The Wormlips Scrapbook

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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NewsTools 08

Wow — I wonder who came up with the idea of kicking off a conference with a moment of silent mindfulness. Asked to contemplate our reasons for attending Journalism That Matters, I was startled to discover that I had none. So it turned out to be a fruitful exercise, as I figured out what I was doing there.

I’ve also never been to a conference where people were so friendly. It made that whole networking thing, which is always excruciating for me, so much easier. Highlights: meeting two of Maria’s Guatemalan journalist friends, running into Ellin, and having time to yack with our DNA Files programmer, Stephen.

The events of the day were widely documented. Just about everyone toted a laptop, and everywhere I looked there were cameras aimed hither and thither. I joined the fun.

Postscript.

El Rancho

I spent two exceptionally relaxing nights at The Rancho, which Lulu says is one of her two favorite places in California (the other being Anza Borrego). Here’s another contest for you. Open up these two photos side by side and find the differences (there are seven of them):

If you guess them all, you really do deserve a prize. Often in life, I’ve found, we don’t get what we deserve. After you post your guesses here, I’ll e-mail you the answers.

I’m tired. After leaving The Rancho I got to see Lulu for a few hours. She was unhappy with me because I fell asleep on her dorm bed while she played on the computer. Then I went to dance class in Sac’to and learned a new two-hand reel. Goodnight.

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