Interlude

Despite all of my light-hearted posts and inane tweets, I'm as twisted up over the situation in Egypt as all of you.

Godspeed, Cairo, and to all our brothers and sisters across the Middle East.

* * *

I don't think you understood me. I want to get some drivers.

The contrast of this four minutes of footage against what follows in the 1972 film Deliverance mesmerizes me. Wardrobe, set, dialog, casting and staging--it all works here.

Dig the hats, and the way the one local starts dancing. Dig the shape of the banjo kid's face. His behavior at the end of the segment embodies understated foreshadowing.

And would you look at Burt Reynolds for chrissake? God help me, would you look at Burt Reynolds?

(Everyone take a moment, please, and pay some respect to Dinah Shore, who had 20 years on Reynolds and was bedding him right around the time this film was made. Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah, indeed.)

I shall not end this post without a reference to the outspoken conservative Jon Voight (who admittedly was pretty hot back then). Voight not only sired Angelina Jolie, he starred with Jane Fonda in the 1978 film Coming Home. It includes a steamy scene in which Voight's character orally services Fonda's character thereby delivering her inaugural climax.

Poetry, people. Pure poetry.

* * *

Little known Goat/O'Brien facts

When the Goat shovels the drive (winter) or mows (summer) or rakes (fall)*, the O'Brien sits on the couch and peers over the back cushion and out the window, watching him covertly. The O'Brien fancies her surveillance as mysterious and interesting behavior.

The Goat: tall; the O'Brien: short. (see photo insert)

The Goat's desire to save everything (case in point: inoperable 8-year old HP laser printer taking up entire drawer of file cabinet in laundry room**) is tempered by the primary O'Brien directive: When the shit I do not need is in the way of the shit that I do need, something has got to give. (further to case in point: otherwise perfectly usable file cabinet drawer space is rendered unusable by inoperable 8-year old HP laser printer).

The Goat: wine; the O'Brien: whiskey.

The O'Brien signals her interest in conjugal activity to the Goat by leaving the bed unmade.

The Goat wanted a big wedding and reception, while the O'Brien lobbied for the justice of the peace and can of beer. They negotiated and ended up with a pastor in the living room of O'Brien's parents with the reception in the dining room.

The Goat: tea/newspaper; the O'Brien: coffee/laptop.

Sometimes the O'Brien places her mouth on flat areas of the Goat's body and makes noises evocative of flatulence.

Sometimes the Goat refers to the O'Brien as "Irish."

The O'Brien enjoys Goat whiskers immensely. Unfortunately (for the O'Brien) Goat whiskers are a rare phenomenon as the Goat prefers to be clean-shaven (which the O'Brien finds ironic, the Goat being a goat and all).

*Yes, the O'Brien helps with leaf removal and clears the drive of snow when obliged. The O'Brien rarely, however, cuts the grass. Lil' O'B, conversely, seems to relish the task of lawn-mowing.

**At this time, the O'Brien is not accepting questions about why the file cabinet is in the laundry room.

##

General query

Hello.

Is 45 too old to start looking for a career that includes the regular employ of white vinyl go-go boots and a tambourine?

That is all.

* * *

Google me

For those of you who think you're crawling around the Internet like a stealth KGB operative because you've turned on the private surfing settings on your browser, please step out of the delusion cloud.

I am not a software guru. I am a Regular Person with a few humble Web pages. When I started them, it took about 10 minutes to figure out how to add a hit counter. What does it tell me? I can practically see your underwear.

Case in point: On June 17, 2007 at 1:11 p.m. EST, someone from the Halliburton Company whose server routes out of Houston, Texas Googled lifesize silicone men dolls. My online rant on Realdolls was hit number 11. During their 48-minute stay at my site, this visitor reloaded that entry six times.

Got Dick Cheney?

I've been running this here blog for more than five years and the associated pages, which number over 1600, are firmly embedded in the mysterious search engines of Google and Yahoo and the like. I'm not sure which is more disturbing, what people ask of search engines, or the fact that it brings them here.

That said, some of the queries fill me with pride. Welcome ye who seek the biggest breasts in Ohio and sexy human beings, and perfect labia. I am humbled that someone believes I hold the secret by which one may learn how to understand men and beat them. I hope they found what they were looking for at my place, but I doubt it. I couldn't write the supporting essay for that headline to save my life.

There are wholesome inquiries as well. People come to the Owner's Manual looking for fried spam and pickled turnips and family- style dining and hostess thankyous. I often blog about being a housewife and the associated tools of the trade. Hence, they come in search of Hoover wind tunnel repair manuals as well as sandwich fucked housewifes. Although I have never engaged in any sort of inappropriate behavior with a pastrami on rye, I appreciated the way Google politely asked he (or she) who was inquiring about the Girl-meets-Patty- Melt love story, "Did you mean sandwich fucked housewives?" If only Google could correct all of our errors.

A search query can endear me as well. I just plain like anyone looking for generic beer photo or perfect cunnilingus instructions or whispering sexy thin. And what's not to love about he who seeks Obrien lucky's auto bath or Abe Lincoln mullet or shocking beer can instructions? You guys get my vote. And if you're out there, did you find your dreams of foreplay in my story about an early-morning tryst with my husband? Did it make you smile, baby? Did it make you purr?

Should I take dry orgasm as a compliment or an insult? And I'll admit it, I am known for the Smack Your Own Ass! Feature during my live chats, but I have never posted anything that resembles a YouTube spanking.

Then there was this: family looking to buy human egg tall blonde 10,000. Family values, huh? Not only do I know what you value, I know exactly how much you value it. And what if the kid ends up short and brunette? Will you look at him or her and think: Damn. Sure didn't get my $10 grand's worth?

I hoped my presumptions were wrong, that the query was out of context and that 10,000 did not mean $10,000. Nonetheless, it made me sad.

Sometimes my hit counter reveals things I never wanted to know.

The original uncut version of this essay

* * *

Balance

man woman

bloom fade

dark light

contrast

open closed

faith doubt

gay straight

one side withers and
the entity is compromised

leftie rightie

laugh cry

inhale exhale

you thrive inside me
I breath inside of you

control empower

resist acquiesce

good evil

reference

liberal conservative

capture release

begin end

Sarah Palin's coming south to hunt some skunk

The spoken word portion is particularly moving.

* * *

Puzzlegasm

For Christmas, the Goat gave me the 881-piece "Sugar Magnolia" puzzle by Phil Lewis for Liberty Puzzles.

It is not possible to describe the sublime transcendence owning this puzzle imparts upon me. I am completing the puzzle very slowly in order to draw out the pleasure. Think of the line: And I started praying, oh Lord please make this last from the song "Moonglow."

Yeah. It's sort of like that.

Every laser-cut 1/4" thick wooden piece inflates me with joy. So far, the four-footed alien is my favorite whimsy piece. In this lifetime, I shall be as happy as that alien, if only for a moment.

Stop thinking there is something wrong with me.

That this puzzle nods to puzzle history (yes, I just said "puzzle history") with it's ornate pieces while employing the modern technique of laser cutting (versus the handcut jigsaw pieces of old) to enable even more detail (no way could an old-time jigsaw sawer guy have been able to cut those little toesies into an alien whimsy piece) rocks my face off.

Dig the Grateful Dead top-hat skeleton in this part of the puzzle:

People, I like the way this puzzle smells.

Here's a size reference photo. (Please pay no attention to what may appear to be but IS CERTAINLY NOT a long gray hair visible in the lower right hand quadrant of the photo.)

Now stop playing with yourself and go buy a Liberty Puzzle for chrissake. DO NOT bellyache about the price. This is a beautiful, high quality made-in-the-USA product put forth by a small business and you damn well ought to support it.

Can I get an amen?

* * *

How much I love you, you'll never know

I am sappy and I am of a certain age, but (believe it or not) this is what it means to be a Clevelander.

A few conservative chicks and a bunch of liberal chicks

Dear Reader, 

Your humble hostess apologizes in advance for the partisan nature of this post. Also, please be cautioned: the embedded links contain nudity that may offend our more sensitive visitors.

*  *  *

Here is a classic example of a liberal chick.


This chick is a liberal chick.

This chick? Liberal.


A liberal chick.


Could be a conservative chick.


Yet another liberal chick.


Hard to tell, but probably a liberal chick.

Liberal chicks in plastic tubes.


A liberal chick in the round.


Here's a liberal chick.


These chicks are liberal chicks.


And one last liberal chick for good measure.

* * *

Phone cam round-up

Didn't have it in my size. erf.

You mean doing it with the lights on, right?

Leftover balls.

They forgot to add "for use by candy-ass Stepford wives."

You sit under this mutha? You cross your legs and read your "Bad Girl Sex" article in your Cosmopolitan magazine, with one foot bouncing up and down ever so gently?

Baby, you own the world.

Crockpots heart Erin O'Briens.

This, people, is a liberal chalk board.

Giant marshmallow and I love it.

KFC is 100 percent CRAPTASTIC!

Okay. Can I have sex in here instead?

Think I'll buy one and wear it with high heels and nothing else next time I go to the discount grocery. On second thought, maybe I'll add a pillbox hat to the ensemble. Nice.

Unidentified orange fur thingie on the road.

Hi sad little love road puppy.

Hm. Yet another conundrum at the discount grocery. Should I buy the lock de-icer or the Marriott Rochester Airport robe?

Gee. Who knew you could get scampi for just a dollar a bag?

Shoe on the road.

A personal massager for just $5.99? Pass the AA's, baby.

* * *

Window dressing

Back in the seventies, Cleveland was home to a public art campaign that included über-cool murals at various downtown locales. There was a giant electrical socket, a collection of modsters seated on a park bench and the baddest one of all, Batman and Robin.

As a kid, those larger-than-life creations filled me with awe.

Although the murals are long gone, another dynamic duo, Robert Carillio and Joan Smith of Cleveland Storefront Art, is bringing back the same sort of magic to my fair city. I wrote about this hip new downtown phenomenon for this week's issue of fresh water.

Meeting Joan and Robert was an elixir for my soul. In a world of bellyaching, complaining snivelers, these two shine above it all, making stone soup out of nothing and going one step further by turning it into Cleveland chowder.

The above photo depicts one of Cleveland Storefront Art's most ambitious installations. It features Apama, also known as "The Undiscovered Animal." The Cleveland comic book hero is the brain child of Ted Sikora. To my delight when I chatted with Ted for the story, he brought up those great old Cleveland murals.

"When I was a kid growing up, I'd see that big mural of Batman and Robin," Ted told me, "and my face lit up every time. When they took it away, it was a bummer."

Ted is exactly right. The demise of the murals was a bummer for the whole city.

But thanks to Apama, Ted, building owner Joseph Ditchman and Cleveland Storefront Art, local kids have something to swoon about once again.

Cool, man.

Apama is just one of the creations dressing up downtown windows these days. For a more complete peek, check out Cleveland Storefront Art's Flickr pages and don't miss the fresh water article.

* * *

Today's photo courtesy of Joan Smith.

* * *

Hungarian lecho

Did the general readership know that The O'Brien is one quarter Hungarian? Your O'Brien is so down with the Hunky gypsy gig, that if she says this is the recipe for Hungarian lecho, you can bet this is the recipe for Hungarian lecho. So whatever other Hungarian lecho recipes you find out there, this is how you make real lecho and anyone who says anything different can go straight to hell.

This recipe starts off at the West Side Market. You feel like shit? You go to the West Side Market. You amble around. Maybe you buy some artichokes out at the produce stands or you buy some salted licorice at the Mediterranean Imported Food shop. Whatever you're diggin' on at the Market, after a half hour or so, you'll feel better. (And yes, The O'Brien realizes you may not be in Cleveland. If your local farmer's market doesn't have the touchy-feely gig going on, or you don't have a farmer's market, then maybe go to your regular grocery and get a manicure after for chrissake).

At some point, get your ass over to Dohar Meats (stands F-1 and F-2) and get a pound or so of their double smoked garlic sausage.

In the interest of full disclosure, the mother of The O'Brien will tell you to use Eckrich Polska Kielbasa, and you damn well might listen to her. After all, she's packing the 50 percent Hungarian that makes up the 25 percent Hungarian in your humble hostess (who is thankfully going to shift these ramblings out of third person).

Since I'm about to start the recipe proper, I should probably give you a nice neat ingredient list, but I'm not because sometimes I like to be a pain in the ass. That said, I am going to come clean about one thing: when I make lecho, I get all the ingredients lined up and prepared like some miserable goddamn Next Food Network Star wannabe.

Let's go.

Chop one green bell pepper and one sweet red bell pepper into about a half-inch dice and put that in one bowl. Chop one large (like, maybe bigger than your fist) sweet onion (Vidalia or your regular yellow cheap will do) the same way and put that in another bowl. Chop two or three hot peppers (Hungarian or Jalapeno) into a very fine dice and put that in another bowl.

Now then STEP AWAY from the dehydrated garlic, the granulated garlic or (god help us) that candy-ass pre-minced garlic in a jar. Get two or three cloves fresh garlic (although sometimes I use four because I am completely down and righteous) and crush those through a press. Put the mashed garlic in with the hot peppers.

Slice your sausage into quarter-inch thick discs and put that in another bowl.

Melt a tablespoon or so of butter in a pan (I use a 3" deep 12" skillet) with about three tablespoons of olive oil and heat 'r up. Throw in the onion and sauté that for about two minutes. Add the red and green sweet peppers and sauté for another two minutes. (Yes, I use the timer. No I don't like to admit it.)

Now turn the heat down and add the hot peppers and garlic, two tablespoons of water, a tablespoon of Worcestershire, a tablespoon of Tabasco (yes, a whole tablespoon--and I usually use more, you candy-asses), a half cup of ketchup, and salt and crushed red pepper to taste. (When I say taste, it should taste HOT. This shit is supposed to be kick-ass hot, not just "spicy" hot. It should be hot enough to separate the men from the boys or the quirky half-breed Irish Hungarian broads from the Stepford wives.)

Add the sausage for chrissake.

Stir it up proper and cover that mother up. Adjust the heat until you get a nice low simmer and let it ride for 15 minutes. No, you don't need to stir it. No, you won't blow the whole thing if take a peek because you're an impatient dumbass (which I [being completely perfect] have never, ever, ever done).

Now lift the lid and behold your Hungarian Lecho. Yes, those are angels singing behind you.

Add more hot sauce or crushed red pepper if it's not hot enough. Whatever you do, take this advice: make this stuff a day before you're going to serve it. Because if you think it's kick-ass now, it's going to be even kick-assier after 24 hours on account of the flavors "marrying." (I like using important chef terms like that once in a while just to keep you people on your toes.)

Serve the lecho piping hot in a chafing dish* with crackers or small bread rounds as a cocktail snack (and I'm using the word "cocktail" reluctantly--lecho is good ol' Hungarian drinking** food: the more you eat, the more you can drink). That's my favorite way to eat lecho, but people also eat it over rice as a main course. I've been known to spoon it over leftover mashed potatoes for lunch or even over scrambled eggs for breakfast.

However I eat it, lecho brings tears of shear joy to my eyes.

That said, I have a sad, sad, sad cultural addendum to this recipe. Back in the day when the mother of the O'Brien would make lecho and take it to a party, every last bit would be scraped from the dish. Now when your humble hostess whips up a batch, there are almost always leftovers. Oh sure, your old-timer holdout guys will belly up, but the general American palate has pretty much turned candy ass.

Who gives a shit? I will be making hot Hungarian lecho until the day I die.

Kiss my ass.

*Yes, I have a chafing dish. Yes it used to belong to the mother of the O'Brien, and yes I have Sterno. How brilliant am I?

**Lecho or no lecho, you drink Slivovitz with a Hungarian and you're on your own.

# # #

Random pics from outing on January afternoon with Goat

Dog driving car.

In your entire life you will know no joy equal to that of pointing to a pile of unspeakable brown gristle in a butcher case and uttering the words "Gimme a pound of your smoked neck," to a man in a bloody white apron.

Looking two days beyond the Ides of March.

Your humble hostess's greatest temptation: salty European licorice.

Steve's Gyros.

Goat eating gyro of Steve.

COOL new Penzeys Spice store in beautiful old bank building.

The second naked goat I saw today (no comment on the first).

Life. Is. Good.

*  *  *

Sad

Sad is an overused word and it will surely be overused today, but my heart is so heavy over this terrible tragedy in Arizona, I'm afraid I'm out of clever words and bonhomie. I am just so sad.

Let this innocent blood fuel the desire to restore our unity instead of fueling the venom that feeds our vitriol. Everyone please try to build a bridge today. Kiss the babies. Lock up the guns.

Godspeed to the Arizona shooting victims and their families.

* * *

I love this guy

IT IS OK TO FLUSH THE TOILET AFTER USE.

During a visit for a routine examination, your humble hostess recorded the following important documentation at the Cleveland Clinic's Independence Family Health Center, where she did not encounter any families or independence, but she did encounter a number of informative signs.

YOU'RE WELCOME.

Why didn't the "THANK YOU" in this sign garner a period while the "THANK YOU" in the previous sign did?

Bonus points for the underlining.

You seem awfully excited about this news!

And don't worry--ain't no way I'm opening that mutha.

Is this the hand sanitizer I'm supposed to use? Help.

Okay, but frankly, I don't even remember going on a date with him.

Not that it matters at this point, but can you please explain why you didn't capitalize "you" or "are?"

Apparently, this topic has you so flustered that it has erased your ability to punctuate or decide on whether or not to use all caps.

THE O'BRIEN DID NOT DUMP A BEVERAGE OF ANY KIND INTO THE SINK. YOU ARE GREATLY WELCOME.

Well thank God. I never would have noticed the 72 point font if you hadn't highlighted it.

No thanks. I'll just read the signs again.

* * *