Loser?

Perhaps I’m a loser for staying at home on a Friday night but I don’t mind. Call me what you will. I have a nice cup of Ethiopian java by my side (earlier I had me a bottle of Lakefront’s barley wine…mmm…) and a pot of gumbo simmers as I type. Earlier, I cranked up some Steve Earle and started chopping. By the time, “Condi, Condi” started playing, I was hovering over the pot stirring the roux. I listened to the album 3 times getting the gumbo to the simmering stage and while cleaning up. Luckily Stevie and Becca are gone so I could really crank up the volume and even “dance” as I put away the clean dishes. Now I’m listening to some Son Volt with the aforementioned coffee. It’s a show from Chicago back in 1999 that was broadcast by WXRT. There’s just something about the Wide Swing Tremelo stuff right now – hard to describe.

I’ve got a trio of bananas that are going to become banana bread and I’ve decided to make Kapusta z Wieprzowina this weekend. That’s Polish for Sauerkraut with Pork. Notice it’s not the other way around. I’ve got a few pounds of spareribs thawing right now. I brought some Black Velvet cheesecake into work today that I made earlier this week and it went over well. I even got a marriage proposition but, unfortunately, it was from Ed. Nothing against him, mind you, as he’s a stand up guy, but he is a guy. Ya know, I had this moment earlier when I realized that the majority of my cooking implements were my dad’s. Both with the gumbo and the cheesecake. It’s his cast iron kettle I’m cooking the gumbo in and his springform pan that held the cheesecake. I used his food processor to make the crust and his sifter to top the cheesecake with cocoa powder. OK, it was the sifter we had when I was a kid and lived in Chicago but…You know what a turtle is? Same thing.

I thought about him a lot today. For some reason, I was really cognizant of the things about me that were also things about him. Little things like mannerisms. And, when I got home, I found that my brain decided to engage in a conversation with itself about how my father would curse the darkness instead of light a candle. It made me feel sad and angry at the same time. But now, after having done a spot of cooking – one of his favorite activities – I feel more relaxed. Tears even began to well in my eyes during “Tear-Stained Eye”. There are days when I think about him quite often and days when he rarely pops into my mind. The Dulcinea and a blogger or two that I read have troubled relationships with their fathers. It saddens me to hear of their tales. While there are certainly differences between their relationships and the one I had with my dad, there’s so much in common. At times I want to tell them to make peace with their fathers, be brave and be the one to reach out. Say what’s on your mind because, when he’s gone, you won’t ever get to do it. While it may not repair a broken relationship, you can at least say your piece and live knowing that you tried. My dad and I never really had a good relationship but I still miss him. I tried to have one but it just didn’t happen. My father could never reach out and I was never able to reach out far enough. Like I said, he spent the last few years of his life doing virtually nothing but cursing the darkness. I sometimes think that maybe I held out a candle but no matches. While my father is now just a memory and a box of ashes, I still think about our relationship. It’s not that I struggle vainly to mend a relationship that is no more but rather to make sure current and future relationships don’t suffer the same fate. At least I’d like to think so. I’m hesitant to actually give advice to The Dulcinea when she tells me about her father. I’ve never met him so I’m loathe to judge him but he sure sounds an awful lot like my old man. I feel comfortable only telling her about my experiences, about what I did and not with laying down a course of action for her. For my part, I’m comfortable with how things stood between my dad and I when he died. They were far from perfect but he knew I loved him despite his imperfections and my own. There was no unfinished business between us, no words and feelings ready to bubble to the surface. Just business that would never be finished. We both knew that we loved one another but we also had this mutual understanding that filial affection would remain in check forever.

I see that some Muslims in Spain have issue a fatwa against Osama bin Laden. Well, thanks for getting with the program. Where were those jackasses on September 12th, 2001? Or how about on March 12th of last year? Well, they are a bit quicker than The Vatican. I wonder if a pontiff will ever excommunicate Adolph Hitler. I find myself less tolerant of religion these days. It started with reading Richard Dawkins’ tirade in the wake of 9/11 and really got boiling while reading The End of Faith. Most of my ire is directed towards Islam but perhaps that’s not fair. After all, Xtianity is similarly stupid and catalytic. But, after reading page after page of quotes from The Koran about killing infidels it really got in my craw. It makes me question anyone who is devoted to The Koran. How does one pick and choose like that? I do want to learn more about Islam because, to me, it looks to be a religion of violence and conquest. You can’t say that it is all true, the word of Allah, etc. while you only adhere to passages about devotion and peace and ignore all those about killing non-Muslims. If you believe it to be the true word of Allah, then you believe in smiting most Americans. The idea that anyone would find it their duty to their fairy tale deity to choke the Yahara River with the bodies of infidels is disgusting. When a fatwa was issued against Salmon Rushie calling for his death, why did we not hear Muslims rise up and say that it was bullshit? Was it merely our media not reporting it? Personally, I am glad that Yusuf Islam, a.k.a. – Cat Stevens, was denied permission to enter this country. Instead of watching an effigy of Rushdie burning at a demonstration, he said, "I would have hoped that it'd be the real thing.” If you support immolation for apostates, this country does not need nor want you. Your beliefs are antithetical to the ideas that made America possible and poison to the maintenance of a republic. Keep him and all similar barbaric fucks out of my country.