Mar. 17, 2020 - 10:46 a.m.

Curse o' the Irish

What is it about St. Drinking Day, anyway? Almost every year something wacky goes down on this day at DangerHouse. And I don't mean NewWifey(tm).

There was the year the dog exploded. There was the year NewWifey(tm) got arrested for driving topless while locked in a set of novelty handcuffs. There was the year I almost burned the house down when I put the corned beef on "Low Simmer", but it was one of the first times I'd used an electric oven and didn't realize I'd turned the knob the wrong way. We went out for a motorcycle ride while it cooked, and returned to a crematorium. There was the year I got confused by the calendar and made our entire St. P-Day feast on the wrong day. That's not nearly everything, but you get the idea. It's the one day a year I always brace myself for.

I'm glad to report that this year has not broken the streak. St. Patrick's Day 2020 finds NewWifey(tm) stuck in Virginia (the state, not the girl), unable to get home to help me devour the 4 point-cut corned beef slabs I purchased so we could compare methods. It's a long story, but...she's stuck in Virginia. Hopefully she'll miss any impending travel bans and be able to drive home later this week. But for now, she's stuck in Virginia (the state).

And of course, coronavirus.

Seriously, what is it about St. Patrick's Day? A pandemic now? Seriously? "Luck of the Irish", my Italian ass.

Speaking of coronavirus, Friend O' This Blog Sally of "Bewitching Kitchen" is not only a way better cook than you, she's also a way better scientist than you. She and her husband are both microbiologists and virus researchers, and they just collaborated on a coronavirus post that simultaneously scared the living shit out of me and gave me hope that I might actually survive it. The lengths they go to may seem a bit extreme, but they of all people know what we're up against. So if you're looking for advice a bit more in-depth than "wash your hands every three minutes and wear a 6-foot wide donut", you might want to mosey on over there and scare the shit out of yourself as well.

A few more observations concerning these "Bring out yer dead!" times:

1. You know that old aphorism "the more something is forbidden, the more people want it"? It's true. I have never wanted to pick my nose more in my entire life. And I don't mean a discreet fingernail scrape just inside the rim, either. I'm talking a 3-digit deep, scratch the back of your eyeball, 5-day spelunking expedition of a pick. I'm ashamed to say I finally gave in to the temptation yesterday. And although everybody in the Walmart stared in horror, I have to admit it was the best social distancing tool I've found so far.

Which brings me to....

2. People were told to self-quarantine, but they were not told where. Many seem to have chosen Walmart. On my drive home from work yesterday the roads were deserted, so I said to myself "With everyone staying home, now's a good time to panic buy!" I pulled into the Walmart lot off Rt.287, and...it was like Christmas Eve! There were no parking spots, sweaty fat people were desperately rushing up and down aisles grabbing any and everything indiscriminately off the shelves, every 10 feet there was a sobbing child who's parent had just chucked her out of the cart to make room for another case of chitlins, and checkout lines reached all the way to the next town over and their Walmart. I turned around and went home. I live in a forest. I'll cut down some trees, grind them into pulp, and make my own damn toilet paper.

2. I put a t-shirt on when I got home from work yesterday, and two minutes later my back felt cold. I have apparently been stress eating. Make that stress gorging. I'm hoping when NewWifey(tm) finally manages to straggle back she'll be able to sew the burst seam together again. And then tell me to eat salads.

3. I need to erase hide all the porn clips on my computer desktop at home. With mandatory quarantines seemingly not far off, our company is setting up all us announcers with home broadcast studios. When I get home today I have to let an IT wonk connect to my PC and remotely install all our proprietary software so I can get on the air and tell people things they've already heard a billion times and are still going to ignore.

4. Working from home pros: up at 4am instead of 3, filling the gas guzzler once a month instead of three times a week, nekkid radio!, PS-4 during commercials, PornHub on an open tab, better food in the company fridge.

5. Working from home cons: sobbing wife sound effects bleeding over mic, no cleaning lady every afternoon, better food in the company fridge (see #2, above), limiting myself to one square of toilet paper per poop. After coffee.

So that's how the Apocalypse is playing out so far on my end. It's turned me into a fat slob in a torn shirt, sitting in front of a computer in my basement with a finger jammed up my nose.

Who knew it would take a world pandemic to make me finally feel like a real American?

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Pictures, I got pictures.

It looks like Happy Fun Time Camera activities are on hold for a while. My camera club has cancelled our next two shindigs, one of which was the competition where I just knew I WAS GONNA FINALLY TAKE THAT FIRST PLACE RIBBON. Damn you coronavirus!!

I can still wander around the house and take shots of dust bunnies and commemorative Elvis plates, but who wants to see more of those?

So here are a couple from my archives. This first one is one of the very, very few selfies I've ever taken. A couple of months ago my online group held a competition with the theme "kitchens". Talk about right up my alley. How could I lose? And I didn't:

That was a tough shot to make. I had to press a remote trigger to fire the camera shutter on a 2 second delay, and in that 2 second gap I had to grab the egg shells and drop the yolk into the flour below, hopefully with the yolk in midair when it fired. After about 15 tries I nailed it. But I didn't use 15 eggs. Buried in that mound of flour was a ramekin, and I dropped the yolk into that. If I missed the shot I just fished the yolk out, re-loaded the empty shell, and tried again. Every 4 or 5 drops the yolk would burst and I'd have to grab a new egg. But by the end I'd only used 3 eggs total - the perfect amount to make pasta! It was the tastiest shoot I ever did. (For the geeks: I had a soft box set up on the floor to my left, pointing up. Without it I only had a key light - the fixture right over my head - and that put everything below my hat brim in dark shadow. I also wore a dark shirt so the yolk would stand out, but I only mention that because I love to brag about how much forethought I have.)

Let's see. Oh! How about a spider that apparently likes Raisin Bran and scared the shit out of me when I opened the box and saw it:

Any arachnophiles out there who can identify the species? I have no clue, myself. All I know is he was hardly noticeable when covered with milk and sugar.

Sticking with animals, here's an unhappy calf:

Don't worry little buddy, you won't be angry much longer. You'll be keeping it veal, real soon.

Finally, a little girl stealing pickled cauliflower:

Welcome to New Jersey.

Ciao!

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