Are We Doing Things Again?

Just a short post today, Drunkards. Because something very unusual has happened. 

I'm overbooked today.

Unfortunately, none of it involves madly typing at my computer, which would mean I was spending my Saturday writing. But I'm never not going to use the "cat typing" gif if I can possibly shoehorn it into a post.

I used to be a relatively busy person. Now and again I'll see a Facebook memory where I talk about what a busy day I was planning to have/was having/had. Facebook has become a cesspool of trolls and grumpy acquaintances offering indistinguishable bad takes on silly topics, and I mostly stay away from it these days. But at its best it was a useful chronicle of the 2010s, which were a decade of me being a mom, a wife, a homeowner, a person with some vague notions of having a "career" rather than a job, even a social life. 

Lol, nope, never that. But in retrospect, I had a typical suburban schedule of school activities and DIY projects at home and keeping up with friends and family. I was - not all the time but much of the time - busy.

Gradually my life has slowed down and my world has gotten smaller. It started when I got divorced, which lopped off an entire half a family's worth of social responsibilities (no regerts). It continued with Precocious Daughter graduating from high school and the end of being Marching Band Mom, Karate Mom, etc. Then, of course, the pandemic hit, and even for a homebody like me, normal life became truncated and isolated for a while. 

I'm not going to say that life has picked up where it left off yet, at least not for me. Things like going to the movies, attending concerts, etc. are probably still weeks if not months in my future. I'm not 100% sure they're safe, and I'm 200% sure it's going to take my hermit brain more time to be comfortable around that many people again. Your mileage may vary. I wasn't a fan of crowds or a social butterfly before COVID hit, so while I missed those things when they were taken away, I also adapted very easily to staying home and doing nothing.

Happy little potato, that's me.

Still, there are signs that the old modes of living are returning, for better or for worse. And so today I actually have a - oh, what's that word? - a schedule. Ugh. And it starts with me having to be somewhere at 10:00 a.m. on a freaking Saturday. For a work-related event, of all things. That involves being outside in the Texas heat and humidity and pretending to enjoy myself. I'm sweating on multiple levels just thinking about it.

Then I'm meeting a friend to help him pick out curtains. In an honest-to-glob store. Stores selling things other than toilet paper and lunchmeat still exist in 2021, I'm told. If I'm lucky, I'll have time to go home and shower in between these events. Or not. This excursion may turn out to be a future post if it goes entertainingly enough. Stay tuned. 

Afterwards I have to get home in time to clean up myself and my apartment for Drummer Boy, who is coming over around 5:00. Probably I should stop at the grocery store, too. Drummer Boy likes fresh half-and-half for his coffee on Sunday morning. 

Now, that last part is by far the best part of today's schedule and is what will sustain me through the rest of it. But it still involves managing my time on a scale I haven't had to deal with in more than a year. My normal Saturday schedule in the pandemic era involves clicking "yes" when the TV asks me if I'm still watching, which is so judgmental, if you ask me. You'd think the TV would be happy to be of service. Everybody's a critic.

Anyway. That's my Saturday, which may not sound terribly hectic but is a lot for someone like me who thought we had all agreed to stay home and never interact again. Now I have to shave my legs and everything. 

Do I even have that many tea lights? Do I have to do my nails first? Can my leg actually assume that position? Look, this is getting complicated, so I'll leave you here. 

Whatever your Saturday looks like, Drunkards, make it a good one. 

A Place for My Money, A Place for My Time

Here's a little story about principal and interest, and the economy of time.

Chapter I: The Past 

The company I work for IRL used to offer a traditional benefit of paid vacation and sick days. An employee of less than five years' tenure (like me) would accrue 10 vacation days and six sick days per annum. Sick days were "use it or lose it," but vacation days rolled over to the next year if you didn't use them all. If you left the company, any unused vacation would be paid out to you in cash. Pretty standard stuff in the U.S.

If you stuck around the company for a few decades, you would eventually accrue something like six weeks of vacation a year, most of which you were probably too "indispensable" at work to use. (In other words, if you hopped on a conference call while you were "on vacation," that day magically became work time instead of vacation time. Tenure has its perks.) And under this system, there was no upper limit to the amount of vacation time you could accrue. And so the company routinely saw people retire after 20 or 30 years of service with literally months of unused vacation hours saved up, which they received in a lump sum on their last day. That time was paid out at their most recent pay rate, by the way, even if they'd accrued it when their salary was considerably lower. Quite a tidy payout.

For readers outside the U.S.: Yes, I know this model is inconceivable to you. Yes, our paid time off is pathetic compared to what your country provides. Yes, I know your government mandates a certain level of paid time off and doesn't leave it up to the whims of individual companies. I have the internet. Thank you for your concern.

Chapter II: Accounting

Fun Fact - Accrued vacation time is considered a financial liability. It's a debt on the company books. Large companies (and at least one bloated former POTUS) may routinely operate from a position of indebtedness, leveraging it in ways I don't really understand nor care to, because business is stupid. But to a smaller, privately held company like my employer, that kind of debt may not be useful or attractive, and there are also tax implications that again I don't give a flip about but they do.

The upshot is that as my company grew, its liabilities grew. And as it has always prided itself on cultivating long-term employees, it had to find a way to manage a potential debt of millions of dollars of unpaid vacation time.   

Therefore, a policy change was made.

Chapter III: The Present

Last year my company went to a PTO system. Instead of accruing a little annual sick time that expired and a little vacation time that didn't, we now get a "bucket" of time off that can be used to cover vacation, illness, doctor's appointments, bugging out early on Friday, etc. For me, that amount is currently 160 hours, or four weeks a year. 

It's twice as much time as I was getting under the old system, which basically means twice as much time that I rarely get to use because every hour of vacation means an hour of playing catchup when I return. Being indispensable has its downside. Unfortunately, the days of stockpiling months of time (or salary) are now gone. Under the new system, only 120 hours of unused PTO roll over from year to year. No matter how long we work there, no one will ever accrue more than three weeks of paid time off. So much for saving up time for a three-month backpacking tour of Europe. And for younger employees, so much for an extended paid maternity or paternity leave. 

Like most American companies, when my employers say "benefit," it means there's a benefit to them. 

On the other hand, if I end up with more than 120 hours of PTO at the end of the year, the excess time doesn't just go away. I get it in cash, just like the old system, except I don't have to leave the company to earn the payout, and it's never going to be a windfall of months' worth of salary. Fair enough.

Or, in my case, more than fair, if I play my cards right.

Chapter IV: The Goal

This past week I reached an important milestone at my place of employment: I achieved a stockpile of 120 hours of PTO. I started accruing time mid-2020, when the new system began. There wasn't enough calendar time to reach 120 hours, so it all rolled over. I've also taken a couple of random days off in 2021. Now, with just over six months left in the year, I've reached the point where every hour of earned PTO represents a potential cash payout.

In other words, those 120 accrued hours are now principal, and they're simply earning interest until the end of 2021.

I'll accrue another 80 hours of PTO between now and December. If I don't take any more time off, I'll get it back in cash at the end of the year. That's assuming I don't need to take sick days, of course, which I can't totally control. But I'm more than willing to forego any voluntary time off for the rest of this year. Even if I end up being sick for a full week at some point, that still leaves me a payout of 40 hours to look forward to. And I'll go into next year with the same 120 PTO hours in the vault.

I don't plan on touching my 120 hours of principal. Ever.

Chapter V: The Future

Starting in 2022, I'll earn 160 hours of PTO over and above my banked time. That means I can take a full two weeks off and still get a cash payout of two weeks' salary at the end of the year. After I've been with the company for five years, I'll get an extra week of PTO, which means either an extra week of time or an extra week of pay every year. I'm guessing I'll choose the money most years, and here's why.

You guys, barring a lottery win, I plan to retire in 14 years. I'm in nest-feathering mode. I'm not planning any long vacations or sabbaticals, because my focus is on trying to make up for the years when I was married and wasn't able to save. Five years ago I exited my marriage without a dime to my name. Right now my net worth just scrapes six figures. That's not very much for where I am in my lifespan. I don't expect to live to a ripe old age, but I would like to have a few years of comfortable retirement with my darling Drummer Boy and a little nest egg to leave to Precocious Daughter.

Thanks to my employer's PTO policy, and my admitted lack of a life, I can give myself a 4% bonus every year provided I stay healthy and employed. I can invest it and make even more. I can't dwell on where I'd be now if I'd been able to do this in my 30s instead of in my 50s. This is all about the path I'm on, not the ditch I've had to crawl out of.

Epilogue

There's every chance that my plan won't pan out the way I've envisioned it. The economy could tank, my employers could change their policy to close the loophole I'm counting on, or the trickster god could throw any number of flies into my ointment. That's life. 

But hell, I'm going for it while I can.

Wii Are Not Amused

Drummer Boy brought his old Wii to my place last week. 

So to speak.

This old Wii, as if you didn't know.

You guys, back in the day I really loved playing Wii. Precocious Daughter was around 10 when we got one and was always willing to strap on a controller and play a few tennis matches or a bowling tournament. It was almost more fun to watch her play with her friends, though. We had a big family room in those days with plenty of room to jump around like idiots, and they did.

I'm not sure what happened to the Wii. I assume it went with my ex when we sold the house, like almost everything else. Or maybe we sold it. In any event, I had been Wii-less for a number of years.

I was super-excited when Drummer Boy pulled out his Wii for me. So to speak.

Seriously, you guys, knock it off.

I got to make my little Mii! That was always my favorite part. I remember when The Godfather came out on XBox, I spent at least two hours creating my character, but I don't remember anything about the actual game. 

That game did have one of the most amazing
character-making thingies, though.

Anyway, all week I've been playing Wii games. It's been a major nostalgic rush, not to mention good exercise for my middle-aged bones. I can't jump around like an idiot, because these days I have downstairs neighbors, but all the flailing is good for my arm-wattles, at least.

So eventually in the course of my playing, I got around to Wii disc golf. And found myself on the horns of a dilemma.

They looked like this.

Some history:

Back in the 90s, my ex was super into disc golf. And I frequently played with him. We were good little GenXers that way. He was pretty good at the game. I was pretty terrible. And I was not OK with that. 

It's not that I was a particularly competitive person. I didn't mind losing. But I did mind not being good at it. I've always hated not being good at things. Like, temper-tantrum-throwing hated.

Not an actual photo of me, but sure as hell
could be.

For all the flaws in our relationship, I was always able to be exactly who I am with my ex. He knew that I was going to react to a bad throw or a missed putt with yelling, cursing, and pouting, and he accepted it. I would get it out of my system, and we would continue playing. And the next time I made a bad throw or missed an easy putt, I would yell, curse, and pout again. 

I'm not proud of being that person in my 20s. I'm pleased that I'm much more able to control my tantrums these days. But that angry, insecure woman-baby still lives in me. Oh, yes.

Now, sometimes, back in the day, Drummer Boy would play disc golf with my ex and me. If you don't know that portion of my personal history, here it is in a nutshell: Drummer Boy was my ex's friend first, then he was my friend, then he was my partner. And yeah, there's a little more to it than that, but we're not going there today.

"The past is never dead. It's not even past."
That Faulkner boy knew his stuff.

The point is, when Drummer Boy played disc golf with us, I was always on my best behavior. He scared the hell out of me in those days, did my Drummer Boy. Half the time I wouldn't even play when he was with us. I'd caddy, or just kibbitz. That was the best way to avoid losing my shit over bad play.

Fast forward a certain number of years. Drummer Boy knows and accepts my flaws. I have no idea why, but he does. But, as I've gotten older, I've realized that in a relationship, there is virtue in being your best self, even if your partner already knows your worst self. It's just nice, you know?

But here's the thing. This week, when I was playing Wii disc golf by myself, I reverted instantly to the old Mii, er, me. The one who cursed a blue streak after every bad throw. And there were a lot of bad throws. A. Lot. I'm no better at playing Wii disc golf than I was at real disc golf, and I'm certainly not a more gracious competitor. I made an effort to at least keep my voice down, but my neighbors probably think I'm a crazy person, if not a homicidal maniac. 

I Googled "shocked neighbors" to find an illustration.
This came up, and I'm going with it.

And now it's the weekend, and Drummer Boy is here, and part of me really wants to play Wii disc golf with him. But I know what's going to happen if I do. 

I don't really want to be that person in front of him. But I also don't really want to pretend to be someone I'm not. We're too far along in our relationship for such nonsense. And frankly, I'm not going to enjoy the game as much if I can't lose my shit over it.

As I said, a dilemma. And I don't know what to do about it.

What would you do, Drunkards?

The Spring Crap. Crop. Whatever.

 It's Spring, and that means I'm a-plantin' again.

I wish I had a pitchfork.

Since I've lived here at Apartmente Baudelaire, I've made several attempts at balcony gardening. I had great success with beans.

Still maybe my favorite graphic that I've made 
for this blog ever.

But then last year I got ambitious and decided to grow peppers. This started out well...

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions
 and Hot Salsa Blend.

...but ended up an utter failure. Which turned out to be such an apt metaphor for the entirety of 2020 that I can't even be mad. 

So now it's 2021, and I thought, what the hell, let's take that giant leap of faith again. After all, life in general is feeling more hopeful, I've gotten my first Covid shot (I'm what's known as half-vaxxed, and rightfully so), and I've got two empty planters full of dirt sitting on my balcony looking kind of silly.

It was time to get growing.

Aside: I feel as if this post has the potential to become uncomfortably folksy and filled with mom-puns. I'm going to do my best to curb those inclinations, but no promises. When I'm talking about the loamy soil of the Earth and the simple joys of suburban cultivation, my writin' can't hardly help but reflect upon my soul's gleanings and -

See, right there. Stop that nonsense right now.

Anyway. 

I agonized over what to plant. Beans were done. Peppers were right out. Tomatoes are perfect container plants, but I don't like tomatoes except in marinara and ketchup, and there are only so many evenings and weekends I can see myself devoting to making homemade batches of either. Like, one. One batch of (admittedly awesome) spaghetti sauce, maybe a pot of BBQ sauce, and then I'm the crazy lady who brings a bushel basket of unused tomatoes to the office and sets them out in the breakroom with a sign reading "Free to a Good Home!" 

I got enough problems without being that lady.

I'll spare you the litany of rejected fruits and vegetables, but ultimately I settled on spinach as my 2021 crop. I love spinach. I'll put spinach in almost anything. It's healthy as fuck. It doesn't have to be harvested regularly. And it has the distinct advantage of being literally just leaves. Basically, if it grows at all, I've succeeded.

Also, it might turn my biceps into TNT,
which is always a bonus.

Back in March, I started my spinach journey by germinating some seeds in wet paper towels, as one does. This went well, although I didn't document the process with photos because I didn't want to jinx it again. Also, I kind of forgot to take pictures until they had actually started sprouting. 

This year, I decided to add an interim step to help ensure the success of my fledgling leafy greens (which would be a great name for an EP by some indie group from Austin, by the way). Once I had a couple dozen well-established sprouts - with roots at one end and a tiny leaf or two at the other - I put them in dirt in individual flats. I improvised the flats using an ice cube tray.

That is a stock photo, because a) I didn't document any of this with photos and b) my sprouts weren't nearly this successful. The plain truth is, most of my spinach sproutlings died almost immediately in this medium. I don't know why, but I think any reasonable explanation would include the word "cursed."

At this point I became a little desperate, a little pissed off, and a little pig-headed determined not to fail. When Steve Jobs got to feeling this way after hitting roadblocks to his dreams, he created Apple. Spoiler alert: My story has a dissimilar outcome. 

I quickly transferred the remaining plantitos, along with a few more that I had kept in wet paper towels for just such a contingency, into one of my outside planters. Where the majority proceeded to die almost immediately.

OK, so at this point I was beginning to feel like a serial killer. I was filled with remorse for the senseless destruction of life I had wrought, yet compelled to keep going to try to achieve some elusive meaningful results from my actions. I was the Jeffrey Dahmer of spinach. Netflix could have made a third season of "Mindhunter" about my efforts.

Maybe not. But RIP Mindhunter. Great show.

I took such good care of my few remaining spinach sprouts. I watered them, I turned the planter to make sure all the soil was getting even sun, I checked on them every morning before I went to work and every evening when I got home. After a week or so I had a few little plants that were struggling but surviving, and one or two that seemed hardy enough to actually go the distance and become viable members of vegetable society. It seemed my diligence would finally pay off and my spinach plants would become a fitting metaphor for hope and recovery in 2021.

And one day I came home to discover that a goddamn bird had dug them up and eaten them.

That day I came very close to discovering the sound made by a 12.5-gallon planter filled with dirt landing on the ground after being chucked off a fourth-floor balcony.

This metaphor was going badly. But like a raccoon scaling the side of a Minnesota skyscraper (remember that?), I persisted. I bought another batch of seeds. This time, I applied all my gained knowledge and experience in horticulture to arrive at a new strategy: Fuck it, I'm going to bury them in the dirt and see what happens.

I'm pretty sure this is how George Washington Carver achieved his greatest successes with the peanut.

That's next-level gene splicing right there.

If this radical planting strategy was going to bear fruit (or spinach), I figured I had about a week before tender green shoots began to poke their way through the soil. In that time I had to find a way to protect them from predatory beaks, because FAILURE WAS NOT AN OPTION, PEOPLE.

I needed some sort of mesh covering that would allow sun and rain to reach my plants but shield them from dumb-ass hungry birds. It had to be weather-resistant, easy to remove and replace (for plant maintenance), and it had to fit snugly over my planter. In short, I had more stringent requirements in place to protect my spinach sprouts than I ever did when I chose my ex-spouse. Live and learn.

Drummer Boy did some independent research and said he'd found something that might work at Hobby Lobby. Don't get me started on the fact that Hobby Lobby is a shit company with terrible owners and harmful policies. I still shop there on occasion. Because free-market capitalism is a dealer with the good shit and we all go back for a fix from time to time.

Anyway. DB brought over his find, which I thought was going to be some sort of container-gardening apparatus made of wire and mesh. Which for my purposes it was? But it was actually one of these.

Yep, one of those little pop-up tents that you put over Aunt Wendy's potato salad at the family picnic so the ants don't get at it (and presumably die of food poisoning because potato salad is toxic to all living things). With a cunning umbrella-style mechanism to lock it into the open position. Oh, and a darling lace border, because we're not savages.

Drummer Boy is the best, you guys. 

This little gizmo is a goddam miracle. It happens to be exactly the right size to fit snugly over the sides of my planter, and wedging the edges between the walls of the planter and the corner of my balcony makes it secure enough to stay put. Until one of our Texas spring storms comes along, but a whole-ass car can get taken out by one of those, let alone a three-dollar Hobby Lobby find. It's an acceptable risk.

I currently have three or four teeny-tiny spinach shoots that have appeared over the last couple of days, with more hopefully on the way. And they're safe from the goddamn birds that love to visit my balcony to preen, shit, fuck, and eat my precious baby plants. At least I hope they are.

If they survive past infancy, I'll post pictures. And maybe build a shrine to Popeye, the patron saint of spinach. I'll post pictures of that, too.

Wish me luck.

The Camembert Necessities

One morning, a four-ounce round of Camembert cheese mysteriously appeared in my refrigerator.

Hopefully, this doesn't turn out be the opening line of a cheese-based horror story.

Cheese Part 3: The Cheesening.

In fact, this just happened. I went into the fridge to make coffee this morning, and there it was.

Sidebar: Do you keep ground coffee in the refrigerator? I do, but I'm not sure it's a good idea. Coffee snobs says you shouldn't, but coffee snobs also say coffee beans picked out of the dung of a mongoose are worth $300 a pound, so fuck those guys. My coffee is in a sealed metal container, not absorbing the flavors or smells of my leftovers or anything. Although pepperoni pizza-infused coffee could be amazing. 

But I digress.

So there's this little package of Camembert cheese on the middle shelf of my fridge. I immediately assumed Drummer Boy had brought it, because he arrived last night bearing his usual complement of groceries. The man is congenitally unable to spend a weekend at my place without bringing 12 days' worth of food. He must have been a Jewish grandmother in a previous life. I take more of a just-in-time approach to food inventory, while he's more of a Doomsday prepper if Doomsday involved all the world's discounted holiday candy needing to be saved from destruction.

Me, I'd want to save all the brightly colored
goo in jars.

But to my surprise, Drummer Boy has disavowed all knowledge of the small round of Camembert. He said he assumed I had bought it. I recently discarded a carton of eggs that had been wasting away in the fridge since Thanksgiving, yet he thinks I'm stocking up on specialty French cheeses. What can I say, he completes me.

My only clue as to the origin of the Mystery Cheese is that it has an expiration date of the end of this month. According to the Internet of Cheese, Camembert has a shelf life of four to eight weeks. I assume the higher the quality, the shorter the life expectancy. This is not a high-quality Camembert, you guys. I'm no turophile (this is a thing), but I'm guessing the finest specimens of Camembert de Normandie don't come in a cardboard box with a "serving suggestion" photo on the front. Anyway, the expiration date suggests that this little fromage entered my home sometime in the last two months. 

That's actually...not a helpful clue at all. Did you know that we're in the middle of a pandemic? You may have heard about it. It consumed the entirety of 2020, like a dude in a cheap alien costume from a bad 50s sci-fi movie. 

Coronavirus, not wearing an approved mask
or practicing social distancing.

And despite hopeful signs, it's been held over into 2021. That means my hermitlike existence, already approaching legendary status, has only solidified while I wait for the helpful effects of mass vaccination, widespread acquired immunity, and the deaths of stupid people to take hold. In other words, if I didn't bring the cheese into my home, and Drummer Boy didn't bring it, that just doesn't leave a large pool of people who have actually visited me in the recent past.

The most likely suspect is Precocious Daughter, who comes over on a semi-regular basis and actually stayed with me for a week back in March. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any circumstance under which she'd surreptitiously leave a four-ounce Camembert cheese in my refrigerator. On the other hand, it never occurred to me that my only offspring might ask her best friend to tattoo Johnny Depp on her leg, so life is full of surprises. 

I'm happy to report this is not that tattoo.

Getting back to the mystery cheese: What exactly does one do with Camembert? I've never actually eaten it. Referring again to the Internet of Cheese, apparently it works well on a charcuterie board, which is reason enough to ignore that option. No one needs another fancy name for serving random food on a cutting board, ma'am. It's freaking cheese and crackers and whatever was on sale in the deli case. If any food concept was dreamed up to provide a lazy option for the office Secret Santa gift exchange, it's the charcuterie board.

But apparently Camembert can be baked, au naturel or wrapped in puff pastry. It gets gooey like Brie when warm, so it can also be added to fondue. I miss fondue. I have a vintage 70s fondue set that belonged to my grandmother - it's decorated with little mushrooms and everything. I would love to have a fondue night, but four ounces of Camembert hardly seems like enough to make a decent pot of cheese sauce, plus I'd have to buy all the other ingredients. It should come as no surprise that your faithful scribe, who isn't in the habit of buying Camembert cheese, also doesn't keep gruyere, gourmet mustard, or dry sherry on hand. I'd have to get rid of some of my pork and beans supply to make room for such staples. And, you know, priorities.

Remember when we ate communal food
and didn't worry about catching
anything worse than mild cooties?

I suspect that Monsieur Camembert's destiny is to be warmed up and served with crackers. I definitely plan to eat it, despite its mystery origins - I ain't scared of no cheese. If a friendly spirit left it for me, I don't want to be rude. If an unfriendly spirit left it, I don't want to show weakness. That's how they get you.

If I grow a third eye or start to speak in tongues after consuming it, I'll let you know. As the saying goes, what doesn't kill us gives us content. 

Recipe ideas and first-aid tips are welcome.

Sex, Politics, and Maybe a Frog

 The other day Drummer Boy and I were messaging back and forth about using R2-D2 as a vibrator.

No, really, we were. By the way, you do NOT want to do an image search for "R2-D2 vibrator" unless you're fully psychologically prepared for what shows up and also not on a work computer.

This is the most wholesome result I could find.

This is not a post about vibrators, android-shaped or otherwise.

Anyway, at one point DB made a joke about buying one second-hand (this is the last vibrator reference in this entire post, I swear), and I responded, "I'll just have to find a means of pleasure elsewhere."

My phone's auto-complete, however, suggested "means of production."

Communist memes are the best memes.

Hilarious. Of course, that got me thinking about how sexual and political philosophy so often are interchangeable. That is literally how my brain works, folks. But really, sex and politics do seem to be primal forces that collectively rule the intelligent apes that currently rule this planet. As the Great Grifter himself, Ronald Reagan, once quipped:

It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.

*stage whisper* He's talking about prostitution, you guys.

As a talking point it beats Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No to Drugs" nonsense all to hell.

It did make me give up pencils for good, though.

I guess the idea is that sex sells, whether the product is soft drinks or complex sociopolitical theory. Sex is a metaphor that works. Why else would Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. say this?

Democracy is messy, and it's hard.

Be honest: Does this sound like the representative form of government envisioned by the Founding Fathers, or like Bobby Jr. was being a chip off the randy old Kennedy block?

Going back to old Karl Marx, communism is a goldmine for political innuendo. The very phrase underpinning the principles of the socialist state sums up dating and relationships nicely:

From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs

The things we do to avoid growing old alone, amiright? Just kidding: Don't settle, you guys. There's a  perfect Communist out there for everyone. Or am I just mixing metaphors into a toxic sludge?

Sex, toxic sludge, and frogs.
There, I've hit the trifecta.

If you want to be even more cynical about sex and politics, surely political columnist Bill Vaughn wasn't really comparing the vice-presidency to cookies when he said:

The Vice-Presidency is sort of like the last cookie on the plate. Everybody insists he won't take it, but somebody always does.

He could have been talking about any meat-market bar or club on a Saturday night (pre-Covid, anyway). He also could have been talking about me waiting to get picked for dodgeball in my elementary school gym class, but that's another philosophical discussion.

In searching for quotations to fit this theme, it's possible that I stretched the boundaries of proper English to make them fit. Like this one from famed defender of freedom (and 1945 upside-down hanging champion) Benito Mussolini:

Democracy is beautiful in theory; in practice it is a fallacy.

I suspect this better illustrates my point when spoken aloud. Because "fallacy" sounds a lot like, well, "phallus-y." Democracy is a dick, basically. Look, I'm trying to push out content here. They can't all be gems.

Moving along, the late, great Molly Ivins once wrote this:

...it is not neat, orderly, or quiet. It requires a certain relish for confusion.

She was talking about democracy, but let's face it: If you've ever been married, you are totally forgiven for thinking it referred to your personal experience.

And here the even later and greater Socrates could have been talking about spouses OR the kind of untenable monarchal rule that inevitably leads to revolution:

If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.

I mean...he could, right?

OK, then, I'll end this somewhat tortured comparison with a last, admittedly cynical quote. This one is from English chanteuse Marianne Faithfull, who was definitely talking about sex but, let's face it, described every political philosopher from Voltaire to Bob Dylan:

Maybe the most that you can expect from a relationship that goes bad is to come out of it with a few good songs.

Right on. Never stop thinking, Drunkards. Also never stop fucking. Most of all, never stop voting.

And don't ever Google "android vibrators" on a work computer.

Black-Eyed Peas: A Comedy in Three Parts

There are a few things you should know about me.

I don't do TikTok challenges.

I don't vote Republican.

I don't eat black-eyed peas on New Year's Day.

The first two are self-explanatory: I want to leave a better world for the children, which precludes voting to sustain a patriarchal, wealth-based oligarchy in the latter case and filming myself doing weird shit in yoga pants in the former.

The black-eyed peas are a bit more complicated.

Part 1: The Tradition

Growing up in the Midwest, it was traditional to eat pickled herring for good luck on New Year's Day. Or maybe it was New Year's Eve. It doesn't matter, as there is no day in the calendar year on which I'm going to eat pickled goddamn herring. I never saw the correlation between good fortune and consuming half-liquefied fermented fish out of a jar. In fact, to everyone who did this on New Year's Day last year, I would just like to gesture expansively at literally the entirety of 2020.

I rest my case.

I've now been living in Texas for my entire adult life. For the most part I love Texas food. If I were a Lone Star-themed Statue of Liberty standing proudly on the shore of White Rock Lake (work with me here), the words engraved on my pedestal would include "Give me your chili (no beans), your brisket, your chicken-fried steak smothered in white gravy, your deep-friend corn dogs but with ketchup not mustard because I have my limits, people..."

Yet black-eyed peas are a Texas staple whose appeal has alluded me. My background in beans (because black-eyed peas are deceptively-named little bastards and are in fact beans) is in the baked or pork-and varieties. I like my beans tomatoey and/or molassessessey. I was always a little suspicious of a pot of watery spotted legumes cooked with a few hunks of salt pork and not much else. They just seemed so...naked to me.

More importantly, eating black-eyed peas on New Year's Day wasn't a tradition I was brought up with (up with which I was not brought...forget it). I was never introduced to it by a Southern friend or by the Texan side of my ex-spouse's family. And because the alternative in my childhood was eating the aforementioned goddamned melted stinkfish, I didn't have any food-based good-luck rituals in my life at all.

Until this year.

Part 2: Spam

According to the good people at Hormel, the potted meat product SPAM should always be written in all-caps. This seems slightly pretentious to me, like the way Ted Allen on "Chopped" refers to Twinkies as "sponge cake snacks," and also my pinkies are going to get tired if I have to hold down the shift key that much. So for the purposes of this post, I'll risk the wrath of the purists by using Spam henceforth.

So. How did we go from black-eyed peas on New Year's Day to Spam? Actually, it was the other way around.

Until January 1st, 2021, I had never in my life eaten Spam. The reasons are similar to the reasons I had never eaten black-eyed peas, so I won't repeat them. If you've already forgotten or are in the habit of only skimming what I write, hoping something interesting will eventually catch your eye (did you think I didn't know what you were doing? pfffft), go back and re-read Part 1. Slacker.

OK, so I already knew that Spam was going to be on the menu at Casa Baudelaire this weekend. I knew that my darling Drummer Boy has been in the grip of a mild Spam mania recently and had purchased several cans of the stuff to "cook" at my place. 

I don't know exactly where his sudden interest in Spam came from. It's healthy to preserve some unplumbed depths in your partner's psyche, I guess? I also didn't know just how many varieties of the spicy, fatty, ostensibly meaty processed foodstuff are available.

Spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam spam...

Yeah. That's a lot. 

So on New Year's Day, Drummer Boy brought over a can of this:

Because boy, if there's anything that a can of uber-processed, salty, fatty, nitrite-filled meat needs added to it, it's BACON.

But I was game. New year, new me. Same old colon, which clearly was about to be subjected to a workout it had never before experienced and wasn't asking for now. Still, nothing wrong with a little indulgence to kick off 2021. I haven't eaten a burger in nine months, my colon should be clean as a whistle and ready to cut loose. Slice it, fry it, eat it up, that's my motto. It works in a surprising number of situations. You should try it.

Anyway, then shit got real. From inside his cooler (the man travels with a cooler, he doesn't screw around), Drummer Boy pulled out this:

Not gonna lie, I felt ambushed.

Part 3: The Recipe

Once I decided not to unceremoniously kick the man I love to the curb for this blatant abuse of my trust, I threw up my hands and said, "Whatever, dude." It's that spirit of compromise that has carried us through the tough times. 

Actually, we basically broke up for several months during 2020, because fuck the pandemic, but we patched things up and emerged stronger than ever, also because fuck the pandemic. But that's a story for another time. I'm here to talk about goddamned black-eyed peas right now.

So Drummer Boy started doing things in my kitchen. He sliced up the Spam.

He fried it up.

And then, just as I was getting comfortable with the whole thing, he added...cocktail weiners.

If you're going to try to kill your girlfriend with unhealthy meat products, you should just go all the way. That apparently is his motto. I can't really recommend it.

Then he added chopped onion. Pro-tip: If you loathe the disgusting crunchy texture of onions, as I do, keep some on hand in the freezer. When they cook up, they turn quickly to undetectable mush while retaining their flavor-enhancing, um, flavor.

Can't have onion without garlic, so in it went.

I gotta admit, so far this pan full of fried meat was cooking up pretty damn tasty. But the Spam and Li'l Smokies concoction was not destined to remain on its own. It was time to add the namesake ingredient.

Am I the only one who heard Bernard Herrmann's score from Psycho just then? No? Skip it.

By the way, per Hillshire Farms, the correct nomenclature is "Lit'l Smokies Cocktail Links." I don't know what Ted Allen calls them. He never returns my calls, although he did like one of my tweets one time. 

I LOLed.

Moving on. In a big old pot, Drummer Boy simmered up some broth (Better Than Bouillon, half-chicken and half-vegetable) seasoned with a secret blend of herbs and spices. "Secret blend" sounds better than "I wasn't paying attention." There was definitely black pepper. And maybe, I don't know, nutmeg? Probably not nutmeg. If you make black-eyed peas you surely know how to season them. Knock yourself out.

So he let all that cook down for a while. And then - game changer - he removed some of the beans and liquid to a bowl and went to town with my immersion blender. OK, this is actually a super-common technique for thickening soups and other dishes, so not really a game changer. There's only so much dramatic tension I can create from a goddamn recipe. Play along.

Anyway, Drummer Boy poured the warm bean slurry (which is totally the name of my 00s alt-rock playlist on Spotify) back into the pot and stirred it all together. 

You guys. It was delicious. I mean, obviously a dish consisting mostly of salt, fat, prayers to the cholesterol gods and also tangentially black-eyed peas is going to be delicious. But damn.

Sloth-tested, sloth-approved.

I now feel lucky, punk. Seriously, I am going to look 2021 in the eye and punch it right in its stupid face while singing showtunes and dressing inappropriately for my age. That kind of lucky.

And it's all thanks to a pot of black-eyed peas that, honestly, I would have wanted no part of had it been brought to my attention ahead of time. Oh, and had it not been cooked by that guy who keeps coming around and telling me he loves me for reasons I can't entirely fathom.

The love of a good man and food ambushes. It's all I need this year.

Oh, and some of that dismantling the patriarchy and remembering the lives lost to Covid-19. 

Those beans have a lot of heavy lifting to do.

Good luck, Drunkards. Let's have a happy fucking New Year if we can.

Au Courant

Me, currently.

Reading: Elton John's memoir, Me. It's fabulous. I really feel Elton and I could be soulmates if I worked harder, had more talent, and weren't afraid to wear satin during the day. Other than that, we're like this:

But with, like, sequins and feathers
and stuff.

Watching: Fleabag on Amazon Prime. Amazing show. Great for exercising to. I love, love, love Andrew Scott. I have one more episode to watch, and don't you dare tell me what happens. I will go off on you like the Godmother.

Drinking: Diet Squirt. Does anybody drink Squirt? It's supposed to be a grapefruit-flavored soda. But I loathe grapefruit, yet I love Squirt. And I had to search high and low to find the diet version. I don't think it tastes like grapefruit at all. If you're a certain age, you may remember that 7Up used to be called "the un-cola." I think Squirt tastes like the un-7Up.

Digesting: A bowl of fettuccine with yummy homemade sausage-studded marinara that Drummer Boy and I made last weekend. But also pondering: Why the box the pasta came in (in which the pasta came...whatever) says "fettuccine" when it's clearly linguine? This is fettuccine:

And this is linguine:

And they are totally different. Get your act together, Market Pantry. Linguine rules, fettuccine drools.

Envying: Precocious Daughter, who earlier this week got to see a screening of Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood that was attended by Mike Moh, who played Bruce Lee in the movie. How great is that? I don't recall doing as many cool things in college as she does. When I was her age I was on the brink of getting engaged to my future ex-spouse. I thought that was pretty cool at the time. I really should have gone to more movie screenings.

Mourning: The end of Elizabeth Warren's candidacy. I was very, very late to jump on the Warren bandwagon. In fact, until I watched her on the debate stage over the last several weeks, I had never warmed to her at all. But I was so damn impressed with her positions, her intelligence, her poise. So I voted for her on Super Tuesday, and two days later she dropped out of the race. I am a political Grim Reaper, apparently. Hell, I voted for Michael Dukakis in 1988. That was also just before I got engaged to my then-future-former-husband-to-be. The 80s were a decade of bad choices, children.

Writing: This, and kicking myself for not writing more. I'd really like to get back to writing and blogging on a regular basis. Maybe even tilting at my personal windmill of having something accepted by McSweeney's. Bwahahahahaha. No, seriously, it could happen. I mean, Joe Biden is finally winning primaries after 30 years of trying. Anything could happen.

Believing: Elton John and I could sing "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters" together wearing matching lime-green tuxedos.

Not currently. But you gotta start somewhere.

Serendipity, Spicy Style

Today I received a message from Drummer Boy:

DB and I enjoy spicy food. And ramen. And spicy ramen. So I was happy that he'd found a couple of new contenders to challenge our tastebuds.

A few minutes after I received his message, I was randomly scrolling through the Buzzfeed app, because work was so dull that it made Buzzfeed seem like an appealing alternative. And I came across this:

Whoa, serendipity! 

World's spiciest noodle, huh? OK. Let's do this.

Actually, it will be this weekend before DB and I can try out these delicious ramens, including the purportedly "world's spiciest." I'm skeptical, personally, but I'm looking forward to seeing if I'm less of a pussy than the Buzzfeed tasters.

Spoiler alert: I'm totally less of a pussy than the Buzzfeed tasters.

But I promise you'll be able to follow along if you're interested.

To anyone who has eaten Unintelligible Asian Name Brand 2x Spicy Chicken Flavor Ramen: What did you think? Do you think DB and I can handle it?

Stay tuned.

This Could Be Its Own HGTV Show, Yes?

So when I was updating you guys on my status after ghosting you for three months, I neglected to include the status of my relationship with Drummer Boy.

So, yeah.

The status of my relationship with Drummer Boy is

...

...

...

...

Pffft, it's awesome.

Psych.

Our particular love story has not always occupied the Awesome Zone. In fact, during my hiatus we faced a number of difficulties. Or...he faced a number of difficulties caused by me. Because I can be a pretty terrible person, and I don't deserve him. But we're stupid in love, and with Precocious Daughter matriculated and in college, we recognize that we're an important step closer to our happily ever after.

But I need your input on one particular issue we're facing.

It doesn't involve sex, so resume normal lung function.

Someday Drummer Boy and I will actually live under the same roof. It's not a thing right now, for various reasons. But one day I assume the stars will align in favor of us cohabitating, at which point we'll have a number of tough decisions to make.

Fortunately, we both drink the same soda, so that's a huge relief.

Zevia is the BEST. No aspartame, no caffeine, tons of flavors.
Pricey, but worth it if you only drink a couple of sodas a week.
(Not a paid advertisement, but I wouldn't turn it down.)

Anyway, right now we both live in the burbs of Dallas. Neither of us is a homeowner. I'm not sure I ever want to own a single-family home again. I don't dig the constant upkeep. I'm loving apartment living; I live in a particularly nice complex, and I pay for it, but it's totally worth it. If I were to define my dream home, my forever home, it would probably be a townhouse in a walkable part of the city.

Drummer Boy lives in the suburban home of his elderly parents, which is a beneficial arrangement for everyone. It's a much nicer house than either of us (together or separately) could ever hope to afford. His dream home is one with, in his words, "no one else around."

Urban townhouse vs. isolated compound.

Sense the tension?

I know we'll work it out. If anything, the chances of a couple of middle-aged divorced Gen Xers living anywhere by choice rather than necessity seem slim. When we get to live together, we'll go where the housing gods toss us.

But I'm interested to know if any of you have faced a similar challenge. Not necessarily with housing, but any situation where you and your SO had markedly different ideas about an important decision. How did you deal with it? Are you happy with the way it worked out?

Let me know in the comments, Drunkards.