so what started out as a modest birthday celebration involving about 20 people is now blossoming, bloating into a party with a guestimated 100 people showing up. including neighbors and folk I haven’t heard from in a decade (since the last big birthday party, in fact). Today was crazy – we decided we needed a tent – for Saturday – so I got one and a very friendly guy delivered it and put it up by himself, which was impressive! we rented chairs, and tables too as our small house can barely hold a dozen people, and the weather in this part of the world is dicey this time of year. actually it’s dicey year round with the exception of dead winter, when it’s flat guaranteed to suck.

then I took a relaxing break and went to two consecutive and contiguous board meetings that would have been more efficient if they’d been in the reverse order. I had to spend 45 minutes explaining how paypal works to one group, which was exasperating and sort of breath-taking at the same time. I mean, wtf? don’t these people use the interwebs?? they’d never heard of it!

then off to PT which helped me some, and then the fun part of the day began. My long time fellow tippler (tipplerette?) and I walked into the local package liquor store to lay in supplies for the party. We are a known item there, as you will see. The owner was on his way to the bank, spotted us in the parking lot, and turned around to follow us in. We went straight to the Whisky section, happily followed by the owner. Without any hesitation we bought
Ardbeg 10 years
Edradour 10 years
Aberlour 12 years
Caol Ila 12 years
Talisker 10 years
Bunnahabhain 12 years
Clynelish 10 years
and
Oban 10 years.

Then things got difficult…should we splurge Glenmorangie 18 years? or the 21 year old Ardbeg? how about the new 18 year Laphroaig? or should we go nuts and get all three?

well, we settled on the 21 year Ardbeg, and decided to go on to sherries and wines, about which I know next to nothing. Fortunately the owner, a whisky man himself was happy to fetch out his best wino (yeah, I know there’s a fancy name for him, but I’m not gonna look up the spelling of sommelier or oenophile or whatever), who sorted out 5 bottles of white and red, sweet, dry and somewhere in between for us to add to the table. Then on to the sherries; after tasting and turning down a white port (Welch’s grape juice anyone?) we were given a couple of bottle of Bodegas Dios Baco Jerez Amontillado Sherry just because it’s mah birthday! [plus also if you adds up the price of the Scotch, they weren’t exactly taking a loss.]

We finished off our terrifyingly expensive spree by going over to the grocery store where a thin woman with iron grey hair spotted us sniffing all the cheeses. We told her what booze we’d bought and her remark was: well then, you need some cheese with some guts to it. So we added some aged gouda, aged provolone, a round of Stilton and a few little boxes of “Pie Anglais” (the Englisman’s Feet) to the cart. We tossed in some Guiness, Old Peculiar, and Grolsh for the heathens and now all we have left to do is build the bonfire and await developments!

and why I’m writing about this: is because I get high, really high, when I’m around people who love their drugs and their senses and have no trips about it. The Whisky-man is happy that he owns a liquor store and takes pleasure in his whisky—but hardly looks a boozer. The wine-guy (okay, I do have issues with wine, but getting past that) was happy to share his knowledge with us and match his wits against Mr. Whisky and me, making our wandering journey through the wine racks a real treat for all concerned: we mostly stood back and let the two men argue out what went with which, and then I picked, not by what they said, but by following their line of sight… the last bottle they looked at—that’s the one I bought!

and the same with the Cheese lady: she went and got us a hunk of cheese – the stinky Englishman cheese – which I have no idea about – but I trusted her, and I enjoyed just watching her mind work with our wine/whisky/sherry list, sorting through the options and coming up with a modest (well the amount we spent on cheese was modest) dessert tray. In the end, I’ll likely toss out most of the cheese, or give it away, and I already know that I’ll be giving away the undrunk wine, should any be left, as well as a bottle or two of the Scotch; it was the happiness and open sensuality of these shopkeepers that gave me my pleasures today, for I have learned that we must take our pleasures when we can, and every time I do something which is “once in a lifetime” (like drop $600+ on booze for one day) it invariably opens the door into another ‘once in a lifetime’ opportunity—and one that simply would not have come about had I not taken the first foolish, irresponsible step off the straight and narrow path of common sense.

may you all do likewise, today, and twice again tomorrow!

wow, this death thing is sorta staying around. could have to do with the fact that my mom has lung cancer, and that I spent 3 hours last night working with a man who will soon have his throat removed due to cancer--and when his wife heard the news her words were "thank god! now you'll finally die and I can get out of this shit hole and get a life!" which is just wrong and a double wrong given that I've known this man for 30 years and know him to be a kindhearted mild mannered person (as his children have also told me--so I'm not thinking he's showing one face to me and another at home, which is too often the case) so anyhow, I ran across this poem, and it really struck me, so here it is, from a master of the word:

On Cremation of Chögyam Trungpa, Vidyadhara.

I noticed the grass, I noticed the hills, I noticed the highways,

I noticed the dirt road; I noticed the car rows in the parking lot
I noticed the ticket takers, noticed the cash and the checks and credit cards,
I noticed the buses, noticed mourners, I noticed their children in red dresses,
I noticed the entrance sign, noticed retreat houses, noticed blue and yellow flags
Noticed the devotees, their trucks and buses, guards in khaki uniforms,
I noticed the crowds, noticed misty skies, noticed the all –pervading smiles and empty eyes –
I noticed the pillows, coloured red and yellow, square pillows round and round –
I noticed the Tori gate, passers-through bowing, a parade of men & women in formal dress –
Noticed the procession, noticed the bagpipe, drums, horns, noticed high silk head crowns and saffron robes, noticed the three piece suits,
I noticed the palanquin, an umbrella, the stupa painted with jewels the Colours of the four directions –
Amber for generosity, green for karmic works, I noticed the white for Buddha, red for the heart –
Thirteen worlds on the stupa hat, noticed the bell handle and umbrella, the empty head of the white cement bell - Noticed the corpse to be set in the head of the bell –
Noticed the monks chanting, horn plaint in our ears, smoke rising from astep the firebrick empty bells –
Noticed the crowds quiet, noticed the Chilean poet, noticed a rainbow,
I noticed the guru was dead,
I noticed his teacher bare breasted watching the corpse burn in the stupa,
Noticed morning students sad cross legged before their books, chanting devotional mantra’s, Gesturing mysterious fingers, bells and brass thunderbolts in their hands,
I noticed flames rising above flags and wires and umbrellas and painted orange poles,
I noticed, I noticed the sky, noticed the sun, a rainbow around the sun, light misty clouds drifting over the sun –
I noticed my own heart beating, breath passing through my nostrils
My feet walking, eyes seeing,
I’ve noticed smoke above the corpse, I’ve noticed fired monuments
I noticed the path downhill, I’ve noticed the crowd moving toward the buses
I noticed food, lettuce salad, I noticed the teacher was absent,
I noticed my friends, I’ve noticed our car, I’ve noticed the blue Volvo,
I’ve noticed a young boy hold my hand
Our key in the motel door, I noticed a dark room, I noticed a dream
And forgot, noticed oranges lemons and caviar at breakfast,
I noticed the highway, sleepiness, homework thoughts, the boy’s nippled chest in the breeze
As the car rolled down hillsides past green woods to the water.
I noticed the sea, I noticed the music - I wanted to dance.”

Allen Ginsberg; “On the Cremation of Chogyam Trungpa Vidyadhara” (1987)

so this isn't the blog I've been thinking about posting, but, as my best friend "gouglas" in 2nd grade used to say... "I'm all thunk out" I've been a little less inclined to write here, due to having to write heavy stuff on other sites, notably a message board for the top astrologers in the country--folks, friends and foes I've been battling and conniving with for nigh onto 40 year in some cases. yeah, I'm THAT old... and one thing that's come up a lot is meditation. so I'm thinking to write something here about that. among other things, I teach a class on advanced Hindu thought, which starts with a 3 hour silent, motionless meditation (with a 15 minute break in the middle for those of weak knee). That's meditation. not humming to yourself or visualizing wonderful chakras. that's phantasy and relaxation, which is good stuff too--stuff to do before you seek true stillness, but it ain't the same. so I'm not writing about that ... yet. i might, if anyone is interested...

instead, I'm gonna write about my Uncle Bob and Aunt Barb. characters. I could write about my mom having lung cancer, but that's a downer, and no real 'story' there that's a new one by any measure. or about the board meetings and publishing dramas, but those are board meetings and publishing dramas.

I'd rather write about Bob. Old Bob is 80 years old, and surprised the hell out of me by asking me to visit when I was in Santa Fe this year. He lives 'a ways' up the road from Taos somewhere with his high school sweetheart. I have only seen the man twice before in my life, the last time was 30 years ago. that 'old thing.' oh wait, I did glimpse him in passing at my father's funeral a decade ago. but we were on opposite sides of a big church, looking for the exits.

Bob is my dad's youngest brother and the runt, or spoiled brat, of the family. my dad was born when his mom was 15, and bob is 16 years his junior, so there's a big gap, and my dad was close (duh) to his mom, did a lot of parenting as HIS dad was a railroad man on the A,T & SF back in the day. and didn't come home in a straight line, when he did come home. damn yankee...

bob learned to fly before he could drive, because he could. he is a natural mechanic, and just got in an airplane when he was 14 and took off. and landed... mostly... upside down. that earned him his first after school job--paying for the 'borrowed' airplane. but the owners also took interest in him and taught him how to fly. he taught his older sister and she taught her older brother, and my dad was out hunting for food (literally) for the dirt-poor family and didn't ever get to learn the flying thing.

Dad and his brother got caught in Bataan, and spent WWII in prison camp. nasty. maybe a blog there someday. uncle Bob was 12 at the time, so didn't get put in prison until the Korean war-and that was only for a little extra AWOL action in the DMZ in Korea. a man after my own heart.

::break to the recent past:: walked into his cabin, which was a ramshackle affair, and saw that his "library" consisted entirely of sci-fi and murder mystery paperbacks. Here's the thing. I own every one of these books! and none were on the shelves I don't own, and haven't read. cept maybe the last few 'dune' spinoffs...

so I learned a few things from old Bob. #1, that he's a rough and tumble guy, as is his wife.
::digression:: her dad had a red ration sticker on his car during WWII which meant all the gas he could buy, because he was the delivery boy for various things wanted at Los Alamos. He took advantage of this by running gold miners and their stuff up into the hills after hours. "their stuff consisted of four cases of dynamite, moonshine, and blasting caps" Old Barb's Dad would put one kid on each case of dynamite, his wife on the moonshine holding a big bowl of potato salad and the baby in her lap, and they'd go tearing off road out to the miners. "this way, if the thing ever blows up, we'll all go" he reasoned.... :: end digression.

so unlike my Dad who was a CHRISTIAN first and foremost, last and hindmost and all parts in between, Uncle Bob has a natural allergy to Churches and their contents. except maybe the wine. which I can relate to. The best day I ever had in church was the day it caught fire, and I managed to "rescue" 6 cases of communion wine before the fire department got there. kept me relaxed for several weeks thereafter in high school.. but I never did like cheap wine after that binge.

Bob spent his life problem solving for NASA; as he puts it: "when something bad happened and somebody got hurt in a lab, they'd send me in to see if whatever happened was still happening" this led to some hair raising, hair-removing, hair singeing stories, some of which might of actually happened. some of which probably mostly happened. at any rate, Ol' Bob eventually retired, and commenced to do re-enactments of the Civil War ... in New Mexcio... that hotbed of Confederacy. mostly this involved dressing up in a blue shirt, and drinking until he fell off the horse, or so it seems to me. he spoke a lot about his years in NASA and little about family. especially my parents. who, being CHRISTIAN didn't really approve of him. I wish I'd known that sooner, say, when I was 8 or 9--I would have hitched down to where he lived, instead of living a double life until I could escape the bible-belters.

the second thing I learned from Uncle Bob was that my Grandma was a tremendous cook! who knew!??! Whenver we visited her, we got the most god-awful bland frozen-thawed-frozen salty food I have ever eaten. she BAKED frozen peas IN THEIR PLASTIC BAG which gave them a certain memorable flavor and texture.
Now I know why. My mom complained in her dainty way, that the food was too spicy for her and her children. My Grandma by the way always said "chillrn" when referring to us; JJ Cale almost says it right.

when I told Bob of my efforts to find a restaurant that serves a fiery and respectable chiles rellenos in SF, he was surprised to learn of my preference. years of drinking, dousing everything in tabasco and 14 years of Camel Straights will do that to a palate. I love hot food, albeit not habenero hot; about 1/2 that hot, but more than jalapeno--usually a LOT more. So when I was eating these NEXICAN meals in SF, looking for NewMexican food or even real border TexMex, and getting touristCheese instead, I was not a happy diner. I did find a few places, but none that I lit candles in front of. So I told Bob all this and he said that my Grandma and my Aunt make full on 3-alarm water-won't-help chiles. all the time. and that the only time she cooked bland food, or used frozen products is when my mom and us visited, because of my mom's first remarks to her. DAMN I wisht I couldve known my Gma's real cooking. I bet I would like it.

So I already knew a bunch of tales about my grandparents, about how my Grandma only got spanked once because when her dad hit her, she bit him and said she'd do it again if he hit her again, and about how she cussed out my Granpa for being drunk again, and how he was growing petrified wood for the family, which now my nephew has--we figure in about 10 generations we'll have our our personal petrified wood stick, and about how my granpa drove the last steam engine in NM, and about how my granma made amazing (and untasted by me) pies, and about how my dad nearly blew his brother's head of with a shotgun when they were 3 and 5, and how a meteor really did hit the garage (and I have a peice of it) and like that.

the new stories weren't about family so much, except about bob and the airplane and about the job he got at the railyards greasing axles that got him enough money to get some new boots that let him go on a date with Barb and how that was that. it was the retelling of them, the gestures, the smiles and faint southern tingles and jangles in his voice that echoed the long lost accents and language and motions of my grandpa and grandma; that's what I wish I knew how to write about. seeing him was seeing not my father, who was a righteous, good man, but a perfesser, and not a man of the earth as was his father, and his father before him. that gnarly stooped hard-bitten, bad-languaged straight shooting (bear, elk, squirrel, road signs) often taciturn backbone and hipbone of my family was good to touch, for good luck for my own aging. for I am aging, and to age into the kind of weatherbeaten old tree with a few good fruit still coming forth each year until the last, that was what I learned from Uncle Bob

boy, I seem to be wrapped up in the past these days! My wife and I went to Colorado to deal with my 86 year old mom, who's just given up driving. She told us lots of stories about the dust bowl, the depression, and pre-war El Paso Texas. A story she likes to repeat is the one about my grandpa who, during the depression, bought a house sight unseen for $700 in Cloudcroft (it's gone now). He came home and told his triple-Scorpio wife (not that he thought of her that way): "let's go see what I bought." What he had purchased was a three-story 7 bedroom house in the high mountains, a place that stayed in the family for quite some time. My mom said that she used to sit on the trestle over the gorge with Bill Mauldin (the WWII cartoonist) and throw rocks at the cars on the road. Of course if you stayed too long on the trestle, the train would come by and smash you, but that was part of the fun of sitting there! She talked on and on for hours: I put a photograph album in front of her and looked over her shoulder with my DVD camera. I hope that much comes out. She has had an amazing life, and at this point her clarity about her youth is strong and fascinating, if also depressing.

meanwhile, we were staying in a local hotel and every day my wife would get an omelet. about the 3rd day I noticed this really old fellow with only a few teeth standing by the omelet station. I don't eat eggs, but for some reason I struck up a conversation with him. Gradually I learned that he was 1) Greek, and 2) had emigrated to NYC in the 1920's, and then moved upstate--really upstate to... Ithaca! which is basically our home town at this point. Then it came out that he had owned the State Street Diner for 37 years, and had sold it in 2001 at the age of 70:



this Diner is a huge piece of Ithaca night life. Not college, not goth, not youngsters so much, but more like a Switzerland for town and gown, for cops and robbers. Open all night, it served the kind of diner menu you'd find on "Triple-D" (in joke for foodies); nowadays its menu is a bit more upscale--a bit more--not a lot. but back in the day you could nurse a cup of coffee and a plate of french fries for hours in the deep night, waiting to sober up, or just thinking about stuff. Stephanos, the then owner, is a small man with a big heart. he told me he took a vacation once -- to see the Pope in Rome -- and didn't like being away from his kitchen that long, so never did it again! He somehow had a presence that made the Diner a peaceable kingdom in the land of the damned, and a place you could (almost) always afford to go.

so he was pleased to find out that I knew and loved the diner--had been a regular there for much of the earlier time he owned it (after a while I moved into the country, and had less reason to be in town after midnight). At that point the head waiter of this hotel restaurant took me aside and said that he was amazed that I'd pried this story out of Stephanos so quickly. He asked for a picture - which I'll upload here if I ever find my camera-link cord again of Stephanos to keep around, and made arrangements for me to take a bunch of pix of the Ithaca Diner.. because... In May Stephanos and his wife (who works in the laundry in the basement of the hotel) is gonna retire at the age of 77! The headwaiter said that he wanted to present a plaque to Stephanos, give him a copy and put one on the wall of this otherwise sterile and cookie-cutter hotel restaurant. I agreed, and the headwaiter said: "this is the first day in a long time I would have come to work for free" by the time we left, my wife, Stephanos and the headwaiter were all a little teary-eyed, and i was feeling just full of some great joy. a joy at being able to tell this man how much his place meant to me as a young student barely scraping by, and as a young man, also barely scraping by. really a remarkable morning all the way around!

So, for a change, here's a blog from today.
my banner or whatever sentence has been "feels sorry for his cat Stench" for a while now. Today we put him down.
He started out life named Admiral Whitey. I live in the back country with my wife and friends on 60 acres amidst many larger farms, forest land, and gorges. Not your mother-in-law's New York for sure. we live on a dirt road, thank you very much, and measure distances to houses in miles, not feet. so we get a lot of barn cats and strays. over the years we've taken in many and kept about a dozen or so at various times.

the most outstanding brood we've ever had was Willow, Bristol, Miss Moop Twisticat and Admiral Whitey. Bristol was a wild unneutered male that weighed in at 22 pounds of total attitude and muscle. Like our current 18 pounder Waylon, his food of choice is fresh-caught rabbit. These boys are professionals. He got his name from the Bristol speedway racetrack, because he was FAST. He was mated to Willow, a tail-less shorthaired tortoise, and the smartest cat I've ever known; more than that, the wisest, and one who walked through walls, as you'll see. She birthed 9 kittens, of which we ended up keeping two and getting one returned. Twisticat had an early ear infection and tended to walk in circles. This soon got him killed in the road, which often takes our animals. Dirt it may be, we country-folk rip down this sucker at 80 mph of a summer night. the deer help weed out those with alcohol slowed reflexes.

That left us with four. We didn't know about the kittens when they were first born, as Willow kept them well away from the house for a long, long time--too long for there to be proper bonding. we searched but never found her hiding place. the first of the 9 to find us was a brave little white kitten who walked up to me and demanded something from me with a strong meow. I gave him food, and thus began a 16 year relationship of servitude to the ginger cat I misnamed Admiral Whitey. I should have stopped with Admiral, but you know how it is with cat names. The second was Miss Moop, a full crazy calico with long hair. she came playful out of the barn one morning and bumped into my shoe. as her eyes traveled upward to take in the full height of this hoooman, her jaw literally dropped open (never seen another cat do that!). she stood in glazed terror when I scooped her up to hold her in my hand. this response also marked her lifelong caution and aloofness from humankind. her personal addiction was frogs, and in the springtime she would gorge on the peeper and get absolutely stoned on their toxins for days. a regular hippy cat if ever there was. we all tried to seduce her into companionship but she would tolerate no such intimacy. she accepted proximity and would tolerate being petted, so long as she remained safely on the floor. She was totally gorgeous. We figure in their next life she will be a total babe and her brother will be the lame red-headed high-jumper that just can't deal with girls at all.

Well, time passed [say 7 years] and Bristol, then Willow died. A week after Willow died--hunted down by coyotes--she came to me in a dream, and sat on the right side of my armchair. this is where she sat when she wanted me to open some door or other for her. when she wanted food she sat on the left side of the chair. like i said, she was smart. well i got up in the dream and opened 'a door' and that was that. until mid-morning when we got the call that my wife's mother had died during the night.

We then lived with Miss Moop (who got her name because that's what she said: ''moop" -- a very genteel and quiet sort of meow) and Admiral Whitey. By now his name had deteriorated into Admir-bobble Whiney or just "Bobbles" He was cursed with an unfortunately whiney voice which did nothing for his prestige. Other than that, though, he was one tough hombre, driving away cats, raccoons, possums, and skunks from under the house; hunting down squirrels in the attic and such like. He saw the vet so often we left a carrier there and just swapped them out for return trips! so he was a tough brave little fellow, weighing in at about 9 pounds. They were joined by two barn cats: Waylon, a coal-black highwayman tomcat and Murray a born snugglepuss. both were tamed and Big W has replaced Bristol as the Big Cat on Campus. He's slow, and stupid, but whatever he hits once never gets up for a second swat. He lives mostly on birds and rabbits, and is an excellent ninja cat hiding in shadows until the last second.

So Moop got an eye infection that escalated rapidly into the loss of her eyeball and then the disintegration of her face. this is a cancer produced from an STD and sunlight, or so they tell me. her dignity and sensitivity could not long tolerate her appearance and pain, so we elected to put her down--the first time we've done that in all the 20 named cats that have lived with us. If the road doesn't take them, old age will. We have all their ashes in boxes in the kitchen. I want to put their little skulls in a glass bowl, but my wife thinks that's morbid (as opposed to keeping them near the fancy dinnerware!). Anyway, we have a nice traveling vet terrifyingly named Dr. Bury-em (Barium but that's how it sounds), who came to the house, quietly joined us with Moop in the cat sick-room we created many years ago, and after a short while, sedated her, then dispatched her. After we sat shiv for a while, we moved Moop's body to a small box to be taken away for cremation and low and behold there was a 3 inch golden statue of Kwan Yin lying directly under her. We were moved to tears by the secret kindness of Dr. Barium to have slipped this little guide under Moop to help her passage. I called her and heard a long silence on the line--she had no knowledge of this statue! To this day we have no knowledge of where it came from or how it got there, but I suspect her mother brought it to her from the other side.

So her brother soon got the same cancer, but being made of sterner stuff clearly had absolutely no intention of being stopped by it. We therefore made a pact with him a year ago to stay the course and take his lead on what to do. Over the summer great hunks of flesh and fur fell off his face, so that by fall half his face was nothing but raw oozing flesh that had a slight blood-odor to it. His eye fell out and when he shook his head bad things happened. but the rest of him was intact, and he continued hunting fussing with the other cats, demanding attention from me and the like. It got increasingly hard to hold him and we soon had his habitual sleeping areas draped in rags and towels that had to be washed weekly. in September I was sure he was finished, but all that had finished with the expansion of the cancer. it then started to creep inward and the surface of his face putrified. Soon a slow drip of liquidized flesh and ichor dripped off his chin as he walked around, and the odor became an unbearable sour rotting-flesh stench. I think Zombies would have run from him. He didn't care so much, but now it was impossible to breathe around him at all; we had Tibetan incense going by the box whenever we hung out with him, and he started to just eat and sleep and ask for attention--no more outside activity or attention to the other cats. Naetheless he remained wiry-strong and utterly willful, and it was clear he had no interest in being dead. I bought him a little Anubis doll to get him used to the idea, but he refused its company.

Then in January the ichor dried up and his face became mummified (aren't you glad you're reading this?--we called him Stenchly Griz or Grisly Stench at this time--and he answered to both). everytime he drank water we had to throw it out because it turned slimy yellow. now he was simply curled up in a tight ball and staggering over to the food dish and back; cleaning himself, using the litter and occasionally getting petted. He still purred when petted and was skilled at showing up when someone squeamish visited the house -- like us for example! Be that as it may we tried to stay with it, and the Vet agreed that if he maintained his behavior he was okay to keep alive. then last week his other eye began to really fail, and he could no longer easily find his food dish. even so, I was reluctant to take away what was bound to be only a few last weeks from him after honoring his intent thus far. and honor it was indeed, for his will and indifference to his state was just magnificent. and then on valentines day I dreamt his mother again, who once more came and sat on the right hand side of my armchair and gave me SUCH a look that I knew it was time.

I called the vet and the appointment was set; today we sat with him in the morning and I told him what was to come; he gradually relaxed in my arms and breathed very comfortably and purred very deeply for quite some time. then his head got so hot I could barely keep my hand on it and thereafter he was quiet. We then loaded him into the cat carrier one last time, which usually was a battle best fought wearing welder's gloves, but today he went in absolutely fearlessly. he made never a sound on the way to the vet. a first in 16 years. he was sedated in about 3 seconds, and was gone in another 2. so quiet. so clean, so free. I think his spirit left his body when my hand got hot, for it is said that the top of the skull is our doorway out of the body, and I have very good reason to believe that is so.

so goodbye Admiral Whitey, by all the Gods that Matter, you surely earned your name in the end, and shall now surely be rebirthed by your extraordinary mother into a form far better than the one you have shed.

Reading a blog, I recalled the following:
A young (8-year-old) vegetarian wrote me the following:

Has there ever been anything as lovely as a pancake?
It has entered our language in so many ways:
“Flat as a pancake”
“Pancake makeup”
and the most important of all:
Pancake Breakfast!!!
We do not hear of “tofu breakfasts” being offered to the community!
No one is “flat as a tofu!” or wears “tofu makeup” to enhance their Natural Beauty!
Pancakes are found in every country and countryside – with such magical names as:
Flapjacks, Griddle-cakes, Johnny-cakes, Pitas, Pizzas, Chapatis, Nan, Sopapillas, Tortillas, Navajo Bread, Crepes, Latkes.. and on and on.
On the other hand tofu remains tofu everywhere. Why? Because while nourishing, flat, and white, like the pancake – its B-0-R-I-N-G!!!!
Nobody likes tofu and strawberries, tofu and peaches, German Tofu, Potato Tofu, Belgian Waffle tofu, tofu and maple syrup, cold tofu and sugar… but just add a Pancake to your day and you’ve joined with the International Community of Them What LOVES Breakfast!
THE END