Five Silly Things I Will Die Mad About

Every now and then, some ridiculous thing gets stuck in my mind, something that is of little to no consequence to my day-to-day, let alone the Grand Scheme of Things. But it's kind of fun to pick at these and see why they still irritate.

Faramir Betrayed!

Confession time: I have never read the Lord of the Rings trilogy or anything by Tolkein. I did buy the BBC audio broadcast of the trilogy as a wedding gift for my husband so we could listen to it during our honeymoon (a road trip through the southwest). This version is slightly abridged but pretty darn faithful to the text. And it really resonated with me that he had it had no power over him. He saw the dark side of that power and knew the cost. His problems were big enough that adding that extra vector would be a front too many. I was fairly well in love with Book Faramir.

So I went into The Two Towers (2002) very excited. My boy was gonna be on the big screen, showing everyone how it's done. Only that's not the choice the writers of the film trilogy decided to make. I've heard all about their reasoning and, ok, sure, yeah, "pacing" and "conflict" and whatever. To me, it was repetitive peril and a boring choice. We certainly got enough of the clusterfuck Faramir had to deal with in the films for his refusal of the ring to have a big impact.

Ugh, yeah, taking this grumble to my grave.

Agamemnon's Killer

Pre-teen Kellie was all about Greek mythology. Those stories were amazing. If Assassin's Creed: Odyssey had existed back then, I would have abandoned piano lessons far earlier so I could spend all my spare time fucking around in Ancient Greece as Kassandra. As I got older, the obsession wore off some, and only a few details beyond the more socially absorbed basics stuck with me. One was that Clytemnestra got her revenge on Agamemnon in a literal bloodbath. Sacrifice our kid to the gods for some gods-fucked war? I'll show you.

But that was too far removed from the war plot in Troy (2004), so the consort of Achilles kills Agamemnon instead. OK, yeah, the Trojan War has so much ancillary shit going on in both the lead up and aftermath that I can certainly understand the choice there. But. Clytemnestra deserves her bloodbath justice, and that move robbed her of it. It was a scene I was looking forward to all throughout the movie and I did not get it. I have never watched this movie again because of that disappointment.

Old Vines Uprooted

One of my favorite types of wine is old vine zinfandel. I've appreciated the distinction between zinfandel and old vine zinfandel enough that I am intrigued whenever another varietal gets an "old vine" designation when I'm out tasting at boutique wineries in my travels. I found an amazing old vine chardonnay that I would have happily bought a case of it I wasn't in Canada and getting it back home required far more than my vacation brain was able to manage.

The "problem" with old vine grapes is that they are smaller and produce less of the good stuff, and many wineries buy grapes from independent farmers to supplement their own vineyard output. So when those independent farmers look at a plot of land and see that they are only getting X amount of grapes from old vines but could get Y amount from younger vines and that translates to more money for a longer time...yeah, that math doesn't add up to keeping some of these old vines around. I understand profit margins and break-even thresholds and all that jazz. Doesn't mean I have to like it, especially when it means I won't be able to get my hands on any more of that old vine chardonnay.

Specific Restaurant Turnover

I've lived in Tucson two different times: the first was in the late 90s when my family lived here and I came home for summers and winters during college. Then we moved here for good in 2012. It's amazing how the northwest side of town has grown and changed since my first stint in the 90s. There was a particular coffee chain called Coffee Etc back in the day that wandered away at some point in between my stays here. There was a location on my side of town that had this funky entrance area that just stuck in my memory. It wasn't problematic funky, it was just unusual funky for a restaurant vestibule kind of thing. That Coffee Etc location holds a lot of ghosts of Past Kellie and her brother and assorted friends.

So imagine my surprise when we went to a teppan yaki restaurant during my second Tucson Tenure, and I found myself stepping into that same odd entrance area in a whole new decor. It was almost like a scent memory, I was so overcome with all the bits and bobs of past moments in that same location, in one of its former lives. I loved going to that restaurant not just for the food but for that brief nostalgia high I would get just walking into the place.

Alas, I have since developed pretty intense allergies to so many foods common in that cooking style and can't go back there. So I'm mad about two things here: the loss of Coffee Etc and the loss of my ability to go back to the soul of the place.

Desserts I Have Known

Keeping with the allergy theme, there are two desserts I will never be able to eat again. Well, I can choose to not die mad about it, I suppose, and make them the flourish of my last meal. We're gonna call that Plan M. (I do have an entire four course meal of all the things I can't eat mapped out. If I can figure out a way to get it delivered to the hospital so I can feast and then get treated for anaphylaxis right away, I might be in business.)

There was a bakery just down the road from one place I lived in Germany. The fresh bread there itself was amazing, and my newly discovered gluten sensitivity will just have to Deal With It if I ever get back to that little village. But they made this particular pastry called nougatringe. It is easily in the top 5 of my dessert experiences: shortbread cookie in a donut shape, with rich nougat cream on top and the whole thing covered in dark chocolate. It was often too much to eat only half, and I would have to make do with a quarter of one, they were so rich. But it's all hazelnut & almonds, two things my body has decided are impossible to manage.

The other top tier dessert that I will never eat again unless I choose death: Bourbon Bacon Pecan Pie. I had this for a nice New Year's Eve dinner over a decade ago. I haven't always been a fan of pecan pie: getting it just right is a challenge and many failures end up being too gooey and too rich. This one? That addition of the salty bacon plus the flavor punch of the bourbon...Yeah, I'm getting pretty pissed off right now, thinking about how I won't have that ever again. I might try to make a Kellie Safe version that features tiger nuts, at some point. But the Real Thing is Not a Thing.

*The image for this post is another fascinating Public Domain Image Archive find. The artist, Jan Toorop, did a commission for a company for their salad oil that was so distinctive and iconic that his entire oeuvre was dubbed the "salad oil style" and if that doesn't scream "Capitalist Hellscape" way before its time...