Balls.

Hello everyone. 

            Today I’d like to talk about balls.

            That’s right, this week it’s all about balls.

            Balls of all shapes, sizes, textures, and consistencies.  Come along; we’re going on a journey together.  Bring beers.   

The Bridge

“The next time a guy wants to date you, you should bring him here.  If he can’t navigate this menu, it’s a clear sign he’s not right for you.”

“Excuse me?  The next time a guy wants to date me, he’ll be the one bringing me here, not the other way around.  Cuz those days are long gone.” 

“You know what I meant; this cheese page is a good test to see whether or not someone can keep up with you food-wise.  And I know that’s important to you.”

He’s right, as he usually is.  Hence the reason I call him my Spirit Guide.  I can’t quite manage to bite back my retort, but I quietly mutter it under my breath.  We are in our fancy goin’-out clothes, after all—I have to at least try show a little class—because despite what you’ve heard, this knife-wielding tomboy cleans up pretty well and rocks a maxi dress like it’s nobody’s business. 

Sam ignores my comment although he hears every syllable, says instead, “If I’m not mistaken, I am a boy and you are a girl, and aren’t you taking me out at this very moment, or did I read your email wrong?”

“This is different.  We’re friends.  And it’s your birthday.”  His forty-first birthday, to be exact, though you’d never know it to look at him. 

Ivan

I’m fortunate enough to have a job that provides me with amazing health insurance that covers things like the surgery I talked about in my last post, so I don’t have so much to worry about.  (Obviously everything went just fine; the doc said that once she got in there, it did turn out to be worse than she expected—severe rather than moderate dysplasia—but they got it all out and I’m good to go.)

Not everyone is so fortunate.

            My friend Ivan is an amazing individual who has fought a long battle with Multiple Sclerosis, and is still fighting it.  After his insurance company determined that his MS was not a “pre-existing condition,” they changed their minds and took back the several thousand dollars they had already paid the hospital for his treatments.  This . . . didn’t go over well with the hospital, and now they’re looking for Ivan to foot the bill.

The Butcher's Apprentice Goes under the Knife

What made you think you were different from any other hunk of meat?

Opposable thumbs?  A heartbeat?  Bipedalism?

You’re nothing but an upright carcass, honey.  They can slit you open just as easily as anything with hooves.  

They tell me I’ll bleed a lot.

Things that are alive typically bleed a lot when they’re cut.

Although, depending on the method of slaughter, things can still bleed a lot after they’re dead.  For example, in Tanzania, the Masai tribe kills goats by asphyxiation, so that they can drink the blood warm from the carcass. 

They say I’ll bleed a lot.  

I’m 29 in a week and I just wrote my first Death List.

Death List, not a Kill List; I’m not Beatrix Kiddo.  You know, that little piece of yellow paper that you give your mom, listing everyone you want her to notify, ya know, “just in case” something goes wrong. 

I didn’t originally plan on writing about this; it’s far too personal I think.  But come on, the irony is just too good to pass up.  Someone cuttin’ on the butcher?  Too good. 

Butcher This, Filet That

I should be at work, but instead I’m pretending to peruse the “Local Brews” section of the liquor department for the seventh time.

            Cory convinced me this would be good for me—maybe a chance to network with real butchers—but he couldn’t come because he’s out of town at a barbecue competition.  Seems like he’s competing somewhere almost every other week.

            It feels like ages since I’ve been behind the block.  The last real butchering I did was in Ste. Gen with Eli.  The opening of Foster’s restaurant keeps getting pushed back, and I don’t want to bother him because I know he’s really busy with that.  The last time I talked to him he said May first; I just read on interview he gave for St. Louis Magazine’ June issue, which didn’t have an opening date.  He posted a picture on Facebook of a shiny new tabletop bone saw and Dick Machine and I about crapped my pants.  No more dull hand saw!  
            And between two vacations, Mother’s Day, a head cold, and the start of summer—which means weekends fishing and/or camping out of town (signing up for that Sunday morning outdoor soccer league was a huge mistake)—I’ve seen very little of the shop.

            I feel stagnant.

I need to branch out.

So here I am.

La Aprendiz del Carnicero

I have always belonged to the ocean, and the moon.  Two entities forever locked in a love affair—a constant push and pull, back and forth—and like an anchor, my adulation for them has always been rooted inside of me.  They can’t form words, yet their existences are inexorably linked for all of time; something outside of them draws them back to each other again and again.

As I sit back in the sand and listen to the crashing waves, I allow the sound to enter me; to become my breath and my heartbeat, the pulsing of blood in my veins.  There is a gentleness in the way the tide washes over the shore, but there is violence crashing far across the bounding main.  Watching the silver glint on the roiling black sea, I know that this is the most I could ask for out of life:  the moon and the stars, the salt on the air, the surf and the sand.   

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