Armistice Day

Though it has been known as Veterans' Day in the United States since the end of World War Two, the original name for this day of remembrance was Armistice Day.  It commemorates the armistice signed between the Allies and Germany on November 11th, 1918 at 11 o'clock in the morning.  Though the signing ended fighting on the Western Front, war went on in other areas for some time.  Eventually the fighting ended and World War One was over.

While we remember those who died in past wars, we mourn the continued and continual fighting and killing all over the world.

Mag 40

The golden amulet hung from a chain of uneven pearls, glowing in the half-light as it lay there on the dark velvet in the jewel box. I stared at it, wondering what it meant. No answer came to me. So I took it to the Professor.

He had been a professor at a university which I shall not name at one point in his past. But certain irregularities had occasioned his fleeing the academic life. Now he lived in solitude in a small apartment, a seven floor walkup in the city. He made his meager living from his knowledge of archaelogical wonders not often seen by honest men. They were secreted out of countries of their origin and discovery and sold often to the highest bidder. The new owners dared not display them. They were consigned to locked private museums for only the possessor to gaze on.


I had dealt in some of these wonders in my checkered past, which need not be detailed here. And when I was stumped by some new but obviously valuable piece, I often went to see the Professor.


On this day, I found him in his flat, surrounded by heavy tomes, the air in his dank rooms heavy with the smoke of some Egyptian tobacco he consumed in his Calabash pipe with the Meerschaum bowl. I coughed and then held out the box containing the golden amulet.


The Professor eyed me from beneath his bushy white brows, then took the box and gently opened it. I cannot describe my shock at the change in his appearance. While still holding the object in shaking hands, he appeared to lurch back from it as his face turned pale.


“My god” he said, then repeated it “my god”.


“What is it?” I asked. “Are you all right?”


For a time the Professor was silent, seemingly trying to gain his breath and search for words. Finally he spoke. “It is the sacred medallion, the only one of its kind in the world”, he gasped.


“But sacred medallion of what?” I inquired.


He looked up at me and I could see the fear in his eyes as he said “It is the symbol of the Rodent King.”


With trembling hands he closed the lid on the box, handed it back to me and said “take it away, please, take it away before it . . .”


At that moment, I was struck with fear myself and slowly backed away and closed the door gently behind me, wondering what had come to my hands and what curse it held.


I never found out. I accidentally left it on a bus as I was returning home and never saw it or the Professor again.

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The amulet of the Rodent King is a product of my much two fervent imagination prompted by Willow as part of her fiendish plot on Magpie Tales to extract writings from we, her slaves.  Click on that link to find more imaginative whimsies.

Mexican food

One of the most misunderstood areas of culinary interest is, I think, that of Mexican food.

I freely admit that the first time I was in the Southwest, back in the 1960's, the only Mexican food I had tasted was that from some cheap t.v. dinner.  It bore no resemblance to the tacos I tried at a drive-in restaurant somewhere around St. George, Utah.  But neither, I learned many years later, was truly Mexican food.  Take, for example, what is generally thought of as such in the United States today.  Tacos, enchiladas, flavored rice and refried beans, begun initially with chips-and-salsa and accompanied by a Margarita.

That is what is more well-known in the Southwest as Tex-Mex or border food.  It's good but it's only faintly Mexican food.  I know because back in the middle 1980's I moved to Mexico, anticipating the joys of an early retirement.  We lived, variously, in villages along the north shore of Lake Chapala and in the big city of Guadalajara for nearly five years.

You might be surprised to learn that perhaps my favorite restaurant in the city was Chez Pierre, a French restaurant, where I dined many times on steak poivre (pepper steak).

But that begs the question.  What I learned from my Mexican sojourn was that any cuisine has a wide, very wide, variety in tastes and sensations.  For example, seafood is very popular in Mexico . . from one of SWMBO's favorites, Red Snapper Veracruzana,

to the grilled fish (complete with heads and tails) we used to enjoy at a small place in Guadalajara.  Octopus is popular in Mexico, though I never tried it.  Shrimp, of course, in many preparations.

A favorite country restaurant we used to go to had a huge fire pit with various types of meat on re-bar roasting vertically.  My favorite was roast suckling pig and, darn it, I can't remember the Mexican term for it.  Incidentally goat is very popular in Mexico and this restaurant had a large goat pen adjacent to it!

Another favorite was Queso Fundido con Chorizo - basically a small pot of melted white Mexican cheese with chunks of chorizo sausage, to be spooned out into a quarter of a tortilla and eaten. 

 Incidentally, flour tortillas are more common along the U.S. border and corn tortillas more common in the bulk of Mexico.  Or so I found.

Another favorite we discovered was dark mole from Oaxaca.

This was doled over chicken and it was delicious.  The one we had at a Oaxacan restaurant was actually jet black.  I remember one of our friends who refused to touch it.  Her comment?  "I don't eat black food!"

Quite obviously, as I sit here drooling over my keyboard, I could go on and on.  But I'll stop.  Just remember: Mexican food is a lot more than tacos, enchiladas and chimichangas.  (I've heard that last one was invented in Los Angeles!)

Here comes . . . something

It looks dangerous, sort of like a huge storm coming in from the Southwest to cover us in snow or rain or mud or lava or . . or . . or . . nothing.  As it turned out the cold front just blew through . . and I do mean blew.  It was cold(ish) and mighty windy in the afternoon.  But apparently it came and went so fast that it didn't have time to drop anything on us.

But that won't last.  The weathermen are predicting another much bigger cold front coming from the NORTHwest later in the week.  Those poor folks in Phoenix are going to have to suffer through temperatures in the 70's.  Brrrrr.  It will be a little colder up here in the "high desert", as it is called but I think it's a bit early for snow of any kind.

Oh, yes, we do get snow in Arizona.  Around here we may get an inch or two in a storm though it usually doesn't last long except on the north side of buildings where the sun can't reach it.  But 80 miles to the northeast, in Flagstaff, there are winters where they get 7 or 8 feet of it.  And there's a ski area, whimsically called the Snow Bowl, just outside of that town.  'Course it's a couple of thousand feet higher than around my neighborhood.

My elevation is just about the same as Denver but being further south we are saved from the big storms of winter, I guess.  I remember as a boy in North Dakota drifts so high we could climb up to the roofs of two story houses and slide right down to ground level on drifts of snow.  And ice-skating through town on the frozen-over streets.  And playing outside when it was 20 below zero.  I have no desire to go back to those "carefree" days.  Bring me some sunshine, balmy temperatures and some Mexican food!

Confusion

As I look around some of my favorite blogs it appears everyone is writing about Fall and colder temperatures either present or in the offing.  It feels a little chilly coming in my open window today too so I guess I'd better check the weather forecast.

A STRONG COLD FRONT WILL PUSH THROUGH NORTHERN ARIZONA TODAY

BRINGING STRONG SOUTHWEST WINDS ALONG WITH RAIN AND SNOW SHOWERS.

 

Ohhh!  Can winter be far behind?  The sun is still shining but weakly and there are a lot of thin clouds up in the sky. 

 

Let's see.  Where has SWMBO put my sweaters?  Time for the turtlenecks to take over.  And, yes, I do still wear turtlenecks, mostly black ones.  I remember once a couple of decades ago when a young intern in my office stared at my beard and my black turtleneck and asked "Are you a beatnik?"  Guess I was a bit of one back in the late 50's.  I don't know what I'd be called now.  Maybe an ageing hippy!

 

I had to go to The Google to look up whether there should be an e in ageing or not, as aging.  Neither looks right to me but The Google says "ageing" (with the e) is associated with British and Australian English and "aging" (without the e) is more used in American and Canadian English.  I'm an American who grew up within 50 miles of Canada.  But since I've been blogging I've made many friends in Britain and Australia.  So now I don't know how to spell it.  Maybe I'll just go with my standby: an "older" hippy.

 

Or is that hippie?

 

Well . . . now you know how blog posts are made.  From nothing.  To nothing.

Mag 39

Who killed Cock Robin?

Not I, says the coyote.

Not I, says the farm dog.

Not I, says the rattlesnake.

Uh, me?  (Asks the farmer, with a toothpick between his teeth.)

Well . . uh . . er . . . . . .

(What do you think?)

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It's just a little writing exercise prompted with a photo from Ms. Willow at Magpie Tales.  Check 'em out!

Yet another change

I have taken your comments and suggestions, as well as my own opinion, into consideration.  And brightened the blog and my outlook.

Hope you like it.

The sun is shining here.