Just had an everything bagel with cream cheese, nova lox, capers, finely sliced red onion, tomato, and salt and pepper, and it was delicious. The only thing missing was the sprouts, which I haven’t been able to find in the grocery for months and may just start growing my own, because I love them on sandwiches, bagels, salads, and what not. At any rate, caught Steve in a cute pose (on top of the weapons grade catnip), so I screwed around with the lighting (translation, I went from cave mode to actually turning some lights on) and took some pics:
I forgot to turn off f.lux while editing those pics, but I still think they are probably better than my norm because they looked ok on the iphone. Whatevs. Someone will criticize something no matter what because this is the fucking internet.
Today was a good day. My youngest sibling, Anne, is in town from Connecticut, and we don’t know each other very well because by the time I was 16 I was pretty much out of control, and she was only ten, so all she remembers is me and dad going at each other (in equal parts because I was an out of control asshole and because he and I are too god damned much alike in many regards- although he will quickly point out that I did not get his cleanliness gene or sense of modesty and public decency or work ethic or sense of morality or a sense of urgency and I’m also a heathen atheist with a filthy mouth and who the hell leaves their car in a field for ten days. Other than that, I swear to the fucking Flying Spaghetti Monster, we are a lot alike.), so we went for a manicure and pedicure together.
She’s always bitching that she doesn’t REALLY know me, and for at least fifteen years, mom, dad, Devon, Seth, and I have been trying to convince that not REALLY knowing me is not an altogether bad thing, because I’m at my core kind of an asshole. I mean, I do nice things and do have a big heart, but I’m basically hiding the fact that the first thing I do when I meet someone (YOU) is judge the fuck out of them (YOU) and usually deem them (YOU) unworthy and then spend the next few moments trying to figure out how to not interact with them (YOU) ever again and how long it will be before I have a cat or dog on my lap. And by YOU, I don’t mean Anne, I mean every single human being I encounter every day. That’s just where I am anymore, and I’m sorry, kind of, although Anne did tell me that mom thinks I am a curmudgeon, because Anne asked me if “curmudgeon” was a real word. And that was when I found out how my mother really feels about me.
At any rate, despite all that, it was a fun time, although apparently I am too quiet and don’t talk enough, and that can be interpreted as unfriendly, and that when someone says to you “Don’t you ever talk” the response “I try not to talk unless I have something to say” can be interpreted as snide and hostile, so try to keep that one out of your mental conversational playlist, gentleman.
I guess I am rambling. At any rate, nice to see the sister, nice to have new sparkling clean and well shaved hooves, nice to have a fat cat in the house and a dog on my lap, and nice to be sort of in the holiday mood.
Also- watching Lilyhammer late night on Netflix is a beautiful thing. Oh, and you should see this fucking beautifully fat bone in pork shoulder I picked up today. It’s hard to find fat on a pig like that these days, they’ve been bred to be so lean to compete with chicken and turkey and what not.
BruceFromOhio
Clearly she does not read your blog.
Mister Papercut
Is that the weapons grade catnip Steve is chilling on?
amk
yeah, fucking people.
jl
@amk:
yeah, fucking people (YOU!).
Glad Steve is wiped on nip, Cole seems techy tonight. But, glad he is having a (edit more or less, kindasorta) happy family time with his kin.
Karen in GA
Steve! Scratch behind his ears for me, please?
YellowJournalism
When I’m in a room with mostly new people, I don’t talk a whole lot. I tend to listen and size people up, and when I’m warmed up to them I let loose and start moving into the conversations. I’ve been told at first that I come off as either really shy or unfriendly. I’m not really trying to judge people so much as to size up their persona so I know what topics to stay away from and whether I can let my potty mouth be free to do whatever the fuck it wants to.
Elizabelle
What goes on with the dog in the disco scarf? Is she safe until she finds her forever home?
John Cole
@YellowJournalism: Pretty much. After thirty years of being told you have opinions that may offend people, you tend to just STFU until you know it’s cool. And even then, what’s to be gained from talking in front of a bunch of unknown people these days, what with cell phone videos and everyone with an agenda these days. Best to just hang with what you know, and if one of them vouches for someone, you can size them up and slowly accept them into the fold.
I’m 43. I’m cool with the friends I have.
John Cole
@Elizabelle: I have no idea. But I love her.
John Cole
Hey- how did the pictures come out?
cckids
The pics look great! Lighting is nice. Steve looks Buddha-level blissed out, so that is a good thing. In honor of your nightly pet brushing, I brushed my Pom tonight. He didn’t appreciate it, but he loves the attention he gets when he is freshly fluffed.
amk
Is that steve’s stash of pot under his paws?
jl
@John Cole: Very nice. I can see details and stuff. Which is nice. I think I have good eyesight, and my everyday experience tends to bear that out. Like people saying “WTF, can you SEE that all the way from here?”
But, sometimes, in the old days, i had to take what the pix were supposed to be of on faith. I assumed other BJ readers could dlvine what the subject was supposed to be.
The big exception were the TuncPix, of course, because his odd billowy cloudlike white glow lead to all of his pix looking over exposed. Fuzzy, but over exposed.
The pix have improved and I now deem them ‘pretty’.
Edit: the second Steve pic is adorable.
PurpleGirl
JC — The pictures of Steve are improving. The brighter lights help a lot.
Tell your sister to read the blog; tell her you tend to write late at night so she knows when to open the blog.
ruemara
isn’t it a bit late for such a heavy meal? I had four criminis and a cup of tea and I feel a bit stuffed. You should just have a nice cuppa and a kitty snorgle. Totally makes you ready for bed.
wasabi gasp
Be the vessel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QjrBjdb2T8
Alison
Don’t worry too much about the sprouts. They’re dangerous. Easily contaminated with salmonella and e coli and all that awful stuff. Maybe if you grow your own it’s not as much of a worry but even so, *shudder*
Warren Terra
Is your car still holding that farmer’s field down?
wasabi gasp
All I want for Christmas…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0B9Dr3bSRM
Glocksman
Speaking of pork, I bought a small pork roast to throw in the Crock-Pot™, and while prepping the veggies I had the brilliant idea to throw in a package of Knorr ‘Rice on the Side’ that was curry flavored.
I figured it’d give the roast a bit more flavor.
It did.
The only problem was that I should have remembered 11 hours of cooking rice leaves one with starchy soup.
I wound up with a vaguely curry flavored gravy instead of curry rice.
Next time I’ll wait until there’s about 30 minutes of cooking time left before adding any ‘Rice on the Side’ packages.
Randy P
Same gap with my youngest sister. She was a 12-year-old kid when I left the house at 18 and I didn’t know her through high school at all, but as an adult she (none of my siblings reads this, right?) has become perhaps my favorite.
I love spending time with all my brothers and sisters, I think they’re all pretty cool people. As long as we don’t talk politics, which one Thanksgiving had me actually shouting at my younger brother, much to my chagrin.
But I’ve gotten to know my baby sister as a person in a way I never did when we were younger.
Hillary Rettig
http://sproutman.com/
Lavocat
Your post reads like the first draft of a Talking Heads song.
I half expected to see sentences like “Say something once – why say it again!?”.
And, really … 43, bitch? Yer still just a babe in the woods.
You don’t become a true curmudgeon until you hit 50.
Also, it’s a pretty fucking scary epiphany when you realize that you are very much like either parent. Then again, why wouldn’t you be this way, since these are the people who created you!?
Same as it ever was …
NotMax
So the big lox brouhaha from a while back sank in?
Shall refrain from more than passing mention of the sacrilege to bagels ‘n’ lox that is sprouts.
(If have some extra moolah burning a hole in the pocket, and if it is even available in WV, some time try smoked sable instead of lox. Heavenly.)
NotMax
Link fail in #24.
Correction, I hope.
smoked sable
Keith G
Good post, JC. I am your reverse. I am the youngest by 7 years (my older brother just passed away in July). I have two sisters at 10 and 13 years older.
It is likely that you’re younger sis spent a lot of time observing and considering you, even more than she might admit. It’s what we do. Its how we learn.
Ask her what it was like being a younger sister to you.
donnah
John, you’re the perfect example of “the more people I meet, the more I like my pets”.
What I see in your photos is that Steve belongs right there with you, and even in this short amount of time, he’s flourished and filled out and seems to be thriving. And that’s terrific!
Merry Christmas, John, and to all the Balloon Juicers!
Steeplejack
@John Cole:
The pictures look great, Cole! I think you have found the perfect solution: temporarily crank it up to “Hollywood lighting” for pet pics and such, then back down to the usual stygian gloom. You experience minimal disruption of your cave-bear lifestyle, we get pictures we can actually see. Win!
Betty
For some reason I have a great affection for curmudgeons so it’s OK by me.
Steeplejack
@Cole:
Interesting about your younger sister. My youngest brother, referred to here previously as the bro’ man, is almost eight years younger than I am. When I went away to college at 17, he was 9 years old, and for a long time I felt that I didn’t really know him as a person. We never lived in the same places, and for a while in his early 20s he went into deep background because he was gay and he was dealing with that—not the gay part but the “how is my family going to react?” part.
One of the pluses of my moving to Washington in ’05 was that I have gotten to know my brother much better, and that has been really good. We have a good relationship—with a few occasional bumps, which is to be expected—and that has become more important to me as the other part of the family—our mother and our other brother, who is only three years younger than I am—has slid into the Fox News zone.
DC Forbes
Speaking of ‘weapons-grade catnip’…where do you find Fukushima frolic fun for felines? I remember some reference(s) – in prior posts some months ago – about a woman who supplies our fearless leader (and curmudgeon) with ‘the stuff’….
We have two (2) cats, in addition to the three (3) canines (Belgian Tervuren Greyhound, and Morkie)…one of the cats is a twenty-five year old Maine Coon…and he still craves his ‘medicine’ ….
Season’s Greetings and Happy Holidays!
Comrade Mary
Oh, nice pics, John! Subject, composition, and yessssohmygod LIGHT!
But this?
We’ve all seen the video where the JRTs invade his freshly cleaned living room and his resulting agony, but are his standards really that much higher than yours?
And how does he feel about a quick road trip to Toronto? He has a car, right?
TaMara (BHF)
The fact I find this post and Cole utterly charming probably explains a lot about the current state of my love life.
Steve totes adorbs.
And I’m 15 and 10 years older than my brothers, so can totally relate.
Keith G
@Steeplejack: That story line is very familiar to me. I played the role (in the 80s) of your younger brother.
kc
Pics look good!
Also, you ARE a curmudgeon.
bemused senior
My brother (youngest sibling — I am the eldest) is 18 years younger than I am. I left for college when he was an infant, and since I only saw him on holiday visits, interacted with him more like an aunt. I am so happy he ended up moving from the east coast to the west coast, where I see him often. But it is strange that siblings so distant in age actually have a lot of differences due to being brought up by the same very differently aged parents. Re the picture, I took a pic of my new old dog asleep in bed with my husband where the room was totally dark. The flash on my phone did its thing, and the picture was perfect. The room looks well lit.
Ash Can
Steve looks like a meatloaf with a nose. How fitting (and very, very huggable).
And this:
is a beautiful thing.
Gex
Based on this post, I’m guessing giving you a text to speech device at a gathering would fix the talking problem. This read like you’ve gone manic and the words will not stop gushing out.
Gin & Tonic
@NotMax: So the big lox brouhaha from a while back
My Christmas present to Cole is to not mention, even in passing, that nova and lox are NOT THE SAME FUCKING THING! Merry Christmas.
CaseyL
The photos are great: they show off Steve’s adorable nose to great effect. Something about kitty muzzles makes me get all mushy.
It’s comforting to hear other people here aren’t good with crowds at parties. I’m awful: I always feel like the odd person out, and no one would want to talk to me because I have nothing interesting to say. I’m fine when I know at least a few people there, but otherwise… oy.
I wish Cole would come out to Seattle some day. We have terrific BJ meetups, and it would be insanely great to meet him.
EZSmirkzz
Nice pics John. I am confident that you are approaching the time when everywhere you look you will start framing it for a picture, and having camera in pocet will proceed to take them, gradually improving, like a pot of chili leftovers that last four days until it’s gone, whence you can get into arguments with the netizens of the world over photography and whether chili should have beans. While I’m on the topic of pictures perfect, an ounce of sausage mixed with the hamburger and stirred into the bean and chili powder makes for a nice change of taste and texture. That has nothing to do with photography, I know, but shoot many and show few doesn’t have anything to do with chili either.
Anyway, Merry Christmas to you and your family. As for your community, I am reminded of Don Rickles at the roast of Bob Hope, I never liked, I don’t know how you becams a star. You deserve a Cole in stockings, and if you were really kind, in a FSM sort of way, one in your knickers too. But no, you’re always taking.
And just to piss off the rednecks, happy holidays.
StringOnAStick
@DC Forbes: I believe the source for weapons grade catnip is werebear. Her webpage is thewayofcats.com I think
eemom
What a great post, Cole. Missed it last night cuz I was cooking and wrapping.
@TaMara (BHF):
I made your pumpkin cream pie recipe! One substitution: I used vanilla wafer instead of ginger snap crumbs. Smashing the wafers to make the crumbs was the most fun I’ve had in months.
chuck butcher
I don’t know about “judging” people having a fair (in both senses) idea of what you’re dealing with only seems reasonable – though participating does count. I have to admit that since sobriety I try to start out giving benefit of doubt to the good.
DC Forbes
@StringOnAStick:
Thanks for the pickup & reference, SOAS…the best of the holidays to you….
DC