every flake of fucking snow isn't newsworthy.
sincerely,
the residents of st louis



last night, st louis was blanketed by a soft white coat, dulling sound and insulating the ground. two inches of snow. to hear the news people last night, we were going to have to tunnel our way to the grocery store to fight our fellow citizens for milk and bread (*). apparently, 25 years ago yesterday, st louis was hit with the blizzard of '82. what the local news people don't seem to realize is that that was in fact twenty-fucking-five fucking years ago. who the hell cares what the weather was like 25 years ago? what will it be like tomorrow? i don't have to go to work 25 years ago.

(*) why milk and bread? when i hear it's going to snow a lot, i try to get to the store for beer, whiskey, and tomato paste. god knows we don't want to run out.

yet another reason to discount ethanol as a viable alternative to fossil fuels: tortilla price gouging. i listened to this story on npr this morning, and the worst part is that wal-mart, mexico's largest private employer, is using this crisis to drive smaller operations out of business by continuing to sell cheap tortillas.

i have decided to write a cookbook. any gthedamned readers who have eaten my cooking who would like to remind me of something i made at one point, please do so, via the comments section. this is going to be one good fucking cookbook. i'm also looking for a title, so suggestions are welcomed (siouxs! assures me that i shouldn't swear in the title, though in the book text is ok).

let me start by saying that we had it a lot better than most, as we had our power back up and running seven hours after it went off.

(wednesday) the storm itself was freaky. the (cliche) sky was green, and when i went on the porch, the wind changed directions 180 degrees four times in two minutes. the followup storm that was supposed to be thursday night didn't arrive until mid-day friday, and i was making deliveries in the worst part of it.

work was a joke. we had to scramble to rent a generator to keep our ac working and our wine uncooked. the generator we found was basically an old big rig engine without the extras like steering and brakes. i shouldn't complain, as it did the job, but i'm even more deaf that i was before i stood within a quarter mile of it. after that was done, we still made some deliveries, but mostly just sat around talking about what we should have for lunch.

(thursday) thoguh our power was on, a non-electric entertainment source is suggested. begin 1491 piece jigsaw puzzle of butterflies.

(thursday/friday) after trying to drive with traffic lights out all over town, i'm going to need an operation to remove the murder from my heart ( called a cydectomy).

(saturday) washington avenue music fest could have been better, but enough places had power to make it interesting for a few afternoon hours, and it was refreshingly nice out. skip and krowbar got a much improved temperature for the outing, as their power stayed off until yesterday.

also, really starting to hate those butterflies.

(sunday) fast eddies bon air. six beers, steak kabob, chicken wing kabob, pork kabob, french fries, and half a dozen boiled shrimp: $25. enough said.

peace is made with at least the purple butterfly.

all in all, quite an experience. i don't know if anyone died from the heat, but overall, not as awful as it might have been. a four/five day reminder of what life was like 100 years ago.

so this week i am running the show as best i can in the office, as both of my bosses are in south america for the week. i hope they have a good time there, because i have a feeling it's going to be murder here. i have covered the office for a few days before, and it's usually quiet, but there will likely be at least four times this week when i am so stressed out that i threaten sales reps on the phone and/or let the frustration in my voice leak out when i'm on the phone with a customer (work enough customer service and you can say just about anything with a smile, just letting the bile trickle out the back of your head). anyway, if the week warrants, there will be updates.

jack had a pretty good weekend. we barbecued a little saturday, but did next to nothing else all weekend long. this is a very good thing, as the next several weekends will contain a trip to tennessee and a lesbian wedding among other things. i think every weekend between now and july is spoken for somehow or another.

enough for now. more when something exciting happens.

fuck bush.

good weekend. jack has more personality everyday. yesterday, we barbecued the stuff we bought the day before he was born (purchased in an effort to get him going... obviously, it worked). i broke the landlady's birdfeeder, we invented a new sport (tongball), siouxs! picky sister ate shrimp. a good time was had by all.
i'm sure i have voiced my distaste for wal-mart at some point on this blog. i'm not alone in hating the monoculture bohemoth, but it seems that our dear friends in organized labor are standing up to fight. on the whole, i am pro-union (at least when they are actually fighting for their members, and not just to keep union brass salaries high), so needless to say, i'm right behind them in this one.
do we really need to be funding the chinese economy to the extent that wal-mart is? i have nothing against china, but in our quest for ever lower prices, we're managing to tank our own economy. at the rate we're going now, at least by the time jack has kids of his own, he may be the one doing the "outsourced" job (eventually, americans will be forced to do jobs at less than the going rate for the indians and chinese who are getting them now.) if this sounds paranoid, so be it. i'm strongly against pure capitalism, and i'm sure it comes out in these rants.
stop sam walton's monster or pay the consequences!