Recently in love Category

my aunt nin passed away a little over a week ago.

i don't necessarily believe in an afterlife. i don't necessarily not, either. i don't see much evidence for it, but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. i remain undecided.

afterlife or not, aunt nin has moved on to a better place. she was undeservingly afflicted with alzheimer's, and now that i've witnessed that several times in my family, i will say with no hesitation that it's not a pleasant way to be for the afflicted or for their families. at some point, there's so little left of the person that even being dead must be better. when someone's got a fatal but not-instantly-so gunshot wound or they're bleeding out from a missing limb, they can tell you they're suffering and that it's awful. with alzheimer's, they can't tell you they're suffering. they may not even actually be suffering. but if they're not, it's only because their mind is so horribly wrong that they don't realize it's gone and left them. there's no hope of recovery. there's no way out except the end of it all.

it's horrible for everyone involved and i've explored it in my imagination far more than i would have liked to. for aunt nin, it's all over now, and whatever came next for her has to be better than what she was up to the moment before, either terrible suffering or mindlessness. you see? there's no pleasantness to be had at all from the situation. so enough about that, it leads nowhere nice.

that's why it behooves us to remember not her end but her middle. i never knew her beginning, of course. but her middle is so intimately intertwined with my own beginning that her passing marks the passing of my own childhood. besides my parents, there's no person who has had so much influence on my life. my entire childhood was shaped by aunt nin. she was there for all of it, in one way or another. much of the best of it was directly her doing. my strongest and fondest memories all revolve around her.

i can't remember much from my childhood, but i can always remember floating in her pool, waiting for someone to arrive with take-out nachos from The Islands. she'd let us drink the fruit punch and eat the nachos in her pool. in the mornings, she'd bring us supreme crescents from jack in the box -- which i still crave to this day (i had one yesterday). i can't ever forget waking her up by dropping grapes into her snoring mouth. any holiday involving gifts revolved around aunt nin. her gifts were always the best, and the most anticipated, even if they never really were living pets as she liked to pretend.

and of course, the happiest and most memorable parts of my childhood were spent on the beach in Carlsbad, where for a summer or two she lent my parents her condo (or "the beach house" as we called it). we'd walk down to the beach and feast on fried zucchini and sand, i'd boogie board and build sand castles and drag giant kelp ropes around town. at night we'd load up bowls of yogurt with kix cereal and play crazy 8's, and i'd listen to the eurythmics "here comes the rain again" on my walkman, which was very likely a gift from aunt nin.

my best friend and childhood pet was the product of an accidental breeding of aunt nin's bouvier and a hapless standard poodle.

then there is the legendary travel of the schmeck family from california to the midwest to attend my cousin's wedding. i still have, and use, the suitcase she gave me for that journey. we walked through the airports and the shuttles and the planes, my dad, my aunt, my brother, and me, and introduced ourselves as the schmeck family. we had a grand old time being ridiculous. i'm still pretty ridiculous, and that love for being silly came straight from aunt nin. i never really knew her as an adult, but i think she didn't take life too seriously, and that's why she was so great with kids.

bugs bunny said you shouldn't take life too seriously, or you'll never get out of it alive. i think that's a maxim that aunt nin and i would have agreed upon.

she had her downs as well as her ups. she was quite the adventurer before i knew her, and in many ways unknown to me at the time, while i knew her. we drifted apart as i grew older and more selfish, and i'm sorry for that. alzheimer's removes the possibility of catching up with your sick relative. remember the times when we were happy? no, not really.

but i do. the happiest times of my childhood were all with or because of aunt nin, and they outshine almost all the rest. every time i miss being a little boy, i'm missing my aunt nin. because i didn't have one without the other. they were part of one package.

life is a cruel sonofabitch, taking away everything that it gives. our one power as fragile humans is to cherish our memories while we have them, to bask in the familiarity of objects and people. every time i smile in the mirror, i see my grandmother, i've got her smile. when i bike through the streets of my home town, as i did just days ago, i remember my aunt ruby, whose house i would bike to on the way home from school, to get a soda. when i taste peanut butter, i recall my grandpa, who would make the freshest peanut butter in his beloved cuisinart. when i see blueberries or mud, i recall my nana and pop, who would feed me the one with my cereal before i'd go out to their yard to play in the other. when my hair's a mess i see my uncle john. and of course, when i remember being happy as a kid, i hear aunt nin laughing. so many loved ones have passed, but they live on with me in the only way this world lets them.

their stories have ended, and the time for tears is nearing an end. there will always be time for more tears in the future. it is best to take the moments as they come when we can live without the waterworks.

ingredients:
large chicken breast, pounded
extra virgin olive oil
butter, don't skimp
3 hearty sprigs of fresh rosemary
fresh cracked pepper
(optional) aleppo pepper flakes
salt
finishing salt

in a heavy bottomed uncoated pan over medium heat, melt the butter and mix in the olive oil. fry a sprig of rosemary, add the pepper and the pepper. remove rosemary, turn the heat up to high, add the chicken breast. bring the breast up to temperature, lower heat back to medium. once the breast has formed a delicious heavy maillard crust, turn the breast. salt and pepper and pepper the chicken. lay remaining rosemary upon the breast, cover and cook till finished.

halve the breast, plate with the rosemary, sprinkle with finishing salt. pair with a carneros pinot noir and fresh broccoli.

serves TWO, if you know what i mean.

as soon as i declared so loudly how great my coffee was, that i doomed myself to never really knowing what I was drinking.

i went and checked my roasting log, and of course i was drinking a leftovers blend: a bunch of different beans left over from other roasts, mixed together then roasted. i recall that most of them were central/southern american and only one was african, but otherwise, I have no clue.

good coffee, like good life, is fleeting and impossible to reproduce.

step 1) listen to this
step 2) send an email to someone you haven't spoken with in a long time

repeat as necessary.

i am thankful for family, of course. family are the friends you get for free but shouldn't take for granted.

happy thanksgiving to everyone.

To Shpongle your enemies, see them Shpongled before you, and to hear the Shpongletations of their women!

Yes, sure, that's obvious, but is it better to be Shpongled Live with Raja Ram and Simon, or to be Shpongled on a nice sunny day while running?

Neo goes to a Shpongle concert.
"You think that's air you're breathing?"

Tough call!

i can have everything i want in life, as long as everything i want in life is to wake up next to my beautiful loving wife and go for a wonderful run in the mind-blowingly excellent california weather.

what is steel, compared to the hand that wields it?

though physical activity has been the cornerstone of my life for a decade now, i still view it as a recent introduction, and am constantly amazed at the bliss i can generate just by moving quickly through my environment.

the sun and the movement of my feet are the cures to all that ails me.

... and it sounds pretty good! long time, no see...

only
three
albums

a tragedy.

sorry i haven't been posting lately. too busy loving life.

and visiting missouri.