these days of leiderhosen

Dear Bennish: I was in your future neighborhood this evening for a holiday office party (I was the spouse attachment), at Irving and Sunset. The Steven plucked me up out of the Mess of Berkeley at 4:00 PM sharp and it was 4:20 when the car pulled up the Panhandle of Golden Gate Park heading into the Sunset district. The sun was bouncing low off the ocean through 20 blocks of eucalyptus and optimism, thickly coating the low mist into a velvety bronze that contrasted nicely with the darkening blue sky. Looking East down Sunset the blue windows UCSF Medical Center gleamed on the hill: no ice, no salt, no slush. Not a single person looked cold. In the opposite direction through the mist, one could just see straight down the crest of the street into the wide gold Pacific. I tried to determine the livability of the neighborhood with the a civil and uncynical eye and determined - yes: grocery store, fruit seller, Russian deli, two dozen chinese medical practices, big ass Catholic Church (St...

Where the Madame goes to be amused by crap . A peanut butter emulsifer/stirrer, I ask you. The talking barbecue thermometer slays me. I've been steaming the latest spinning experiment (ocher? turquoise?) and now my house smells like a humidified barn. Dasparkhotel : intriguing! Keith Knight's K Chronicles delights in the Holiday Season and the despair of December Birthdays.

For God's sake, give the Writers whatever they want! Otherwise it's belly dance and trapeze classes for everyone! So the networks are almost out of scripts to shoot so here's the plan if we ever decide to watch TV again: we start with all the classic movies on TCM Network (starting with the Marx Brothers). Then it's the Grant Family International DVD Film Festival in the living room. The DVD player will be hacked for foreign region DVDs (love the internet!) and the US scoured. When those run out of foreign films, we'll watch Mexican wrestling and make our costumes. Maybe we can work in a nap. Applications for ushers, grape peelers and love slaves are now being accepted. Without Writers, it's all a crapfest. Ah, Ike Turner has passed. His reputation as a complete asshole contradicts my fondness for the song "Sexy Ida" but, honestly, it's all Tina. All the time .

All the sweet things have been claimed! Thanks for the feedback and comments! Now I need your address to post the goods to your soon to be sticky hands. Be delicious and drop me a quick email with your address at coldfridayATgmailDOTcom.

Gentle Readers: It has become apparent that there are more readers to this blog than I'd realized and now it's time to skirt up and be counted. So here's the deal, Darlings: Leave me a comment here before Tuesday at 10 AM PST and I'll mail you something sweet and slightly salty. My gift to you*. The goods?: handmade Fleur de Sel Carmels. I will even ship internationally, where applicable. And if you aren't so much into the sweets yourself you can always use them for barter or for emergency Holiday brou-ha-ha. *Family is excluded from this offer; ya'll are killing me with cheese stick requests. I'll see you soon enough and we can wrestle about it then.

Listening: Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Live at the Hot Club de France Swilling: A Casa del Grant Latte (that I hope was intended for me, eggnog cut with soymilk) Facing: A mountain of paperwork; I'm never gonna be able to get this done. Pondering: the origin of the word "coercion". I can't remember the last time a cold stuck around for a week. The Old Man Hack is really quite a sound and the headache behind the left eyeball isn't scintillating as well. Beloved Scott left a voicemail with his favorite remedy. It involves a great deal of cayenne and allows one to see little pink floating lights and turns one's sinuses into the Tiber river. Disgusting! And effective! It's back to Special Olympics track practice tomorrow with Mum. I haven't seen those guys for a month so I am looking forward to seeing everyone; no doubt there will be some heavy leaning, talkingtalkingtalking as well as full disclosures of ages and birth dates. In the corner of my closet I am ac...

I am back at home after getting progressively more phlem-ish at work. After another searing ginger/mustard bath the cat & I passed out for the midday snooze, waking up drenched in sweat. With ginger baths, that's pretty much the point. My late sister Heather has been appearing in my dreams again, each time less communicative and more strangely dressed. It means something, but I haven't worked it out yet. It's not unwelcome, but I'd like to know what she wants and just what's up with the hat with teddy bear ears. She's always writing in her large unsteady cursive, pressing very hard. This week Mum (a closet sentimentalist) ran across a letter Heather wrote to me (never delivered) shortly before I moved out of my parents house in 1989. The rest of the family were on vacation in Hawaii, while I stayed home trying to put my life together mourning the cataclysmic end of a five year relationship that hinged on the upcoming move to Seattle. Heather wrote wanting t...