BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Mandy looked over at me and said, “Merrrba… gimmin suey sass.”

I nodded and replied, “Shooba. Yooben neeb hat pemmer doo?”

Everyone else around the table just stared. Well, almost everyone. Some of them were slumped over in their chairs, or pitched forward with their faces in their plates. The Evil Redhead was among them. In fact, she had been the first to go after staring off into space for several minutes.

I readjusted my chopsticks – all eleven of them, or so it appeared to me – in my hand, then chased a hunk of steak around my plate, batting it from one side, then over to the other and back again. Finally I just gave up, stabbed it with one of the plastic sticks, then spent another three minutes trying to hit my mouth.

“Nom thiggen…” I muttered, waving the now empty, imitation ivory stick at the watery sauce on my plate.

“Ahm nobissed…” Mandy said with a nod

I stared at the sauce for a minute then asked, “Wunner by?”

Mandy didn’t answer me this time. She had already fallen out of her chair as she passed out and plopped onto the floor.

Okay, so I guess maybe I should rewind a few frames… Maybe even more than a few.

You see, we used to have an almost weekly get together with a group of friends, generally on a Friday or Saturday evening. We’d pick a “theme” for a meal, even if it was just potluck, and then cook together, eat together, and just generally hang out together. On this particular evening, as evidenced by the chopsticks in use, the theme was “Asian-American” food.

Now, I have to admit something here… I haven’t been entirely honest with you in the past. The truth is, in all of the blogs where I have pointed out that the Evil Redhead requires strict supervision in the kitchen, and would starve if there wasn’t something on hand to subject to the timed bursts of a microwave’s magnetron, I’ve been making it sound worse than it is.

The Tuna Helper incident notwithstanding…

So, it’s time I come clean: The Evil One prepares the best damn stir fry I have ever put in my mouth. Seriously. No kidding. Beats the holy hell out of Happy China Buffet, La Choy, Mandarin House, ad infinitum. You name an Asian-American restaurant out there and E K will whomp ’em good with her wooden spatulas and Wok.

Except that one time… And, as you are sure to have surmised, that one time is what this blog is all about… And, to be perfectly honest, it wasn’t ALL her fault. She just started the rice ball rolling, so to speak.

(Oh, and just so we are all on the same page – Yes, I know Sake is spelled Sake, not Sockee…)

The evening started out like any other weekly dinner gathering evening. Mandy and I were in the kitchen taking a backseat sous chef role to the Evil Redhead who was in charge of the meal, obviously due to her prowess with a wok. The rest of the crew were enjoying some before dinner drinks and wandering in and out of the kitchen to chat with us. As usual, we were having a before dinner drink or two ourselves.

Herein lies the problem – by this point in our marriage E K was already out of practice on her drinking AND she was imbibing on an empty stomach. Therefore, about halfway through preparation of one of the stir fry dishes, she crashed. Not hard, but she announced in no uncertain terms that she needed to sit down. This meant Mandy and I had to step up to the plate.

No biggie. I can cook, we all know that. Should be easy like pie… I mean, E K had the recipe sitting right out there on the counter, and several other folks were more than happy to roll up their sleeves and pitch in as well, lest E K beat them for not helping out. You know how she is…

Can you see where this is going yet? If not, keep reading… If so, still keep reading…

I jumped to the stove and took over the spatulas. One stir fry dish was already done, and Mandy was working on a batch of fried rice.

“Where did you leave off, Legs?” I asked my almost catatonic wife.

“Soggy,” she mumbled.

“Soggy?”

“Uhmmm-hmmm,” she said with a nod. “Sohhhggggeeeee.”

I ran down the list on the recipe and suddenly it made sense. Sake. Okay, all good. There was a bottle of it right there on the counter, so I tossed the sizzling meat around the wok then added the shot of sake called for on the ingredients. Back to the table I went to finish chopping the veggies.

“Do you want me to watch this?” Mandy called out.

I answered over my shoulder as the knife in my hand beat out a rhythm against the cutting board. “Yeah. I’ll be done here in just a second.”

“Where did you leave off?” she asked.

“Sake,” I told her.

“Okay.”

A few moments later I was tossing the veggies into the wok. However, instead of finding Mandy at the stove, one of our other friends was standing there, spatula in hand, looking somewhat lost.

“Where’s Mandy?” I asked.

“She had to use the bathroom. She asked me to watch the stove.”

“All good, I’ll take over now.”

“Thanks.”

E K mumbled something from behind, “Saaahhhhgggeeee.”

“What?” I asked, then looked at the recipe. “Oh yeah, Sake.”

I added a shot of Sake.

I could go on, as it didn’t end there, but I suspect you are all with me now if you weren’t already. Yep… When we compared notes the next day – post hangover, of course – we discovered that a recipe calling for 1 shot of sake had received something on the order of a half bottle of the rice booze and nowhere near enough stove top time to evaporate the alcohol – just enough to get it nice and warm…

Of course, it all worked out for the best. We all ended up drunk from the meal, so we had plenty of our other booze left over for the next dinner party…

More to come…

Murv

THE PUF REPORT: Part 3 of 5

As a rule, PUF always has a mascot.

Now, the thing about the mascot is that it changes every year. I’m not entirely sure what the first few mascots happened to be, because while I have been headlining the fest for something like 8 years, I came into the mix somewhere around the time of PUF #3.

Back in ’01, when #3 happened, the “mascots” were sheep. Not real sheep, mind you. Nobody wanted to clean up the sheep poo.  So, real grass eating wool makers were replaced by the next best thing – life-sized cardboard cutouts made in their likeness. But then, they eventually progressed not only into cutouts, but plush stuffed animals and plastic toys as well. Which is one of the things that drove the mascot diversity PUF is known for today. Even so, I believe sheep were still the mascot in ’02, as to this very day I have a nubbly little plastic novelty toy sheeplike thing that was somewhat of a party favor handed out at the fest.

The picture above is obviously not a sheep. It was taken in ’08, when aliens invaded PUF. Although, now that I think about it, sheep and little green men might have gotten along just fine. Well, maybe not gotten along per se, but I’m betting the alien dudes would have had some fun with the sheep. What the sheep would have thought of that is anyone’s guess. I suppose it would largely depend upon the individual sheep and… well… things we simply won’t go into here.

Uhh… Ahem… So, moving right along…

Of course, the point here is basically to illustrate that the mascots have become an important – and expected – fixture at the Festival. To that end, I’d like to offer the following quote directly from the Festival Organizer herself,  Tish Owen. In her book, Chasing The Rainbow: Facilitating A Pagan Festival Without Losing Your Mind, she states:

WHY ARE THERE ANIMALS AT PUF? – We really have no good answers to that question, except that it amuses us. We did not start out with an animal mascot or even a name. But over the years, we have had too many bagels donated, cooked pigs, a sheep incident, the fire, the accident, the flood, and then we just started adding the animals for fun. Then at some point, someone started killing the mascots and it has devolved. We have had: bagels, sheep, pigs, penguins, flamingos, Chihuahuas, and flying pigs!

There have been more, such as the aliens, since the publication of her book. And, as you can see here on the right, she wasn’t kidding about the mascot killings. A poor, inflatable blue-green dude met his demise on the road right outside the VIP cabin one night. The scene was odd since no cars had come by for several hours, yet there it was, flat as the proverbial pancake. It definitely made us wonder if it was perhaps a “staged accident”.

But, at least in this case the particular end met was a bit more swift. Among other victims of the “serial mascot killer” another alien was found in the walk-in freezer in the dining hall. It was frozen solid, and still had a… well… there’s simply no delicate way to say this… It still had an “anal probe” protruding from its rectal orifice, which prompted site investigators to conclude that the green dude had been tortured as well as frozen to death. Of course, this theory led to… Yeah, you guessed it… An Alien Autopsy.

Sometimes there have been notes from the killer. Sometimes not. I think it largely depends upon the particular killing – that being whether it was one of the planned murders, or merely an opportunistic sort of hack and slash.

Still, there are times when the method or arrangement of the corpsified mascot remains is a message unto itself. For instance, during the year of the flying pigs many a winged swine met a horrible and terrible fate. One in particular was the little piggy who had none. In point of fact, the reason he had none is because he was the roast beast. He was even layered between two slices of breand and served up to Tish herself in her lunch one day – ostensibly so she could “taste test” the roast pork that was to be served for dinner that evening. It’s quite possible you heard her laughing when she unwrapped the sandwich, no matter where you happen to reside. We definitely heard her from one end of the campground to the other, and many points beyond.

By now I’m sure you are wondering just exactly what all this has to do with “dingles”… Well, nothing at all really. But, we’ll get to them eventually…

This year, 2009, was a first for PUF mascots. You see, instead of sheep, or frogs, or chee-hoowah-hoowah’s, we had Pirates. That’s right, Pirates. Not Pie Rats. Although, Pie Rats could possibly be fun. But, I digress…

Since the mascot was actual human being type of people it made things a bit more difficult on the “serial mascot killer”. After all, if you “kill” a stuffed, plush penguin, all you do is make a mess. If you actually kill a festival attendee who is dressed as a Pirate, the sheriff shows up and there are hard questions demanding answers. Therefore, miniature rubber duckies with pirate garb molded onto them served as the victims. Them, and Peeps. Yeah, I know, it was sort of like Peep sacrilege, but what can ya’ do?

Anywho, moving right along, this year’s PUF had a fantastic lineup of guest authors. Kristin Madden, Dorothy Morrison, Raven Grimassi & Stephanie Taylor, Moi, and even Christopher Penczak. (Can anyone see where this is going?)

Well, just in case you haven’t caught on just yet, think about the following… Pirates are the mascot, we are a bunch of authors who like hanging out together, because we are authors we make a living with words, and we all  pretty much have severely warped senses of humor… And, we’re punny… Very punny… Ya’ there yet?

Yeah… We dubbed ourselves the Pirates of Penczak…

But, even through the “bad pun groans” wafting from my PC speakers I can still hear you asking, “But, Murv, what the hell does all this have to do with a dingle? And, moreover, what the hell is a dingle anyway?”

Well, to answer the first question, not a damn thing.

To answer the second, you’ll have to ask Raven and Stephanie, because you see, all I know is Raven won’t let Stephanie go into the dingle by herself…

More to come…

Murv

The next installment in THE PUF REPORT: Part 4 of 5 – Food, Glorious Food…