Kobayashi Maru

Text Forecast from Environment Canada

My town: Issued 4.00 PM PST Tuesday 28 November 2006

Tonight

A few clouds. Wind north 20 km/h becoming light this evening. Low minus 21. Cold wind chill minus 27 this evening. Risk of frostbite.

Wednesday

Sunny with cloudy periods. Becoming cloudy early in the afternoon with 40 percent chance of flurries. High minus 11.

Wednesday night

Flurries. Amount 2 cm. Wind south 20 km/h. High minus 13.

Thursday

Cloudy with 60 percent chance of flurries. High minus 7.

Friday

A mix of sun and cloud. Low minus 13. High minus 4.

Saturday

Snow. Low minus 12. High minus 6.

Ok, so here’s where the poop hits the fan for the Texan in me. I cannot explain how simply WRONG this kind of temperature range is to me!! Now, I know that there are those of you out there that have horror stories of winters from your past that dwarf this little “cool spot” we’re having here in southern Canada - I get that. But i’m from the deep South. We have times of the year that are known as winter - you know, from a technical point of view. Shoot, I remeber some days from my childhood that included ice storms. Yeah I said ICE. By simple means of deduction, one can see that this required temperatures that at least got near freezing (in the upper atmosphere at least).

It amazes me that people (in other placese where this crap is normal) chose to live in this environment. My town is supposedly “temperate”. We have 4 seasons and none of them are supposed to be extreme…BUT THIS CRAP IS EXTREME!!! People were plugging their cars in - and not becuase they are tree hugging planet savers who drive electric cars. Guys on the radio were discussion frostbite in terms of time not temperature. “If you have uncovered skin exposed to the elements for X number of minutes you could have moderate to severe frostbite depending on your skin.”

Now, I am not the smartest guy in the room. I get that. I do not have years of deep winter experience in the frozen north and I cannot engage in guy huddles in the foyers of church before the service where they talk about their worst winter experiences. But seriously, exactly what is frostbite “dependant” on with regards to your skin??? How many layers of it you have? How coarse it is? How thick it is? Maybe it has to do with where that skin is located on your physical anatomy?? this just in… People who have the urge to moon their neighbors can expect a frostbitten ass in as little as 45 seconds, where as those who choose to remove mittens so they can shoot the bird will have at least 2 minutes before experiencing digitational frostbite. And for the love of God men, this is just not the time to whip it out and write your name in the snow…it will clean fall off before you can dot the proverbial “i”.

Now I suppose genital frostbite is nothing to be flippant about, but you get my drift.

I actually like Canada. I put up with the jokes from my friends and relatives about igloos and eating whale blubber and all the other stereotypes (though if anyone could hook me up on a seal hunt, I would so love to club a seal!!!) But when they call me from their back porches where they are drinking iced tea (the real kind not that powerded crap they serve up here that is pre-sweetened and pre-lemoned and tastes like hammered poop) wearing shorts and t-shirts and I answer the phone having just come in from shovelling another dump of iced over snow off the drive and am peeling off 5 layers of clothing and soaking my ass in warm water cause I thought it would be funny to moon the neighbor…well, lets just say that the stereotypes are once again alive and well in Texas.

Well, I’m off to feed the sled dogs and pummel the moose to death with Timbits…

...Comment [2]

Disappointment. Disappointment is the emotion felt when a strongly held expectation is not met. It’s an emotion that all of us know and none of us desire. We have all felt it. Sometimes more poignantly than others, sometimes more sharply than others, sometimes with a fierceness of anger that can be surprising and, in its most extreme cases, terrifying. Terrifying in that secret sense of “OMG am I really capable of such hideous, atrocious thoughts toward someone, something, some group, some situation?”

I am currently deep in the throes of such disappointment. (Though to be honest, Ferf is probably even further along the emotional intensity scale of it than I am.) That’s actually prolly a good thing as personal disappointment in a vacuum is not healthy for extended periods – not that I am ready to say that this will be a long lasting thing - maybe it will, maybe it won’t - I am not really sure at this point.

**Is it just me, or is it weird for me to be sitting here objectively dissecting my own personal emotional state from some third person perspective style viewpoint??**

Anyway, I was saying that it is not good for man to be alone – at least in the place of emotional turmoil. I mean it’s not good to be alone for lots of reasons, but for the sake of this post, I speak directly of this one. So, I suppose, that it is “good” that she and I are in the same place on this one. And as I said, it is yet to be determined how long this could last for either of us. The cathartic properties of blogging could very well solve the whole damn thing for me and I’ll be fine before you even get around to checking to see if I’ve written anything lately. Or, with apologies to Judy Blume, then again maybe I won’t.

Going back to my original definition – it’s the emotion felt when a strongly held expectation is not met. I think that is the tricky thing – “strongly held expectations.” Expectations are the things that can bring us so much joy, and they are the very things that can uproot us to our very core. Should we even have them? Some say that if you have low enough expectations than you can never be hurt.

Business philosophy encourages that you “under promise (or lower expectations) and over deliver.” Pop culture even encourages it as well. The Gin Blossoms sang, “If you don’t expect too much from me, you might not be let down.” So then how should we act? Do we try to keep others’ expectations of us down so that we don’t disappoint them? Do we keep our expectations of others at a minimum so that they don’t let us down? And how do we do that? How do we interact with folks, work with them, talk with them, develop relationships with them, and not have our expectations of them rise? Expectations of their behaviors, their actions, beliefs, integrity, honesty, politics, points of view, whatever.

After a while we begin to build expectations – intentionally or subconsciously – of others. This may or may not lead to “strongly held expectations”, but when people turn out to be human, it can hurt and disappoint. I know that many many people feel that at some point in their lives, they’ve been disappointed at God. I rank right there in that list. I often find myself with fairly specific expectations for God. I end up coming to God not only with requests, but with expectations of WHEN and HOW He should meet my needs/wants. And then when He doesn’t do it the way I think He should (or more often, just says no – full stop) then I get kinda pissed off. I really do.

I put together these plans, strategies and tactics, usually rather elaborate ones, that I take to Him and then He does something completely different. Something utterly and totally non-conforming to my desires. Something that can best be described as a theological non sequitur in my mind. That is a reasonable assessment of where I feel I am right now. I had, in face we had, expectations - strongly held expectations, almost to the point of conviction – of how things were going to work themselves out in our lives. And, not to put too fine a point on it, turns out we are S.O.L. on this particular issue. Sooo hence, thus and therefore we are disappointed, disillusioned, disheartened, discouraged and disconsolate.

But don’t cry for me Argentina. We will get over this…I figure. No really, I’m sure. No really. Seriously. Here’s the thing to keep in mind. Our disappointment lies in the fact that change did not happen like we strongly expected. So, at the end of the day, we are in exactly the same place as we were 48 hours ago. And we were pretty happy then. So we’ll get back to our happy place. Maybe just with lower expectations. But probably not.

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Name: SSG Gregory “Greg” McCoy , 26

Died: Thursday, November 09, 2006, in Iraq while serving our country.

SSG Gregory McCoy, 26, most recently of Riesel, Texas, died from injuries sustained while serving his country in Baghdad, Iraq, on November 9, 2006. Greg and a fellow soldier were killed when an improvised explosive device detonated near their vehicle in Baghdad.

Services will be at the Acts Christian Fellowship, 5201 Steinbeck Bend Road, Waco, Texas.

As an American who moved to Canada 7 years ago (and now a dual citizen) I often get asked about my views on American foreign policy, whoever is the current President, who might be the next President, and the War in Iraq. I am a strongly opinionated person. I have opinions about just about everything, and if I don’t have one, I can create one fairly quickly - especially if an argument is just waiting to break out and I can pick a side before it gets going.

Here’s my opinion today. On November 9th, American lost a good man, my beautiful cousin lost a good husband and their children lost a good father. Greg was a man who had strong beliefs and lived them out. Few of us can honestly say the same. When it comes to situations like this I am reminded how the US Supreme Court defined “belief”. Back in the 70’s (I believe) a man was arrested for homeschooling his children. When the police came to arrest him, and forceably remove his children so they could be publically educated, he held them off with firearms. Eventually he relented and they did come and arrest him. His case found its way to the Supreme Court wherein the Court decided that the government must allow him to homeschool his children because it was part of his belief. The court differentiated between a belief and an opinion thusly: a belief is something that one would willingly die for - EVERYTHING ELSE is an opinion. This man was willing to die over this, and therefore it was a belief and Constitutionally protected.

Greg McCoy believed in what he was doing. He believed in America and he believed in protecting her. I know this because he was willing to die for her. He proved it. That is honor. That is courage. That is so much more worthy of respect than anything I have ever done.
So today, I honor you SSG Greg McCoy of the 410th Military Police Company, 720th Military Police Battalion, 89th Military Police Brigade. You were a good man.
May we all be willing to believe in things like you did. And thanks to your sacrifice, may we never have to prove it like you did.

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I just gotta know. What is it that makes potty training so hard? Yeah, yeah -keep your smart ass comments to yourself, I’m talking about the Muppet here NOT ME. Potty training has been a breeze for me, I haven’t had an accident at work in weeks.

Anyways, for the most part, the Muppet has taken to potty training like something that takes to something really well and yet is witty and funny. (It’s late, cut me some slack - I’ll pick it up as I get going.) She likes peeing in her little potty. You take her on a semi-regular schedule and she cops a squat and tinkles. Heck, she’ll even go on her own and walk into the bathroom, drop the drawers and line up for the drop zone before sitting down. If you happen to not have walked into the bathroom with her, she will loudly announce “I go peepee!!” Quickly followed by “I get a treat!?” Cause she gets 2 M&Ms for not peeing her panties.

It took her like 2 days to grasp the concept of pissing in a pot. Seriously. Yet for some reason, this child will not willingly poop in a potty. It’s like she has some deep seeded aversion to defecating while her pants are down. She will not go into the bathroom when she needs to go. BUT she WILL go into her bedroom closet and poop her pants. In fact, she goes into her room, opens her closet, steps in, turns around, closes the door and pounds one out in her proverbial drawers. Then she comes out of the closet and goes about her business until the telltale smell hits an innocent passerby-er. This is usually followed by one of us parental types taking her into the bathroom and dumping the offending load into the toilet.

Recently however, the Muppet has added a new piece to her system - she will exit the closet and walk into the bathroom and try to pull her pants down and dislodge the excrement herself into the potty. So she knows where it is eventually intended to go, and is evidently good with that idea, but she wants to add quite a few steps to the middle of the process. One of those, “you can’t get there from here” scenarios. Bum to toilet is much to simply a process for her when it comes to this part of her elimination system.

Now I am sure that everyone who has some semblance of an early childhood development education or child psychology degree or simply more experience than me with children (their own or others) will say that this is perfectly normal behavior. Children are unwilling to give up some weird sense of ownership of their poop or some such crap - pun intended. I have heard some fairly strange explanations for this to be honest. But everyone seems fairly certain this is ok.

Personally, I am not completely sure. I don’t remember taking a shite in any closets when I was a kid. And believe me, if I had participated in such behavior, my mother would have told that story to me, Ferf, relatives, neighbors, church members and restaurant servers if the topic came up. SO I can be certain that this is not genetic behavior from my side of the family. So far, I haven’t really queried Ferf on her personal childhood pooping habits or those of her seester Merf. Her brother - I can say with much confidence - is not a closet pooper. He just doesn’t strike me as having that in him. He probably spent a lot of time in his bedroom closet when he was young, but most likely only when accompanied by a cute neighbor girl.

So I have yet to sleuth out an explanation for the Muppet’s behavior…but there must be a reason. I’ll keep thinking on it, but in the meantime I am pretty sure I just heard a closet door shut. I gotta go…before she does!!

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SO it turns out I am an uncle again. Marvin and Twig birthed another offspring - a girl this time to complete the matching set. Her name, for the purposes of this blog, is MoJo. She is doing well, as is Twig. Marvin sent me the obligatory first pics just this week (I write this as a one week anniversary present to honor her entrance into the world).

I suppose that she could look at that entrance as a harbinger of things to come. The doctor said she should come on a certain day. Her mom decided that there was just to much to be done then, and that she would actually come 5 days after the due date. And in addition, this newly chosen day was the only one in which family doctor would be available that week. Thus is was duly decreed exactly which day she would enter the world and all tasks and plans were completed prior to said day in order to facilitate the scheduling to meet everyone’s needs. The only possible flaw in this scenario was that MoJo could have exerted some independence and decided that she would come when she darn well pleased - this was after all, 5 days AFTER her originally scheduled due date.

Much to the happiness of all (at least to those to whom this schedule deeply mattered) MoJo was exceptionally compliant and adjusted her timing to fit everyone else. Either this is the precedent upon which her personality will be based, or a one time event that sets the stage for fun and games with the parental units for years to come with wrong expectations about obedience. Personally, I hope it is the former - since the Muppet is about a good a child as one could ever hope for - she makes us look like great parents, which is why a second child is such a scary concept for us. But this is not a posting about me or the Muppet, it is about MoJo…kind of.

Marvin sent out pictures with the accompanying text: i am one proud papa!!!! here are some shots from the hospital. She is a beautiful girl. I am blessed beyond what i deserve!!!

Without multiple comments from my loyal reader(s) about grammar and capitalization rules, lets just say it was heartfelt and very cool - especially from the uncle. Yep - THE UNCLE. When MoJo hears the world UNCLE she will always think of me. Go Me.

There you have her in all her glory – first time on the internet!!

So anyway, I was talking with my buddy Terrance this week about church and other reoccurring issues in our conversations and he mentioned that we, as a church, should, need, must get off our collective donkeys and get into the game. This was not an indictment about my church directly, but about church in general. (not that my church could not be indicted with this, that was just not the point of the conversation). We, collectively, have slowly moved away from being doers of the word to hearers of the word. Or more precisely – watchers. We have moved to a voyeuristic faith.

We love to see the work getting done (by others). We love to vicariously participate when people get saved and lives get changed (through someone else’s time and efforts). Power Point and videos have replaced reading the Bible and fulfilling the commandments. Somebody is still doing – not us, but somebody who is called, gifted or passionate about whatever little Scriptural mandate it is the pastor’s yakking about this Sunday. Somebody who is obviously not as busy as I am. Somebody who can afford the time, money or inconvenience that it will cost to do it. BUT IT IS OKAY, BECAUSE SOMEBODY ELSE WILL TAKE PICTURES OR VIDEO THEM DOING IT!!!

Then we can sit comfortably in our pews and watch. Heck, we’ll even feel good about the job being done. It might even inspire us to tithe or (gasp) think about helping out next time – though follow through on those types of thoughts is fleeting at best. Still, it’s the thought that counts, right?!

When I look at pictures of Twig and MoJo sent by the self proclaimed “proud papa” I am overjoyed and excited. But compared to how Marvin must have felt, my emotions were miniscule. I got a phone call from him right after the event and that warmed my heart. I got an email from him with pictures and that solidified in my mind who my niece is at this point in her life (though she will not really assert her personality for a bit). I told others about her which makes it even more real for me. But, at the end of the day…I WAS NOT THERE.

Marvin was there from conception, through gestation to delivery. (Quick, before the female readership bludgeons me to death with afterbirth I have to make note that Twig was even more there than Marvin was – I get that. But for the purposes of this illustration, cut me some slack and allow for some potentially misogynistic perspective…please) Now, I am not saying that I could have been there – or even should have been there – ESPECIALLY for the conception part. That, in fact, could have had seriously detrimental effects on everyone.

But the point is Marvin was there. Involved from beginning to end. The good, the bad and the ugly – I don’t mean those respectively. Sure conception might be good, but pregnancy is not always bad (after the first trimester anyways) and birth is not always ugly (if you turn your head away at the right times). I am digressing here into places that will get me seriously wounded by every mother I know and many that I have not yet met, so I am going to get back to my original intent…

Marvin could express a joy more fully than I could ever feel about MoJo because he was there in an active capacity. I am experiencing joy based on his joy, based on my love for he and Twig, based on my new love for MoJo. His is based on more tangible, substantial foundations. HE WAS THERE, I am just lookin’ at pictures.

That is where I see the church being these days. Some people are there – doing, sowing and reaping. But a vast majority are watching and cheering from the sidelines. We have got to get in the freaking game! It is given unto some to sow and unto some to reap – it’s not given unto anyone to watch. You wanna watch? Die and join the great cloud of witnesses. They get to watch. Quit just lookin’ at pictures!!!!

But first, here’s another one of MoJo:

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When the snow started last week Ferf and I suddenly came to the realization that we had no real outside winter clothes (jacket, pants, boots and gloves) that fit the Muppet. She just keeps outgrowing her clothes no matter how often we point out to her how the economics of that are detrimental to us from a purchasing standpoint. Anyway, it took us 2 days to get our schedules such that we could get to the store and procure the necessary accoutrements for the Muppet. And of course, in a way that can only be appreciated by those to whom it did not happen, the day we bought the crap the snow melted and has since given no indication that it wants to come back anytime soon.

Undaunted, Muppet has asked to wear her boots and winter gear every day since. Usually we let her wear the boots and jacket around the house. And I care not about the realities of a 2 year-old’s metabolism – that has GOT to be hot. But she swears that she is not hot and indeed has told me on occasion that she is cold and needs to wear all of this clothing in the house.

Thus it was tonight while Ferf was away working that I was spending the evening with the Muppet in some good father – daughter bonding time. So we had been playing hard for a bit when she suddenly noticed that she was not wearing any of the protective outerwear rated for -20. SO she began to ask daddy to wear her boots and jacket. While I thought she was nuts, she’s a cute kind of nuts, so I went and retrieved her coat and boots and helped her put them on. She tromped around for a bit and then had yet another epiphany – she was not wearing her mittens. (For those who get picky about these type of things, there is a difference between gloves and mittens. Mittens are not simply a knitted hand cover. Mittens have a single area for all fingers to be inserted together with the thumb separated; while gloves separate the digits individually. At least that’s how it’s been explained to me by native Canadians who care about such intricacies of winter hand covers.) Again, I figured, whatever makes her happy. I went and got the mittens for her.

Now the mittens are a bit too large for her I admit. It’s tough to find mittens to fit the hands of a 28 month old…we do the best we can. Anyway, the Muppet had never worn big vinyl mittens before so she stuck her whole hand into the finger cavity and the thumb portion was flopping empty. I realized this and thought to myself, “well now is as good a time as any to teach her the proper way to wear mittens.” So I pulled the mittens off and showed her the thumb hole and told her that her thumb was separate from her fingers in the mitten. We tried them on again and she promptly inserted all five digits into the main hollow again. Undaunted, I pulled them off of her and used even smaller words to elucidate an ever complexifying (yes I made that word up) situation. She nodded dutifully and let me know that she understood completely. So we tried again and the same result came. Off come the mittens and we work them on again – this time I tried to push me finger in to show her where the thumb went. This tickled her and she told me to stop. I did and she put her hand in the same way she had been. Again, I tried to tell her that this was not the way they were supposed to be worn. She rolled her eyes at me and toddled off to her room. After a couple of minutes I realized that she was making no noise at all. Usually this is indicative of the fact that she is pounding one out into her pants. For some reason she is loathe to use the potty to poop. She’ll pee in it with no problem, but at this point, she’d rather take a dump in her drawers. Figuring I would find her in her closet bending over and grunting, I got off the couch and went into her bedroom only to find her sitting on the rocking chair doing absolutely nothing. Hesitatingly I walked over to her and bent down to her eye level and asked if she were ok. She shook her head and wouldn’t look at me. She was no longer wearing her mittens. They were sitting on the chair next to her.

Suddenly, it hit me. I had spent the last 10 minutes sucking the joy of childhood away from my daughter. She couldn’t give a rat’s ass about how they were supposed to be worn. She just wanted to put them on. She was completely not interested in doing things the “right way”, she simply wanted to do things her way. That was all that mattered to her. And I had crushed the delight out of her. I felt like such a complete arse. Such an utter and complete and total arse. I had become the demeaning father that every man is terrified that he will become. I tilted the Muppet’s face up to me and said, “Baby girl, did Daddy hurt your feelings about the gloves?” And she nodded her head, completing the deconstruction of any sense of self worth I had before that moment. I picked up the mittens and said, “hey, what do you say we just put them on however you want and you wear them as long as you want?” She smiled and said, “ok daddy.” Then she stood up and hugged me and said, “I nove you daddy.” That was not a typo – that’s how she enunciates “love”.

Luckily, a child can forgive you and move on much more quickly than you could ever forgive yourself. So a 28 month old little girl taught me that sometimes, the right way of doing something is not necessarily the generally accepted correct way of doing things. Sometimes the right way is as simple as the way you would do it if you were 2 years old and playing with mittens for the first time in your life. I think I might have to start focusing more on the moment than on how that moment might fit into the broader educational context of life – especially when it pertains to my daughter…or to me…or to really anything in my life.

In the meantime, I will just continue to sit on my bed beating myself up while the Muppet sleeps the sleep of the innocent and forgiving.

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Go figure…lots happened today that was write worthy. Good day I suppose. Tonight’s story centers around…well, first lets get context.

Back in high school I had a youth pastor/worker who was awesome (as such folks often are). He, on many an occasion, sat with us boys and talked about the most spiritual of topics - girls. Those conversations would inevitably deal with the agreed upon fact that there are two types of girls.

Before I go any further, I want to note that the opinion of a 17 year old boy around a group of friends is not necessarily the same as that of a 35 year old male who is also the father of a daughter!

But back to a historical story. There are 2 types of girls - those you date and those you marry. Generally speaking you do not date the marrying type and under no circumstances should you ever marry the dating type. Now it is not easy to visually differentiate between the two. In the wild, they can actually seem to mimic one another’s appearance, but the trained eye can distinguish between the nuances of behavior. The youth worker was the one who educated us in the fine art of determining distinctions. Now this is in no way an exhaustive list, and in fact it was expected that you should always seek outside advice from a close friend before giving your final answer on the question. But to sum up some broad strokes:

1) If she’ll kiss you on the first date – Not the Marrying Type.

2) If she wants to discuss how you should celebrate your one month anniversary one your first date – Not the Dating Type

3) If her dad owned more than 2 hand guns, and not just for show – Not the Dating Type (this one is more important in Texas than in Canada, but should still be seriously considered irregardless of geographical location)

4) If she has a nickname that two or more guys in the locker room smirk at when it’s mentioned aloud – Not the Marrying Type

Now, often these indicators are not inherently obvious to the casual observer. In this case, one need to dig deeper and engage a lesser known aspect of the scientific method – namely, the Chewing Gum Corollary (CGC) to the Dating/Marry Theorem. The Chewing Gum Corollary is intricate in its simplicity. All things being equal in the outside stimuli, if you are walking in a mall engaged in conversation with a female of interest who is also of indeterminate category, simply remove the wad of chewing gum from your mouth (that you have heretofore inserted in your mouth for the purpose of this experiment) and, holding it between your forefinger and thumb, hold your arm out towards the girl making no other gesture indicating its existence. Also, it is extremely important that you carry on conversation about anything unrelated to the spit infused gum you are extending towards the lady of interest. The reaction of the female subject is directly and proportionately related to which category in which she dwells.

If she takes the gum without flinching into her own hand and holds it there continuing in conversation until you come upon the first trashcan and throws it away, then there is NO DOUBT – MARRYING TYPE.

It is with some trepidation that I tell you now – Ferf was so tested early in our relationship. I can tell you that the bruises I endured and the verbal tirade unleashed on me were previously unknown to my virgin ears. It could be summed up with something like, “WTF?” So I knew what I was getting into when I married a Dating Type. It was a choice that I made with all the facts on the table.

Fast forward over a decade later and we are having dinner at some friends’ house with the Muppet dining between Ferf and I. The friends we are dining with are both blind. Fully, not legally. During the main course, our Muppet took a bite of roast that was a bit large. The gagging noises she made were more from gag reflex than choking – of that I am sure. However, we have been working with Muppet about not spiting food out of her mouth at the dinner table (a lovely habit she picked up somewhere along the way, usually followed with a well enunciated “Yuck!” even if she has been enjoying that food up till then.) That being the case, we were loathe to stick our finger in her mouth and pull out the offending piece of meat, nor were we inclined to allow her to do so, since it would undoubtedly be followed with the obligatory YUCK. Which would be especially offensive to our hosts, whose hearing is hyper sensitive. So we carried on in conversation until the gag sound happened a couple of times in a row. Ferf and I turned our attention to Muppet (at least we turned our faces and bodies towards her, since our hosts would not know). Good thing we did too, because it was right then that the vomit started to flow. Quietly began to flow I might add. It started slowly and Ferf and I made eye contact saying without words, “aww hell, what do we do!?” With no hesitation, Ferf cupped both hands under Muppet’s chin and caught a cup and a half of liquid dinner and gastric juices while I reached for the empty salad bowl on the table. Ferf then separated her hands and allowed the partially digested contents of Muppet’s stomach to slosh into the bowl. She then picks up some paper towels and dries her hands while seamlessly keeping the conversation going with our hosts.

So she won’t take chewed gum from a boyfriend, but she’ll hang onto fresh warm puke from a daughter’s spittle covered lips. And there we have the complete metamorphosis from “Girl You Date” – skipping Girl you Marry completely – into the beautiful and wonderful “Mommy”. A transmutation that would impress even the most persnickety butterfly.

God I love my wife.

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So I had a first today and just wanted to share it with everyone…after all what’s the use of having a first time experience if you don’t tell everyone about it so they can share in the exploratory joy with you.

A man came into my office with 150lbs (68ish KG for our Canadian and European readers) of meat to make a donation. That is a first, because usually people take meat to a kitchen or someplace with a freezer - which, to clarify, I do not have in my administrative office space. But the gesture is kind and benevolent, so I offered to help carry said meat downstairs to the kitchen.

On the way. this elderly gentleman regaled me with stories of the meat - which, it turns out, is Bison. Another first for me in that I have never had bison donated either. But said bison evidently met its demise at the business end of his son’s Remington M700. Which happened either this year or last - he was fuzzy on the details, but luckily the meat was frozen, so he seemed less interested in the timing. The story was salted with him interrupting himself to rabbit trail a bit about the taste of bison and its relative flavor when compared to other large game animals - presumably that he had in his home freezer from other such hunting exploits that he vicariously lived though his youngest son.

So the meat in my office was interesting. The fact that it was bison and stalked and killed by the offspring of a donor was good too, but hardly worth blogging about. However, when we made it too the kitchen, he was unpacking it from the bag he brought it in because it was his wife’s and she’d kill him if he gave away her bag. Evidently it held some sentimental attachment for them - I’m sure Ferf would kill me if I tried to give away her burlap bag…if she had one. But the point of the story is coming - thanks to all those who have persevered. The individually wrapped bundles contained either: tongue, liver or heart of bison. 150lbs of heart, liver and tongue. Perfect. A couple more organs and we could rebuild the thing - stronger, faster, smarter. My cook was incredibly kind. She talked with him about the differing flavors of each part and how best to cook and prepare each 3 pound delicacy. He seemed to light up when he talked about gravy for tongue meat.

I, on the other hand, was having episodic flashbacks to Silence of the Lambs - “I ate his liver with some farve beans and a nice chanti.” I said to the man as I walked him outside, “I cannot thank you enough for your kind gift.” I was actually thinking, “Oh good. With all the pak’ma’ra that come into the dinning room, we’ll finally have something satisfying for them.”

After I walked the carrion eater to his car, I went back into the kitchen and asked in a decidedly concerned tone “what would you like me to do with this donation?” And without missing a beat she said, “oh, that? I’ll take care of it.” Which I interpreted to mean I’ll wait a reasonable amount of time out of respect and then throw that shite out. I have to believe that because I eat her soups about 3-4 times a week. And NO, I do not believe that it all tastes like chicken anyways.

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