Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
We have a winner!
Lyvvie wins the Challah baloo contest. This evening, I’ll check to see if I have your snail mail addie, and if not, I’ll drop you a line.
I wish you all could have won, but that damn cookbook is spendy. Oh, but I love it. I’ve been reading through it this past week, and I’m itching to try Julia’s rye bread, rugelach, brioche, and pumpernickel.
***
A. J. Jacobs must have the most sadistic muse on the planet. He’s the guy who wrote The Know-It-All, a memoir about the time he read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica; and if you think that’s High Concept, you haven’t heard about his latest: The Year of Living Biblically, which documents his attempts to abide by every last commandment, including the stoning of adulterers. (He gets around the obvious lawbreaking aspect of the commandment by hurling tiny pebbles.) The man has a fine sense of humor, I’ll give him that:
This isn’t a cutesy grumpy old man. This is an angry old man. This is a man with seven decades of hostility behind him.
I fish out my pebbles from my back pocket.
“I wouldn’t stone you with big stones,†I say. “Just these little guys.â€
I open my palm to show him the pebbles. He lunges at me, grabbing one out of my hand, then chucking it at my face. It whizzes by my cheek.
I am stunned for a second. I hadn’t expected this elderly man to make the first move. But now there is nothing stopping me from retaliating. An eye for an eye.
I take one of the remaining pebbles and whip it at his chest. It bounces off.
“I’ll punch you right in the kisser,†he say.
“Well, you really shouldn’t commit adultery,†I say.
We stare at each other. My heart is racing.
Yes, he is a septuagenarian. Yes, he had just threatened me using corny Honeymooners dialogue. But you could tell: This man has a strong dark side.
So . . . what should A.J. do next? That evil muse of his will probably convince him to become a homeless person entirely dependent upon the kindness of strangers, but I think A.J. needs to take the reins here. His long-suffering wife has proven her ability to weather the most obnoxious of projects; surely she won’t object to a year of nightly sex, rain or shine, no heed paid to backaches or headaches or intestinal flu, and to really spice it up, every night has to be something completely different.
I can hear him now. “Come on, honey — it’s for my art!”
D.
Yay! Thanks Doug, you know I seem to be on a roll with this winning stuff; first a bottle of wine then a rabbit vibrator and now a Julia Childs cookbook! (Better buy a lottery ticket before the roll runs flat)
The book sounds interesting, am now considering as presents for someone.
so, um, my new LJ icon is my boobs. well, me and my boobs. but still. you should go check it out. perv.
😀