Wednesday, December 1, 2010

What the Hell Is THAT?

"If I made myself a plate, I would put a mountain of IT next to my mountain of rice" - Ronald Morales on Burong Isda

One fall evening, my husband and his buddy were doing the usual; smoking cigarettes, and exchanging war stories in little bite sized sentence fragments. My husband spends a large portion of his spare time in the garage fixing things that aren't broken. Sometimes he is accompanied by a friend or two, but most of the time it is just him and a pack of Djarum clove cigarettes. After listening to a few minutes of thier non-specific ramblings, I decide to indulge them with my rhetoric while I am waiting for my mother in law to arrive. It is unseasonably cold which I thought unusual since Los Angeles is almost ALWAYS "unseasonably hot" no matter what time of year it is.

I sense headlights in the periphery retreat to the safety of the sidewalk as a black vehicle slows to a stop in front of my driveway. My mother in law has arrived. I smile toward the windshield and waive my hand as to reassure her that it is okay to completely block my driveway. We engage in the customary greeting ritual:

1 hug
1 cheek kiss
2 arbitrary questions e.g. "How are you?" "How are the kids"
1 uncomfortable smile

She scurries around the car to open the cargo hatch to reveal what appeares to be a large steaming pot of Mexican tamales. My suspeculation is confirmed as she lifts the lid. A huge billow of steam wafts onto my face tantilizing my senses. There they are; little bricks of meat and or cheese enrobed in masa emerging for the first time from their steamy sarcophagus. Naturally, the two men in my garage begin to gravitate toward the cauldron of temptation. Who can resist freshly steamed home made tamales?

"How many do you want?"

Is she joking? Pretending to be unaware she is speaking to me, I turn to my husband's friend who is staring at the pot like a stray dog waiting for a tiny morsel to fall off of a roach coach. Had there not been any company at the time, i would have gladly accepted a dozen or more without flinching. So I gently redirect the question to my husband's friend.

"How many do you want?"

There is a pause of hesitation in his face, but it is too late. The hypnotic effects of tamale steam are forcing him to take,"...just a few."

Saturday, November 20, 2010

I love surprises.

I did not have time to post any new material from my manuscript, but something that will help me EXPONENTIALLY to do so came into my possession today(yesterday).

So, I'm driving around town to get some groceries done for a catering job I'm working on.. And I'm trying to get the voice recorder on my blackberry to work, but can't play back the audio files I've been saving. So now, 4 book entries that I've recorded on my phone are locked away in some corrupt files or what not. Needless to say, I cursed the hell out of my phone, threw it in the back seat and continued to mutter unintelligible nonsense as I headed to Seafood city.

Long story short, my sister in law gave me a handheld voice recorder that uses micro-cassettes. The best feature is that it starts recording my ramblings as soon as it "hears" me talking. So, the reason for my absence as of late is that I'm recording my ramblings, and will transcribe them one night of the week to be posted here. You may expect to see an influx of entries weekly, but they will be dated according to the time they were "recorded".

Friday, November 19, 2010

Something for Nothing? WTF?

In an effort to expand my pool of story submissions, I made the fatal mistake of posting a writing gig ad on craigslist. Needless to say it was flagged for removal.

Am I surprised that it was flagged for removal?

"No"

The subject of interest lies within why. And here is what the craigslist community had to offer via the CL "Flag Help" discussion forum:

"No links allowe, this ad has no local relavance and no pay gigs don't last." - Anonymous

No local relevance? How do you figure? I reside in the Los Angeles Area, and I am asking for story submissions from people in the LOS ANGELES AREA. AND my post is in the Los Angeles division of Craigslist.

"Where did you post this?...Well as Dashy pointed out, it has no local relevance, but it might have stuck had you offered to pay for what you were looking for." - Dragon-somebody-or other

I posted this in "writing gigs". Again, with the local relevance argument.

"What makes it so that this job is specific to Los Angeles and someone from Chicago or NY couldn't do it? And no, your ad won't last without pay." - Anonymous

Absolutely nothing! You people are reaching! My thanks and appreciation to the generous soul that would be kind enough to send in a story from ZIMBABWE for all I care. I did not purposely construct my ad to discriminate against those who do not live in Los Angeles. And doesn't this sort of negate the vague "local relevance" argument you were trying to make earlier?

All the same, my last post was "Don't forget to flag this forum post for removal as well. God (yes i said GOD) forbid anyone should read about my crime of posting a writing gig without pay. Better yet, you can read about it on my blog. I'm sure you have my blogger address. You can further chastise my TOU (Terms of Use) indescretions there. But keep in mind, there will STILL be no pay for your opinions on my blog either. You may have to spare some dignity to do so. Last i checked, that doesn't cost anything.. For most anyway. I'm sure my readers would love to hear why my ad was flagged.

I had no idea that people were so hard up that they felt such a compelling need to remove a writing gig ad that did not offer any pay. Yet, despite their strong feelings about possibly having to "give something for nothing $$$" they have to hide behind superfluous and totally irrelevant arguments.

Did I violate the terms of use? Yes. I posted my blogger URL within the body of my post. Yet Craigslist fronts an in your face link to "misc romance" in their personals section; which by the way contains content to vile to speak of.

In conclusion, bring it on. Fuel the fire with your criticisms. It won't stop me from shutting my mouth.

Bon Appétit

Preface (Sneak Peek)

My interest in cooking began in my father’s kitchen back when I was in grade school. I say the kitchen was my father’s because he was somehow designated the chef in our little family of three. My mother would cook on occasion if she had to, but I was always under the impression that it was something that she didn’t particularly enjoy.

The kitchen was such a magical place for me. It was the place where a piece of meat was turned into a mouth watering piece of edible perfection. Even the toaster oven was magic. It brought sliced bread to life. Hell, it wasn’t just bread anymore. The bread became an evenly browned crispy canvas waiting for a brush of butter. But the real star of the show was our stove. By today’s standards, one would most definitely describe it as a piece of junk. The knobs were always sticky with old grease, it had a temperamental igniter, and patches of missing paint due to my mom’s enthusiasm for Easy-off. Despite its homely appearance, that stove was the birthplace of many delicious dishes made to share with friends and loved ones. It was also where I lit up my first cigarette, but that is an entirely different story.

Since the stove was still off limits to me, I would “cook” things with my colorful 8 year old imagination. During recess while at school, was where I baked my special 6 tier sand cakes in all shapes and sizes. At home, I would serve my imaginary friends hors d’oeuvres that consisted of mud pâté over maple leaf crackers. But my specialty was a side dish called “Mystery Potion Soup”. Intended to be a gazpacho of sorts, it was the deadliest, most vile concoction crafted by the hands of a small child (yours truly).

Mystery Potion Soup

Ingredients:

1 cup Listerine (the yellow kind)
¼ cup Comet
¼ cup Windex
1 tsp Colgate
10 sheets Toilet Paper
1 dash Baby Powder

Directions:

Gather all ingredients without getting caught by the grown-ups

Dump everything in the cauldron (toilet)

Use toilet bowl cleaning wand to mix well until Comet and Baby Powder have completely dissolved.

Serve cold in a paper cup.

For family members reading this who are suddenly worried if I’ve ever served you a nice tall cup of Mystery Potion Soup; rest easy. I have never served Mystery Potion Soup to a human being.