Honea Express

Archive for the ‘Food’ Category

“Aren’t candles bad for the ozone?” he asked.

“What do you know about the ozone?”

“I saw it on a cartoon,” he replied.

“Of course you did. Yeah, I suppose someone is making the case that candles are bad. Still, we’re saving electricity. It’s a wash.”

“You can’t fucking win,” he said. Except that he didn’t because I would have scrubbed his mouth out with soap until he was blind.

“Wash what?” he asked.

“Your hands,” I told him. “And take your brother.”

_______________

The thing about drinking heavily on surprisingly little food and even less sleep is that something has to give and it is usually the wallet. It gave a lot. Now there are memories where dollars used to be, and they were worth every one.

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“Don’t go avenge’anin my name,” sang the youngest between bites of warm biscuits and fresh blueberry jam.

“I would,” I told him.

“What does that mean?” asked the older.

“It means that I love you,” I said.

“Is this the Avett Brothers?”

“Yes. They’re a band of brothers, just like the two of you.”

The jam nearly melted into the bread, and the taste was like pie in the shadow of the oven.

“It’s good to have a brother,” said the youngest.

“You are both very lucky,” I said as watched their faces through the reflection of the window. They were looking at the blueberries on their fingers.

_______________

It took two nights for me to accept that I wasn’t going to die in my sleep. Things tend to slow down when the party stops, and shifting into a lower gear doesn’t make the hill any less steep. The last time I flushed something solid was when I dropped my gum in the airport urinal. My head was full of clouds and cocktails.

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“It’s past your bedtime. Again. Hurry up.”

That was me. They were mostly screams and laughter.

“Why is it past our bedtime?” one asked.

“Because it’s late,” said the other.

“Will you read us a story?” they asked.

“No,” I said, “but I will write you one.”

_______________

Once there was a man full of malice and mischief. He was made to wonder and wander, so he did both in spells and pieces. Sometimes he mixed mischief with wonder and malice with wander, and sometimes it was the other way around.

Most of the time he preferred just to wander and while doing so he wondered about things like where dreams came from, why stones break bones and where it was he was going. Now and again he gave way to a tune in his head and he would lose himself in a whistle. He was as happy as he thought he could be.

It wasn’t until he met a woman and fell to courting that he did the things that men of fancy find themselves doing in front of crowds of friends and strangers with caution but the wind upon his back. Then it started to gather a bit in the middle and he said to himself, “that is how you focus.”

Malice gave way to mischief and mischief gave way to just occasional nights of far too rowdy. The wandering went to destinations and the wonder was said aloud instead of swirling thoughts inside his head. He was happier than he was before, so he thought that was the end. But it wasn’t.

Eventually they had a son and there had never been anything like it except for maybe those occasional whistles if they had been shared by a choir of angels and, he thought, if cartoon birds put ribbons upon my wife and in her hair, then that, too, might be half as good as this.

That went on for the space of time that exists between one son and the other. Then there were two boys with the man and his wife and you would not be laughed at if you assumed that their happiness had doubled, but that would be easy and math seldom is. There were algorithms and remainders and factors to consider which is only one of the reasons you should stay in school, but when the dust had settled the number had grown larger than the paper on which it was written — so the man threw it into the sky and told it to return when it had settled on a sum and the paper is still floating out there somewhere like so many stars and expanding equations.  I hope you were listening to the part about staying in school.

So that’s where the story is now. The man healing from a few nights of far too rowdy and his wife ready to wander with ribbons in her hair and her destination fixed. The day was one where two little boys floated and whistled and filled themselves with a bit of malice, the best kind of mischief and mastered, once again, the tendency to grasp happiness while expanding through worlds worn with wonder. They went to bed too late, covered in warm crumbs, small kisses and the freshest coat of blueberries.

The man sat by a candle and did exactly as he had promised.

I filmed a video with the boys in which we announced the winner of the Hillshire Farm Year of Meat Contest.  Now you are forced to watch it.  Here’s the thing, I filmed it straight to YouTube and apparently that guarantees that the quality will suck, which it does.  I tried to make a new one, but the fact is I look like an ass regardless of video quality.  I may as well post the video with the kids in it, that way I can write them off.  I apologize if it’s hard to watch, but at least one of you will leave a year of meat richer.

And scene. Thank you to everyone that participated and tweeted and made meat jokes that offended others due to their overt sexuality. I couldn’t have done it without you. Or Hillshire Farm. Mostly Hillshire Farm.

Go forth and be meatful to one another.

Cheese and wine are fairly good company.  We all improve with age and someday we will all be consumed.  Two of us by the other.  One by worms or hellfire.  It depends on who you ask.

This birthday started like most do, with somebody puking.  However, it was the wrong midnight and things were only technically so and not yet recognized by the committees and panels that decide such things. No gifts had been exchanged. That didn’t stop him from appearing in the hallway with a day’s worth of gruel caked to his hair, an ear full of corn and a body coated in shades of dinner.  His trail read like Hansel on a bender. We followed it carefully.

He was the second son in a matter of days to spend his night reliving that which was once glorious. Neither found the sequel to be nearly as appealing.

The first one woke in the wee hours with the cutting cries — the cries that cut through the stereo, TV, what passes for conversation and what’s left of the night, only to make your heart stop even as your feet start and you run through walls (not around them) getting to your child at the exact same moment that the scream began. He woke like that and he was covered with five pies worth of used blueberries.

The women in the audience screamed. Bossman Bob Cormier take one look at Bill Travis and barfed on Principal Wiggins. Principal Wiggins barfed on the lumberjack that was sitting next to him. Mayor Grundy barfed on his wife’s tits. But when the smell hit the crowd, that’s when Lardass’ plan really started to work. Girlfriends barfed on boyfriends. Kids barfed on their parents. A fat lady barfed in her purse. The Donnelly-twins barfed on each other. And the women’s auxiliary barfed all over the Benevolent Order of Antelopes. And Lardass just sat back and enjoyed what he created. A complete and total Barf-A-Rama.

That’s pretty much how it happened.

And then he was better and life went on and we healed and we lived and we fell down a rabbit hole, and then the other one was standing in the corner covered in tears and culinary memories. Everything is circular.

It’s been sunny since January.  Today it is snowing lightly.  The clouds are grey and slightly heavy and they catch on trees as they roll down the mountain.  It is a temporary melancholy.  A remembrance of what has passed.  It does not cut with cries or stand silently in the corner, but it too has come back from places we’ve long forgotten.  It too will be consumed.

Birthdays are like that — reminders of what once was glorious, a tease of what may be; a temporary slice of melancholy with candles lit upon it.  In between we heal and we live and we pour the wine more freely.  We hope it will all stay down.

The snow is a nice touch.

__________

Quote from Stand By Me

I try to maintain a pretty constant flow of quality posts here at Honea Express. Constant being relative and quality being stuff my mom marks as liked on Facebook. This post isn’t either of those things.

It may appear to the naked eye that I’ve been MIA, but that is not the case. I’ve been wandering the internets and dropping knowledge into whatever web will catch it. Also, non-knowledge.

If you have the time I’d love to share some of it with you. Seriously, it’s either humor me or go back to work, and we all know how that will end.

At DadCentric I’ve been waxing poetic about stuff that is centric to dads, namely this dad and the raising of two boys. A Tale of Two Mornings is a little slice of life piece where one day sort of represents the whole pie – à la mode .

Also at DadCentric I pay my respects to J.D. Salinger in The Day was Mixed with Foul and Rye. It’s funny, I always knew that Catcher in the Rye played a big part in helping me find my voice as a writer, but it wasn’t until yesterday – nearly 20 years after I read the book that I realized just how much it had influenced me. Holden Caulfield is a classic unreliable narrator, something I later embraced with open arms in the Pushcart-nominated Madness and Bubblegum. I just tooted my own horn, excuse me.

Over at UpTake I’ve been talking about how I came to be in this country illegally and a little place down the street that may very well be the BEST. DOG. PARK. EVER.

It pays the bills passes the time.

I’ve also been using my children as guinea pigs by having them consume their body weight in Pom and Funky Monkey snacks. They also went to a very cool warehouse event for bloggers that changed their life forever, give or take an hour.

Pom sent me some of their wonderful 100% pomegranate juice and it was delicious. It was a bit tart for the kids so I took the liberty of making them some pomegranate lemonade – which was also pretty tart, but they loved it.

Here’s why I agreed to try Pom: A) It’s healthy. It was right before New Years and I thought some healthy stuff in the fridge would be a great way to get on track in 2010. B) When I was a kid my neighbor had a pomegranate tree (bush?) in her backyard and we used to pick the fruit and throw them as hard as we could against the back of her garage. They smashed against that white brick like Jackson Pollock’s lunch. Or possibly his head. Yes, we were hooligans but we made up for it by staying off drugs. Occasionally. My point is that pomegranates and I have a history.

I used most of the Pom making pomegranate martinis. They were fantastic.

The Funky Monkey treats were hit and miss. I liked all of the flavors but the kids didn’t care for them – not until I opened the MANGOJ (see what they did there?), which went over pretty well with the oldest. He loves him some mango.

For the record, the cat also liked them, which is kind of weird, but so are cats.

What is a Funky Monkey? It’s dried fruit THAT CRUNCHES! Basically it a freeze-dried snack that manages to maintain nearly all of the flavor and nutrients found in the fresh fruit version. Again, I was going with the healthy angle. Funky Monkey is gluten free, which is cool (my neighbor has a gluten allergy and it appears to suck).

Speaking of neighbors, did I tell you that we had a huge bonfire last weekend and burned 6 Christmas trees and drank too much? Well, we did. See:

While we were standing around the fire my gluten-less neighbor, a carpenter by trade (the profession not the musical group), turned to me and said, “this should be easy to write about,” to which I replied, “you know what else is easy? remodeling a fucking kitchen,” which is not something I know for a fact, but it can’t be any harder than writing this damn post.

Where was I?

Oh right, the warehouse event. Stacey from Because I Must Blog was kind enough to set up an event with Lance, the owner of Clowns Unlimited and Games2U. Lance invited a group of us to his warehouse outside of Seattle where he and his staff had set up a handful of inflatable slides and mazes, some cool games, an assortment of cotton candy and THE TRAILER.

What is THE TRAILER? Well, as the name implies it is a trailer, and it is filled with pure awesome – the name may not have implied that part, hence my mentioning it. The trailer is all tricked out with cool lighting, comfortable seating for 12 adults (16-18 kids), and six 52″ HD flat screen televisions (4 inside, 2 on the outside). Everyone can play the same game- if the game can handle it, or each TV can have its own game from over 51 choices on the latest XBOX, Wii and PlayStation systems. They can also play actual television if that’s your thing.

It’s as cool as you hope it is.

The trailer will come to you. Yes, you. A very knowledgeable game coach is included. I’m thinking about getting the neighbors to chip in so we can rent it one of these weekends- after we run out of Christmas trees.

In closing, I’ve been doing stuff. And now it is the weekend. I hope you have a good one.

Behind the curtain:
Compensation: No
Products Received: 3 small bottles of Pom juice, 3 small bags of Funky Monkey

The man leaned against the counter, almost sitting on it. His view was of the kitchen. To his left sat a boy in a diaper and a Steelers jersey. It was midnight and the boy had been sleeping in his bed for hours before crying in the night for his mother. It had been the man that answered.

The man leaned against the counter and to his left sat a boy in a big red chair that reminded the man of kitchens from his youth and reminded the boy of nothing but the only kitchen he had known. The boy ate cold, calculated bites of macaroni and cheese and an entire garlic roll. He sat silently and sipped water from a Mickey Mouse cup. His view was in the toaster.

There had been visitors earlier in the evening. There had been football and cheering and too much to eat, but the boy had been hard at play and had ignored everything but the potato chips and onion dip. Hence his cries in the night and his midnight snack. Hence the man beside him leaning on the counter and staring into the kitchen.

The house was quiet. Somewhere slept a woman and another boy and random pets of various size. None of them made a sound.

The only noise was that of the boy lifting his cup and setting it down. His chewing was muted whisper.

The man looked at the kitchen, surprised by surreal clarity and unexpected sobriety. He looked at the kitchen and his thoughts went to his grandmother in another state in a strange bed in a lonely hospital who had been told just hours before that she was dying.

The man thought of her and how the news was broken to him in that same kitchen just hours before and how he had talked on the phone and sounded strong and sure, something slightly less than stoic, and how once he hung up he was unable to speak one word to his wife without breaking down and crying as she wrapped her arms around him, groceries at their feet and the refrigerator door slightly open.

The boy sat in the big red chair and silently chewed his cold macaroni while staring under heavy eyelids at little square tiles and a dull metal toaster. The man watched him for a moment while they both listened to the nothing, and then he proceeded to run his hands slowly through the boy’s hair, because frankly, he just had to.