Happy Monday

Every Monday I post photos of guys smiling. Happy New Year.

Happy Monday

Every Monday I post photos of guys smiling.

Speaking of exibitionism, just before Christmas every year in Boston & Toronto (and soon, no doubt, to be copied in your own town too) they have this charity event called Santa Speedo Run. I assume it’s the same concept as a “fun run” or disease walk, but with skimpy red bathing suits & chilly weather. From the look of it, it’s mostly guys with an unusually high level of abdominal fitness who participate. It also looks like everybody’s having a lot of fun.

 2005     2006     2007

If you’d like to see the mother lode of Santa Speedo pictures (with women too), check out these flickr sets from 2007, from 2006, and from 2005. Somebody out there really loves charity.

Rear Window

Our next door neighbor, a sturdy lesbian real estate agent, is spending six weeks in Costa Rica over the holidays, and she’s got people taking care of her place. The house is kind of fancy, and the sitters have been entertaining quite a bit. Luckily, they and their friends are pretty goodlooking. I say luckily because I’ve seen them naked several times now.

There are no curtains in the kitchen window over there, and none on ours either; so we’ve got a perfect view. Thing is, her kitchen is the main route to the hot tub in the back yard, and the guests don’t realize how clearly we can see them. Or maybe they do. I suspect that they’re taking advantage of their stranger status to indulge some exibitionist tendencies. I mean, they’ve gotta know.

 View of & from our kitchen window

See the fella there in the green shirt? He’s maybe 25 — has sweet little tat on his smooth, toned chest. The woman house sitting is very clearly old enough to be his mother, but they seem to be having a hot fling. She steals away from the guests in the dining room (we can see them too) to sneak him deep tongue kisses in the kitchen. I’ll be, like, washing dishes, and they’ll go at it right in the window. Uncomfortable!

Oh, and she shaves. You know, down there. Did I really need to see that?

Never thought I’d care, but I’ll be glad when Linda gets home. We’ve all seen her boobs at one time or another, but at least she pretends to be modest.

The Blueback

One thing I like about my friend Brian is that he actually does stuff. He got me to bike out to the gorge this fall and scored us tickets to the Davis Cup finals recently, and a few days ago, he booked us on a submarine tour. That is, there’s a decommissioned sub docked near downtown, and I pass it all the time riding my bike. I’ve been wanting to take a tour for years but never did. Then Brian suggested it, and just days later it was reality.

 USS Blueback at left, Markham Bridge at right. See BIGGER.

Not much to report, but it was quite interesting. There was a diorama onboard comparing international submarine sizes. (Hmmm, looks like Russia is compensating for something.) Subs are pretty phallic, of course, and they are full of seamen. We had a really hard time not making jokes.

 Buttons, dials & knobs everywhere

 The bridge. Lovely panelling, no?

 View through the periscope

 Submarine guts

 Portland skyline & Markham Bridge from the Esplanade at OMSI

Perhaps one thing does warrant special mention: The weather was dry, clear & beautiful — in late December.

Cake Party

Normally, other than baking myself a carrot cake, I hate doing anything for my birthday. But this year it fell on a Saturday, and for some reason I felt like having a party. I was actually quite eager to entertain my friends — to feed em’ and liquor em’ up. Plus, it would be my first birthday party since I turned twenty-two; so it’s been what?…seven years at least. I was over due.

Last year at this time, I had maybe three friends all together. This year, between game night and tennis buddies, I could actually make a guest list. I’ve been a busy bee, and the turnout for my party was great. It was large enough to feel like a crowd, but small enough to flirt …um, I mean talk, with everybody. Some people didn’t show up, but nobody even noticed, which is a great sign.

I had made the snacks for the party a day ahead and at some point realized how Southern it all was. I fixed a bowl of pimento cheese and pretended it was a dip, and everybody loved it. Only the rare Southerners in the crowd were any the wiser. Since it was made with Tillamook mild cheddar instead of Velveeta, I guess you could say I struck a blow against globalized agribusiness by supporting the local food economy, which is exactly what I had in mind, of course.

(If you weren’t lucky enough to inherit your great-grandmother’s pimento cheese recipe, you might want to check out the finalists in the Southern Foodways Alliance Great Pimento Cheese Competition. One of the winners came from the far north — Maryland — which must have cause quite a stir. In her defense, however, she is originally from Georgia, and her recipe really is the best of the bunch. Naturally.)

I also made what we call in Georgia “Cheese Straws,” a “sign of gracious hospitality” according to Lucretia Williamson, my favorite Southern hostess, who was also the source of the recipe. One gal, a native of Arkansas, smiled knowingly when I pointed them out. Her friend, a sweet young man in a bow tie, asked if I knew how to make other “crackers” as well. “Why?,” I asked, “Do you have a lot of dips at home but nothing to eat them with?” Turns out he just likes crunchy food. A lot.

There were other goodies, but the carrot cake was the star of the show. It was practically the whole excuse for the party. I make it from scratch every year and spare no calories in the process. I even double the recipe for the buttercream icing, which by itself weighs three and a half pounds. It is so goddamn rich and, if I do say so myself, so unbelievably delicious. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, rolled their eyes in momentary ecstacy after the first bite.

You’ll have to pardon me here for a moment while I collect myself.

…Okay.

Before I could cut the cake, however, someone grabbed my arm and insisted the crowd sing happy birthday to me. (Again, it’s been, I don’t know, decades since that last happened.) Afterwards I ceremonially blew out a single decorative tea light candle, and then wasted no more time getting to that cake.

Otherwise, it’s all a blur really. Talk talk talk. Drink drink drink. It seems like everyone had fun, and I know I did. When I finally went to bed at 3:30, our kitchen counter was piled high with dishes and bottles. Every plate, fork, and glass we owned sat dirty, and I felt bad for leaving such a mess. But just this once, it was all going to wait until the morning.

Do You Have a Hat?

Today at the grocery store, I wandered through the cereal isle on my way to the candy bars, and I looked down to see a very special box of Cheerios. My friend Geraldo illustrates children’s books, and one of them was going to be distributed in boxes of Cheerios during November & December. One million copies. would be given away.

The boxes had a windows in the front so you can see which of the five books you’re getting. That’s the one I got there: Do You Have a Hat?, illustrated by Geraldo Valério. Pretty darned impressive, I must say.