Here's a new thing: I went to an AA meeting last night and the guy chairing the meeting opened with a 5-minute instrumental performance of a Jefferson Airplane song.
Turns out he has a Grammy on the mantle. Just another dude from the meetings...
Aside from being an awesome performance, the point was that it was a very difficult arrangement that, ten years ago before he got sober, he couldn't play. Quite a poignant reminder of how you can either squander or redeem your gifts.
(I would go into more detail and even post a link, but, you know, anonymity.)
Tuesday, April 26, 2016
#83: I hurt my foot, man
Serious times, dogg. (I've always wanted to do that.)
No, but seriously - I did. Completely stupidly, as if to prove to myself and all the world that sobriety does not mean I am free of the bondage of being a klutz.
It's like this: one of my habits for getting in walks and steps is to park a ways away from wherever I'm going and make a trek out of it. Last Tuesday I was going to a meeting and parked up in the hills of Northwest Portland a bit. Walking back to the car, I had my nose in my phone and I rolled my ankle off the edge of the sidewalk. I went down hard, skuffing my left knee and left pinkie finger and more or less breaking my fall with my phone - and breaking my phone with my fall.
And my ankle hurt a bit, like a little sprain.
Next day, I got the phone replaced but didn't attend to myself. My foot was a lot worse; it swole up like a little grapefruit and hurt like the dickens. So by Thursday I decided I ought to have the doctor look at it. Especially because by Thursday it was popping out some nasty bruises all over.
My doctor looked at it and was like, "I think that's broken." Then he saw the X-ray and decided it wasn't, just a torn tendon. But then yesterday he called back and said the radiologist found a fracture. Just a little guy, a chip off the very end of my fibula. One way or the other, I have to lay up for the next four weeks or so. Lame!
Yesterday, after about a week of strain from my ankle brace and double socks, my dear old brown loafers gave up the ghost while I was at work. So I took two MAX trains from my office to Nordstrom Rack, about eight blocks away, to minimize my walking. No kidding, you right one line four blocks up to Pioneer Square, then another line three blocks down towards the river. This was probably the silliest train commute ever, but hey. I found a nice deal on some sharp new stompers.
No, but seriously - I did. Completely stupidly, as if to prove to myself and all the world that sobriety does not mean I am free of the bondage of being a klutz.
It's like this: one of my habits for getting in walks and steps is to park a ways away from wherever I'm going and make a trek out of it. Last Tuesday I was going to a meeting and parked up in the hills of Northwest Portland a bit. Walking back to the car, I had my nose in my phone and I rolled my ankle off the edge of the sidewalk. I went down hard, skuffing my left knee and left pinkie finger and more or less breaking my fall with my phone - and breaking my phone with my fall.
And my ankle hurt a bit, like a little sprain.
Next day, I got the phone replaced but didn't attend to myself. My foot was a lot worse; it swole up like a little grapefruit and hurt like the dickens. So by Thursday I decided I ought to have the doctor look at it. Especially because by Thursday it was popping out some nasty bruises all over.
My doctor looked at it and was like, "I think that's broken." Then he saw the X-ray and decided it wasn't, just a torn tendon. But then yesterday he called back and said the radiologist found a fracture. Just a little guy, a chip off the very end of my fibula. One way or the other, I have to lay up for the next four weeks or so. Lame!
Yesterday, after about a week of strain from my ankle brace and double socks, my dear old brown loafers gave up the ghost while I was at work. So I took two MAX trains from my office to Nordstrom Rack, about eight blocks away, to minimize my walking. No kidding, you right one line four blocks up to Pioneer Square, then another line three blocks down towards the river. This was probably the silliest train commute ever, but hey. I found a nice deal on some sharp new stompers.
#82: My Son's First Bike
Pete turned 4 over the weekend. Holy crap. And we got him his first bicycle. This comes a month after his first fishing pole - kid's on a roll! Here he is on his inaugural ride, across grandma's garage.
#81: Schnitzel and Mushroom Nachos!
I continue to paw nervously at the back door of the House Of What It Means To Be A Nacho.
This was delicious, or as my wife described it when she saw what I was doing, "you made them disgusting." One man's this is another's that, and so on...
#80: Double Rainbow
I'm not concerned about what it means. It means raindrops and sunlight were gettin busy in the sky. But what was it doing over an Apple Store?
#79: Oops, went quiet for a couple weeks there...
It happens to any blog. But it isn't supposed to happen here! But it's ok.
Several quick catchup posts coming.
Several quick catchup posts coming.
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
#78: Fa Schnitzel, My Nitzel
Oh man, so then Sunday night my wife decided to make some schnitzel for dinner. First time for her making it, and the first time I've had home-made schnitzel.
She set to work.
And I had to think back, when was the last time I actually just had a schnitzel and fries? It had been a surprisingly long time. It was in Berchtesgaden, Germany, in 2004. Oh, here's a picture of it!
She set to work.
And I had to think back, when was the last time I actually just had a schnitzel and fries? It had been a surprisingly long time. It was in Berchtesgaden, Germany, in 2004. Oh, here's a picture of it!
Yeah, that was a good schnitzel. Good fuel for a cockamamie plan my brother and I had to go backpacking up into the Alps to camp out for the night. Except, I guess they don't really do that in Germany, they go to little huts instead? And, we got started really late, so we missed the last gondola up. So instead of setting out into the high country, we just hiked up this trail from the parking lot, trying our best to find something resembling a campsite. We failed. We ended up just slugging a bunch of Jaegermeister when the trail petered out at a nice viewpoint....
...and then hiking back out, riding some Go-Karts and getting a hotel room.
ANYWAY, that's the last schnitzel I had. So how did our home-schnitzel stack up?
Look at that! Pretty goddamned well, I say. I hold to tradition and eat it up with loads of lemon juice and ketchup, but her recipe included a little anchovy-garlic vinaigrette which soaked into the schnitzel and did in fact kick it up a notch.
Now, for our next trick, I would like to try and recreate this other extremely memorably meal from the Bavarian Alps:
MEAT, WITH MEAT, ON MEAT, WITH A SIDE OF MEAT.
AND DON'T SKIMP ON THE KRAEUTERBUTTER!
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