TheLindsayist

Sometimes I can be pedantic.

Last evening, when news of the water disruption spread rapidly across Twitter, a song [for many, the song] by the Standells came to the mind of many, the one about the dirty water and such. Then, we learned not to brush our teeth with the tap water – others remembered that pop star Ke$ha recommends brushing those pearly whites with a brown liquor. As if there were no such thing as Twitter search, once every few moments, someone would blurt out one reference or the other, asking if anyone had thought to do so yet. Which they had. But that’s okay. Let’s make it a contest. Which pop culture reference more effective infiltrated the collective tweeting of those east of Weston?

The results of my lazy, unscientific polling across mostly the #aquapocalypse & #h2omg hashtags return the following, as of 3 PM Sunday:

Number of Boston-area tweeple loving that dirty water: 60
Number who follow Ke$ha’s advice to brush using a bottle of Jack: 44

Congratulations, Standells.

Farewell, Crackers.

Crackers, my family’s schnauzer, died this morning. I’m glad he was a schnauzer, because it gave him a really good suit for his old man tendencies. The shaggy brow and mustache gave him the permanent affect of a rudely-awoken shop-owner. He was an ardent homebody. He’d fight you on walks heading away from the house only until he realized he was on the return loop, at which point he’d take off like a rocket. Like most dogs of his piglet-like physique, his jaunts elicited smiles from those he passed. I’m no fussy dog-owner, but he looked really terrific in a sweater. While my aunt babysat him one weekend, he escaped. A state trooper found him trotting back in the direction of our house on the Thurber’s Avenue curve of 95 South around 3 am, a miserable place to be a driver, let alone a schnauzer.

Some fairly ingenious kidney surgery gave him a few more years not too long ago thanks to our beloved longtime family vet, Dr. Dan Simpson. But, Crackers was old, with rapidly degrading health to the detriment of his comfort. My folks made him an appointment to go in peace this morning, but he didn’t make it through the night. He passed where he always preferred to be, at home, about an hour before he’d have left the house. RIP, little buddy.

Tomatina West

Red Fire Farm’s Tomato Festival was Saturday. No splashing in pureed tomatoes, but the intermittent downpours made certain it was still a sloppy time. Rusty Belle from Amherst covered “Cry to Me” by Solomon Burke, one of my favorite songs, just as the sky opened up and the crowd rushed under the tent with them. Tim and I huddled under our umbrella with a slice of grilled pizza.

Fascination at Nantasket

Visited Nantasket Beach this weekend; icy swimming, penny arcade, hung around with several thousand people on the packed beach which usually I find intolerable but this weekend I was just so glad to take a break, my usual crowded-beach irritability giving way to patience. I didn’t find the party dude keg cup tent obnoxious, instead, I declared to Tim I could probably get us in by showing them my tattoo. We sat on the rocks and watched two kids race RC cars through the puddles for a solid half hour. I never eat ice cream anymore, and I did that. My skee ball skills were exceptional, and I won enough tickets to buy a finger trap and a whoopie cushion, which is great, because my last one broke from overuse (RIP Somerville Good Times). Also purchased a terrific print of the aforementioned “Fascination” bingo marquis from a shop that advertised its carousel sponsorship program with the unfortunate slogan, “Say it with a brick.”

On pseudonyms.

“If you didn’t sign it,” said the King, “that only makes the matter worse. You must have meant some mischief, or else you’d have signed your name like an honest man.”

Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Mid-week Index

• A tiny little kid high-fived me as I finished my last lap around Jamaica Pond tonight.
• I really, really, really wish this Julia Child movie didn’t include a blogging theme.
• On my ride home down the Southwest Corridor, I saw a couple who had tossed their bikes aside onto the grass and were rolling around smooching.
  Kind of reminded me it is, in fact, summer.
• Speaking of my ride home, a dude cut me off whose truck was wearing one of those “LOOK OUT FOR MOTORCYCLES AND SHARE THE ROAD OR WHATEVER” stickers. I was about to get huffy but when I caught up to him at the intersection, I found him singing along to “Mister Jones” at the bleeding top of his lungs, and what kind of a person could stay mad at that?
• Eating Meat for the Environment
• Ate my first fresh tomato of the season, simply wedged up with salt and pepper. Slicing it felt like I was cutting through clay; very firm. I can’t wait for the messy late-summer ones.

Buon giorno, principesa!

No false alarms intended, of course.

While eating dinner tonight, I asked Tim what he would name our hypothetical children.

“Animal, and Pneumonia,” he answered. I asked what that referenced, but he said that was his own.

“I think Pneumonia sounds pretty,” he said.

Little darling.

Bloggy blog blogosphere.

I’ve been trained in brevity by Twitter and messageboarding. The last time I had a blog, it was full of garbage about getting dressed up for the Pill. I deleted it. Lucky for you, I’m older and more provincial now.

Let’s see. I feel fortunate to have found myself working on a profoundly engaging race that captures my imagination and keeps me awake at night. That is the best kind of work.

As of today, I’ve lost fifty pounds since the start of my drive to look a bit less Stay-Puft. It’s put a crimp on my culinary endeavors – I didn’t renew my Cook’s Illustrated subscription, for example – but I have begun recording recipes again since the farmshare calls for resourcefulness. Sizewise in visual terms, that’s about the size of this fresh catch:

bigfish