A matter of National Importance

Gentlereaders,

It isn’t often that I use this forum for something other than pure entertainment purposes.  But today I feel I must.  Indeed, I believe I would be shirking my responsibilities as a quasi-public-pseudo-personality if I did not bring an important issue to your immediate attention.

But I must warn you.  The issue I raise today is of paramount importance.  In fact, it may be the most pressing issue of the day – and yet our political leaders appear ambivalent to the pending crisis.  We stand, as it were, on a precipice.  And it is my great fear that we find ourselves today standing precisely where the Romans stood as Nero fiddled into the night.

We are losing the pastry race. 

I know that those are bitter words to swallow. 

Allow me to explain.  I am in the throes of OFB 2012 (“Operation Fat Bastard” ©TSMK).  Like many non-recurring charges on a corporation’s balance sheet, OFB is a one-time event that seems to occur on a yearly basis.  If memory serves, OFB 2012 is sixth consecutive observance of this once-in-a-lifetime occasion.

To mark this auspicious occasion, participants spend absurd amounts of time running on moving belts while pondering the mysteries of chafed nipples, and attempting to avoid hernia while lifting heavy objects. 

Like all semi-religious observances, there is also a certain amount of fasting involved.  Not your average – don’t eat a single thing – kind of fasting.  Just the kind of fasting where you don’t eat anything that you actually enjoy.  Ten pounds of raw spinach?  Knock yourself out.  A single morsel of chocolate?  Only at the risk of eternal damnation. 

The goal of OFB, like all such observances, is to perform penance for prior sins, and to maintain a certain level of grace in the eyes of a more evolved being.  But, of course, with denial of the flesh comes temptation. 

And it is precisely that temptation that has caused me to become aware of the pastry-debacle facing our nation today.  For essentially every first-world country has a signature pastry.  But as far as I can tell, we have none of any meaningful importance. 

I have the solution.  For I have, in a fit of anaerobic light-headedness, had a mouth-watering vision of splendor. 

We need a chocolate-covered bagel-thing.  In its ideal form, this delectable morsel would have the chewy saltiness of a traditional kosher-salt bagel – but would covered (nay – drenched) with a chocolate ganache.  With a bagel such as this, we could take over the world. 

In other news – tonight I will finish what is (I think) my fifth pair of socks.  And this pair is for me.  The pattern is Java – found on Knitty.  Rather than run the ribbed cables out to the end of the toe (and run what seemed like a decent risk of running out of yarn – I’ve used the pattern’s decreasing structure but some left over Socks that Rock yarn to do a contrasting toe.  I like these quite a lot. 

And in other news, Gigi is now the proud mother of eight young kits.  She would have written the second installment of the Ballad of Buster and Gigi, but she’s been quite busy chasing Buster for child support while nursing the hungry kits.  So she asked me to provide the update – along with a picture of the growing brood.

This brings our herd of angora to 14 - and I'm already quite eager to spin some of the wool from the dark kits in this litter. 

~TSMK