Another One Bites the Dust.....

Well, Johnny Nitro sailed off to the Big Gig last Saturday night.  Never new the guy.  He was a cousin of a friend of mine, guitar player, from San Francisco living up here.  Sounds like he, as many musicians, led a few years of ‘dog life’.  That’s when you age 7x faster than you should.  I figure B.B. King has to be what? 150 – 185, somewhere around there with this factored in?  He had to sit down for Obama’s gig, but who can blame him?

I’ve been reading the obituaries more often in the Sunday paper.  I don’t know, it just seems interesting now.  Kind of like when you’re in line, nearing the row of windows you sort of start looking left and right to see how short the other line is.  You can count the people to the window easier in the other lines than in your own line.  Yeah….I check the years of birth and sort of am relieved to see more in the 1920’s and even 1930’s than late 1940’s.  But still I check.  Kind of morbid I guess. 

Every now and then someone born in the 1960’s kicks it (yeah, and the guys I knew who went to Nam) and I think “man, they came and went and here I still am…”

I swore to my family the other evening that I didn’t want them to leave me in a vegetative state – to be dependent on a machine and fluids from a bottle.  They came over, unplugged my computer and threw out my wine.

It’s always something

read more about Johnny:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/02/20/BAN81HR1FE.DTL

Your Fortune Awaits.......

February 3 was the date heralding the New Chinese Year.  2011 is the year of the Rabbit, according to the neighborhood bulletin board in the Chinese/Cantonese restaurant down the street.  Canton is supposedly in Southern China. 

I guess southern Chinese food is like chop suey with grits and ribs maybe, or perhaps Barbeque sauce on the side.

It all tastes much the same to me.  But then I’m not an affection-ado of Chinese cuisine.  I do like Sum Dum, that type of meal where a horde of wait staff wheels around carts laden with various cooked (mostly are cooked) things.  Some of the really fresh entrees have not died yet and other entrees seem to have been dead quite some time.  Almost all of them, dead or alive, are slippery and elude the novice chopstick.  I usually stab it with one stick and eat it like a corndog.  This makes some of the staff frown and gives them something more to talk about in the kitchen.  Did I say talk?  I’m sorry, yell.  I’ve never been in a Chinese kitchen but all seem to have a certain constant din.

My favorite thing about a Chinese restaurant meal is the fortune cookie.  A simple mixture of egg white, vanilla extract, unbleached flour and sugar, the fortune cookie can be just a cookie or a new life.  They’re usually positive and chime in along the lines of astrology in their significance.  All depends on the reader.  They’re fun when they make you think you have friends and will get rich.  I’ve grown to depend on them from time to time, being an architect. 

So there’s this guy in Missouri who’s down on his luck and he has purchased 365 fortune cookies and is living each day by what they say.  Here, check it out for yourself…

http://www.mydailyfortune.net/

I don’t know.  I think I’ll just keep enjoying them whenever I have Chinese.  Every now and then you open one that makes you think twice, however.

It's always something.....

Weather Rodent

My friend, Mr. Cranky, posted this li'l fellow on Facebook today and I can't leave my post without passing this along.

Seems like Punksutawney, Pa. isn't the only town here in the U S of A that has this ridiculous tradition.  They have one of these in Wallingford, a neighborhood of Seattle.  "Wallingford Phil" lives in the crawl space under the Safeway on 45th St.  Having survived being eaten by the homeless, ol' Phil has been faithful, coming out on Feb. 2nd every year.

Feb. 2nd traditionally is the midpoint between the Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox.  In Seattle it's darn hard to tell where the middle is, especially between two equally cold and grey periods of time.  Thankfully, Phil knows, and his emergence helps reset the clock. 

Folks in Seattle can't remember a time when ol' Phil has not seen his shadow on February 2nd.  

"...yeah, it's usually cold and freeze-ass windy around these parts come the first week of February..."  chimes in Fred Mortz of Wallingford.  ".....dang if it ain't sunny though.."

And danged if it doesn't always come true in Seattle.  6 more months of winter.  The skies break sunny for a week or so, right after the annual soaker on the 4th of July.  Then it's time to shake it of and hobble back to the crawl space.

It's always something.......