Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Category Archives: asides
Chi-rated
From the assigned readings in my son’s Theology class.
The Roman legates could only protest in impotent Latin ejaculations as the proceedings moved majestically to their predictable climax
Someone has a dirty mind. But we all know that’s me, so I guess I should say someone else has a dirty mind.
But seriously, this reads as though the author had farmed out major bits of his essay to his undergrads to write, and they, pissed off over the assignment, got together to think up the most ridiculously loaded phrases they could. What’ll be next?
The barracks emperors’ failure to protect their flank led to numerous rear guard incursions, and the empire’s borders were soon covered in Santorum.
D.
Robocall
A few moments ago . . .
Robocaller: Hello! This is a forty-five second survey. Are you registered to vote in the State of California?
Me: Yes.
Robocaller: Do you believe that public schools in the State of California should teach children about gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered lifestyles?
Me: YES, AND IN AS MUCH GRAPHIC DETAIL AS POSSIBLE!
Robocaller: This survey will end if you do not give a simple “yes” or “no” answer.
Me: Yes.
Robocaller: Thank you. This has been a forty-five second blah blah blah
*click*
D.
Those Jesii
I promised you two Jesuses, remember? So I’m wondering whether you’ll see what I see in these images. My son doesn’t see it. My friend the ex-seminarian sees it, though.
First, here’s Happy Jesus.
Lemme have one of them Fosters, mate.
And here’s Happy Jesus 2000 years later.
I'm still waiting for that beer, ya bloody wanker.
Need a closer look? Happy, Hopeful Jesus.
Fed up Jesus.
Am I imagining things, or are these two very different conceptions?
D.
The wreckage of my mouth
So here’s the death toll thus far. I’ve had five fillings and one root canal/crown. I still need another crown but we’re leaving that to 2012 because I’ve exceeded my benefits for the year. And no telling what he wants to do to my left lower quadrant; perhaps that’s a project for 2013.
After I finish doing my teeth, the cool tatt is absolutely next.
Of all the various discomforts of dental work, the least of it is the needle. Yeah, I know some people hate the local injection, but I’m a surgeon. The local injection is our friend. And I need plenty of him, heaven knows; I’m one of these people who gets numb only after the third injection.
Next in line of things I hate the most would be the pain of the drilling. Honestly, it’s more the anticipation of pain than the pain itself that bugs me. If I could be certain that the low level pain I experience is the limit of it, I would gladly forgo that third injection. But I’m not a trusting sort, and I keep expecting the nerve to wrap itself around the drill and send my brain into the stratosphere.
Worse than the injection and the pain of the drilling is that awful itchy feeling I experience when the lidocaine starts to wear off. I have to show enormous restraint to avoid tearing the flesh off my face.
And worst of all is the TMJ because, unlike everything else, it lingers for days.
All that’s left for 2011 is the placement of the permanent crown. And he’s not even charging me for it. Because he already has.
Do you suppose he has to numb me to remove the temporary crown and place the permanent? I hope not.
D.
viscera
This afternoon, I heard a piece on NPR about the giant African snail, which is an invasive species in South Florida. Look at these monsters:
They’ll eat any and all vegetation. They’ll even eat the stucco off a house. They are incredibly difficult to eradicate, and they carry an organism that can cause meningitis in humans (which is why the dude in the photo is wearing gloves, I’m guessing). On the other hand, they might prove to be part of the solution for protein malnutrition in Africa. Which I am totally okay with. I would eat that snail pie. I’ll take a pass on the locusts, though.
***
We’ve been having trouble with our Miata’s AC. Dean, I’m talking to you here, since you’re a Miata owner and a car guy (i.e., you can change your oil without getting a panic attack like some of us). Here’s the deal: the AC cut out while Karen was idling the car, waiting for Jake to get out of school. Took it into the shop and the mechanic said the compressor was shot. He replaced the compressor (and showed us the old one — there was some kind of thoroughly rotten gasket thingie in there). Next time we drove it in hot weather, it was evident that the AC was underpowered. I took it back, and he flushed the system or some damn thing. After that it worked great in cool weather and hot weather, and stayed good for almost a week. Then, last Thursday, it cut out again while Karen was idling for all of about 15 minutes.
I took it in today and asked the mechanic to let it idle for 15 minutes. He let it idle for 45 minutes, he says*, and everything was fine. And I drove it away from his place and it stayed fine. I asked him what would make it cut out like that and he didn’t know.
Maybe this is one for the Car Talk guys.
***
Still writing here and there. It was a busy week so I didn’t get a chance to work until today. Gonna get back to it momentarily. I keep feeling torn between “trite” and “great.” “Great” because I enjoy rereading it, “trite” because, well, it’s a commercially sound story, i.e. the kind of thing that would likely sell. I’m almost feeling guilty that it’s not weird enough.
***
Finished Sara Gran’s Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead. And, wow. This author’s writing is up there with Jonathan Lethem, Michael Chabon, Martin Cruz Smith . . . I was very impressed with this novel, and I’ve liked her other novels, too (Dope and Come Closer were great; I haven’t read Saturn’s Return to New York).
I’ve also been dipping into Jeff Huber’s Bathtub Admirals which is quite good (and reading a not-yet-published book by a certain author who frequents this blog!) The blurbs on Huber’s book compare it to Catch-22, but so far I am liking it a whole lot better than Catch-22, which I have never been able to finish, despite trying multiple times.
***
Okay, stop procrastinating.
D.
*I dunno — shouldn’t the gas gauge drop at least an eighth of a tank if he really let it idle for that long? Maybe I need to run this test myself.
Life grinds on, and with it, my teeth
This was an unusually busy week, what with the AC pooping out in Karen’s car, scrambling around with a rental, getting the AC repaired, returning the rental, all within the confines of my 8 to 5 job. And I wasn’t even on call. On Thursday after work, I had to submit to another hour and forty-five minutes of Special Torture at the dentist, wherein he finished the root canal and got my #12 ready for a permanent crown. Why this is such a big production, I do not know. You would think I might understand these things since I look at teeth all day, but I’m not really looking at teeth. I’m looking around teeth. And if I happen to look at the teeth themselves, it’s usually because they’ve attracted my attention in an “oh, yuck” kind of way.
I had surgery on Tuesday*, administrative duties on Wednesday, and clinic pretty much every day of the week, and what with the car and the dentist and everything else, I only managed to make dinner on Friday night. Otherwise it was all takeout. On Friday I made doro wat (this recipe), which went over well, except no one liked the couscous. Would have been better had I had some pita, I guess, or even basmati rice, but I was already so pressed for time that I made the fastest starch I could think of, hence the couscous. Of course, traditional is the fermented Ethiopian pancakes known as injera, but I’ve never been able to reproduce these pungent little crepes at home. Wrong ingredients and likely the wrong technique.
Needless to say, I didn’t get any writing done this week. Thinking, yes, writing, no. Not even blogging.
And on Thursday, I succumbed to my usual eat-under-stress drive and consumed WAY too much salt (in the mode of pork rinds) and my weight shot up three pounds. I’ve been piling the water in to try to pee off that weight, but it’s a slow process. I hate my body, the way it craves salt and yet punishes me with instant poundage if I give into the craving even a little bit. (And on Thursday, I gave in more than a little bit.) I wish I could live in a boot camp where I can only eat what they feed me. Such is my lack of self control.
Making lasagna tonight, but I’ll have to avoid eating it myself, other than for the little taste to make sure it came out okay. Since I don’t have a working pasta thingie at the moment, I am going to try using those no-boil pasta sheets. Hell, Cooks Illustrated swears by them.
And now I’m biding time . . . Jake has service hours this afternoon (the Greek Food Festival, where they will hopefully feed their slave labor pool of eager student volunteers) so I will get a chance to go sweat in the gym and hopefully excrete some of this salt water weight.
D.
*Occurred to me in rereading this that most folks would interpret this to mean that I went under the knife. No, gentle readers, I was most definitely over the knife, not under it.
The 2 Jesuses
In the last few days, I’ve been spending more time in the hospital than I would prefer. My partner had the gall to take a week of vacation, which leaves me holding the bag. Or the scalpel, I suppose. Anyway, it’s been a rough week, with three 10 1/2 hour days, and yesterday I didn’t make it out until 8:45.
The hospital we use is an Adventist hospital. I like the Adventists, mostly because they seem to have a left-wing political bias. This agrees well with their religious philosophy, which (speaking as an outsider) seems to be that they read the New Testament and actually pay attention to Jesus’ teachings. Anyway, the Adventists really love their larger-than-life Jesus portraits, like this one here. Our hospital has two larger-than-life Jesus murals. Perhaps it was the fatigue of a 12.75 hour day that made me notice yesterday that the two Jesuses are really quite different.
The first one is in our lobby. Jesus is sitting in a field with his arms outstretched. There’s a kindly, loving, welcoming smile on his face. You would gladly sit down with this guy for a sardine sandwich even if he does make you listen to one incomprehensible parable after another. He just looks like a hell of a guy.
The other Jesus is in the chapel area, or whatever they call the room for quiet reflection. This Jesus looks older. Two thousand years older, but aged 2000 years in a way that only an immortal could age. He’s still got a full head of brown hair, I mean, and there are no turkey wattles under his chin, but you can tell this guy has been around to see the Inquisition, two world wars, a couple thousand years of slavery, and so forth. While he is still smiling, this Jesus’ smile is an expression of intense exasperation. This Jesus has his hand out, but I have the sense he’d like to slap us upside the head with it before regaling us with an incomprehensible parable. A parable no doubt regarding the way people never seem to listen to him.
I’ll have to snap a couple photos with my cell phone tomorrow and share them with you. I’m curious to see if you agree with me.
Meanwhile, I’m counting the hours until this weekend is over and I can pass on the emergency box o’ goodies to my partner.
D.
I don’t care what y’all think about Facebook
but I think it’s COOL. This week, I found an old friend that I hadn’t talked to since 9th grade (and hadn’t really been close to since elementary school) and then yet another close friend from elementary school appeared out of the blue, telling me stories about myself that I don’t remember, but sound utterly believable. For example, apparently I was the one who taught him about the birds and the bees. With full anatomical illustrations from the library. No, I don’t remember that at all. But I don’t doubt it for a moment.
It’ll be fun meeting up with those two. I tend to think I have an encyclopedic memory of my youth, but the truth is altogether different. This is not the first time that someone from my past has divulged something about me that sounds, well, like ME, and yet I don’t remember it at all.
Too bad we don’t go through life with a little documentarian perched on our shoulders, recording choice moments that we can enjoy forty, fifty years later. It would add a certain fullness to our lives, I think. A fresh perspective.
Material for blackmail, if nothing else.
D.
Különböző és különböző *
It has to be said sometime: how can someone with as big a mouth as me run out of things to say? And yet I find myself in that position day after day: speechless. Bad enough I can’t write any fiction; now I’m having a harder and harder time blogging.
Made a tasty blueberry crisp tonight. Recipe here. I won’t bother to repeat it here since I made no alterations to the recipe. I used an 8 by 8 inch Pyrex glass baking dish and I baked it about 25 minutes. Probably could have used a little more cornstarch since these were juicy berries.
What is it about cats and boxes? Ours like containers, too. Hat tip to enigma4ever on this one.
I am in need of a computer gaming addiction to replace my now raging addiction to World of Warcraft. (And I’ve got Karen hooked, too.) I wonder how many people have written their WoW characters (and gold, and gear) into their wills? “And to my niece Suzanne, I leave Douchemonger, my level 85 gnome warlock. Suzanne, if you steal all of Douchemonger’s best gear for your warlock Biohazzardz, I am so coming back to haunt you.”
Heading into call next week with my partner on vacation. I’m stealing myself for the worst and maybe with some luck it will fall short of my expectations.
Saw Hot Tub Time Machine on Netflix . . . oh, I don’t know why. Perhaps because I’ll give anything with John Cusack in it a chance? Perhaps because I figured a movie with such a stupid name had to have something going for it? Anyway, it wasn’t terrible. It made me laugh a few times, and it surprised me with a very un-Hollywood ending.
What’s everyone reading? I’m in the 700s on the latest George R R Martin installment of Game of Thrones. It’s A Mess of Monkeys or some damn thing (I can never remember the titles.)
Okay, so I managed to say a few things.
D.
* Various and sundry in Hungarian, a language that apparently lacks separate words for “various” and “sundry.”