Many Little Slices of Heaven

Every once in a while my idea of heaven is reshaped. Such is what happened as I helped my brother-in-law celebrate his birthda

I had never been to Tucanos before. I thought it was just another place of eating. No. It is not. It is a glimpse into heaven. As my physique will attest, I am not the most diet conscious gentlemen. I enjoy food very much. If all the money I spent on Chinese buffets were put into a savings account, I’m pretty sure I could pay a mortgage using only interest.

Then there is Tucanos. Walking in, I was glad to see that it was a buffet. That means I can skip the boring stuff that restaurants use to make me not get full on steak. So long vegetables; so long salad. The buffet table had lots of delicious foods to choose, but the brother-in-law warned me, “Be careful. I know it looks good, but you don’t want to fill up on buffet.” What!? Don’t fill up on buffet? Was I in a parallel universe where propriety was…you know…there?

We sat down and turned a little wooden block from red to green. This was a signal to the meat servers to approach us. “Meat server,” I thought. “I like the sound of that.”

Sure enough, within moments, the first gentleman appeared. “Who wants some rib eye steak?” Now, this gentleman did not carry a pad of paper upon which to document my meal. There was no time for that—not in heaven. Instead, he carried a hunk of rib eye steak on a skewer. My lunch mates were acquainted with the customs of heaven, so they lifted their tongs and pulled off a piece (or three) as the meat server cut it off the hunk.

Being the linear eater that I am, I thought I should finish my buffet items before beginning on the rib eye. But before I could even finish my half-serving of mashed potatoes, the meat server was back. “Sirloin tips for you?” Again, the tips were hanging from a skewer. He started slicing, and we started pulling fresh meat from a tender and juicy hunk. I had to make a priority shift. The buffet was there to fill in the gaps—both spatial and temporal—between the meats.

Before I go on, I must describe the meats in general. Everything was cooked to perfection. Even on each hunk, there was a gradation from rare to well-done. The seasoning was perfect. The quality was divine. There was pork, chicken, turkey, and beef that never quite. There was brisket, hot wings, garlic, sweetened, and bacon wrapped. As I ate, two words were battling in my mind for the right of description: decadent and heavenly.

After round four of the meat delivery, I started to feel like the word decadent was going to win out. The food was so rich and delicious. I found myself chortling at common humor. I felt the room changing into an ancient roman dining hall where I was reclined on my eating couch, sagging out of my loose fitting toga.

The meat server came around with another round of steak, and I waved him off. The meat server looked at me with a hint of disapproval. “You’re not slowing down, are you, sir?” Suddenly, I was thrust out of Rome, and into heaven. The harp music stopped as my own personal angel encouraged me to keep eating. “No, Steven,” I said. “I’m not slowing down. You are just not bringing what I need.”

Steven smiled, lifted the skewer of steak, and walked away with a spring in his step. “I’ll bring you what you need, sir. I’ll bring you what you need.”

As time when on, I learned to savor the sweet pork, the turkey wrapped bacon. Sure enough, Steven kept these things in great supply. After learning that I didn’t like the brisket, Steven stopped bringing it. With every approach, Steven begged me to keep eating. It seemed his only source of pleasure was watching me stuff my fat face.

Eventually, my mortality started to creep up on me. I could not continue this eating spree forever. Steven started softening the blow by bringing out more chicken and less beef. Then, came intermittent slices of roasted pineapple. With great emotional labor, I turned over the wooden block from green to red. The trip to heaven was coming to a close.

Like a guardian angel, Steven made one more approach to the table. “Are you sure you are finished? I can bring you anything you want.” After refusing him, he re-doubled his strength. “Maybe just some pineapple?” Again, he was turned away. He thanked us for eating and asked us to return. Then, he unfurled his wings and flew back into the clouds.

As we waddle to the car, my brother-in-law told me that we should revisit heaven on my birthday. We talked about how amazing our experience had just been, and I realized that the reason Tucanos is my idea of heaven is not only that the food is hair-raisingly delicious, but that the restaurant itself strokes my ego on both sides. First, it tells me that my need for social forbearance is not welcome. Then, as my belly is inner tube-tight, I get to reclaim my social forbearance to another human being. In this case, Steven. “Sorry Steven, your food is delicious, but I think I’d better stop,” I say. “How prudent of your, sir,” he replies. I can’t wait to go back.

Is it October yet?

All’s Well That Ends Well

I was recently the victim of fraud. Some jerk got a hold of my debit card number and used it to make some purchases. It is hard to make a profile on the guy because his purchases were for Senior Service, Playboy Magazine, Columbia House DVD, and Hallmark, Inc. I thought I had a profile until the movies showed up. That’s right, the jerk also had one of my past mailing addresses. So, I got a call from someone saying that a package arrived for me. When I picked it up from my former residence, it was from Columbia House DVD. Within I found seven movies: Goonies, The Italian Job, Slither, Elmo in Grouchland, The Fog, The Italian Job, and Cloverfield. No, that isn’t an error, there were two copies of The Italian Job. What the mess?

Well, after two weeks of continual (but not continuous) calls to Wells Fargo, I think the issue is resolved. I’ve got new cards, I didn’t have to close any bank accounts, and I got a free lollipop from one of the bank workers at the local branch.

Then there are the movies. I wrote Columbia House an email explaining the predicament and asked them where I should send the movies. Their reply was simple: we’ll close the account; you keep the movies. Cool, no?

So, if you are interested in any of the movies, make me an offer.

Closet Sandwich

I know it is a good day when I find a sandwich waiting for me in my classroom closet.

This sandwich inaugurates me into a new class of citizenship.  I am now a long term, moderately aggressive investor who considers domestic and global mutual funds which are diversified and rebalanced annually.  I know it’s true because the guy who left me the sandwich said so.

So there.

Halloween Part 1

It was nice to find a costume that utilized my natural strengths. It was hard to pretend that I liked honey, but everything else came quite naturally. Oh, and using the restroom was tricky because the zipper was in the back. I got really good at holding it.

After having our school Halloween Parade, I decided it was time to scare the Winne out of my class.

Before school, I set up a single light bulb onto a radio controlled module that would allow me to control the intensity of the bulb from anywhere in the room. I hid the controller in my Winnie Nuck Pooh hands so the students never saw it coming. I also had a radio controlled module that was broken, but still makes a fantastic clicking/tapping sound.

I turned out the overhead light, played some ambient horror music, and paraphrased the story of “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allen Poe. For those of you unfamiliar with this morbid tale, Montressor takes his friend-turned-enemy (Fortunato) deep into a catacomb, walls him up behind masonry, and leaves him for dead. Too morbid for seven-year-olds? Maybe. Effective at making kids shake in terrror. Yes. Oh baby yes. As the duo went deeper and deeper into the catacomb, the single light bulb got dimmer and dimmer. Eventually, the light was out and they were ready for the climax. When Fortunato is completely walled up he begins to tap again the wall. Cue the clicking module. The kids were totally spooked. I screamed, they jumped, then we all had a good laugh.

Even the most frightened of children begged for more.

To make the day all the more zany, I went to the temple as a Ward assignment. I couldn’t stop thinking of R.L. Stein references and movie taglines. Here’s a sample:

• Grant Bushman: Helping the Dead on Their Day.
• It really is the day of the dead.
• Helping the dead never looked so good.
• Once a year, the dead do some work for themselves.
• You scratch my back…
• A Halloween deal the devil didn’t count on.
• Death is only the beginning.

If you have any other additions, feel free to leave a comment.

Two Homework Assignments

Part One

We read a great simile from the book Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen. It was something about how the main character’s morning breath was so bad that it was like he had been sucking on his foot all night. After the class stopped laughing, I told them that they had a homework assignment: “Tomorrow morning, when your guardians greet you in the morning, tell them that your breath is so bad that it was like you sucked on your foot all night. Then come back and tell me what your guardian said.” Another laugh.

Part Two

We were learning about how seeds great spread—a lesson I have been looking forward to all year. They had a hard time believing that seeds could really be spread by being eaten, not digested, and pooped out elsewhere. More about that in a moment.

Lesson to would be 2^nd Grade Teachers: any time you can throw poop or underwear into a lesson, you level of attentiveness will increase. It is just like my youthful obsession with the word bellybutton. EVERYtime I heard that word, I had to laugh. Poop and underwear are just such words. If you think the class is beyond reaching, just use the word poop or underwear.

In this particular lesson, I not only got to use the word poop in passing (no pun intended), but I got to use it A LOT. I got to make poop noises, I got to use poop synonyms, and I got to…well, keep reading.

Seeds couldn’t REALLY be spread because of poop, could they? Just my luck; the cafeteria served corn that day. Before you get to school tomorrow, you will poop. When you do, look at it. You will see for yourself; your body cannot digest cellulose. Unless you chewed your corn really, really well, you will find kernels of corn in your poop.

Part Three

I had six minutes between our library time and lunch. So, I asked the students to report on their homework from the previous night. It was fun to see how many students had actually told their guardians that they had sucked on their feet in the night. (There were about eighteen.)

Then I asked how many of them had eaten corn the day before and had also looked at their poop. Seven. I made a table on the board with two columns. Column One: Saw Corn. Column Two: Didn’t. Of the eight that qualified, all eight of us saw corn. I say us because I participated too.

Lesson learned for life. Guaranteed.

A Hint of Crazy

I saw this today.

For a split second I thought to myself, “Oh boy. It looks like the world has turned up-side-down.” I was using the stop sign as a reference to the rest of the world. Has this ever happened to you? You use the wrong point to reference the rest of the world?

I’d love to hear about it.

Low Standards = High Success

The last time I drove away from the drive-thru at Carl’s Jr., I felt pretty proud of myself. It’s odd, I know. I never feel that way when I finish at Arby’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, or any local place. There is just something about Carl’s Jr. that makes me feel so good about myself.

I think the good feeling is probably the result of dramatically lowering my food standards. Most people seem to have a standard that doesn’t allow for self-agrandizing meals. I’m not talking about increasing spatial mass here, I mean actual feelings of self-worth that come from food choices.

Just put yourself in my shoes: Imagine you are suddenly okay with using chocolate as a staple for a meal, using peanuts as garnishing features. I’m not talking about really enjoying chocolate as a weekend treat. No. I mean buying a bag of peanut M&M’s, a bag of Reese’s Pieces, and a bag of Hershey’s Mini’s, and using these as the ingredients for your next three meals. Are you starting to get an idea about how low my standards are?

Now imagine me at Carl’s Jr. I get a really good feeling when I ask them to “hold the bacon” on the breakfast burger. I grin with self-adulation when I take the O.J. instead of the coffee. I confuse the woman who is way too old to be working at a drive thru, when I tell her to keep the straw. It’s better for the environment to drink the reconstituted orange product directly out of the disposable carton. But most of all, when this super-impressed middle aged woman asked me if I would like to donate a dollar to fight breast cancer, I sat up straight from the front seat of my automobile and said, “Yes. Yes, I would.” I love my mother who survived breast cancer, and I love my sisters who will eventually fight breast cancer. But most of all, I am impressed that I didn’t take the credit for my philanthropic gesture. No, the good karma will rest with me, but the praise of man will go to Miguel Sanchez.

That is, until someone reads this post.

Everything I Need To Know…

This post could be titled “Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Counting Crows” or “101 Things I Learned From Counting Crows.” Either way, all of these messages come from Counting Crows songs. I wrote this quite a while ago, but I think it is a good Counting Crows fan post anyway. Maybe I’ll update it someday. Maybe.

1. We all want something beautiful.
2. All of the beautiful colors are very meaningful.
3. When everybody loves you, you could never be lonely.
4. Everybody wants to pass as cats.
5. We all want to be big, big stars, but we got different reasons for that.
6. When everybody loves you, that’s just about as funky as you can be.
7. The angels get a better view of the crumbling difference between wrong and right.
8. Sleeping children better run like the wind, out of the lightning dream.
9. Everybody’s tired of something.
10. Good things come to me when I think of heaven.
11. You want to turn your back on all your soulless days.
12. If you’ve been feeling weary, maybe you’ve been underground too long.
13. Maybe you’ve been suffering from a few too many dreams that have gone wrong.
14. This change I’ve been feeling doesn’t make the rain fall.
15. It’s good for everybody to hurt somebody once in a while, but the things I do to people I love shouldn’t be allowed.
16. We’re always changing.
17. You try to tell yourself the things you try to tell yourself to make yourself forget.
18. Seconds when I’m shaking leave me shuttering for days.
19. Every word is nonsense, but I understand.
20. Love is a ghost train rumbling through the darkness.
21. We all want to be big stars, but we don’t know why, and we don’t know how.
22. Curiosity doesn’t have to mean you’re on your own.
23. We were perfect when we started, I’ve been wondering where we’ve gone.
24. There’s a perfectness inside you, sleeping underneath your skin.
25. Get right to the heart of matters; it’s the heart that matters most.
26. All monkeys do what they see.
27. There’s a skeleton in every man’s house.
28. Beneath the dust and love and sweat that hang on everybody is the dead man trying to get out.
29. Is it better to be better than to be anything?
30. What you fear in the night in the day comes to call anyway.
31. You can’t wash away the stain of the deceiving and the things that you cannot believe in.
32. Everything that hurts you is locked up inside you, like butterflies with wings and other perfect things.
33. I want to have a good time, just like everybody else.
34. The sky is a wheel, spinning these days into things that I’ve lost.
35. When you sleep you see your mother in the night, but she stays just out of sight, so there isn’t any sweetness in the dreaming.
36. When you wake, the morning covers you with light, and it makes you feel alright, but it’s just the same hard candy you’re remembering again.
37. All the regrets you can’t forget are somehow pressed upon a picture, in the face of such an ordinary girl.
38. If I could give all my love to you, I could justify myself, but I’m just not coming through.
39. Maybe I don’t need no angel at all.
40. Some girls last longer than others.
41. Some worlds last longer than others.
42. Everybody’s after love.
43. These lines of lightning mean we’re never alone.
44. Spin a little tighter and the world’s a little lighter.
45. Leaving the best years leave a lot to be desired, and then they pass you by.
46. Everybody tries to go back somewhere someday.
47. What’s the barrier between love and need?
48. You get one chance each life.
49. Diamonds and babies and cars don’t add up to anything.
50. I don’t think that this is a very sensible way to die.
51. The greening of America is progressing smoothly.
52. If you want a little of these peaches, come on and shake my tree.
53. Every waking hour, we break down in different combinations.
54. We spin around in smaller constellations.
55. Took a ride on a love wheel; scary, scary-go-round and around.
56. I think I need a little animal, honey; come on, and shake a little monkey with me.
57. It’s crazy, but often clear: we shimmer and disappear, in color, in black and white, we slowly fade out of sight.
58. These days, we’re lit by lightning; thin lines of sharp, white, ice hard, cold, white light.
59. We ride in silence out of fear.
60. We prefer the silence of the blind.
61. We’re crazy, but often kind: we rage and in violence blind.
62. Nobody’s the same; they want to paint the same me every single day.
63. God blesses the same things every single day.
64. If he’s un-American, a little bit, then you think that he’s no fool—no matter if he is.
65. Hey, hey Mr. Freedom, what are we supposed to think, ‘cause I’m a very tiny person, and it worries me.
66. We’re only love, at its best or worst.
67. Love, calling your name, I will live on.
68. All my innocence is wasted on the dead and dreaming.
69. Little angels hang above my head, read me like an open book.
70. I know the little things about me that would sing in the silence of so much rejection in every connection I make.
71. All the anger and the eloquence are bleeding into fear.
72. All the things I keep inside myself, they vanish in the air.
73. We couldn’t all be cowboys, some of us are clowns.
74. The moon is a satellite.
75. There’s reason to believe: maybe this year will be better than the last.
76. If you think that I could be forgiven, I wish you would.
77. The winter makes you laugh a little slower, makes you talk a little lower, about the things you could not show her.
78. I can’t remember all the times I try to tell myself to hold on to these moments as they pass.
79. She is a victim of her own responses, shackled to a heart that wants to settle—and then runs away.
80. It’s a sin to be fading endlessly.
81. Keep some sorrow in your heart and mind for the things that die before their time.
82. Miller’s angels are hovering, in between the earth and the sun, to shadow God’s unwavering love.
83. What’s life without an occasional surprise?
84. You’re mother recognizes all your desperate displays.
85. Do you see yourself in me?
86. I’m trying to find me a better way to get from the things I do to the things I should.
87. If I could make it rain today and wash away this sunny day down to the gutter, I would, just to get a change of pace.
88. Some of us sink like a stone, waiting for mothers to come.
89. Today was just a day fading into another, and that can’t be what a life is for.
90. We just look a lot better in the blue light.
91. All of last years blooms have gone and died; time doesn’t give a reason.
92. Ask yourself sometimes what you need to be forgiven.
93. The sun and the summer sea of flowers won’t bloom without the rain.
94. I wasn’t made for this scene, baby, but I was made in this scene.
95. For all the things you’re losing, you might as well resign yourself to try and make a change.
96. The same things you’re missing could get you into something else.
97. Better leave when the stay is nothing but being alone.
98. If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts.
99. If you’ve never stared off into the distance, then your life is a shame.
100. The price of a memory is the memory of the sorrow it brings.
101. There is always one last light to turn off and one last bell to ring.

A Puke Story

Since the first day of class, I have told my students that they only have one reason that they should run in class. “What do you do if you are going to throw up,” I ask them. “RUN to the garbage can,” they reply with added emphasis on the ‘run’. I review this rule every so often when I catch a student running in the classroom. “We don’t run in class, unless what?” The hands fire up into the air. “Unless we have to throw up.” They love this little dialogue. I mean, how many adult talk about throwing up with a hint of humor? (Regardless of what my sister says, I think bodily function humor is funny, and since I work with kids, I am exploiting this character weakness of mine.)

I had flu last week. I spent a solid week wondering if I was going to puke. Not a fun week. There was always a lingering feeling of nausea, so every time I sat down, my mental stewardess reminded me of the nearest exists. I told my students that “If Mr. Bushman suddenly runs out of the classroom, it is because he is not feeling well and has to RUN to the bathroom.” They all gave me the nod of understanding.

Upon getting back from a trip to the art room, many students were complaining about “Scotty” causing problems in line. When I asked “Scotty” about it, he told me that he threw up. Wow. That is stealthy. Not much passes under the radar of Second Graders, but somehow “Scotty” had the presence of mind to RUN to the garbage can that was in the hallway, lose his lunch, and return to line without anyone detecting him. I inspected the garbage can, and “Scotty” had indeed hit the mark with perfection. I took him to the office, called his parents, and Dad came to pick him up.

A few minutes later, “Scotty” showed up in class again and whispered to me. “I had to throw up again. I RAN to the bathroom, but I didn’t make it.” I gave a couple of high fives for courage under fire, and sent him on his way.

After school was over, I walked to the bathroom. I braced myself for a surprise. I took a few deep breaths and told myself that it was time to face the running joke like a man. It’s only vomit. I clutched my bag of clean up powder and walked through the door.

I knew immediately that I had the right room when the smell hit my nose. I took inventory of my body. Eyes: nothing yet. Nose: on the right track. Stomach: whew, still sleeping. Feet: still clean.

I rounded the corner and there it was. I didn’t know an eight-year-old could un-eat that much in a single shot. The eyes and nose double-teamed my stomach with a two-fisted punch. It was time for an encore performance. Days of drinking Sprite and cheese we suddenly nullified and the crawling began.

“No please!” I begged. “I need to be the responsible adult here.” I closed my eyes and allowed myself to make the vocal pukey sounds. I hoped that expressing my up-chucking verbally would make the actually projection unnecessary. Hooray for years of stoic living. In the words of Garth Algar, “Spew contained.” Looking forward to my trip into fresher climates, I dumped my little bag of chuck be gone of the mess. The mess that was about eight inches off target. Good job “Scotty”.

The lesson here: the most important direction need to be repeated more than once. If you are going to throw up, RUN to the garbage can. If you are on the edge of throwing up, make throw up sounds instead.

Emergency Fund

This post is written in the spirit of humor. While I am a Obama supporter, I hope that this comment will not be seen as mudslinging. It is just something that I thought Jon Stewart might say. If he does end up saying it, feel free to tell me how cool I am.

I was listening to John McCain’s address yesterday, and I must admit that I was moved. Good job, John. It made me reconsider my views on Iraq. What tripped me up a little was one of the proposals for how to improve Iraq’s economy. Senator McCain advised the Iraqi people to invest in their “Emergency Response Plan.” I must agree. Iraqi’s need to be ready for unforeseen emergencies like foreign troop invasion or civil war. Remember Iraq, you may not be in trouble right now, but you might want to put aside some money for a rainy day.