Paperweights

I found a paperweight yesterday that my Nana had given to me about thirty-five years ago.

Too-many years earlier, it sat on her desk when she worked at the Department of Something-or-Other. I should have paid more attention to what department it was. I vaguely remember her pointing out the building to me whenever we drove past it.

I put Nana’s paperweight on my desk next to another paperweight. The other paperweight is clear and has an owl inside of it. It’s not a real owl because that would be really freaky and probably illegal. I wouldn’t even like owls except that my mom collected them when she was alive (not to be confused with what she is collecting while she is dead).

I’m not even sure what a paperweight is meant to do. Unless you have an outdoor office, I doubt the papers need to be weighted down.

For me, they are a constant reminder of the two women that had the most impact on my formative years. Come to think of it, they had quite an impact on me as an adult right up until the day that each of them left.

Maybe paperweights were invented to help with keeping some of our most precious memories in place.

As the years pile up, I can use all the help that I can get.

The Debate

How many people do you think are blogging about the Vice Presidential Debate right now?

I like Sarah in black. The red shoes are sharp too. Poor Joe looks so frustrated because he knows he can talk circles around her when it comes to Foreign Policy. Why does it seem like Sarah just crammed for her final exam? Wow… nice shot of the calves. Are the shoes red?

She’s trying to act WAY too cute. She’s not answering all of the questions… being cute is how she gets out of it. And enough about freaking Alaska. Can you see Sarah as President of the United States of America? I’m sick of the whole “maverick” thing too. Are you a maverick because you have fought corruption and cleaned up government?

Wow Joe just killed Cheney! OMG Joe is getting emotional about family. Sarah’s talking about Todd again. She just said “maverick” again. Her ankles are kind of chubby. Oh finally… Joe is attacking the “maverick”! Go Joe… go Joe… go Joe… yeah… we just want to know how we are going to pay for Mom’s MRI and heat the house.

She’s quoting Ronnie again. Or quoting whoever wrote those quotes for him. I thought this thing was going to last two hours. It’s already over. Let’s see if they hug now.

Nope, no hug but here comes Todd. Holy cow… Sarah and Joe are still freaking talking to each other. How cute is this? Joe’s meeting the whole family. Awww… I love Joe.

OK so it’s over. OMG how can they let the little girl carry the baby around the stage and down the stairs? Can you imagine if she dropped the kid on national TV?

For a more in-depth analysis of the debate, go anywhere else but here.

Donut Wars

I went to a meeting this morning where there were two dozen donuts. I was coming off of a good breakfast though: Egg Beaters on whole wheat toast with three low-cal sausages. 

 

My tummy felt good when I got there but there’s something about the texture, the smell, the dried drippings of sugar glaze, the hidden thick yellow middle of a Boston cream, the hardness of a crunchy cruller. Then there’s the donut hole itself… each one slightly irregular with its inner ring splattered with an excess of flavored topping.

 

 I stared at them, their holes puckered like day-glow lips, “Eat me Ronnie.

 

I wanted to suck the filling out of the Boston cream as it also taunted me, “Forget about the holes Ronnie, I’m full of sweet cream.”

The twisty spirals of the French cruller writhed against the floor of the box, “À faire l’amour avec moi vos dents Ronnie.”

 

The stiffness of the cruller… NAH!

The temptation was killing me as they kept shouting my name along with lewd bakery terms that I hadn’t heard since an apple pie orgy I hosted last summer. It also didn’t help that the boxes themselves where wide open with a smattering of red jelly, powdered sugar, and smears of chocolate on the underside of their lids. 

 

The French cruller and the rigid cruller began a crude dance that I can only describe as deliciously obscene. I decided that I could not take the temptation any longer. They had whipped my palate into a frothy furor. I reached into the open box and grabbed them both with a firm hand. Wicked thoughts ran wild in my head and I ran to the bathroom hoping to resolve the matter before the beginning of the meeting.

 

I locked the door behind me and caught a glimpse in the mirror of the madman I’d become. I was better than him! I needed to punch him in the gut as hard as I could. My hand squeezed the crullers into a fattening wad of fried lard and dough. The strength of my angry fist clamped around the moist clump like a vise causing the excess dough to escape between my fingers.

 

In one hard downward motion the mass was sent into the depths of the toilet water below. The taunting had ended. The victory was a small one, but a victory nonetheless. I had met the enemy and defeated it.