The Wormlips Scrapbook

In response to learning of a sudden, unscheduled and indefinite cessation of my paying work, I decided to go disaster shopping. It seemed more constructive than sitting around panicking about how to pay for the plane tickets to Nepal I charged to my Amex last week.

I used to have an earthquake-preparedness stash of food and drink, but over the years I nibbled it into nonexistence, leaving only a camp stove. But today’s rising sun’s rosy rays proclaimed an end to that era. I may not be in a state of employment, but you can bet I’ll be ready for a state of emergency.

Unexpected freedom, it turns out, nurtures my neuroses into brilliant bloom.

At Costco, a crowd four-bodies-deep was trying to reach the bottled water. I’ve never seen anything like it. And everyone was buying a bunch of it: cases and cases. I wondered if we all know something we don’t know we know. I heard a fellow water-gatherer speak Spanish to her family. I couldn’t stop myself. I had to try.“Mucha … gente. Compran. Agua hoy,” I struggled. The poor woman’s response was an infinitely polite, infinitely blank stare. Time to log onto my spanishpod account and do a pronunciation lesson.

In addition to six flats of bottled water, I bought soup (canned, organic), soup (dried, inorganic), kidney beans, tuna fish, Pepperidge Farm goldfish, peanut butter, saltines, red licorice, dried apples, bacon bits, gummy bears, Dove chocolate squares, macadamia nuts, peppermint gum and other essentials totaling $330.

A nice Costco employee (much younger than I, but accentless) saw me wrestling my freighter-sized flatbed across the parking lot and offered assistance — but then hesitated. “Maybe you don’t need help. You look pretty strong.” Which one of you paid him for that?

Still, we worked side-by-side unloading ton and after ton of c-rations into my car. He’d been studying technical writing for the computer industry, but realized he hates technology. Instead, for the time being he’s shepherding shopping carts.

Back at home, in the seven-thousand degree heat, I hauled load after heavy load up the front steps, across the house, down the back stairs and into the basement, with neighbors looking on, bewildered, possibly wondering if they have a new convert to survivalism in their midst. When the Big One hits, I’ll share my goodies with them. Except I might have to eat the chocolate first. So it doesn’t melt and all.

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I don’t believe a blog is the place to talk about my Real Life, particularly not in its current state of multifaceted suckage.

Instead I bring you random pearls lovingly gathered over the past few days.

In the June issue of Tiny Joy, the newsletter of Sweet Maria’s Coffee, the owner describes how he’s drowning in new coffee samples, stashed in every cranny of his office.

Occasionally there are the escapees, loose green coffee now hopelessly separated from its designated bag: anonymous, alone, doomed to become floor sweepings, never to be roasted, tasted or appreciated.

This is the first time I’ve identified with a bean.

A few nights ago, I went with AG & MC & Bul to the Austin Lounge Lizards, whose performance was an effective salve for the irritants of life. Their songs make me feel better about religion (”Jesus loves me but you’re gonna fry”), politics, antidepressants and the difficulties of learning Spanish.

Here’s what they have to say about their native state:

Our accents are the drawliest, our howdies are the y’alliest,
Our Lone Star flag’s the waviest, our fried steak’s the cream-graviest,
Our rattlesnakes the coiliest, our beaches are the oiliest,
Our politicians most corrupt, our stop signs most abrupt,
Our guitars are the twangiest, our guns are the keblangiest.
Our cows are the long-horniest, our yodels the forlorniest…

I left the concert with a new t-shirt. One of the band members admired it and I think he said it matches my eyes.

Ever-vigilant AG harvested some inspired quotations in Florida last week, including:

With one tuckus I can’t dance at two weddings.

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Last night I went with Pat & Jen to see Girlyman. The man (presumbly Girlyman himself) had heavy purple eyeshadow, dried-blood-colored lipstick and Kewpie-doll hair. They were fairly adorable.

Tonight I finally tried that rellenito recipe that Silvia gave me in Guatemala. I learned that there are numerous steps missing from her instructions, so I winged (wung?) it.

I cooked some black beans and pulverized them with my hostile paws.

I boiled the platanos in water with sugar and cinnamon until they were squishy (about twenty minutes), and then peeled and mashed the suckers.

After the mash cooled, I flattened a ping-pong ball’s worth on my palm, slammed about a teaspoon of black bean goo in the middle, and folded the banana around it so there was no chance of escape. I then loving tossed the thing in boiling oil.

The recipe says the oil should be a friendo medio, but it needs to be hotter than that, unless you like your deep-fried items soggy. They weren’t bad, though.

What was great was that Lulu suddenly appeared at my door, accompanied by Esmeralda, so I got to inflict my dulces tipicos on them.

They seemed to like them, but then again it could have been like that time in Virginia when I was ten. My aunt had made us hamburgers that she’d filled with evil hidden things like diced green peppers and onions. Ungrateful shite that I was, bite by bite I spit the burger into my paper napkin. You know what happened next: A new one landed on my plate within seconds, on account of I’d liked the first one so much. And this time she watched me eat it.

Yesterday I went rock climbing at the gym with Lulu and her fella and his sister. I made it to the top each time, even on the 10.6. I still don’t like the upside-down parts. My daughter is a very good rock climber (she did an 11-something) and I managed to be a good little belayer and not drop her. When she’s stretched out on the rock face reaching for the next handhold, she looks like a dead mosquito on a windshield.

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