A poem for today: friday may 18

"Oatmeal"

I eat oatmeal for breakfast.
I make it on the hot plate and put skimmed milk on it.
I eat it alone.
I am aware it is not good to eat oatmeal alone.
Its consistency is such that is better for your mental health if somebody eats it with you.
That is why I often think up an imaginary companion to have breakfast with.
Possibly it is even worse to eat oatmeal with an imaginary companion.
Nevertheless, yesterday morning, I ate my oatmeal porridge, as he called it with John Keats.
Keats said I was absolutely right to invite him:
due to its glutinous texture, gluey lumpishness, hint of slime, and unsual willingness to disintigrate,
oatmeal should not be eaten alone.
He said that in his opinion, however, it is perfectly OK to eat it with an imaginary companion, and that
he himself had enjoyed memorable porridges with Edmund Spenser and John Milton.
Even if eating oatmeal with an imaginary companion is not as
wholesome as Keats claims, still, you can learn something from it.
Yesterday morning, for instance, Keats told me about writing the "Ode to a Nightingale."
He had a heck of a time finishing it those were his words "Oi 'ad a 'eck of a toime," he said, more or less, speaking through his porridge.
He wrote it quickly, on scraps of paper, which he then stuck in his pocket,
but when he got home he couldn't figure out the order of the stanzas,
and he and a friend spread the papers on a table, and they
made some sense of them, but he isn't sure to this day if they got it right.
An entire stanza may have slipped into the lining of his jacket through a hole in his pocket.
He still wonders about the occasional sense of drift between stanzas,
and the way here and there a line will go into the configuration of a Moslem at prayer, then raise itself up
and peer about, and then lay \ itself down slightly off the mark,
causing the poem to move forward with a reckless, shining wobble.
He said someone told him that later in life Wordsworth heard about the scraps of paper on the table, and tried shuffling some
stanzas of his own, but only made matters worse.
I would not have known any of this but for my reluctance to eat oatmeal alone.
When breakfast was over, John recited "To Autumn."
He recited it slowly, with much feeling, and he articulated the words lovingly, and his odd accent sounded sweet.
He didn't offer the story of writing "To Autumn," I doubt if there is much of one.
But he did say the sight of a just-harvested oat field go thim started on it, and two of the lines,
"For Summer has o'er-brimmed their clammy cells" and "Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours,"
came to him while eating oatmeal alone.
I can see him drawing a spoon through the stuff, gazing into the glimmering furrows, muttering.
Maybe there is no sublime; only the shining of the amnion's tatters.
For supper tonight I am going to have a baked potato left over from lunch.
I am aware that a leftover baked potato is damp, slippery, and simultaneaously gummy and crumbly,
and therefore I'm going to invite Patrick Kavanagh to join me.

Galway Kinnell

Slightly belated but still as weird as ever

What scandalous discrimination against coconuts. How can I celebrate Mahashivratri Day without my coconuts?

But in all seriousness, if anyone can explain to me why Mahashivratri Day this year was coconut-free, or what agarbatis are... or what Mahashivratri Day is, that would be grand.

Hole-in-the-Wall Bakery

From a midnight walk in Satwa, wearing my yellow salwar kameez, which makes all the Indians extra-smiley

My Brother, the Mexican Pimp in Training

I am pleased to announce my brother's recent acquisition of a vehicle to facilitate his various misadventures. It is a '79 Ranchero, which is indeed a very Metro-esque car, and I expect they will spread good cheer and cheap beer throughout southern California.

I conducted an email interview with him to learn a little more about this exciting new partnership:

Metro: "YEAH!!!! CAR!!!!"

Eva: "What is your car’s anthem song?"
Metro: "Donkey Butt by 2 Live Crew"

Eva: "What is your car’s drink of choice?"
Metro: "Bacardi's Watermelon Rum"

Eva: "If your car could pick its own dashboard decoration, what would it be?"
Metro: "Pizza"

Eva: " Is your car allergic to anything?"
Metro: "Crayons"

Eva: "Does your car like pie? What kind?"
Metro: "Yeah, Pizza Pie. On the dashboard"

Eva: "If your car could replace its wheels with something else, what would it choose?"
Metro: "Tank tracks"

Eva: "If your car witnessed a bank robbery, what would it do?"
Metro: "Honk cause it likes cookies. And robbers"

Eva: "Does your car wear tighty whiteys or boxers?"
Metro: "Boxers. Feel the breeze."

Eva: "If your car had a voice, who would it sound like?"
Metro: "Johnny Bravo"

Eva: "What would your car do on a rainy afternoon with a can of green paint, 3 rollerskates, a pair of ninjas, and a ham?"
Metro: "PARTY!!! Each ninja gets A roller skate to wear on their left foot, push themsleves around with the right foot, and chase the green painted ham that's been stuffed in the other roller skate and is being pushed around by my car. The rain means nothing."


Thanks Metro and Señor 79! I wish you many happy and speeding-ticket-free days together...

Jurassic Bedroom

Not to toot my own trumpet, but I believe I have achieved a monumental scientific breakthrough and I humbly request you to shout my praises from your rooftop.

Last week before I moving house, whilst most non-geniuses would be preoccupied with packing, boxing, and other plebian concerns, I was double-checking intricate pulvo-pulmotic tests in my highly secure underbed laboratory. When the anticipated date finally arrived, I assembled a prestigious audience of members of the Umm Suqeim Amateur Scientists League and some Keralan moving men to announce the hitherto undreamt-of evolutionary alteration… THE DUST DINASAUR.

I took the DNA of the common dust bunny, injected it with 12 months of darkness, rage, and neglect, carefully modified its intake of oxygen, and eureka!... a dust creature with massive bulk and unsurpassed predatory skills. Note how they travel in tribal packs, laying waste to any socks or small pieces of paper that they come across. Beware, beware the dust dinasaur, and tremble before my mighty scientific power.

Dubai, the BESTEST city - part 3

What's more impressive than a very tall building? ...
A very tall building upside down! And we have one!

"Amlak Al Madina Real Estates announced the launch of the Upside Down Tower in Dubai with a total cost of AED 800 million. The tower consists of two buildings next to each other one of them is an upside down replica of the other. ... Not only that the tower will look inverted from the outside but it will look inverted from the inside as well. Mentioned examples are palm trees, other indoor plants, water fountains, elevators, and even the numbering sequence of floors."


Woopee!

Dubai, the BESTEST city - part 2

Why is Dubai the bestest city, you ask?

We could withstand an attack by Godzilla, that's why.

If Godzilla ever stomps his way down from Abu Dhabi, roaring bloody murder and flexing his enormous claws in anticipation, he would be deterred by a security guard his size. You see, local developer AAA Group is doing the citizens of Dubai a great service by building a sentry formidable enough to stop Godzilla in his tracks. They are building... a 35-storey tower in the shape of a man in traditional Gulf dress.

I am not kidding.


So, let's applaud; everyone now, let's applaud the AAA Group for creating a city hero who would open a 140 meter tall can of khaleeji whoopass on any passing mutant lizards looking for a fight, and let's recognize that Dubai is the bestest at city security.

And let's also get excited about the world-firstestness of this innovative structure! I for one would like to pre-register for a 2-bedroom apartment in the man's left buttock! And I'm hoping that, when I want to visit my friend living in a flat in his shoulder, I can ride the spine-themed elevator! Nothing says "class" like chrome-detailed vertebrae.

But that's not all, I read in a different artice that "the peak may include a rotating restaurant and conference centre." Assuming that the peak is his head, we could have the world's first (and BEST!) exorcist-themed architectural triumph, in which you can enjoy a 360 dirham glass of champagne and some fine canapes as you rotate 360 degrees in finest cranial luxury.

Dubai, the BESTEST city - part 1

We (lebneni and I) have decided that we should be hired by the big man to run a coordinated marketing campaign for Dubai. We would prefer payment in shawarmas, but will also except gold nuggets, gold boulders, gold buildings, and/or a private island, made of gold.

Our new campaign will harness and build upon already-existing marketing messages, most of which are perhaps too subtle to convey the true awesomestness of this place… e.g.,
“Burj Dubai: the most prestigious square kilometer on the planet"
and "Dubai Mall: the earth has a new center"

These are eloquent and delicate messages and I’m concerned that a visitor, groggy still from his red-eye flight and with his sense of urban potential numbed from years of living in New York or London, well, he might fail to grasp our world-class premiumosity and revolutionary visions of classic luxury.

So, let’s make it easy for everyone with this campaign theme… "Dubai is THE BESTEST CITY EVER!"

And with that, I would like to begin a series within this blog, which I will dedicate to updating you on Dubai’s bestestness.

Stay tuned, it will redefine your sense of lifestyle...

Save me!

I have most alarming news. The golden-rumped elephant shrew and the slender loris are in danger of going extinct.



I have to admit that, despite my flax-munching, yoga-twisting, recycled toilet paper hippy ways, my commitment to species saving activity has hitherto been limited to buying those deeelICious Endangered Species Chocolate bars (http://www.chocolatebar.com). But now that the golden-rumped elephant shrew and the slender loris are on the line, I think it’s time to step it up!

But, um, what do I do? How do I save these little critters? Can I pull a Dian Fossey and live in their midst, studying their quiet majesty, and running with them through the jungle? Can I start a Slender Loris farm here in Umm Suqeim? That sounds like a sweet plan... I’ll recreate their natural habitat in my back garden and, for those of them that want to adopt a more modern Western lifestyle, they can come inside and live in my cupboards. I’ll sew little tuxedos for the lorises (lorii?) and tu-tus for the golden-butted shrews and train them to prepare fancy cocktails, and talk. Yeah.

Tell me this guy wouldn't look sharp in a tux?

Onions

I have a terrible eye infection. I feel like The Flaming Eye of Sauron. But I don’t want my blog to be invaded by freaky little Tolkien fans, so I will instead pursue this metaphor: it feels like the floor is made of onions.

And on that note, I have some fun facts about onions for you:
1) Egyptians believed onions had strength-producing powers, therefore, they were fed to labors who built the pyramids.
2) Roman gladiators were rubbed down with onion to firm up their muscles.
3) In the Middle Ages onions were such an important food that people would pay for their rent with onions and even give onions as gifts.
4) Libya boasts the maximum per capita consumption of onions with 66.8 pounds of onion consumed per person per year.
5) Parsley can help you get rid of onion breath.
6) The largest onion ever grown weighed 10 pounds 14 ounces. It was grown by V. Thorp of Silsden, England.