Good Night Mother

I have been following the last few days of NPR's Scott Simons twitter posts because they seemed remarkable. If you have not, his ailing mother has been in a Chicago hospital, dying. These are some of his posts.

"I see dawn coming in sky and want to hold it back to keep my mother from what's ahead--to keep my mother, period."
"A thought tonight for all who are in pain. We must be stronger than our fears."
"If we only truly realized how little time we have..."
"By request, my ICU bed. Hermes orange, my mother notes. Note functional nightstand, too: pic.twitter.com/dDMQcOwbJW"
"Derek, mother's kind & wise nurse, says "Get some sleep. Mothers like to see sons sleep." But I hold her hand while I can."
"When my mother woke briefly I sang her My Best Girl. She replied w/ You Are the Sunshine of My Life. Broadway in the ICU."
"ICU seems to be staffed by good, smart young docs who think they know everything, and wise RN's who really do."
"I just realized: she once had to let me go into the big wide world. Now I have to let her go the same way."
"City is cool, bright, & lovely this morning. My mother touches a splash of sunlight w/ her fingers. "Hello, Chicago!"
"Just spent 45 mins looking for mother' favorite dental floss. Waste of time? Act of faith."
"I am not sure my mother understands Twitter or why I tell her millions of people love her--but she says she's very touched."
"I think she wants me to pass along a couple of pieces of advice, ASAP. One: reach out to someone who seems lonely today. And: listen to people in their 80's. They have looked across the street at death for a decade. They know what's vital."
"Oh, and: Oh earth, you're too wonderful for anyone to realize you. It goes too quickly."
"Journos who say they're hard-boiled cause they see so much should know ICU nurses see more in a week. And come out kind."
"My mother now wakes only to be gracious. "Is Reggie or Don on-duty? They're both such exquisite gentlemen." (and they are)"
"Mother groans w/ pleasure--over flossing. "When they mention great little things in life, they usually forget flossing.""
"Breathing hard now. She sleeps, opens eyes a minute, sleeps. I sing, "I'll always be there, as frightened as you," to her."
"My family has landed! ICU nurse works on mother's hair, using makeup mirror. Almost falls. Mother: "Don't let that break!"
"-you med people keep it down?") Tell my mother I'll see my wife downstairs, back in 10. Mother says, "Have a quickie!"
"I love holding my mother's hand. Haven't held it like this since I was 9. Why did I stop? I thought it unmanly? What crap."
"Thought that my mother won't get another glimpse of the city she loves is unbearable. My wife, from France, points out--"
""She is seeing Chicago in the faces of the loving, tough, & kind souls working so hard for her in the ICU." She's right."
"Wish clever minds that invented the Space Shuttle or Roomba could devise an oxygen mask that doesn't slip every 20 mins."
"In middle of nights like this, my knees shake as if there's an earthquake. I hold my mother's arm for strength--still."
"Mother cries Help Me at 2;30. Been holding her like a baby since. She's asleep now. All I can do is hold on to her."
"Can't hold my mother like a baby indefinitely--have to use the bathroom. My wife coming over w/ my mother's husband."
"Her passing might come any moment, or in an hour, or not for a day. Nurses saying hearing is last sense to go so I sing & joke."
"When she asked for my help last night, we locked eyes. She calmed down. A look of love that surpasses understanding."
"Listening to Nat & Natalie sing Unforgettable. Mother & I sang it just two nights ago. Coles have better voices for sure."
"I know end might be near as this is only day of my adulthood I've seen my mother and she hasn't asked, "Why that shirt?"
"I think I can safely reveal now that last night we snuck a dram of "grape juice" to my mother. Nurses shocked, shocked!"
"Heart rate dropping. Heart dropping."
"The heavens over Chicago have opened and Patricia Lyons Simon Newman has stepped onstage."
"She will make the face of heaven shine so fine that all the world will be in love with night."

Sexting weiner

I once lived in a city where a dandy candidate for some public office could not be bothered to keep his pants on, or much else, but this was long before the internet and sexting and people proud to call themselves teabaggers. It was a simpler time, a time where a man could cheat on his wife and it would literally take weeks before she found out about it. Now, you send a picture of your George Bush to some stranger and before TMZ has time to update the latest Amanda Bynes craziness, you and your wife are in couples counseling, except for those moments where you excuse yourself to use the restroom, take a picture of your Bill Clinton and send it to all your twatter followers.

I bring this up because my good friend, the Mayor of Crazytown, just this morning sent me a close up picture of either his thumb and forefinger, or his butt, I could not tell. I immediately send a scathing instant message back to the Mayor of Crazytown reminding him that being mayor usually means you can not send out pictures that do not make sense. Quickly after, I got a picture of the Mayor of Crazytowns middle finger, point made.

Which brings me back to the original point. We elect imperfect morons to lead our cities, our counties, our states and our federal government because the smart people, the people who accomplish things, the deep thinkers and the job creators, have better things to do with their lives that run campaigns, beg strangers for money and have sex in airport bathrooms. We leave that sort of tedious behavior to the moronic among us, be they republican, democrat or Rand Paul or his beautiful illegal wife, Marco Rubio.

Running on empty

I was recently skipping through a field of daffodils, trying to carefully not damage any of the abundant flowers. It’s not every day I get to skip anywhere and certainly hardly ever that I find myself skipping lightly through a field of beauty. Of course, the day did not start that way.

First, the Mayor of Crazytown stopped by my studio, punched me in the gut and took my 357 Magnum, the most powerful handgun made in America. He did not know it at the time, but the gun only had three bullets left in it. That in itself is a long story, suffice to say that if 3 bullets from a 357 does not stop whatever you are shooting at, you deserve to get whatever you are about to endure.

The good Mayor looked at me, my gun hanging from his limp wrist and he said, “this is a warning pansyboy, you keep your self out of my shit, or things gonna get weird.” That’s a direct quote, which is awkward for me to even write. The Mayor left me there, standing in my studio, gunless and a bit beguiled.

Later that afternoon, while running for my life in a cornfield that seemed to go on forever, all I could think about was if the Mayor of Crazytown had fired 2 shots, or three. Then again, I might be worried about the wrong thing. There was the large stupid and angry man chasing me into the cornfield with a chainsaw.

Here’s a little background on me, being chased in a large field by a deranged man with a chainsaw has happened to me more often than I care to admit. I am not sure why this sort of thing happens to me, maybe it’s just my luck, or my inability to make friends with people who don’t own a chainsaw, either way, I was being chased again by a large man with a barely functioning and smoky chainsaw.

I knew it was a smoky chain saw because I could jump high enough over the corn and see the gray smoke as he ran around looking for me, plus, a chainsaw that is not running properly makes a sort of loud, unfortunate sound. I could track the chainsaw wielding idiot by slowing my pace and listening for the sputtering engine. Then, once, I could hear a 357 shot, possibly in my direction, or maybe in the direction of the chainsaw wielding nut case, or who knows where. The point is, a man with a barely functioning chainsaw and another crazy man with my gun were both running wildly through the cornfield with no other motive than to track me down and kill me.

The thing about a chainsaw is it makes plenty of noise and if you are wise like me and trying to avoid being cut to pieces by a badly tuned but still powerful tree cutting machine, you just have to keep running away from the motor noise, which is exactly what I did. Whenever I heard the engine of the chainsaw, I ran in the opposite direction. Then I heard another shot, probably from my own gun, destination unknown. That was at least the second shot and I knew something the Mayor of Crazytown did not, that the 357 magnum, possibly the most powerful handgun ever built, was only loaded with three rounds.

Running through a cornfield is not fun. First of all, corn is a healthy and ambitious plant. Some of the corn plants I was running over had deep roots and very long and strong stalks. Running through them was like trying to sprint through a gaggle of super models, tall, statuesque and stubborn. That said, when you hear the motor of a badly tuned chainsaw in the distance and, wait for it, shot number three from a 357 magnum, your instinct to survive takes over and corn stalks may as well be daffodils, because survival becomes job one.

After hearing that third shot I knew the Mayor of Crazytown was now out of bullets, so I started to make my way towards him, knowing that such an out of shape crazy man could easily be subdued, while recognizing the distant discordant sound from the chainsaw was fading. It did not take me long to run smack dab into the pockmarked face of the Mayor of Crazytown, who leveled my own gun right at my head and said, “you think a crooked motherfucker like you can just run away from a debt?”

At that very moment all I could think of was, I did not owe the Mayor of Crazytown any money. I watched as his pudgy finger tightened around the trigger and he said, slowly, “you got any last thing you wanna say?” I just sort of sideways smiled and said, “kind of happy I only had three bullets.” He pulled the trigger and the gun made a sad noise, a gasp of sorts, like an imperfect lesbian might make at a gala for PETA.

I kicked the good mayor in the ball, he only has one testicle. He went down like a sick balloon. He laid there, on some broken and shredded corn husks, crying like an obese baby. I smiled, picked up my 357 and started to run towards the distant sound of the malfunctioning chainsaw.

Of course, a chainsaw wielding moron knows he is outgunned by a 357 magnum, so once I pointed it at his giant empty head, he dropped the machine and ran away into the cornfield. I shut the chainsaw off and left it there, to probably damage the combine that would soon be tearing through the productive fields of corn.

Soon after, but what had at the time seemed like hours, I made my way out of the cornfield and found myself skipping through a field of daffodils, happy for whatever reason I could think of and reminding myself that somedays are completely unlike others, for a variety of reasons.

Something else to ride a bike to

Cyclists lament

Customer service hell

Over the past few months I seem to have telephonically traveled the world in search of the banal and idiotic customer service representatives from a variety of American based corporations. When my internet dropped to a level that made dial up seem like internet meth, I called Comcast. Numerous times I would talk to someone claiming to be named Mike, or Becky, and I would explain everything to them, how I was paying top dollar for service that an obese turtle would complain about and in the end, nothing changed.
In the midst of that mess, Verizon Wireless did some sort of tricky switch and I ended up all over their Philippine call center, begging for just one person who could understand a deranged customer. That soon ended well, if by well means I paid more for less.
Soon after I was dragged around the country on a Delta flight that began in hell and flew lower and lower until I could look out my cramped window and witness Saddam Huessien, Osama Bin Laden and my sweet departed mother playing poker, there in the lowest reaches of the hottest place in history. After contacting Delta with a scathing and hysterical letter, describing in infinite detail the idiocy and possible illegal activity their representaitves and crews engage in, I of course, heard nothing.
It should come as no surprise that in the midst of all these corporate communications gone wrong, I would get a sweet letter from my home security company, an incompetent and sublimely slow witted service that fails anytime it is tested, telling me that the rates for their fifth rate service would be increasing. I did what I have been Pavlovian trained to do at this point, I sent a scathing email to some corporate dope in Thailand.
So, sending all those emails and waiting hours for my internet to connect, my need for a new laptop became obvious. I was able to order online at the super friendly Apple online store. All went well, until nothing was delivered, ever, anyplace. So I guess, all did not go well.
Of course, having recently learned that the time difference between me sending my angry emails never correspond to the slave-like working environment of the call centers and email response industry, I called Apple direct.
I got some sort of insipid runaround and after having nothing accomplished, since FedEx seems to have run off with my package, I was finally connected to an American, in America who has American type of experiences that only someone who grew up in and lives in America could share. We did what adults can sometimes do, we communicated and problem solved. Strange how speaking the same language can lead to something getting done.
And then today everything sort of changed, or almost everything.
A month after my nightmare Delta flight, a Senior Vice President of Doing Nothing Important, wrote me a very nice letter, explaining in detail what a bonehead I am and directing me to the company website to learn how passengers always get treated.
My home security company sent me a very nice letter, offering to lower my monthly rate back to what it was when they raised it, with of course, no detail on how long that may last, but a victory must be savored.
Verizon has remained impatiently evil, but I sourced out a new replacement phone with far fewer glitches, but surprisingly some very interesting and sexy home movies, all is well.
FedEx has decided to do something right and Apple is so happy to be sending me a computer, they are graciously including a tasteless travel bag along with the shipment.
There is a lesson to be learned here, but I have not learned it because just a few seconds ago, I stopped by my bank and a teller gave me what I was sure can only be described as a snarky glance. I must inform the corporate office of this obvious infraction.

A lover sings

Quiet, beautiful days like these

Cycling banana

Drama in France

First, I'm sorry I have to share this. Second, I'm happy to share this.

Local cooking

It's about time that the cookbook starts coming together. What cookbook? Hah, I say.

Many years ago I opened what was then, the super best bistro is all the Pacific Northwest. When I closed it down, I was left with the recipes that had made the best food in Seattle, or damn close. For many years friends and chefs from almost everywhere have been asking, "how come me no have recipes?" (I have some fairly neanderthal type friends.

So, as I put together the cookbook, which will be available on Amazon and all those other lovely e-format type sources, I wanted to share one or two chapters with you.

Not yet of course, but soon.

Until then purchase locally grown food, which is fresh and often organic from local farms, which was the basis for my bistro, local food, made with locally sourced vegetables and proteins, and created using locally inspired recipes.

Enjoy.

Bags and pipes, oh my