Caramel Apple Cheesecake

Yeah. I thought that might get your attention. Thanksgiving is on the morrow and a baker's dozen of family members will gather at my mom's place for The Meal. I was conscripted to make the dessert. No pumkin pie for me. No way. That just wouldn't assuage my culinary ego. It yearns to be assuaged. So I drew from my cookbook collection 125 Best Cheesecake Recipes by George Geary. I would class it at TX773.G42 2002, assuming it shelflisted neatly. But hey, that's just me. Anyway, I chose the Caramel Apple Cheesecake because of its seasonal nature, and the smack of lofty elegance it afforded. A graham cracker crumb crust, with a layer of thin apple slices, then sprinkled with chopped pecans and painstakingly quartered caramels, composes the base. The filling is a basic cheesecake with cinnamon and nutmeg. Then another layer of sliced apples arranged neatly on top. And finally, a sprinkle of more chopped pecans. It turned out great. Just to be sure there would be enough dessert, I whipped up a batch of pecan squares. From a box mix. Krusteaz. And the kitchen is clean. Now there is nothing that I must do for the rest of the evening. I can play Penguin Baseball to my heart's content. Now don't get me wrong Dear Reader. I love animals, and aside from fish and shellfish, would never harm one. Never ever. I just can't seem to shake the image of Harp Seal Pup Ice Hockey though. No. It doesn't really exist. I don't think. Maybe I'd better Google it to be certain.

"On with the show. This is it!"

When I was a kid I loved Underdog. I recall jumping down the stairs emulating the canine superhero. Or maybe it was Batman. Whatever. I have always loved cartoons. Not as some serious art form mind you, but simply as an escape from reality. Pure mindlessness. Innocuous mindlessness. Anyway, if asked for my favorite cartoon, I'd have to say Loony Toons. Now I know that the Toons represent more than one cartoon but I'm playing a loophole here Dear Reader. Memories of afternoons after school watching Batman, Gilligan's Island and Loony Toons have fuzzy golden auras about them. Batman always left me hanging, forcing me to wait and to tune in the next day to the same bat channel at the same bat time. Unless it was Friday. Then I was screwed. The castaways were never going to get off the island, until years after the series ended and exploitive Rescued from Gilligan's Island made for TV movies were aired. But Loony Toons were always reliable. Six or eight or how ever many minutes they run, and they were done. Bite-size morsels of kiddie culture between which snacks could be retrieved from the kitchen. Mom-permitting. And Saturday mornings! Hoo-boy! Hours of cartoons. Hours and hours of cartoons. Well, only maybe four hours. Hey, I was a kid. At some point, I can't remember the year, but I do remember the benchmark, cartoons began to decline. Beginning with Hong Kong Phooey. Don't get me wrong. I did watch Hong Kong Phooey. It was just that cartoons were beginning to be just a bit unbelieveable. Maybe I was growing up. I don't know. The slope got steeper, and more slippery, degenerating through Speed Racer, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers. I feel like my son has been somehow cheated. We did find some common animated ground with Ren and Stimpy, Beavis and Butthead and South Park, but it's not the same as "Baseball Bugs." Today, I am left speechless by the likes of Super Robot Monkey Team Hyper Force Go. Don't believe me? Click and see for yourself. We have watched it a couple times. Not for entertainment per se, but as we might view a freak show. Oh well. I still have my memories of the 90-minute long Bugs Bunny-Road Runner Show, with all of the Loony Toons characters parading across the stage doing the opening number. And a bowl of cereal.

Night of the Ghouls

What, Dear Reader, could possibly be more redundantly Byzantine that a committee on committees, meeting just because a meeting room and time had been reserved, only to discuss the meeting schedule? Fear not! I am not going to address this, but rather the meetings of the Catalog Maintenace and Enrichment Team, of which I am a member. Several years ago we met weekly, at a set time, in a set place. We never met for the whole hour that was set aside. That which needed discussing was discussed, and the meeting was adjourned. One of these meetings lasted seven minutes. Joy! Our meeting schedule evolved and we were soon meeting monthly. Then the meetings became "imaginary," to quote our team leader. The reservation for the room was discontinued. I'd like to say we set about on a regimen of quarterly meetings, but I don't know if we met, or meet that frequently. It is a testament to the communication we enjoy as a work unit, not an expression of any disdain we may feel toward meetings in general. Well, we met last week. It was a good meeting. I took notes. For blog fodder. The general theme was "The Catalog of the Future." AACR2 morphing into RDA, and the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records, or FRBR. My pen raced when the term FRBRization was uttered. At first, I had vowels in the mix of the F, the B, and the R's. Imagine my delight when I learned there were no vowels! Anyway, and I will apologize in advance Dear Reader, for not fully grasping the concept, but it goes something like this: Begin with an individual work, or the idea, say Anna Karenina (not used by me as a password, by the way). The play, the movie, the screenplay, even the Cliff's Notes version, are all expressions of the original idea, each with its own intellectual content. Are you still with me? An individual printing of an expression is a manifestation of that original idea. Got it? I think I do. I think. As the idea of writing a FRBR blog began to gel in my mind, I digressed. For some reason, the picture of FRBRing critters caught in leg traps manifested in my head. Expressly. I snapped back in time to write down "a really vague thing with bullet points." Don't bother to ask. Our discussion of drunk puppets and sock puppet mimes did not get as far as drunk sock puppet mimes, which all had nothing to do with "The Catalog of the Future." Why all the hubbub about the future? Because that's where we are all going to live, and where I will be cataloging. Don't believe me? Just ask Criswell. You may need to ask Dr. Acula for assistance. His friends may call him Karl.

Jack Clark, Lee Vines & John Harlan

I am always a bit uneasy when an offer is extended to me to switch to a new and improved version of anything. The new bells and whistles are all shiny and clear enough to entice me. Then I get to the part about logging into my account, which requires my username (which one?) and password (again, which one?). How many account numbers, usernames, and passwords do I have? How many is enough? Too many? Insufficient? Bank account number and pin number. Essential. E-mail username and password. Important, but not absolutely essential. Or are they? How did I communicate before the world went geeky? Or did I? Blogger, Amtrak Guest Rewards, Kodak, BMG All Music, Fantasy Baseball, Special Olympics, United Way, Flickr. I'm sure there are more that I can't think of at the moment, which only serves to make remembering account numbers, usernames and passwords all the more difficult. Painful even. I needed to come up with some kind of mnemonic device. A system! Clever pretentiousness surged. I could take words from the titles of 19th century Russian novels, switch a few of the Cyrillic letters to numbers (I forgot what that is called,) transliterate the remaining letters in accordance with the Library of Congress Romanization tables, and capitalize here and there to take full advantage of case sensitivity. Then, if I was having trouble remembering a password, all I would have to do is scan the hundreds of 19th century Russian novels on my shelves, and it would spring forth. Right? OK, where was I? Oh yeah. The new version of Blogger. I decided to take the plunge. After a few invalid password messages, I finally got there, or rather, here. As I was making the switch, all thought of what I was going to write about flew out the window and I found myself writing this instead. Oh well. I feel a bit relieved. Cleansed. I now can hardly wait for whichever of my passwords will be due to expire at some impending date. I'll type the old one, enter the new one, and finally, verify the new one, hopefully to remember it. What I really need is a master list of all my account numbers, usernames and passwords. A living document. Of course, I'd have to protect it with a password. I imagine a hushed, disembodied voice: "The password is..." Whatever happened to Allan Ludden anyway?

A Man's Best Friend (pt.2)

At Burger Galaxy, Jerry's training was brief. It didn't take long at all for the trainer to realize that he was wholly unsuitable to work at the counter or in the drive thru. Jerry just wasn't good with customers, or anyone else. But the grill area was different. Jerry was a wonder at the grill. Orders could not come in fast enough to cause him to fall behind. 12-6 turn-lay rotation? No problem for Jerry. He just got into his zone and spread the patties, seared them, turned them, spread the next dozen, seared them, pulled the first twelve, and so on. As long as he didn't have to interact with anybody. It was enough that he had to acknowledge the numbers being called back from the front. Nobody liked to work with Jerry, but they didn't mind it either. It was nice never falling behind, especially during big lunch rushes. After his trial service period wound down, and unencumbered by a school schedule, Jerry went to work mornings, opening the grill for breakfast, and ending his day as the busy lunch rush ebbed. There were fewer co-workers during the mornings, and fewer customers. By now, even at minimum wage, Jerry's 40-hour work weeks in the fast food industry were providing him with enough money to keep him in all the beer and cigarettes he wanted. The morning manager purchased alcohol for him regularly, in an effort to keep his best employee happy. As though Jerry would ever, or could ever be happy. Jerry still wasn't satisfied though. He was still living at home, and was using the morning manager as a taxi service to and from work. He wanted a car, and he wanted a place of his own, where he wouldn't have to answer to anyone. Burger Galaxy did not offer that kind of income. Some of the employees rented places together, but that wouldn't work for Jerry. He had to find a better way. An opportunity arose one day when Jerry was picking up an eighth of an ounce of some marijuana and the dealer mentioned an open position at a local mill pulling green chain. The best part as far as Jerry could see was that it was the graveyard shift. More money. Fewer people. He had to get the job. So Jerry went to the mill office and applied for the position. He was interviewed immediately after filling out the application, and was offered the job that very day. He didn't give Burger Galaxy two weeks' notice. He didn't give them any notice. He merely called the store and said he quit. He took no small amount of pleasure in listening to his ego telling him that they were going to be lost without him. He didn't dwell on it though. He just didn't care. Jerry now had plans. Big plans.

Name that tune

When I was in high school I discovered punk rock. Real punk rock. Well, as real as the Pacific Northwest could offer. Good old venom-spitting, nihilistic, tear everything down for no good reason punk rock. Once a month, or thereabouts, there would be a show at the Community Center for the Performing Arts, better known as the W.O.W. Hall. Three, four, five bands would play. The Foamlords, Tender Chunx, J. Gallows and the Executioners were regulars. A couple of the drummers were friends of mine from school. Sado-Nation from up north, either Portland or Seattle (I forget which) was a great show. The Young Canadians. Stiph Noyds. The Imperialist Pigs. Theatre of Sheep. It was all good. The Dead Kennedys was the highlight of the W.O.W. Hall shows I saw. Simply breathtaking. That was then. Now I have a son who is in high school. He doesn't really have a notion of what punk was really about. He cannot. He's seen a few documentary movies and ripped some of my CDs. But the really good stuff is only available on vinyl and he doesn't have the patience to listen to the Peace War compilation, or Burning Ambitions, or even the Punk and Disorderly series. Paul was here for a visit this past weekend and there was a show at the W.O.W. Hall. Not a punk rock show mind you. That would be wrong. Very wrong. No, Dear Reader, this was a speed metal show. An annual benefit event. We went last year, which was enough to lure me back this year. The local band Tormentium was playing again this year. Their sound was described as "Swedish black metal with traditional death metal progressions." Now who in their right mind could pass that up? If even just to gawk. Necryptic was there again as well. The chainsaw guitars, the unintelligible, growling vocals, and the hair. For a few hours I felt on the brink of a seizure. In the best sense of the word. It really was a lot of fun. No one got hurt in the mosh pit, unlike my old slam-dancing days. (When did this all become so safe?) My son acknowledged that this was the loudest, hardest, and fastest music he has ever heard. He was wide-eyed last year. He was rapt this year. And then, in between songs, I leaned toward him and said "F*** this limp hippy s***! When are these guys gonna rock?" He looked at me, utterly dumbfounded. I'll confess that the songs all sound the same to me. The names are, as far as I can tell, indiscernable and irrelevant. If you keep guessing "Suffer and Die," sooner or later you'll be right.

Does punctuation count?

Here at Pedestrian Subjunctives the mission statement is "Addressing the dearth of frivolity." In my continuing efforts to do so...blah, blah, blah. One of the more esoteric aspects of my job is to verify the forms of author headings appearing for the first time in the catalog. It is an acquired taste to be sure. And one that I find particularly appealing. I derive pleasure from discarding superfluous commas, adding dates of death, and eliminating the altogether unnecessary subfields "e." Oooh, and reconciling split files! I'm all tingly. Processing names lists is a journey, in that there are always going to be more the next day. There is no final name on a final list. There is no final list as there is no final book written. And yet progress can be measured in the completion of a single list. A rest stop on the infinite journey to enjoy the vista. Then move on to the next list. My work with names lists allows me to quench, in part at least, my borderline manic obsessive-compulsive need to seek order in all things. The routine of processing names lists is occasionally disrupted when something new is added to the catalog from a different source, for example a batchload of bibliographic records from a CD-ROM. Disrupt is the wrong word. I apologize Dear Reader. Rather than a disruption, these lists are really bonuses. I did tell you I am ill, didn't I? I am nearing completion of a fairly lengthy list of names representing authors of works that are part of a collection of legal materials recently acquired by our Law Library. My supervisor has asked that I give him some feedback on the quality of the cataloging. As I pored over name after name, I was thoroughly impressed by the attention to detail and the truly superior caliber of the records. A whim struck me, as whims will do. My feedback to my supervisor should take the form of verse. Better yet, I can lend it a slightly tangy zen by taking a blind stab at the profundity afforded by a more specialized form. And so, Dear Reader, without further ado...my first haiku.

The names were all new
Corporate and personal
They were fun to do

A Man's Best Friend (pt.1)

Note: This is part one of a story that I have wanted to write for some time, but always found a reason not to do so. It is fiction, and any similarity to any person living or not, is purely coincidental.

Jerry Giger was always a self-absorbed jerk. As a child this trait was not particulary evident, as many children believe the world revolves around them. But as he grew older, his selfishness became more and more pronounced. Friendships were brief. All take and no give. His parents grew concerned, but held out hope that he would grow out of it. That he would grow up. And then came adolescence. His grades, always unremarkable, plummeted due at least in part to experimentation with drugs and alcohol. After Jerry got into and out of a few minor scrapes with the law, his dad left. He had had enough. One day he was just gone. Jerry wasn't sad at all. He saw his father's departure as nothing more than one fewer person to supervise him. Jerry's shattered mother responded by throwing herself into doting on her son. Jerry became more and more selfish, demanding more and more from his mother. Enough never was. Though money was tight, an inordinate portion of the household budget went towards Jerry's entertainment. Eventually, even that would not satisfy the insatiable boy. So Jerry, going nowhere in high school, dropped out and got a job at a fast food joint.