12 July 2008
 
Big Pink Meatloaf

 
I am way behind this morning- sleep is good, and this was a hell of a week for frantic activity- but now it is pushing eight o'clock and I have a road trip to accomplish this afternoon, and the pool is going to be a miss altogether if I do not get my ass in gear. When I stumbled out of the kitchen I saw the Union=2 0crew headed out for their weekly golf outing, and I was thankful I had no impending tasks that required fine motor skills.
 
I knew where some of them had been last night, and it was likely to be ugly on the course.
 
Joining the parade late made the news a little surreal. Tony Snow is a real loss. Another great journalist gone. He did the objective part of it for 27 years- the same amount of time I spent as a Spook- and he is dead at 53. 
 
You know something has changed when you hear that and think "young." Colon cancer, not like the heart problems that did in Tim Russert. He was 58, if I recall correctly. They have me bracketed, in the terminology of naval artillery, and they may be getting the range correct.
 
Then the Macs- Freddy and Fannie Mae on the brink of collapse, and another apparently taken over by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to avoid default. IndyMac, they say it is, and I never heard of it. The talking heads say it is the second largest financial institution to fail in American history. I don’t know what that means, except that we have not got to the bottom=2 0of the slump yet, and that is not good news.
 
At least the tooth does not hurt. I had more chemicals in my mouth than a swimming pool yesterday, and it left me dopey all day. The chemicals came from the hefty does of Novocaine and the fast-setting molds that my little Persian dentist with the dark almond-shaped eyes placed at the very back of my mouth- before and after the $1200 of painless dentistry. Apparently the grinding of my teeth at night had shattered the left rear molar. The back half detached a couple weeks ago, was patched, and then the front departed on Wednesday with a catastrophic failure. Now it is a crown of gold, and not the kind that comes with the power to do great good or evil, and a temporary cap for three weeks until it is ready.
 
Meanwhile, the proposal on counterintelligence support had to get done, and thank God there some people available between assignments to give assistance to Big Len the Proposal Manager, or I would have been working till midnight Weds and Thursday night. Poor guys. They smelled of wrinkled clothes the last time I saw them on Thursday, and I clucked sympathetically as my tongue found the cavernous hole in my tooth for about the fifteen thousandth time.
 
I have no idea how to stuff all this into one sack. The fuel crisis has sparked an interest in scooters and motorcycles. Since I live so close to the office, I have been thinking about getting one rather than the high-octane Hubrismobile. The Old Dominion insists that any motorcycle over 59cc’s in displacement requires rider certification, and the logical thing to do is to take the mandated safety course just in case.
 
A scooter with an engine small enough to avoid the requirement is an embarrassment, like a dog that weighs less than ten pounds. It is a rat, not a canine.
 
Anyway, in view of the rush to Green of everyone who hates the high fuel costs, all the certification courses in Northern Virginia are full for months. A slightly more expensive basic riders course is available in Richmond, an odd one, since the class work is on Sunday, and the on-the-road part is Monday and Tuesday. There was still a slot open, and I paid for it weeks ago, before I knew what was going to happen with the Congress and the failure to pass the Supplemental, which jammed up all the contracts we are bidding on, and the consequent frantic pace of everything that is going on now to move the money out the door before the Fiscal Year expires at the end of September. 
 
It is frankly bewildering. There are five contracts worth millions that are in the proposal preparation phase, some of them classified, which just adds to the complications, since I am the only one with a badge to get access to the government facilities to pick up the taskers and deliver the products.
 
I have not had a weekday off in a very long time, so I signed up for it, not knowing how crazy it was going to be, and damn the torpedoes, I am going to go anyway. 
 
That is what led to the meat-loaf. A man has to eat, and I was getting ravenous after having my mouth numbed all day.
 
I happened to be at the Commissary at mid-week, shopping for a dinner I had obligated myself to cook, and working over the weekends had completely screwed up my little routine f or keeping body and soul together. I happened to be there the day that the nearly-expired fresh meat products are frozen and put out for sale at steep discount. They have a freezer case full of strange goodies that occasionally has something tasty and normally has ox-tails or worse. 
 
There was one of those packages of veal, pork and beef all ground up for meatloaf or meatballs, and I grabbed it to have a main course for the weekend before heading out the door for Richmond, and it was out on the counter thawing when I roused myself from the collapse that happened after I finally got the classified proposal delivered to the Government at two, ran back to the office to answer e-mails and summarize what had happened in the fast-paced world of Defense Contracting before and after the Persian ground down my molar.
 
I was still woozy from that. I suspect that my air of disassociation and relief is why I left my cell phone in the little locker they make you put them at the Government facility. You cannot have two-way communications devices inside the building for the usual reasons, and the mandatory surrender of such things is required. I’m always afraid I will forget, and have to go through the whole airport security drill again.
 
That meant another trip, and I couldn't figure out which of the e-mails was more important, but I knew that I had to have my phone. The whole thing made me feel foolish and a little helpless. Once I had the phone back, I entered into an important conversation that made me feel both stupid and inarticulate.
 
A nap, and the pool was the only sequence of events that could salvage anything of the day. Sleep to let the last of the chemicals wear off, and exercise to wake up again. I took a couple Motrin to deaden the sensations from the back of my mouth, and mixed a drink and began to assemble the meat-loaf that would cook nicely while I was in the pool.
 
Big Pink Meat Loaf
 
Ingredients:
One package ground Pork, Veal and Hamburger, remember to thaw
Bread crumbs
One egg
Finely diced onions and mushrooms to consistency
Frank's Lousiana Hot Sauce
Dash Lee & Perrins Worchestershire sauce
Garlic salt
Course Ground pepper
Note: you can get creative here. Eyeball Meatloaf has a hard-cooked egg molded in the middle. Adding chopped olives, capers, or pimentos yields a tasty olive loaf. Tomato sauce makes it festive. Grated cheese can be incorporated. Be creative, what the hell. Clean out the fridge before it all goes bad.
 
Directions: 
 
Mash the mess with your hands until the consistency is uniform. Try to remember to wash hands first. Mold into shape of choice. You can do metaphors. I did a large flat semi-igloo shape on this version, since I intend to get a meal out of it and then slice up the remainder for cold sandwiches. You can do political or relationship imagery. Place loaf in Pyrex-brand baking dish and insert in oven on low heat, depending on how long you are going to be in the pool. Fail to estimate the impact of what might be happening at Tony’s downstairs. Cook long enough to render the fat out, drain and replace with a finger or two of tomato juice in the dish to simmer. Go downstairs and find the Ornamental Concrete Workers have started this summer day early, and are in full swing at Tony’s bar. Belly up to bar and join party. Hang out and get completely shit-faced until you remember the loaf is probably on fire or something. Plunge in pool before the Czech Lifeguard padlocks the enclosure and goes back to the group home where Czar Peter has them sequestered during non-working hours. Consider an offer of taking over the International's media portfolio with a mandate to re-empower the American Working Man. Imagine a world with no classified material, one in which all weekends and holidays are sacred and inviolate. Marvel at the great scabs on the young man's face and shoulders from where he crashed his bicycle when he was drunk last weekend, and then consider what can happen on two wheels at speed and the prospects of what is waiting in Richmond. Eventually, wander back upstairs to find that the loaf is just perfect, and you are not hungry at all.

Copyright 2008 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com