Post-Yule Notes
What I Didn't Get That I Want
An answering machine that works seamlessly with Caller ID and offers the appropriate message:
- Please put us on your Do Not Call list.
- Try her cell phone.
- I'll pay it when I feel like it.
- I do not want a free satellite dish. Not ever. Especially not after this.
What I Did Get
A really nice pepper mill. A belt. A wonderful Christmas Eve, spent with my son, cleaning the kitchen and making fudge at midnight, waiting for the girls to get home from church, and the knowledge that my wife felt it was a great Christmas.
What I Could Have Done Without
Standing in line on Christmas Eve while a very nice lady spent 20 minutes on hold with my credit card company, who suddenly got very concerned that I wasn't me. No kidding. I eventually had to give them the answer to my Super Secret Identity Question (i.e., who is your favorite former Secretary of Commerce?).
(It's not Herbert Hoover. Some of you are thinking that. It's not.)
What I Did
I cooked a rib roast, which considering it's a rib roast is like saying I wash clothes when actually I just put the clothes in the machine and push a button. Pretty much the same thing here. Rib roasts don't need a lot of work. Beth did the rest, literally taking over the kitchen, but everything worked out fine and we had a great meal, the four of us, and a great day.
What I Think About Gerald Ford
He died the day after Christmas, as did Harry Truman, another accidental President.
Winter deaths are actually fairly rare for Presidents. Most of them passed on in the summer months. A whole lot in July. Only George Washington also died in December (the 14th).
From January 1973 until August 1974, there were no former Presidents alive. Imagine that. Twenty years later there were five. People live longer, but also we've had a lot of Presidents lately. Ten since I was born, in fact (while only 12 since my mom's birth and 16 since her father was born in 1916).
What I've Been Doing
Reclining.
I gave up fighting my tight trapezius. Sure, there are advantages to having a tight trapezius. You walk through a mall, women turn and whisper, that sort of thing. But it hurts, especially in a gravity environment, so I got ergonomically proactive. My 19-inch, widescreen monitor is now attached to a metal arm that clamps to my desk. It's swung over in front of me while I lean back in my recliner, keyboard on my lap, free from pain and feeling pretty decadent.
What I've Been Eating
The word "endorphin" is a contraction of "endogenous morphine," meaning our Inner Drug Dealer. They ease pain and produce a sense of well being. They're useful little peptides, then. Go out and do some aerobic exercise and you'll probably get to know endorphins.
On the other hand, if your inclination towards exercise is, say, getting in and out of your recliner, you can stimulate endorphins in an easier way, although not without sweating.
This would be capsaicin, the active chemical in chili peppers. I swear. Get enough capsaicin action and you can mellow out real good.
It's hard (not impossible) to get a good selection of chilis here in the Northwest at the corner grocery store, so I usually just stick with Mr. Jalapeno. Lately I've been making my own personal chili, loaded with all that capsaicin goodness. I look at it as medicinal.
How hot? You could freeze this chili, make chilisickles out of it, and with one bite your forehead would start to glisten. I'm not talking about that sort of eye-rolling, lip-pursing, tongue-tsking "heat" from dishes with a few measly chilis that have even been seeded, for God's sake. I'm talking about life-changing, mood-elevating, temperature-rising heatnessishness. I made a nice batch of this XXX chili the other night before I headed out for a meeting, just let it slow cook for a few hours until even the seeds disappear and it's nothing but molten goodness. Just left it there on the stove, bubbling away.
No, I did not actually write "XXX" on the pot. Sheesh.
And nobody told Beth.
You know those cartoon characters who catch fire and then run around like headless chickens, flapping their arms like crazy, looking for a bucket of water to jump into?
Ok. Just wanted to make sure we were on the same page here.
I'm sure she'll forgive me one of these days. In the meantime, I'll just stay mellow and pain free, approaching life the way Marcel Proust approached time: by surrendering, acquiescing, leaning backwards, making gravity work for me and not against, letting my peptides take care of the trouble, basking in the joy of the season and the self confidence that only a man with a really, really tight trapezius can appreciate. I can hear them whispering from here.
11:48:06 AM 
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