I should have listened to my Mom

She always told me I need to have a spare set of warm boots in the car during winter. And now here I am broken down on the side of the road in my sandals on the first really cold snowy day of winter. The stupid radiator blew up and spewed green gunk all over the engine and onto the ground. And now my fingers are frozen, and I’m trying to write this blog post using voice recognition and talking like a robot because otherwise it won’t understand me.

I hope the tow truck gets here soon.

My toes are cold. So very cold.

Apple Pie Moonshine

It’s not technically moonshine, but it’s spiked with Everclear, and that’s as close as I’ll probably ever get. This stuff is pretty damn tasty, not to mention cheap and easy to make. There were a few recipes floating around the internet. Here’s what I did.

– 1 gallon apple cider
– 1 gallon apple juice
– 1 1/2 cup sugar
– 2 1/2 cup brown sugar
– 9 sticks cinnamon
– 1.25 liters grain alcohol 151 proof

Bring everything but the alcohol to a boil and then let it cool down. Pour into sterilized mason jars, leaving one of the cinnamon sticks in each. I filled nine quart-sized jars with this ambrosia. The house smells like I’ve been cooking apple pies filled with rubbing alcohol.

I’ve only had this stuff served cold, though it’s probably just as good heated up. It goes down nice and smooth; often a little too quickly. The mason jars are just to be consistent with the moonshine theme. They aren’t necessary, but they make storage easier, since you make such a big batch. They ought to last for months like this. You can give them away as gifts. Come to think of it, I’ve got a white elephant gift party in December. I think I’ve got my gift.

Here in Michigan, we can only get the 151 proof version of Everclear. All other sites recommend the 190 proof version and only using 1 liter. I think the 151 version oughta do the trick though. There were warnings all over the bottle about not getting it too close to an open flame. You don’t really taste much alcohol when it’s mixed in with this drink. It just tastes like grandma’s apple pies, giving you that nice and warm feeling of home while you get fucked up.

To the car with the Jesus-Fish who paid for my drive-thru mocha this morning

One good turn deserves another. I’ve made a donation to the Secular Student Alliance in your name. Thanks!

Halloween

I love this time of year, when the leaves change color, the air gets cooler, and everything gets spooky. It’s a time for bonfires and hard cider; a time for carving pumpkins and seeing how many cats we can fit inside of them.

No cats were harmed in the making of this photograph

It’s an old Gilbert tradition. It never works, but it’s fun to try.

This year we had an extra huge pumpkin grown from radioactive seeds in the in-laws backyard. It was a bit warped and it would only stand upright when upside down, and it’s far too heavy for the neighborhood kids to bother with. Other houses have already had their gourds demolished on the road, but our huge pumpkin is too imposing for the little neighborhood punks. Smashing pumpkins just hasn’t been as thrilling since that shitty band forever tainted the name. Kids just don’t put any real effort into it anymore.

Halloween came and went. Jen worked that night and so I was in the awkward position of having to hand out candy to kids all by myself. I lasted about a half hour into it before it just got too creepy. Not the good, spooky kind of creepy. More like I was a creepy version of Mr. Rogers, alone in my house handing out candy to the neighborhood kids. It’s fine when my wife is there and it’s a team effort, but I’m just not into it enough to go it alone. Piper and I fled to a nearby park so she could run free in the grasses at dusk, and I could stumble around blindly, tripping on branches and ruts.

Halloween brings out the best in people

I love this time of year. We’ve been devouring every cheesy scary movie we can find on Netflix. A few weeks ago, we went to Pittsburgh to visit my brother and his wife, and went to one of their haunted houses, which was much bigger than anything we’ve had here in West Michigan. Now, my wife and I have a different view on these things. I love them but I’m not sure why. I scratch my head, wondering how anyone could be truly scared in one of those things. I mean, you pay people money to have them jump out at you, and you know they’re not allowed to touch you. Knowing that dulls my flight or fight response and I just walk through the thing with a stupid grin on my face, commending the actors on their great performances. My wife, on the other hand, is one who will forever be freaked out by people jumping out and banging on walls, even if she pays them money to do exactly that. I don’t get it. So then she just tails behind me, yanking and stretching my shirt with her little claws and when I scold her for that, she grabs onto my hands and twists my thumbs in directions nature never intended. She may have been the scariest part of the whole ordeal.

It’s November now. Halloween is over and we’re rolling into the holiday season, where we’re all expected to bend over and get sodomized by Father Christmas yet again. Bah-humbug. This year, Jen’s got some time off at the end of November, and we’re going to swing out to Steamboat Springs for some skiing, assuming that it snows. In the meantime, I have a picture of Piper wearing vampire teeth that will be my buffer against Christmas for the next few months.

She's not one of those lame sparkly vampires, either. She'd tear out your throat just as soon as look at you... er, no, she'd probably lick your hand and smell your butt until you petted her. The plastic teeth and scowl are just for show.