Doughnuts For Dummies, or, Donuts Are Good, Eat Them

A co-worker of mine who likes to eat (okay, she lives to eat) asked me today if I had blogged lately. I told her I would be doing so after work. A couple minutes later she suggested I blog about donuts (my preferred spelling). I said okay. But then I started to think, what can one possibly say about donuts? They're kind of like air, aren't they--ubiquitous, one would hope, and so essential that there's really nothing to say about them. Everybody loves them, and I guess you could pretend to get antagonistic and start showering favor on one kind of donut at the expense of another, but really, what's the point? They're all good, some are just better than others.

I'm certainly no mathematician, but I guess it's possible that with now 7 billion + people in this world, there may be one or two who haven't encountered a donut, maybe even don't know what a donut is. If, by the thinnest of odds you are one of those people and have found your way to this blog, here's all you need to know about donuts. They're a supreme being's idea of bread, way better than pizza. They've never been known to let a human being down. Go out now and find a couple and eat them. Welcome to the human race.

Quick, Somebody Teach Me This Game

Even though the World Series ended only a couple weeks old, I already miss baseball. Tonight there's snow on the ground for the first time in months, which, cutting to the quick, means there are months of it to come. Three days ago I played golf. Driving home tonight I felt for the first time all year that I should be listening to a basketball game. You see, it's not just the game of baseball I love, but the daily joys of following it. Once a week football is okay, but it's not daily and besides, football, especially in these parts, is not much fun these days. Who knows when basketball will return. So I'm jonesing for a sport to follow day in and day out.

I don't know a thing about cricket. Don't even know if it's much of a daily sport. When I was in England for a summer I read about it in the papers, but never really understood it. And once I saw an exhibition of it where they tried to explain the rules, but they might as well have been explaining colored fractals for all the sense it made to me. But I was thinking of a beautiful song, Roy Harper's "When An Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease," and I started wishing I knew the sport, to understand the song better, and so that maybe I could follow it in this fallow, wintry time. So if anybody out there knows anything about cricket, please let me in on the pleasures. Until then, I'll just count the hours until spring training and hum this song.

Waves Upon Waves

We were chatting idly while working diligently this morning (yes, the professional that I am and the professionals I work with are capable of such negative capability, oxymoronic functioning) when for no apparent reason the word 'redundant' raised its Hydra-head and duly became the word of the day. In a moment of fantasizing I wondered how much fun it would be to reply to everyone who spoke to me with a curt raising of the hand and an even curter "Redundant!" Ah, Walter Mitty has nothing on me.

Redundant, of course, means "excessive, superfluous; characterized by verbosity or unnecessary repetition" (and how about those two n's, two s's and two ti's in "unnecessary repetition"?). This month, of course, is the year's redundant month, when you have to write two 11's every time you date something (and let's not even mention the arrival in a few days of the sure to be overhyped 11/11/11 [is that a threedundancy?]). Maybe my fondness for the particular word today stems from my early morning voting experience. Being a part-Irishman who spent part of his life in Chicago, I've long possessed some weird, maybe natured/nurtured desire to just once vote several times in one day (outside of a poll worker loudly telling everyone in the cramped, small room not to vote a certain way on a certain state issue because it would do away with "Obamacare," my voting experience was pleasantly rapid and garnered me not one but [see the pattern taking root?] two "I Voted Today" stickers [which both lost their stickiness about five minutes later]).

Later in the day somebody's phone went off with the distinct ringtone of "This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius." I know like 40 years ago the song was a bit redundant, but not having heard the song for something like, oh, 39 years, I kind of grooved to it. I looked up and spied the twelve people or so in the vicinity. Before I could make an educated guess as to whose phone it might be, the one genuine hippie in the crowd opened his phone up and started talking. Now I don't like trafficking in stereotypes, but I believe this guy would self-describe himself (Bingo!) proudly as a hippie. Not some nouveau, look at my store-bought $50 tye-dye, but the real thing, going on 45 years in the club. Anyway, I know it doesn't quite fit the definition, but all I could think of when Hippie Apotheosis Man's phone went off singing "This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius" was, "that's kind of redundant." Now I know you can have all sorts of different ringtones for all sorts of different people who might call you, and that "Aquarius" might not be Hippie Apotheosis Man's "default" ringtone, but come on, unless Marilyn McCoo or Billy Davis Jr. is a personal friends of his, I've got to suspect "Aquarius" is in fact Hippie Apotheosis Man's default ringtone. Which is perfectly fine, and it sure beats "San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair)," it just seems, well, redundant.

So I'm thinking about redundant all day and of course at some time I fixate on the re- part and I start to wonder whether there's a word dundant out there (along the lines of the reiterate/iterate thing, where reiterate is in fact a bona fide redundancy); if redundant is superfluous, maybe dundant is just right. Sounds like it, doesn't it? Dundant=doned it. "Don't sweep the floor, dude! That would be redundant since I already doned it." But no, a little research taught me that redundant comes from the Latin word redundare (to flow back, overflow, be excessive). The really interesting thing is that it all starts with the Latin word unda, a wave. Which of course is only too perfect. An early Latin guy, charged with coming up with words for all sorts of things, takes his assistant along with him to the beach. They see waves--though of course don't know what they're called just yet, that being their job--think they're cool, and the guy sends the assistant out to the surf to test them out. The assistant wades out, is exhilarated by the experience, waves (not a redundancy, a whole other word, a moving of one's hand in genial greeting), and shouts to his boss, "So what are you gonna call them?" Just then a big white-cap totally swarms the poor assistant. "Unda, what else?" the boss shrugs his shoulders and picks up some weedy stuff soon to be named kelp. 

Our Lady Of Perpetual Chewing Gum's Parish Bulletin, Tidbits Column

Kudos to Jerry Gilligan's 800 series in the parish Top Tier bowling league last week, just three weeks after his double hip replacement/hernia ordeal ... And "shame" on Ralph Lawson for missing his second 9 a.m. Sunday mass ushering assignment in 28 years in order to accompany his lovely bride, Marge, to the Inter-Parish Association of the Great Lakes' Bingo-thon! this weekend in Peoria (Here's hoping the weekend's full of B 7's for you, Marge) ... A note from Ed Flick: Please refrain from knowingly putting Canadian coins in the collection basket; it slows the count considerably ... God Bless Mr. (and especially) Mrs. Patrick McLatchey on the births of triplets Omar, Levon, and Plutarch, which by our count brings the brood to 13; better save two pews at the front left of the 10:15 from now on ... The Miller sisters once again report a bumper crop of their scrumptious melons. They'll be displaying their wares and selling them to benefit (as always) the Retired Priest Fund after all masses this weekend. Getcha some ... Dorothy Luger apologizes for two of the three batches of chocolate chip cookies sold at last week's Garden Club bake sale; she promises to offer free brownies at next week's Bridge Club bake sale ... In a related note, Iggy Reilly is resting comfortably at home following his recent three-day hospital excursion ... Little Timmy Dobek requests prayers for his hamster Zoltron who went missing during last weekend's visit to his Firlik grandparents ... Speaking of prayers, this week Luckie Pennington would like to thank saints Jude, Anthony, Tobias, Annika, Philbright, and especially Aurelio for favors granted ... Sign up now for the Marginally Mature Club's (that's the "old" Fifty Plus Club) day trip to Wheeling (ID required at the bus door!). As past president Lou Ferragamo likes to say, "Whatever goes on in Wheeling is usually forgotten on the bus ride home." ... Betty Springer reports that "the hay's in the barn and my corns are gone; thanks all for your kind thoughts and prayers." ... Chuck Berrigan seems to have forgotten again to whom he loaned his sump pump; if it's you, kindly return ... Father Fugi says that Rick Strick says that the new cushions for the kneelers should arrive and be in place by Advent ... Sister Jane laments that the school's basketball pump has once again gone missing ... Even though we're heading into winter, it's not too early to order your year's supply of sunblock and sunscreen to benefit the 8th grade's annual trip to Zoar ... Finally, Father Stein reminds one and all to please refrain from texting in the confessional. 

Five Flicks For A Friday

In my world it's not Friday but Wednesday today (long story, of no consequence). Anyway, I'm busy, but I thought I might give you all some suggestions for weekend entertainment in case all the big football games, the continuing stories of Justin Bieber's alleged thirty-second procreative performance and Herman Cain's immolation, and 48 hours of sleep don't pique your interest. Here are the trailers (except for Life Is Sweet, 2 minutes of representative dialogue) for five movies I love but which don't seem to appear on too many people's radar screens anymore, if they ever were. Seek them out and watch them--the pleasure will be all yours. 

When Twitter Twits Get Hitched

• dear mailordergroom.com: I ordered a bold one! bOld.
• sorry abt yr flat, ma, but the organist has a bar mtzvh in like 30 mins. we cldnt wait
• kinda busy for the next 2 wks, sergio. i'll call you later ; )
• pre as in pre-nup means after, right? i always get those things before words mixed up. postfixes i think.
• it nvr seemed like the right time, anyway he likes surprises. he'll find out my real name is Doug eventually.
• 2nd cuz, Shelly! I said he's my second cousin.
• quick, Tina, what his name again?
• that 'poorer' part is just figurative language, right?
• so what if it's white, Sarah? at least I didn't sleep with all the groomsmen and the minister too!
• does my new husband make me look fat?
• can anybody tell me what was in that punch last night?
• can you believe I said 'I do' like five times? as if! LOL
• how come when I Google 'Facts of Life' all I get is pix of Charlotte Rae?

ps: is that photo-bombing STOP sign symbolic or what?

Everyday Monster

If you're over the age of thirteen, I just don't see the point of Halloween, other than a little candy indulgence and the long overdue veneration of orange, a most underrated color. Do we really need a day to celebrate monsters and such when our daily lives are filled with all sorts of demons, succubi, Mary Kay reps, and politicians, who wear no discernible costumes and arrive unannounced by any kind of multiple choice trick or treat demands? But I guess if it's good for the economy, it's good for the U.S.A., to speak redundantly in this day and age.

We all have our personal hobgoblins--The Bore, The Mean Weller, The Self-Appointed Sage at Work, etc.--so in the spirit of the day and in an attempt to spread some virtual garlic around my sphere in the hopes of warding him off for a few months (and maybe allowing you to suffer evil torments vicariously and thus freeing you to live an unscary day), today I will discuss one of my everyday monsters, Dr. Julius Schanke, aka The Guy Who Shows Up At The Least Opportune Times. Schanke pronounces his name to rhyme with manque (manque), but everyone I know calls him Doc Schanke, rhyming with crock crank, though I've taken to referring to him simply as TGWSUATLOT. I first had the misfortune of meeting Dr. Schanke (professor emeritus of Ingestibles, Ballistics, Dirigibles, and All Things Nauseous at The Ohio State University, Ashtabula extension campus) back in 1992 at an in-person meeting of the alt.phlegmatics BBS community. He introduced himself as "the suave Brahmin of the slimy, a sort of crypto 'suami', if you will." I wish I hadn't. I can abide heavily bearded men and women with assorted shards of food adorning their countenances, but not--incredibly and in seeming opposition to the three laws of physics I'm familiar with--clean-shaven ones. I'm wagering that soon after his inevitable (?, one never knows) death, halitosis as we know it will be known henceforth as Schanke Syndrome.

In the nearly twenty years since our fateful meeting, six months have not gone by without my running into TGWSUATLOT, or more aptly, his ambushing of me. And, true to his title, these tete a tetes never occur when I'm wiling away a couple hours in a coffeehouse or mulling the slings and arrows while observing a single leaf of grass somewhere, but always when my dander is in the blood red zone and Old Father Time is goosing my ass something savage. For example, a few years ago, I--merely trying to buy a stamp in order to post remittance for an overdue municipal tax bill of $2.32 and dangerously in jeopardy of being late for my drive-thru, voluntary/cosmetic root canal appointment--was stuck in line at the Post Office behind a woman attempting to get passports for her brood of seven children all under the age of four (who were howling, climbing, drooling, and defacing government property) and a man of questionable heritage trying to mail what he swore was a box of nails and demanding to pay with six different money orders he had yet to purchase. In the midst of this maelstrom I suddenly heard, "Ergo, in re of our discussion in re of the use of obfuscating foreign phrases, I regret to inform you ... " Damn!, I shuddered, TGWSUATLOT. Forty-seven minutes later, with nothing to show for it but a wrinkled, self-adhesive Kwanzaa stamp (this was mid-July, btw) in need of licking, I stood in the parking lot dodging wrong-end of the dashboard driving mail scooters and attempting to assuage growing-hostile TGWSUATLOT with scores of "I see your point," "I'll have to get back to you on that," and "Really, I must be going," would-be placating phrases. Luckily my ersatz oral surgeon had an open schedule that afternoon and a shortage of anaesthetic, so I was eventually distracted.

Another time, as I was waiting in line at the confessional for my annual reconciliation appointment, who steps out of the box but TGWSUATLOT. He instantly lit up a nefarious smile, took me rather roughly by the elbow and quietly intoned, "My boy, don't waste your time with that quack," a quick lurch of his shoulder back at the confessional box, "for I've been going in and out all day, changing my voice radically each time and confessing to a panoply of sins, and all the poor man can come up with is, 'Say a baker's dozen Hail Mary's and scare up a nun to hold a door for.' Come with me rather, and I'll shrive your sins the holistic way over some rhubarb tea I brew in my car with the help of my cigarette lighter." I don't know how or why, and the memory is still too raw to detail, but I ended up doing two weeks of penance spraying Ly-Sol in every extant phone booth in Portage County.

Anyway, I'm sure you too have TGWSUATLOT in your life, maybe (hopefully) not as annoyingly monstrous as my TGWSUATLOT, but bothersome nonetheless. Perhaps my public sharing of my travails with my TGWSUATLOT will serve as sufficient vicarious terror for you, liberating you to enjoy your day sans Halloween foolery. Just call me your Halloween scapegoat, thank me when you run into me (God, I hope I'm not somebody's TGWSUATLOT!), go ahead, eat some candy, and get ready for two months of real holiday mania.

And finally, just in case you need a little more diabolical pondering to surfeit your market-imposed craving for something evil today, debate this question with yourself: Who is the greater monster in your life, the One-Upper (the person who can always top your present joy) or the One-Downer (the person who can always bottom your present woe-is-me warm wallowing)? No need to share your conclusions.