I'll miss you, Neko

A dear friend of mine died of a heart attack last night. Neko was 45 and has been like a big brother to me since I moved to Lubbock in 2000. His wife, Mary, is one of my dearest friends, and they just celebrated 25 years of marriage. He leaves behind three daughters, one still in high school. Words fail me today. I can't tell you how my heart is breaking - that I wasn't there to say goodbye and that I'm not there to weep with my friend now. Neko loved Jesus, and he's at home now. We weep for ourselves, but not for him.

I love you and miss you, Neko. Save me a seat up there. I'll see you again.

"Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus all who have fallen asleep in Him. According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words." 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

YouTube videos that make me happy

Please pass the drunken goat cheese

I've been peppered with questions about why my blog has been stagnant these past weeks. Sorry, guys. (But thanks to those who missed me!) Truth is, work went into superdrive after we hired our two new professional staffers. Planning, construction, orientation, a 20-page welcome back edition, etc., etc. I'm also reigniting my stalled graduate studies this week. I'm taking a mass media research methods course and an oral history course. I'm excited but a little wary. It's been seven years since I've been on that side of the classroom. If I last the whole semester, I'll be halfway to my master's degree (minus my thesis). Unbelievable.

But what, you ask, does this have to do with drunken goat cheese? Who milks inebriated goats? If you have to ask, you've never experienced the wonder of Whole Foods.

I was introduced to Whole Foods on my trip to Alabama in July. I've heard of it before, of course. It was founded down the road in Austin. But never could I have imagined the cheese extravaganza laid out before me. The Big Cheese behind the counter told me the company sells more than 400 types of cheeses across the company. 

Mouse nirvana, folks. 

I felt so ... common. A small chunk of cheddar on the deli tray of life.

Soft cheeses, blue-veined cheeses, grating cheeses, firm cheeses, semi-firm cheeses, fresh cheeses. Cheese in wheels, tins, wedges, spreads. Cheese for the stout and cheese for the faint of heart. Whole Foods staffs a global cheese buyer, and while they don't promote it on their Web site, some poor soul must be tasked with ... that's right ... cutting the cheese.

I bought drunken goat cheese simply for the name, which was coined for the use of wine in the aging process. My friend and I also bought a chunk of cheese whose name I can't remember. A thin blue layer trailed through the middle of the wedge, like frosting between the layers of a wedding cake. 

"What is that?" I ask the Cheesehead. 

"Vegetable ash."

"Vegetable ... ASH?" 

"Yep."

"As in charred vegetables?"

"Yep."

A long silence.

"Um ... why?"

"To separate the morning milking from the evening milking."

Silence again.

"It's entirely edible."

The reason morning milk and evening milk can't mix is beyond me. The reason why you'd want to eat vegetable ash is even more unfathomable. But for the novelty of it, and at the recommendation of the Cheese Man, we decided to give it a go. 

Big mistake. That was the rankest cheese a nose hair ever had the misfortune to curl up at. We tried a sliver just to be sporting, but we ended up toasting the drunken goat cheese on some tasty whole-grain bread made with the eggs of free-range chickens. 

We finished up with a stop at the olive oil bar, where my friend and a well-dressed, middle-aged man broke bread and sampled the virtues of wasabi oil. I abstained. Maybe next time.

Back from Alabama. Sorry, no banjo.

I had an amazing four-day weekend with a dear friend in Alabama. I have much to share, from the cheese extravaganza to the vampire ballerina, but I'm exhausted and buried with work and life and other hazards right now. We hired two staffers this week, thank God! (Cue the applause and fireworks.) That means I can become one person again instead of three. Starting next Monday! One of the hires is a photographer I worked with at The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. We made quite a team back then, and I'm looking forward to working with her again.

That's it for now. Pray for me, friends. I'm tired, body and soul.

Now who can resist a yodeling pickle?

If that doesn't strike your fancy, what about an Angry Mob Action Set? Better yet, try a Horrified B-Movie Victims action set. Too pedestrian for you? There's always the Albert Einstein Action Figure.

Next time I'm in Seattle, I'm going to have to stop by Archie McPhee. It's a novelty store that bills itself as "slightly less disappointing than other companies." I stumbled across a Travel Channel feature on the wacky enterprise, and I couldn't stop laughing. I know where I'm doing my Christmas shopping next year!

Here are some other gadgets "made by pixies," who obviously have lots of free time and a quirky sense of humor.

     

     * Cow acupuncture model

     * Gummy haggis

     * Pickle-pults (think catapults)

     * Mr. Bacon vs. Monsieur Tofu

     * Beef bandage assortment (including bacon strip bandages)

     * Commie mustache and beard set

     * Fiber optic mullet wig

     * Shroud of Turin Winky Jesus Card

There are too many great ones to list. Go check out their Web site, "where pickles yodel and lederhosen run free." And before you click your way over there, take a gander at one of their commercials. Who knew garden gnomes were so versatile?

Tapping the Spirit of Writing

Tonight this spoke to my weary writer's soul. Maybe it's time to go sweep behind the couch. 

"I, too, had a pen rolling about somewhere — the seldom-used, the reluctantly taken-up pen of a sailor ashore, the pen rugged with the dried ink of abandoned attempts, infinite reluctance, and put off suddenly till next day — till next week, as like as not! The neglected, uncared-for pen, flung away at the slightest provocation, and under the stress of dire necessity hunted for without enthusiasm, in a perfunctory, grumpy worry, in the "Where the devil IS the beastly thing gone to?" ungracious spirit. Where, indeed! It might have been reposing behind the sofa for a day or so. Or it might even be resting delicately poised on its point by the side of the table-leg, and when picked up show a gaping, inefficient beak which would have discouraged any man of literary instincts. But not me!"

— Joseph Conrad, 

Excerpted from A Personal Record, republished in 

The Spirit of Writing: Classic and Contemporary Essays 

          Celebrating the Writing Life

As I lay melting...

A local coffee shop gives poets the stage every Thursday night, and I was lucky enough to stumble into some vivid, enchanting and often hilarious readings last week. Some classic, some original, some in rhyme, others beating out their own strange rhythm. It reawakened me to the power of poetry to capture the essence of a moment. In honor of Waco hitting the 102-degree mark today, I give you a few lines on summer from Robert Louis Stevenson.

Summer Sun

By Robert Louis Stevenson

Great is the sun, and wide he goes

Through empty heaven with repose; 

And in the blue and glowing days

More thick than rain he showers his rays.

Though closer still the blinds we pull

To keep the shady parlour cool,

Yet he will find a chink or two

To slip his golden fingers through.

The dusty attic spider-clad

He, through the keyhole, maketh glad;

And through the broken edge of tiles

Into the laddered hay-loft smiles.

Meantime his golden face around

He bares to all the garden ground

And sheds a warm and glittering look

Among the ivy's inmost nook.

Above the hills, along the blue,

Round the bright air with footing true,

To please the child, to paint the rose,

The gardener of the World, he goes.