This is the month to be thankful and what better way to show thanks than by preparing "SPAM 'n' Limas? With all due respect to the Julie/Julia Project, let me allow the Hormel folks to elaborate.

"Cook fresh, frozen or dried lima beans in salted water until tender. Drain and combine in greased casserole with 1 medium onion, chopped, 1 small can of tomato sauce. . . dry mustard, salt and pepper to taste. Slice one can SPAM into thin slices and arrange (artfully) in and on top of bean mixture. Bake. . ."

There's a mouthwatering picture of circular layers of SPAM 'n' Limas. Make this one and you'll have the kids talking about it for weeks!
11:09:16 PM    Comments?()  

Just thought I'd catch you up a little on what's been happening around here in the last five or so years.

I'm in the market to date again. After a divorce and an incredible relationship that fizzled due to someone else's lack of interest, I find myself having to face the great "out there" that people keep telling me I should get to. Tell the truth, "out there" ain't so great. I think when I was younger, I dated with a lot of expectations, but not as many preconceptions. Now whomever I go out with has to contend with not only me, but all the baggage that skulks behind me. It's not that I'm more cynical or any less hopeful, I'm just a lot quicker to make a judgememnt.

Example: I made a date for a movie and some coffee with a woman I met. She seemed modestly attractive and pleasant enough and she had the most important attribute - she was willing to go out with me. So the big night arrives, I knock on the door, she opens it and invites me in and I know with complete certainty in the first five seconds, that this is going nowhere. But that early in the evening, there's not much to do but be pleasant, as interesting as possible and proceed. So we get in the car and head toward the theater.

After the inital "Hi. How have you been? How are the kids?", I attermpt to find out more about her. "So, what kind of music do you like?"

"Anything."

"Anybody in particular?"

"No, not really."

OK. . . she's not going to make this easy.

"What's your favorite movie?"

"I don't know."

Jobs, kids, childhood, she is equally forthcoming on all these topics.

Well thank God, movie theaters are dark and noisy. I don't remember what we saw, but it took up a couple of hours where we didn't have to talk. We stopped on the way home for a glass of wine and I ended up dragging out the old ER stories to keep up my end of the conversation. She just would not be drawn a syllable farther out than necessary. We drove home, and, gentlemen that I am, I walked her safely to her door. She looks at me, says "the kids are in bed, Do you want to come in?"

"Uh, no. Well, I'd like to, but I have to get up early in the morning."

I assume she was no more enchanted with me than I with her. So why did we waste a perfectly good evening? Strictly on the strength of hope against all evidence.

During one of the frequent periods when my lover dumped me (only to take me back a few weeks later), I was introduced by friends to one of their mutual friends who lived about an hour away and was just getting out of an unpleasant relationship. We hit it off ok, had a lot of mutual interests and some long, very intense telephone conversations leading up to the big evening. I got off work, drove the hour, knocked on the door and entered a parallel dimension.

Her hair, like Medusa on downers, framed a gaunt and pale face. I came in and realized that she smoked. A lot. And drank beer. A lot. In fact, she was pretty well lit by the time I got there. I was greeted with a kiss and discovered that, even though I have never liked the taste of beer, I like it even less when combined with saliva and cigarettes. And you know how there are pheromones? I think she had anti-pheromones. This interesting, erotic woman on the other end of the telephone turned out to be a kind of scary looking drunk in person. But we went out to eat at the restaurant she picked. All through the meal, she kept trying to look seductive by lowering her head and looking at me through her upper eye lashes. That's when I had a realization: if I can't even look at the woman I'm across the table from, that's probably not a sign of a strong relationship. We went back to her place and she noticed a certain distance in my behavior.

"I thought we had a chance to really have something here," she said, "but if you're not willing to make a commitment (on a FIRST DATE!) then I might as well get drunk." She did. I drove fifty miles home shortly after.

Lane, I know I'm no great catch, myself. But the chances of finding that right woman who also thinks I'm the right man seem impossibly slim.

Recently, I met a woman in one of the local parks. I did something totally out of character; I sat down next to her and started talking. We hit it off great! She was bright, witty, well-read, politically and culturally liberal and literate. We went from the park to supper, exchanged phone numbers and a few days later went out for another walk in the afternoon. All of a sudden, on the drive back, I realized that we were both very quiet. Not out of anticipation, but boredom! We had said everything there was to say and neither of us knew what to talk about next. So that was the last time we talked. We exhausted our interest in each other in a total of about eight hours!

There have been other abortive attempts at connecting, but it seems nearly impossible. (Of course, the one relationship I most want is the one I can't have. Isn't that more than a little reminiscent of Groucho Marx?) At a time when most of our contemporaries are grandparents, I often still feel as lost as a teenager. Is there any end in sight (Satisfactory end, I mean. Not the ultimate end. That's coming more clearly into sight every day)?

So how is it with you? What insight do you have? Are you still a believer in the Cosmic Joke? I await your wisdom. And advice.

Dave
8:28:01 AM    Comments?()