Sheboygan shazaam!in two parts

part one

We know there is a little ditty in there somewhere, a lad, a gent, a two time loser from Sheboygan. But this is about a culinary discovery.

On the train to the ball park named for the phone company of the week, but rolls off the tongue packbelle, there were a group of Dutchmen. We could tell, because they said "lekker" a lot, and we remember smoking copious amounts of blond hashish in Amsterdam, and the dutchmen always said, lekker, ja?

ja!

Love, love, love packbelle park. P and I met infamous Mo and her squeeze for a pre-game drink that stretched into the fourth inning. And claimed our seats five rows behind home plate, well, that's infamous Mo.

Now mind you, Emma has only the vaguest idea of the rudiments of our national pastime. As stated, we are all about the dogs, and the splendor of the ball park. Mo introduced to our latest culinary obsession, it is a sausage, sausage called a Sheboygan, and it is most delicious paired with sauerkraut and a liberal dosing of yellow mustard.

Did you know that many baseball players are short?

We liked our Sheboygan so much that we had a second one, and several cocktails. And henceforth Sheboygan shall be our most favored euphemism for penis, penis! As in, did you see the Sheboygan in that man's pants? Nice Sheboygan...

The evening was mild, the crowd was civilized, the Giants won. I was surprised when the game ended so abruptly, but P explained that is what happens in the ninth inning. Thank heavens, we might have been sorely tempted to go for a third Sheboygan. Sheboygan!!

We stayed and let the ball park empty, and this, this is our favorite part. Infamous Mo is standing with the stadium assistant manager, we are smoking, flagrantly. And here come the Gulls. The night sky is heavy with screeching hungry gulls, the assistant manager warns us to beware the acid rain of thousands of gulls dive bombing for peanuts and scraps of hot dogs (no remnants of Sheboygan under my seat) And the heat of forty-two thousand bodies and their murmurings is surrendering to the brined bay, and a distinct damp in settling onto vacated seats. The groundsmen are tamping the bases, the gulls are screeching, mine, mine into the night air, and suddenly, fabulously the stadium lights extinguish, with the same sound effects as in the movies. And it's magic, it's just plain magic.

part two

We having been routing out the cause of our ennui, and have come up with a plausible explanation. We are shortly to turn thirty-three, and we thought we were not unnerved by this, but apparently we are.

Attempting to allay our deep-seated boredom we spent the day trolling our various "blogs of note" and randomly wound up at some young lady's site born in 1980, new to San Francisco and sparkly effervescent in the way that only a twenty two year old girl can be sparkly effervescent. Loves cosmo's and gay boys... Oh sweet child, we did and still do, and we envy your cola zest. We would like to reassure our self that our bubbles are a little slower, but a lot richer, think a vintage Veuve Cliquot rose, churning through the flute, taking our sweet time to break the surface.

and yet that analogy is not wholly satisfactory.

33, it's a nice complete number, but it is no longer 32, where when all else fails to console, we can repeat, and repeat, but, wait, we are still in our early thirties, does 33 qualify as early mid thirties. And who the fuck cares, and who the fuck is counting? Answer, you are my pet.

Fair enough.

Which brings us to blogging. A perfect solution to the 15 minute of fame question. You can be anyone you want to be.

I was pondering this as I was reading Rance. Which only makes us prance about our living room singing Rance, Rance lives in France, Rance, Rance has ants in his pants, while wearing our under garments and capped with a lamp shade, why, because we can. "Rance" the purported movie star- cum basement troglodyte. Of course we love, love Rance, if he is a basement troglodyte, what a wonder. Witty and erudite, we almost long for him to be a fraud, just to witness the desolation of his many countless fans who believe that this man (woman, teenager armed with spell check, mythical beast) is legit, who are reeking of need to establish a rapport with celebrity. Don't get is wrong, we love to surreptitiously read of Rance's various doings, he was most recently stalked by a "paparazzi" lurking about his garbage pails. We are enthralled by the audacity of it.

Blogging, such a vanity project, accessible to anyone who can type or dictate, and already there are the various clans and hierarchies. There are your kingly east coast bloggers, your west coast bloggers, and then your midwesterners, we ran across a georgia cracker blogger, but he frightened us and we left. Certainly, down the line, we can expect the blog wars, sort of like the east coast/ west coast rap wars of the mid to late nineties... the coasts vying for supremacy over the medium, the splinter groups, patchy allegiances, and Rance, mocking us from the comfort of his momma's basement.

Of course since emma is a day late and a dollar short and can't figure out how to make links, unless they are smoky links, mmmm smoky links, so similar, except shorter and lacking in girth compared to a Sheboygan, so she will have to sit out the blog wars, and comment, snarkily (hush, just a little word we made up) on the goings on... perhaps we will find ourself embedded. Perhaps we would much rather be just bedded...

Emma bids goodnight to all of those writing in fantasyland.

The 7-11 Invasions

There is a nefarious plot afoot. Bright, shiny icky-sicky 7-11's are sprouting like unwelcome mushrooms all over the city.

One such mushroom has sprouted across Claude Lane. Right next to Sammy's liquor store. I fear for Sammy. Sammy is a genial man, paunchy and we could be wildly off the mark but of Mediterranean/ Middle Eastern descent. M. would know. For years we have purchased cigarettes, in various states of inebriation, and have always been well treated my Sammy of the speculative origins.

And now this fluorescent blight. This place of cold humming machines dispensing frozen sugar water to a population already addled by sugar, caffeine and liberal doses of Xanax, this Eyesore!

Totally out of place in downtown San Francisco! What in heaven's name our we becoming? We are being burb-ified, and it must stop.

What are we to do, when we are oh so casually trying to pick up on the Musician, and are distracted by the glare down the alley... our chances our slim enough...

In other news, Emma is going to see the Giants after work. We don't really follow baseball, but we love Pac Bell Park (or whatever phone company they are calling it this week) and we are partial to hot dogs and the really potent bloody marys. Hot dogs! Hot dogs!

(but not the kind that you get at a stupid ass, ugly old 7-11)

And another thing

So, we have just subjected ourself to an hour and them some of Angelina Jolies awesome rack with built in perpetual THO and legs and blow-doll mouth, and we have three words.

Chuh, As If.

As if it were remotely possible to discover an impossible archeological site and then blow it up as if one were blowing on one's freshly polished nails.

Um, she shark wrangled.... we mean, she subdued a fucking shark by punching by giving it a one-two rockem sockem in the gander under water no less. Frankly and crankily we are less than impressed...

... which brings us to John Kerry, who has recently induced our ire. Dude, fer chrissakes.

What the hell were you thinking not making an appearance at the march on Sunday? You need not to heed all of your flacks and stick to your instinct. Fortunately, or otherwise you are stuck with my vote.

How I long for a Deanian rebel yell, John, give me unscripted, John, John, channel a little Bill. Balls are a good thing. I have a perfect theme song for the campaign, it's a little ditty by everybodies favorite cheeseball, Tom Jones, The Lead and how to Swing It.
Baby, you can swing that lead, led, stop cowtowing to the miserable fuckwits, and also, unleash your wife. You might be surprised at how many ladies in the untenable Sex and the City demographic (that you really, really need) think she's a stand up kind of broad. And another thing.... wait I forgot...

Hot, Hot, Hot and then... Here comes the fog

We were reading our New Yorker and came across a tribute to a writer called Hamburger, who passed away last week. It was touching and we wept, selfishly, for ourself.

A great and long life, full of contributions, a lengthy legacy, a long time love affair, a minor place in history.

We want that too. We think we may not achieve it, hunkered down in a stale job, for the money and only for the money (a pittance at that). Complaining to P over salads, about the wretchedness of our love life, prospectless, B.O.B. my only solace...

The Hamburger's wife passed away last year, his friends speculated that he might follow suit, and sure enough he did.

We would have thought that Jane might do the same after cantankerous old Grandpa Bill died. Instead, in her eighties, she is hale and spry, partial to gin and cruises. She seems to relish her new freedom. Though they loved each other, she had loved him since she was fifteen years old.

These times have changed.

Since the morning we took the taxi on gorgeous day in September, the driver was playing the AM radio and I naturally thought it was some war of the worlds scenario, planes plowing into buildings... into the Pentagon... absurd... Until we saw the barricades at City Hall. The cab dropped us off at the BART station and we were paralyzed, unable to descend to the train, rooted to the sidewalk. Rooted for a long time. And then the television sets, on, everywhere. That eerie blue sky. The Leapers. The ash.

And then the fall out.
Funerals.
The NY Times publishing all of the dead, which engendered in us and obsessive need to read both the marriage announcement and the obituaries. Looking for clues into a life, into a love.

And then the successive wars, what should have been a great rally of our nation was a blip on Fox news. The Sheep were more interested in the doings of the Assfleck and the J-ho. And the dead keep piling up. How many corpses on the front lawn of the White House, American, Iraqi, Afghan, add to that the three thousand lost on that day in September. How can our Feckless Leader sleep at night?

Add to that the sinking of the economy, the stripping away of our various, heretofore, taken for granted civil rights and liberties... Is it any wonder we are suffering from a collective ennui, or are we just projecting. Is it any wonder we, that is Emma, would rather lose ourself in trashy mysteries and candy coated movies then contemplate the reality, that in the face of the systematic dismantling of our nation we have done fuck all besides rail at the television, NPR and other media outlets, we have voted in elections, but we have not put sole to pavement to make the change.

Contrary to what we said in an earlier posting about feminists, we would have been honored to march in Washington last Sunday.

We were pleased, and sent a congratulatory email to our Young Mayor Gavin, when he started the marriage frenzy. We wrote that we were satisfied that our singular vote did matter in the democratic process. Hey Antonin - FUCK YOU!

Many years ago, when we were living with the Frogs, there were nightly battles over wine that comes in water bottles and stains the teeth an unsightly green, about France V. America. We felt it an honor to defend our country, and when all else failed, we could always throw down the gauntlet, ah oui, mais, ze frenshweemin, zey do not schave zere harmpits... Which was patently untrue, but myths zey do peersist. The point is we no longer feel honored, nor duty bound to defend.

And that is truly disheartening.

Enough already, it is time to contemplate Angelina Jolies gigantic mouth and long, long legs as we indulge in a bit of Tomb Raider escapism.

Weather: sultry

Emma is likely to make a rather brief brieffing this evening, seeing as how she is quite properly soused.

we blame it on the white wine, the pink wine and the red wine - tricolor they shout from the balconies-
FLFF came to dinner, we made a goodly stab, if we may say so, at a blanquette de veau..

.... oh child who are you fooling, you are three sheets in and wish you had a warm body between your empty sheets. Too soused to make a feeble attempt at pornography, best get to bed, and my dear, do take two advil.

much thanks, your ever lovin' conscious...

Emma says goodnight and away, stars and rivers, rivers of stars...

Weather: Dampening morning, hot breathed irracible Afternoon

A note to D. I am not angry, I had just had a hearty flogging by my hormones, happens, you oughta know.

The sun is high and the wind is snaking across the bay. All of the pollutants have been swept inland. Nothing but cerrulean skies and Pacific yawning. As dusk surrenders to dark we are drinking at Claude. Mr. White and Mr. Buck are drinking gin and tonics, the lovely MS is smoking outside, the pugilistic bartender is nursing a frown, I am with gentille Michelle, she is telling me about a temple in Hong Kong. Faces I know drift about, and suddenly I am feeling very J. Alfred Prufrock, coming and going, talking of Michael Angelo.

The moon is a half smile in the night, cigarettes are smoked, time passes.

Time passes and the city you knew like the back of your hand has taken on new dimensions and you chastise yourself for keeping your head down.

Somewhere in there you disappeared here, only to resurface a little older, a little colder and still wanting, and yet still happy on such a sapphire evening as this.

Weather: Cloudy with a chance of Bitch, or an aimless posting

what Emma needs is a good, solid cry. Try as we might, we have been unsuccessful in invoking the deluge, the usual ploys have left our eyes dry rimmed and our disposition increasingly sour.

yes, ladies and germs, witness again the monthly battle of the whore-moan. Akimbo they are, splayed and flayed.
Bitch is winning, in collusion, as usual with Hysterical, Weepy is waging a valient dry-eyed battle, Lethargy awaits on the sidelines, but Bitch is about to meet her most virulent contender, cuz, ladies and germs, Rage is in the house.

Rage is a fitful contender, making, praise be, only tri-monthly visits at best.

Rage nearly took off the head of the unsuspecting muni attendent who had the FUCKING gall to ask us to remove our monthly pass and FUCKING swipe it like a MOTHERFUCKINGGODDAMNED plebe.

he was out of line.

Only fat, rolly-polly tears can diffuse this bete noir.

Rage thrashes against the usual litany of woes, screeches, scratches, is FUCKING unhinged because we forgot to pick up the bath salts and are running out of cigarettes. You do not want Rage wandering the streets in search of cigarettes after two fortifying glasses of wine, itching for a fight.

(and please, please don't mention the president)

We are going to make the brave attempt to assuage rage by reading to her, her favorite kind of trash nazi/political intrigue thriller that we keep on hand for occaisions such as this. It is unlikely to evoke the tearful release that we so desire, but it is likely to distract Rage enough so that we might enjoy a solid night's rest. As to the bath salts, we have found a suitable alternative after much rummaging and balking on the part of Rage.

wait, before we get into the bath, Rage would like her two cents worth: BUSH YOU WORTHLESSCOCKSUCKER, SHARON YOU FUCKINGFUCKWIT, RUMSFIELD YOU ARE FUCKING CONSTIPATED, TAKE SOME METAMUCIL ALREADY, ASSCROFT TWO WORDS; TITS! TITS!

FOR ANYONE WHO SAYS WHERE YOU AT WIHTOUT THE INTENDED IRONY, YOU FUCKING TROGLODYTES, GO BACK TO FUCKING GRAMMAR SCHOOL, GRAMMAR SCHOOL, GET IT?

BRITTANY SPEARS, GO AWAY!
PARIS HILTON, GO AWAY!

MICHAEL JACKSON, DUDE WHERE'S YOUR CAR?? CUZ, I'M PRETTY SURE IT ABSCONDED WITH YOUR SKIN COLOR, YOUR BALLS, AND YOUR HUMANITY.

ok, sweety, that's enough, lets check it and retire to the tub.

n'oublie pas que les temps change...

Is it a man's world?

We have always nursed a private disdain for the feminist movement. Having been raised in a post sixties household where my father cooked and did laundry and ran his business and my mother taught and did laundry too, and raised my younger brother and I that the world was a peach ripe for plucking, regardless of gender, with a little elbow grease and some imagination.

Whilst we could appreciate the historical context of your Betty Friedan's and your Gloria Steinham's, coming of age in the eighties and being in college in the boom times of the early nineties, particularly in San Francisco, we shared no sympathies for the man hating shrews with the wiccan agenda, let's everybody share their labia, and bond as sistahs.

We thought it was a load of vagino-centric hooey.

Once many years ago, when we were attending a small college in the sticks, we were invited to stand naked and debunk the myths of our bodies in front of group of other women (need I describe the incense and the requisite drumming?). We declined, and with our friend MK we waited the others out in the car, for which, as I recall, we were roundly scorned.

Let us just get one thing straight, a gaggle of women is a hen party, and a hen party is oft toxic, a group of women who do not know each other very well, despite their best intentions can be dangerous to navigate, one false move and they (those self satisfied wiccans) will be the first to denounce you to the parish priest and will be those in the crowd who will yowl loudest as the flames scorch your flesh. We call this the Condi Rice syndrome, and for the record, when she goes down, we will dance on her grave.... Actually we can think of a number of women whose graves we would like to dance upon.

And then, in our precarious defense, for the record, it is not always thus. We have several groups of girlfriends to whom we profess absolute solidarity. Take our old group from highschool, as you will undoubtedly recall, highschool is rife with intrigue and betrayal, but fifteen years hence we have settled and mellowed and old rivalries are now fodder for jokes. We are wildly disparate, but the more time passes, the greater the esteem that we have for them.

But now we wonder if we ought to take up our mother's mantle. Perhaps it is still a man's world, and clearly they are wrecking it. If only there were a magic pill to curb the pettiness and the spite and the rampant oneupsmanship.

We are reading the latest Joanne Harris book, "Holy Fools" which is what brought on these musings, a sixteenth century fraudulent nun terrorized by her once lover/fraudulent priest and we are sitting at dinner working ourself into a state, thinking, cut the narrative short and just fucking kill the worthless bastard. Does that constitute feminism or does that constitute a psychopath, and is there a difference.

We tend to think that zeal in all it's myriad cloaks of many colors is benign poison at best, terrorism at worst. And mind you, we believe that those who bomb clinics in the name of God are still going to the special hell that those who take out buildings with aircraft full of human cargo are going to. Imagine how perplexed they shall be at finding themselves in hell... Imagine their absolute dismay, zealots all, Christian, Muslim, a sprinking of Jews (especially Sharon) Rwandans, Croats, a load of crazed Hindi and even a smattering of rogue Budists, imagine them all together, all hating one another and bound for all eternity for the singularity of their crimes. For, virtually all of the worlds dogmas all share a single coda, thou shalt not kill.

Funny how easily we forget.

In other news, the genocide in Sudan continues unchecked, the light skinned Arabs are decimating the black Sudanese. No one cares, they don't really have any natural resources that the civilized world cares to exploit. It is Rwanda all over again, perhaps ten years down the line and a million or so dead later, the (hopefully, one termer Resident Bush) will issue a heartfelt, but wholly inadequate mea culpa, just like my darling Bill did...

ah la la
la vie est belle
la vie est triste
on fait comme on peut, on fait de notre mieux.

Why we get no work done, or are you flirting with us

According to the elevator gods, the One called Captivate, which should just be shortened to Captive, for that is what we are, we docile sheep, shooting upwards to our various cubicles, gamely absorbing the Captivate's superfluous factoids. (shut up I know it's a run on) Anyway the Captivate god took a survey on it's web site, apparently nearly 45% percent of us are bored silly at work.

Is it any wonder then, that I am posting from work.

Heaven knows what we did prior to the advent of the internet (work, probably) and the joy of the quickie email flirtation, lightening quick thrust and parry. We worry that eventually we humans will lose all capacity for speech and be able to communicate only through the dexterity of our fingers (which could have extremely pleasurable connotations) as we pound out witticisms on the key board. Woe to the troglodytes. But then again, if things continues as they have under our Feckless Leader, we think it is safe to assume there eventually be some "cleansing" and some "purging" and all of the poor and disenfranchised will be, regardless of color or creed (though we suspect the bulk to a darker shade of beige, and don't forget the poor white trash!) will be gently coerced into some kind of indentured servitude, and those of us repugnant intellectuals, lovers of art and humanity will all be sentenced to France (please don't throw me in the briar patch) and the rest of the country will be run by the fat hypocrite of the Right, the Greed Monsters and Paris Hilton and her unholy spawn.

disjointed, lambjoints, joints, jukes, ungotten jokes and pudenda

Emma is suffering from a bad case of gnat brain. Gnat brain, perhaps an unorthodox diagnosis, but it goes something like this... You know when your thoughts are scattered like gnats buzzing about your head, like a bad day in the country. You know when you need one of those really fine netted butterfly nets to capture them and sort them out.

Like cheese cloth.

gnats are small things, fragile, in constant peril and fantastically annoying. So you have your mini-butterfly net and you are chasing after the gnats, not nearly as flamboyant as your average butterfly, or for that matter a run of the mill moth, but they are elusive, easily diffused by the slightest breeze in the brainicle, scattered, and so easily smooshed under a careless thumb.

What one winds up catching in one's mini-butterfly net are a few blood sucking mosquitos whining about various unpaid bills and that spot on the kitchen floor and the stack of dishes and they bite and lordy do they itch, and also the slow and stupid horsefly, buzz, buzz, buzzing the fat song, the fat song...

And the gnats swarm about the eyes, wearing you out, wearing you down, ceaseless, humming, evasive.

And somewhere in that long drawn out metaphor there was a point to be had, but the gnats carried it away before I could flesh it out, as it were.

Speaking of flesh, Emma would like to gloat, jus fo a sec, that she had sex (with a man!) on Saturday night. Yes, that's right, solid (solid! thanks undercoverbrother) manflesh, and yes, that's right, she had several orgasms and was most pleased. She recycled her most delicious French Toast, our favorite youngster, not quite twenty-eight and still remembers his lessons. Tu merite un dix sur dix mon cher ami.

hmmm, I think more recycling, or as they say recyclage is in order, rather promptly.

In other random news: We are being stalked by our third grade crush.
some dozen soldiers died, but our Feckless leader in unfazed.
Bananas are heading for obsolescence.
We invented the perfect meal tonight- for nights when opening cans is the extent of culinary invention: here's what you do, one can of good Italian tuna packed in water, one can of - praise jeebus - San Marzano tomatoes, lemon juice, Sciabiaca's olive oil, and rosemary salt.
Dilute the salt in the lemon juice, add generous amount of olive oil, add tuna, add loads of tomatoe, toss! Dinner!

for those of you who do not have access to the joys of the Ferry building, I pity you. No, really I do.

OK, Emma is becoming pedantic, and the gnats are still swarming, perhaps it is high time we retired our bedevilled thoughts.

Weather: Muted Sunshine with an Undertone of Chill

Our "craptacular" mood has not subsided, we are in need of defunkification.
We heard that our Employer was going to put some sort of filter that would put and end to posting from work. We don't usually, but are out for the sheer illicit pleasure. One takes one's jollies where one can get them.

And since we are not getting them anywhere else...

Former Spouse is a regular reader, he worries that we are in danger of becoming Lonely Woman with a Cat, but we do not have a cat. We have ourself and we have lovely chats with ourself... You know, like Gollum, hunkered down, gazing at our reflection in the bath tub, nattering on about how we hates those nasty hobitses...

Now all we need is a ring. We would like one from Tiffany's, subtle, not a great big ostentatious sparkler... and not for our wedding ring hand (right, left, left, right... we forget) the other hand, because we have totally bought into the nefarious ad campaign by De Beers that all an independent (read: single, upwardly mobile - or at least willing to assume a bucket load worth of debt to assert her independence - read: Lonely Woman with Cat) woman really needs is something sparkling and expensive to make her feel that all is right and well with the world.

Hey we're there! Sheep with diamonds are sheep none the less... Bahhh!