Me and Pistachio Ice Cream

I’ve never eaten pistachio ice cream. True, never even a sampling. Not that I have an aversion to pistachios, in fact, my taste buds and I find the nuts to be delectable. As a youngster I do recall thinking such a flavor of ice cream was someone’s joke and, if it were real, it would stink, in kids’ parlance. But what did I know, I was a kid. Despite having heard intermittently over the years that this variety of ice cream is actually delicious, I have remained unintentionally without. Here, then, is why.

If I were at an ice cream store, and I have been many times, how could I take a chance on such an unknown as pistachio when so much in the way of known quantities of delight are available and ready to be dispensed at the asking? With so much at stake, do I take a chance on this nut ice cream or do I order the surety? If I were to request a single scoop of pistachio ice cream and it fell short of expectations, it would be a crushing blow in that moment knowing that I could have had mint chocolate chip or rocky road, but instead willingly subjected myself to consuming the pistachio. That’s it. That’s the main reason it hasn’t crossed these lips, the competition is too great!

My lack of pistachio is not a purposeful avoidance, you see. This is not an active abstinence to stubbornly remain free of pistachio. It is merely that I have not had a captive opportunity. What do I mean by captive? If I were at someone’s home [a voluntarily captive audience, as it were] and the pistachio were offered, I would refrain no longer. But really, what are the odds? So many super flavors of ice cream available for purchase at a grocery store, who would buy pistachio in a size as vast as a quart to have in the freezer in a time of need? A scoop of pistachio, I can imagine that happening, but a whole quart of the stuff? Come on.

Next hurdle, should I just by chance happen to be in an abode that just happened to have a quart of pistachio ice cream on hand, how would I know that’s it’s on tap? Or how would the host know to offer? I might actually have been in a home with pistachio available for the asking, but the infinitesimal chance of the topic arising and the pistachio ice cream coming to light had never come to fruition! I could have at some point even been standing next to a refrigerator bearing the ice cream, but there was no conjoining between me and pistachio.

Anyway, pistachio ice cream. I’ve never had the stuff. I will, however, knock back a cone of chocolate chip at my earliest convenience.

-klem

A Victory For Patience

After much discussion my son’s room has finally been painted by the effort of my own hands. Patient Wife Klem has been planning this paint job and considering a spectrum of colors since last summer. My son has been living with a good swath of his possessions in boxes for a year. Me? This monkey of a chore is no longer on my back, it has been exorcised through the patient process of priming and painting.

 

Team Klem is now unhindered to engage the 4^th of July weekend in full force with traditional celebratory root beer floats!

Observations

1) Hair. As I get older this silly stuff is much less important than during my youthful years.

2) My choice of super power, if I had such a choice? Never having to sleep and being entirely without detrimental side effects of tiredness. Not sure what I’d do with all that extra time, but hopefully something at least a little productive.

3) If you want to be interesting, it is necessary to be interested in something.

4) Tobacco. I’m in favor of people and their free will to knock back a few cancer sticks if wanted, I’m entirely pro choice in that regard. My beef, however, is the litterbugging. Smoke if you want, but don’t toss your butt on the ground.

5) Cookies, because you want them, not because you need them. Vegetables? Because you need them.

6) Do something, don’t just be something. Happiness is attained in the journey to doing something, not in the destination.

7) The ways in which a person spends their time reveals what’s important to them [i.e., important enough to pull me away from my plastic screen]. I admittedly have work to do in this area.

8) Have a problem? Seek resolution to that problem so you may move on. Don’t clog up your days worrying and aggravating. Solve it, then go forth unhindered.

9) I was absolutely invincible in my teens and 20s. What I failed to acknowledge at that time was how ‘vincible’ I would become as I navigated my 40s.

10) Happiness. With few exceptions, each person is responsible for their own happiness. Get happy and stay there, it’s a better existence.

-klem

The Voice

This guy frequently heard a voice, not voices, just a single voice. Nobody around, no television or music playing, no ambient noise, just a clear crisp voice speaking with a high quality surround sound effect. It was not necessarily speaking to him, but there was typically nobody else physically present when it was heard. The voice never spoke in a complete sentence, but several times throughout the day he might hear ‘red apple’, ‘nice shoes’, ‘larynx’. Occasionally up to four words were spoken, ‘and wonderful incandescent lightbulb’ or ‘bug in dog bowl,’ but the absence of verbs was a constant.

The voice was always the same, a male in his 30s, or thereabouts, speaking in a pleasant tone and occasionally with an emphasis placed on an incorrect syllable; ‘belt-BUCK-le’ or ‘ham-BURG-lar’. This sometimes caused him to smile self-consciously and hope that nobody might ask, ‘What’s so funny?’ ‘Oh, the voice in my head mispronounced a word,’ he might be obligated to respond. He might hear the voice from another room not knowing if another person were present, unless, of course, a verb had been employed. He would instinctively respond without consciously being triggered by the employment of the verb.

The voice was bothersome, sometimes entertaining, but not scary because it spoke mostly curiosities, never instructions or statements. The voice did add a degree of difficulty when on a conference call for work. The difficulty came when he would hear someone and not know if it was on the call or if it was the voice. ‘Did you hear me?’ or ‘Are you there?’ were questions not irregularly posed to him.

For decades he’d heard it and made mentions throughout his youthful years to his parents. Doctor visits confirmed his hearing was perfect and no conditions, otherwise, to question his sanity or impeccable health, physical or mental. He did, for a brief period in his late adolescence, write down all the spoken words over the course of two months. This filled four and a half pages and was discarded when he thought it might be discovered and thought to be a kind of poorly written manifesto.

When he lived by himself the voice kept him company, to an extent, as if he had a roommate. You know, a roommate who was the antithesis of verbose. Unfortunately, the voice was not restricted to his domicile. He endured it over the years until it suddenly ruined him.

He was traveling for work late one night in an unfamiliar town. He had taken a late flight, had been unable to sleep on the plane, and arrived in poor condition. He retrieved his rental car and was en route to his destination. Being unfamiliar with the required route he had his phone’s mapping application calling out directions. The voice, not the directional app, very inopportunely chimed in ‘left now’ causing him to respond due to his shabby mental state. He turned immediately directly into traffic and was harshly brought to an end by a large truck. The voice was finally put to rest.

-wdk

Bullshit

Esquire magazine’s March issue published a list of Bullshit. I agreed with much [i.e., LinkedIn endorsements, emails without subject lines] and disagreed with much [i.e., wedding rings, NBA playoffs]. Here’s my list of stuff they neglected to mention:

1.   Button-fly blue jeans.

2.   Dogs raised to be weapons.

3.   People who raise dogs to be weapons.

4.   Moments of silence. Spare me the captive participation in your pomposity.

5.   The war on tobacco. Sure it’s not healthy, but people have a choice.

6.   The same people fighting tobacco are advocating for the legalization of marijuana. You’re telling me that tobacco is bad but Mary Jane is good? That illogical line of thought carries an odious waft.

7.   Anecdotal evidence offered up to debunk statistics. Those anecdotes are the outliers, not debunking material.

8.   The ease with which too many people deploy foul language in public. That’s shamefully lazy conversation.

9.   Politically Correct speech. Do we really need to mask factual statements that make some tender-minded individuals uncomfortable? PC constraints lead to confused discussion and counterproductive policy implementation.

10.People who speak in terms of a slippery slope. Unless they’re actually talking about a slippery slope.

11. Pennies. The coins, not people bearing the name Penny.

12. Taking nuclear off the table as a viable energy source. Think about the telephone in the 1970s with the rotary dial, then the breakthrough of the push buttons to where we are now. I’m inclined to think there’s been a similarly impressive trajectory for improvements in the field of nuclear energy.

13.Vegetarian chili. No, it’s a bean casserole, don’t taint the name of chili with that swill.

14.Advocating for renewable energy in Africa. Look, I realize Global Climate Change is the catalyst for much farcical activity around the globe, but the key to saving the lives of the poor is to elevate them out of poverty. Providing access to fossil fuels is a more effective way to help save lives [i.e., refrigeration, medicine, clean cooking fuel, electricity by which to read and effect learning] than the climate change-induced guilt payments to corrupt governments. Solar panels in these poor villages will recharge a cell phone, provide a single lightbulb, and ensure the continuation of poverty.

15.People who too willingly take offense rather than engage the opportunity for discussion. Taking offense is a choice, a cowardly one.

16.People who cower in the face of the offended rather than engage the opportunity for discussion. This cowardly reaction feeds the ‘I’m offended’ industry.

17.Graffiti ‘artists’. If it’s not your property or you were not commissioned to do it, then it’s graffiti, not art.

18.Hotels that do not offer hot chocolate with their complimentary breakfast.

19.Gay Marriage arguments. Like it or not, it’s legal and is never going away. Can we talk about something constructive now?

20.Pro-Choice and Pro-Life arguments. Like it or not, abortion is legal and is never going away. Can we talk about something constructive now?

21.The appendix. The body part, not the book part.

22.The curious criminal justice reform movement and the push for early release of prisoners. Explain that position to the victims’ families. Convicts are not in prison for stealing a slice of pizza, a prison sentence is a lifetime achievement award. No recidivism for you, go back to your cell.

23.California’s drought reminder public messages after a rainfall. You know, just in case we thought that ½-inch rainy afternoon ended the water rationing.

24.Publicly funded sports stadiums. It has been proven that these are not good for the communities that pony up the millions of dollars. Works great, however, for making rich guys vastly richer.

25. The Olympics. Unless they’re performing in the nude like the original Greco-Roman Olympics, I’ll skip the pageantry.

Thanks for hearing me out.
-klem

Errant Shoe

It was a bitter cold northeast night with temperatures dropping and rain in the forecast. On a busy highway there lay a shoe along the curb, laces awry conjuring an image of struggle. From whence had it come, this shoe? Or the foot that once bore it, what of it? Was there some sort of scuffle resulting in the shoe being cast away or merely horseplay resulting in it being thrown from the open window of a rapidly moving vehicle?

Night was by now in full swing and rain had commenced with snow projected to follow the next day. Should no recapture be worked out the shoe was in for a rugged time. And what of its compadre? Is it, too, lost or is it still safely ensconced in its domestic existence? How long could that be maintained if its errant partner remains on the lam? The healthy shoe at some point will be deemed rubbish without its teammate and be cast into the ash bin.

The youth who had most recently worn the shoe returned home from school quickly tossing aside his backpack and gym gear. He was an athletic fellow boasting of average skills for the three main North American sports. He was in a hurry to fulfill his post-school routine of securing an afternoon snack. He disembarked his gear in an impressive single-motion of haphazard discardment allowing the vacancy of the aforementioned missing item to go unnoticed.

One gym shoe landed in the vicinity of the shoe pile just inside the garage door adjacent to the recycle bins. He saw the one land, did not observe the second, of course, because the second never made it home. ‘Maybe in my gym bag,’ he thought, but he was in too much of a food frenzy-induced haste to seek verification. He was not entirely aware that the second shoe was absent. The pile of shoes was generously engorged with those of his three brothers. It could be, and likely would be, months before it is even noticed that it was missing, weeks, easily. Even then the remaining shoe would experience a period of time in purgatory to see if its compadre somehow turned up.

The wayward shoe had slipped from its cozy tight pocket of the book bag while the boy rode his bike home from school. The bicycle was ridden roughly over the curb in avoidance of a group of people at the bus stop. This knocked loose said shoe because they had not been tied together nor properly secured. They had been stuffed into each side pocket of the backpack, but the constant jostling of the bike ride resulted in an eventual easily attained freedom.

A deep blue canvas quartertop basketball shoe, a left shoe, with a dark black smudge on its side, a hole by the toe, several overlapping layers of duct tape wrapped around the front near the toe, plus the iconic swoosh. Not a fashion statement, the carefully laid duct tape, but remedial action necessitated by the host’s vigorous and plentiful skateboarding. This shoe will never be worn again. It was in a depression along the curb and rain was already pooling. This was shaping up to be a very bad first night on the loose.

-klem

Goals 2016

Every year I lay down some goals, they help me to stay on track when I feel like doing nothing. The following are my targets for 2016 plus background on why or how they came to be.

1.            Read 14 books

A friend and I have been working through a list of the Top 150 novels of the 20^th Century, of which I’ve completed 114 through 2015. Turns out many of these books are actually not very good and they’ve induced me to make two concessions:

[1] I limit myself to four books annually from the list of 150. The other 10 are books that I choose to read, you know, good books.

[2] Due to the overall faltering quality of these supposed ‘Best books of the 20^th Century’ I have come to the very recent conclusion that I may not, after all these years of pursuit, complete the 150 in its entirety. I’ll knock back those tomes already in my possession patiently waiting for me in the bookcase. I’ll then give serious thought to cancelling this quest of 150.

Reading. I have managed to turn this great joy into a chore. Cancelling the silliness of catching the 150 will, hopefully, return the joy of reading as I shift from assigned reading to desired reading.

2.            Monthly blog post

Ø  [http://wdklem.blogspot.com]

It started in 2009 with the goal, and successful completion, of 200 posts. I was pent up at that time with much in the way of anecdotes, short fictions, and collected nonsense that I wanted to get off my chest. That was a year of much cleansing!

3.            Watch 3 foreign films

My pal [you know who you are, Jam] made a suggestion a few years ago to add foreign films to my annual goals. I have kept it up supposing there’s value in working to become more perspicacious.

4.            10 hours of Spanish language learning

Ø  self-study by means of Rosetta Stone software

It riles me up that there are so many countries where the citizens can chew the fat in several languages toggling back and forth at will. Here in the U.S. the vast majority of citizens, including myself, possess only the single tongue. I took three years of high school Spanish and the retention was disappointingly little because I didn’t take language studies seriously as a youth. Now, with the wisdom of age, I’d like a language, but honestly am not willing to commit the time necessary to acquire one. I’m hoping that 10 hours per year will help me to recapture just a little bit each year of what I temporarily picked up during high school and retain what little I have learned.

If I were to be teleported into a Spanish-speaking country I’d probably manage well enough to employ something useful from these few wisps of a second tongue. Fluency is not on my horizon, but a fumbling chance of clumsy interaction remains possible in a pinch if I keep at it.

5.            225 combinations of either  . . .

Ø  25-minute set on Wife Klem’s ‘cardio machine’ averaging 13+ calories/minute OR

Ø  one-hour walk with Ghost dog

‘What the hell do they think they’re doing? They’re just walking, it’s not really doing anything.’ That’s what I used to think of people rocking their stair-steppers and self-propelled conveyer belts. Then I sampled the cardio machine that we owned. I recall my first time on the machine with the setting on the easiest level. After eight minutes I was a sweaty mess, short of breath, and had to stop for a water break. Then another break at 15 minutes! Boy, was I surprised! Surprised that [1] it was so much more work than I thought it was and [2] that my cardio capability was so miserable. Three years later I really dig the thing! Also, curiously, my body craves those 25 minutes on the machine.

So, why the 25 minute increments, you ask? I stream Netflix while rocking the machine. I used to watch The Office television series [the U.S. version, not the English] and each episode required 25 minutes. I have since completed the series and haven’t the patience to extend my time on the machine. Instead of going longer I have cranked up the degree of difficulty over the three years, but have retained the 25-minute threshold. Over the course of a week I watch a movie.

6.            25,000 Sit-ups

I see humanity and my peers getting older and the affect it has on a person’s sack of flesh. I’m simply intending to treat my body with respect as the years pass. Hopefully I’ll be around awhile without having to lug around too much pork belly and other signs of decades of neglect. It’s too easy to do nothing, this goal keeps me making an effort, even if it’s only 100 sit-ups a night a few times each week.

7.            20 bike rides

Riding a bike looks like fun. I don’t need nor desire the click-in bicycle shoes and all the tight gear, although some cushion on the ‘downstairs cheeks’ would add much in the way of comfort. Turns out riding is fun, although those crummy uphills stink compared to the nice level terrain. Getting familiar with the gear shifting was an integral part of not blowing out my thighs on a single mild incline.

The Kids

We’ve been discussing our 2016 goals, the whole team and I. Last year was the kids’ first year with enumerated goals, they committed to a certain number of sit-ups, and they both successfully achieved! Last year was just a matter of getting them to commit to something, this year I asked if they’d be willing to increase their goals. Here’s what they chose.

·      Exercises:

o   Each child committed to 5,000 sit-ups. The boy prefers knocking them out in the morning before school, my daughter prefers getting it done before bedtime.

o   My daughter also committed to 1,000 push-ups. I told her I’d match her goal at a 5:1 ratio, so I’m obligated to 5,000 push-ups. I’m not worried, though, I’ve already done 250 this year, so only 4,750 to go!

·      They’ve both also agreed to the 52-hike challenge! This entails 52 hikes, or walks, in 2016. We took a family hike in the hills of the local park the other weekend to get this tally underway. Good times being out there as a team walking with Ghost dog.

Hope you have a successful year as you hone in on your goals.

-klem