Are you Sally?

Conversation overheard at lunch today:

"Are you Sally?"

"Yep, I'm Sally."

"Forgive me for asking. I don't trust my memory."

"So you're Sally?"

"Yep, I'm Sally."

"Thank you. You're so good to me."

"Are you Sally?"

"Yep, I'm Sally."

"I have to ask questions 'cause I don't trust my memory."

"So you're Sally?"

"Yep, I'm Sally."

"Thank you. The day you were born you made me so happy."

"Are you Sally?"

"Yep, I'm Sally."

"You're so good to me. Thank you."

Thank you, Sally, for taking your mom to lunch today.

The price of a broken promise

My friend's father's funeral was today, 2:00 p.m.

The last thing I said to her and her mother last night at the funeral home was, "I'll be praying for you tomorrow."

I got hit with a major problem when I walked in the door at work this morning. No time for lunch, or supper either. I didn't get home until 9:30 p.m.

And then I remembered about the funeral. And that I had forgotten my promise. I wonder if, one hundred years from now, the time I spent working on today's problem will offset the damage of the promise I broke?

Local couple photos tsunami in Thailand

Additional information here.

In the valley of the shadow of death

A friend's dad passed away yesterday morning.

Zelda, Lovett, Dora, and I went to the funeral home tonight for visitation. Visitation is something I'll never get used to. I never know what to say. It seems sacrilegious to stand within earshot of a casket, catching up with people I haven't seen since the last visitation, but that's what we do. We stand around, offer condolences, extend pleasantries to fellow visitors, and then slip into the night, thankful that we aren't the hosts of this bizarre ritual but mindful that tomorrow night we very well could be.

My friend and her mother epitomized strength in adversity, though they have been preparing for the inevitable for some months now. I remember when Zelda's mother died. She was sick for almost a year and we knew it was grave and still when the call came it was as if it were a surprise. It was a trying experience, her visitation. Zelda and I didn't grow up together, so practically everyone there was a stranger to me. Most of them said things to Zelda like, "Why didn't y'all call and tell me your mother was sick?" as if we all had spare time and the presence of mind to do such a thing. Then, about a week after the funeral, Zelda's dad began to receive envelopes in the mail containing homemade obituaries that people had cut out of the newspaper and covered with contact paper. It amazed me that more than one person did this, as if Zelda's dad needed a souvenir bookmark to commemorate the occasion or something. I'm sure the people meant well, but at the time it was more than a little creepy.

I guess I'm so uncomfortable with death because I'm so sheltered from it. There aren't homicide bombers on every corner of my neighborhood. Murders happen across town and are no closer than my TV screen. I don't kill any of my own food. I don't go near hospitals unless absolutely necessary. So, death and I aren't on speaking terms.

I cannot begin to comprehend 10,000 of my neighbors dying at once. I can barely cope with one at a time.

Uh, did you keep the receipt for this?

I've never understood the mentality of having to return unwanted gifts the day after Christmas.

What's the rush? Are people afraid that the junk is going to grow on them if they keep it more than 24 hours? That maybe someone will think they actually like it if they retain possession of it?

I despise the commercialism of Christmas anyway. Especially in our consumer, gotta-have-it-now-whether-I-can-afford-it-or-not society. I personally don't want or need much that I don't already have. My life is too cluttered as it is. I certainly don't need more stuff to make it complete. I don't want to fight crowds to get stuff and I sure don't want to fight them to take stuff back.

Can I redeem my gift cards online?

We moved into a new house this summer and I bought some furniture for Zelda's birthday/Christmas (don't panic, ladies, that's what she asked for). So she wouldn't feel left out on Christmas morning I bought her a small gift for under the tree: Frank Stitt's Southern Table cookbook. Stitt is owner and chef of Highlands Bar and Grill in Birmingham, and many people credit him with catalyzing a cultural renaissance in the Magic City when his restaurant opened in the early '80s.

Now, Zelda and I are both from simple stock. The closest we come to old money is when the convenience store gives us faded, wrinkled bills in change when we buy Icees, our thrice-weekly late-night treat. But I promised Zelda when we were dating that I'd show her the world, and for the most part I've done that. Our families thought we fell off the end of the earth when we moved to the big city. They think they need a passport to visit us. They'd die to know that we spend the occasional $50 on a single meal at fancy, smansy restaurants where the silverware isn't shrink-wrapped in plastic with individual salt and pepper packets. Why, we've even been know to order appetizers: you know, food to eat while you're waiting on your food.

I didn't have any vacation left for the holidays this year, so we treated our hometown as a mini-vacation. Last night we took in Zoolight Safari at the Birmingham Zoo. Half a million Christmas lights and a cold train ride that we look forward to each year. Nothing says Christmas quite like staring at an outline of a multicolored rhinoceros from a slow-moving train in 27 degree weather.

One of our favorite places to eat is Silvertron Cafe in the Forest Park neighborhood. We ate lunch there today. It was one of those laid-back, discussion laden lunches with my family that I really needed. The noon news was on TV over the bar, and Lovett and I discussed this past weekend's travel fiascoes with US Air and Comair, the Ten Commandments Robe, and of course, the Sumatran earthquake and tsunami.

Which makes wanting to stand in customer service lines instead of spending time with my wife and kids all the more mysterious to me.

Not a creature was stirring...

It is quiet in the house. The communion bread and cup have been passed, the gifts opened, breakfast eaten. Lovett got a video game, so we won't see him again until he's 18. Dora got bunches of doll stuff and a Mary Poppins DVD. Zelda didn't sleep well last night and she is taking a nap. I filled up the bird feeders so the chickadees and titmice and the finches that are still around will have a nice Christmas buffet to jumpstart their little metabolisms in this cold wind.

It is quiet in the house. In my little corner of the world, there is peace. Thank you, Jesus.

Merry Christmas to you all.

Homeland Security: Alert Level Green

Zelda was busy mixing up some spinach dip when I got home from work this afternoon.

Yummy! I thought, as I read the mail. I love me some good spinach dip.

We sat down to dinner and I dipped a generous portion onto my plate and grabbed a hunk of Hawaiian loaf that Zelda used instead of a bowl. I scooped up some dip and popped it into my mouth. It was, honestly,...

...a little disappointing.

Now, I know good spinach dip when I taste it. I'm a connoisseur of good spinach dip. And Zelda has made good spinach dip many times. Good, as in take-it-to-parties-and-hear-people-brag-on-it-and-beg-for-the-recipe good. We've had to fight off the urge to dig into it in the car on the way to parties before, and pray for leftovers to nosh on the way home.

Unfortunately, the Christmas '04 version wasn't all that. Even with a bag of chips.

I tried to be diplomatic while hiding my disappointment, but there was no way I could finish the mound of green on my plate. I had a flashback to childhood and an eerily similar situation:

I sat down to supper one night and noticed a bowl of something green. I reached for it, for I love green vegetables. Always have. I can't think of one green vegetable that I don't love (well, maybe English peas, which I only like). Okra, broccoli, turnip greens, mustard greens, collard greens, green beans, snow peas, bell peppers, cucumbers, green tomatoes, green onions, cabbage -- I see one of those and I'm all over it. So I grabbed the bowl and raked about half of it onto my plate, clutched my fork and shoveled a big bite of...

...the vilest thing I have ever put into my mouth. "What is this?!?" I choked.

"It's collard kraut," explained Mrs. DePaul. "You like it?"

"No, it's disgusting!"

"Well, you'd better learn to like it, because you're going to eat all of it that's on your plate," said Mr. DePaul.

As I contemplated the impossible task before me, I tried to determine how collards (which I loved, as I've explained) and kraut (ditto, though kraut is not normally green) could be combined into such a culinary travesty. I began to understand that there was no kraut in collard kraut, but that somehow collards had been krauted, which apparently sends them into a defensive mode similar to those poisonous frogs that cause a psychedelic frenzy when dogs lick them.

And then I protested. It had been an honest mistake. I thought it was spinach. I'd never even heard of collard kraut. But Mr. DePaul still made me eat it. For being greedy, I guess.

He made his point. I paused for some time whenever I faced a bowl of anything green. I'd pretend to stir it up while inhaling its bouquet for identification purposes. I even looked twice at green jello. Thirty years later I thought I was safe.

I asked Zelda, "Is this your normal recipe?" which immediately sent her into a defensive mode that would probably have caused a psychadelic frenzy had I licked her, but that wouldn't have been a good example for Lovett and Dora.

She said it was the normal recipe, but I think she left something out. I tried to explain that the mound of uneaten dip on my plate was testament to my expectation of good spinach dip, which up to now her record has been perfect. I don't think she bought it, though.

I think the homeland security alert around my house will be green for the time being.

Stop O'Hair...er, Save Della...er, Help Dr. Dobson!

I received my thrice-annual e-mail about RM2493, the bogus FCC petition to ban religious broadcasting.

In its earliest incarnation, the blame for this petition was placed in the hands of Madalyn Murray O'Hair, famous atheist. Then, after her mysterious disappearance and subsequent death, the fate of Touched by an Angel was at stake. Now, for whatever reason, Focus on the Family's Dr. James Dobson gets to carry the mantle of "Protector of the Airwaves."

It would be mildly annoying if this was my first experience with this lame spam. Unfortunately, I've been dealing with it before I knew what e-mail was. I threw away stacks of mimeographed petitions from an information table in a small-church foyer every time they reappeared, after I heard a local radio pastor in the late '80s admonish his listeners for wasting time and energy refuting this non-threat. I haven't forgotten his rebuke.

Between 1975 and 1995, the FCC received over 30 million pieces of mail about this petition. Thirty million. Can you imagine how many hungry people could have been fed using the money that was wasted paying postal workers to sort and deliver 30 million pieces of mail? And the gas, oil, tires, and maintenance on their vehicles? The electricity? The wasted paper? The FCC personnel hired to handle the 30 million pieces that entered their facilities? The storage and landfill space required to handle the mail after the fact? It boggles the mind...

So now, we simply waste internet bandwith on it. Three times a year, on average, in my case. Not to mention the bandwith I waste forwarding the links to Snopes Urban Legends Reference Pages about it. Here, for your enjoyment, are the Snopes and Focus on the Family pages concerning RM2493:

Petition to Ban Religious Broadcasting
Dr. Dobson's Denial

Please remember: Friends don't let friends spam other friends with bogus e-mail petitions. Only you can prevent incendiary misinformation.

Help a brother out.

IV Centenary of Don Quixote

IV centenary of Don Quixote

Four hundred years ago today, the first edition of Cervantes' Don Quixote rolled off a Madrid printing press (well, maybe rolled is too technically descriptive of the printing process in 1604). Spain and several other European nations will commemorate the fourth centenary of the world's first best-seller with events throughout 2005.

Spanish Culture Ministry

Whuttup, ppl?

i blog c but i dnt slo dwn fer punk2ashun r spln r grammr r nuthin cuz my ppl reed me jus fine wuhout it. i chat n go 2 da mall n uz all my cellfon mins n i dont need alotawurdz to tell u bowt it. got oc tivod. c u l8tr. by.

(If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.)

Seven Day Forecast

We are officially in our Birmingham winter weather pattern where the meteorologists forecast the possibility of snow in 5 - 7 days, which causes everyone to storm the grocery stores for milk and bread and to cancel school and concerts and church services in anticipation of travel problems, and when it doesn't snow 5 - 7 days later because all the ingredients didn't come together (which is weatherspeak for it either wasn't cold enough or the moisture didn't arrive in time or the moisture arrived too soon and evaporated in the dry air or the snowpack up north was sparse so the air wasn't as cold as we thought), everyone gets hacked because it was supposed to snow but didn't and they get mad at the incompetent mets, and before you know it, April arrives and we dodge tornadoes until July when the temperature stays at 95 degrees until October when the hurricanes hit and cause massive floods that last until November when the secondary tornado season blows all the warm air away in time for the possibility of snow in 5 - 7 days.

Or, as Calvin Coolidge said, "Everyone complains about the weather but nobody does anything about it."

Do you hear what I hear?

Zelda and the kids met me at the door this evening with this declaration: "We are clean, we are dressed, and we want to go somewhere."

I had an appointment with my chair and a good book to pass the time until my muse arrived for a writing project I have due in less than two weeks. We're in a pretty good cold snap for December in Birmingham, and there are all those Christmas shoppers "out there," but everyone had their hearts set on a night out, and, well, who am I to break anyone's heart?

We had a nice supper at [trendy, hip, chain bakery] and a quick visit to [chain music store] and [trendy, hip, chain home furnisher] before drifting, as always, to [trendy, hip, chain bookstore].

I heard, while perusing through a stack of dead trees, a slightly off-key violin concerto, and just as I was about to remark to Lovett that it didn't sound like it was coming through the p.a. system, I noticed a violin bow peeking above the New Fiction shelf. I wandered over to the [trendy, hip, chain, in-house coffee shop] to find six violinists and a violist sawing away before their music stands and a black-turtleneck-clad conductor in the corner of the cafe.

The septet was not ready for Carnegie Hall, or the BJCC Concert Hall for that matter. It was as if we had stumbled into a rehearsal session, or a group music lesson, but it was obvious that they all had some experience. They would pluck through a song, say Jingle Bells, finish to a smattering of applause (I'm being generous here), and quickly critique their performance before maestro announced the next selection. Zelda and Lovett lasted through half a song, but Dora was mesmerized and wouldn't budge. Being four, she is still fascinated by most everything, and seven fiddling fiddlers inflamed her fancy.

So we watched. And listened. And an appreciation for the musicians and their art grew on me with each stroke of the bow. They were participating, before my very eyes and ears, in a creative process that began, in some instances, centuries ago as composers drew notes on blank staves. And they were doing so in public, surrounded by apathy. Five feet in one direction stood a man with his back to them, skimming the travel books. Five feet in another direction sat a woman engrossed by a detective novel, and two girls sat at a table next to her, giggling over a makeover magazine, oblivious to the Mozart wafting over their heads.

They inspired me, though. Even though I didn't applaud. (Cut me some slack. I'm still withdrawing from TV, remember? Spectatorship dies a slow, agonizing death.) I was inspired by their courage and their persistence. I was inspired by their certain private realization that they will probably never take the place of Izthak Perlman or Jascha Haifitz in the hearts of the world's music lovers. I was inspired by their refusal to let a missed note here or a botched tempo there rob them of the thrill of the moment when, by their skill, notes leapt from the page and into the air. I was inspired by the consideration they gave to each other's skill level. I was inspired by they way they seemed to enjoy themselves.

I was inspired, for I was able to siphon from my perception of their experience the same conclusions about my experience as a writer (and now a blogger): courage, persistence, a keen awareness that Proust and Wouk and Orwell needn't look over their shoulder for me, the apathy of the internet and all that is being posted around me, reveling in the accomplishments of others, that if I must speak (write), then I must also listen (read).

Even though the closest I ever come to playing Mozart is when I stick a CD in my CD player, I felt a kinship with those musicians tonight. I'm glad I stumbled into their midst.

Remedy for rabbit ears

The Oxford American is publishing again.

I first subscribed in 1999, and since then The OA has suspended publication more than once due to financial difficulty. Originally published in Oxford, Mississippi, home of the University of Mississippi and Southern literature "god" William Faulkner, it was moved to Little Rock and now it is published from the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, Arkansas, which coincidentally (or maybe not) is situated in Faulkner County.

My only knowledge of Conway, Arkansas, before The OA moved there is as the first nom de étape of Harold Jenkins, who most of the world knows as Conway Twitty. Which is also coincidental, as the most anticipated issue of The OA is the Southern Music Issue and accompanying CD. I don't recall Conway Twitty being on any of the Southern Music CDs I have, but I bet he is this year. I wonder how many people would catch the connection?

I became a subscriber to The New Yorker earlier this year. I had read some great articles on their website and I decided I'd give them a try in my home. It has been a bittersweet experience since they are way left of me, but their in-depth coverage of Iraq and Sudan has been worth it. As a writer, I'm always looking for good, challenging writing, which I find in both magazines. That, and the fact that I don't have satellite or cable TV.

There, I said it. I don't have satellite or cable TV. I made the break back in the summer, when I moved into a new neighborhood. Giving up cable is easy to explain, kind of like replying to a friend's inquiry of "How did you give up Big Macs?" with "Oh, it was easy. I went to prison." Cable doesn't come into our neighborhood, so there wasn't much of a decision to be made there. I never got around to getting the satellite set up, and I've used the experience to get back into the habit of reading. Hence, the magazines, which I read cover to cover (for the most part).

I can't say I've missed TV, though I did go through C-SPAN withdrawals during the election. More entertaining than TV has to be watching the reactions of people when they find out that I watched the World Series with rabbit ears. Priceless.

Welcome back, OA.

Love is waiting there in my beautiful balloon

Our twelve-year-old son Lovett had a meltdown on me this afternoon in the backyard.

We were doing some chores around the house, it being a warm, sunny December Saturday. I was washing windows, my wife was potting plants, and our four-year-old daughter Dora had some of her teddy bears in a circle in the grass, playing doctor or mama or zookeeper or something. Since no video game controllers or DVD players were within reach, Lovett was unproductively doing "outside" time until his sentence was served.

He got permission from the warden (his mother) to go inside for something to drink. Returning empty-handed, he spouted off, "Can we please go to the grocery store?" which is twelvespeak for "There is nothing to drink in there." The warden suggested he fix himself a glass of water, to which he replied, "I was looking for something a little more refreshing."

"You don't think water is refreshing?" I asked.

"No," he replied, dumbstruck at my preposterousness.

So I did what any other self-respecting father would do while trying to prove a point. I squirted him with the garden hose.

I didn't soak him, just a splash below his left ribcage. I thought it was funny. He did not. He spent the next five minutes trying to retaliate with both a soccer ball and a half-empty can of Fresca I foolishly left more than arm's distance away.

The warden, insulted at the disrespect directed toward her soulmate and hunter-gatherer, sentenced him to twelve-year-old timeout: twenty minutes in a lawn chair to comtemplate the definition of paternal respect.

Now, being a somewhat intelligent, committed teammate in this parenting thing, I didn't appeal the sentence even though I thought it a little overkill. I was humored by my son's feeble attempts at retaliation, and I also realized that I had probably embarassed him in front of his mother. I had tried to be funny and, in his eyes, I failed. Unappreciated humor is no humor at all, and he didn't appreciate the big wet spot on his t-shirt, but I let him serve his time and went on about my business.

I returned to the scene of his incarceration to find warden and inmate in the midst of the post-sentence hearing where the inmate would normally receive his $10 bill and a bus ticket out of town. Lovett, set free, stalked around to the front yard to get away from the rest of us. I could tell he was still upset and I speculated about his next course of action. Would he sit on the front porch and sulk? Would he sneak into the house and cut all my undershorts to ribbons? Would he get on his bike and pedal furiously away, only to be chased by a dog into traffic and be hit by a car? Would he try to hitchhike to a faraway relative's house?

Before I could weigh all his options, he came around the corner of the house pushing my lawnmower. And then it hit me.

I had embarrassed him. I had insulted his "manhood," emasculating him in front of his mother and little sister, who had reacted to his backyard bath with unbridled mirth. And he intended to reclaim his manhood - by mowing the lawn.

So I let him. He didn't do it as well as I would have. In fact, his wavy patterns and underlapped passes made me cringe. But I stayed my tongue, offering him suggestive pointers and encouraging his efforts. I treated him with respect. I spoke to him as an "equal." I let him earn back his masculinity.

And then we heard it.

Now, normally you can't hear much above the four-stroke roar of a lawnmower, but I have one of those old-fashioned, combustionless, ozone-friendly reel mowers which allows me to hear the birds singing as I tonsure my bermudagrass. So the FWHOOSH took us by surprise.

It sounded like a rocket motor being tested. I dismissed it as absurd, since I'm unaware of any nearby rocket-motor testing facilities, until I heard it again. And again. And again. Each time louder than before. I turned FWHOOSH-ward to see a most colorful hot air balloon climbing above the treeline. And it was heading right toward us.

We ran to the front yard for a streetside view unobstructed by neighboring houses. Many of our neighbors up the street were out on the sidewalk gazing into the sky. The balloon continued its course toward our house accompanied by the FWHOOSH of the burner and waves from the four passengers in the gondola.

It was a beautiful balloon, multicolored squares floating above a glistening varnished basket, operated by Air Alabama. As it passed our house it appeared to slip rapidly below the horizon until we noticed that it stopped sinking behind the roofline of the houses down the street. Lovett hopped on his bike and raced toward it, and Dora did the same (as much racing as can be done on training wheels) with me in hot foot-pursuit.

The balloon had landed in a vacant lot behind some under-construction houses in another sector of our subdivision. A crowd had gathered in the yards surrounding the lot and the street filled with cars that had followed the balloon to its resting place. The pilot had already dismounted the gondola and was squeezing the air out of the balloon with the help of the passengers. He patiently answered everyone's questions and shared balloon facts with us as he disassembled his craft and phoned his chase vehicle with directions to the pickup point.

Did you know that balloon pilots have no control over where their balloons go? They are totally at the mercy of the wind. Did you know that balloon pilots are constantly looking for safe places to touch down? Did you know that liquid propane, forced through the burner unlit, cools the burner so that it is safe to handle? Did you know that a balloon basket is just that, a basket? Did you know that a hot air balloon can be folded up and packed into a bag that is about the size of a washing machine? Before today, I didn't, but I found all this out while helping the pilot, passengers, and some neighbors pack the balloon and load it and the gondola into the chaser's pickup truck.

After we returned home, I resumed washing windows and Lovett returned to his X-Box. I walked into his room to wash the inside of his windows and after I'd made a few swipes, he, gazing at the video monitor, said, "That was neat."

"Yes, it was," I replied.

And it was.

Why "eggplant," you ask?

A most commendable, though obvious, question.

Berenjena, which is Spanish for eggplant, entered my vocabulary through Edith Grossman's translation of Cervantes' Don Quixote. A pleasant word for an enigmatic vegetable which stuck with me like honey on a spoon seemed a natural choice for my blog name.

"Confessions of an Eggplant" was chosen as a title on a whim, one of those must-fill-in-the-blanks moments upon initial setup of the blog. But it, too, is fitting. What is an eggplant but a tough-skinned vegetable with a soft inside that is quite bitter until sweated with salt, which renders it, once combined with sauces and cheeses and other complementary ingredients, into a tasty, hearty, and satisfying dish? An eggplant is a metaphor for life. At least it is for my life.

I am the eggplant. Coo-coo-ka-choo.