afrojet

All The Colors of a Lotus
The new West Elm catalog is really pushing the boundaries of cognitive color association. A good example are these fab lotus pillows. I kind of like the “orange” one. But orange is not a color option to choose from. Want to match wits with the West Elm marketing department? Here is the challenge: match the West Elm color with the four corresponding lotus pillows (pictured above). The colors are: leek, spray, ivory and shiitake. Good luck.

Find a Safe Place
The cats have taken to the high ground. They build bivouacs in the recesses of warm wooden salad bowls and hide out from dial tones and general solicitors. Your spidey-sense tells you that you’re under inspection but it takes a few moments to pirouette and periscope before you find the location of those wise eyes.

Caught a cool glimpse of PGE Park (home of the Portland Beavers and Timbers) the other night. It was about 10:30 at night and I was walking to the Towne Lounge to hear David Pajo and Holly Throsby perform. When you walk by PGE Park on the East side you’re walking past center-field and the stadium is below you so you have a birds-eye panoramic of the entire stadium. All the bright stadium lights were still on; the Beavers must have finish their game about an hour ago. The grass was an intense green and there was hardly a soul in the stadium except for two or three grounds keepers working the sand and installing new base pads. The whole scene reminded me of this story I wrote in fifth grade about a kid who hides out in a baseball stadium overnight and goes on all these adventures. The story was in the grand tradition of ‘From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler‘. The scene that I was observing at PGE Park the other night was somehow exactly as I had imagined it in fifth grade. I guess I’ve always been captivated by the mystery of deserted ballparks at night. A strange thing to be fascinated with I’m sure.

The Great American Smokeout
We’ve had an impossible stretch of hot weather lately. Temperatures were in the hundreds all weekend. I had to fight the urge to usurp my neighbors kiddy pool. To make matters worse the neighbor, for fathers day, received a smoker. It’s some kind of grill attachment for the smoking of meats. He enjoys smoking meats several times a week. And apparently when you smoke meat you do so for a really long time. I’ve seen him out there at one in the morning getting his smoke on so that the meat will be ready for his family by dinner time the next day.

The thing about meat smoking is that it smells not unlike warm death. It’s totally different than the normal BBQ smell which, even though I am a pescatarian, I still enjoy. But smoking meat is a different smell altogether. I find it totally repulsive.

As luck would have it, the neighbor’s meat smoker is situated just about ten yards away from our central air-conditioning unit. Thus, when the air is on and he’s smokin’, our entire house fills with the sticky cool smell of smoked flesh.

Fuckin’ Yummy!

With all the hot weather and abundant sunshine the lawns around these parts are starting to turn a yellowed crispy sandy color. Well placed sprinklers and heavy watering have become pretty much futile at this point. But there is one house in the neighborhood that isn’t having this problem. This house, about half a mile away from us, recently underwent a radical change when the owners ripped up their entire front lawn and replaced it with bright glistening plastic artificial grass. It’s hilarious, especially now that all the adjacent lawns have turned beige. The grass color (pms 361) remains steadfast and wholly unnatural. I swear you can see this lawn coming about three blocks away.

I have to say tho, I admire the commitment. The folks in the fake grass house have an insatiable appetite for the aesthetics of plastic. Not only is the grass plastic but they also have these plastic planters around the perimeter of the yard filled with lovely mixtures of fake plastic flowers and plants. On top of that there are plastic rabbits and other assorted critters lounging about the yard. I really should get some snaps of this place.

R.I.P. Mickey Spillane
The author of my all-time favorite literary ‘guilty pleasure’ has passed on. Three cheers to you Mickey. You’re the best.

Don’t Let That Kid Out Until We Return!
The Good Doctor & his heroic wife Amy, welcomed their son baby Sam (aka Captain Smalls’) into the world last Thursday afternoon. He’s an amazing little person.

Selfishly, the misses and I pleaded with Amy to hold off on the whole delivery thing until we got back from Minnesota. Thankfully, she placated our wishes and waited a full four hours after our plane kissed the tarmac in Portland to go into labour.

This weekend we spent some time with the little guy and the parents (who have already become young Jedis at this whole baby business).

Fun in The Flatlands

The misses and I have returned from an ever-so-brief trip back to the Minnesota heartland. I got my first live peak at my niece, Baby Quinn!

Highlights of the journey included: spending time with family, enjoying Quinn’s animated antics, viewing the Diane Arbus exhibit (amazing!!!!) at the Walker, seeing the newly opened Guthrie Theater, eating our way through Minneapolis restaurants, drinking bloody marys while watching the World Cup Final, picking up spices at Penzeys, visiting the Saint Paul Farmers Market, shopping for vintage goodies on University Avenue, picking up reading material at Micawber’s Books and drinking a Grain Belt Premium.

Things noticed about the state after being away for almost a year: Minnesota is incredibly flat and the Twin Cities is awash in diversity.

It’s baffling how many things disappear in one year. We attempted to go to many restaurants and shops that were open when we left the cities last August but are sadly no more.

The Devil Wears Leopardskin
This weekend I began reading Jeffrey Tayler’s travel adventure Facing The Congo. It’s a gripping tale of his attempt to navigate up the Congo River in a pirogue. At the time of his trip (1995), the Congo (Zaire) is awash in corruption and Mr. Tayler can’t seem to complete a single paragraph without handing out a bribe to some soldier who demands an “American present”.

In the book’s prologue, Mr. Tayler gives a brief outline of Zaire circa 1995, which was then being ruled by the king of corruption, the godfather of kleptocracies, Joseph-Désiré Mobutu.

Now Mobutu was a very bad guy but witness Mobutu’s poetic flair for a new epithet:

He forced all Zaireans to adopt African names and created a new Lingala title for himself – Mobutu Sese Seko Koko Ngbendu wa za Banga (which usually translates as “The All-Conquering Warrior Who, Because of His Endurance and Inflexible Will to Win, Will Go from Conquest to Conquest Leaving Fire in His Wake,” but which literally means “The Cock Who Jumps on Anything That Moves”

I’m sure with that name he was officially crossed off the Nobel Peace Prize short list.

Naturally, Mobutu proved one of America’s strongest African allies.

And, ‘The Cock’ wore leopardskin hats ta’ boot!.

A Story of Patriotism

The misses and I sat down to dinner last night (I made vegan BBQ tofu!). While devouring the tofu love, I noticed that Gabby The Cat was sitting in the window with a very quizzical look on her face. All throughout the meal she looked slightly odd. Towards the end of the meal, I asked Kelly to look at the cats food dishes and see if they had any food (the cat dishes are in the corner behind her chair). She glanced down, and then simultaneously dropped her fork and shrieked loud enough to send Gabby running from the kitchen.

The wild scene which ensued nearly beggars description. In the next few moments I discovered that the cat’s food bowls had become a Feed-Lot for ants. The bowls were clearly overrun, taking on a mirage like quality as the ants moved in waves over the pottery. An ant super-highway led from the screen door to the cat bowls; a wide and dense populated trail of ants moved with speed.

“They must be stopped”, I bellowed as I dashed off to retrieve the vacuum from the hall closet. Armed with suction, I quickly entered the fray stabbing my vacuum hose wildly like a daft bucuneer. I sucked up hundreds of ants. The misses, having recovered from her initial shock was busy at the sink preparing a mixture of chemicals and water. Soon, the cat bowls were removed and the floor was being chemically scrubbed.

Completing my vacuum duties I opened the screen door to the kitchen patio. I needed to track down how and where these little buggers were getting into the house. A thorough search of the perimeter revealed little. A few ants here and there but nothing that could have led to the scene inside. I was baffled.

Several minutes passed and I knew I had failed to find the source that led to ‘The Great Ant Attack of 06’. I turned toward other matters – getting the trash and recycling ready for today’s trash pick up. It just so happens that we keep a recycling bin outside on the kitchen patio so that we don’t have to go very far when tossing out recyclables. I picked up the plastic yellow tub filled with cans and bottles. What caught my eye underneath the recycling tub was so horrific and terrifying that I became paralyzed save for my hands which had involuntarily dropped the recycling tub. Thousands! Tens of thousands of little brown ants were having an orgy over whatever sauces and jellies had formed underneath the recycling bin.

I tapped the glass of the patio door. The misses walked slowly across the kitchen to door. Without saying anything, I pointed down at the orgy. Her face became pained with disgust and fright. She shook her head. A head shake that seemed to mean, “how could we have let this happen?”.

I too could not believe it. Only moments ago I was taking delight in my vegan dinner. Now, I was planning an epic animal massacre. My hypocrisy blazes like a scarlet letter.

I must tell you tho, as I began to unravel the garden hose and bring it ’round to the side of the house, there was no inner moral battle taking place. There were no pangs of guilt in my stomach. I knew what I had to do, and with the nozzle attachment fitting set to ‘JET’, – I drowned them all.

Buy It Broken
Survived a wallop of a heat wave that recently blazed a path through town, scorching lawns and boiling sidewalks for three straight days. With temperatures hovering at 100 degrees, the town was in a panic. The neighbors to the South and to the West both broke out massive lawn pools and filled ’em up with toddlers and tadpoles from all the neighboring villages. Sitting at my desk yesterday, I was caught between the vocal volleys of all these wet chickens. One little moppet, who I have given the name ‘The Repeater’, latches onto a specific phrase or word and becomes his own echo chamber symphony, complete with a never-ending coda. But fuck, the Repeater is nothing compared to his friends who just scream all day. All. Day.

It’s funny. I wonder, at what point (age) do we learn in our development that screaming (even if short squeals of joy) is slightly irritating to other people within earshot? How do we learn this?

I think I want to do an experiment where I scream with Kids.

Now, before you call Child Protection Services on me, let me explain. I don’t mean to scream at kids. I want to use the same high pitched vocalizations and squeals to celebrate any minor victory (getting the BBQ to light!) just like a child. What I want to know is, do kids think it strange if an adult is squealing (even if not in anger)? My hypothesis to this experiment would be; an adult who suddenly begins to squeal happily in the presence of children (for whom this is their native tongue) would stop short and react with equal parts confusion and fear. Discuss amongst yourselves. Let me know if you have any insights.

Last night I went to Old Navy to buy some new pocket t-shirts because mine have become old and frayed with many holes where there shouldn’t be holes. Turns out that the fashion du jour in pocket t-shirts is old and frayed with holes where there shouldn’t be holes. Sweet! I walked right back out the store happy in the knowledge that I am ahead of the fashion world in my own laziness and shoddy wardrobe. The fact that places like Old Navy have convinced a nation of kids that “planned obsolesce” is the new black, has to be counted as one of the single greatest maneuvers of Capitalism ever.

Hablad Más Lentamente, Por Favor.
I think my Spanish is actually coming back to me. I’ve logged a tremendous number of hours at Univision over the last couple of weeks. Their announcers for the World Cup outshine the ESPN guys by a thousand watts. Even though I don’t understand 80% of what’s being said, the emotion and personality make the matches come to life in a way that the sleepy US announcers can’t match. Somebody has to tell those slow US announcers that back here in the states we are watching these games at incomprehensibly early hours. You are not talking for whole stretches of time! Coupled with your ‘Bueller…Bueller’ monotone approach, you lull me back to sleep in minutes. And now with the USA team out of the cup they seem even more uninspired. On the flip side, the Spanish announcers make every pass, every header and tackle seem like it has major geopolitical significance.

My team – The Men in Orange – Team Nederland is still in it. Even after a disappointing draw against Argentina I think they’re going to be the ones on top. My prediction for the final four: Holland, Argentina, Italy, Brazil.

Bonus: A wonderfull collection of international Magnum Football Photos.