Carbing up with a vengeance

I sat to write about watching the season premiere of American Idol, when this email came in, and my stream of consciousness hit a log jam. It was from the alumni office of my alma mater, and I reproduce it here:

Calling all runners!

If you are running the 2008 Country Music Marathon & ½ Marathon in Nashville we hope you’ll join us for a time of great food (our treat) and fellowship before the big run on Saturday.

Anonymous University Alumni will gather Friday evening, April 25
for a “pasta pig-out,” 6:30 pm at Fancy Italian Restaurant in
Franklin, TN. Fancy Italian Restaurant is located in the Cool Springs
area, 1722 Pseudonym Blvd, Franklin, TN 37067.

We will also arrange a group photo in Centennial Park before the race begins on Saturday morning.

Please let us know if you will be running the CMM and joining us for dinner (email alumni@anonymousuniversity.edu or call 1-800-555-1212). Spouses are welcome.

See you soon!

Let's begin with the Country Music Marathon. Now I listen to my share of country. And as much as I respect, say, Alan Jackson and Martina McBride, I can't get rid of the picture of Conway Twitty in jogging shorts and bouffant hairdo running full out while singing "You want a man with a slow foot...." And there's a half marathon, too! For folks who only sorta like country, I guess.

I went to the website for Fancy Italian Restaurant. I have to say the menu looked pretty good, but what struck me is the three portion sizes: Buca Small (serves 2 or more), Buca Large (4 or more), and the new(!) Buca Mio (the exact right size for, ahem, one).

Now, seeing as how they're calling this shindig a "pasta pig-out", I'm guessing there won't be many of the Buca Mios sitting around that night. Except maybe as appetizers.

One thing that won't be served is wine. AnonU is owned by a religious body that frowns upon strong drink. Of course, this fellowship isn't at the school, but way across the state. And frankly, serving Italian food without wine is a sin in and of itself. So what are they to do?

The biggest problem, though, is the very idea behind what they're doing here: they're serving all the pasta you can eat to a bunch of people twelve hours before they run 26 miles! Seems to me they'd be wanting to keep their alumni healthy, not kill them off. Unless they're hoping for a nice bequest from a few of them. I reckon that's why they're having the photo shoot before the race. There won't be enough runners left after the race to make it worthwhile.

I have no plans to do this marathon thing. I do love me some lasagne, though. I wonder how they'd know whether I was actually going to race or not.

Hmm. Free Italian.... And my lady wife could come too....

Let me check my calendar.

Out of the Mouths of Babes - Part 1

It was a quiet evening. I sat at my computer, pretending to work, while in fact I was learning the intracies of Freecell Solitaire. The wife busily checked her email. (I believe she was planning a family gathering with her sisters, but the details are now lost in the shadows of the past.) The younger son was taking his evening nap after a hard day goofing off. His older brother was playing his favorite video game of all time (that summer). The dogs were napping peacefully on their love seats. It was, overall, a nice, quiet, peaceful evening.

"I hate the undead!"

Ryan, the aforementioned elder son, blurted this out amidst a hail of machine gun fire from the family TV. Naturally, my interest was piqued.

"What?" I asked.

"What?" he replied. The machine gun fire had morphed into the explosions of rocket propelled grenades. "Dang it!"

"What did you just say?"

"I said, 'Dang it!'"

"No, before that."

"Oh. I dunno."

"I believe you said you hate the undead."

"Oh. Well, I do. I do hate the undead."

There was a pause while I waited for an expansion on this statement, but my wait was in vain.

"So," I tried again, "is there some reason you would say that?"

"You mean besides the fact that I hate them?"

"Well, why do you hate the undead?"

"They keep stealing my ammo."

Let's pause for just a second and consider these words:

I hate the undead. They keep stealing my ammo.

Apparently, the undead, who used to be a technologically backward, ubertraditionalist, mysteriously self-reliant type of being, have discovered guns. Or at least ranged weapons. This does not bode well for normal humans like you and me.

Also, they seem to have embarked on a life of crime. Besides murder and general mayhem, that is. What's next? Are they gonna start shoplifting at the Walmart? Knocking over liquor stores? Mugging little old ladies for their pocket change?

This does not seem to me a welcome change. I liked it better in the old days when you could count on zombies shambling around making unintelligible noises and grasping at your skull. Now you have to worry about the Saturday Night Special the zombie might have tucked into his waistband.

Leave 'em Wanting

(Note: This piece is full of dialect. Down here we -- most of us, anyway -- know it's not Standard English. We just like to talk this way sometimes.)

Down here in the South we're just eat up with couth. That's why The Department took us all out to The Upscale today for our Holiday Luncheon.

For those of you who might not have heard tell of it, Upscale is one of the high class joints in Greenville. You can tell because it's right next to the TJMaxx and just down Haywood Road from the Mall. Also it has little lights along the floor inside so you can see where you're supposed to walk.

Don't get me wrong. I got no complaints about the ambience, or even the decor. Upscale is a classy joint, and I've eaten in some of the classiest. And this ain't no franchise, either. There's only one Upscale.

Anyways, we straggled in about 11:30 and were immediately directed to the big banquet room. And it was big: big enough for about forty folks, even if we did have to play like we liked each other, we had to sit so close. Each place setting had a little saucer (what the high-toned might call a bread plate), two forks, a knife, and a cloth napkin, folded up real neat-like. (The napkin was black: another sign of class.) Oh, and a goblet with ice water. There was a single page menu, photocopied, and it didn't have prices, because The Department was paying.

I ordered the Seafood Thermidor, which is lobster, crab, and shrimp in a white-wine cream sauce, covered with melted cheese. The menu said it was en casserole, which means it was served in a little round dish right out of the oven. The server (what we would normally call a waiter, but we was in high-class society) told us we were also going to have a salad with house dressing, garlic mashed potatoes, and French-style green beans. Very nice.

And the salad was very nice. They were a little bit skimpy on the vinagrette, but they cut the tomato up into little squares. There was something with roots on it, but I didn't want to look uncouth, so I ate it anyway. I sipped on my water, waiting for the sweet iced tea, but it wasn’t showing up, so I figured it was coming with the entrée.

Finally, my en casserole came out. It was very nice, but there wasn’t much of it. It was about two inches across. I could have covered it with my green beans. Now I’m sure that some folks would eat a meal like that and say, “Good lord, I don’t think I can move for the rest of the afternoon!” I don’t know any of those people. Well, that might not be entirely true. I know a couple artsy types who wear black turtlenecks in July and weigh about nine pounds. But you know what I mean.

I ate it. All of it. It was delicious. It was one of the best things I have ever eaten. And then it was gone. Just like that. It’s taken you longer to read this story than it took me to eat that Thermidore.

I looked sadly at the little white bowl. I still had some roll left, so I tore some off and wiped up the leftover sauce and ate it. I looked up just in time to see the server successfully cover his horror. So I used the rest of my bread to finish it up. I reached for my tea, and it still wasn’t there. Maybe they’ll bring it with dessert.

The speeches started. They were nice. My stomach rumbled through them, waiting for dessert. There was no dessert. There was no tea. There was no coffee.

The last speech was made, and we all went back to the office.

I stopped on the way back and got a pack of peanuts and a Coke.

On the way back I realized how good these guys were at marketing. The food was outstanding, the service was impeccable, and the portions were small. It made me want to go back and finish my meal.

Because it really is true what they say: “Always leave ’em wanting more.”

A Time to Mourn

I got the call yesterday morning about 9:30. It was Heidi, who used to be my manager before she transferred out to another department. Heidi rightly has a reputation as a tough customer who took no guff from anybody. I have seen her angry, and I've seen her upset, and once I saw her cry. But I had never before heard her voice shake.

"I didn't want to disturb you," she said, "but I thought you'd better hear this from one of us. Karla was killed in a motorcycle accident last night in Greenville...."

I worked with Karla for five years before she got out of the IS department for a lower-stress position. She was quiet and reserved, but she had a way of getting under my skin. I often thought she had an attitude problem. Sometimes I thought she was basically unhappy. She was without doubt intelligent: she had devised several processes we still use today. But she had trouble communicating with her co-workers, and even when she talked her voice was quiet, almost unintelligible if there was any extraneous noise at all.

We butted heads often and got on each other's nerves. And I was really ticked towards the end of her IS days, because she had retreated into herself to the point where she might as well not have been there, and it was a relief to the whole department when she jumped ship. The last time I saw her she was relaxed and happy. I knew this because she was taunting us with the fact that when she didn't have to fix computers anymore.

But on Saturday afternoon she was at a toys for Tots biker rally. It was her favorite charity. On her way home from the rally an SUV pulled out in front of her.

Last month she led a team in the local Race for the Cure. Every week she was at the Toastmasters. Weekends she biked around the Upstate.

Last night they finally found her family (a father and brother) in Tennessee, because she had her work ID on her at the time of the accident, and our HR folks had the information on file. As of quitting time today no word was available on arrangements.

Karla Hensley was 44. She wasn't married, and left no children....

Reading by Moonlight

I started a new moonlighting gig tonight. After my regular day drudgery dealing with computer issues, I raced back down the state highway I use to avoid the interstate, honking my horn as I passed the house, and pulled into the parking lot of a major national bookseller to begin my orientation.

Yes. A bookseller.

A couple years ago I worked as a cart-pusher for a major nation department store. It was grueling, nasty work, and I hated it. But they were willing to work me thirty hours a week, and I lasted at that job four months before my wife convinced me that it wasn't worth our marriage to pick up a few extra bucks.

This is different. This is books. The fact that it's inside work, and I'm only taking twenty hours a week, and it's only for the holidays, is beside the point. It's books. This is the kind of job I should have had when I was twenty-five. Sure, there's heavy lifting, and I'll be on my feet for eight hours, but I'll be lifting books. And the customers I'll be dealing with are readers, not those yahoos who want me to stuff their new 42" TV in the back seat of an '82 Honda. With two carseats. So they can take their new toy back to the trailer park.

No, these customers are looking for things to read, and someday they may reading something with my name on it. Which could, of course, be considered cool in some circles.

So how does the wife feel about this job?

All I had to do was bring up the thirty percent discount on books. And fifty percent in the internationally-recognized brandname coffee shop. Where they have desserts and frothy pink drinks.

I think we'll be OK....

The Truth

When I was very young, a lady who lived on our street was walking my grandmother and me home after an evening at their big old house. I believe her name was Harrelson, though I wouldn't swear to it. It was a clear winter night, and a small town, so the stars were bright and sharp.

Miss Harrelson asked me if I knew any constellations, and I said I didn't, so we stopped in the middle of Cooper Street and she pointed upwards. "That's the Big Dipper. You can see the cup and the handle." And I could see it.

She showed me the Little Dipper, too, and Cassiopeia, and explained that they were in the sky all year round. Then she pointed out three big stars lower in the sky, and the two at right angles to them.

"That's Orion the Hunter. He only comes out in the Winter. He's always chasing the Bull (see the stars in a V right there?), and he's got a sword in one hand and a shield in the other."

I didn't understand a lot of what she said, but I always noticed Orion in the Winter, and eventually I started looking for him in the Fall, and mourning when I lost him in the Spring. I reckoned he had other places to visit. It was like seasons. When Winter left it went south to make room for Summer....

I figured out the truth in my thirties. (It took me that long to actually think about it.) The truth is that Orion is in the sky all year long; but for half the year he's out in the daytime, when I can't see him. He has no other places to visit, no other people see. He's overhead at some point in every twenty four hours.

That's an important truth. Just because you can't see a thing (or a person), doesn't mean it's not there.

Autumnal Rhapsody

We're in deepest Autumn here
In the Northern Hemisphere
The lawns are brown, the maples red
A brand-new quilt is on the bed

There's a chill upon the air
I begin to miss my hair
At least I have a nice warm hat
Though I've forgotten where it's at

I hear that things are warm and green
That right now Springtime reigns supreme
Or sooner will or maybe later
Somewhere south of the Equator.