Aventuras en la Cocina a Go Go!

 NO I have not forgotten you, my darlings!  No no no.  I was just being lazy. Pure sloth on my part.

So slothful that my magnificent slothful zeal must be caged.   

During this period of inactivity I actually accomplished a lot.  Most of it was boring. I'll spare you that, and instead recount the thrilling tale of How The Biker and FirstNations discovered a meal so holy, so tasty, so satisfying and so filled with cholesterol and saturated fats that even the plaque forming in your bloodstream will feel shame. This manna from Heaven is known as

Birria.       

Our story:  One of the Bikers buddies at work was walking around carrying a styro clamshell which was giving forth an aroma born in Paradise. Naturally The Biker followed this guy around the plant until he trapped him in a filthy restroom stall, kicked him unconscious, swiped his lunch and took a piss on him.

NO!  Ha ha!  That is not what happened at all. Things like that never happen here.  

 WTF UK.  

(Taken from an article in the Mirror. A more sober, reliable source you will not find.) Also, what the fuck's up with the radioactive eyeball dog? WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE DOING OVER THERE?    

Our local Birriaria is in the middle of a tiny little strip mall.  As soon as we walked in we knew we were in for a treat. How?  Because right next to the cash register was a cooler full of Mexican Coca-Cola. (Just - just, dammit, calm down! I'll tell you about Mexican Coca Cola in a sec.  Geeze.)  We get our birria plates. Our meals look...like they've been made by...people with a different food aesthetic. -fine. Not delicious. 

Oh, but they are delicious. 

It's twoo.

Oh, it is! It is!!!!!   

This is how it shapes up. Birria is made in an enormous, enormous pot full of spices, other stuff, lard and Beef. Around the sides of this pot hang colanders full of chicken, turkey, maybe goat, and pork, all simmering in the same consomme, as it's called on the menu (they sell it by the cup!!!!!) They add a little water, a little this and that if the pot gets low, and it just rolls on, getting more complex and tastier.

There isn't a picture in all the webiverse that reveals the true ugliness of birria, so brace yourselves. 

If you order birria cheese tacos, what you will receive looks like a plate full ancient Egyptian rehydrated pussy.

Oh how I wish I were exaggerating.   

 

It just does.  And the next paragraph is just as unnecessarily descriptive.

They grab a plastic platter and lay a piece of checkered paper on it. 

They then lay down one flour tortilla and put cheese on it. Queso Oaxaca, I think. Maybe plain Monterrey Jack.  

Then they lay another flour tortilla on top of that. 

Next they fish around in the truly vast, soul-swallowing vat of birria and pick out the protein of your choice, which has simmered to rags, and splorch it on top. A flood of Consomme mixes with orange - colored oil on the platter. 

They fold this pile of tortillas, cheese and meat in half and then dip it in their deep fryer for a three count.  

It comes out of the deep fryer the color of a flaming sunset (Let's say Pantone Orange 021 HC) and goes straight onto your flooded, paper-lined platter, with a little more of the protein of your choice on top of it all, then a ladle full of the consomme, PLUS six deep-fried serrano peppers in the skin.  

Now as someone who knows their ancient Egyptian dehydrated pussy, I can tell you a lot of things you'd expect from me after a lead in like that.   The thing is, you have to trust me. Birria is ugly, it is bad for you, and it is the most delicious meal The Biker and I have eaten IN. FREAKING. DECADES. 

Oh oh oh crap, yes, the Mexican Coca-Cola. OK.  

Here in the U.S., Coke is made by making Hello Kitty pee in a bottle.  And as tempting as that sounds, it isn't anything compared to the delicious, delicious flavor of Mexican Coca-Cola, which is made using the original recipe just as God intended!  

See the paper label?  That's what Mexican Coke has to have slapped on it in order to be sold in the U.S.A. Basically, they're shipping the original, delicious Coke in from a foreign country back to the country where the original recipe was invented - the same country which now drinks (in blind, market-generated ignorance) a hell-substance made of maltose, corn syrup, and LIES.   

Living on the West Coast, I've known about Mexican Coke since the Eighties, but I guess for a large part of the world this is voodoo magic, so let me be the one to clue you in. Coke used to be made using unbleached cane sugar - and that's it, just unbleached cane sugar - as a sweetener.  It's the Coke we all drank when we were kids.*  Those of you living in climes foreign might find Original Recipe Coke being sold as 'Kosher for Passover' Coke. Either way, BUY IT.  The difference in flavor is unbelievable and you will send me $9000.00 in gratitude for bringing light to your beveragey darkness. 

Now go forth and do whatever it is you do.

_____________________________

*At least everybody but Miss Scarlet, who is only 16. 

Thunder Quill 7 Chuck

 Having once again proven that I can, in fact, offend most of the people most of the time, I shall now move on to the subject of sheep pussy.

-HA I so got you. I did. You know I did. Don't lie.  I totally got you with the sheep pussy thing. 

But speaking of horse condoms, let me express my utter delight at having received a statement from the Social Security Administration telling me all about the pittance I'll be getting after I 'retire'.  Oh, and my Medicare 'benefits', although how anything that amounts to a proffered Band-aide and a glass of tepid water can be called a benefit escapes me. Perhaps because it's better than a peck in the head with a sharp rock?  I say it's relative.  You can get a peck in the head with a sharp rock for free. To get Social Security you have to make a bunch of appointments and fill out things online and sort through reams of mailings. For months.  And Medicare?  Enrollment after enrollment after negotiation after application after turndown after enrollment.

As far as the cash amount goes - let me put it this way.  I just bought four pairs of slacks and four character t's, the combined cost of which adds up to 1/3 of what I'll be getting from Social Security. So if I were single? That means every month for the rest of my life, I could buy twelve pairs of slacks and twelve character t's.  And get a Band-Aide and a glass of tepid water. 

I didn't expect anything different, to be honest.

As things stand, and in the best case, we'll spend our waning days in North Carolina in a tiny home, under the scrutiny of a family member I often find disagreeable. I am not looking forward to the move, or the location, but as I drive past the homeless encampment just down the street from me, I realize things could easily be a hell of a lot worse.  Hopefully by the time it comes to moving South, they'll be letting me have the good drugs.  Hell, if I can still drive, I'll be able to buy them without a prescription, so never mind. I'm good.  

-Where am I going, disagreeable family member?  Oh, I just thought I'd, um, hang out in the parking lot in front of WalMart for a few hours. Need a pair of slacks?  How about a character T?

_______

 

Shake Hands With Beef

Oh, we're gonna go places today, kids.

Yes we are. Heh.  

I'm going to bring the Jimmy Castor Bunch up on stage to lead us in.

"We're gonna go back. 

Way back. 

Back into time. 

When the only people that existed were troglodytes. 

Cave men.

Cave women.

Neandertal.

TROGLODYTES.

Let's take the average cave man at home, listening to his stereo.  

Sometimes he'd get up, start to move. Try to do his thing."

...and sometimes his thing wasn't up to the task, so he went for his cave dildo.    

Look at them. 

Cavewomen! HA.  What we have here are butt toys, snatch toys, and one - damn, #4 - freak of nature.  (And if any of you know Mr. Mago, please let him know about his incredible cultural heritage, would you?)

A couple of these were made to resemble animal dicks.

One of these may have been used on an animal. 

Yes.

To induce oestrus.

 

This is something that still happens. Today. In agriculture. Real, non-fetishy agriculture.  And the most likely animal that a cave dick of this size would have been used on would have been a pig, otherwise known as cheap quality protein, the thriftiest animal going.  The idea is, pig goes into heat on your schedule, pig gets boyfriend, pig has more pigs, we all have ham. Or tiny pig on rye. It's Germany. 

This is a case of having on hand the right tool for the right job. There's the ass cave dick, the snatch cave dick, and the Dammit Irene I can't get this sow going by myself, hand me a #10 cave dick. 

Yes, I've just alluded to man-on-pig action.  Hello, Vase de Noces fans! 

___________________________

  

CAVE SHAMANS   

I want you to ask yourself what all those 'shaman' cave paintings were about. (You:  Damn I wonder what all those shaman cave paintings were about. What an oddly specific, random thought.)  

They call those figures shamans, anyway; a picture of some guy with an animal head and a boner who hangs around with animals. 

This guy is dressed as a pinecone in opera gloves. Bison love that shit.

For years these scenes were thought to depict hunting and magic and animal spirits, the idea being, nobody reads, so you draw a man - animal hybrid. I suppose they pointed to it and said 'This animal headed thing is the animal's spirit, or perhaps it's god. Either way, let's pray for it to die.'   

Now you have to ask "Why a dude?  Why not a woman?" I'll wait.

Could be because the immediate vicinity of the painting was a sacred, male-only cult space, like (blogger of your choice here)'s ass.

Could be that the female 'shamans' were washed off by way-too-Christian explorers. "Oh la," they said, because they talked like that. "That is unspeakably bestial, Satanic, and obscene. Get a bucket and a brush."  

But it could very well be that some of the depictions are about very early attempts at domesticating animals, like a how-to visual aid. Bear with me. Not a pun.

Cave people were smart. That much is fact. And they necessarily noticed very specific things about animal behavior because they needed groceries. 

 Now, key to domesticating animals is 1. Meticulous observation 2. Taking charge of their reproductive cycle, and 3. Habituating them to a human presence. The 'Shaman', then, could just be a visual mnemonic for 'Kids, be like Mr. Proto-Herdsperson here. PH is out there like a badass with his flock, knows animal habits like he was born one of them, and it is absolutely imperative that those gals get the D when it's convenient for you.'  

But. 

It could just as easily mean "Dress up in an animal costume, and then book ass into the middle of a herd of wooly rhinos with an erection."  I'll elucidate after a line of asterixis.

*********  

Now.  What if, and this is a big, big if, so hang on and we'll all get through this together... domestication didn't start out as domestication at all? 

You have to wonder how someone even came up with the idea. Animals RUN AWAY.  They fight back, they're stronger than you, and they're present in their teeming millions in 50,000 - 10,000 B.C.  Domestication is a helluva cognitive leap.

 

What if all this 'I have an animal head and I like to hang out - forgive me- with the herd' art was depicting an initiation task?   Say, one just like the one a couple of well-known motorcycle gangs still put their prospects through?  

"Thats why they call me...Oosik." 

-OK it means a walrus' penis bone. It's called an Oosik. He banged a walrus, OK? Good God this is funny on so many different levels. 

This means that what we thought was "Shaman in the Herd" ochre on stone, artist unknown, c. 50,000 B.C. 

is actually "Initiate In A Stupid Hat About to Fuck a Camel" ochre on stone, artist unknown, c. 50,000 B.C.

You've seen James Herriot up to his shoulder in a cow, right?  He's taking advantage of one of the dirty little secrets of agriculture:  Animals...don't necessarily object. To certain treatment. Ahem. OK like I don't mean chickens, I mean, you know, real animals. Horses and cows and stuff.  You know, animals. 

This really is one theory of how hunters became herders. If you want to verify it, you'll have to dig really really deep and learn anthropological things you really, really wish you hadn't, because then as now, what happens in the herd tends to stay in Enumclaw.  (I dare you to look that up.)

   

So here we are.

It's Rush Week for our man Blarg. He's got his animal head costume. He's out on the mountainside with his crew and they're all like 'Go on! Get out there! Shh! You shhh.' and stuff.   He sneaks up to a filly, casts his bolo, and...that happens.  Yippie ki yo ki yay, Blarg is now a full member of the Concatenated Order of Hoo Hoo. Blarg and Co. go off and party. Meanwhile, the horse, with the scent of Blargs manliness lingering in her nostrils, follows Blarg downmountain for some more of that sweet sweet Neanderdick. And then it's simply a case of 'Can Blarg keep horse? It friendly! Blarg certain.' 

Yes indeed. This very argument has been made. Yes it has. By people with degrees. 

From German universities. 

Vast Pork Crater 114 year!

 I'm going to try to figure out how to re-vamp my comments lounge so that I can reply to posts individually. As I recall, JON had the lowdown on how that happens.  You'll have to repeat that, sonny. Grandma didn't catch it the first time. 

Yeah, I'm all old and shit.  I want to complain about my knees and how I get called 'Grandma' by every little kid in creation lately, but to be honest, I really like being old.  A lot of the bullshit has just melted away. It's amazing to look back and see how the simple act of growing a pair of tits played havoc with my brain chemistry for so many years. Turns out that having had Graves Disease is what complicated menopause and made it last nearly ten freaking years. I would have liked to have known that beforehand. But it's all over now, and I am free of the whole sorry, terrible, adult thing at laaaaaaast!

So the tide is finally out, and what's left stinking on the beach is a minor learning disability and some ADHD artifacts. I only take three medications now, and only one of them is related to me being nuts, and that's -you know what, skip the details, it's 5 mg. Prozac.  That's IT.  That's it. Down from what...seven different prescriptions? Nine is closer. Yeah. Seven or nine.

Yes I went there.  I took the easy path. We all smelled this coming.  

So. I did an old person thing the other day.  

Now, I don't have a Karen personality.  I do not throw tantrums in public, I don't take meth, I don't stomp my gogo boots and shout for the manager and scream-cry.   But yeah, I was using the self-checkout at Fred Meyers and it borked because I was buying a fifth of Bushmills and had to wait for a 'customer service' person come look at my picture ID to see if I was old enough. Take a moment to consider the irony. 

Five minutes later, the customer service person, who had been standing ten feet away from me jacking her jaws, came over. Then I had to wait for ten more minutes while the machine adamantly refused to accept her employee code six times in a row.  Then the rotating red assistance light on the check stand went on, and all the clerks rolled their eyes and sighed. At that point I said, conversationally, 'You know what, I'm done. Fuck this place. ' It was a conversational 'fuck' not an abusive 'fuck'. Anyway, yeah. Then I just walked out.

I surprised myself.  It came so naturally.  I didn't feel an ounce of guilt.  I was not mad. I was just done, and out I walked.  Old me does not care that three teenagers were inconvenienced by having to put my Bushmills on the re-stock shelf. Note also that Old me would have kept her fat yap shut if there'd been anybody behind her in line. Ahoy! I shouted, but there be no answer a-commin, ner a sail t' be seen! 'ARRR!' sez I! Then by Davey Jones and all the divils in burnin' Hell....

Release the Kraken!    

'And down ye go and be gone wi' ye, for I'll ne'er shop t' aisles o' yer  grocery store agin!'  Or whatever a person who had a kraken to release would say in my situation.  

OK I just went and looked at this thing in Images (duh) and found this kraken picture:

You know what that thing looks like?  Cloverfield.  Serious as a heart attack. 

Cloverfield is excellent!  Even the sea lice were excellent! And how many movies can you say that about? Not too many, Spanky.  

They could completely be from the same genus, just different species.  Although Cloverfield (spoiler alert!) is extraterrestrial.  After extensive research I have concluded that Cloverfields come from meteorites.  

The first ones landed here on that meteorite that wiped out all the tracheotosaurs and had been running around on the sea floor eating dead Aztecs (because of the cenotes!  That meteorite split into pieces and went all birdshot on the Yucatan Peninsula and drilled it full of holes that filled up with water. What do you do with something like that in your Aztec back yard? You throw other Aztecs into it. The Cloverfields smell that happening and dig passages from the ocean to the cenotes and eat the dead Aztecs. Keep up.)  Then one branch split off and migrated to Greece, where it mutated into Krakens.  Or a single Kraken.  And then it ate Argo.

The Argo corn starch lady is a super foxy corn lady.  

_____________________________________

There is nothing to compare to being able to follow one's interests in solitude.  I love my solitude.  This is another thing I've discovered since I turned old all of a sudden. Solitude is bliss!   

When I think of all the quality time I lost due to feeling pressured to go out into public and interact, I want to weep.  I spent way too much time worrying 'Am I social enough?' and not nearly enough time doing interesting things like undertaking extensive research in order to reveal how a kraken/the kraken is descended from Cloverfields. We didn't even know about Cloverfields until 2008. Fun fact!

I also just read The Vision of Tundale which is a super trippy piece of writing that came along, quite conveniently, about the same time that the Church invented Purgatory. This caused the French to build the Cathedral of Autun for lepers, who have leprosy because they are, for real, God said, suffering the actual torments of Purgatory right here on Earth in front of your face. Then Dante, not to be outdone by people with chunks falling off of them, got on the Purgatory bandwagon and whipped out The Inferno, The Purgatorio (see?) and the Paradisio.  Finally it was 1452 and DaVinci said this is really getting stupid. He cut up a bunch of dead people, drew pictures of it, and then he moved to France and died.  This is why France sucks. 

____________________________________

Inexplicable DeVice just had a birthday!  And how lucky is he, who is a them, to be able to celebrate numerous birthdays simultaneously?  I gave them a birthday gift and everything. The Mistress even threatened him with a cake!  Did YOU?  Go threaten IDV with a cake. Go do it now.

Welcomed back into the fold (since the introduction of motorized sheep, this phrase now carries more of a...medical...image than it should) is former Miss Alternative Ireland (she isn't even Irish!  Seriously!) roller derby queen and newish bride NOSHIT SHERLOCK!  AKA Sophie!  The very first soul I ever claimed, back when this was Paul and not Steve. She even has an icky nephew!

  -maaaaaan, going for the easy shot once again.  I am ashamed. Still, you keep looking at this picture, and...it just...  

Wow this is enough excitement for me. I'm going to go rest. Go play your Beatles records backwards. Or muse upon the words of Beck '...through the garbage pail sky, like a giant dildo crushing the sun.'  It's a good song.  I mean do whatever.

Forensic Jelly Tornado Eleven !

Now, I like dogs.  I do. 

But here's my question:  Who decided that it was OK to bring your dog everywhere?  When did that become just fine? What happened to commercial public health and hygiene certificates? Businesses were required to have one and display it. One of the clauses was 'absolutely no animals on the premises.' You could get your business license pulled. One cockroach is all it took, let alone someone's Standard damn Poodle.

Bring on the service dogs. They're heroes.   No, what I don't like is when you're sipping your oatmeal stout and someone's Bernese Mountain Dog lifts his leg against the corner of the bar and nobody acts like it's a problem. I don't like going into a grocery store all full of dogs sniffing each other's butts and dragging around loaves of bread, and I don't like wondering 'Is this brown smear on the floor human or canine?'

Bellingham is the official capitol of 'Love Me, Love My Dog Using Your Premises Like A Toilet.'  Dear visitor, do NOT under any circumstances, buy or touch anything in this town that is stocked below knee level, in any store. Any. Store.  I mean it. This goes particularly for the Food Co-Op and Trader Joes.  

What the fuck is it about Trader Joes? I mean, look what I found:

Y'alluns over in the UK might remember this one. Or not. Maybe you were all high and shit.   Moment dog tied to trolley urinates at Trader Joe's | Metro News  

 Clearly it's the dog owners who are the problem. Pity it's against the law to smash their heads against the curb, because this is a problem that demands a human head be smashed against a curb. At first I was going to say 'rub their noses in what their dog did' but you risk offending the dog. 

Thing is, here in Bellingham, it's not just dogs. It's also miniature horses; I kid thee not, cats, medium sized pigs, rats, goats, ferrets, chickens, snakes, rabbits, possums, raccoons, parrots, wolves, mice, hamsters, coyotes, guinea pigs and lizards.  

This is not cool. I am not impressed. I do not want to stand behind you in the checkout line and watch your obese shoulder rat take a shit down your back.  There is no reason in the world that you need to bring a goddamn lizard into Discount Tires. It's not an emotional support animal. It's a fucking lizard. Nobody thinks you're cool. They think you're the type of person who identifies as wolf-kin, has a hundred stickers on their car, and is too chickenshit to get a tattoo.

 Yeah I chose the California plate on purpose. I'm from the PNW. We're required by law to rank on the Golden State. 

And another thing. Ducks do not belong in a credit union, and ducks do not need shoes. Yet duck shoes are a thing.   And naturally, you can buy them at WalMart. FAIOIN Waterproof Lightweight Pet Duck Shoes Casual Walking Booties Footwear for Small Ducks Gooses Outdoor Duck Booties - Walmart.com

Duck shoes. Shoes for a duck. With sizes. For duck feet.  Plus the duck was wearing a duck diaper. It was a pink duck diaper with flowers on it. This is Petit Trianon - level dorkage and I will not stand for it. This is exactly the kind of person who's going to claim 'This is my emotional support animal!" and they're going to need all it's duckly powers of support if I catch them in my credit union again because I plan to unleash the gospel of the Elder Gods on that B.S.

This is my emotional support animal. Now make your case, duck-shoer.

Welcome Bang Bang Happiness Boat: Very 6

What a pleasure it's been to catch up with y'all!  And look at you all still keeping the faith!  My heartfelt thanks and gratitude, folks.

See, I do this. Big tramautic shit happens, and I jump ship for a year.  And I don't see it as a charming foible either; it's not an attribute I am proud of in any way.  Still, there it is - I retreat to my Rancho of Solitude and go incommunicado.  Even with the outside world.

How this has fucked me well and truly this time around is that, between me crawling into a hole and pulling it after me, and two years of Covid, I am now three years out of date. On everything.

That's a lot these days, come to find out.

I went on a news blackout.  Oh, a few things slipped in (I've been following the slowly sinking plague ship that is Trump and all he claims with the greatest imaginable enjoyment), but on the main I just didn't keep up.  Dang. Some shit happened out there.  And you folks are getting around!  Ikea-ABBA concerts and trans-world romps, pun intended if you so desire, and babies and graduations and new love affairs - wow!

Me?  I  

1. Re-examined and finally altered my study objectives,

My hero. Been studying his life and times for over twenty years. No shit. Me. Your secret Italian Renaissance specialist. Yup.  

AND

2. Began reading 'The Classics' in a serious way.

And you know what?  I'm happy.  To be able to devote whole, uninterrupted days to my study interests is the most satisfying thing I've done in years.  I can't garden anymore, but dammit, I can still grow my brain.  

I am reading all the classics, too, like The Epic of Gilgamesh and shit like that, not just English lit, because the Earth is round and covered in people and has been for a longass time and I need to read the words of all the people.  They have important things to say. 

Looking forward to the Tale of Genji. Fuckin' A right, I know how to party.   

I'm glad I waited until I was in my sixties to hit 'The Classics' because I would not have had the necessary context laid down in order for some of this to slot into place. For instance, I just finished 'Silas Marner.'  If I'd had to read that back in High School -when U.S. kids of my generation were traditionally made to choke down 'Moby Dick' 'The Mill On The Floss' 'Beowulf' and all things Jane Austen - I would have thrown Silas across the fucking room. and said screw English Literature. Give me drugs. NOW.  I would have grown up good for nothing but lying on a couch eating Cheetos and dipshitting around on my phone because my brain would be a vast empty wilderness full of vast emptiness.

And Cheetos. Yuck. Rather have a mouthful of dick than Cheetos.  Wouldn't you?    

I won't bore you with my reading list. But one thing I have determined after numerous dips into the pool is I SURE IN THE FUCK plan to avoid Jane Austen because NO. 

This is exactly the kind of content I turn to when I want to be entertained - the facile doings of a bunch of self-conscious high-school soshes with too much money, in a Regency setting.

I read Jane Eyre, it was good, and that's all the rural minor nobility/ class struggle/ dance of manners and taste I need for the rest of my goddamn life.  Have I tried reading Austen? Yes. Many times, over the years. And many times over the years, Jane Austin took a flying lesson across the room. Bam hit the wall every time. Fuck Jane Austin.  Now Oscar Wilde? OH YES INDEED. Come here you Stephen Frye-looking mad bastard you.  Charles Dickens?  Just about anybody else?  Get on in here!  Group hug! 

Heady stuff, I know. Working up a sweat here just thinking of all that page-turning and shit.

______________________________________

Here's your assignment:  Tell me about your hobbies in the comments!  I mean yeah, tender the usual praise and worship but I'd love to know about all the illegal shit you're up to. Or even if it's perfectly legal; I don't care! G'head!

NOTE: MISS SCARLET, HOW DO I GET AHOLD OF YOU?????

             DINAHMOW! HOW THE Freakin' Freak DO I GET AHOLD OF YOU????

            Both of you please shoot me a viable link. I miss y'alluns.

Fifty Mushroom Detail Dance - Electric!

 Shit: together. Happy, fat and sassy. Hot biker husband still hot, husbandly and bikerlike. 

Former Sumas property?  SOLD.  Made money. Paid in full.  Then the Feds changed all the building regulations for Sumas. Now the poor dude who bought the place can't develop it.

FIMA money?  Funny you should ask. 

Garden?  What was not given away has been looted, and I am 100% OK with that.  

House and property? It's been almost a year since I last drove past the place, and not a single thing had been touched, repaired, hauled away or cleaned.  The city had an 'upkeep notice' posted in the yard.  No longer my problem.

____________________

Get ready for a lot of ellipses and dashes.

____________________

In Washington State, it is absolutely legal to purchase, grow and carry around marijuana. Has been since 2013. 

I have a retail outlet I like and frequent.  It's located in an old drive-thru coffee hut, and I adore the whole concept.  From 'Three seeds in your purse = seven years in jail' to 'Hi! My name is Cleome, I'll be your budstress today! May I take your order?'  (And yes, budstress is a real term. 'Budtender' is the male version.  I know.)   

 I buy a couple of pre-rolls every month or so because I'm a cheap date. It doesn't take much to get me roasted. These days you can just name your preference - mine is indica, locally grown - and off I go,  and I buy me two fat swaggy cones for 1970's prices. Life is GOOD in my old age.  I no longer have to visit vile freaky houses in the middle of the night and freeze my ass off in the rain waiting for a baggie to be handed out through the fuckin' cat door.

Now, because I came of pot-smoking age in the 1970's, I save my roaches. I remember the Great Marijuana Drought of 1976.  The government sprayed crops willy-nilly, from Alaska to Mexico, rumors of paraquat and genocide abounded, paranoia spread throughout the land, and all you could find was $25.00 a 1/4 Mexican Dirtweed,  or homegrown - which was not kolas, kids. It was shade foliage and stems. For $25.00 a 1/4.  That's $114.71 goddamn dollars in 2023 US cash. So yeah, you saved your roaches.

So here I am in the future with a buttload of roaches.

I go online to look up new methods of using roaches, trying to stay up to date and all, maybe learn some new technique, and what do I find? CHEMISTRY EXPERIMENTS.  All this shit using butane and sub-zero freezing equipment and lab ethanol and honestly, after three pages of this, and reading numerous comments on forums that went 'Ew yuck! Just throw them away! Ew!  Nasty! They're useless! Gross! Barf!' and so forth, I had to back off and have a beer.

I'm assuming some of you are being frugal and saving your roaches too.  And it's possible that I am preaching to the choir. In case I am not though, no no no. No yuck. No throwing away of roaches.

No no no no no.

You take those roaches, cut them into tiny shreds with a scissors and you soak all that in FUCKING VODKA.  I mean Good Gravy Marie people, this is not rocket surgery.  If some sad child o' the Eighties is going to get squicky about the flavor, NUT UP.  This is not meant to be snorked and slurped and gazed at thoughtfully or rolled around in the mouth like a fine wine you MORON.  Listen to Grandma. You pound this. Boom. Down the hatch. We caught up?  OK.

What follows is an unnecessarily detailed recipe. 

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Don't throw away your roaches. Instead, make

Tincture of Roach

1 pint - Cheapest Vodka (or any high-test hard alcohol) you can find, in bottle, with lid

All -  your roaches, rendered into little pieces with lots of surface area via whatever means

Instructions:

1. Pour yourself a shot of vodka. Drink it.  Now that you have room in the bottle, dump the roach fragments into the pint of vodka (or what have you.)  Cap it tightly and then shake for as long as you can deal with shaking this container.  Contents will turn black-brown and get thick and chunky. Keep shaking. Enlist the efforts of others.  Shake this bad boy UP.

2. Store in a cool, dark place for 30 days.  This basically means not next to a fireplace or a heat duct.  Room temp is just fine.  An unheated garage would be optimum, but there's really no reason to take things that far.  As far as the darkness goes, I don't really know how this works or doesn't work; just do it my way because it's Muk tested and Muk approved.

3. After 30  days, shake again for a ridiculously long time.  Replace in cool dark place.

4. Wait 30 more days. 

4.5 At the end of those 30 days, remove from cool dark place. Do not shake. Do not agitate. Let it settle.  In the meantime, ready a clean, empty glass container with a generous mouth, fitted with a funnel in which a coffee strainer has been placed.

5. Being careful not to agitate the nasty weird guck that is your vodka and roach mix, tip it slowly into the coffee filter.  The upper portion of this liquid should be a clearish yellow color, and there should be a bottom layer of pure evil.  Carry on. Fear not. Simply tip the clear stuff s l o w l y through the filter, and then follow it with the sediment.  Dump it all out and let it sit there in the coffee filter, straining away into the clean glass container, overnight.

6. Next day!  Good morning! You now have a clean glass container filled with tobacco yellow fluid that has a bottom layer of black sediment.  It will smell like a used ash tray full of vodka. This is what you want. Yes it is. Don't argue.

7. Throw away the coffee filter and its horrifying contents. Don't bother squeezing them to get the last drops. It's spent. Get rid of it.  Wash the funnel.  Pitch the empty pint. Wash your hands.  Now - put a lid on the filtered liquid you collected in the clean jar and put it in the refrigerator.  

YOU'RE DONE!

How to use:  

A real Viking will unscrew the lid, take a slash and pass it around to his/her fellow Vikings, who will also take a rip and not bitch about how it tastes. You're a Viking, right? Like you give a shit!  Tomorrow you're gonna rape a bunch of nuns! 

Non-Vikings: Mix with the undiluted Torani syrup of your choosing.  Man, do NOT use peppermint or cherry flavoring because there will be projectile vomiting. I don't know why this is true but it is.

Bon vivants: Mix like any cocktail that uses vodka as an ingredient and pretend you don't notice the burning restroom flavor.

It'll hit you in about 15 minutes.  Take a few moments to savor and assess this state of being, and then proceed with due care. Believe me, this stuff is potent (and here your persnickety ass was going to throw those roaches away? For shame!) 

So there you go.  No Freon, no Pyrex containers, no burning motor homes.  Far from being waste, roaches are a prime source of crunchy brain fodder.  For the shamefully low price of a pint of shitty vodka you can have hours of fun. I like to spend that time misusing lighters and aerosol hairspray.

Bonus Fun Fact!

If you've been worried about intestinal parasites, worry no more, bucko. Vodka-Roach tincture, once ingested, will kill everything in you that isn't you, and some of it might still be recognizable the next time you take a dump (oh yes) so if you're into that kind of thing, be on the lookout. No I am not joking.

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How you doin'?