once, here, but that was a setup for ghost story posting.)

Someday, I want to be able to afford all the music I want. (Yes, that's a wish for a runaway bestseller or two, or a killer career giving workshops on creativity.)

But in the meantime, this is a pretty cool way to hear music by artists I like -- and artists who mine the same musical veins. For example, I brought up Gorillaz when I signed on tonight (yes, I have it turned down so as not to wake anyone), and after "Feel Good Inc." it played "Who Cares" by Gnarls Barkley and R3D2's "Beyond the Beyond."

And while I still miss progradio.com, which had some killer obscure tracks (Giles, Giles and Fripp, anyone, or perhaps something from Camel or Gentle Giant?), my Yes, UK and King Crimson stations produce some fairly tasty morsels from the Realm of Long Songs in Weird Time Signatures. (I think that was a Yes album, but I'm not quite sure ...)

Hey ... beats most of the crap on the commercial stations.

Hop and Stretch

Tea: Earl Grey

Music: 21st Century Schizoid Band, "21st Century Schizoid Man"

Time: Night.

This is getting to be a habit. I went bug hunting today.

I didn't start off to do that. My son had a strings gig at a park with some decent wooded areas, so I took along a couple of plastic bags in case I was able to find some nuts (including acorns) or mushrooms.

Total forage: One edible hickory nut. The acorns were (a) small and (b) wet, and the only fungi were either (c) unidentifiable or (d) clearly not for consumption.

So, finding an area of long grass outside the woods, I spent a half-hour pursuing (and in about two dozen cases, catching) grasshoppers. They got the usual preparation, with the added step of pulling the legs off the larger ones. (Spiky, those legs are.)

In the meantime, I made a small pot of rice. When it and the bug/chile preparation were both done, I fluffed the former and stirred in the latter.

Hey, if you've only got a small amount of a good thing, you stretch it how you can.

Cinematic Cheddar

Tea: Chinese Melon Seed

Music: The Afterparty, "Girl with All the Cool Names"

Time: Night.

Weird not to be at a gallery opening tonight. There were a few going on, but the timing just didn't work out.

Oh, well. I'm thinking it's a good time to commandeer the DVD player and grab something reaaaaaaaaaaaally cheesy -- and no, I don't mean the presidential debates. (Cheese is sort of a recurring theme today. Unfortunately, there's no Piave Vecchio in the house, nor aged Gouda, nor even a big freakin' hunk of Halloumi for grilling.)

I'm thinking Japanese -- subtitled, not dubbed -- or maybe something with both cowboys and dinosaurs. Heck, why not go for both and then throw in a 62-minute pro-smoking spot featuring bloodsucking worms with arms and legs?

Tonight, it's all about quantity over quality. Pass the popcorn and the Jujubes, and cue the snarky commentary. It's showtime.

Another Dollop of Catch-up

Tea: Blueberry

Music: Metallica, "Enter Sandman"

Time: Night.

My computer has gotten over its latest bout of being stupid. My brain's still fogged, but it's a start and I'll take it.

So, recapping (because I'm vagueing too much to reconstitute three days' worth of posts):

1. This week's forage: Apples from a tree in front of the high school. (I see this as an extra yield on my tax dollars.) Stewed six of them tonight with honey, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and a pinch of ancho pepper. This would be good alongside roast pork, ham or even sausages.

2. The chipmunk needed to be rescued again, this time by my son. He came home from school and found it trapped in the drainpipe, squeaking frantically. He helped it out and it scampered away. My guess is that it thinks if it keeps getting rescued, we'll keep giving it acorns. Sorry, only the first release comes with free food.

3. Speaking of acorns and foraged apples ... I'm thinking that dried apples and acorns would be pretty darn good together in a stuffing (even better if I can get bacon into the mix).

Great. Now I'm hungry again ...

Catch and Release

Tea: Vanilla

Music: INXS, "This Time"

Time: Night.

I trapped a chipmunk today, which I kind of sort of intended to do. Then I helped it escape.

It's a sticky story -- literally. The rodent in question got into the garage the other day, most likely while I had the door open to get the laundry out. We already had glue traps in the space, because mice like to come in when it's cool. I hoped the chipmunk would encounter one of those (not so I could do it in, only so I could get it out), and it did.

I heard a skittering and unmouselike squeaking. I went into the garage, hoping the chipmunk had only gotten one paw stuck long enough for me to get trap and rodent outside, after which I'd gently pry the paw loose and send the critter on its merry way.

No luck. It was four paws, its tail and the length of its belly's worth of attached -- and frantic, its struggles only getting it stuck worse. I picked up the trap, carried it outside, and began to ponder.

For a while, things looked grim. I didn't see any way of detaching animal from adhesive without causing serious injury, and I was starting to mull the most humane way of dispatching the chipmunk. (I didn't want to, believe me. I hunt, I eat meat, etc. -- and yes, I trap mice. But this small death would have served no purpose. It wasn't the start of an infestation; it was trapped at, in effect, my invitation at leaving the door open.

Gradually, the chipmunk calmed down (or more likely, just wore out from all the wriggling), and I could see that if I could get its paws loosened, it likely could get away, little the worse for wear. So I got out a pie pan, put the trap in the bottom and ran some warm water (with a little dish soap) into the pan. Then it was back to the porch, where I went to work. Occasionally, the chipmunk would struggle, and I would stop and stroke its fur until it relaxed again. I worried early on about it biting me, but it never even tried. (Maybe it was afraid it would hurt me and I'd fall on it.)

After the better part of 20 minutes, the front paws came loose. The chipmunk stretched out, grabbed the edge of the pie pan, and pulled. Soon, the back paws were free -- and finally, the tail. It jumped away, looking bedraggled and exhausted, and hid under the car.

I went back in the house, got some of the acorns I'd collected and dried the other day, and hulled them (figuring that it might be a little much work for the chipmunk to get the shells off at that point). I took the acorns outside and set them on the driveway, near the car. They were gone this afternoon.

I hope the chipmunk's doing all right tonight. And I hope it stays out of the garage from now on. I don't think either one of us wants to go through this again.