Bleeding Fiction

The Ogre invented a new mixed drink a little while back. Sarah (Who is Awesome) and I each contributed a little something to the final form the thing takes. Enjoy:

Samurai Jack
6oz sake
6oz apple cider

Serve in a pint glass, either warmed or over ice, weather depending. Garnish with a slice of apple pierced by a pair of wooden chopsticks laid across the glass' lip.

(3oz/3oz is also acceptable, at which point you'd substitute a whiskey tumbler for the pint glass, but 3oz of sake really isn't very much alcohol. You could, in theory, substitute hard cider to up the content, but we haven't tried that yet.)

The drink really is good, a very nice blend of sweet and dry; I highly recommend it.

I'm watching "Jason and the Argonauts" on SciFi right now, just killing time. I thought it'd be the old Harryhausen version, silly animatronics and all, but no; it's the new version from a few years back.

Orpheus just turned to Jason and said "if we turn out back on life, we do not honor the dead; we abandon them."

Orpheus. You know, the guy who was so lost over the death of his wife that he journeyed into hell to get her back and, when that didn't work, became sat still in the woods for months until drunk, naked women showed up and tore him limb from limb because he wouldn't party with them. And it's not like he couldn't have stopped them with a word or anything...

Yeah, Orpheus is a real poster boy for not turning your back on life...

Playful couples are my favorite; those wonderful pairs who smile at each other through pot-shots, one-liners and snark. They're devil enough to make you wonder why they're together, until you read the love in their eyes as they make their cracks or get a glimpse of vulnerability behind the scenes.

Make the couple detectives and hard-drinking socialites and the sky's the limit.

I just got through watching The Thin Man, a 1930's murder mystery (based on a book by Dashiell Hammett), and its heroes, Nick & Nora Charles, pretty much define the type. Emma Peel & John Steed, Ralph & Sue Dibney, Laura Holt and Remmington Steele, Maddie Hayes and David Addison, even (to a degree) Rory & Lorelai Gilmore; they all draw their inspiration from these two.

I couldn't do the dialog justice without quoting reams of it, so you're better off just watching the film. It suffers from pacing that's about 70 years out of date for today, but every moment that Nick & Nora are on the screen is pure gold. I've written a rare few scenes like this pair get, and I treasure every one. I just wish that they had more time on screen together uninterrupted - fortunately, there's 5 sequels I can get a hold of.

Funny thing about watching the movie, though; I'd sort of seen it before and didn't remember until now. Lena and I saw it on, I guess, our second date. It was one of the movies they played on the big open-air screen in Bryant Park over the course of that summer, and we sat together on the steps and mostly talked as the movie played in the background. I remember that being a good night, but right now I'm just thinking that more towns need to do free movies and shows in their various public parks in the summer.

I found out Tuesday morning that the son of one of my students died. He was seven years old. I'd been working with the student for a few months to bring her son to the US. The boy was sick and couldn't get the medical care he needed at home; more to the point, my student had already lost one son (back in June) while she was here studying, and if she was going to lose another she wanted to be sure she was close to him when it happened.

What a horrible thing to happen to a seven year old. We fought so hard to bring him here. And he was only here for three weeks before something in the cold winter air of Syracuse got into his lungs and the pneumonia set in. He went into the hospital before the weekend and died on Monday.

On Thursday, I went to his funeral. It seemed like the least I could do. I was warned that it would be open casket, and I expected to just lose it. I cried, a little bit, when I saw the body, when I saw the letters his first-grade friends had written to him and the pictures they'd drawn. But walking into the church was like walking into the school in Saved. There was a children's group singing up-beat songs about Jesus, there were people in the pews waving their hands and (seemingly randomly) shouting "amen" or "hallelujah", there was a hip young pastor... It was actually all I could do not to laugh.

And that seemed true of the grieving parents, too. The strength they took from the community they're part of, the enduring faith they have in their savior... It was holding them up and they were happy and at peace with losing their son - this, despite having lost another son six months earlier and having their third son in the hospital right then. Their love for God was just profound to witness.

And, this being an evangelical church, the father made a plea for anyone to come up and get saved and devote themselves to Jesus. Looking at him, I really could believe that that's what he wanted more than anything right then. He was so earnest that I actually felt a little bad about not being able to go on up.

I'm just not the sort to have a personal savior, I guess; it's the particulars that kill me, even if I do dig on the big picture of what Jesus was putting down. But either way, the faith this man had was just a beautiful and empowering thing to see.

One of my co-workers, a kind and elderly woman, is Dutch by birth and rearing. Finding me a friendly sort of fellow and about to leave to visit relatives back home a month ago, she asked what sort of chocolate I'd like to get back from Holland.

I smiled and told her that while, of course, no gift was truly necessary, if she really wanted to get me some sort of candy from the Netherlands, she could get me stroopwafels. Two thin cookie wafers with a layer of caramel in between, they're truly my favorite little pastry... thing. Served at room temperature, they're basically a chewy, over-sized cookie, but they're best in traditional Dutch fashion - get a hot mug of coffee (or tea, or cocoa) and cover the lip with the stroopwafel. The caramel inside will warm and gooify and absorb the aroma and flavor of your drink. Absolutely melts in your mouth.

I think I bought a tin of these when out visiting Zach a while ago, from some weird food import store near him, but the last time I'm sure I had them was about 5 years ago, when I was actually in Holland. But my co-worker came back today, with a little bag of stroopwafel in hand, just for me.

Wonderful, of course, but now I really want to go back to Holland.

It's a rare opportunity for people to choose their families. Most people only ever get to choose a spouse. With The Ogre and Sarah (Who is Awesome), I've been lucky enough to choose a brother and a sister. There's no law that ties us together, no public ceremony, no blood; just a simple choice and a promise.

My brother, my sister, today I drink to you.

Countdown: 64 days

Sometimes this sort of thing horrifies me...

...but I think this is just sublime.

Countdown: 63 days