Filled with the Spirit: The conclusion

If you, dear reader, are of the artistically inclined approach to culinary adventures you will have, indubitably, attempted to separate an egg yolk from the egg white without using a  plastic marvel of the egg separating art but instead have chosen to suss out the bimodal internals of the chicken seed by using simply the shell itself.  Have you attempted this, as I am confident you have, you may have met with some startling early success.  Eventually however, as is the case with all egg separators, there will come a time when shifting the egg white from the yolked half of shell you will become blindly over confident.  You will reach for the stars in your haste and overtip the dominant hand to coax the belligerent globule of white into the waiting empty shell.  In that moment of carefree nonchalance maybe you will cry over your shoulder, "Oh yeah I do it this way all the time."  Or maybe shift your hips a bit to some smooth cooking jazz.  You are indeed the master of the universe. Then your confident heart freezes in doubt and terror as the desperate eggwhite, clutching precariously to the yolk strikes out with its sinuous membranes and the egg yolk begins to slip.  Your heart stops, time seems to freeze, you have lost all control of your hands as you helplessly watch the yolk slip into open air.  Thankfully it is going to fall into the awaiting open shell already filled with separated egg white.  You see it land unevenly on the edge of the shell, you attempt to tip the lower shell outward gently to preserve the yolk and your dignity.  Then, as by some cruel machination of oological malice, the yolk slips, falls, and breaks amongst the food waste and sullied dishes of your less than meticulously maintained sink.  The yolk seems almost whole but the streak of yellow racing towards the drain, old oatmeal like islands of mockery in the river of despair confirm to you that all hope is lost.  The shells remain frozen in your hands as the white also falls unnoticed by your dead eyes staring mindlessly into the distance.

The booking officer of the downtown police precinct was consulting with a sergeant when they both looked up to see Andromeda Crab enter the station under the cautious gaze of Officer Grizzly. 

"Public Intoxication for this one, was going to see the mayor," [guffaws all around], "Figured a few hours in the tank should clear things up for her."  The Sergeant returned to looking at the stack of papers in his hands as the booking officer prepared for a new guest at the cinder block motel.  "Going to save the world, she said, 'Extremely' important news for the Mayor's ears only."  With that the Sergeant looked up, expectantly, and curiously deep into Andrea's eyes.  This was the moment she had been waiting for, her one chance to let the truth out before wasting precious time in the drunk tank.  And the egg hit the sink.

The moment passed.  The Sergeant took his papers and returned to his desk.  The booking officer shuffled some papers.  Andrea pulled the trinket out of her pocket.  The shine and swirl was all gone.  Just a cheap trinket from the dollar store. 

Filled with the Spirit 3

Most of us who have the benefit of having our High School days behind us look back and see that they were not, after all, the best days of our lives, though the lonely and overworked staff of the establishment continued to tout it as such.  The past is, as the Greeks said, in front of us as we back into the unknown future.  It is framed on the shelf, remembered poorly, and filled with sweet reminiscence and chest compressing regrets.  It is static, safe, and preserved.  To fly forward, as it were, back into the crystalline past is not something that the human mind is designed or acculturated for.  It is a shock not only to the cardiovascular system; and in the case of Andromeda Crab the digestive system, it is also a debilitating jolt to the mind.  Andromeda was full of carbs and pork fat, the caffeine beginning to coarse through her system and she strode confidently out of ShoeHorn's FlapJackStack, the brass bell on the door triumphantly announcing her arrival into a world that had just met its match.

The warm sun shone on her griddle-food flushed face and she began to strut down the street, ready to save the world.  She passed a few noble citizens, eyes cast down to the pavement, but she had bigger fish to fry and in our marvelous age of mass media telecommunication she knew she had to go straight to the top.  After only a few steps however her strut degraded to a saunter which degraded into a shuffle.  The bright morning sun pierced to the depths of her hung over mind with a cleaving pain that quickly expelled the authoritative posture of righteous justice and salvific fury.  Her confident, bright eyes quickly turned into a one eyed squint as she edged sideways up the sidewalk.  One hand on her throbbing temple she made her way, more slowly now, to save the world.  She wanted so badly to lay down, to rest.  She would have cried had she not been so afraid that sobs would bifurcate her brain into neat hemispheres.  The TV station now seemed like a distant mirage, a dream of extraordinary distance 5 excruciating blocks away.  As she leaned against the rough brick facade of a shoe repaireman's shop ("Save your sole with Jesus Peletero"  Hours: T 10am-12pm TH 3pm-5pm) she saw an officer of the peace standing wide legged at the next intersection in the shadow of a giant Greek revival edifice. 

As she approached she saw the giant white marble structure before her was, indeed, City Hall.  She had made it to A top, if not THE top she intended to go straight to.  With the police office overwatching traffic it was as if she had her own escort, a personal entourage as she brought her treasure of revelation to the world.  Grateful for the shade cast down from the huge government building, she stood up a little straighter and headed towards the granite steps across the street.  The moment her booted foot stepped down on black asphalt she heard from behind her a confident, slow but sharp, "Excuse me, miss?"

Andromeda turned around: one foot in the street, one foot on the sidewalk and saw the officer was looking at her with the casual curiosity of a bear waking up from hibernation.  "Good morning ma'am.  Where are you off to this morning."  Suddenly Andrea was painfully aware of how this whole situation looked to the officer: A hard partying, partially inebriated woman was shambling towards city hall.  Whatever her intentions, if City Hall was her destination something needed to be said.

"I'm ssorry offfisser.  I know what thiss looks like..." {suppressed burp] "...I have something very important for the mayor.  We are all in danger, the whole worldsss in danger.  I need to see him...right away.  You can esscort me if you like."  And with that Andromeda Crab turned and took a step across the street.  And with that Andromeda Crab felt a hand upon her shoulder.  And shortly after a stream of words in which "Public intoxication" were two and "Not seeing the mayor today" were a few more she finally received her police escort along with another change in destination.

Filled with the Spirit: Part 2

Andromeda Crab stumbled out of the alley into the blinding light of the morning sun.  She was still hungover, still being torn apart inside, and insatiably hungry.  These three driving forces were pushing her into divergent directions: To lay down, to shout from the mountaintops, and to eat the largest breakfast the nearest diner could serve her.  She didn't know which way to proceed so she looked around her for the easiest goal to accomplish.  In front of her stood an old brick building which read ShoeHorn's FlapJackStack and she knew which of her three pressing needs would be addressed first. The small bell on the door rang as she pushed through the door and smelled the comforting aroma of a hot griddle, potatoes, and fat.  The place was small with a line of booths against the wall to the right and the bar running down the middle facing the kitchen against the left wall.  The 5 or so diners were face down in their meals and the air was filled with sizzle, clink, and chew.  Andrea was frozen, standing in the doorway, in a dream of comforting satiation when the smell of roasted coffee beans filled her nostrils and she sat down at the farthest booth and opened up a menu.

"Coffee will do the trick nicely", mumbled Andrea under her breath and started riffling through the listing of local fare.

A note for travelers wondering this great nation.  Consuming breakfast at a local establishment is a treasured tradition among all classes of Ustations.  Depending on your geographical location and the desire for the local denizens to live in safety and comfort will generally dictate at what sort of establishment they will break their morning fast.  In high-falooting circles this meal is often referred to as brunch.  Brunch is generally considered a wonderful opportunity to not only eat very small portions of artistically arranged food but, more importantly, an excuse to drink alcohol with breakfast.  Since Brunch is a combination of two separate meals there is a premium for this convenience and eating your breakfast and lunch together will usually cost you 3 times what it would have cost you to eat them separately, but again...alcohol.  The working class will usually opt for establishments which can be described as holes-in-the-walls, local joints, and greasy spoons.  These, like the one Andromeda is currently eating at, tend to be smaller operations and tend to have, in fact, greasy spoons.  They are not places where one "watches one's cholesterol" but tend to avail the customer of an opportunity to consume massive amounts of calories for a low price.  Some of these are exactly what you pay for.  Simply because it has the allure and questionable food hygiene of a diamond in the rough does not mean that it is, in fact, a diamond.  It may just be the rough.  But occasionally a traveler will stumble upon a true treasure where the price of the food does not justify the quality of the meal.  Not everything will be good but something will be excellent.  For example the breakfast sausages served at Rubin's on Loraine Ave in Cleveland, Ohio (although this tends to be the very top crust limit of the greasy spoon sphere as the tables are clean, there is no duct tape on any of the upholstery, and none of the waiting staff seem to billow cigarette smoke from their clothes).  Finally we have the suburban classes.  These breakfast eaters tend to sit in 2 separate categories.  Living in the suburbs generally assumes that one is attempting to cast an illusion of one variety or another over their life and this is reflected in their breakfast choices.  The first grouping will pretend that they are in deed high-falooting themselves and will eat at a suburban brunch location that offers the high prices of a real brunch provider but the convenience of not having to "go to the valley" as it were.  The food quality is not as high but one hardly needs to drive on the freeway to get there.  The second category of suburban diners eats at locations that offer the allure of a local joint without the health and safety violations.  Although one will tend to not stain one's clothing by sitting in a booth at these establishments, the prices will be higher and the food cookie cutter.  The real prize, if you are in one of these chain driven economies, is to find a location that used to be a greasy spoon but has grown into a respectable establishment but is not franchised in any way.  A prime example being The Way Station Coffee Shop in Newhall, California.  At any of these establishments if you are hungry, hungover, tired, and possibly have just completed a journey through both space and time always order something with the word "farmer" in the title and a coffee.

"What do you want, hun?"

"I'll have the Uncle Homer's Farmer's Breakfast...and a coffee." 

Filled With The Spirit: Part I

On October 3rd, 2017 KTWO: Montana reported the story of Bryant Johnson.  Bryant claimed that aliens had filled his body with alchohol to send him 1 year back in time to warn that the end of the world was near and the aliens would arrive shortly.  Humans should leave the planet as soon as possible.

This is not his story, but he was not the first to be sent.

Andromeda Crab woke up this morning like she woke up many mornings: in an alley, leaning against a dumpster, completely unaware of where or who she was.  Not knowing who she was tended to pass.  With a name like Andromeda Crab your self identity tends to have some sticking power.  But the where, that was always tricky.  She covered her sleep squinty eyes as the alley filled with the blaring red and blue of a passing emergency vehicle before fading back to the dull yellow of an old sulpher lamp reflecting off of the pools and puddles around her.  The buzz of the lamps, the dripping of last night's rain, and the distant noise of the city gave Andrea few clues to her geographical location.  Even with the clear indications of recent rain she was completely dry besides her back and the part of her denims that were touching the ground, those were soaked through.

"Wherever I am, I haven't been here long," was the thought that tried to pry its way out of her mind and mouth.  But the claws of her hungover brain kept the thought from fulling forming while a sound halfway between a mumble and a growl was the only thing that left her lips.  As she staggered to her feet, leaning against the rusty blue dumpster she saw something shiny fall from her pocket and clatter onto the broken asphault.  Staring at it quizickly she tried leaning over to pick it up but only succeeded in vomiting.  Thankfully for her, and for you dear reader, she completely missed the shiny object with her exuberant reminiscence and after a few moments resting her sweat sodden head against the cold dumpster she was able to focus again on the object at her feet. It was silver, almost like a locket you would find at the dollar store, filled with a swirl of peacock green & blue.  The center had a pearlescent shimmer like wet paint.  She was almost afraid to pick it up and even quickly glanced at her jacket pocket to see if it had left a trail of wet pigment where it had fallen.  But her jacket was clean, of paint anyway, and with puffed out cheeks, blowing lips, and bulging eyes she reached down to pick up the shiny trinket.

It is a more strange aspect of the human condition that drives us to pick up whatever we have dropped, even if we don't know what it is.  That one sock from the armfull of laundry which we will sacrifice an entire load of clean clothes for in our naive confidence to be able to maintain the load in our arms and somehow, holding the clothes with our chin, using our feet and one free hand, to try and get the thing which we have dropped.  We will go through a box of junk from an old lady's house.  We will confirm the contents are nothing of value and carry it to the dumpster waiting outside.  If one trinket falls out the bottom we will stop, put down the box of trash, and pick up the thing that got away and, more likely than not, put that one piece of trash into our pocket.  Maybe it was an old screw, the stem from a broken wine glass, or a shredded piece of newspaper but we will keep that piece of litter.  Do we keep it because of its defiant will to live?  Did we like the ring it made when it hit the ground?  Maybe it is a momento of the hard work of cleaning out a dead lady's house.  But I believe that it stems from a deep, ancient, evolutionary drive to pick up anything that fell, because... well... you never know when you might need it.

Many times in the coming days, weeks, years did Andromeda wish that she had not, in a her drunken haze driven by an ancient compulsion, pick up that shiny bob lying on the grimy, rain soaked alley. That moment she wished he could have back.  But instead of just straightening up and shambling out of the alley into the approaching dawn light, she reached down to pick it up.  And the moment her finger touched it, everything changed.

Adrea's mind swirled and raced.  If you have ever seen an old science fiction movie's depiction of hyperspace travel, or watched any old movie where the main character had a trippy flashback of memories, you will know what Andrea saw.  Outside her mind everything was blurry, distorted, and hazy.  But inside her mind, the moment her finger contacted the peacock tricket, there was terrifying clarity.  The images that swirled she new were real memories.  The fear that filled her was measurable, sharp, and the thing she feared almost tangible.  It was like waking up from a dream into a nightmare and Andrea did not like it one bit.  Her body reacted to a mind full of memory and panic by emptying her stomach once again.  The dischordant state between her drunken body and her vibrant mind seemed to want to biforcate the two part of her.  There was a tearing sensation deep inside her brain and her body froze in that alley, all alone, like a hare spotting a child with a slingshot in the snow.  She looked like she was about to run down the alley screaming.  She looked like she was a marble edifice never to move again.  She felt like the fiery boned prophets of old.  Then again, thankfully, everything went dark.

Waking up in the same alley on the same day forces the mind to experience a particularly strong sensation of deja vu.  But the smell of her own vomit and the dumpster's contents warming in the morning sun brought a confirmation of the reality of her memories of the wee hours of that morning.  Worse she saw the peackock colored trinket there by her feet.  That part most of all she wished was a dream.  She strained her mind to convince herself it had never happened, it was false, but her mind held the reality of it close like a child clutching her charred teadybear, standing on the lawn, watching her house burn down. And although Adromeda Crab had lied to herself most of her life she was unable to lie to herself now.