Seanachai
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Posts posted by Seanachai
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I would remind everyone that Konrad has been and is sent to Coventry long ago ... for obvious reasons.
Joe
I don't recall Konrad being sent to Coventry. I thought he was 'lena-konrad' returned, and, although I remember him as having behaved poorly, it wasn't much more or any more spectacularly poorly than any number of people who still post here. Hell, if the truth were told, there's been so many silly little sh*t*s through here in the last few years, I can barely remember who I'm supposed to hug as a long lost child of our hearts, and who's a complete fecking wanker that the gods should rain down sh*te upon.
But it's not important that I remember this sort of thing. What's the point of having created the creaking, pontificating totalitarianism of the Justicariate if I have to remember which idiot's shoes are filled with piss, as opposed to which idiot simply pisses on his shoes?
I'm a busy man. When I get up in the middle of the night, because pain and anxiety won't let me sleep, I want to have my bagel and cream cheese, washed down with a refreshing glass of rum, and look over the list of defaulters and bastards, and know who the hell I'm supposed to cut dead.
Is that too much to ask? I think not.
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And in the distance... a dog barks.
And, in our hearts, we know that what he's saying is: Motherf*cker! Motherf*cker!
Dogs are very uncomplicated.
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Oh sufferin' Christ. You aren't going to go and get all weepy on us are you? I mean, knowing you are Irish and all I suppose that has to be on the card somewhere. But can't you hold it in at least until after the bar is closed? That's good whiskey you are diluting.
Tell me, who was it who took you under his wing and gave you a welcome home to post your ravings when JJ had his meltdown? Can you even remember back that far? Who has been your most constant friend through your intemperate Irish ravings?
I think that you would find life a lot easier to take if you had a less inflated sense of yourself. On the other hand, you would probably be a lot less hilariously foolish. So, don't change a thing. Continue the absurd metaphysical pratfalls to our amused entertainment. Just don't weep in the whiskey, okay?
Michael
I'll take that as a 'Yes', for any given value of 'yes'.
Ah, Michael. Here in this very strange, stupid, and silly place, I will indeed continue to post, simply because people like you mock and abuse me for doing so. You keep me young, see if you don't. And, Michael, if I had a less inflated sense of myself, could I come here, night after another night, and post as if I expected some sort of answer? The only thing I'll change, lad, is how I abuse you and all the rest, always seeking another leg-up in the attempt to seem more goddamn amazing and committed than I am.
I am the Seanachai.
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Well, you know what they say about adversity strengthening the spirit. Someday when I'm feeling especially perky I may tell you about all my problems. Let's see, the outline shouldn't take more than about 14 hours and then we can start getting into the details. You'll love it.
Michael
Yeah, yeah. Bring it on, Deadman. Every post of yours leaves me... hungry for more. I read your words, and I'm left... wanting more. It's not like we don't know who you are, Famine. With every word you post to us, we hear a bean rattling in a can.
I am the Seanachai of the Peng Challenge Thread. I know how to want more. I know what wanting is. And I know that you are... Wanting.
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You seem to be more drunk than usual tonight. That's quite a feat, actually.
Michael
Bah! At what point are you going to stop pointing out my ability to do hand stands on your expectations of me?
I'm The Seanachai. I could drink your expectations of me under the table, and kick the ****e out of them.
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You mock me. It is part of the Peng Challenge Thread that I am mocked. I come here, to be mocked. It makes me feel...connected.
I present myself, to be mocked. I do the dance with the Justicar, who mocks me. I bow and bend to Aussies, who mock me. I demand obeisance from Boo Radley, who mocks me. I take the piss out of the newbies and fools, who mock me.
Berli has mocked me since this Thread began. Peng mocks me because that is being Peng.
I am mocked.
Emrys, ancient and horrible of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypso, mocks me. Dorosh, banned and awful, Horseman in Exile, mocks me.
I am mocked.
I am the First Amongst Equals, and All Equal in Being the Worst.
I sit in the Wasteland, watching the People make their way.
Tell me this: Should I still post here, or name a successor to watch over the Wasteland? To recreate reality, day by day, by their posts, their actions, to make of this place something other, to make a new place?
Life if short, and art is long, and success is very far off, as Joseph Conrad would have it.
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Been sick as a fecking dog for over a week. Lying in bed at night, unable to catch my breath, panting, coughing, sweating like a bastard, waiting to die. I have a peculiar horror of not being able to catch my breath. Blame it on watching my father die of lung cancer, tubes in his chest to both lungs; or watching my younger sister on a respirator, slowly failing as her lungs gave out, finally kept alive by machinery and an unwillingness to let go.
It's all made me into a big fecking baby. When I get a cold, and have trouble catching my breath, I go into panic mode. I can't sleep, have to get up and look for something to make things better, try and catch my breath. When I can't get enough air, my body goes into 'anxiety/stress' mode.
So, for the last week or so, I've been unable to sleep.
I hate fear. It leaves you all alone, and afraid.
But now, I'm getting better. I can breathe. Mostly.
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(not sure if I shall feel sorry for him, be scared of him, mock or tolerate him...I should only pity him - hate him, perhaps, if he were ugly, and a clown)... that is very good for you , Boo....
From konrad, this is, indeed, a mouthful. Or, perhaps, a song, of sorts. It's always a bit hard to tell with him. But I think the effort is always worth it.
I interpret it as such: Boo, you are a clown! But you stomp upon the terra! I pity you, and mock you, and yet, I find myself doubting myself. Maybe there is more to you than I see. Maybe there is more to you than I like. I am not afraid of you, but sometimes I am afraid of myself! Afraid, how can I fail to admit that you are you? Now, given that I am some sort of Polish/Lithuanian/Estonian/Slavic/Eastern Orthodox Father of a Forgotten Church, should I not now stand in judgement of weirdo arseholes who post in the Peng Challenge Thread, and mock them for not being able to interpret my words?!
That's just one man's interpretation. Mind you, I think it's pretty close to the intent.
The interesting thing about the Peng Challenge Thread is that we're THE source to deal with all the weirdness of a multi-cultural society. Which we're not. We're the other thing.
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You know, Boo, I despair of the fact that of the last two games you've started with me, you've failed to finish either one.
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Oh, and Rune, you know when Berli and I came and visited you, that time? And you poured us both tumblers full of single malt? Berli poured his into the plant in the bathroom.
I told him later that it was a silk plant, not real. He felt really bad about that. He was hoping to have killed something.
If he ever asks, tell him that the doctors think your angioplasty was probably the result of damage done by airborne fumes from synthetic plastics dissolving in some sort of solvent. It'll make him happy.
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Boo, you idiot, I am Rune, and doing ok but tired after the angioplasty, that was my son Jr. Evil posting to let you know. He used my account.
Rune
What the fu— ?
Rune, you evil little woodchuck. I've met your useless arse, and I KNOW I've got at least 15 years on you, and that's a conservative estimate, and you don't even drink the lovely, lovely single malt, you bugger. So there's simply no way you're in the hospital having your putative heart worked on/over/around.
In any case, kudos to your son, who showed proper sentiment and initiative in telling us about your condition; it does him credit.
Of course, if he really wanted to win hearts and minds, he'd have posted about how he looked into a pit of sadness and despondency when he stared into your face, seeing you lying there looking all gray and aged, and how the pillow seemed to just rise to his hand and then rushed down to give you peace and closure, separatin' you from this vale of tears and such.
I'm betting, though, that he dutifully came to the hospital and sat with you, and joked with you, maybe doin' the odd Monty Python routine with you, letting you do all the best bits, and was worried and confused and hopeful and wondering about things.
I remember meeting your boys, and they seemed like nice kids, likely to grow into fine young men.
You, of course, were unlikely to be anything other than what you are.
Glad to hear you're recovering. Keep us posted about your progress.
I want NOTHING bad to happen to you, oh Rune. After all, I beat you like a gong in CMBB. And every day that you're alive and healthy, is another day that you have to acknowledge your defeat, and my superiority.
I hope you live for a hundred years, Rune.
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Back from a little lost time in Isla Holbox.
Seems I have re-acquired a taste for mezcal…
Yeah, you and Malcolm Lowry. Time to read 'Under the Volcano', Lars.
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To die. In the rain.
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Christ knows I'm almost unbelievably smarter and more entertaining than the rest of you.
That's hubris, that is, but totally deserved. You lot are like guinea pigs that have gotten out of their cages and are wandering around the lawn, waiting for the neighbourhood cats to show up. All wrinkly noses, vacuous looks and nibbling.
I'm an Olde One of the Peng Challenge Thread. I'm never going to spend the afterlife counting the pellets I laid down on the grass.
Well, not out loud. And I won't need to use all four paws.
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It worries me that I'm on the path to having lived a long, long time, like Emrys.
But then, I consider that I have my Small Friends, my amazing grasp of language, storytelling and erudition, and I am reassured.
Mind, I'm pretty sure Emrys is fecking erudite. He might even be able to tell a good story. But, all things considered, I think I'm pretty safe.
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So, I did not die in a Southern swamp... this has left me rather at loose ends. I never anticipated having to deal with February, if things had panned out as I'd thought. A friend of mine once told me, long ago: Never make a life decision in February.
...
Maybe I'll have to go get further medical tests. Or write more stories of Small Friends. Or explain to Boo that, no matter what he might think, he is mine. There are times when I despair of Boo's ability to sort out the various ramifications of "An Olde One of the Peng Challenge Thread". There are the rules that are, and there are the Rules We Make.
Who's up for a jolly singsong, then, eh?
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And now, for a Tale of Small Friends: The Bringing of the Trip Presents
It is, I think, a mark of our culture that when parents/grandparents, etc. go on a trip, that they return bringing gifts. When grown-ups go somewhere, they bring something back for family, friends and the kiddies. I have always had a weird relation to this custom, because of a traumatic childhood experience. My father, at a time that I can barely and without focus remember, went on a business trip. And when he came home, I, the precocious little 'what did you bring me?' type that I was, asked him about it, he jokingly told me that he hadn't gotten me anything. And I ran off to my room crying. He was just kidding, of course; he'd gotten me a set of blocks. I was probably 4 or 5, at the time. And I remember, in the way that you remember things frozen like a photograph, and only later are able to apply reason and analysis to them, that my father was embarrassed that his joke made me cry.
And that was, and has remained for me, an extremely shameful moment in my life. In fact, I've never even told this story to anyone before. For years I've held this picture in my mind of being an ungrateful little ****e and crying because I expected to get something that I wasn't owed, and probably didn't deserve, but made a fuss about when it wasn't forthcoming. The memory has always made me feel like a bad person. I'd like to think it's made me more thoughtful and appreciative of everything I've gotten since then, and made me realize that nobody owes me anything.
But that's just an intro to the story I came to tell you tonight, which is about my return from Southwest Florida, with gifts for my Small Friends, Small Emma and Smaller Nora.
The first thing about this story is this: Right up until I left for the Everglades, I'd let my hair get really, really long. Unkempt. Ungroomed. I looked like an horrible sheep. And several times, in the days before I left town, Smaller Nora looked at me and said "Grandma Steve, your hair is really long!". Emma never noticed whether my hair was long or short; it simply wasn't an element in her world view.
So, just before I left town, I got my hair cut really short. And, when I arrived at the home of my Small Friends on Thursday night, and met them at the door (their Dad was already home, and let me in, and gave me a beer), the first thing anyone said was Nora shouting: 'Grandma Steve, you got your hair cut!'
I don't know what that's all about. She went on about it at great and glorious length. She's just the kind of kid that notices stuff like that, I guess.
And then we got caught up. I looked at the really great drawings that Emma had done at school that day, which were very good. I got to hear about school and playing. I told them I'd paddled with alligators, and when Emma asked me 'What about dolphins?', I told them about how I had, in fact, been paddling with dolphins on Chokoloskee Bay. It was all great fun.
And then, while Mom and Dad were in the kitchen getting dinner for everyone, Emma asked me: Can we open the presents you brought us? And I was taken a bit aback, remembering, if you've read the above, about the whole 'did you bring us presents' issue. So I asked her: 'How did you know I brought you presents, Emma?' And she told me: 'Mommy told me'.
And she had. Turns out there was a book fair that day at school, and Emma had had her heart set on some silly chihuahua toy that the company was offering as part of the whole deal, and when Emma got there, late, they were sold out. And she was so crushed that her Mom told her on the drive home that Grandma Steve was going to be there, and he had presents for her and Smaller Nora that he'd brought from southern Florida, from his trip paddling with alligators and dolphins.
And I had. I went and got the presents, and I'd bought them both T-shirts from the Rookery Bay Estuarine Research Center (who we did a paddle with), one for each of them, that could be colored on with the special provided magic markers, and when you washed them, you could color them again. Emma's had dolphins, and Nora's had a shark, because that's what they both like.
And I bought them both a necklace, which had a dragonfly on it. And Emma's was on a pink strap, and Nora's was on a blue strap, and Emma likes pink better, and Nora likes blue better, and otherwise they were both dragonflies, and nothing to choose between them. But the thing about the dragonfly necklaces was: They were 'mood' necklaces. Which means that the wings of the dragonflies changed color, depending on the 'mood' of the wearer, or, in fact, how warm or cold they were.
The t-shirts were received with great admiration, and much acclaim. And the dragonfly necklaces were met with great glee, and comments of 'oh, these are so pretty!' But they didn't even understand what the necklaces were all about.
So, they took their swag upstairs, and, in the 10 minute period before they were called back down to dinner, they'd already managed to color Nora's t-shirt. I don't know how they managed it. I went up to get them for dinner, and they'd already colored in the cartoon-like shark and sea-life picture. And Smaller Nora took off her clothes because her sister told her she had to wear her new t-shirt to dinner, and at first Nora was saying 'I have to put on new pants', but when she pulled on the t-shirt (which was a 'child's small', on the idea that one size fits anyone under the age of 8), she did a little pirouette, and said "Oh, it's just like a little dress!", and refused to put on pants because she was beautifully clothed in hand-painted finery from Rookery Bay!
I then put on both of their necklaces (which, ham-handed as I am, I could still manage the fine catches), and we went down to dinner. And, at that point, the wonder became manifest.
As we sat down to an incredibly fine dinner that Mom and Dad had done, I told them about how the necklaces 'changed color'. And they started turning them about, and lifting them up, and when they realized that the wings of the dragonflies were, in fact, changing to different colors (as their body heat, and, eventually, gripping hands warmed them) they all but lost control of themselves.
The dinner table was filled with shouts of "Look, Mommy! The wings are green! Now they're blue! Oh my gosh, what color is this, Grandma Steve? Daddy, Daddy, look! Grandma Steve says this color is turquoise! Oh, my gosh, what color is this? What color is it now?!"
Not much dinner got eaten. As God is my witness, the art of the Louvre doesn't draw the kind of acclaim I witnessed there that night.
I remember the whole 'mood ring' phenomenon from when I was a kid. I remember it as being stupid. But, apparently, I'd never seen it through the eyes of a 6 year old, and a 3 year old. I had brought them the treasures from under the pyramids. H. Rider Haggard could not have described a more glittering bounty.
And, of course, after dinner we got to the final present. The one I didn't buy, but gathered, as one might say, with love. Because one afternoon my friend and I walked up 'South Beach' on Marco Island, and we gathered seashells. We walked at least a mile, with me, at first, thinking it was an annoying and stupid tourist thing to do, until my friend pointed out that I'd never once looked at the ocean, the sunset, the beautiful panorama of white sand beach, or, in fact, anything except the bounty of shells that I was gathering for my Small Friends, and that my pants were starting to sag on my left side from how many shells I'd put in the pouch of my kayaking pants.
So, I had wrapped the shells in paper towels and tissue paper in Florida, and I carried them home in my carry-on bag to keep them safe. And, before I went over to Small Friends house that night, I'd laid them all out on a dark blue flannel pillow case, to give them some backing, and to lay them out proper and cushion them before I brought them over. And, after dinner, I unrolled the cloth of midnight blue, replete with shells, to the wondering eyes of Small Emma and Smaller Nora.
A truly excellent moment. And as I watched Small Emma gasp, seize her sister's hands and shout 'No, Nora, don't break them!', I knew that I'd hit the Trifecta. I'd brought them three presents that they completely liked: Clothes, Jewelry, and Something Personal.
I was then treated to the Small Girl excitement of 'How to Deal With the Shells'. Because Nora was like 'Oh, look at this! Mine! Mine! I want to run away and look at this and it's Mine!', and Emma's 'No, Nora! You're going to break it! These are for both of us!'.
Of course Emma, as the Big Sister, took it upon herself to 'divvy up the swag'. She was almost meticulously fair, laying out all the shells, and comparing them, and deciding which shells were most like other shells, and then saying: 'Nora, this one is yours, and this one is mine'. And she was, actually, very fair about it. And if, occasionally the one she got was rather more like what she would want, it didn't matter much, because her sister was thrilled with the shells she got. And any shell that was unique, and not like any other, went into the 'shared pile', which eventually became 'Mommy and Daddy's shells'. They could both enjoy them, and look at them when they wanted, but they weren't 'anyone's shells, but shared'.
And then, once all the shells were divided up, they ran upstairs to get small girl jewelry boxes to put them in. And Emma's box, when it was opened, had a dancing, twirling ballerina that 'sang the shells to sleep'. Every little girl in every Universe since time began and mechanical jewelry boxes were invented has a jewelry box like this. And once her shells were put in it, and the 'ballerina' wound up, we sat and watched here slowly spin, and listened to the tune, which sang the shells to sleep.
And her Mom, always the sardonic one, said 'Oh, so shells can sleep? They can hear the music?', and Emma, in that peculiar tone of hushed wonder that only children can do without irony, said 'Yes! They're sleeping, now.'
And, in that moment, I thought about how all that long time ago, I cried because I thought I didn't get a present from a trip, even though I did. And I knew that, somehow, I was still a small child, and I'd just gotten the best present ever, and that I'd lived long enough to know how wonderful it was, and that I would never forget it.
And that's pretty goddamn cool.
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The hell...?
What are you smoking and why didn't you bring me any, you loud and annoying bubble of swamp gas?
I have never and shall never be your Squire.
I was Croda's Squire for a couple of weeks and he was SO impressed with my capabilities he made me KANIGGET in under a month.
Sure, he then scarpered off, giggling like a loon, never to be seen again, but still...
Yes, yes, I know that's what you think, Boo. But, the fact remains, you are my large, thuggish henchman. You are, you were, and always will be.
Everything else is just some weird dream of 'rules' and 'lineage' that the Justicar is keeping in greasy journals on a shelf somewhere in his trailer, much pawed at and filled with odd diagrams, drawings and the sort of demented ravings you normally see in the margins of Dan Brown novels from the library, about 'Jesus' and 'Mary Magdalene' and 'the Priory of Psion' and other such utter sh*te.
Now, be a good lad and fetch me a cooling Cuba Libre, and don't stint the fresh lime! I'm not completely resigned to being back from vacation.
Good lad. Try to not stab yourself with the tiny plastic sword, this time...
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You gotta love these mid-western, knuckle heads (and New Yorkers) that arrive in the Everglades in January expecting danger as if there on a Kenyan Safari. Amateur hour.
Come back in August, big man. When the bugs are as thick as motor oil..and don't bother bringin' paddles.
Expecting danger? Not as such, my good man. I merely lived in the hope that outraged Nature, sensing my presence, would attempt to do something about it. I believe, as you clearly do not, in some form of justice.
And I know all about fecking bugs. As in, I know enough not to go to southern Florida in the wet season. Pillock. You come here in the summer, Cynthia, and we'll take you out on the rivers to give a big kiss to the black flies and mosquitos.
I haven't lived this long to be stupid enough to expose my tender flesh to the Swarm.
Bah! I wave my hand at you. One doesn't arrange travel in order to meet nature with the knives out.
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On my second day on Marco Island, when my friend and I were sitting on the beach, at a bar, drinking rum&others, and smirking about the conversations we were listening to around us, I leaned over to her and said:
"You know, sitting here, listening to all these New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania accents of people complaining, pissing, and moaning about every little thing makes me really realize that I'm back in Florida..."
The only way you hear anything like a Southern accent in southern Florida is if you fall in with tourists from Texas.
When we were paddling, we mainly met Midwesterners. Minnesotans, Wisconsites, Illinoisans, Michiganites. East Coasters don't paddle. No Ohioans. There must have been a sweep to round them all up, in the interest of public enjoyment. Of course, the West Coast of Florida is the 'Rich Coast'. Probably the Ohioans were on the other coast, riding mini-cars around a tire-bumpered race course, wearing feed-caps.
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Did I mention that I just got back from paddling in Florida? Rookery Bay, the 10,000 Islands, and Big Cypress Preserve? Three trips, 9.25 hours on the water, 17 miles, over river estuary, islands in the gulf of mexico, and freshwater river/everglades swamp? Paddled with dolphins and alligators? Saw hundreds of birds? Had a near-death experience where Berli and Peng showed up to tell me that I would be visited by three spirits?
Okay, that last bit was, admittedly, in the hotel bar...or...some bar, at least, very late at night...actually, that may have been when I was finishing the last of the rum on the lanai of our room, very late at night, smoking an Arturo Reyes maduro toro...yeah, that seems right. I remember because, as Peng threw another log on the fire, Berli punched me around the ear, and said "If you don't work harder at annoying the wildlife, you're never going to be properly savaged..."
Scorched the hell out of the balcony floorboards, and my paddling/traveling friend yelled at me for falling asleep with a lit cigar. Left a pretty good tip for the hotel maids. Made good, don't expect I'll hear anything more about it.
I tell you, living on two different planes of existence at once can be bloody exhausting. Especially with Peng and Berli always showing up on one of them...
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But it's in the lads best interests as well. If rune shows up here once a fortmonth it's too often and I fear the lad would be yet another latchkey Squire and WE'D end up feeding him and instructing him on the whys and wherefores of the CessPool.
Joe
I dunno. Rune? He's an idjit, albeit a senior idjit. I think it would be better if I took costard on. Or Boo, who's the most senior of my Squires, and a sort of unofficial deputy.
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I am returned, both much refreshed and completely unharmed, from the Everglades. I had, of course, gone there with the expectation of being, if not killed, at least maimed by the local wildlife. At the very least, seriously duffed up. But not one single creature so much as said 'boo' to me. I wasn't even shat upon by a pelican.
My first reaction, of course, was to return to these pages and pronounce a curse of excommunication upon the wildlife, sea-life, birds, flora and nature overall upon the region, backed by all the power of an Olde One of the Peng Challenge Thread, for their timorous and feeble response to my presence. I had gone there, expecting, as anyone of my significance might, to be bitten, clawed, stung, poisoned, rent and generally buggered about.
But what I got was simply beautiful, blue skies, comfortable weather, wonderful paddling, and the local flora and fauna lining up meekly for photo opportunities.
"Is this to be bourne?" I had to ask myself.
But then, it occurred to me. I could not blame the response I received, because the fauna, the flora, and even Nature itself recognized in me an Olde One of the Peng Challenge Thread. One of those who sit eternally around the fire, in the Wasteland, waiting for the world to be created around them. I was, quite simply, recognized as a progenitor.
Next time, I will have to go 'incognito'.
I'm not sure how to do this. Perhaps I'll need to wear loud colours of inappropriate clothing, talk too loud about stupid things, and pay no attention to the world around me in favour of telling everyone about how my manager is an idiot and how the politicians are ruining this country. Or, maybe, pretend to be an Australian.
But I simply went as myself, and so I saw hundreds of birds, dolphins, alligators and other creatures, and had a delightful experience. Not even a mosquito bite.
Mind you, a couple of elderly New Yorkers looked at me funny because I was staring at them with dislike while they chattered away on the boardwalk in Corkscrew Swamp Nature Preserve. But since neither of us clawed or bit each other, I'm figuring that for a wash...
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Okay, I'm off on Thursday. Yeah, yeah, I know, you lot regard me as having been off for years. All packed, except for the cigars and shaving kit, told my Small Friends about how I'll probably be eaten by an alligator (they did not seem particularly concerned, but seemed to regard this as being somewhat intriguing), and it's all over now bar the shouting.
And, with any luck, screaming. We're going to have a laptop with us, and free Wi-Fi in the hotel room, so I may be able to keep you lot posted on what I'm attacked by. Well, at least until the attackers win...
Low walls, Deployed MGs and the Peng Challenge Thread
in Combat Mission Shock Force 1
Posted
The other night, I was having dinner with my good friends, and my special friend, Smaller Nora, was sitting next to me. And during dinner, she rolled her little head over on her shoulders, the way children do, and looked up at me with her blue eyes, and said: 'Grandma Steve, what is your favorite?'
I looked at her for a while, and finally said, 'My favorite what, Nora?'
And she replied, 'What is your Favorite?!'
So I told her: You and your sister Emma are my favorites!
And she told me: 'Nooooooo! What is your favorite?!'
After several minutes of work, it turned out she wanted to know what my favorite food was. There was a bit in the middle regarding my favorite maybe being 'green' and 'about this big'. Even six years of dealing with children hasn't given me certification in actually having a clue; I'm still a journeyman.
So, I told her 'Well, Nora, my favorite is spaghetti'. I make a fantastic spaghetti sauce, my own concoction, based on the spaghetti sauce my Mom made us as kids, which I loved. Strangely, we were actually eating spaghetti at Nora's that night, made by her Mom.
She considered my answer and told me 'No. What is your favorite?'
I thought, maybe, that she thought I'd said spaghetti simply because we were having it that night, so I thought about another food I loved, and remembered that it was one that she and her sister both liked, and I told her 'Well, Nora, my favorite is pot roast'.
She told me: 'No, that's not right!'
I was beginning to be confused. I was being asked to guess 'my' favorites, but I was getting them wrong. I was torn between thinking I didn't understand the game, then wondering if, because I didn't give it enough thought, I was actually not giving my REAL favorite foods.
So, figuring I wasn't understanding the game, and suddenly seeing where I might have gone wrong, I told her: 'Oh, okay, Nora, you want to know what my favorite food is! I get it! My favorite food is Ice Cream!'
And she tells me: 'No, Grandma Steve, I mean a tricky food! Not like that!'
Christ, at this point, I'm actually getting paranoid. What the heck is a 'tricky food'?
So, we spent the next several minutes with her asking, and me telling her what 'my favorite food is', and her telling me 'No, that's not right!'
As God is my witness, I have never had to try and guess what my own favorite food is.
After a few minutes her Mom became aware of our game, and the fact that I was actually losing a game to determine what my favorite food was. So she jumped in and said 'Nora, I know what Grandma Steve's favorite food is, it is lobster!'.
And I told Nora, 'Oh, that is true, I do very much love lobster!' And then Jen, Nora's Mom told her: 'And Nora, I bet Grandma Steve really loves filet mingon.'
And I told Nora, 'Yes, indeed, I really do love filet mignon. That is one of my favorite foods!'
And Nora's response was, 'No, that is not it! I mean the tricky food!'
Took the two of us another ten minutes to try and work it out. Turns out my favorite food is 'Brussel sprouts'.
This plays back into the whole 'it's green and about this big' thing that came up in the early stages of the game, when I didn't even know I was trying to work out a food item. It was a relief to me that I actually do, in fact, like brussel sprouts. And a bit of a strange thing that my sister Kat, who died, had brussel sprouts as her favorite vegetable. Every year, at Thanksgiving and Christmas, someone always made brussel sprouts, cause they were Kat's favorite.
I did not find out what made brussel sprouts a 'tricky food'. Hell, I don't even know what a 'tricky food' is. Imagine that. I've lived all these years, and I still don't know what a 'tricky food' is.
This is not surprising. I didn't even know what my 'favorite food' was. But, and this gives me hope, I am willing to learn...