A meaningless intensifier

Not bad. Out of twenty or so invited to my Friday night poker game, got about a dozen attendees in all, at various points of the evening. Shatters the old record number of guests, nine, back in June. And seemingly a good time had by all. I actually didn't get much poker time in, since I had to get the barbecue going, and cook up the spare ribs. Went over pretty well, I thought. Then Mason showed up, with a Scrabble board, and we played Scrabble til one in the morning. He may have the vocabulary of a Philadelphia cab driver (and a south Philadelphia cab driver, at that--), but he knows the layout of the board, and is a phenomenal strategy player, so he often ends up winning. (Not this time, but still.) Anyway, in the course of looking up a word in the dictionary he brought, I found an entry for "fuck". I don't recall the exact wording, but somewhere in the definition was the phrase "meaningless intensifier". I'm taking that to be something like "it's no fucking good", in the sense that "fucking" isn't referring to any actual fornicating (and, as such, is meaningless) but acts as an intensifier (it's not just no good: it's no fucking good). What my Red Hook consumption was by that point in the evening I can't say (a lot, though), but it struck me as one fucking funny phrase. Got to use that, somewhere: "meaningless intensifier".

Well, Mason went back to Maui this morning. Last night, we walked around Green Lake--he said he wanted to see the lake one more time on his last night in town. And, like Lennie (now there's a comparison), he wanted to see the rabbits. For those of you who don't know Seattle, Green Lake Park is host to--or infested by, depending on your sentiments--a large population of rabbits, who are most visible on the Aurora side. Since he didn't bring his camera, he wanted me to snap a picture of him with one of the locals.


I also snapped this shot of Duck Island, out in Green Lake. This picture doesn't do justice, but it does capture a lot of the colors on the water.















We had this surreal moment, as darkness had fallen and we were about halfway around the lake: we came upon a crowd of people with paper lanterns of various sizes and shapes. Apparently, Green Lake has a lantern parade every first day of autumn or something. I mean, it's Seattle, after all.

On top of that, there's this. I went down to Tacoma today to see my mother; after dinner, we went out to Point Defiance Park, to see if we could see any deer. Deer are not a common sight at Point Defiance, but if you go at dusk you can sometimes catch a deer or two coming out of the old-growth. Last two times we went out, my mother pointed out, we didn't see any.

Well, this time we were running late; days are getting shorter now (thankfully), and that's pushing back the time to get to the park by dusk. On this night, I decided to cut back from Vassault and try the back entrance to the park, since they might conceivably close that later than the front entrance. We didn't even get that far: at the top of the hill, near the Salmon Beach property, I saw two deer grazing on the side of the road. For those not familiar with Tacoma, this isn't a rural area: this is developed residential neighborhood, but right next to the second largest municipal park in the country, most of which is old-growth forest. Having grown up in Tacoma, I never heard of deer in the city--the idea would have been absurd. But it seems that there are now deer, and they're not restricting themselves to the park any longer. Like racoons, I guess: only bigger and more photogenic.













Charming.

In the news:

Strange week. Called a Friday night poker game, so I've got to get the apartment ready for that. The building was bought last month, and my lease expires at the end of this month. I got a notice slid under my door Saturday night, while I was out catching H Is For Hellgate at Cafe Venus.















Turns out my rent got hiked by 20%, from $830 to $990. That's a more reasonable market price for a two-bedroom/two-bath with a washer/dryer and its own water heater, 1,050 sq ft and a great view west.


But not a good time for the free market to reassert itself. So I need to get a roommate, or a higher-paying (and steady) job, or I have to relocate. What a drag.

My temp assignment got extended by two weeks. Legal support, I like it. Though the past few days have been weird: had to work on some property maps as part of a litigation presentation. They didn't want to pay for a color reproduction, so we had to color in the black-and-white copies. I've spent the last two days, at $16.50/hour, coloring. This was enough of a brain-drain that when I got off work yesterday, I drove up to the K-Mart on Aurora and bought myself an MP3 player. Never had one of these, but I didn't want to lug around my CD Walkman, and this was a 512M recorder going for $60.

I dig it: way cool. I was up til 2:30am loading the software onto my computer, and then stepping through the tutorial (since the player didn't come with any printed instructions). I just moved over my laptop's Rolling Stones folder--86 songs, that's enough for one work day. And so I had The Stones for the bus ride downtown, for my hours coloring in maps of sewage and storm drains, and for my nap on the bus ride home. Also, this thing has a voice recorder: so I can go around like an arrogant writer dictating notes to myself. Just what I needed.

But the first note I made to myself, I swore I'd write out here. It's this, from my friend Mason: he noticed the Godfather poster I have in my living room, and wondered out loud how soon it'd be before they got around to remaking The Godfather. I thought about it, and realized that at the rate they're going in Hollywood, it'll be about a decade, maybe two. In other words: I'll live long enough to see them remake Godfather.

Been hearing a lot from friends my own age, talking about how aging toward 40 seems daunting. I don't get it.

Or rather, didn't--til I had to wonder who'd they get to play Michael. Then I felt old.

I never used to have this problem--

I know I could just go out on the 'Net and look this up--or at least check out a lot of what the blurp is--but I'm wondering out loud: what the fuck is "trans fat"? When did that one enter the lexicon? I like to think I know something about chemistry and nutrition, though I'm no expert. I know the difference between saturated and unsaturated fats (hydrogen concentration), between LDL and HDL (low-density lipids are bad for you, high-density lipids are good for you). Along comes "trans fat", and I'm seeing it everywhere. Or, rather, I'm not: I've only found one food product so far that actually contains any (it was a frozen pizza--which I ate anyway, goddamn it all).

The whole "trans fat" issue is, at least it seems to me, some kind of nutritional straw man argument: it's something that we can all agree is bad, however ill-defined, and unites us all in the knowledge that our current available diet doesn't contain any.

I don't know why I listen to Hammerhead....

Frequent readers of this blog (a subset of the population whose existence I openly doubt) may recall how I was in despair last week, since the Larry's Market on Aurora had closed, and Gillen across the hall told me that they had gone under completely: "The chain was liquidated and the properties auctioned off", he wrote to me in an email.

I suppose I could have checked the 'Net for a Larry's homepage, or searched the Seattle Times news archive, what with my years of experience with Gillen's fanatical devotion to accurate reporting of substantiated facts--but I didn't. And tonight, having nothing better to do in the early evening and wanting to go somewhere, I decided to just drive to the one in Queen Anne to see for myself. Sure enough, they're open and doing fine. I went straight for the bakery, and grabbed up a loaf of French bread. Excellent! At checkout I asked the cashier about the Aurora store closing, and he said that one was gone, but the Queen Anne location has been bought by someone who was going to keep them open. What's more, he said they acquired all the recipes in the deal, so there wouldn't be any changes to their prepared food. Meaning, the best bread in town isn't going anywhere.

Once again, things aren't nearly as bad as Gillen makes them out.

Since the only confirmed readers of this page are in Pennsylvania, a little more detail about Larry's may be in order. They're a local chain of supermarkets, six in all, that really kicked off the specialty and organic food bit in the early 80's around here. To date, they have the best selection of just about everything in this town. And nice little touches, like a grinder where you can select various nuts for your own nutbutter; the Queen Anne one (I just noticed tonight) has a grinder where you can mix grains for your own flour. And they find some real out-of-the-way stuff: I rely on them also for my olive oil, maple syrup, and turkey bacon. These days, the QFCs and Safeways have taken that specialty theme and run with it, which I guess made it harder for Larry's to compete, but they were the first--and the store on Aurora was their flagship location, so there's a little bit of history lost. The Redmond and Tukwila locations will also fold--but the remaining three stores seem to have a future. That's some good news.

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I've changed the settings on this blog, to allow anonymous postings--so you won't be required to create a Blogger account in order to comment.
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He really exists--

Then there's this maniac who keeps doing things, like calling me to tell me that he's pulling staples out of the floor. While he's doing it, like he's daring me to stop him or something. I'd be worried, personally, but he's in another time zone, and has some aversion to coming to Seattle--thinks this is where they keep all the Kryptonite, or something.

Then he'll email me to tell me he's asleep. Don't know if he's exaggerating, or goofed on Ambien. I read about that, how some people taking Ambien end up doing things in their sleep--like driving. I can just imagine, that's how staples got into his floor in the first place. Would explain a lot of things about him, now that I think about it. He went to law school at night, I remember him telling me. He wrote a screenplay, too, which showed a lot of signs of someone who wasn't fully awake. And he can't explain the meaning of the song title "Waltzing With the Dogs", which sounded like it was recorded in someone's sleep. Then he solved the Drake equation, but nobody noticed. And that time he genetically modified eggplants so they'd stop being purple all the time, I betting that can be chalked up to prescription sleep aids. And that coup in Guatemala in '54 that drove Jacobo Arbenz from power? Probably wouldn't have happened, if this guy would've stayed awake. Yes, this explains a lot now. Like why he keeps muttering "I know this because Tyler knows this."

Man, I've gotta get me some of that Ambien. Or a girlfriend.

The word in French is 'pain'

I don't know about this blog format. Makes me want to begin every post with "Dear Diary". Well, I'm not much of a journal-keeper; I guess my memory's good enough, I don't personally feel the need to commit everything to writing. So I have to make an effort here, but that's the idea. Now, to find anything in my day interesting enough to articulate.

Well, here's this. I got a letdown the other night, when I walked over to Larry's Market on Aurora, only to find it closed for renovation. I was out for bread: Larry's makes a fantastic soft French bread, and I was looking for that to back up a microwave lasagna dinner. This may be worse than just an evening's frustration: Gillen tells me that Larry's has gone under completely, and that they're all closed. That would truly suck--Albertson's and Fred Meyer's do very good French bread, but Larry's was the best in town. I'll have to check on that.

Well, tonight I wanted some soup--Snow's Clam Chowder, or maybe Campbell's Crema de Chile Poblano--and French bread with it, goddamn it all. So at dusk I set out for the Albertson's on Green Lake. Only to find that it was closed, stripped and gutted. I had read in the Times a few month's ago that Albertson's was facing bankruptcy. Christ, I thought: have they closed all the Albertson's, too?! Safeway and QFC make terrible bread, and I sure as hell ain't going artisan. French bread--y'know, bread like the French would make it. Anyway, I drove up Aurora to 130th, to see if that Albertson's was still there. It was, and I'm much relieved. Having my chile poblano with some excellent buttered bread, and a Seagram's ginger ale. Fine bachelor living.

Updates to the website: I've added a Sunsets folder to My Photo Album, and two more books to What I'm Reading These Days (THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE, and AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FAT BRIDE). I'm working on getting a Seattle User's Guide set up, beginning with a list of great eateries and drinkeries (just this weekend, I checked out El Chupacabra, on Greenwood. I liked it, have to try it again).

What if you threw a party, and nobody came?

This last Monday I realized that the coming weekend was Labor Day, and I decided, spur-of-the-moment, that it was time for another Friday poker night. Sent out an Evite to 20 people or so: only half opened their invitations, and of those, one accepted, one said maybe, and eight declined. But even if, in fact, only one person turned up, I'd still have everything at the ready. A party's a party, and there's no backing out once you set it up. I'm as good as my word on that.

Back in the summer of '94, girl I was going with asked me to come along with her as she and a group of her friends went up to Vancouver, BC to see Pink Floyd on The Division Bell tour. I was hesitant, since it would mean spending three days with almost a dozen people I didn't know, and I'm not that social to begin with. Aeryk the Hippie gave me some advice that I've never forgotten: "Just go ahead and go. Worst thing that'll happen, you'll end up amusing yourself--which is what you do best anyway."

I ended up going, and though this crowd wasn't ideal, they weren't so bad at that. I didn't go to the concert itself, though, since I couldn't get a ticket. So, while they were seeing Pink Floyd, I went up to Lonsdale Quay and had fish and chips at the Cheshire Cheese Inn, along with a few gin and tonics, as well as some of that fine British ale. Ended up getting pleasantly wasted, and knocked around downtown Vancouver til the concert let out. In other words, amusing myself.

It's all in the outlook. Make the most of the situation, that sort of thing. So I was undaunted when Friday night rolled around, and no one showed. By that point I wasn't really expecting enough for a poker game, just perhaps one or two guests, maybe. I made some popcorn and turned on Real Time With Bill Maher to wait for any arrivals. By half-past nine no one had shown, and no one was answering their cell phones. Fired up the barbecue anyway, and cooked up some boneless pork ribs. Sparingly applied some Stubbs barbecue sauce, and had them on outdoor buns, a thick and cumbersome (but thoroughly wonderful) barbecue pork sandwich. Some baked beans with that and you've got a great way to watch the sunset. Had plenty of beer that I no longer had to share, so I went through a lot of that (spent most of Saturday with a mildly throbbing head). At some point I dialed up The Last Waltz on OnDemand, but I didn't sing along with any of the numbers (though there were no witnesses, so you'll have to take my word on that). I especially like Ronnie Hawkins doing "Who Do You Love". I remember getting at least as far as "The Night They Drove Ol' Dixie Down" before conking out.

Wonder if anyone would be up for poker this coming Friday...not too soon to try again....