Weekend Roundup

In case you missed it, here's a transcript of the Big Dog smacking down Chris Wallace on Faux News yesterday.
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A commenter on another blog was driving me crazy a few weeks ago, and it took me awhile to figure out why: It's because she makes ad hominem arguments. Not AGAINST other commenters, mind you, but using himself (yes, I'm being vague about the person's genitalia and I'm not naming the blog); if I knew latin, I'd be able to figure out how to revise the phrase. That is, she says that she has this perspective/holds this position/is making this comment because she is a contrarian, because he is a [insert fierce animal here], because it's her nature to say these things. Okay, that's still not an argument. ("Yes it is." "No it's not." "Yes it is." "That's not an argument, that's merely contradiction.") Every last comment and "argument" is really about the commenter's experience in the world, and it really started to wear thin on one particular thread.
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The fast cars were extremely fun, and from the position we took for the actual race, we could see turn 5 and turn 14. There was a big-ass crash (which we couldn't see until we got home and watched the tape), but despite the fact that the car pretty much exploded into pieces, the driver was okay. (The cars apparently are designed to break apart, which dissipates the force of the crash.) Crashing is not something this group plays up, and big crashes are an exception rather than the norm. We wandered around a good bit of the four-mile course on Saturday and again on Sunday morning, watching practice sessions and other races, so I had a sense of the course in my head to match up with the map; I also began to be able to tell where the cars were from the sound of them.
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On the local guide, there was a full-page ad for a nearby inn. It had little pictures inset, along with descriptions of the things they had to offer. My favorite thing was a "glorified continental breakfast." I have a feeling the person who wrote their ad copy thought that "glorified" was the same as, say, "exquisite," or "glorious," or something like that. Sorry, no.
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I'm feeling virtuous tonight, and not just because I did four loads of laundry today--semi-sequentially, because some bozos broke into the washers last Thursday night, disabling three of the four of them and preventing me from doing the laundry on Friday--and started to actually hang some shit on the walls. (About time, really.) I wanted to go out to dinner tonight, it being the Last Official Day of Vacation, but I restrained myself. It was partly inertia on my part; it felt like too much effort to find clothes, take a shower, etc., but I also decided that this month's expenditures were already too high. I went health insurance shopping today, and applied for some that'll cost $200/month if they approve me, which is less than I had budgeted, but I'm going to need to pay more than the minimum payment for my student loan, or I'll never pay it off. I wish we had a single-payer system that worked; this is just a pain. All in all, I want health insurance that's as good as, say, the health insurance that U.S. Congresspeople get.
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I'll be entertained to see what's left of the three gazillion croissants I left strewn about in freezers last week. There should be hundreds left (literally--but there's a farmers' market Wednesday), but there's no telling what the overnight bakers did while I was gone. There might be several hundreds more than I planned; there might be very few. (I think the former's more likely).
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Keep those fingers crossed for Dave . . .

Arrrr! A Day Late and a Dollar Short

Thanks to Ron, here's my pirate name:

My pirate name is:

Captain Mary Bonney

Even though there's no legal rank on a pirate ship, everyone recognizes you're the one in charge. You can be a little bit unpredictable, but a pirate's life is far from full of certainties, so that fits in pretty well. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

I managed to get Jefe to make pirate cookies for the occasion (yesterday was Talk Like a Pirate Day, for those of you who didn't have that marked on your calendar): we replaced one of the eyes on the smile cookies with an eyepatch. (The cookies are big sugar cookies covered in yellow-colored white chocolate (enough right there to keep me away from it) with a smile face or a frown face on them.)

Irritants

First off, what the fuck are my fighting-for-a-wild-card-berth Phillies doing losing to the Cubs, who suck so terribly? The Phillies' pitching was for shit tonight (witness the number of runs the Cubs scored--9? 10?), and, despite a grand salami that put the Phillies back in the game briefly, they just could not pull it out. Against what Steve Goodman used to call the doormat of the National League. Guys, that is NOT the way to do this.

Second, I've got two minor irritations: first, something at the bakery--flour in the air, perhaps?--occasionally gives me eye boogers. Not just the regular stuff, but yellow-green stuff. One day last week it was pretty bad, but it cleared up as soon as I got home and took out my contacts, so I decided it wasn't a genuine infection. The other irritation is some kind of weird rash on my left forearm. I've been halfheartedly following the basic rule of skin crap (if it's wet, dry it; if it's dry, wet it), with tea tree oil, some jojoba and beeswax cream, and/or some vitamin E oil, but it's impossible to keep it covered in such stuff while doing production. This ten-days-in-a-row thing probably isn't helping. It doesn't hurt, it doesn't itch, so I'm not going to worry about it.

Here's an irritation of a different sort: the sign at the public transit station--one of those scrolling neon signs--blathers on about homeland security and keeping track of your shit and so on. It also requests that you "remain alert of" your surroundings. Who the fuck wrote that? You can be AWARE of, or alert TO, but who says "remain alert of"? Every time I see it, it irritates me. (I also made the mistake of complaining to a friend that one should never modify "unique." It means "one of a kind." If it's already singular, if there's already nothing else like it, then it can't be "very" unique." Sportscasters--who are responsible for so very many locutions that drive me crazy--are the biggest sinners in this regard. Of course, my friend takes every opportunity to modify "unique" somehow.)

Just sayin.

Saturday Night Live

Anybody else remember the first season of SNL? I actually watched most of it. I also wrote a grad school paper about SNL's early years.

I wanted to say a few more words about Ann Richards, whom I never met but for whom a friend of mine worked. He didn't work for her directly, but he worked to establish a program in Texas that she started, which was essentially corrections-based substance abuse treatment. She recognized that a lot of people who commit a lot of crimes are drunk, high, or both when they do their deeds, and that their addictions (and lack of skills, etc., which is often a result, in part, of their addictions) mean they're going to keep committing crimes until/unless they can find a recovery program. The programs in Texas were nine to twelve months long, in facilities that were dedicated to treatment: there was no general population to distract from recovery, and there were a lot of people, including guards with guns and other treatment program inmates with more recovery time, to help convince people that recovery was really the way to go. They were good, solid programs (no idea if they still exist or still are), and, as data from California and Oregon (I think) and other places has started to show, treatment is cheaper, over the medium and long term, than no treatment, even taking into account that some people will not stay sober. Helping people fight their addictions means those people won't be committing more crimes and means they're likely to become tax-paying citizens. Everybody wins. And Ann Richards, perhaps because of her own background (she was in recovery), recognized that and implemented it.

So one of the specialty cakes we make is called, euphemistically, a "torso" cake (I think I've told you this before; if so, apologies. I'm too lazy to look). It's just that: a torso, from the neck to the pubes. You can get a female or a male; the male version features an erect penis (and, if you ask for it, ejaculate, in the form of white buttercream icing, dripping from it). Jefe said the females are more difficult to construct, because it's difficult to get the breasts the same size; I told him not to worry, that they often differ in size in real life. The underpinnings of the breasts are two doughnuts topped by cupcakes; the shaping is done with icing. In the nearly nine months I've been there, I've only seen one female, but we probably do two to five males a month. The underpinning of the penis is a churro; we keep a stash in the freezer, and then thaw them in the oven as needed. As Johnnie went to put one in the oven yesterday, the conversation went something like this:

Johnnie: For a white guy, you only need a half of a churro.
Brad: For a Mexican guy, you only need a quarter.
Jefe: You could use a mini cannoli shell [they're about three inches long].

Johnnie did one yesterday and one today, and they were both white guys (you can request white, black, hispanic, whatever); Johnnie went a little heavy on the red, such that both of them looked seriously sunburnt. It was kind of painful to see.

Otherwise, I'm tired. I finished a side project, and I've got another one on the table (literally; the RFP is spread out on the kitchen table), and I'm working Sunday and Monday at the bakery this week so I can take off next Friday and Saturday. Four whole days off in a row! I haven't had more than three days off since last December, and the only time I had three days it was to fly to my parents' anniversary party and back, so this is really the closest thing I'm getting to a vacation this year. But it's a good one: I'm going to see the last race of the Champ Car World Series, at Road America. I've seen two open-wheel races in person this season, one Champ Car race (the Milwaukee Mile) and one IRL race (last week in Joliet), but they were both ovals; this is a road race, and it sounds really interesting. As my friend put it, I'll get to see not just high speeds but braking--and going from one to the other. (Many road race courses are set in cities, which is a whole other thing.)

We're not going up there until early Saturday morning, so I'll have Friday to do errands--including, I hope, getting my hair trimmed. It hasn't been trimmed since February (!), which means it looks like weasels chew on the ends at night while I sleep. I haven't gone this long without a trim in many years; normally I got it done every three months or so. Partly it's timing: the woman who cuts my hair is off on Sundays and Mondays, and, hey, so am I! Partly it's money: the salon at which she works now isn't particularly cheap, and I overtip her wildly (which might explain why she did my hair for free for the wedding). Partly it's that my hair spends most of its time up (I use these, and I love them), and it's not like I have to look all that presentable most of my waking hours, so spending the money has seemed not that urgent. But since I'll actually have an opportunity, I'm going to take it, if she has an opening. If not, I'll do it in October, when I'll have off on a Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday so I can attend a bread class with one of the best bakers in the country, Jeff Hamelman. (Did I mention that Jefe offered to split the $825 cost of the class with me? Which I thought was nice of him.)

Meanwhile, Dave had a job interview Friday--cross your fingers for him, light a candle, say a prayer, leave an offering for Ganesh, whatever works for you--or, more to the point, for him.

Backwards and in High Heels

Ann Richards, rest in peace. (She also said, according to the WaPo, "I did not want my tombstone to read, 'She kept a really clean house.' I think I'd like them to remember me by saying, 'She opened government to everyone.' "

Sam, Frodo, Compassion, and Subservience

I have a short list of posts I want to write (and have started writing in my head, while I laminate), but we'll settle for one tonight, even though I should be copyediting. I just finished this year's reading of LOTR; I have no idea why my brain decided I needed to read it now. Perhaps because I just finished Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle and I wanted another epic? Who knows.

Anyway, this time through, I was thinking a lot about the relationship between Frodo and Sam. In the books, there's a lot of kissing and handholding, but there's no sexual undertone at all (at least not to me). Sam is subservient--he refers to, and calls, Frodo "Mister Frodo" on many occasions--and he basically acts as Frodo's manservant. (Also see the wikipedia discussion of Sam, especially the part about Sam being Frodo's batman.) The wikipedia site notes that Sam is one of the two bearers of the One Ring who gives up the Ring voluntarily (the other being Bilbo); Sam concludes that he doesn't really have the wherewithal to wield the Ring, he being a lowly and none-too-bright gardener and all. That is, it's almost as though Sam's class status helps him resist the Ring's power, even though he is in Mordor when he puts it on. So the class interpretation helps, and that part is pretty clear in the books.

In the movies, though, well, first off, the audience included a whole bunch of people who know nothing about the British class system of the early part of the last century, which means a lot of what occurred in the book would have been read as gay if it had been dropped verbatim into the movies. As it is, many people already read it that way. (There's apparently a bunch of fanfic about Frodo and Sam getting it on, but I REALLY don't want to go there.) And, really, it's pretty anachronistic. I have to admit that it grates on me, too, because of the subservience inherent in the system ("help help I'm being repressed!"), but I can't even imagine how it reads for someone who hasn't read the books and doesn't know anything about British history.

The other thing that occurred to me this time through--and it has occurred to me in most previous readings as well, though not in quite this way--is the notion of compassion. When Gandalf first tells Frodo about the Ring and about Gollum, Frodo says that Bilbo should have killed Gollum when he had the chance. Gandalf says that many who deserve to live are dead, and until Frodo can confer life on those who deserve to live, he shouldn't be so quick to deal out death, even when some being appears to deserve death. This theme resonates through the whole saga, in ways I hadn't considered until this reading, even though Gandalf's words have remained with me since the first time I read them, which would have been in about 1974 (thank you Jeff Innes). In brief, Frodo chooses not to kill Gollum when he has the chance, in part because of Gandalf's words, but also because, upon seeing Gollum, Frodo experiences pity and compassion for the creature. Sam is less convinced, and he maintains his skepticism through nearly a thousand pages; he stays his hand in large part because Frodo insists on it.

But late in the game, Sam, too, experiences the compassion that keeps him from killing Gollum outright. The wikipedia site suggests--correctly, I think--that, in part because Sam has borne the Ring, however briefly, he can see better what Gollum's long, miserable life has been like. That is, however briefly, and under whatever different circumstances, Sam has walked in Gollum's shoes and recognizes the ways that he and Gollum are similar. As soon as you recognize your own humanity, and the humanity (or worth) of another being, I don't believe you can kill that other being easily. I have no direct experience of war, and the closest I have come to being besieged is being female in this society (and that is not trivial), so I don't know firsthand what that experience is like. I suspect it's one of the results of Tolkien's own experiences of war, but that's just a guess on my part.

The notion of compassion continues to resonate, even when the hobbits get back to the Shire. When it becomes clear that they're going to have to fight, Frodo very much wants there to be no killing, especially not of hobbits, it's true, but he'd really prefer that there be no killing at all. An interesting response, I'd say, from a being who was in part responsible for ending the Evil of his time, especially given Tolkien's own experience, and quite a contrast to the screeching of the vengeance-obsessed (but, in general, military-experience-"deprived") right wing in this country.

The Theater Comes to Town

All KINDS of drama at the bakery . . . Jefe was gone this week, getting daughter off to college; he got back yesterday. Brad was an even bigger pain in the ass than usual, especially Thursday and Friday. He's constantly breaking somebody's balls, or trying to do so, and, since he can't actually fire the Hispanic guys, they just ignore him, though they bug him in smaller ways, or, more to the point, they just . . . aren't nice to him. And I bug him, because I try to be nice to the other guys, and they like me well enough (especially since they've figured out that Brad gets on my nerves, too, but back to that in a minute). I do whatever he tells me to do, willingly; I even get along with him, because he's not a bad guy--mostly, he's young, insecure, and without the backup of Jefe.

So he's gone today, off on vacation, and I say to Phil, "Hey, where's the professor?" And he and I get into a long conversation about Brad, despite Phil's relatively minimal English and my nonexistent Spanish. Here's a sample for you: I make the cinnamon raisin croissants by laying the rolled-out piece on the table, smearing it with cinnamon pastry cream and rum-soaked raisins, rolling it up (like a big jelly roll), and cutting slices. The very ends are ragged and unusable--too small to sell, and, because of the cinnamon, they can't be thrown back into the next batch of dough like I do with the ends from the other types of croissants. Artie likes these end pieces, so I throw them in the freezer and, when I have room on a pan, throw some on a pan and label it "lunch." It's no money out of Jefe's pocket, it's no skin off anyone's nose, and Artie likes them, so why the fuck not. Yesterday, Artie tells me that someone threw out the lunch pieces I'd put out Thursday night, he didn't know who, but they were right on top so he retrieved them. Today, Phil tells me that Brad's the one who threw them out, which, I'm sorry, is just petty and childish. Plus, Brad is constantly bitching about Artie, how he has it so easy and how he doesn't work very hard, and so on. Now, Jefe told me months ago that Artie "knows what he knows," i.e., he's limited, but so what? It doesn't bother Jefe, so why should it bother Brad? I pissed off Brad this week in another way regarding Artie--he told Artie to help me, Artie asked if I needed help, and I said no, because I didn't. My feeling is, unless it's late or I have a lot to do, I'll do my work, they'll do theirs, we'll lend each other a hand when needed, but otherwise, you get done at 2:00 today, 4:00 tomorrow, whatever. Brad has this notion that everyone should leave together or something, mostly because it gives him yet another opportunity to break Artie's balls. I dislike being put in the middle of it.

Or also with the cinnamon raisin croissants. Jefe came back from Boston with this thing they do with them. We have these bigger-than-muffin tins, with straight (rather than angled) sides. I spray some baking spray, glob some honey mixed with glucose, sprinkle with brown sugar, throw in some pecans, and, finally, put in a cinnamon raisin croissant, upside down. When they come out, oh, baby, they're gorgeous and sticky and really good. We've been selling them for less than two months, and people are already coming in and asking for them--we sold 18 today before noon (and had someone ask for another half-dozen after they were gone). So on Wednesday Brad says, don't use the cinnamon raisin croissants, that's too expensive, use the cinnamon rolls instead (which Artie makes, and, thus, I think, is another way to make Artie work more). I tried it, they were okay, but it's a different product, and the customers like the one we're making. I brought it up to Jefe yesterday, and he said Brad had mentioned it, and I said, you could easily get more for these--people are requesting them, fer chrissakes, don't change a successful product! So he says okay, we'll raise the price and see what happens, and he seemed to think that was a fine approach. It annoyed me, though: if Jefe doesn't think it's too expensive, then who the fuck is Brad to go on about it?

Meanwhile, yesterday was supposed to be pay day, but the checks were late; no biggie. Today, they're supposed to be there by 10 but aren't. Turns out, on Thursday Brad told Johnnie to make some German chocolate icing, Johnnie told Brad it wasn't his job; Brad was bitching about it the other day. So, apparently, Brad doesn't do the payroll, because "it's not his job." Or some such shit. Jefe told me that part of it, and then I heard a long conversation with Jefe, Artie, and Johnnie (and maybe Phil?), but it was mostly in Spanish and no one tried to include me, so I just stayed out of it. When Jefe brought it up to me before that, I said, well, nothing for nothing, and just between you and me, but Brad is constantly breaking these guys' balls, and he keeps trying to be the boss, and they're having none of it. Jefe completely agreed with me--it even seemed that he was kind of pleased with my recognition of the situation. Really, everything just goes more smoothly when Brad's not around. I realize that he does a lot of the administrative shit, and they don't necessarily see or appreciate that, but he's just . . . tiring. I made pizza today--after asking Jefe if it was okay with him--and Phil brought in a watermelon to share--looks like the spirit is spreading. And Phil offered to help with the croissants, too, though I didn't need it today. It's not just that I'm "nice" to them, or that I make pizza, or whatever; Brad just hasn't figured out how to get along. He thinks the bakery is a fine-dining kitchen, where a chef can be a prima donna. Sorry, dude, that ain't here.

One last thing: I have to tell you, today's croissants were things of beauty, Lamination, baby! Seriously; I can usually find something to nitpick about my work, but these were fucking gorgeous.

Okay, enough procrastination. Time to edit.