Can a person die from too much Kringle? I have tried. And why does it all come from Racine, Wisconsin? Why not Denmark? Do Danes in Wisconsin have the actual recipe? This pillowy danish with crack cocaine icing and nuts on top. I eat it standing up with no fork or plate and seal the bag to maintain freshness. This one’s pumpkin flavored so no one will touch it and that is just fine by me.

Can a person die from too much curry? I made three last week. And secretly fantasize/wish I were Indian. I will never get my sauce to taste like that but will never stop trying.

Once you train your palette on spicy foods it’s impossible to stop. I keep upping the ante with the Thai chili peppers and powders and pushing the envelope with my wife and kids. Fanning their mouths with one hand gasping. Shaking their heads, leaving more of it uneaten. I scrape their plates back into the pan with the leftovers. Germs die upon reheating. This is how people by the equator survived for centuries without refrigeration: the heat kills intestinal worms, carves your insides out.

But tonight I gave everyone a break and made zucchini carbonara with fresh basil and fettuccine, lots of Parmesan. It’s as good at room temperature. The zucchini soaks up the olive oil and I blast everything with cracked pepper. That, then the Kringle. Standing in the dark of the kitchen like a drug addict, wolfing it down.

We’ve been watching Breaking Bad finally, and gotten into the muck of Walter White’s collapse, the Möebius strip of morality and crime. It reminds me of the role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons, how you determine a character’s alignment as lawful good, chaotic evil, etc. It’s based on their moral and ethical outlooks.

They keep playing with these themes of good and evil; the more complicated characters (like Walt) toggle between the poles, agonize over it. The complication comes in the choosing.

(Earlier)

Someone owned a little house by the horse farms right next to the equestrian center. It was painted red like a country shed with white trim, mullioned windows, and a shallow front porch with a kid’s bike leaned by the door and a folded wooden chair. On the corners of the porch were two footings to stabilize the structure and these were made of river rock and cement. It was set back from the road a ways making it look even smaller. They’d chosen good colored lamps for the front porch, a warm amber, and the lights were always on.

It could not have been bigger than one bedroom with a small kitchen and bath. I wondered who lived there and fantasized one day maybe we could, after the kids moved out. Right behind the house was a massive tin structure with high ceilings and halogen lamps and this must be where they kept the tractors and hay. They probably had surveillance cameras, guns. The lights were always on there too.

The rain was falling lightly and gave a pleasant sound like TV static or a wood fire burning. Cars made a swooshing sound on the main road, frogs too. The sky turned gray pink—more the former—a solemn November tone with the bare trees silhouetted against the clouds.

It made you appreciate light all the more this time of year, a bit of wan cheer, a little hope. I didn’t mind the folks who put their Christmas lights up early; I stopped begrudging them. You could imagine how the lights would look like stars peering down from a plane with the perspective flipped. Same with the lights from a distant car or the street lamps lining the streets, making constellations.

We were stuck in our ways and more so as we aged. Imagining us starting a new life somewhere else or traveling, we often fantasized about that. But we had everything we needed right here. The complication comes in the choosing, or having yours taken away.

Categories: Creative Nonfiction, Errata, Humor

Tags: Creative Nonfiction, Memoir, pacific northwest