P.E.E.D

Today, in Boulder,  my son-in-law Kit showed me what happens when you put dry ice in the garbage disposal. And turn it on! You HAVE to try this. I would suggest that you:

A) Do this in someone else's kitchen. Someone you don't like
B) Use this as an "ice" breaker at a party (someone else's)
C) Plan ahead for April Fools. It is less than a year away

You HAVE to try this.

Okay, for those of you who know that the last time I was here, I jumped out of a plane with 4 other special people. And I told you, "You HAVE to do this". Putting dry ice down the garbage disposal is not quite as exciting as that, but, it's pretty dang impressive (you know when I say "dang" I'm seriously serious). And all you need is dry ice and a raincoat and someone else's kitchen and a disposal and maybe a helmet (see below).

But, this jumping-out-of-a-plane thing - When I jumped out of a plane I was attached to another person who said to me as we were jumping "You might have to remind me to pull the rip cord" Like I could say anything at all with air being forced into my lungs at the speed of 120mph. This, my friend, is a great person for the April Fools dry-ice-in-the-disposal trick.  Anyway, afterwards I spent several hours experiencing a new meaning of the word absent-mindedness. I just could not locate my mind. It got sucked out of my head after stepping over the threshold of a plane at 20,000 feet into a blue, blue, blue Colorado sky and free falling for a 45-second... year! This was not a traumatic experience, by the way. This was an ecstatic experience, which lead to a lingering Post Ecstatic Experience Disorder  (P.E.E.D) that would last several weeks. Later....back home in Ioway....Steve and I test drove a BMW. The salesman dude asked if he could drive for a bit to demonstrate the awesomeness of the BMW brakes by slamming on them while going 60mph.  Surprising to us (but not to the wiser salesman) we came to a peaceful, screechless, breath----less stop. Steve and I had a moment of shared recognition that we were still victims of P.E.E.D as we momentarily re-experienced the "Impossible to exhale" feeling of a 120mph skydiving free fall. Once we got our breath back, we bought a BMW................. Uh oh, did I miss a turn somewhere in this mass of wordiness...like get off track slightly...? "Off route" - My Mental GPS (some time ago). I think I was talking about dry ice in the disposal.........It's waaay funny. It's cheaper than jumping out of a plane. It's cheaper than a BMW, too. And, it's a good way to clean all the kitchen at once. Yeah, I laughed my head off (of course it wasn't my kitchen). Because my head came off and this picture below of helmeted Kit (The Instigator) is so cute, I would say wear a helmet (which oddly enough, doing a tandem jump out of a plane does not require...).  I think I read somewhere though that there is some law that you have to wear a helmet to protect your head if you think you are going to laugh it completely OFF but not if you are falling from a plane and think you are just going to get your mind sucked out of it. Or something.

Kit making a "whoa" face with a dry ice blast coming out of the disposal

Mysterious Mayo Death In Peaceful Boulder Neighborhood Shocks Locals

Inhabitants of this Baseline and Foothills neighborhood reported late Sunday a body of yellow goo surrounded by a flapping paper assumed to be a label and a lid with tire tracks which sustained significant damage. Cause of death is not known at this time, but authorities suspect reckless and irresponsible hauling of stuff on a bike and a failing grocery bag. Authorities have identified the victim as a $7 glass jar of Spectrum, made with olive oil (because soy oil sucks) mayonnaise, probably bought at the nearby (2 minutes) Safeway. It is thought that the mayo was accompanied by at least a can of tuna, who escaped from the scene. The tuna is not a suspect at this time. In fact, it is suspected that the mayo and the tuna were soon to be married (hey, love and let love) in a tuna sandwich ceremony. The tire tracks have been identified as coming from a 2013 Novara Verita' purchased recently at the local REI here in Boulder. Authorities are on the look out for an unhelmeted female cyclist from Iowa wearing a black, nicely designed v-neck t-shirt with a woman's face on the front, resembling Michelangelo's delphic sybil from the cystine chapel and the word "Paradisio" on the front. For more information about the workings of this deviant, see the previous post, "The Great Mayo Escape". Safeway employees reported seeing a confused (with sort of a running-late-again look) person who fit this description. The suspect attracted the attention of the employees by continually putting unknown items in the bagging area at the self-checkout and forgetting to push the "Skip Bagging" button. She is suspected to be very young in the head. Residents are requested to call the police if they should see such person, who is likely, they think to return to the scene of the crime, as she is known to be stupidly conscientious and would not want other bikers or children to get giant shards of glass in their tires or feet respectively. 

Local neighborhood shaken by tragic mayonnaise loss. Murder scene outlined in green (because green is cool)

The Great Mayo Escape

 

Ever wonder what happens when you run over a glass jar of $7 made-with-olive-oil mayonnaise on your new Novara Verita bike (just bragging about my new bike that replaces my 33 year-old (sniff) original owner Peugeot that was (sniff) evil-ly attacked by Iowa/Nebraska ice/salt/road chemicals and developed a malignant case of (sob) rust....waaah). ??? THAT was a run-on question. Just answer "yes". This was pretty up-there on the unforgettable scale (although I might forget it - see next sentence). It is possible that if you ask me in a few years about this incident, i might give you a vacant-eyed smile and be thinking "what the fuck are they talking about" - Meret Giacomini (2015). Because by then so many unbelievably amazing new things will be stuffed into my brain storage unit, on the "weird" shelf (see my first post called AMTRAK Savvy or Meret Giacomini, Weird Eye). I don't know though, this was a pretty awesome experience. A little background - I have this peculiar compulsion to carry too much on my bike in unconventional and potentially dangerous ways. Like it's this big challenge that I can be proud of myself for, or something. Sometimes even brag about - (like now. See next sentence) I once carried a 20lb bag of cat food on the handle bars of my Peugeot 10-speed (the one with advanced stage rust). I made it all the way from Easters (then became Econofoods, now is a True Value Hardware) to my house on 4th and Harrison. I'm not going to tell you how many blocks if you don't know, because not having done this yourself, you might not find this impressive, but i'll put it this way it was worthy of bragging about. That was lame. There must be something more dramatic to say than "it was worthy of bragging about" -Meret (2 sentences ago). Okay, so I bought my groceries that were carefully jammed into two separate thin, thin, thin, plastic bags and headed out along the sidewalk on Baseline to see my adopted (he and his parents don't know this yet) grandson, Luca who just turned one. I am hauling 3 chicken breasts, a carton of organic chicken broth, parsley, garlic, 2 cans of tuna, 2 cans of chicken (what's with all the chicken...) and a jar of mayo. I'm doing my usual, "this is not going to be easy, but I can do it" compulsive hauling stuff on my bike, when I heard a whipped egg and olive oil-muffled pop under my new skinny tire. Luckily, my new bike came with fenders, and I had decided to not be the used-to-be-cool strip-everything-off -your-bike-so-it-is-so-light type person and keep them on - they do good things!. Otherwise, my nice Paradiso T-shirt would probably have a mayo stripe up the back. As it was, just my bike tires had a lovely condiment adornment (a condorment?) of mayo. Expensive mayo, too. "So what happened?" - You (now). Well, I'm thinking the pointy corners of the carton of chicken broth slowly but surely (not really so slowly really, but surely for sure) made a rip big enough for a wide-mouth smart-aleck jar of mayo to slide right through. Ha! Like The Great Escape, except not really because unlike the GE there was only one hole instead of 3 and only the mayo escapes and only the mayo dies instead of 76 men escaping and most of them dying. The chicken broth only aided in the escape, but didn't make it out itself. In fact, as I said, only the mayo did. Anyway, It (the mayo) somehow...tell me how...landed under my back tire. At first (when I was younger, a few days ago) I thought I ran over it with my front tire, but now that I'm reconstructing the story, I'm thinking that if I had hit it with my front tire, I would probably not be telling this story as a funny story, and I might be writing from a hospital bed, or you would just be (sniff) reading my epitaph  "Tragically Killed By Mayo Bomb", or "One stunt too far". Anyway, it went like this - walk out of Safeway, get on bike, grab the top of the bags so they can't dangle into the spokes (causing rider to fly over handle bars in Evil Kenevil type stunt), ride, ride, ride, ride (2 minutes)------POP------(WTF)---- (shit)-----yellow glop with shards of glass on the sidewalk behind me. dead. Never to make a can of tuna into a tuna sandwich, as was its intended fate. Remnants of mayo guts on the clean shiney spokes of my new tires sticking up in little points like merengue (ooops that's the dance)...no meringue, like on lemon pie, like Denver Airport. Check it out. DIA has a roof of meringue. Lemon Pie International Airport. ----That was a distraction, so you wouldn't think to ask me if I cleaned up the mess on the sidewalk--- Ah, but now you will think of it. I'm still quite young in the head, you know. Do you care even? Well, the answer is no, I didn't clean it up, but my plan today is to go back to the scene and do what I can. It's been a rough morning. It's 11am and I've been in bed writing this mess for hours. I guess I'll take one of those clean-up-after-your-dog bags, unless someone has a better idea. Like what about the glass? Maybe a box. You know, there are no known-to-me signs or ordinances here that say I have to clean up after my groceries escaped from their "there will be no escapes from this [bag]" - The Great Mayo Escape (a few days ago) bag. Did you get that? There were a lot of words in there to confuse you. Try it again. Take it slow. Watch The Great Escape. That will help. Or just watch Eddie Izzard's rendition. It is shorter and WAY funnier. Ciao for now!

 AMTRAK Know -it-all or Meret Giacomini, Weird Eye

Something happens when I leave home. Not like "shit happens, man". Weird happens. Some kind of weird-window opens up in my brain. it's like some kind of 3rd eye, only I don't experience higher states of consciousness, I experience weird. "Cool things" - Meret Giacomini, Weird Eye (2013). The next few days will be dedicated to mostly weird experiences on my way to and in Boulder. But, if my weird eye closes up again unexpectedly, you will just be hearing from my other two eyes and normal brain (we're having nice weather today, etc) or my endless ravings about the b-liss of riding my bike on the Boulder Creek path. Hopefully, weirdy opens up again. Let's see...oh yeah, okay. I took the night train coming out here. I learned a few things. I can take really crappy pictures with my android in the dark of anything and enjoy it. Blurry and grainy. I'm on a fucking train at night...See below. I learned how to secure two whole seats to myself on Amtrak, (even when they have assigned you to a seat next to a greasy, snoring (I forgive that) old fart). Now you kind of want to know the secret, right? But, I know how things work. If I tell you the secret, it will eventually get back to Amtrak and then they, " won't get fooled again." - Pete Townsend, The Who (1971).  So, just know that I now k-n-o-w what I'm doing, and be in awe. My train savvy has increase at least one notch. Some advice that I WILL share with you (1) Take your mattress with you. There is this totally unneccesary (in my mind) ridge of steel right under the nice seat covers between the two seats (that I am hogging). The two seats that I have so proudly scored so I can stretch out in comfort for the night. Why? Are we going to let AMTRAK have the last laugh? No. Just haul your mattress onto the train. (2) Don't keep walking when you approach the semi-automatic sliding doors between the train cars. I know we have been taught by other auto-doors to trust, keep moving, don't worry, door will open. AMTRAK, however, is not trying to inspire trust with its doors. This is not a just-keep-moving, this-door-will-open situation. This is a read-the-giant-hand-sized-how-could-you-miss-this button situation. It says "Push to Open".  push it.  Otherwise, whatever part of your body is most sticky-outy in the front will collide with said door. For me It's always my ego or my weird 3rd eye that takes the impact. They are both way out there. Then, (post impact) (assuming you still want to go forward) you actually do what the button says and the door slides gracefully open (ahh) revealing the wobbly (ehh), earthquake-like (yeek), between-cars floor (floor? oh strike that please, it's like walking on a accordian) that lies before you and that (with your bruised and shaky parts) you have to step on AND while you surf the wave, remember to push the button on the next door to get OUT of this closet-sized funhouse. AMTRAK should really get a sense of humor and complete the effect by putting up one of those warped funhouse mirrors that makes your body look like a bowling pin and then have a clown jump out from somewhere. That would be some fine entertainment at 3am as you are making that long trek to the bathroom where the macabre sort of fun continues with scary sounding, airplane toilet-like, don't-leave-the-lid-open-when-you-flush-or-you-may-get-sucked-out-of-the-train toilets. I just want to run! Oh, and that's another train door not to trust. It may be closed, but there may be someone sitting in there who forgot to lock the door (oh ehhhth*&%#)!!. Hey, it's some fine entertainment and it's included in the price of the ticket! Who's complaining!  Oh, you don't care about any of this.... You're saying "Whatever!"...Look, I told you not to read this unless you absolutely had to - check out the name of this blog - so, ask yourself who is to blame here? You're just weird.

Wow. A few years ago when we were giving birth to a cafe and nearly crazy, working massive-hour days, this would have really been a poignant image. It would have had the soothing effect of knowing the cafe was in the opposite direction we were going

The mountains of Nebraska at night

Oh, look at the blurry tree!

Notice the tall thin profile of the alien walking past

Okay, this is the nightmare picture. Cafe is calling and the coffee roaster has thrown a bearing, espresso machine has broken down, and all employees have gone home sick. Exit vacation.