The Move: Keeps Marching On

Another late night last night!

I'd like to see the statistics on accidental deaths, homicides, and suicides occurring on-or-around the dates when families are moving and reorganizing their lives. Small numbers would arouse my suspicion.

No doubt: moving is at least closely akin to suicide. At least all the OLD WAYS die a sort of agonizing and bewildering death. As in: "Now where DID we move those damned whatevers?" Those with sufficient energy remaining, stumble about opening and slamming-shut all available drawers and cabinet doors. Everything gets lost, except the children! See: even the trade-offs are troublesome.


Our move? Things are moving along.

I was thrilled to discover yesterday morning that the trash and garbage collectors took everything I placed at the curb. My neighbors had graciously agreed to permit me the use of whatever open space I discovered in their own rolling garbage cans. The inviolable "Garbage-Can Oath" in our township permits No More Than One Rolling Can and Two Large Bags. After getting permission from my neighbors, I distributed about fifteen bags among us all.

No one ever said I'm not generous.

But the real test-case was the umpteen cardboard moving boxes I had cut to the prescribed size and securely tied-up into compact packages, then carefully stacked for easy handling. If they took the cardboard, I knew I was home-free for the next collection in two weeks. And they did. The house is still full of unopened moving boxes.

I'm currently speculating: what are the odds the trash-men will take them still unopened?! And: what are the odds I will ever again wish to use whatever's in those boxes, anyway?

But then, perhaps you've moved and/or reorganized your home recently yourself. Therefore, I talk no more trash about the trash.

The day was busy, long, and arduous.

By now, Tara has completely reorganized the kitchen. I know this because I can't find a thing on the first three tries. It's like a game of Clue, where you finally decide The butler did it in the dining room with a butcher knife. And, if I could find the butcher knife, I might do-in Tara the next time I encounter her. She's so supremely calm and disciplined in the midst of all this chaos. Energetic, too. I'm getting exhausted.

Anyway, around midnight, Tara undertook the careful reorganization of our kitchen spices. Nancy had one cabinet dedicated to her spices, all neatly arranged on one of those stepped shelves designed precisely so that when she reached in deftly to fetch Bay Leaves, the rest of the little bottles (boxes, cans, cartons) tumbled down into a jumble on the bottom step.

Tara brought along her own trove. So now we have two full drawers of spices.

Don't ask me what they are. I am a PRE-medievalist kinda guy. Since Nancy took me off salt, I retain only a small knowledge of pepper, which I use to deaden the taste of spoiled beef. I throw a little pepper on three-week-old, greenish-blue, puckered-up beef, think of my Sainted Gramma's starving hordes in Ethiopia, and toss it onto the barbecue.

I consider spices from the Orient one of the most incomprehensible scams of the sixteenth-seventeenth century explorers (think Marco Polo, Vasco deGama, and their ilk). I had to study these violence-prone marauders from about my fourth grade year forward. Early-on I began to suspect that it wasn't spices they went and battled for. . .it was the spice of life. They went, battled and cavorted, returned with costly spices which nobody could really taste anyway, and got rich.

But then, we really DO need all those names, dates, and decisive battles to spice-up our history lessons.

Besides which: does anyone truly know what all these spices taste like. I hear you noisily smacking your superior lips with glee. I cower beneath your superior smirks!

Okay, then: I offer a small test of your much-more-delicate taste-buds. I challenge you to describe the tastes, flavors, textures -- what-have-you -- of the following spices:

Bay Leaves
Cumin Flakes
Caraway Seeds
Chives
Lemon Pepper
Marjoram
Parsley Flakes
Phly Specks
Poultry Seasoning

I spare you the rest of the alphabet. And please note: that caraway seeds are those itsy-bitsy things that get wedged forever between your teeth does NOT qualify as a correct answer!

Also, please note: only liars pass this test. And they get away with it, because the vast majority of the human population can't tell the difference between salt and pepper -- except by color, of course. Still, you describe to me the taste of (say) marjoram, and how can I prove you wrong?


Just so you know: we now have two huge drawers-full of spices, all neatly and alphabetically arranged by indecipherable names like those above. Nevertheless:

I love Tara dearly, and
She says she knows her spices!