Beeswax

So, What Are You Asking Me To Agree With?

2012-05-30T21:59:00.000-07:00

"The fact that you can't sell your daughter for three goats and a cow means we have already redefined marriage," or so a saying goes that's been making the rounds on the internet. And I would tend to agree. We are indeed redefining the legal institution of marriage, although not the sacrament of marriage. One of course is a legal contract, the other is not. Sometimes and in some places, the two are the same. In our country for instance, priests are currently authorized to act as the legal agent of the state and when they "perform a marriage" it is recognized as valid by the state. In other places this is not the case.

In Mexico, for instance, only a civil marriage is recognized as legal. A Church wedding has no legal effect. It is not authorized. You may certainly have a church wedding, but you must also have the civil ceremony for the union to be legally recognized.

I am Catholic. The Church has always taught that marriage is between one man and one woman. People can holler all they want about us being intolerant and narrow minded and having no right, yada yada yada, but I can not see any circumstances in which the Church will change its mind on the issue. Of course, this is our definition of the sacrament of marriage. It appears that we are headed into one of those places and times where the Church's definition of marriage and the State's definition of marriage diverge. Since I am both a Catholic and a citizen of the State, I am being asked to assent to a legal change in the definition of marriage. So what is it that I am being asked to agree to?

The previous model can be stated as follows: marriage is the union of one man and one woman. The new civil definition of marriage that I am being asked to agree to is...? Might it be stated as the union of one _____ and one _____, and the blanks may be filled in with any combination of the words man and woman? I am no lawyer, but from what I have seen, the new marriage laws are limited to providing equality to same sex couples. Is there no provision for unions other than couples?

Might not marriage be redefined as the union of x _____ and x _____, where x is a number from 1 to whatever the market will bear? I am not being facetious here. There are other cultures where the numbers involved are not limited to one. The current President of South Africa has four wives, for example. Will a change in the math be part of the redefinition of civil marriage? And why shouldn't it be?

I also have to wonder whether the list of nouns might not be expanded from just man and woman to include boy and girl? There are certainly precedents for this as well. Mahatma Gandhi was betrothed at age 8 and married at 13. As a society, we already take great care to interfere as little as possible in the sex lives of our children, and take great care to provide them with appropriate contraceptives because "we know they're going to do it anyway," so might it also be appropriate to include them in the marriage discussion?

Now it may well be that the proponents of the redefinition of marriage will never ask for more than the recognition of same sex couples, but then I would have to suggest that such limitations could be construed as narrow and intolerant, denying the basic rights of those who have a different vision of marriage.

For the record, I am leaning more and more to the idea of cutting the idea of marriage loose to see where it goes. Civil marriage, that is. I can foresee something along the lines of the Mexican model -- a clear separation of civil and religious ceremonies. That would leave two clearly defined groups each coupling as they see fit.

Incidentally, I know of no mention of goats and cows in the marriage laws of the Church. I believe that was a civil custom.

I don't Live There Any More

2012-05-28T08:20:00.001-07:00

I grew up in Pittsburgh. That's why I was able to do such a photorealistic representation of downtown Pittsburgh showing the three rivers, the fountain at Point State Park at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers, and the city's skyline.

If you ever go to Pittsburgh, you could take a copy of this picture with you so that you could feel more comfortable navigating about the city.

I drew this picture from memory, so I would be cautious about the possibility that changes may have occurred since I left. The last time I was in Pittsburgh was, let's see, I think about thirty years ago. It might be as little as twenty-five years.

I know I have changed in that amount of time. I am older, balder and fatter -- more bald than I could have anticipated, although not as fat as I could have become had I not exercised at least a bit of self control. One thing I am particularly pleased with is that I really have not regrets about the past twenty-five or thirty years. I am not where I might have been if all my plans had panned out, but God has a sense of humor, and to be honest, where I am is probably a lot nicer.

I am content. I am comfortable. I am at peace.

I have no desire to be in any other place or in any other time in my life. No offense, Pittsburgh. It's just that now is a nice place to be.

2012-05-26T19:54:00.000-07:00

Blog

equals

hits.

No Blog

equals

no hits.

I have discovered an interesting phenomenon. If I blog, the traffic on my site goes up. If I do not blog (as I have not for the past six weeks), the traffic on my site goes way down.

You may not think this is true. You might say "Bernie, people will go to your site every day just to look at old stuff you might have written months or even years ago."

But I think not.

You must bear in mind that I am a hermit, and I am bound by the code of hermeneutics, and one of the rules about hermenation and the use of the interweb is as follows:

In regard to relationships with virtual people, one must not allow their virtuousness to seen as license to parcel oneself out to others. Hermits should follow the principle of "pressen Sie den Schließmuskel zusammen" [clench the sphincter] and conduct one's affairs such that sufficient impediments are used to discourage unnecessary attachments -- Hermit Code of the Western Province, California, Nevada and Unincorporated Parts of Utah.

I have therefore used protracted periods of silence as one such impediment to insure that people don't start to read my blog on a regular basis and get all attached.

Having now dispersed my readership, I may comfortably return to blogging into the vast, hermetically sealed emptiness of cyberspace, confident that no one is listening.

Happy Anniversary Piker Press

2012-04-02T21:01:00.000-07:00

Those of you who know me probably have at least heard of The Piker Press. The Press is a weekly e-zine that has for the past ten years provided a place to showcase the creative efforts of artists from around the world. It has published the work of writers and artists from China, England, South Africa, Scotland, Russia, Czechoslovakia, Mexico, Canada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Iowa, Cleveland and Florida to name a few places. Really. The Press has been an outlet for an extraordinarily eclectic group of artists. Just google Piker Press and look at the page after page of references.

The most astounding accomplishment of the Press is something it is celebrating this month -- ten years of continuous weekly publication. I don't know how many e-zines have managed to last that long, but I know that there simply aren't many that can make the same claim.

Have a quick look at The Piker Press here. This month The Press will publishing stories from many of authors whose works have appeared there over the past ten years.

Congratulations, Piker Press, and Happy Anniversary.

Andons and Grandmothers

2012-03-31T00:08:00.000-07:00

Wiring Diagram

When I mowed the lawn today, I happened upon a manual sprinkler head hooked up to a length of old garden hose. Thinking it was just a piece of hose, a remnant from some old attempt to augment the automatic in-ground sprinkler system, I picked it up and gave it a yank. Much to my surprise, the hose was quite long. It ran behind our tool shed where I assumed it ended, but no, it ran the entire length of the shed and beyond. I walked around the shed and continued tracing the line as it ran along the house, and I eventually lost it in behind the ferns planted there. I gave it a tug, but I think the plants had grown around it, securing it in place and concealing where it might have gone.

The incident reminded me of the assembly plant where I used to work. It had a miles and miles of conveyor lines, and it had the Toyoda Andon System. These conveyor systems were complicated in themselves, but with andon, each workstation along the line could stop the line by pulling a cord or hitting a switch. Additionally, some pieces of equipment used in the process could automatically stop the line. Then there was the lighing, power outlets, fans, and lots of other equipment and power tools.

Wiring this whole thing together was a total nightmare. Over the years, so many things had been added or modified that there was nobody who really knew where all the wiring went. The maintenance people could and often did spend hours just trying to figure out where something was plugged in and how it was integrated into the wiring scheme. There really were no up-to-date schematics.

I think peoples' behavior is like that. Over the thousands of years we been around, there has been a lot of modification to what people think is good and bad behavior. There is stuff we don't do any more because somewhere along the line people began to think it wasn't a good idea. We forget why we thought the way we did.

In the movie The Fifth Element, a priest (not a Catholic one) shoos away a little boy, and as he does, he tells the boy Go with God, be safe from evil. I've always been struck by and challenged by that line. In the fictional culture of the film, there was a mindset that allowed for an intimate awareness of good and evil. There was a recognition that the choice between good and evil was personal and of consequence.

Upon entering a home, my mother would frequently greet the owners with a traditional Polish greeting: Pochwalony Jezus Chrystus, praised be Jesus Christ. The proper response would be Na wieki wiekow, amen, for ever and ever, amen. The tradition came to her from my grandmother who had left Poland sometime around 1910. It was a way to remind the greeter and the greeted that they were part of something far bigger than themselves, that there were standards to which they tried to hold themselves.

I do not say things like that, and if I try, I feel a bit silly.

Still, it's a good concept, this good and evil thing. I do believe that there is good and evil in the world -- there is the possibility of peace and order, and there is the risk of chaos and destruction. And I do hope that people look for what is good. I do hope that none of the rampant cruelty in the world overwhelms them.

So go with God, be safe from evil. Spend some time figuring out where you're plugged in and how you fit into the bigger picture.

I know...it sounds silly.

Hunger Games???

2012-03-27T11:13:00.000-07:00

Movie Projector Still Life

Ya all have been waiting for Sand's and my review of The Hunger Games so that you can decide whether or not you want to see it.

That's completely understandable.

The wait is over, my friends, our review of The Hunger Games is just a mouse click away at pikerpress.com.

Low Profilers

2012-03-23T21:15:00.000-07:00

Class of '71

Nobody from my class has become famous even after 40 years of trying. Not that we were a bunch of losers necessarily, and not that some of us didn't achieve a fair amount of local success and recognition. One of my best buddies is a U.S. Attorney in Pennsylvania (good job Dennis), several others have had good careers as lawyers, and a number of others have reasonably successful careers in business, although no one plays on the national scene, and none have made it big in pro sports or the entertainment industry.

Christina Aguilera went to my high school for a while, but that was almost thirty years after me. She probably wasn't told about me while she was there.

And admittedly, it's difficult to be famous. You have to know or be known by 7 million people just to reach one tenth of one percent of the world's population.

I'm guessing that the vast majority of us just went about having a normal life, getting married or not, having kids or not, paying the rent and eating lots of pizza and hamburgers.

I am surprised at how few of my acquaintances have any kind of presence on the Web. If you Google "Bernie Pilarski," you come up with a fair number of references -- mostly self-serving stuff that I put out there in a desperate attempt to gain attention, but nonetheless, I'm visible. I suppose that if I wanted to spend some bucks on a good search service, I could dig up some stuff on more people, but just using the standard Google and Facebook searches, it's apparent that the overwhelming majority of the people I knew growing up have maintained a very low profile. And maybe they are all just blocking me specifically.

Still, it's been good...very, very good.

I've got no complaints.

The New Champion

2012-03-19T00:04:00.000-07:00

For more than a year, my post entitled Fast, Faster, Fasting had reigned supreme as the most frequently visited post. It does have a pretty picture of a car, and it is one of those stories where I show my more vulnerable side and admit to having cravings, but I never really understood why it stood for so long as the most viewed post.

Today we have a new champion. Getting it Right has finally taken over the top spot for most viewed post. It's a real fluff piece with nice pictures of the family and the dogs and some laid back words about enjoying life.

Close behind in third place is a post entitled A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words. It doesn't have any words at all. It is just one picture, although as the title implies, the picture conveys a lot.

Hmmm. There is a message there somewhere. This is where I am supposed to come to the surprising conclusions about what my audience likes. From this information I can begin to tailor my future posts more and more to your tastes.

Right now, it looks like what my audience likes is stuff with pictures. Pretty pictures.

So if that's what the both of you want, then that's what you'll get.

Hermitology 101

2012-03-17T23:09:00.000-07:00


Hermit's Cave

A hermit is "a person who has withdrawn to a solitary place for a life of religious seclusion."

There were hermits that were called anchorites. They lived in cells attached to a church. They were bricked into the cell, and the cell had two or three windows: one window into the church itself so that the hermit could participate in Mass; another window opened to the outside so that supplies could be handed in; a third window was for outsiders who wished to conduct business with the hermit. I don't know of any anchorites left in the world.

More often than not, hermits were simply men or women who withdrew from most but not all social contact -- no more parties, bridge nights, bowling leagues, PTA meetings, potlucks, softball games, Super Bowl parties, conferences, classes, court dates, theater engagements, etc.. In some places, they lived in monasteries, sometimes in the open, sometimes secluded in a cave.

There aren't really very many true hermits left nowadays, at least not ones officially sanctioned by the church. There are some, to be sure, but not like in the past.

I think that Sand and I are entering into a hermitical phase of life. We have largely withdrawn from society and feel very comfortable in our isolation. Like other hermits of old, we haven't cut ourselves off completely -- we're still on pretty good terms with the clerks in the grocery store, for instance. But by and large, we keep to ourselves.

I'm contemplating installing a small window in the garage door in case anyone thinks they have a need to talk to us for some reason. I could put a little kneeler out on the driveway like the one in the picture of Julian of Norwich's cell.

Of course we would need the bishop's permission. I wonder if he's willing to come over to our house to talk this over. I wonder if he would mind if we didn't open the door the whole way while we were talking to him. I wonder if he has an online hermitical application and approval process. Makes sense, doesn't it? I mean, what's the point of being a hermit if you still have to attend the damn meetings?

I think I'll mention that to him next time I see him.

Of course, that may be a while.

Pickle Bonanza

2012-03-15T23:01:00.000-07:00

Sometimes food you make at home is good, but you know you've had better. Sometimes you just don't have either the skills or the equipment to replicate some tasty thing you've had elsewhere.

And then, every once in a while, you do manage to produce something that is otherworldly, something so much better than you've ever had before.

The pickles you see to the left are one of those rare moments when something turns out far beyond any expectation. These are my homemade bread and butter pickles, and I can not begin to tell you how good they are. I have had to stop myself from just sitting down with the quart jar of pickles and a fork and eating the whole thing. I get up in the morning and go out to the fridge and eat four or five just to get the day started. They are crunchy crisp, sweet and perfectly spiced. And almost embarrassingly easy to make. Here is the recipe I used.

I know you're thinking to yourself hey, these are just pickles. You're thinking that this whole retirement thing has pushed me over the edge and that I've lost perspective. Perhaps the words are even on your lips: Bernie's gone a bit dotty. Say what you will, but I have never had bread and butter pickles so good.

Sneaking in the Side Door

2012-03-15T01:31:00.000-07:00

I've never actually been any good at Lenten practices, anymore than I am with New Year's resolutions. Despite the fact that I have led a temperate lifestyle for over 50 years, I am an undisciplined lout, and it could be argued that my temperance is the result not of any positive virtue but born of laziness -- I am not motivated enough to indulge in any excess.

I do follow the minimum requirements for fasting and abstinence, although these modern requirements are hardly a burden. I probably would have been a complete failure in the more strict pre-Vatican II days.

Nonetheless, I've kind of snuck in the side door of Lent this year by setting about to consider, as my Lenten practice, my inability to have a Lenten practice. It's a kind of daily owning up to my shortcomings.

I've had to consider my humanness. I've had to consider my limitations. My family knows, for instance, that I would do anything for them. I will do what I have to do to provide for them. I have told them however, that if we are all hungry, and the only job I can find is to be one of those iron workers who walk around on the steel girders of skyscrapers under construction, then they should prepare to starve to death, because I just can not do heights. I can't.

Step one of the 12 Steps is to admit to being powerless over an addiction -- I can't. It is difficult to stand before God and admit that there are areas in my life where I can't -- not that I won't, not that I choose not to -- I just can't. I confess to Almighty God, and to you my brothers and sisters, that I have greatly sinned, in my thoughts, in my words, in what I have done and what I have failed to do.

Step two is to come to believe that a Power greater than yourself can restore you to sanity. If Lent is not to become simply an indulgent self-flagellation, for Lent not to be an exercise in "Catholic guilt," then I have to push past the fact that I can't, and come to believe that the death and resurrection of Christ have meaning, have Power in my life.

Step five of the 12 steps is to "admit to God, ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs." Oh. Yeah, the confession part. Confessions are Saturday mornings, and since it's Lent, we got special Penance Services coming up shortly in several parishes in the area.

So it's been good so far, even if I'm not really good at it.

There are 23 days left until Easter.

OOPS!!!

2012-03-05T19:03:00.000-08:00

Bernie's Before and After

Well, some days things go well, and other days things don't go precisely as planned. When I went to shave today, as I was plugging in my beard trimmer, I dropped it. A beard trimmer is a small device with an adjustable head that can be used to keep your beard trimmed neatly to a specific length from stubble to full.

Even though I inspected the trimmer for damage when I picked it up, and even though the length gauge setting still was set at 5, when I fired it up and ran it through the center of my beard, it sheared a nice path right down the skin of my chinny-chin-chin.

I stood there for a moment quite bewildered looking at the furrow on my chin. I do not let my beard grow long enough to allow for a comb over, and it was too wide a swath to simply ignore until it grew back. So, there seemed nothing left to do but to buzz the rest off, right down to the mustache.

I haven't really seen my chin for many years now, so I was curious to see how it was doing. It's kind of like going to a high school reunion in a way. I was bracing for a 'my goodness, he's let himself go" kind reaction, but fortunately, as you can see by the picture above, my chin has done well for itself.

So now the question: do I grow back the full vandyke beard, leave just the mustache, or shave myself totally bald?

End of the Line

2012-02-28T22:33:00.001-08:00

End of the Line

I read a very, very good article today. It's here if you want to take a look at it. It is written by a doctor, Ken Murray, and it talks about how many doctors choose not to treat their own life threatening diseases but rather opt to live out what time they have as quietly and as comfortably as they can.

"It's not something that we like to talk about, but doctors die, too. What's unusual about them is not how much treatment they get compared with most Americans, but how little," Dr. Murray says.

As part of the decisions that Sand and I have made regarding how we hope to spend the rest of our lives, I know that from here on out, I do not intend to seek any medical care that would prolong my life. I have no desire to die any time soon, but if death approaches sooner rather than later, so be it.

Oddly, I've kept my thoughts between myself and my wife, because I felt as though I would be considered crazy for what I was thinking. But maybe not. I know that the Church says that I am under no obligation to submit to "extraordinary means" to prolong life. That used to be a purely abstract discussion for me, but it's beginning to have a little more reality.

Something Dr. Murray talks about is the need for a properly prepared "advanced directive" that states clearly what your intentions are regarding end of life care.

This seems like something I need to look into.

Obsession!

2012-02-28T10:36:00.000-08:00

This is the mark of obsession. In our neck of the woods, we have hard water. It has enough dissolved minerals in it to almost be classified as a slurry. We have always been a bit sensitive about the water here because we came from an area in Pennsylvania that had possibly the best drinking water in the whole world. Just turn on the faucet and out came delicious, clear, clean, sweet soft water. Delicious.

To its credit, the water here, although laden with tons of stuff, is reasonably good tasting, and it doesn't smell. However, if you let it dry on any surface, it quickly unburdens itself of the heavy load it carries and leaves behind a stalagmite.

I once read an article from somebody who claimed to be a doctor who was fascinated by pockets of population where the people were unusually long lived. (Here is a similar article.) He said his research indicated a high degree of correlation between long life and water sources that were naturally very hard. I never put too much credence in the article since he then went on to hawk some "miracle" product, but I always remember that article when I go to tap here and draw a glass of water.

But this is not about living longer. It's about another memory, one from fifteen years ago when when we were house hunting. One of the what seemed like hundreds of houses we looked at was the home of a nice older couple who were downsizing. What stood out to me was how utterly spotless the home was even though it was an older home. I remember standing and looking at the sinks and faucets and being astounded by the total lack of hard water deposits. It looked as though every sink and fixture in the house had just been unpacked and installed and never used. The memory has stuck with me ever since.

Well, we just recently replaced our kitchen sink and faucet. After all the hard work that that entailed, I looked at that gleaming chrome fixture, and remembering the little old couple, vowed that I would maintain my faucet without blemish for as long as I could. I am now obsessed. Dozens of times a day, I walk past the sink and wipe it down. Sometimes I hover when other people are using the sink, knowing that they will unwittingly leave a drop or two on my pristine tap. On a regular basis, I coat the chrome surfaces with Gel Goss.

So far, so good. So far I have been able to stay ahead of the game and keep the kitchen sink and faucet looking absolutely new. I believe that my whole life has been preparation for this task. I believe that events have transpired to allow me to be in a position to devote myself to the prevention of mineral deposits. I believe that this is why Nummi closed and I was forced to retire. I believe that this is why I was born!

Alternatively, all the hard water that I drink has left some deposits in my brain that have had some unintended effects.

But the faucets are clean.

Lenten Activity Decision Time

2012-02-21T17:06:00.001-08:00

I found this photo taken of my two brothers and me. The one on the left is my oldest brother. He looks like that even though he is now 70 years old. I saw him once eat five Big Mac's in a single sitting along with fries and something to drink. He has a metabolism that allows him to consume huge quantities of food and never gain weight.

The brother in the middle is also my older brother. When he was in high school, my parents actually took him to the doctor to see if there was something that could be done to get some weight on him. Nowadays, he will drink down twelve gallons of beer and imagine that he's already eaten. If you try to serve him a cooked meal, when you remove the cloche to reveal the goodies, he will jump back from the table, then with a long stick in one hand and a beer in the other, slowly poke at the food.

Personally, I have followed what might be called a culinary "middle way," a path somewhat like the one that Buddha described as a moderation between the extremes of sensual indulgence and self-mortification.

I was thinking about these things in part because we are approaching Ash Wednesday and Lent, and I was trying to think about what I might do to focus myself on the task at hand -- what activity can I incorporate into my daily routine that will prompt me to consider the state of my relationship with God?

To be honest, I am fairly lousy with Lenten activities, just like I'm bad at New Year's resolutions. I don't think I'm going to give anything up. I'm at a time and place in life where "giving up" is an all too common activity, and not always a good idea. Prayer is a great activity, and there's always room for improvement, but prayer is something I've been able to spend a lot of time revising, and that's an ongoing project, not something "new" for Lent.

I think I need some kind of physical activity, something that I can do at the same time every day, something that will make me spend a half an hour or so thinking about how the circumstances of my chosen middle way lifestyle have perhaps left me a little too comfortable, a little too complacent, perhaps even soft around the middle. I might even try to incorporate the Stations of the Cross into that activity. I've been to a number of places that have an outdoor Stations trail, and maybe I can lay out a route around town that would allow me to walk and pray the Stations at the same time.

Whatever it's going to be, I need to decide by tomorrow, eh? Maybe I'll just give up procrastinating. I'll at least think about it.

I Salute the General

2012-02-19T16:48:00.000-08:00

I am not a military man. I am, and have been since my earliest memories, committed to the idea that I will not intentionally kill another human being. I recognize that the world is a violent place, that there are people in the world intent on killing me if they get the chance. I recognize that the way the world is structured, war is unavoidable. I recognize, along with the Church, that there are circumstances that justify a people's right to defend themselves. And I recognize that I have a responsibility to support my country in such circumstances, to pledge to my country my life, my fortune, and my sacred honor.

I would like to believe that had I been called, I would have had the courage to serve my country, that I would have risked my life in service of others.

I would like to believe that I would die for my family and my country, but I will not kill for them.

I am ever mindful, however, of the fact that I have been able to live my life in peace in large part because there are those who understand their commitment to God and country differently, and I am greatly appreciative of the sacrifices they make for their country.

I was reminded of the quality of the individuals who serve in our armed forces today when I watched an interview with General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It was absolutely refreshing to listen to someone who answered the question asked of him instead of heading into a prepared diatribe against the rival political party. It was refreshing to hear someone who spoke of serious issues without the use of hyperbole. It was a relief to have someone conduct themselves with discipline and professionalism, portraying a calm and respectful confidence. When I listened to General Dempsey, I was convinced that what he said was what he believed to be the truth, and that what he said was information that I needed to consider.

It was a pleasant change from the adolescent whining, finger pointing, and deceit that consumes our usual public debates.

Good job, General.

Just Sayin'

2012-02-15T18:49:00.000-08:00

Prayer for Rain

O God, in Whom we live and move, and have our being, grant us rain, in due abundance, that, being sufficiently helped with temporal, we may the more confidently seek after eternal gifts. Through Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Prayer Source: Novena in Honor of St. Isidore: Patron of Farmers by National Catholic Rural Life Conference, National Catholic Rural Life Conference

A Small Political Commentary

2012-02-13T12:19:00.000-08:00

I don't usually like to talk politics in my blog. In today's climate, there is no dialogue to be had, just a lot of shouting. But I would like to make what I think is a relevant observation about the recent spat over Health and Human Services decision to mandating coverage of contraceptives. In defense of their actions, President Obama noted that 99% of Catholic women have used contraceptives.

By our own admission, in fact as a core tenet of our organization, we as Catholics believe that without exception, 100% of us have sinned at some point in our lives, but I don't think that requires us to change our understanding of right and wrong.

Just sayin'.

With Apologies to Gene Roddenberry

2012-02-10T19:27:00.000-08:00

In an episode of the original Star Trek series, a character named Garth confronts an Orion slave girl who claims to have authored a poem she has read to Captain Kirk. That poem, Garth says, was written by an Earth man named Shakespeare a long time ago. That does not alter the fact, the green woman replies, that I wrote it again this morning.

I was reminded of that particular exchange recently when I invented the Dutch apple crumb pie, and again today when I invented the Berry crumb pie.

These pies are very like the Orion girls as described in that episode by Commodore Mendez: they're vicious and seductive...they say no human male can resist them. In fact, I think I will call these pies the Orion apple crumb and the Roddenberryberry crumb pies.

Retirement -- bravely eating what no man has et before.

Just sayin'.

Berlin Underground

2012-02-08T19:09:00.000-08:00

I was slithering about on the web today and found myself unexpectedly under the streets of Berlin, Germany. Like most cities, Berlin has a lot of stuff underground -- subways, utility tunnels, and an extensive network of underground bunkers and connecting tunnels built by the Nazi's in WWII. Well, perhaps not many other cities have this last feature, or at least not to the extent that Berlin has.

There is a general fascination with all this underground stuff, and somehow evolving out of this has quite naturally come a restaurant with a unique dining experience. Nocti Vagus is a restaurant where you eat in total darkness, waited on by blind waiters/waitresses. It is one of Berlin's most popular spots. I've not personally been there, but accounts I've read confirm that it is dark -- can't see your hand in front of your face dark. It seems that part of the motivation behind this is to simulate the experience that a blind person might have dining out.

"It is an incredible experience to eat in the dark, to open your mind to a different way of eating," says the Road Junky website. "But more astounding is the feeling of liberation of not having to watch your behaviour, or to watch the people, or feel watched. You can eat with your hands, and get your face covered with food. That alone makes it an amazing eating experience."

To go with the dining experience, there is a full range of entertainment from music to theater, including evenings dedicated to the reading of erotic stories and sensual music, "erotic snack included."

It all kind of reminds me of the party games when I was a kid where you blindfolded someone and then made them reach their hand into a bowl of cold spaghetti-o's.

I wonder if spaghetti-o's are on the menu?

Movie Review: Chronicle

2012-02-07T10:14:00.000-08:00

If you have even the slightest interest in my review of the new movie Chronicle, you can find it here in this week's edition of the Piker Press.

Just sayin'.

Pizza! Pizza!

2012-02-04T22:12:00.000-08:00

The doughnuts I made the other day were a moderate success -- not quite up to my expectations but very edible. Undaunted, I threw myself into to pizza making. Pizza is not conceptually difficult. There's the dough, the sauce, and the toppings.

The toppings are pretty much a no-brainer. In my case, I wanted it simple, so it was just mozzarella cheese and pepperoni. (Yes, there are pepperoni on there. I put them down first and then put the cheese on top. Probably should have done it the other way round for the visual effect.)

The sauce is a little trickier. I modeled my sauce after one that Sand makes, a lightly spiced tomato sauce for a nice fresh taste. I just about got it, although next time I will cut back a bit on the salt.

The dough is really critical in a pizza. I used a recipe I found on line -- just flour, water, yeast and and a little tiny bit of sugar. Seemed simple enough, but once again as with the doughnuts, the dough turned out to be very difficult to work with. Unlike doughnuts, fortunately, shape is of less importance and I was able to wrestle it down onto a sheet, roughly shape it, top it and get it into the oven.

The result? A respectable pizza pie. Next time I think I want to go a little thinner on the crust. But you know, the real test of whether a pizza is good is how it tastes cold the next morning. There was a little bit left over from this one, so it went into a baggie and spent the night in the fridge. Next morning, after I poured my coffee (in my youth it would have been a Pepsi, but I can't do that to myself now a days), I pulled out a slice and tried it. Mmmm, it passed the test. There will be no wasted pizza with this recipe.

It can stand a little tweaking, but it's a keeper.

Life Will Find A Way -- Update

2012-02-03T18:11:00.000-08:00

A little while ago I mentioned that while cleaning the pond out front, I happened upon a baby fish. I thought that this was cool since it indicated that my adult fish were comfortable enough to have spent some time after one of their parties committing to settling down and talking about the future. Well, more than talking actually.

It's been a long journey for these fish. The initial members of the pond were definitely aquarium fish, and they were not exceptionally wise in the ways of nature. They would come to the surface when we fed them, and would swim about in the open humming little fish songs. As a result, a fair number of them were eaten by predators. I had to rescue one little guy from the roots of one of the pond plants. I have no idea how he had gotten himself in there, but I had to pull the plant out of the water to free him.

But it appears that they have adapted. They are more wary now and lurk amongst the plant leaves, spending much more of their time near the bottom of the pond under a protective covering of three and a half feet of water. When we feed them, which is not often since they are able to live nicely off the environment, they will dart to the surface, gulp and dive back to the bottom. So during the day, it's hard to determine who is in there.

At night however they swim about much more freely. With flashlight in hand, we went fish spotting. To my delight, we spotted no less then EIGHT little fry squirting about. There may be more since, even with a flashlight, we can not really see the deepest recesses of the pond. But I am happy. Life will find a way. And I'm sure that mom and dad have already said to the kids, "look, we don't know everything, but we know this: keep your head down!"

Reinventing The (Doughnut) Wheel

2012-02-01T21:54:00.000-08:00

Emboldened by my recent success with pretzels and with the fabulously successful Monkey Bread, I set out to try my hand at another tasty treat -- raised doughnuts. I set my sights high on this one. Since my mother loved doughnuts, and since we had some really good bakeries back in the old neighborhood, I have been eating doughnuts since I can remember. And although not all doughnut shops can crank out really good ones, there are enough doughnut shops in this country that the odds are you can find a good one no matter where you live. I have had a few really, really good sources of doughnuts in my life. The bakery at the Giant Supermarket in Lewistown, Pa. was one of these. This is the old store down on Dorcas St., not the new one in Burnham. Whoever baked at that store had a special relationship with raised doughnuts. They were so good that they got a mention in a book I read, one of the author's fond memories of growing up in that area. There is another shop out here in California. It's in Livermore, and was dangerously on my route home (if I went just a wee bit out of my way) from work. Since I got off of work at 2 or 3 a.m., I could get to the doughnut shop just as all the drunks got out of the bars and headed there for a cup of coffee, but more importantly, just as the bakers were working on the day's supply of the tasty morsels. The doughnuts would be so soft, so fresh, they would collapse in upon themselves as you bit into them.

That's what I had in mind when I made mine, and, well, I didn't quite get there. I had some difficulty with the texture of the dough that made it hard to work with, and while Sand was able to rescue me, neither of us figured out a good way to get the nice raised, puffy dough-nuts of the sheet and into the hot oil without some major falling of the dough and distortion of the shapes. Still, we got doughnuts, but not exactly pretty ones. There was also some issue with the texture of the finished product. Instead of airy, fluffy, melt in your mouth delicacies, these doughnuts had more the feel of funnel cake -- a texture somewhere between a cake doughnut and a proper raised doughnut.

Understand, I would and did eat these, and would do so again, especially when they are still fresh and warm, but they did not quite match up to my lofty expectations.

This is why you retire -- to have the time to reinvent the wheel, to master new skills. Important skills. Survival skills.

So, I Was Just Thinking....

2012-01-28T10:44:00.000-08:00

This is an actual photograph of me. Those of you who know me will recognize me immediately. I'm smiling in this photograph because, darn it, I'm pretty happy. Things are going pretty darn well, and I have the absolute good fortune to realize how well things are going.

I have personal experience of living in households where things were going pretty darn well but you'd never have guessed it from the people there. There was always something that was wanting, always discontent. It could be argued that it is precisely this constant unrest that made this country great -- more, bigger, and better are three words that are at the foundation of our great economic engine.

Did you ever wonder what makes really rich people continue to work so hard at making money? If the rent is due next week and you don't have any money, I see the need to go out there hustle. And it's prudent to try to get ahead a bit. A common financial rule of thumb is to have six months of living expenses in the savings account just in case. So what if you had six months? Is that enough? How about twelve months?

Since I have been unemployed/retired, I've had a lot of time to think and am now more convinced than ever that God is Good.

I saw a program on one of the cable channels about a scientist that believes that certain rock formations on the bottom of one of the Great Lakes indicate that the area was dry land in the past and humans lived there. In his diving expeditions, he hopes to recover some evidence to support his claim. At one point, he holds up a small chard of rock, holding it on the tip of a finger, and excitedly explains that this piece of rock is probably evidence of stone tool making, and if so would confirm his theories. He may well be right.

It is interesting that such a small bit of evidence can indicate that man was present someplace, while at the same time, the evolution of intelligent life on earth in an otherwise barren and lifeless universe is dismissed as evidence of the existence of a creator.

I've got more than a few rock chips in my life that indicate to me that God has been active there. And so I am happy.