Ox Tail Soup

Distinctly I can remember the day in Kindergarten that I learned that wool products did not equivocally mean the torturous slaughter of sheep and lambs. The rest of my class regarded me strangely during this barn-yard lesson. I suppose, without the aid of ever growing up on a farm, urged not to name the livestock, or a fishing-trip with Granddad, I concluded that all works of man would requite some sort of bloody sacrifice. I can also recall being about to recite numbers no more than thirty-nine, though I knew that counts went higher. I was quite realized to learn that in fact sheep like to be sheared, cows like (need, due to the hormone injections) to be milked, and that the predator populations like to be kept under control. Maybe the belief was grounded in a few provactive, infantile snap-shots, bare, on a sheepskin rug, on which I would later see my sister posed... Incidentally, it's just as strange to me to recall a photograph that one cannot summon up electronically as it is to know a favorite image that one cannot hold in his hands.

stereo-isotopes

The view from my office window (o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave--Play Ball!) also affords me a glimpse in the hinterground of the steam generated from the cooling-towers of the nuclear power plant. In the forefront is shaggy shadow of a dissected Holiday Tree. The place where I work is a bit like Springfield, the biggest little town in Germany. The exhaust really shows in in the sunsets, and some co-workers express periodic angst over inchoate radiation or the potential targetting of terrorists. I, on the other hand, call it our "Cloud-Maker."

Demi-tasse--that's my answer to half full or half empty

Cognitive dissonance is what they call the discomfort experienced when one tries to simultaneously hold two contradictory ideas in his head. Double-think. The most common examples of this phenomenon I go through aside from the occasional buyers' remorse comes with smoking. H and I both talk of quitting, once we're equally ready, and in the meantime, go through the motions by rote and nasty-habit. We both fancy ourselves and each other as smart, capable people (possibly add enabler to that litany) but still make the time for it, and quite often. H told me about a theory that held that out of all cigarettes smoked daily, only five or six are really enjoyed. I think that's a pretty accurate assessment, and really try to savour those rare, tasty gasps of relieve.

prospecting

Casually, H and I are hunting for a home together. There is no pressure to move, we've reached a comfortable schedule and compromise for tearing down the Autobahn to one another's place for over-nights, and the search is quite a bit of fun. There is, of course, an array of practical reasons for living together: primarily, the chance to come home to each other everyday, the chance to no longer be satisfied with our present living-arrangements, and the chance for a dishbot. I also like the fact that we might be living under the aegis of a new city coat-of-arms. Right now, there's just an uninspired bear with bad posture for my village and a shield with crossed, flaming swords for H. I want to live in a land that is represented by what I call "National Chicken." National Chicken is a bit like Famous Grouse or Rolex's Oyster Perpetual, I think. We'll have a very, very, very fine house.