A Haiku About How Much I Love Grapes
by Tobias Skünke

Grapes, how I love thee
Munching and playing with you
Play play play, munch munch
More?

The Decemberist's "The Crane Wife"

If you love indie rock, you probably already have this album, NPR's album of the year. Snagged it two days ago and have fallen in love with it.

The album was inspired by a Japanese folk tale, and the album is based on two "macro" song concepts, The Crane Wife and The Island, the latter of which was inspired by William Shakespeare's The Tempest. If you know me well, you can already see why I might like it. I love Japanese culture, and I love Shakespeare. It's really a beautiful album. I'm sure if you listen to the radio, you've heard the Valencia song, but trust me, the rest of the album is more and better.

But, what is the crane wife?

The Crane Wife is an old Japanese folk tale. A poor man finds an injured crane, takes it in and nurses it back to health. After releasing the crane, a woman appears at his doorstep with whom he falls in love and marries. Because they need money, his wife offers to weave wondrous fabric out of silk that they can sell at the market (the song talks about clothes, but in the version I've heard, she makes magical sails for ships), on the condition that he agrees never to watch her making them. They prosper and live a comfortable life, but he asks her to weave them more and more, as his greed increases. Unnoticed by the man, his wife's health is diminishing. As these tales go, curiosity gets the best of the man, and he eventually peeks in to see what she is doing to make the silk she weaves so desirable. He is shocked to discover that at the loom is the crane plucking feathers from her own body and weaving them into the loom. The crane, seeing him, flies away and never returns.

What I like best about this story is that the "moral" differs from person to person, and isn't so obvious.

What

Finger Lickin' Good.

I like fried chicken, but it’s always lacking something when I get it from a resturant. KFC is way too greasy, and uses puny chicken pieces. Popeyes is too crispy, supermarket deli chicken is flavorless. So a while back when I was living at the Brooklyn house, I decided I’d fry some up myself and make it exactly how I wanted. The first effort was well received, wife and a roommate or two were impressed. Ever since then, every so often, I make some fried chicken and try to hone and perfect the recipie. It’s not perfect yet, but it’s darn good and I’m proud of it. You know you’re on to something good when you’d rather have your own version of something than a professional’s.

How I make fried chicken:
Get some boneless, skinless chicken breasts. I don’t like bones, I don’t like skin, so I might as well start it in that state, y’know? I have found smaller-to-medium sized breasts to be ideal, the big huge ones you can sometimes get are difficult to get cooked all the way through.

Take a bowl and put a small container of buttermilk in it. Add a firm couple shakes of tobasco sauce, and a generous amount of pepper (I don’t measure, nor should you). Crack and egg or two (depending on size of eggs), beat them separately, then mix them with the buttermilk marinade. Put chicken breasts in mixture, marinate for an hour or three in the fridge.

Take another bowl, pour in a box of tempura flour. Add a good tablespoon of pepper, some onion powder and garlic salt, some thyme, oregano, paprika, and seasoning salt. A doable shortcut here is to take a packet of Italian salad dressing mix and add it with the pepper in lieu of other spices. The only things I’ve found to be very necessary are black pepper and garlic salt. There are many things that will give your chicken some savor. I’ve even gone with Cajun spice mix from Winco (nice but the cayenne gives it an earthy taste). Mix spices with flour.

Then coat the slimy chicken in the flour and spices. The time tested paper bag method works fine, but I usually use a place with the flour and stuff on it, and press and work the flour all over the chicken with my fingers. The downside: fingers get coated as well. Additional downside: Kentucky fried fingers are… not as good.

Take a large pan, put it on the stove, and pour a good inch of oil into it, and let it pre heat on medium to medium high. Here’s one of the tricks I’ve learned: How “brown” the chicken gets is a function of how hot the oil is, not how long you cook it. Hotter oil = browner chicken. It will vary on your stove, of course. Takes about 10-12 minutes on the first side, and 5 on the other… if you’re unsure if it’s done, cut it open and take a look.

Take it out of the oil, and let it sit on paper towels or a pizza box (don’t laugh, a pizza box works better than paper towels, which get soaked. Dab with a paper towel to get the oil off the top. More oil you take out now, less that goes in you! Let it cool for a good 10 min… don’t try eating it right off. Nice thing about homemade fried chicken is that it’s great hot, lukewarm, or cold!

Sleepy Skunk

Culling

I have found that I am not so good at keeping in touch with people. Never was. If our friendship is more than 4 or 5 years previous, there's a pretty good chance I'm not talking much with you... if at all. I've not been very good at keeping in touch with people from my life. From Japan, to Utah, to Alaska, to everywhere else... I've kinda been crummy at keeping in touch with people long-long term. I haven't talked or emailed with my best friend from college... and he got married last year. I'm not sure why I do this... maybe it's because I put most of my energy into the now and the forward than the past... tough to say. It's not malicious or a writing off kind of thing, so don't feel bad, I'll do it for both of us.

DING fries are done...

The wife and I went out a wassailing last night... er, looking at Christmas lights in the rain... and for some reason the theme running through my head for this Christmas is the "ding fries are done" song from Family Guy (and the internet) sung to the tune of "Carol of the Bells", as seen here: Family Guy Ding Fries Are Done

The words:

Ding fries are done
Ding fries are done
Ding fries are done
Ding fries are done

I gotta run
I gotta run
I gotta run
I gotta run

I work at Burger King making flame broiled whoppers
I wear paper hats
Would you like an apple pie with that?
Would you like an apple pie with that?

Ding fries are done
Ding fries are done
Ding fries are done
Ding fries are done

I gotta run
I gotta run
I gotta run
I gotta run

Don't bob for fries in hot fat
it really hurts bad
and so do skin grafts
Would you like an apple pie with that?
Would you like an apple pie with that?

Can't hear the bell
Wait for the bell
Where is the bell?
Wait for the bell

Ding fries are done
Ding fries are done

Fortunately my wife has realized she's pretty much married an idiot.

These are a few of my favorite things

Hospitals, shelters, diversions plans, symptoms, medication, decompensation, treatment plans, behavioral assessments, criminal records, case files, crisis diversion, single room occupancy, motels, primary care physicians, billing codes, location codes, active community treatment, medical model, recovery model, housing applications, respite, walk in clinic, emergency department, emergency room, triage, med deliveries, food boxes, vouchers, social security, food stamps, TB tests, screening criteria, releases of information, faxes, SAS sheets, status change, interoffice mail, prescriber appointments, inpatient drug treatment, outpatient drug treatment, groups, outreach, insight…

But am I doing anything?

Guitar Hero

If you're at all like me (probably not, but if so, you have my condolences), you've played the air guitar at least a few times in your life. Admit it. You've bounced around your apartment flailing your invisible air guitar to Master of Puppets. You've put an empty hand up to your mouth and belted out the lyrics to Back in Black. Finally, for the rock star in all of us, there is a game. That game is Guitar Hero.

Guitar Hero is to cool guitar god wanna-bes what Dance Dance Revolution is to people who wish they could have gotten on MTV's The Grind just once. You have a controller that you hold in your hands that looks like this:



And as notes scroll by on the on screen fretboard, you press the accorded button, and hit the strum bar. You have thus commenced rocking.



Whoever was in charge of selecting the music for Guitar Hero deserves a Grammy Award--or at least a raise. For a game like this, the soundtrack is practically impeccable. Rather than going for the MTV crowd, this game is chock full of riffs that will open your stance and get your head banging back and forth.

None of the songs are the original recordings, but the recreations have been so lovingly crafted that you'll have a difficult time telling the difference. The track list runs the gamut from metal romps like Judas Priest's "You've Got another Thing Coming" to Joan Jett's seminal '80s rocker "I Love Rock and Roll" to recent jams like Franz Ferdinand's "Take me Out." The list goes on and on with favorites like Motorhead's "Ace of Spades," The Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated," and a smattering of power punk hits from groups like Sum 41. If you're even vaguely into rock music, you'll find something to like across the game's 30-plus songs. The only downer is that there are no AC/DC or Led Zepplin tracks, but there has to be something for the sequel, right?

The other thing that's reasonably fun about the game is that it's almost as fun to watch someone play as it is to play it. When you're playing, you're concentrating on the buttons and rhythm, not the song or the band... so when someone else has a turn you get to see all the cool and crazy thing your guy does!

When we write things, in print, black and white, it makes things more real, like we're owning it or something. Emily has said things not unlike this several times, and as I'm sitting here looking at my seldomly updated blog as of late, I wonder... maybe lately I've been liking things to be less real? Reality is stressful, and I like to escape. That's why I like books, movies, video games... for just a little while I get to be someone else or at least somewhere else. Not that where or who I am is bad (NOT AT ALL!) but that... getting away is like a little vacation in my head.

Death to the travelogue!

I haven't been posting. My life in a nutshell:

Work, work work, wife wife wife, skunk, skunk, play play on computer, damn I wish I could have a cheeseburger, sleep.

There's stuff going on in and around it but I've become pretty mundane. Skye commented something the other day, "I really want you to be around when we're old farts to talk about the good times." I've always thought, what's so great about being old? I don't mean the whole life is over when you're 50 crap, but like... the tail end nursing home years... what's great about sitting in a room waiting for the nurse to bring the jello and wishing the grandkids would call? I suppose the sponge bathing could be sublime, but still. I think I'll start hoping for early onset dementia. One of the most mentally ill people I know is one of the happiest. He's never alone, and people are always happy to see him... in his head. We should all be so lucky. If it happens to me, y'all can be sitting around talking and I'll be sitting there singing a song to myself about daffodils that look like pudding pops or something.

The counter opinion in my head just now points out that this isn't too different from what I currently do in most social settings.

Sigh.

The Battle of Food

Like the wife, I am also on a diet.
It appears to be serious.
I'm very grouchy.
VERY GROUCHY.

Fortunately, I love some foods that are healthy. Like sushi, cottage cheese, fibery cereals, vegetarian curry... but it's only been a week and there's a decent chance I might kill someone for a double western bacon cheeseburger. Fortunately there's a good chance it might only be a transient, or some other person you don't know, but still the potential for homicide is definitely there.

Otherwise, life is fine. I work work work, come home and survey what dilemma wife and skunk may have, then sleep a bit, then back to work.

Boy and Skunk Alone.

The cheese stands alone.
The cheese stands alone.
Hi ho the dairy-o
The cheese stands alone.

I never got why the cheese stands alone. Who doesn't like cheese? EVERYONE likes cheese!

The woman is out of town while I'm on the pager at work. I miss my wife. It is nice to be able to let the dishes go for a day or two and completely hog the bed... but... I'm lonely :( I can't wait until my honey comes home.

Shame on you, Squinty McGee

One of the biggest mistakes of my life has been voting for George W. Bush when he ran against Al Gore. I don't claim full responsibility for this decision, since Gore ran the most dull and lifeless campaign and came off like a lifelong Washington politician, while Bush came off as the opposite. The highs and lows of his presidency have been well documented, but one of the things that particularly raised my ire came out a month or two ago when it was revealed that the National Security Agency had been obtaining phone call records of American Citizens for years. Obtaining them without warrant or probable cause, and thus far for no announced reason other than “national security” To put it plainly, the government has been keeping track of who you call, when you call them, and how often they do it. Verizon? BellSouth? AT&T? Sprint? They’ve all been handing over their phone records for years, again, without a warrant. This is illegal, by the way.

So when this came to light, naturally millions of people were understandably pissed off. So an investigation was launched by the Justice Department, trying to find out what, who, and why. In order to investigate who authorized this illegal invasion of American’s privacy (and is a criminal) with regards to “matters of national security”, the lawyers and investigators from the Justice Department have to obtain security clearances, since they might come in contact with sensitive information. This is pretty much standard procedure for any sort of government investigation.

Standard, until President Bush said no.

“Someone in your administration is breaking the law and spying on Americans, may we please investigate who is doing this that we might bring them to justice?”
“No.”

By denying security clearance to federal attorneys from the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) seeking to gather evidence in the NSA illegal surveillance scandal, President Bush has effectively blocked the Justice Department’s investigation into the matter of who exactly authorized the illegal actions to take place. The president is apparently able to strictly control who does and does not have security clearance to examine documents regarding the program, citing that giving more people access would endanger national security. His denial is the first of its kind in American history. Last time I checked, when Richard Nixon committed obstruction of justice, he didn't get to keep his job.

Oh well, what’s one more lie, one more obfuscation of the truth to ol’ Squinty McGee? But hey! At least he hasn’t gotten it on with an intern.

And this is Tobias, our skunk.

As most of you know

We got a pet skunk. Named her Lucille. Then found out it was a boy and named it Tobias. It's still an adorable skunk. He likes to run and play, and has made a game of us catching him.

Gage says it's great owning a skunk, you just get the same questions over and over... so with no adieu, I answer them for you:
1) No, it doesn't stink, the stink glands have been removed.
2) They eat veggies, a little bit of dog food, dairy, pretty much anything in moderation.
3) They live to be 10-15.
4) We got it from a breeder in Ohio.
5) No, it's going to be fixed, you really don't want to try and be a skunk breeder.