5 x 5 Solitaire book club

So, in late 1988, I resigned from the King County Police and was a "trailing spouse" when my then-wife Lisa transferred to her company's home office in Charlotte. For a year and half or so, I was un- or under-employed, being a housekeeper (first in my own home and then for some friends) and doing some temp work. I had two years to re-up with the department; it would have been a prudent financial move and some folks suggested it in that context, but I never seriously considered it. Why? Because I hadn't realized until I stopped doing it just how much physical and mental toll the job was taking on me and I sure didn't want to go back to that.

I gotta tell ya, I kinda feel the same way now. And to put it in positive way, I find that I have the kind of headspace for projects and activities that I didn't even realize I was missing. Not only has my art practice really matured, but I have the mental bandwidth for other activities - like reading. To wit:

 

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow. Although cleverly written, this is pretty academic tome, and I slogged through about 75% of it before setting it aside for a bit. Through archeological and anthropological evidence and inference, the Davids cast doubt on the Great Hunter-gather to Agriculture Theory of the development of cities and civilizations. Fascinating insights into human life at its very beginnings, and I will finish it. (Promise.)

 

Falling from Grace by Beverly Conner. I suppose this novel would fall into the category of literary fiction, but only if you define such as narrative that does not fall into a genre such as Mystery, Thriller, Horror, Romance, Western, Fantasy, Science Fiction, etc. But it is not "literary" in the sense of arty or pretentious; it is a riveting story of real people facing real problems - physical and emotional - with real consequences. And it has a hella good sex scene. (Full disclosure: Bev is a family friend and I adore her.)

 

Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of an American Myth by Bryan Burrough, Chris Tomlinson, Jason Stanford. Three apostate Texas journalists commit the grand heresy not only of questioning the strategic decision by revolutionary Texians to defend the Alamo and the supposed heroics that ensued, but also of casting new light on the the political motivations of some of the main players in the story-now-legend. It's about a yard wide but a mile deep, and it's apparently pissing of a lot of Texans, so that may be reason enough to read it. 

 

The Hail Mary Project by Andy Weir. If you liked The Martian, you'll love this - another intrepid hero sciencing the shit out of problems, this time in deep space instead of our own solar system. I might be seeing a little more depth to some characters, and it did make me laugh out loud more than once, but it's pretty much the same song, only louder. But if this keeps up, the next book should be even better.

 

 

The New Breed: What Our History with Animals Reveals about Our Future with Robots by Kate Darling. What if instead of making robots in our own image to do the things we already do, we took a cue from our relationship with working animals and had them do things they they were better at than us and built them in whatever shape worked best for what they needed to do - run, crawl, slither, lift, or just be cute? Kate Darling takes us through a long but never labored analogy between machines and animals and offers some great suggestions for rethinking the future of automation - and our automated future.

That's all for now--more to come for sure!

Crossing the streams

 So, back when the earth as starting to cool and I was growing boy, I ate Oreos. 

Let me rephrase that: I. ATE. OREOS. A lot of them. In my adolescent prime, I would put them away as if they were potato chips. But when I started acting as described in 1 Corinthians 13:11, Oreos came off the menu. Oh, I would continue to buy a small packet on New Year's Eve for a few years, just for tradition's sake, but I eventually stopped that, and besides an occasional nibble at an office pot-luck, America's favorite crème sandwich cookie faded in the rear-view mirror. All of the modern permutations on this classic cookie -- cinnamon, carrot cake, waffle and honey, watermelon - watermelon?! - apple pie, pumpkin spice, fudge-covered, and all the rest -- came and went without tempting me in the slightest.

Until now.

Oreos plus Ritz! There was a bit of a to-do about this on the Internets and I immediately fell into the "I gotta try this" camp instead of the "What the hell are they thinking?" camp as soon as I saw it. Unfortunately, in my excitement, I did not notice that it was an on-line giveaway only, and by the time I course-corrected, they were all gone.

Only one thing to do: it was DIY time. I stopped at Starvin' Sam's, our neighborhood gas station cum mini-mart to get a small supply of the raw materials. I felt lucky to find a packet of Ritz peanut butter sandwiches, because I wanted the full factory-applied peanut-butter-spread experience for more verisimilitude. The Oreos came in a larger package than I had wanted, but I am sure the extras won't go to waste.

The first step was to separate the Oreo sandwiches - and having had long experience with the unscrew it method, this was the work of moments.

I was a little concerned with regard to the Ritz sandwiches, since I did not know the exact adhesion strength of the peanut butter spread. I readied a paring knife in case I needed to do a little cookie surgery, but as it turned out the unscrew it method worked just fine.

After the mismatched pairs were prepared, all that was left was assembly. I was worried when I noticed that the snack-pack Ritz crackers were a little smaller than the standard size, but it was close enough for government work.

Well, they looked passable, but the proof* of the pudding is in the eating. So I did. Eat, I mean.

And I gotta tell ya -- they were great! (I had two, just to make sure.) The salty savoriness of the Ritz half blended perfectly with the chocolate and creme Oreo half. Peanut butter and chocolate going well together is a cliché at this point, and the inclusion of the buttery Ritz and sweet Oreo filling in the mix only added more layers, which all worked well together.

I was fortunate in that both packets had really fresh, crisp cookies -- not only was the flavor combination exceeding pleasing but the whole thing had a great, complex mouth-feel as well, with the slightly cakier chocolate wafer blending with the crunchier cracker as I chewed.

So, we're going to put this one in the W column. Some of those Oreo variations may be pretty wacky, and this combination may have been a publicity gimmick, but dang, it sure tasted good.

*BTW, "proof" in this saying might mean something other than what you think.