Holy $#!T I'm leaving the house today!

My friend the Ponderer is picking me up and we're going out for coffee and I'm gonna use my Timmy Tim Tim cards what I got for Christmas and get donuts for the Beach House Gang what I live with and I'm not even gonna poison them first.

I wonder if the Angry Poo Flinger will be there. Probably not.

 

Jobvious

JOBVIOUS: This is where you need income but can't figure out what to do and then it turns out that your favourite hobby has become a marketable talent and people are trying to hire folks with your experience and having trouble finding available providers but somehow you don't know what you should do.

Case in point: I love to Dungeon Master D&D games and consider myself pretty advanced at it. Almost unbelievingly, it turns out that while the participation rates of D&D players is growing the number of willing DM's is not keeping up, and yes, people are paying well for DM service! And yet I feel reluctant to look into this as an income opportunity. Why not, you ask? I don't even know.

Question J: What JUNK food item could you eat every day?

Easy: a large Dairy Queen blizzard: the cookie dough variety with add-on Reeces PB cups. I've never ordered any other kind for twenty-five years and I remember being tickled to see Jack Nicholson's character order the exact same concoction in the quirky entertaining film About Schmidt, where one of his other special treats was getting to see Kathy Bates stark naked!

X is for eXpress window

I pulled ahead with one hand on the wheel and the other clutching my coupon and cash.

The youth in the window wore a swoopy golf shirt, a golden arches baseball cap and a big smile. "Hey is that a Chrysler Intrepid?" he says.

"Sure is."

"My dad LOVED his Intrepid. He still talks about it."

"Yeah I know." I handed him my papers.

"Oh wait; I talked to you before about this didn't I?"

"Yep!"

"Sorry!"

"No problem. It's nice to see the same employee twice in this place for a change!" said I. "I guess things are going really well for you here."

"Ah..." he gave me an awkward grin.

"Or should I say really not well? That you're still here?"

He glanced over his shoulder before whispering "Exactly."

S is for Support

The Flaming Liberal has had a very rough go of things. Diabetes has crippled him, temporarily we believe, and knocked him out of the workforce. Christmas morning we went to the street mission for their holiday breakfast.

Pancakes with real butter and real Aunt Jemima’s Syrup, real bacon, sausages, eggs and yogurt. I think there was more but I had topped out at that point. The food was plentiful and surprisingly excellent; of better quality, quite frankly than the breakfast offerings of many Hamilton restaurants, many of which have very little business being in business.

The staff and volunteers were so sweet and gregarious and adept at meeting such a motley crew of marginalized benefactors at whatever mental landscapes they each presented; some certainly more difficult than others.

I could imagine myself among their ranks. It would be challenging. I don’t know if my physical limitations would rule me out. Certainly I am overextended enough as it is. I shouldn’t even be thinking about it.

R is for Restaurant

Here’s one of my Christmas gifts to my folks this year. I love giving these. They’re creative - though this one is on the simple side. And I get something out of it too!

As for the recipients they can’t lose. They get a free meal and they also get to watch me eat. It’s like dinner and a show.

Friends and neighbours

I took Aqualad out for lunch at the Great Old German restaurant; his favourite Scooterville eatery where it is decidedly uncorporate. Large portions. Barely marked-up wine. We tackled the Plate for Two which I will describe only as a mound of exciting food over a thick giant schnitzel on a platter on a hot plate set between us. We are accomplished Pro Devourers though both on self-improvement courses and less indulgent than usual. I insisted he take the leftovers home.

It’s funny. The task of writing is much more than a report of what has been on your mind. The very act produces new thoughts. It is an invaluable act of reflection; of internal conversation. And here at this moment I am realizing that he reported (let it slip?) that he’d been present there two weeks ago. That makes sense as it was his birthday at the time. By coincidence that would have also fallen just after my first proposal that I take him there as a reward for surviving his dental surgery and flu combination. Which means that… not only was I not invited to his birthday dinner for the first time in years, but I was very deliberately not invited.

Strange perhaps that I don’t feel especially hurt. I am accustomed to thinking of them as my second family and that, clearly has become an indulgence worthy of embarrassment so I will stop.

I have seen Earth Writer and Dog Whisperer only twice in the last half year; Aqualad three times now, and his delightful girlfriend zero.

There were awkward moments at the cottage last summer and I’m confident that there were complete misunderstandings about matters of no real consequence to me. If their cooling stems from only that, then that is a tragic mistake. And if it stems from more than that, which I assume it must, then I am at a complete loss. I am blissfully unaware of whatever failings I have perpetrated, at least in terms of friendship. But failings have been a theme for me for some time now. No reason to assume they should all have fallen onto my own radar.

The greater tragedy is that Aqualad (if I understand correctly) is in essence turning down the greatest gift a human being could receive for reasons that do not sound sincere but might be. I think it more likely that he is humouring me; managing me; not wanting to say that he has no reason to believe in me.

And it’s true there is no reason to believe in me; no reason for anyone to. I look for opportunities to help those I love and those who demonstrate the rare mental fortitude in the rare and vital realms that I have advance experience in. But I did not graduate from that rare academy. I got close and then backed away. Or did I flunk out perhaps?

Aqualad cannot possibly have much understanding of what he is turning down. We’ve discussed it far too little. But a close bond remains between us it seems. And there is no deadline. Whatever I do manage to accomplish when I break out of this fucking cocoon, may change his regard for me, and in the mean time I will look for opportunities to nudge him in useful directions as opportunities arise.

Not that our dynamics are a motivator for me now. What motivates me is honestly just between the universe and I. And the universe, I must remember, is not ours to command. We can only offer our best advice and then let causality do what it must.

It really is surprising though, that I don’t feel especially hurt. I would have expected to be.

At the core of my “2019 resolution” whether it shows between the lines or not, is the intention to be mindful. Perhaps already I am.

I returned home from our German smorgasbord, parked afar, and walked; exercised. I heard my next-door neighbour’s door opening, a usual precursor to awkward endearments; a fantasy that this perversion called suburbia is some sort of community. But I found myself looking eagerly, and it was the man who emerged and he wore a great smile. My own was immediate. We traded happy comments on the lovely mild weather. Mine were sincere and I’ll assume his were too. Then as I turned up the drive way the lady appeared. “I can’t believe it’s 2019 already!” she said.

“I know,” I said, then sincerely: “Time is cruel.” She laughed. I smiled.

Maybe it is some sort of community.

 

I need a plastic bag or else comped for a pair of socks, please.

The socks were new after all..

Sick Boy and I were having a little write-in at one of sixty-something Scooterville Tim Horton’s locations; one recently renovated and, at this time, barely attended. I vanished from the table - briefly I expected - in order to drop off a couple wee kids at the pool.

I did so, and then discovered that the T.P. dispenser was ill equipped to dispense anything. It was as vacant as a North American politician’s heart or brain.

So I sat there, waiting for someone else to come in so that I could ask them to fetch help from the staff.

And I sat there.

I flushed… and sat there some more.

And some more.

Apparently males do not use bathrooms in this neck of the woods.

And I sat there… wondering how long before Sick Boy became concerned enough to maybe check on me or something.

And finally the lights turned off, presumably due to motion sensor inactivity.

And I sat there in the pitch dark…

And sat there.

Finally, in the dark, I kicked off a shoe…

Later I would have to find it in the dark.

Later still, I approached the young cashier at the counter and said: “You’re out of toilet paper AND soap in the men’s room.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“And therefore I need a plastic bag or else comped for a pair of socks, please.”

Deer in headlights.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I therefore need a plastic bag in which to transport home a wet pair of socks OR ELSE I need compensation for throwing them away.”

“Um. Oh.”

“They were brand new socks,” I said, nodding, wide-eyed, as if to say, yes, you understand correctly.

“Let me talk to my manager.”

“By all means. And can I get a large hot chocolate please?”

Maybe I’ll get the drink free, I thought. I didn’t.

It’s actually a nice bag but I don’t think I’ll re-use it.

Avitable Scramble Aroma edition

Thirteen thoughts in thirteen minutes:

1, I’m at the Aroma cafe at Euclid and College in Toronto because I’m way too special to be subjected to Q.E.W. rush hour traffic and so I make this apparently-now-regular trip from 2 to 3 PM and then hang out at the cafe-du-jour until the 6:30 dinner appointment at the Eloquent Potter’s tower.

2. I’m trying not to think about Neo these days. He’s back to mostly ignoring me. I wonder sometimes if he came back into my life specifically to torture me. I wonder if he knows how his behaviour is perceived when he continuously ignores me between offers of “Hey, let’s get together… when are you free?” followed by an immediate blackout period until the threat of getting together has passed. I keep trying to remind myself that this must be the product of some form of suffering and that I should not take it personally but it's very difficult.

3. I’m thinking of a very thoughtful and touching amateur documentary that was put together by a father and which mostly concerned his son, then teen-aged. At one point he narrates something  

like this: “I’m sure that teenage boys do not realize that their own fathers would literally murder them if not for the memory of the loving child they used to be.” I’m confident he was sane and sincere about that. I’ll get back to you with the title when it comes to me..

4. I paid twenty dollars for a fairly decent shredded steak and egg sandwich and a nice coffee in a bignormous wide cup which spills into the voluminous saucer every time this hysterically warped-legged table rocks back and forth as if it’s the Titanic’s final moments. I wedged enough napkins to supply the nation of Malta for a decade under one of the offending table feet to very little improvement.

5. Every time the saucer fills up with coffee I lift the cup and pour the saucered-coffee back into the cup. It’s a satisfactory system.    

6. Once you love a kid like your own son there is no going back, Ever. It’s just not possible. It’s a fucking life sentence. I mean - let’s face it: consciously I know that’s not really supposed to be true. Just like the spectre of rape, war or any traumatic event, it is fully possible to dismiss the past and experience no harm from it ever again. I know this with solid uncompromising clarity, The past does not exist. We subconsciously choose to hang on and we call this hanging on “scars.” But it takes oh god such a spectacular escape from the bullshit of our dedicated bullshit-only society to be so enlightened as to understand and conquer your own illusionary ego. No cell phone, no TV, no pal, parent, priest, politician or ubiquitous fucking corporation will ever let you get away with it if they can possibly help it. There is no sanity without firm and dedicated solitude. Except for - you know - hanging out with me!

7. I can’t imagine living in Toronto with a vehicle. Finding parking arrangements that are at all functional is like winning the lottery. Which is fine I guess. I used to park in my special little-known free parking place near the Islington station and take the subway in from there but I can’t do that any more because I am literally so decrepit I can’t carry my own briefcase more than a block and frankly I’m a little too attached to my laptop. It’s perhaps my own version of the dreaded cell phone at times.

8. This Aroma place must be a chain. It is exceptionally well-branded. Aroma notebooks $6.95. I don’t think you can get anything for less than $6.95. My sandwich is listed on the menu board for $6.95. but SURPRISE!! That’s actually the price for half the sandwich! If you want the whole sandwich you find out too late that it’s actually $13 and change. Hahahahahahahaha! Buyer beware! It’s utterly fucking amazing what a pathetic docile flock of dumbass sheep we are and what we let all our masters get away with. I’m sure we must be the most obedient morons on the Earth.

9. I think thirteen minutes expired a long time ago. I don’t care. It’s my blog. I make and/or ignore the rules on a whim. If corporations can do it so can I. Yay!!.

10. Speaking of some of the most evil and demonic maggots in the world… Monsanto believes they have the right to subpoena my personal information and communications along wiith thousands of other half-decent citizens for the world as part of a lawsuit against the entire Avaaz community for fucking with them and ruining many of their sickeningly corrupt cancerous schemes in which people and other innocent creatures die or are monstrously extorted for their immense profit. Personally I think that every Avaaz member should relinquish to this move but only after each and every one of us communicating conflicting plans around operations in which all Monsanto executives are to be kidnapped and have their leathery parasitic throats slit. Let them try to figure out which plan is the real one.

11. People often think I’m joking when I’m serious; and serious when I’m joking. Sometimes I appreciate the amusement in this.

12. The eloquent potter is a very interesting dude. He’s a very compelling writer and poet; a regular visitor to India and perhaps a seeker of enlightenment to some degree. His home is filled with his pottery and other art, bookshelves galore and… ready for this? A swarm of inflatable monstrosities. A giant inflatable donut. An inflatable Dalek. I don’t even know where he gets this shit. On my last visit the centrepiece on his dinner table was a slightly larger-than-life inflatable cooked turkey.

13. Tonight it’s just the two of us for the first time. I am very much looking forward to learning more about him.

Return of the Avitable Scramble

Forgive me father for I have sinned. My last avitable scramble was back in September 2012.

1. I’m at a Portuguese restaurant for the first time ever. On College Street in The Big Smoke. It’s lovely. The waiter dressed all in black with shiny slick black hair is also lovely. He informs me that he has excellent skin because of the healthy Portuguese diet.

2. I ordered a meat sampler dish and found something on it rather distinctive and almost beef-like but with a decidedly avian bone structure. Weird.

3. I am here because the Ponderer suggested I travel early in order to miss the tres horrible rush hour mess that will decimate the Q.E.W. highway at the strike of three. Indeed my trip was a breeze and now I’m in town three hours early.

4. I’m invited to Doc Lock’s brother’s place - wait! Doc Lock’s brother has his own alias. He has appeared in this blog before. The Potter? The something-Potter? The Eloquent Potter? Damned if I remember. I will have to look it up.

5. It’s a game night tonight. We’re to play Takaido. I have done my homework by watching a Takaido-featured episode of Table Top - hosted by Wil Wheaton who once played…. Gordie?? Maybe?? in the Stand By Me film which is based solidly on the Stephen King novella The Body.

6. I have to finish the last couple chapters of The Dark Tower by Stephen King which is the final book of the wildly distinct and compelling series of the same name. I keep putting it off, not wanting the series to end. It will probably mark the end of my Stephen King experience. But I must move on if I am to get on to Soul of the Orcs which is a sequel to Lord of the Rings written by none other than my host tonight: the something-Potter. Or Sculptor. Not Potter? The something-Sculptor? And there I have gone full circle. Did you see that! Did you see what I did there?

7. My butt hurts from sitting here for nearly three hours.

8. I am assembling my first ever video compilation in order to support an upcoming blog piece. A very similar compilation almost certainly exists somewhere on youtube already but - I don’t know. I want to do my own. Maybe because it indulgently qualifies as a creative project which I can work on even when tired. Which is far too often.

9. I have no idea if Doc Lock will even be here tonight.

10. According to the excellent-skinned waiter I have eaten quail for the first time! Mystery solved. Damn. My only familiarity with quails up to now have been with cute live ones. [insert sad emoji]

11. My eyes have been continually drawn to the TV here which is blessedly silent but full of images and text of the CNN variety. I can’t describe how dog-vomiting stomach-turning this silent lunacy appears to me. HOW in the flying fuck do CNN watchers not go running screaming into traffic after ten minutes of this vacuous quasi-political horse shit? By god the human creature is a wonder.

12. That didn’t sound judgemental did it? Just a little bit?

13. How many items are in an Avitable Scramble? Thirteen? Wouldn’t twelve make more sense? After all, twelve is so preferable a number to thirteen that the ancient Babylonians assassinated an entire constellation just to bring the zodiac into groovy twelvacious compliance. Which is not precisely the reason that me and most of my “Capricorn” companions are actually mislabelled denizens of Sagittarius. That has more to do with the twenty-five thousand year wobble period in the Earth’s rotation. Regardless, there is just no way for the doubly-screwed astrology community to explain their way out of their mess.

I’m not sure that was a proper scramble. It seemed to be more of a narrative, didn’t it? I will try to be more random next time.

Fact check: Wheaton's character was indeed named Gordie Lachance. The potter has not received a consistent nickname but shall forthwith be favoured with the moniker: the Eloquent Potter! 

The gift of meat

Spent a good hunk of my morning throwing this birthday gift together. I really hope my vegetarian and vegan pals are not currently readers of this blog.

 

I wasn’t expecting to be poisoned or sexually harassed…

Who knew?

Before Grandpa Munster could even enter the passenger seat his waft rolled over me.

“Whoa,  Gramps!”  I yelped. ”You smell terrible!”  He froze.  I’d never commented on any of his smells before.  But suddenly I’ve finally hit the breaking point. ”When did you shower last!”

“Well I normally shower every night but last night…”

As usual he touches on the subject of my question without giving me a straight answer.  Me.  And I’m the least threatening of his inquirers.

Secretive… the constant complaint.  The one which keeps him on continued supervisory orders years after anyone else would have shed them.  Or at least the shedible ones I mean…

He smells like it’s been a week.

 ”Just a minute,”  he says. ”I forgot something.”  Yeah I know. to bathe.

Which he does not elect to do here and now.  He returns with a fresh shirt steeped in Fabreeze.  He now smells like two of my four least-favorite smells gloriously combined:  unwashed old-man and fucking-fabreeze.  The other two,  if you’re keeping score, are skunk and old man who no longer knows how to wipe his ass properly.

At the Koodo store the young pup of a bewildered service rep hums and haws over their latest sale and why it’s not right for Gramps.  It’s a different pup and a different conflicting story every time.  Gramps’ flip phone is getting too old.  He needs a new one.

At the Factory Direct Store we finally find the gold mine:  an unlocked flip phone for 29 bucks.  Hooray.  But there are complications and Gramps can possibly save another 10 bucks if we go to more trouble and return another day.  It’s well worth it to me (given my time and transportation expense) to just hand him the ten bucks, but I don’t.  He’s trying to live his life with a shred of autonomy at this moment so I indulge him.

Later he and his stink are gone and I am at the McDonalds drive thru with a coupon, taking great strides toward ruining my own life.  I get two diet cokes;  no ice.  One for my ersatz dinner and another to bring to board game night with the off-seasoned Strat-o gang.  Parked under the golden arches eating discounted shit-what-sort-of-looks-like-food,  the first coke goes down satisfactorily (and naturally on the watery side).

I take a sneak preview of the second coke;  the to-go option.  And It’s all wrong.  It tastes familiar though.  Like a rum and coke or a rye and coke.  I drank a good number of those in my late teens and I remember their grodie little stench and flavor.  I drink two or three ounces trying to get a handle on it.  Rye, rum or something else?  Jack Daniels?  Is the young drive-thru kid boozing on the job?  Did he give me his own drinkie-poo by mistake?

I suddenly wonder if it could be an alcohol-based cleaning product and I vow to sip no more.

I’ve kept the drink and hope to get it tested.  I know a couple or few lab technologists after all.

Pondering this lunacy I head for game night and as I enter the neighborhood with a parallel-parked SUV up ahead,  a little girl maybe eight years old hops out of the driver’s side rear door and stands defiantly in the middle of my lane.  I slow down while she begins to dance.  And by dance I mean gyrate and shake stuff at me. Stuff I wish not have shaken at me by any child (or any adult either for that matter). This is no bird dance but rather something she must have learned from the internet when Net Nanny failed.  Then she leaps back into the car as I pass while a woman,  busy at the rear of the truck seems to have witnessed none of her daughter’s rare talents.

Skeeter Willis, the Brothers Grimm (who are both awesome and in no way grim),  the Thoughtful Educator and… another fine gentleman I haven’t benicknamed yet are present and hear the story of the decrepitude that has so recently befallen their city this day;  the City of Saints. The Thoughtful Educator takes a sniff and believes the drink smells like glass cleaner.

We play awesome games including the pirate-themed Tortuga 1667 which Brother Two has just acquired through Kickstarter and it rocks!  Very efficient, balanced arrangement of interesting components well-pinned to the theme including a hidden loyalty factor we may have not fully appreciated this first time through. You don’t know at first who your teammates are.  Oddly I’d recently been planning a very similar game dynamic in a creation based on the cylons/human intrigue of the latter Battlestar Galactica show.  I’ve been creating a lot of board games lately.  More on that some other time.

Toward the end of the night Skeeter gives me shit for not blogging.

Believe me I have wanted to.  I find it hard to explain why I don’t.  It sort of almost has to do with momentum. The longer I don’t do it the harder it gets to start again.  It’s actually five times as complex as that but the punch line is probably not worth the lengthy explanation. Also it’s all very stupid and worthy of embarrassment - which I might still be capable of experiencing?  Perhaps?

Regardless:  it seems I am back, and I would very much like to stay.

Imitation Games

He looked nothing like himself. 

He wore the simple light sports jacket we’d found for him at Value Village, clean trousers and a striped collared shirt handed down from another volunteer on Grandpa Munster’s little roster, which, by dumb luck, tied the outfit together perfectly. He looked like a proper gentleman with hands and face properly washed and hair slicked back sans baseball cap.

It wasn’t my priority that he look so dapper. I only mentioned, ever so diplomatically, a couple days prior as we parked beside the coffee drive-through, that his birthday was going to be a special day and we should both be sure to shower and dress spiffy. All I cared about really was that he shower. It would be a long day.

Mission accomplished.

At The Joker we splurged on omelettes for breakfast instead of the $4.99 breakfast. We wrapped up the errand-running quickly and checked out the movies. Sully looked interesting enough to me and contained just enough action to keep Munster interested. His reviews were positive. I’ve watched so many based-on-true-story films that the compromises are immediately obvious. All the little tid-bits which you know never happened like that but which convey the heart of the story – or at least someone’s version of it, or vision of it – in a film-friendly theatrical way. Good enough. It’s entertainment; not research.

At the steakhouse we splurged on a 20 oz steak for him and the monster 24 oz prime rib for me! The only thing in the room thicker was the charm which the waiter laid on. We seemed to make such a connection; surprisingly having so much in common. Or did we? Of course his banter was exactly the right material to elicit the best possible tip. Which I did surrender and not begrudgingly. I realize he is surely like most people and imagines himself squeaking by and needing every penny he can get to keep himself stocked in his proper necessities.

For me I know the dinner is the highlight. The golden oldies performance we’re about to witness is the highlight gift for Munster (though for him, getting to drive my car to Etobicoke may have been the actual highlight). Keys surrendered, I enjoy as much excellent wine as it takes to properly lubricate a 24 oz steak – which turns out to be 40 ounces of McManis Syrah (the best I’ve had since that variety peaked in California just into the millennium, by the way). The resulting buzz, very unusual for me, prompted the sudden corrupt notion that the Elvis show might be a little more enjoyable paired with a little artificial joy and so I added a double snort of cognac for dessert, which put me almost there.

Getting to the giant Woodbine grounds was easy. Finding the Woodbine Concert Hall specifically, was most certainly not. Despite the illusions they paint all over the internet and feed to Ticketmaster, there is no such thing as a Woodbine Concert Hall.

Eventually we happen on a string of conveniently spaced staff who happily point the way throughout the odyssey which takes us along hallways and escalators to some sort of Upper Utilitarian Causeway where banquet chairs, mobile lights, mobile concession tables, bar, and mini-stage components have all been hustled together in such a way that the performers will hopefully not scrape their heads on the low ceiling tiles.

I then complete my noble transformation with a pair of Coronas in fake tall-boy cans which looked promising through the bar fridge window but which yielded the standard 355 ml. Those and a fountainized Coke for Gramps ran $20 which seemed a small horror at the moment but in hindsight cost only twice the price of two medium pops at the Cineplex’s crap stand; the world champion of rip-offs.

Steve Michaels: International
award-winning Elvis tribute artist

So the Elvis guy is fake of course. The real Elvis died early, from drugs I should mention. I’m not against “recreational” drugs in any simple-minded blanket way but I certainly realize that there is often a slippery slope between useful experimentation and harmful dependency and that a lot of users don’t actually have a realistic plan for how to stay off of that slope before it’s too late, so that’s something worth thinking about; eh?

But this particular fake Elvis is good; not that that can be discerned through the basement rec room quality acoustics of the great Woodbine Ersatz Concert Hallway, but because he was once crowned so by the official in-the-know Elvis aficionados of Memphis Tennessee. So there.

He waves his hand at his fake guitar (the backing band is authentic and decent) and I dutifully issue fake applause but I’m authentically happy for Gramps who is clearly living the dream along with a slew of other fine folk who probably have nothing in common with me whatsoever.

With a couple rollicking hits to go (surely Suspicious Minds, right?) I can no longer manage to pretend I’m not falling asleep which I don’t want Gramps to see, so I duck into the conveniently located men’s room where the Excel Extra-Excelotron Hand Dryer of Doom (or some such mechtraption) has only been miring the show and turning confused Elvis fans’ heads with its semi-alarming Hurricane Katrina impersonations about twice per song, there to perhaps doze off on the throne (these ones the tiniest low-rider models ever!) and I suppose I did doze off because I become lucid with the Suspicious Minds (nailed it!) crescendo fading away, replaced by the sounds of the auto-flusher gushing in repeat-mode and the cleanest testicles in history, and with Gramps’ distant voice shouting, “Hey, you in here!”

Good times.

Good times, says me. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

April A-Z: Frosting the Pastries

This may be the most valuable article this month. A complete guide to the top ten desserts of all time. Ah, but what criteria are we using to determine such topness? Why, my own dang taste buds of course and yes, I am an expert; 360 pounds of expert. If you're heavier than 360 then you're entitled to make corrections to the following work! Otherwise, read and learn. Here goes:

#10: CHOCOLATE PEANUT BUTTER ICE CREAM on a WAFFLE CONE

What you need

1 five-dollar bill
1 looney

What to do with it

Haul your butt down to Hewitt's Dairy, HWY 6, just east of Hagersville, Ontario. Or maybe west. Or some other compass direction. I don't know. It's kind of like the Bermuda triangle down there. Just drive around until you see this place and order the cone. It just might change your life:

#9: BUTTER TARTS

This quintessential Canadian dessert (if you subscribe to the nation idea) got started here in the new world before the pioneers started calling the place Canada. See how people once had wiser priorities? It's a cousin of Quebec's sugar pie and the Yankee's pecan pie.

Some butter tarts actually come equipped with pecans instead of raisins due to some people purporting to prefer such perversions. If you are one of these people, do this the next time you eat a pecan tart: pretend that the pecans are actually cockroaches. This should cure you of your deranged habit.

What you need

1 twenty-dollar bill

What to do with it

Head for The Sweet Oven in Barrie, Ontario and order a dozen.


#8: BLUEBERRY PIE with VANILLA ICE CREAM

So many pies. So little time. This one is my favourite for it's sheer sugary potency and staining power.

What you need

A charming smile

What to do with it

Make friends with a really good baker. Eventually you'll get dinner invitations and one day this will be on the menu. If the pie is not served piping hot, put the entire serving in the waver for twelve seconds to make the ice cream melty.


#7: FROGS (not the hippety hop kind)

More commonly known as haystacks, oat delights, unbaked cookies or (erroneously) macaroons. But frogs is what we experts call 'em. I've been making these since I was about ten years old and nobody does it better. Carly Simon even wrote a song about my frogs which some people think is about James Bond.

What you need

2 cups sugar
6 tablespoons cocoa
1/2 cup salted butter
1/2 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup flaked coconut
3 cups instant oats

What to do with it

Combine the first four ingredients in a pot. Bring just barely to a boil. Add vanilla. Remove from heat and stir in coconut and oats. Spoon globs of it onto a cookie sheet lined with wax paper and store in the fridge until hard or until you can't take it anymore and go screaming into the kitchen to rip the fridge door off its hinges.


#6: DQ BLIZZARD

Professor Plonk, Captain Vino and I used to visit the Mongolian Grill on a regular basis, eat to the point of bursting and then torture ourselves by going straight to Dairy Queen for ice cream blizzards, and then cry in pain all the way home. But even that has not turned me off of them.

What you need

1 ten-dollar bill
some imagination

What to do with it

Hit the nearest Dairy Queen, ponder the Blizzard menu and throw a couple flavours together. I recommend the Reece's Pieces Blizzard with an added cookie dough topping or the Mint Oreo Blizzard combined with double fudge cookie dough. So there. Get the extra-large of course and you'll get a buck and a half change.


#5: MONTANA'S MILE-HIGH MUD PIE

Same theme as above but there is only one variety which contains espresso chocolate chunk ice cream, regular chocolate ice cream, peanut butter, oreo-type cookie crust, whipped cream and chocolate sauce. It's basically a frozen cake, served partially thawed.

What you need

1 ten-dollar bill

What to do with it

Proceed to the nearest Montana's restaurant on a Wednesday and start with the all-you-can-eat ribs but eat ever so slightly less than all-you-can so that you're inclined to order the mud pie. It's freakin' huge by the way but once you have the first bite, having room will no longer be a criterion.


#4: PINEAPPLE CAKE

Looks like carrot cake but sans carrots. Presumably contains pineapple. This was the latest orgasmic dessert from the Queen of Dessert, better known as Dog Whisperer. I could have filled this list just with her desserts alone but there's little point since once she serves you something amazing, she never makes it for you again. Luckily there's always something new around the bend waiting to blow your taste buds away. She claims that pineapple cake contains only three ingredients. I assume this is a lie meant to throw us off the trail.

What you need

Nothing. Don't even bother.

What to do with it  

See above.


#3: TOO-TALL ORANGE & CREAM CAKE

This is my old stand-by when contributing dessert to a dinner gathering. The uninitiated always look skeptical at the mention of orange cake but upon the first bite their eyes light up. It's like a creamsicle but ten times better.

What you need

About fifteen bucks

What to do with it

Snatch one from the nearest M&M Meats store and keep it in the fridge for up to a full day so that it's mostly thawed. Inhale the leftovers as soon as your dinner guests are out the door.


#2: CHERRY CHEESE CAKE

This is actually my favourite dessert of all the ones I've tried and has been so since I was about seven years old. Here's how to do it right:

What you need

Seven dollars American plus airfare to JFK International Airport and subway fare to Brooklyn.

What to do with it

Find your way to Junior's Restaurant at 386 Flatbush Ave, Brooklyn and they'll do the rest. And now...


#1: PUMPKIN CHAI CHEESECAKE

I confess: I've never had pumpkin chai cheesecake. The closest I've come is pumpkin chai latte. I know. That's probably not very close. But I love pumpkin, love chai and love cheesecake. And I know it exists. I've heard about it. This is the only food experience on my entire bucket list. Wish me luck.

Wendy saves the day

Want to hear about my super special day? Here it is in a nutshell:

Woke up with a headache that stretched all the way down the side of my face to my jaw, and kept it the rest of the day. So what does that mean? Do I have bed bugs or something? Do bedbugs have one enormous fist which they use to sock their sleeping hosts in the jaw?

Got to the Princess of Schools to discover I forgot my school key. Fine. Just had to canvas random staff to open doors for me as necessary. Oh - and what's this? No wonder my laptop bag seemed so lightweight. Not because I've turned into Mr. Universe. No. It's because I forgot to put the laptop in it. So now my prepared 'lesson plans' are up in smoke and I have to improvise for the day. Fine.

At the end of the day I discover that my planned visit for next week falls on Halloween day which is bad news. The school agenda goes a bit haywire for pumpkin day. By a great stroke of non-luck, three of the remaining four days that week are in fact three of the four days of the ten-day cycle which I have agreed not to interrupt with reader/writer group schedules. That leaves only Friday which is the only day of the week I personally can not do. So now I'm staying late negotiating with the art teacher so that I may come on one of the forbidden days. Luckily the art teacher is an excellent young gentlemen and we hammer out a deal. But now I'm running a tad late. I have to get home and pick up the Liberal Theologian. We have a write-in planned with the Crisco Kid.

Booting home along the highway I see by the clock on the dash that I am going to make it on time. No problemo. Except that what I didn't see on the dash was the fuel gauge which was very politely and quietly reading WAY below the red zone.

I managed to run out of gas right at an off-ramp where I could easily access the local neighbourhood. On foot. In the rain. I knocked on the window of the first house and was greeted immediately by a pair of large barking dogs and soon after by a woman who looked about as pleased to see me on her porch as she would a creeping loping undead swamp beast.

I yelled through the firmly closed door that my car broke down and could she please call me a cab. She did so.

Cabbed it to the gas station and purchased a gas can and tried to call the Liberal Theologian collect (no change or credit card) to warn her I'd be late and not to worry, but her telephone account is set to automatically decline collect calls. Fine. Let my absence be a mystery.

I arrive home exactly the time we were supposed to be at the write-in cafe. So we'll be late. Fine. On the way there, cruising down the middle-right lane of main street; a very busy five-lane affair, I spot a man stumbling backward off the curb, trying to regain his balance. He stumbles all the way into my lane, falling on his back. I'm all over the brakes and stopping just in time while Drunken Asshole #9 lies there looking at his cell phone/blueberry/whatever and while my passenger goes into anxiety attack mode.

"Call the police please," I say. "He needs to be picked up before he gets killed or else causes an accident." But her cell phone is missing from her purse.

Fine.

We make it to the cafe without further incident. And find that it is mysteriously dark inside. And also closed. Remind me why I got out of bed today?

So we go to the Mulberry; the next most obvious write-in venue and the Crisco kid is not present. Turns out that he was taking his time and was about to show up there looking for us - right after we left.

Meanwhile we picked up some Wendy's take-out and went home. And miracle of miracles: They actually, for once, got our order right.

Heh. Go figure.