Twas the Night Before Christmas (well actually Thanksgiving)

This day really started last night when, on my way home from Barnes and Noble’s, I was fortunate to have some help making an absolutely critical decision. See, on the night before Thanksgiving, the grocery store is only so long, and then it is closed on Thanksgiving. Now you are all sitting there saying “tell me something I don’t know,” but this is what made last night’s decision so critical to today truly being a good day.

See, I realized yesterday afternoon that I had, essentially, no food in the house and that meant a very hungry Thanksgiving Day given that the stores and the restaurants would all be closed. Once this dawned on me I ran out to the local food coop and bought some veggies and snack food and what not, then because I am knew to this area I took the receipt over to the closest large grocery chain and checked the prices of the two stores. In so doing, I learned two things, the coop is cheaper, again, you may be thinking “yeah so,” but this was news to me, I also learned that the grocery was open until 1:00 AM. This meant that I could stay at Barnes and Noble’s until ten and then still have time to go get some additional items if I so decided. We are sneaking up on the most critical and urgent of all decisions.

So I rang my trusted “Sage,” and wished him an early Thanksgiving and then began our rather non-senseacle and innocuous conversation. Mainly, I was taking advantage of the fact that he gets funnier the more tired he is and he was exhausted. I drove to the store, having realized that I had only bought basic items for food, and nothing “special” for Thanksgiving Day, no Turkey, no fixin’s, just stuff. I also had nothing but the recent breakfast winners in English muffns, Thomas’ of course, and some mutli-grain bread, plus a newer addition in the Thomas’ seven grain bagels, or something like that.

It had been suggested that I might make some pancakes for breakfast, and treat myself, and thus the entire late night shopping spree had its source, but an ill advised plan. This is where the sage comes in. As I entered the store he was trying to guide me on what I might get to make the Thanksgiving breakfast special. Somehow our focuses diverged for a bit, we were both still on breakfast, but he was trying to cover as many country with breakfast as possible, such as French Toast, and Canadian Bacon, Belgium Waffles, and some kind of eggs with hollandaise sauce and Swiss Cheese. The hollandaise I don’t quite get because I thought that was French and we had the toast, but never doubt the sage.

While he was on this country quest, on the Bluetooth which was in my left ear, I was selecting my own items, going with an all-American theme, sort of, and flirting a bit with a few of the patrons, I am my father’s son.

My choices were far simpler, Oscar Myer bacon, Hormel link sausage, Aunt Jemima pancake mix and syrup, and so on. I even went so far as to choose Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls, which are very good, but a coronary in a can. Anyway, at some point along the way, with the Sage making me chuckle as I walked through the aisles looking like a nut, laughing out loud, I decided to put everything back and left the store. The Sage was stunned.

I drove back to the front of my house and sat there trying to decide what to do. It was come inside and get to bed at a reasonable hour or make a decision on what I really wanted to eat on this Thanksgiving Day and go back to the store with some focus and get what I needed. A decision was made; pancakes for breakfast with lots of butter and syrup, and ham and beans for lunch. Back to the store I headed.

Meanwhile, the Sage, in his delirious state, was still entertaining me, and educating me in my left ear. Both would happen in greater quantities once back in the store. For instance, I learned a tremendous more than I ever knew about butter, and what makes butter butter, and about milk and the origination of the 1 %, 2 % approach to life, something about the butter fat floating on top of the bottles of milk and someone realizing that they could remove some or all of that butter fat. And Sage you thought I never listened.

There was also a lengthy discussion on hams, and big versus little, good versus bad, both in taste and byproducts, and in why there is water added to every ham?? I think I missed that one. Anyway, I did manage to complete a focused shop, with the Sage’s help, and returned home with pancake mix, syrup, butter, a ham, baked beans, the “original” black bread, not sure what made it original, and a couple of other things that I do not remember at this time. It was the latest I had been up in a very long time.

Thanks for the help Sage, a job well done.

Thank you again for getting this far with me.

Amish is As Amish Does

Ok, so I have a question, is it not true that the Amish people are not supposed to drive automobiles, or use anything that can be described by the word "auto" in it at all.

I realize that I am not an expert in all things Amish, in fact I am not an expert in any things Amish, but I have to say that when I saw an automobile the other day that read "Amish Quilts" on the side of it this struck me as quite funny. of course this was not just any automobile, no, this was a very black, very large, full size Hummer, with the tinted windows, and the "tricked" out, or "pimped" out wheels and hubs and so on...and on the side, in nice bold white stenciled lettering were the words "Amish Quilts."

Just had to share.

Thank you again for getting this far with me.

My Cousin Vinny

This is how it feels sometimes. We are all related right. All the Vinnies and the Michaels, and the Anthonys, and the Josephs. Anyone with the vowel on the end of their name, only this Vinny was Spanish, not Italian, and he wasn't a cousin, he was a barber, and that was just the beginning, well I guess the beginning and the end.

Understand, that in the time I had been here, exactly a week, I had not seen much traffic in his shop (read none), and Monday afternoon when I decided I needed to "trim" there was one person in the shop, and he was not getting his hair cut, but rather sitting against the wall looking very dead. I later found out that I was not far off, he had stopped in to sit for a minute because he wasn't feeling well having just spent four days in the hospital.

When I opened the door this wave of nausea came over me, instantly. It had to be four hundred degrees in the shop, and there was an odor that could not be placed, described, or believed, but it was sort of a combination of dirty sweat socks, gingivitis, and roadkill. I pressed on.

I actually said out loud "feel like cutting hair," and the dead guy answered, just raising his head up ever so slightly, and in a very breathless manner, "of course." At this point I was not sure if anyone in the place was alive, and feared that I was soon to join them. I pressed on.

Vince rose up out of the chair, painfully slowly, and just stood there, apparently waiting for me to take the seat he had been occupying. I did so feeling like if there was a way I could run without being incredibly rude, and hurting this old gentlemen's feelings I would do so. I put my foot, heel first, on the foot rest and placed myself gently, cautiously, into the chair.

Vince shuffled over to the counter, minutes passed, and he came back with a towel, a full sized towel, and wrapped it around my neck, then the black barbers apron, and some sort of pin. I was in, and he pressed on. I was holding my breath.

Vince reached for the clippers, big, heavy, and long guide. He dove into the back of my neck, not my hair, my neck!! He eventually got the angle right to start cutting some hair, some?? Next came another pair of clippers, with a smaller guard, and then another one smaller yet, and virtually no guide. I was doomed, and stuck. He pressed on, I still did not have the ability to breath.

At this point the dead guy rose...he spoke..."thanks Vince," and he was gone.

Behind me I noticed this noise, getting louder and louder. I was trying to figure out what it was. At first it sounded like the TV at three o'clock in the morning, after the test pattern is gone and the National Anthem is over, and all that is left is static. Does that even happen anymore?? Then I began to pick out sound bites, first Kenny Rodgers on what turned out to be a soft country station, and then someone talking about the BCS standings on ESPN Radio, and then a song that came out when I was in college, early 1980s, and on and on. An infinite loop of three intermingled, and very ill matched radio stations, plus tons of static, to go with the blasting heat and the odd, sickening smells. he pressed on, and I still had not taken a breath.

There was the moment when the chair started to spin, and I with it, because the clippers were pressing into the side of my neck, and with the resistance Vince pushed harder and harder. There was the moment that the sheers came out and I realized that they had never been sharpened, not since he came to this country in 1955. There was the truly unbelievable moment when, like any good old time barber, he took out the straight razor to clean up the back of my neck. If I had not felt like running before I certainly did at this point, but I figured I was in this far I was going to see it through, or quite literally die trying. The straight razor was no sharper than the clippers, or the sheers, or any of the inhabitants of the shop were, your truly very much included.

When he was finished I thanked him, gave him ten dollars, which meant a two dollar tip, and then listened as he told me of when he had come over, and where he had lived in Spain, and of his kids that were born here and now are grown and gone away...to California. I then walked up the street to the "salon" and made an appointment for the next day. My hair is very short now.

If I were rich I would buy this man a palace, and hire him maids, and butlers, and drivers, and whatever else he needed in an attempt to allow him some time to not sit in that shop and wait for someone to walk in.

Thank you again for getting this far with me.