Condoms, Chicken, Magic, and Love

Let’s just say if I were forced to tell the absolute truth I would have to say I believe in magic. Now this wasn't always the case. I’m sure when I was a kid I believed and then I out grew it. But then I lived, and I studied, and I read, and I watched, and slowly and steadily my belief grew.

I think I have a pretty logical mind, sentimentality annoys me more than a little because I am just cynical enough to see it as a form of manipulation more often than not. But still, I have seen some things that I can only describe as magical.

Plus there is the fact that magic was accepted and considered as real as electricity for thousands of years and by millions of people long before I ever came on the scene.

Now I will admit that there is a chance that I know things that all of those people didn't  But then again just the fact that they all believed in it, kind of makes me consider it. I mean is it likely that all of those people were wrong for all of those years, and we as a society are right now? I just wonder.

Like Columbo in the old time TV show, that starred Peter Falk, I bumble and stumble through life but in the back of my mind, like a dog chewing a bone; I am always on the lookout for it; magic.

Today my 15 year old son was hanging around the kitchen while I was frying chicken. (I found legs, and breasts, on sale for .99 cents and brought home lots of it) He was telling me that lately the kids at his H/S have been impressed with his lunches, and have been begging for bites.

“Really?” I asked. I thought back on his lunch for the last few days. I had baked Chicken Breasts, the night before, boned them, and sent the boys with white meat chicken sandwiches with cheese and lettuce, the bread had been fancy deli rolls that were a day old and on sale. Yesterday Marie had boned the rest of the white meat chicken and made a chicken salad, with finely diced celery, boiled egg, pickle, onion, mayo, garlic, paprika, mustard, nothing fancy, just chicken salad.

“Yea” he said. One kid told me he had never seen a chicken sandwich made out of just regular chicken, because his Mother bought the patties, and some of the other kids had never eaten chicken salad that didn’t come already made from the store. They really liked it.

That just made me sad.

But here is the kicker. I know the food isn’t spectacular. My wife is a far better cook than I am but she’s not a Chef, she’s a nurse. As for me, I’m a half ass writer, and half assed home maker. Julia Roberts, I am not.

So now the logical part of my mind kicks in. Is he just blowing smoke up my ass?  I doubt that because being a suck up doesn't earn brownie points in this house, never has and never will; so what would his motivation be for lying to me about this? I can’t think of one so I assume he is telling the truth.

I shoo him out of the kitchen, link my blue tooth head phones, to our Nexus 7, and screen Cruel Intentions on Netflix. But even as I’m watching the movie, breading chicken, turning chicken, and trying to clean as I go, that little piece of my mind is chewing on this bone.

Why is he so grateful for the chicken? Why are the other kids crazy or the chicken? Why is Christopher my Grandson, eye balling the chicken like it’s a prize and begging for a sample? The boys aren't starving. It’s not spectacular chicken.

The evening wears on, dinner is served, the boys go to bed. I run Marie to the Hospital for her night shift, and drive home.

I’m asking myself if this could be magic.

I have a friend who went to cooking school. She used to post pictures of her food on Facebook. I loved looking at that food. These weren't fancy pictures, just snaps with her cellphone, of her accomplishments in cooking school. When she had finished the school, the pictures had stopped. I pulled the snapshots up in my memory and reviewed them. Why had I loved looking at those pictures so much? Honestly, beautiful, professional grade food pictures, are almost as common as porn on the internet, so why were her pictures my favorite?

Obviously because I know her. I know how much she loves her family, I know her Daughter, and I know her Son, and her Husband. I know the love that comes from her hands and went into that food. So it was like I could see the love, I could see the magic. Hmmm could I be onto something I asked myself?

I thought of other times I had personally witnessed the magic of love going into food.

This video I saw on youtube came to mind.

Baking Video

This video is made by a Jewish woman making bread with her friends. The link is above if you want to refer to it. If not, here’s the point, when she is kneading the bread, she knows she is putting love into it. She even says so in so many words.

So maybe the magic doesn't have anything to do with the actual food, but the hands, or even the body.

I thought of some other things that seemed a little magical to me.

By magic I mean the total equals way more than the parts, like when a touch is more than a touch, or a chicken sandwich is more than just a sandwich, or when a woman comforting her infant is more than just some chick holding a kid, or when Rachel's food pictures are more than just pictures of deserts.

Then my mind leaps to other things, like how it’s way more magical to make love to woman without a condom, than with one, or when the Ancient Jews led their livestock into the temple for sacrifice, or when the other ancient tribes and faiths performed blood sacrifice, or when a Bride and Groom first kiss. These things all held magic, they were all more than the sum of their parts, and they all involved personal contact. They all involved a hand, a touch, a sacrifice, something personal given unselfishly, not money, but something more than that something magical.

Then suddenly, something else pops into my mind.

Every meal I fix my Gransons plate first. He is 7 and having him dish his own plate isn’t the best idea. My Son, 15 has asked a few times for me or Marie to fix his plate too. I have always assumed he was joking and flippantly told him to fix his own plate. “You’re grown for goodness sakes.” But now I wonder, is he asking for his share of love, without even being aware of it? If the magic comes from the hands, if the love comes from the actual contact with the food, and he craves it…. And well…..

I think I'll go ahead and fix his plate from time to time.

JS

Fracking, Frankenstein Fish, Parenting and Magic

Remember when we we’re kids and if we didn’t know something, or wanted to know more about something we just asked our Mom or Dad, or Grams or Gramps, or even a teacher, and then what ever their answer was we blindly assumed was right? We would repeat it, and parrot it, we would argue it and defend it, and eventually the belief just became part of us.

Man those were good times.

Now we all have monumental amounts of information at our fingertips, with our smart phones at the ready we all know the capital of anywhere, the correct spelling of anything, the correct answer to any math problem we can type into our phones or computers, the highpoints and brief summary, of any event in human history, the secrets of space travel, the exact distance from where we are to anywhere else, the temperature of anywhere right now, and at any time it’s ever been recorded. News from anywhere, in any language, and the ability to communicate with anyone at any time, (unless they send me to voicemail or decline the call) I know the recipe to anything from, perfect lamb chops, to a slippery nipple, I can also order the ingredients or just have it shipped to me. I have more memory and computing power in my DROID RAZR than was used to send astronauts to the moon. This smart phone information rubs off too. I understand the basics of gravity, and worm holes. I’ve seen more people having sex via porn and the internet than probably any 10,000 men 50 years ago. Sodom and Gomorra aint got shit on me. The human body holds no mysteries to me. I’m interested in what is where, so I have a basic understanding of biology and anatomy. I’m not an expert at any of these things but I know, and have access, to more information on anything, then anyone in History ever has.

But guess what?

When it comes to some things, I just don’t have a fricking clue, and furthermore I don’t think anyone else does either.

All of this information, all of this knowledge, and I just wish I could ask my old man what he thinks and blindly accept it as truth.

Last night I decided to read a little about fracking. (hydraulic fracturing of stone thousands and thousands of feet beneath the earth to extract natural gas)

One thing led to another, I read article after article, watched video after video. I read economic studies, social studies, and environmental studies. I read propaganda from gas companies, and environmental organizations. I know people who work in this industry. I saw people with flammable drinking water. I read how it was methanol, and how it wasn’t methanol. I read how natural gas will lead to energy independence and a stronger, richer, America. I read how it will poison the drinking water of the biggest most important aquifers in the US, and how water may become more valuable than gold. I read and read, and studied and studied, and guess what?

Well I just wish I could ask my Dad and be young and impressionable enough to just blindly accept and believe whatever he said.

So then I just walked away from the screen and smoked some cigarettes, and admitted to myself that I still had no clue.

So then I started reading about these new Salmon that are a cunt-hair away from being approved by the FDA. I guess they are exactly like regular Salmon except they have been genetically modified and mixed and matched to grow bigger in ½ the time.

The way I undertsnad it this is done with gene splicing, which sounds a little scary, until you imagine that basically it’s what we have been doing with selective breeding, since we domesticated, chickens, and nature herself domesticated the gray wolf into the domestic dog. (that’s right every single domestic dog is a descendant of the gray wolf), (go ahead google it, I dare you).

Again I read and read, I studied and considered, and I still can’t decide if it’s a good thing or not.

I guess the point of this evenings, (well now this mornings)  blog is this. Information is great but it just isn’t enough, and at some point, it’s like trying to study a snowflake in a blizzard, or a raindrop in a downpour.

Nothing compares to the magic and certainty of a child asking a parent or grandparent or step parent, or whatever, a question, and receiving an answer.

When we as parents, answer a question for a child, we are shaping the future, we are building a destiny, we are creating a bias that surpasses all this information, all of this science, and all of this wisdom.

You would think that me being able to learn all I learned about fracking from my office in my condo in Southern California, is magic but it’s not. Me being able to be 10 again and looking at my Father and asking him, “Dad is fracking good or bad?” and him answering me while patting my head or looking me in the eye, now that would be magic.

I don’t know the answers, and the more I learn the more questions I have, but I have figured this out; it all comes down to what you believe, and our children believe what we tell them. So it probably wouldn’t hurt if we reminded ourselves of this the next time the little one asks us something.

Jan 6^th 2013