Honeypuff Redux

Ah memories of the little semi-Greek bistro where Joel and I worked a few years ago! Between having an amateur owner and a very green staff, we did about everything we could to kill that place (except steal and introduce rats). Maybe it was the location. After a stunning three-month run, the restaurant shut down and stayed empty for a good long time. Then a pizza place bought it and looked good for nearly a year. Then they vanished too. Now Athens Greek Restaurant has opened a branch operation there. I hope they make it, though I do wonder.

Athens is everything the owner of the Honeypuff despised: Greek travel posters on the walls, spaghetti on the menu, and cloves to hold the layers of filo together in the baklava. When I was at their downtown location recently, my three small dolmades appeared in the company of a large portion of cottage cheese. Not exactly what I was hoping for.

That was a busy summer for me. I worked nearly 40 hours at the restaurant (sometimes opening in the wee hours before dawn) and taught a course at North Central State College. I felt about the same when I worked in the book warehouse and taught a course. I'm about 85% convinced that I should take this summer off, do some genuine reading (both professional and pleasure) and get my academic house in order. It wouldn't be a bad idea to get my literal house in order either. The rug needs shampoo.

Great free stuff for your Apple

Just a quick list here of free computer programs I love using on my Apple:

• Caffeine keeps the Mac from falling asleep or going to screen saver. Great for presentations.
• Cyberduck, a great FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, and Cloud Files browser/uploader
• Easyfind because Mac needs some help with finding things. It will search for a file within a folder and do a lot more.
• Sweethome, a program to help you plan the interior of your house.

I assume everyone knows the standard programs like NeoOffice. Everyday stuff for me.

Hallucinations

It's spring, and people are wandering about the campus in shorts and T-shirts (temperature about 60). Every so often I think of a Mansfield resident who is well-known to a lot of us. He's a tall, thin man who walks constantly up and down the roads, speaking to an unseen companion. Rumor has it that he watched his best friend get killed in Vietnam and has never been the same since.

We have a lot of that here, but it's cell phones, the kind that look like a small pack of chewing gum attached to the ear. People walk along, having a loud, one-sided conversation, totally oblivious to the idea that they might look and sound weird. Apparently one must speak loudly for these things to work because the users often attract my attention, even from a distance of 30 yards or more.

We ought to buy one of these for the guy in Mansfield. We don't even have to put a battery in it. Then he'll look normal.

Wall-E Here

I feel a bit like the little mobile trash compactor.

I've been in non-stop work mode since Christmas (and feeling somewhat depressed on top of it all), so my apartment is a mess. Jared came in and said, "Wow! You really have been feeling bad!"

A box of books from Mom's made it about three steps inside the front door, then stopped and stayed for three months. The radioactive Fiestaware still sits on the breakfast nook table.

It's time for all that to change—I hope. It doesn't matter much where I start because there's something to do anywhere I look. It's like Wall-E and his piles of trash. There's something everywhere. Like the little robot, I have my insect friends, but in my case they are huge black ants. Another difference between us is that I actually try to kill my little friends. 700-year-old Twinkies? No (I learned this Christmas to look at expire dates), but I do have some herbs and spices that are over five years. Probably should throw those out. And, like Wall-E, I'll probably get distracted playing with some of the things I find under piles of stuff. Perhaps I'll even find a green plant in here. Beautiful robot from another planet? I doubt it.

Signs of the Times

As I sit grading papers, a student knocks on my door. She points to the sign taped there, which says Ms. [my office mate's name]'s English 112 conferences are CANCELLED for today, April 14, 2009. That's today's date.

As she points to the sign, the student asks where my office mate is. She's got a conference.

There are some situations that even I cannot help.

Back home again

Back from a really quick trip to see my mom in Washington DC. I had Good Friday and Easter Monday off, so I made it a long weekend with her.

A fine afternoon at the botanical garden, some time with my brother and his wife. Shopping with Mom (we bought one pair of nylons at Sears). Good time was had by all. I even got to show her some family pictures on Facebook. ("Who is that good-looking girl?" "That's Becky." "Oh my goodness!")

Marshmallow Peeps

The Washington Post had a feature on Marshmallow Peeps this Easter. They have progressed quite a bit, but when Rachel and I first discovered them years ago, they hadn't quite become the media darlings. We were just amused by the little misshapen yellow birds with a brown eye in the middle of their foreheads and another where their ear might be. Someone who was running the eye machine wasn't quite up to par.

I think Rachel decided I needed help with the candy after the "Easter Bat" incident. It's one of those fatherly mistakes that one never lives down.

She was already savvy to the whole Santa Claus myth, and we were living in a very conservative (read: funless) Christian community, so one day near Easter she came to me and asked, "Do we believe in the Easter Bunny?" Without a moment's hesitation, I replied, "No, honey, we believe in the Easter Bat." Then I proceeded to make up some tale of the bat that flies around and brings good children Easter candy. I sort of got into this thing, so that night, in addition to the regular Easter baskets for the kids, I made her a special one, with dark purple grass, dark chocolate eggs, and licorice jelly beans. The next morning, when she found her black-on-black Easter Bat basket, she was crestfallen. Even when I produced the conventional basket, she was still unhappy.

So that's how we ended up going to Ben Franklin every year to buy candy, with her doing all the choosing. We'd spend $20 or $30 every year, and we always looked for the most grotesque Peeps we could find.