Seasonal Threats and Obscenities

When you say the phrase “Summer 2014” to most people, they do not fly into murderous rages threatening bodily harm to all those with the misfortune of being within reach of the business end of a swung phone charger.  Rather they think about Fourth of July cookouts, swimming parties, and road trips to exotic locales like Atlantic City.  And any indeterminate rage is generally attributed to mosquitoes and empty bottles of aloe vera.

But I live an hour and a half from Orlando, my rage is quite determinate, and I will beat you to an incoherent pulp with your own arm if you so much as think the obscenity “Summer 2014” in my presence.

Now, to some of you this may seem extreme and somewhat puzzling that mere proximity to a major metropolitan area should induce such troubling behavior in one normally so even-tempered and emotionally measured as myself, so I’ll explain.  (And I’ll expect you to keep your snide comments to yourself.)

You see, the mention of “S*mm*r 2014” did not always cause me to shatter whatever glass I was holding in my vice-like Hulk fist or shout obscenities at old people passing on the sidewalk, but that was February and this is June.  I wake up dehydrated every morning and spend my days throwing lizards out of human living spaces.  I haven’t worn sleeves or socks in a month and a half, and last week I ate a brat.  It’s summer now!  So tell me, Universal Studios, how much longer do you think your TV commercial telling me that Diagon Alley will open in “Su**er 2014” is going to cut it? 

 

www.universalorlando.com

[Say the alphabet backwards while breathing deeply.  Think about strawberry Greek yogurt, and Dirk Gently, and the lady who sits behind me at church who looks like a Doctor Who villain.  Okay, better.] 

If I’m honest, Universal Studios and I are in something of a feud at the moment.  I’m not entirely sure Universal has noticed, which is, frankly, a bit insulting.  Now, I fully intend to forgive them as soon as this unknowable “*umme* 2014” rolls around because if we have learned anything from Oscar Wilde it is to “always forgive your enemies [because] nothing annoys them so much.”  So I will go to Diagon Alley this *um**r and I will eat lunch at the Leaky Cauldron, and I will briefly consider buying a new rearview mirror for my Firebolt at Quality Quidditch Supplies, and I will swoosh wands around Olivander’s with exceptional savoir faire, and, as I do all this, I will assume that the coals of forgiveness that I am heaping upon the collective head of the Universal Studios junta are hitting their mark with fiery accuracy.  So, when I finally stroll toward Gringotts Wizarding Bank with a Babbling Beverage in my hand, it will be with the high-minded magnanimity of a victor and we will again be friends.

In preparation for this happy outcome, I’ve been rereading the seven books and should be done soon.  I took great pleasure in the bit about Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlour, knowing that before long I could partake of my own strawberry and peanut butter sundae if I so wish, and I plan on paying particular attention to the chase through Gringotts since that’s basically just research for what’s to come. 

Even Mom has started reading the books for the first time and, since she apparently remembers virtually nothing of any of the Harry Potter movies, all of which she’s seen at least twice, it’s all coming as quite a surprise to her.  In fact, if you were to pass our neighborhood pool on any given Saturday you would be likely to hear two things: me, shouting bon mots like “Ack!” and splashing bugs out of the water in my never-ending struggle to be the dominant life form in the pool, and Mom, chortling gently from her pool chair and then explaining, “Ron’s mom just sent him a howler,” or “The mandrakes are ugly plant babies.” 

Even if she can’t remember much about the movies, she does like to be reminded who played which character so she has the right faces saying the words in her head.  So when she says, “Who’s Lockhart?” I know that the correct answer is Kenneth Branagh.  And when, upon finishing a chapter, she lays her book down with conviction and makes a startling revelation like, “Well, we’ve been talking an awful lot about why the barrier didn’t let then through so I bet that’s going to be important later,” it’s best to be noncommittal and mysterious because in her heart, no matter how much she may hint or wheedle, she doesn’t really want anyone to tell her that it was Dobby.  Also, that sort of thing is against our family code, right up there with ever throwing away a Christmas ornament and talking bad about Calvin and Hobbes, which is why her telling me the ending of Gran Torino before I’d seen it was such a base betrayal that cut so deep that it’s still bleeding four years later. 

Not that I’m bitter.

 

Still of Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino (2008)

In any case, Mom really enjoyed The Chamber of Secrets and, after several weeks of steadfastly ignoring it, I finally picked up book six again and suffered through those last five chapters that make me more depressed than a whole lot of actual sad things that happen in the world.  I blame Michael Gambon.  If he could have wrenched my gut a little less in the cave, I’d have a whole lot less post-traumatic stress now.  Post-traumatic movie stress.  I’m pretty sure that’s a thing.  The prospect of reliving that experience every time I read the end of The Half-Blood Prince is grueling, but the promise of butterbeer and Harry Potter and the Secret Chamberpot of Azerbaijan on YouTube got me through this time.  It doesn’t hurt that the YouTube Harry is played by the remarkably well-endowed Dawn French (who also plays the Fat Lady in the actual Harry Potter movies), but Jeremy Irons as Alan Rickman as Severus Snape, swishing his new and improved wig around with admirable aplomb, saves the day every time.

And Universal Studios has the nerve to smile at me and dead Michael Gambon and say “Su*me* 2014.”  Jerks.

Still of Michael Gambon in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)

Oddsmakers are guessing by the end of this month the Alley will be open, but they also thought California Chrome would win at Belmont so, really, who it there left to trust anymore? 

Dad seems to be holding up under the torment of waiting better than anyone else, but I can tell the strain is beginning to get to him.  Oh, he pretends not to be affected, but when Mom called him a muggle the other day things got very tense for a while.

Basically, it’s a pressure cooker over here and I’m not the only one swinging phone chargers.

What did you say about my mother?

Baskin Robbins has never been one to let a marketing opportunity pass by unexploited, so when their good friend DreamWorks released Shrek 2 some ten years ago now, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to introduce the world to Puss in Boots ice cream.  While the ingredient options for an ice cream flavor based on a cat, even a cartoon one, may have given the casual consumer pause, the chocolate and vanilla that ended up comprising most of the recipe should have served to reassure devotees of both ice cream and Shrek.  Baskin Robbins patrons could also choose from Fiona’s Fairytale, a cotton candy-flavored concoction that boasted “a fairytale fantasy in every bite,” and Shrek’s Swirl Sherbet, a green and purple, pop-rock-filled spectacular.  In comparison, the chocolate, vanilla, chocolate chips, and chocolate-covered pretzel bits of Puss in Boots seem a bit tame, though considerably more enjoyable to this particular connoisseur of frozen delectables. 

I don’t remember whether or not these flavors made much of a splash here in the States – if I’m honest, I don’t actually remember them at all – but I can tell you one thing with absolute certainly: a decade after this groundbreaking pairing of fairytale creature and desert, Puss in Boots 2 continues to delight ice cream lovers in Baskin Robbins shops all across South Korea.

In fact, when I lived in Cheonan, South Korea, and was in need of ice cream (the frequency of which need not be discussed), the flavor I got more often than any other was Puss in Boots 2, which, as far as I can tell, had the same basic components as the original Puss in Boots.  I never knew what had become of poor Puss in Boots 1, or even that this ice cream had anything to do with Shrek, as it had been some time since any Shrek movie had graced theaters, but I didn’t ask any awkward questions.  I handed over my money, crunched my chocolate covered pretzels in the satisfaction and slightly too-alert joy that comes with every good sugar fix, and left such esoteric concerns to be pondered by other minds. 

So you can imagine my incredulity when Korean friends told me one day that they didn’t know anything about this Puss in Boots 2, but there was a different flavor at Baskin Robbins that I absolutely had to try.  It was so good, it was delicious, it was better than anything called Puss in Boots 2 could ever hope to be.  It was called Your Mother Is an Alien.

I didn’t really know what to do with that.  I think I might have snorted a little.

I well knew that none of the ice creams in my Baskin Robbins were called any such thing.  Along with Puss in Boots, we had standards like Cookies and Cream (쿠키 앤 크림), Cherries Jubilee (체리쥬빌레), and Shooting Star (슈팅스타).  I was the only alien in the shop when I was getting ice cream and I was registered, thank you very much.  To buy myself time to formulate a more appropriate response, I asked what was in it.  Chocolate ice cream, vanilla ice cream, chocolate chips, and something crunchy and covered in chocolate.  A pretzel perhaps?  Yes, a pretzel!  It was my beloved Puss in Boots 2, incognito.  Fond as Koreans are of transliteration, especially where names or titles are concerned, in this inexplicable case, the Korean Baskin Robbins powers that be decided to chuck Shrek and all his friends out on their collective ear and go with something that made more sense to the Korean ice-cream-eating public.  Like the obvious choice, Your Mother Is an Alien.  And the English name of my ice cream had always so preoccupied me, I’d never bothered to look at the Korean name alongside it on the label or cared how it translated.

Defying any effort to explain the phenomenon, I can only tell you in solemn honesty that it tasted better the next time I ate it.  Any ice cream that could inspire nonsensical names in two different languages deserved all the respect and attention I could give it.  A person could waste a lifetime trying to unravel the logic that turned the American Puss in Boots ice cream into the Korean Your Mother Is an Alien, but that time would be better spent just having another scoop instead.  Which is what I did.  Rather often.

See, I like to consider myself something of a connoisseur of ice creams which obviously requires regular consumption.  It sounds better than saying I don’t have much self-control, and I’ve been on enough job interviews to know the value of being able to dress up a personality flaw as a positive quality.  In any case, call it Puss in Boots, Your Mother Is an Alien, or Choco-Vanilla Swirl with Stuff in It, I’ll try whatever you put in front of me, and I’ll thank you for it.

Which is why, when I heard about the Lakeland Ice Cream Festival, I used pen when I wrote it on my calendar.  (Okay, so it might have just been a note in my iPad, but I typed it emphatically, I can assure you.) 

Now, while I will try most anything that isn’t the abomination that is sherbet, my mother is a devoted chocolate ice cream aficionado down to her core.  It’s hard to fault the choice on any particular occasion, but she expresses only grudging interest in exploring the world of ice cream beyond that.  Oh, Mom might throw in a walnut or a berry if she’s feeling wild, but I maintain that there’s more to life than variations on Rocky Road.  In any case, stick in the mud pie or not, she needed little convincing when it came time to head to Lakeland.

So we set out for Ice Cream Festival on a fine, sunny morning, and only detoured once into the little town of Bartow after spying a sign from the highway that promised an outdoor antique show downtown. “Antique” may have been too strong a term, but it was pleasant to stand for a while in lofty judgment of strangers’ bits and baubles and the prices they were cheeky enough to consider reasonable.  On the way back to the car after deigning to buy some old postcards written by borderline racists and someone who was took a trolley to Somerville in 1907, I saw a book shop that was calling my name.  

At least, from a block away the sign said Book Shop, but as we came upon it, it had shifted somehow and become Bake Shop.  A bit surprising, but not unwelcome.  I was, after all, in a desert mood.  What was unwelcome was the revelation that my questionable ability to read signs from moderate distances didn’t matter at all because it was closed.  It might as well have been a Lima Bean and Lug Wrench Shop for all the good it did me.

After pausing briefly to curse the ground upon which the little shop stood and every business that would occupy it from now until the end of days, we resumed our progress toward Lakeland and vats of waiting ice cream.  The website had promised me taste-testing, popsicle stick sculptures, ice cream eating contests, an ice cream museum, and more flavor choices than I could shake a scoop at, and with the help of all these things I was ready to wring every last cone crumb of life out of this day.

And crumbs seemed all I was likely to get.

Upon arriving, it quickly became apparent that my overwhelming love of ice cream and the fact that my dollar off admission coupon had been printed so professionally had whipped me into a flurry of largely unfounded hopes.  These hopes were dashed not long after I paid my three dollars, had my bag rifled halfheartedly at the plastic table that seemed to serve as a security checkpoint, and found myself watching with some concern the two unimpressed children riding the smallest Mini-Himalaya I’ve ever seen. 

The couple rows of tents and carts were selling mostly snow cones, cotton candy, and bourbon chicken, though there was one extolling the virtues of CPR which was very civic-minded and helpful.  There were a few requisite balloon-popping and ring-tossing carnival games and three or four inflatable play things that I didn’t pay much attention to as they were suffering from an infestation of children at the time.  The closest thing we were able to find to an ice cream museum was a tent that boasted several rows of ice cream scoops along with some Betty Boops and old-timey Norman Rockwell prints.  The guy manning the tent was a knowledgeable fellow, but I wouldn’t call him a docent or anything.

Even with this lackluster offering, I might have enjoyed the scoops and the snow cones more if not for the Pumpkin Show, which has ruined my ability to appreciate unexceptional food festivals.

I will tell you why.

Charging no admission fee and thus hailed by the residents of Circleville, Ohio (among whom I was once numbered) as “The Greatest Free Show on Earth,” the Pumpkin Show elevates the food festival to a plane heretofore unseen in the annals of celebratory food-based gatherings.  Granted, Circleville has had more than a hundred years to get it right, but they have spent that time productively and there is not a right-thinking patron of that festival who will go away unhappy or hungry.  It is nothing short of a pumpkin extravaganza and you can have pumpkin for every meal of the day without having to walk more than three blocks.  Pumpkin donuts and pumpkin pancakes for breakfast, pumpkin burgers and pumpkin pie for lunch, and pumpkin pizza and pumpkin cheesecake for dinner.  And, if you find yourself a bit peckish between times, you can always tide yourself over with a bit of pumpkin fudge, pumpkin log roll, a pumpkin whoopee pie, or, yes, even some pumpkin ice cream.  There are buildings full of things to be judged and awarded prizes – photography, painting, needlework, quilts, pies, cakes, painted pumpkins and even pumpkin people. 

Schools and businesses shut down, the center of town is overrun by parades, pig-calling contests, bluegrass bands, and people waiting in line to see the world’s largest pumpkin pie at Lindsay’s Bakery.  The air is crisp and redolent of fall leaves and elephant ears.  In the shadow of the town’s painted pumpkin water tower, for a week every October, anything is possible.  As long as a pumpkin is involved.

This is a food festival.  (But don’t call it that.  It’s called the Pumpkin Show.  Seriously.)

Having spent more of my youth than is probably healthy hunting down specially-flavored versions of ordinary foods in the pursuit of the perfect pumpkin delicacy, I am willing to admit that my standards regarding such fare are perhaps now a bit unrealistic.  I have tried to temper this as I’ve grown older and seen more of the world.  Not every town can manage the levels of food-related excellence to which Circleville, Ohio, has aspired. 

Even so, I think that if popsicle stick sculptures are promised, popsicle stick sculptures should be delivered, but I never saw one in Lakeland.  Graeter’s Ice Cream – an Ohio company, no doubt with the Pumpkin Show in the back of their marketing mind – had a tent there, but they were one of only about four places actually selling ice cream.  The ice cream eating contests were entertaining, mostly because the emcee was an enthusiastic Australian in a boater hat who managed to convince us that a stage full of children slowly and neatly eating half pints of vanilla ice cream was in fact a spectator sport.

In order to buy anything inside the festival, actual money needed to be changed into Moo-lah at conveniently located tents around the field.  It was a one to one exchange rate that ended up feeling like one step too many as I stood in line to change my four dollars into four Moo-lahs then stood in line to give my four Moo-lahs to the Graeter’s Ice Cream guy in exchange for ice cream which was all I really wanted.  Graeter’s may not have made the trip to Lakeland worth it all on its own, but there’s a reason Oprah once made it an audience gift.  My trio of Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip, Salted Caramel Fudge Brownie, and Dark Chocolate Truffle Gelato was well worth my four Moo-lahs, even if it wasn’t as exciting to order as Your Mother Is an Alien or Puss in Boots 2.

The festival itself was held in a field just outside of town that was connected to a small airfield and the Florida Air Museum, which made for an odd mix.  As I was finishing off my last bit of Dark Chocolate Truffle Gelato in the cargo bay of a FedEx plane, I briefly considered the dichotomy before the distraction of not being able to find a trash can overwhelmed me entirely.  I feel very strongly about the obscene lack of moral fortitude of those who litter, but I feel equally strongly about the unconscionable sadism of event planners who force people into the untenable position of having to choose between carrying around the tangible insult of an empty ice cream bowl or descending into the morass of self-abasement and throwing that bowl on the ground.  It proved to be a difficult moment for me.

Mom mostly enjoyed herself, as she usually does. She is, I think, less fettered by the specter of the Pumpkin Show than I am. She liked all the jokes our Aussie emcee told, especially when he was deriding the children on stage for not being able to eat ice cream with any sort of grace. 

And I know she enjoyed being moderately belligerent to the little boy who managed to foist a rubber bracelet on her as we were just arriving because naturally he had it coming.  We were on our way to the ticket window when we were stopped by a serious-looking lad of ten or eleven who asked if we wanted a bracelet.

“What’s it for?” Mom asked with narrowed eyes and palpable suspicion.  Most people think that children should be wary of strange adults.  Mom takes a slightly different position.

“Evolution,” replied the boy, who was wearing a black t-shirt emblazoned with the words “Evolution Martial Arts” alongside the outline of a figure performing a painful-looking kick.  Some distance behind him a tent and sign rose up out of the festival crowd bearing the same logo.  Not waiting for any further response and with more hasty relief than impoliteness, he shoved a rubber bracelet each into our hands.  Glad both to have done his duty and be rid of them himself, he continued on his way. 

Mom stared momentarily at the bracelet as it sat flat on her hand, touching as little skin as possible.  Her mistrust of the object seemed only to have increased.  “For or against?” she shouted with great force at the back of the boy’s rapidly retreating head, but by then it was too late.  Nine tenths of the law coming down to possession isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be and Mom takes her martial arts very seriously.

If she’d known that this was the best souvenir she’d bring home from the Lakeland Ice Cream Festival, she might have asked for two.

27: Because 26 Will Never Be Enough

I will concede that Melvil Dewey (of decimal system fame) may have been somewhat of a racist womanizer and harbored some very peculiar ideas about spelling.  And if his enemies had ever gotten together and organized themselves, they probably could have formed an entire baseball league.  But, you have to admit, the man did appreciate a well-considered number.  While all of his decimals and those little typed-up index cards may have flummoxed me a bit as an eight-year-old (and I may have been briefly under the impression that his name was actually Dewey Decimal), I think even then I’d have seen the value in not having to look for a book based on the year in which a library bought their particular copy.

But, of all the numbers in the world, decimal or otherwise (and I’m told there are quite a lot), through careful research and brazen conjecture, I’ve been able to determine categorically that the man’s favorite, hands down, was 27.  Or, at the very least, it should have been. 

Here’s why.

Aside from being just a lovely number on the face of it – it’s a perfect cube, for heaven’s sake! – it has all manner of worthy associations, some of which Dewey could have known.  It is, for instance, the number of bones in the human hand, the atomic number of cobalt, Catfish Hunter’s retired jersey number with the Oakland A’s, and the number of bridesmaid dresses a girl must wear before she can marry James Marsden.  It’s also, unfortunately, the age at which an inexplicable number of musicians have met untimely ends, but as long as you’re not an aspiring rocker this shouldn’t be a problem.

But for Melvil Dewey and the Florida town that eventually benefited from his particular brand of madness, 27 was special for a host of other reasons.  Turning southward in search of a better place to spend winter than upstate New York, his eyes lit upon Florida (the 27^th state in the Union) and the town of Lake Stearns (which sat on the 27^th parallel) upon one of the few dry patches in the middle of 27 lakes.  Nearly ten percent of the little town’s area – .27 square miles – was water.  Turns out ol’ Mel liked everything except the name and in 1927 he convinced the town commissioners to change it.  His choice?  Lake Placid.  Because he really liked the other one in New York and apparently had very little imagination.

But who needed  imagination?  How could anyone not like Lake Placid, NY, and desire its replication in all of the fifty states?  (Well, 48.  Hawaii and Alaska weren’t even a twinkle in America’s eye in ’27.  New Mexico and Arizona were still just spotty teenagers.)  It was, after all, the town that would be the home of two winter Olympics and such diverse and illustrious personages as madcap abolitionist John Brown, mean Back to the Future principal James Tolkan, and baroque pop singer Lana Del Ray (who is, unluckily, 27 until her birthday in June).  Plus the Nordic skiing has always been top notch.

Lake Placid, FL, on the other hand, is home to the caladium, a very ugly and poisonous plant that you can use to liven up your garden.  Which is nice, too.  But no Nordic skiing.

In any case, LPNY was clearly as close as it came to heaven on earth so calling this little corner of Florida Lake Placid was about the greatest compliment M. Dew could bestow upon it and the residents of LPFL have gone about their daily lives for the last 27+50 years in the comfortable knowledge that they were pretty dang special, thank you very much.

And this precious stone set in the silver, uh, lake, I suppose, this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this Lake Placid, is where I spent my last Saturday.  Rolling into town along US Rte. 27 with my homies, hereafter referred to as “Mom” or “Dad,” our eyes were instantly arrested by the prodigious Happiness Tower (which I maintain was named by a hippie), a narrow structure that looms 27 concrete stories over the north end of town and serves no discernible purpose.  When it was built in the sixties, visitors apparently flocked to the tower on the promise of an adequately elevated view and the chance to call home from the highest payphone in Florida and then buy a postcard to prove they’d done it.  Now, ever so slightly boarded up, it sits across the street from the “Sistine Chapel of Winn-Dixies,” so dubbed by local newsmen for its rendition in mural form of the old-time Florida cattle drives along the Cracker Trail.  It also moos at you if you stand near it.

Happiness Tower in the sixties, postcard style.  There's a lot more parking lot now.  (State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, http://floridamemory.com/items/show/163580)

So.  It might not be a big town in any particular respect, but Lake Placidians certainly aren’t hurting for moxie.  If they’re not calling themselves the “Caladium Capital of the World” (which, as it turns out, is pretty accurate), then it’s “Town of Murals,” of which they eagerly boast 44.  If you bring your own bus and arrange it beforehand with the Mural Society, you could even persuade a Mural Professional to narrate a tour for you.  Unfortunately, we were just driving a car, but I don’t think Dad would have let a Mural Professional ride with us anyway.  He has an instinctive distrust of people with “Mural” in their job titles and, if I’m honest, so do I.  In any case, I don’t think a Mural Professional would have appreciated my fairly indecent and certainly irreverant enjoyment of the Melvil Dewey mural.  Official photographs of Mel do not do him justice – maybe it’s because they’re all in black and white.  Not once had I guessed that he looked like old Tom Selleck until I saw that mural. If you want to find out what Magnum P.I. will to look like at the age of 80, head east on Interlake Boulevard.  It’s on your right a couple blocks past the clown college and well worth standing in an anthill in order to get a picture.  Mom agrees with me.

See?  SEE?  Incontrovertible proof.

So we saw the tower, a few ugly caladiums, murals of cattle drives, bank robbers, and Melvil Selleck Decimal, the much-touted American Clown Museum and School, and the Lastinger Memorial Park, which turned out to be a smallish corner lot near the train mural that consisted of a tree and a plaque.  And then we stopped at two thrift shops because that’s who we are.  We may look suspiciously on muralism (and with some distaste on clowns), but we like a good deal and you know I’m always in the market for fancy cutlery. 

I had to stand in the street to take this picture.  This is, quite factually, the entire park.

 

Though actually purchasing any cutlery proved trickier than anticipated.  Maybe it’s the decades of elevated self-importance, maybe it’s the prolonged exposure to both shuffleboard and public trashcans hidden inside fake cars that rev when you walk past, maybe it’s just the poison from the caladiums seeping into the local water supply, but the residents of Lake Placid are a peculiar bunch and hard people to engage in trade. 

If you do manage to find an open shop on a Saturday, don’t expect to be helped by those working there.  And if, against all odds, you do find a soup spoon that you like, don’t expect to be allowed to buy it under any circumstances.  In a thrift store.  Where everything that isn’t nailed down is for sale, including the bucket that holds stray Tupperware lids.  But not the silverware.  And when you are confused, as you inevitably will be, don’t expect sympathy or explanation from the clerk.  When she chases you down to bark that you need to put the silverware back where you found it, you’ll be lucky not to get tossed out on your ear.  Especially if you loudly express your disgust and make rude faces on your way out of the store.  For instance.

Though, at other times, clearly starved for human connection, some other poor shop worker may indeed become your new and very best friend, commiserate with you over the oppressive heat of an 82 degree afternoon, and want to know all about how you are Jewish after she notices the star on your necklace.  A star with five points.  That is also a little swirly. 

One gets the impression that Lake Placidians don’t have a whole lot of contact with the outside world and aren’t quite sure what to do with it when they run up against it unexpectedly.

I found these in thrift store #2.  Do you remember that song from Sesame Street?  "One of these things is not like the others.  One of these things just isn't the same."  For some reason I'm thinking of it now.

This is the town that likes to remind people that it is “the center of everything in the middle of nowhere,” and it’s a boast that sums up Lake Placid for none of the reasons it intends.  A bit perplexing and without much meaning, it’s an attempt at eccentric charm that both hits and misses.  If you’re in the market for a poisonous garden plant or have a hankering for clowns and old Tom Selleck, this is the town for you.  If you like unremarkable business transactions or soup, you should probably buy your vacation home somewhere else.  I hear upstate New York is nice.

In January of 2013, Reader’s Digest in its infinite wisdom declared Lake Placid, FL, “America’s Most Interesting Town,” based on what may not have been strictly scientifically obtained data.  And interesting it certainly is – a nice, indistinct sort of interesting that can adequately obscure whatever it is you’re trying not to describe.  What I can tell you with certainty is this: it is legitimately funny when that boxy jalopy in the shuffleboard park turns out to be a trashcan and the Golden Corral on Rte. 27 has a magnificent chocolate fountain.  But it’s easier to get into clown school than it is to buy a secondhand spoon in Lake Placid, and I can think of at least 27 reasons why you shouldn’t try either.

The Price of Silver

I’ve decided to have nice things.  And by “have nice things” I do mean “haunt the thrift store down the street, rummage through the castoff, once-nice things of others, and then buy them for a quarter.”

It is in this pursuit that I recently purchased seven spoons, four knives, and a book. 

In truth, the book was really less a symbol of sophistication and more just a reflection on the fact that, as a rule, I like books.  And this one had a nice green cover.  As I believe deeply in judging books by their covers, and am fond of green, the fifty cents seemed well worth the impulsive purchase. 

The cutlery, on the other hand, has been a long time coming.

Several years ago, before I put my meager possessions in storage, packed a suitcase, and left the country of my birth for foreign shores, my silverware was already in bad shape.  I was in grad school.  I was poor.  And sometimes I ate with my fingers to avoid the possibility of accidentally consuming rust.  And sometimes I just consumed the rust. 

But I’ve traveled the world now.  I’ve watched the sun rise over ancient ruins, hiked glaciers, argued in foreign languages, and made a general nuisance of myself in any hemisphere you can name.  Clearly, I’ve become worldly and urbane, if not measurably richer, and the thought of eating my frozen waffles with a side of tetanus just doesn’t have the appeal it once did.  So when I returned to the States some time ago and began sifting through my storage unit to see what I’d forgotten I owned, I decided it was time to jettison some flotsam. 

First thing in the dumpster: well, if I’m honest, it was a broken lamp.  Second thing in the dumpster: actually, I think it was a crappy chair.  But definitely somewhere in the first five to seven things in the dumpster: the silverware (which is I think a rather generous term for those particular implements). 

Some partings are difficult, heavy with memory and sentiment.  This one wasn’t.

But the fact remained that now I could still just eat with my fingers, not because I had only rusty spoons, but because I had no spoons at all.  Obviously a step up, but still.  Fingers.

A decision had to be made and this was it: if I was going to have silverware, it was going to be silver ware.  Remember, I’m urbane now and it was time for me to prove it, spoon by spoon. 

A problem arose, however.  Mysteriously, my newfound refinement did not seem to bring with it any level of unearned affluence.  This made me sad.  In a cosmopolitan way, naturally, but sad is still sad and I didn’t enjoy it.  

But a solution was not far behind and an epiphany came to me.  Instead of being Gucci-fancy, I would be Anthropologie-fancy.  Instead of being sleek and elegant (which, let’s be honest, were going to be a stretch anyway), I would be charmingly eclectic and delight others with my laid-back gentility.

So I went to thrift stores and started rifling through tubs of spoons, forks, and knives, searching for the lonely silver islands in an ocean of stainless steel and plastic handles with purpose and resolve.  Bent handles and crooked tines went flying.  Only the best!  My standards were high and I would not be diverted, as evidenced by the facts that I had to body block more than one old woman who started to encroach upon my silverware bucket and that I only bought one book.  To date I have accumulated seven spoons and four knives and they are hard-won.  My spoons may not match my knives or, indeed, each other, but they are silver and I will declare until the day I die (or am rich enough to have a matching set of something and can pretend that it was always so) that this was the plan from the start. 

Despite this clear victory, however, a second problem arose.  My lovely eclectic silverware, while elementally silver, was visually black.  The solution to this was an old one and I took my cues from Carson on Downton Abbey, as I do in most things.  I assumed it would be like this.

I mean I didn’t have an awesome green apron, but I knew it would be but a matter of moments before I was looking at my own reflection in the back of a spoon and enjoying the highly polished fruits of my minimal labors.

But by the time I’d finished two spoons, the remaining five spoons and four knives had somehow become this:

And I was at a loss as to how to explain it.  Before you could say “tarnish is the modern-day result of original sin,” I went from Happy-in-a-Job-Well-Done-Carson to a Someone’s-Going-to-Pay-for-This-Carson.

And then to a different sort of Carson altogether.

But I quickly moved on and finally settled on a still pretty unhappy, but more appropriate Carson.

No matter how you look at it, it wasn’t pretty.  Eventually the spoons and knives were, but I could smell silver polish for two days after and my fingerprints were all either rubbed off or filled in completely with tarnish.  (Which reminds me – I should go on that crime spree I’ve been planning soon – before my fingerprints grow back.  I won’t even have to wear gloves.  Of course, my fingers don’t bend quite as well as they used to.  Maybe I should wait and wear the gloves after all.)

Though I’m glad to say I’ve returned to being a Carson governed once again by civility and equanimity, I confess I am beginning to wonder whether I really need any forks.

Orange You Glad I Didn't Say Banana? (Yes.)

There’s an orange grove near my home in Florida.  Well, if I’m completely honest, there’s an orange grove near everywhere in Florida, and one of them is near me.  After all, the Florida’s Natural plant is only just up the road.  They even have a visitor center.  I assume they give you free orange juice when you go there, otherwise what’s the point?  I must assume this because every time I’ve wanted to stop and find out, a chain link fence on wheels has barred my entry and I’ve left with neither information nor juice, just bitterness in my soul.  I need hardly explain how disappointing to me this is, not because I love orange juice so much – it ties with pineapple as only my eighth favorite fruit juice, coming in just behind aloe, which counts as a fruit in Asia, or seventh behind pomegranate if you’re not in Asia – but really just because I love free things and visitor centers.  Which I think is valid.

In any case, there’s an orange grove near my home in Florida, and it’s orange picking time.  It’s been orange picking time for a while now and it’s not uncommon to see old school busses that have been poorly painted white or bluish waiting in the parking lot at the CVS for the day’s workers to show up and then get carted over to a grove that needs picked. 

And it’s easy to spot the route that trucks take once the workers have filled them up with oranges.  Locals have been known to stop by the side of the road and pick up the oranges that roll off the tops of the trucks at stoplights or coming around corners.  Granted, they have been sitting in the gutter for a little while, but that’s just one more good reason not to eat the peel.  Don’t eat the peel.

So, this grove near my home.  I confess I expected it to smell like oranges, evoke memories of lazy summer afternoons and picnics, and give me a general feeling of well-being as I sauntered contentedly in the dappled shade of leaves. 

In retrospect, I see that this was a misplaced hope.  If you pick up an orange in Wal-Mart, or whatever your grocery store of choice may be, seldom does it smell super-orangey.  Maybe if the skin is thin.  The skins of our oranges are not thin.  What it smells like in the grove is sand.  And rotting oranges.  Which is not the same as a picnic at all.  All around, under heavy-laden branches sit the sad fruits that just couldn’t hang on any longer.  The oranges that, despite their best efforts to cling to the branch the provided them with nutrients, protection, and companionship, have let go and fallen with a gentle thud into the sand below where a little time and a lot of ants begin the process that will return them back to the earth from whence they came.  Ashes to ashes and oranges to dust.  But in the meantime the grove smells like sand and rotting oranges.

And sometimes rotting carcasses.  Because aside from not smelling the way I think they should, orange groves are also more dangerous places than I expected.  It seems that around these parts at least, there are wild hogs that prowl the groves, looking for someone to devour.  Or oranges.  Possibly just oranges.  Either way, I’ve seen tracks, and driving past the grove on the way to church the other day, spotted the massive prone form of a hog that had eaten one orange too many and given up his porcine ghost.  On the way out of town he was just a lonely hillock of pork between two orange trees, but by the time I was on my way back home, he’d been joined by quite a few friends intent on helping him lighten his load as he passed from this world to the next.  

They were feathered friends. 

Vultures.  They were vultures.

So now when I take my constitutional through the grove it is with a wary step.  I already had to keep a weather eye open for the people working the grove who I’m guessing would not appreciate my presence.  Up to now I’ve chosen to misunderstand the No Trespassing sign.

Which hasn’t been difficult.  But I doubt the guy in charge of the orange trucks (or the local authorities) will be overly inclined to believe my innocent-face when I claim ignorance.

But now, on top of that, I have to be on the lookout for wild creatures that could (and most likely want to) gore me to death and leave me for the vultures.  Yesterday I saw the picked-over remains of a deer in the grove.  Naturally, I assume a hog got it.  I have no direct evidence for this, but I will defend this belief vociferously if pressed.  

You may well wonder why I don’t just turn left instead of right as I pass my mailbox.  The truth is grim.  The threat of prosecution at the hands of vindictive orange farmers and dismemberment upon the tusks of wild animals strike less fear in my heart than the hordes of old people who live all around me.  If I don’t turn left I’m in the wretched bowels of a retirement community where the antediluvian denizens look at me with suspicion in their eyes, resentment in their hearts, and naught but skin and liver spots between them and the clouds.  They all have golf carts and they’re not afraid to use them.

It’s like Cocoon around here.  There’s even a pool down the block and I constantly see them splashing around as if to give the impression of youth.  It bodes ill. 

Given the choice between the unconscionably old and the feral swine, I’ll take the feral swine.  And if I have to get arrested for it, so be it.

Bad, Bad Company 'Till the Day I Die

As I strolled through the bookstore the other day, minding my own business, like I always do, I came suddenly upon a shelf display that sent my mother’s voice pinging around the vast hollow spaces inside my skull.  “Choose your friends carefully,” her rather echo-y voice admonished, “because I’m going to have to tell you that I told you so when they get you into trouble.  You can’t say I didn’t warn you and it will be your own fault.  Those kids are disrespectful and they’re going to be a bad influence even if you don’t think that’s true and when you end up in jail you just better not try to blame me or your father and we’re not going to bail you out either.  You can just sit there.”

While her voice continued on in that vein for a while, I let my mind drift a bit, recalling the story of young Fred and reflecting on his sad fate.

He was a nice boy, Fred.  Bit of a troubled soul, but still – that’s pretty par for the course these days.  And his mom was a nice sort, devout.  He had plenty of, uh, friends.  He liked animals.

But then, like so many kids do, he fell in with the wrong crowd.  At a bookstore, as it happens.  On a shelf.

Well, he started running around with pop stars and psychiatrists, poltergeists and tiny yellow Cyclopes.  Pretty soon these new friends had him cutting class and smoking in the boy’s room, sassing his mother and staying out late.  And, just like that, before you could say “Bob’s your uncle,” he was a Psychotic killer spirit with a crazy laugh, murdering children both in their dreams and out of them and goodness knows what else. 

I’m not sure we can chalk that one up to coincidence. 

Fortunately, on the very next shelf were these fine defenders of law and order.

And, in the middle, a blonde with a bowl cut.

Though it was clear to me by now that a pretty tough crowd ran in this bookstore, it was equally clear that one or another of these paragons of virtue would be able to handle any situation that might arise concerning the safety of innocent shoppers nearby.  And naturally, by “one or another of these paragons of virtue” I do mean “Chuck Norris.”  Chuck Norris makes onions cry.  And Freddy Krueger.

The moral of this story: Be mindful of the company you keep, but, should the worst happen and fictional serial killers of any sort have your back against the wall, call Chuck Norris. 

Bonus moral: Your mother is always right.  Even when she chooses to let you rot in hypothetical future-prison for crimes you are not likely to commit.  It’s for your own good.

A Journey of Self-Discovery: Zimbio Pirates I Have Been

Never in the history of mankind has the accumulated knowledge of the cosmos been closer to our fingertips.  Every day, we know more about our universe, our planet, our fellow humans, and when I have a question about these things, a few keystrokes find me the answer.  How many miles are between here and Harry Potter land at Universal Studios?  Sixty-eight!  What color is a black hole?  No color at all!  Where have I seen Andrea from The Walking Dead before?  Oh right, The X-Files!  We are knowledgeable.  We are brilliant.  We are captains of all we survey and we know it because the internet has told us so.

But we are also searchers.  We are the bold descendants of Captain Cook and the forbears of Captain Kirk, and we crave the greatness that comes with new understanding.  So with all this information about our world so readily accessible, where do we turn to explore?  What frontiers remain while we’re still waiting for our five-year mission aboard the United Space Ship Enterprise, which, annoyingly, has not yet been built?  Invariably, we turn inward, to the alien waters of our own mysterious psyches and pray that it doesn’t turn out to be a Heart of Darkness kind of trip.

Now, I've heard that there are people who spend years in therapy with trained professionals who try doggedly to bring them closer to a full understanding of who they are and who they can be, while others willingly offer up thousands of hard-earned dollars on the golden altar of Know Thyself at seminars, in bookstores, or in online psychic chat rooms at five dollars a minute.  And I gather yoga’s becoming very popular again.

I have Zimbio and I can uncover the elusive truth of my immortal soul in 15 easy questions. 

How did the trauma of not being given a larger allowance when I was seven damage my current moral code?  I don’t know, but my favorite of these colors is blue.

Will walking the rows of a Kenyan coffee plantation finally eradicate my complete disinterest in coffee as a beverage and the social stigma I bear as a result?  Your guess is as good as mine, but when it’s time to get a job done I choose to get my money up front and I’m not putting my neck on the line for anyone.

Can my inability to tolerate PF Flyers as an adequate alternative to Converse All-Stars be traced back to the time I accidentally watched the beloved-older-brother-getting-stabbed-and-then-run-over-by-a-train scene from Sometimes They Come Back when I was ten?  Well.  Probably.  And of the following foods I prefer pizza as a late night snack.

In analyzing these and other revealing decisions, the Zimbio quiz wizards (Quizards?  I think it should probably be quizards.) have distilled the vast wisdom of both philosophy and psychology into the likening of any unique human individual to a pre-described set of fictional characters, celebrities, and pop songs.  I am Robin Scherbatsky because I am fiercely independent and ever so slightly aloof!  I am Veronica Corningstone because I am smart, hard-working, and look good in front of the camera!  If I were a David Bowie I would be Berlin Bowie because I’ve learned to cherish reality and admire clean minimalism!  And my personal Beyoncé anthem is “Run the World” because I get things done, and I get them done right!  I have regal grace, gosh darn it, and I am enlightened enough to admit it!

Who can argue with keen and uncompromising results like those?  No one, that’s who.

And because I can put my faith in the unfaltering Zimbio method, I have come to realize that in my heart I am a pirate several times over.

Now, we all know that, despite the specious claims of generations of historians (and Robert Louis Stevenson) inexplicably intent on giving rascally seafaring renegades a bad name, pirates are actually lovely human beings.  Errol Flynn and Dustin Hoffman taught us this long ago much more thoroughly than any history book or news report ever could.  Oh, pirates may be a bit rough around the edges perhaps, but ultimately they’re really just misunderstood.  We’re talking hearts of gold here.  Even when Greedo shoots first.  So when I began to notice a distinct list toward piracy as I explored the dark recesses of my soul, I took special note and gathered my findings.

And, for the sticklers among you – those who become pirates in the future count as pirates in the present.  Don't argue with me on this unless you desire a thorough skewering on the business end of me cutlass.

           

Naturally, a galaxy far, far away was the first place I looked for self-knowledge, as many have done before me.  I knew already, of course, that I’m sharp, resourceful, and independent, but I had no idea that I was also so charismatic.  Frankly, I’m not sure others know it, yet, either.  I should probably start slipping it into conversation.  It was hard to be told that I have such shadily opportunistic and scoundrelly tendencies, but this is what personal growth is about – learning the difficult truths about ourselves and coming to terms with them.  Which I have apparently already done, since I like that just fine.  Sure, I would have liked to have discovered my inner Obi-Wan, thereby justifying my nearly constant desire to wave my hand in front of people’s faces and tell them that these are not the somethings they’re looking for, but this way I can justify being a bit rude and rolling my eyes instead.

And my space pirate opportunism was confirmed when, out of all the inhabitants of Storybrooke, I was deemed the spitting mental image of fairy tale pirate Captain Hook.  A shrewd freebooter of the highest caliber, I may unfortunately have to play both ends against the middle while I figure out which side is winning – that’s just practical – but I’m happy to take comfort in my sexy rebelliousness and I think you should, too.  And though I’m not entirely sure how good lone wolves are at driving fast cars (Thumbs might be a problem there.  Should it be a fast ship?  Is there a fast shipping lane?), I evidently drive with passion and that’s what I’ll tell the fuzz when I get pulled over.

Unless, of course, I’ve decided to proudly manipulate or trick my way to my destination like Captain Jack, who, among all Johnny Depp’s characters, most closely resembles my own.  But, since my destinations are usually adventurous and uncharted and I’m sharing my rum, do we really need to complain about me tricking you?  No, wait.  I’m a lone wolf so you’re not there.  Never mind, it wasn’t you.  I probably tricked someone at customs.  And I think we can all agree that they most definitely deserved it.  I mean, seriously, 100 ml?  Give me a break.  I’ll share my rum with my taxi driver on the way to exploring my hotel if the bottle hasn’t broken in the bag that I had to check.  Jerks.

Though if that bottle has broken, you should expect swift retribution, capo ferro style.  I might be a lone wolf now, but I used to have a family (who will probably be sad to find out that they have been murdered), and the loss has clearly unhinged me.  My fierce loyalty to I guess their memory and my steadfast determination to exact revenge upon the, uh, six-fingered blackguard who broke my rum bottle will make you rue the day you ever . . . did something that made me want to get even with you.  It’s probably rum related.  So.  Just remember this, you lousy punks – never go in against a Sicilian when – oh, hang on, that’s not – .  Actually, remember this – I am not left handed!  

I think it’s clear to see the amount of introspective mileage I’m going to be getting out of these pirates.  Now I understand why my small allowance was so traumatic.  It wasn’t gold doubloons.  And my problem with coffee?  It isn’t rum.  I think the PF Flyer thing is still Stephen King’s fault, though.

Now all that’s left for me to decide is whether I’m hoping more for a The Pirates! quiz or a Black Sails quiz next.  In the meantime I’m off to Buzzfeed to try their Once Upon a Time quiz.  I have a very swashbuckly feeling about it.  Fair winds!