Entries by Rick Clyne

I had a nice salad for lunch yesterday and some minestrone soup. Then I had to go potty, so I grabbed a cup of coffee and my Kindle, intending to make the most of it.

Everything was going great until I took a sip of coffee. As I returned the cup to its perch on the handrail, I didn’t balance it correctly. It slid off, crashing into my thigh. Coffee splattered everywhere, including all over my Kindle, and on some other things too. This upset me, and I struggled to keep me shit together.

After 15 or 20 minutes, I’d calmed down sufficiently to snap a photograph using my I-tunes-touch-pod-nano-pad, as shown in Figure 1, below. I think it really captures the tension in the room. I’m scheduling a post-mortem / lessons-learned session for next week to identify causal factors and develop and action plan to mitigate the risk of event reoccurrence.

This is a terrible lunch blog entry, although I’m proud of myself for using the word perch in the second paragraph.


Figure 1. The collateral damage from Ricky’S lack of focus and inability to successfully prioritize

I've written numerous web logs about attempting to eat lunch on the golf course and ending up with condiments all over my shirt, or my face, or my trousers. I've also promoted the salami and provolone sandwich as safe alternative.

On Saturday I took my own advice, buying a pre-made sandwich at the grocery store before heading to the course. As I took my first bite of it on the 10th hole, I became contemplative, comfortable with my superior ability to strategize and execute on an effective lunch approach. I captured the moment with a photograph. I call it Salami Sandwich Still Life with Tees and Golf Glove. Take a good look at it. The shadows add quite a bit of drama, don't you think?

This image was deceptively powerful. The guy who took the photograph--using his I-touch-phone-tunes-pad--couldn't shake it off for 2 or 3 holes, resulting in a string of double bogies and pathetic excuses muttered under his breath about "Ricky'S stupid lunch blog."


Figure 1. Salami Sandwich Still Life with Tees and Golf Glove

You know what else comes in a tube? My hemorrhoid ointment and my denture cream. And they taste awful too. I fear a lunch like this is insufficient to fuel the engine of thought-leadership.



Figure 1. Forget about this terrible lunch. Notice the nice carved wooden figure of the oriental guy riding the water buffalo behind the tube of crap. I keep that on my desk so my co-workers will know that I am frivolous and light-hearted.

Sunday we skied at Vail. I was happy because it snowed the night before and I skied the first half a dozen or so runs as if I were a young man, with the soft, forgiving powder fueling my delusions of superior physical ability and virility.

Reality set in around 12:30, when I started whining and feeling sorry for myself. My skinny little legs were no longer responding to directions from my brain. I won't lie to you: I was cranky and tired.

When we returned to the bottom of the hill, I remembered it was lunch time. I bought a piece of lemon pound cake and a can of Dr. Pepper. That gave me a burst of energy for about 25 minutes, and I believe I was at my most charming and witty during that period. It wore off, though, and I quickly returned to being unpleasant and irascible.

With age, I think I’m starting to get a little jowlly. Not like John Madden or anything. But I’ve noticed some jiggling.

I had a Battle Ax salad and some black bean soup for lunch today. I made the soup last weekend and it came out good. When it comes to cumin, I lose all sense of self control. What did I do before the immersion blender? I can’t recall.

Anyway, while I was eating, I looked down at my desk and noticed a theme. Black beans, black bowl, black spoon…even a black mouse. Then I noticed how well my mustard-colored desk pulled it all together. Check it out:


Figure 1. Ricky wore blue jeans today. Can you tell? Once, they were called dungarees.

When I was a wee boy, before I started school, there were no other kids in the neighborhood my age. Everyday my mom would stuff me into my undersized winter coat, buckle me into the back seat, and force me to go to every shopping mall on Long Island with her. In 1966, malls were at the apogee of their post-war suburban glory.

Mom was thrifty, so she would shop for hours and never, ever buy anything. This was brutal on a precocious, hyper-intelligent child like myself. You can only pull boogies out of your nose and flirt with the pretty-smelling cash register ladies for so long before your patience wanes.

However, if I behaved myself, mom would buy me a hot dog for lunch. And if was a really good boy and I didn’t smear snot all over my face, she’d buy me a Match Box car too, but that was rare because—even back then—my nose was large and hard to manage.

These days, when the Battle Ax forces me to go to the mall with her on the weekends, I always bring my Kindle. I’m content to camp-out in the asshole chair, read, and drink coffee. When I look up and see her approaching, beaming with swollen shopping bags, I immediately crave a hotdog, and I instinctively check the tip of my index finger.

Did you notice how I used the word apogee in the first paragraph? How pretentious.

“He’s in a searching place right now.”

I pretended to reach into my pocket for my keys just so I could turn around to see who had said this. It was a middle aged woman in casual attire, but she was a little too well coiffed to pull off the laid-back crunchy housewife act. Across the table, her friend’s furrowed brow conveyed both sympathy and concern.

I interpreted it to mean her old man was having an affair. I turned back to my fish tacos and Kindle. I’d put too much lime juice and hot sauce on my tacos, so with each bite, a spurt of watery orange fish juice leaked out the other end. I had to lean over the plate so as not to soil my trousers.

“He’s starting to look inside himself.”

This stopped me in mid chew, with a length of shredded cabbage hanging from my lips. It was a younger woman, no doubt, probably someone he’d met at church.

On my plate the pool was growing and now I was worried about splattering fish juice all over my oatmeal-colored cardigan. I slid the plate over a bit so the next drop would land more toward the edge. On my Kindle I was reading about the fall of the Berlin Wall, and I was just getting to the good part where Lech Walesa pretends he knows how to read.

“He’s beginning to notice himself.”

Uh-oh. Dude’s already talked to a lawyer.

I finished the last bite and wiped my hands on my napkin. I rose and inspected myself. No stains.

Yesterday I had a leftover turkey sandwich for lunch. I like it with a lot of mayo and black pepper. I also nibbled on some cold stuffing as sort of a side dish. I ate it with my fingers.

I watched a football game while I ate but I wasn’t really paying attention. My mind was elsewhere, thinking about all the cool stuff I wanted for Christmas but didn’t get.

I shuffled back over to the kitchen and scraped the second-to-last piece of the pecan pie onto a plate. The whipped cream I’d made on Christmas day was in the fridge and was starting to get a little liquidy. You know how after a few days it starts to revert back to just heavy cream? That’S what was happening. I didn’t care though. I poured a bunch on top of the pie. When I sank back down into the couch with plate in hand, I realized the sash had come undone and the front of my robe was wide open.

This will be a two-part blog, as I have two subjects I’d like to do a deep-dive on. I’m not interested in taking the 1000-foot view, and neither subject is a slam dunk.

Part 1. My Spirit-Crushing Diet
I’ve lost a lot of weight. I’m not going to lie to you—I once again have the lean body of a sinewy, strapping young buck. Yet we all know how my lunch-blogging has suffered as a result. I never meant to hurt you, the most loyal and dedicated enthusiasts in the lunch blog-o-sphere. With only sporadic thought-leadership, though, it’s as if we’re clutching at each other, rudderless on the stormy seas of lunch. Unacceptable.

I’m seriously thinking about abandoning the diet, packing back on those 20 pounds, and heading straight to Dairy Queen for a Blizzard with Oreos as soon as I upload this high-quality post. You need me, and I need you. Let’s stop pretending otherwise. It’s time I put vanity aside and accepted the cross destiny has bestowed upon me to bear.

I just said bestowed.

Part 2. Offensive Auditors
We have auditors in this week. They’re holed up in a conference room and refuse to make eye contact. They emerged for lunch and sat in the kitchen all by themselves. When I went in to heat up my organic, low-fat can of minestrone and prepare my Battle Ax salad, I noticed they were flirting with each other. This made me uncomfortable. I’m certain when I was 12, which is about how old they are, I didn’t act in such a shameful manner in front of my clients. No, out of respect, I’d keep that sort of behavior confined to the janitor’s closet…but not with the janitor, of course…I mean we’d go in there, but it wasn’t like there was anybody else…god, with all those solvents and the bags of saw dust for the vomit…what was I thinking taking her in there? No wonder why she said those things afterwards. I wonder how she’s doing now. I should send her one of my Christmas update letters.

This post did not end well. It did not live up to the “high-quality” prediction I made in the third paragraph.

I enjoy lamb. I’ve crafted a few excellent lunch blog postings about it over the years.

From a thought-leader’S perspective, lamb is a lot like one of those cheap, large crystals that college kids buy in head shops and hang in front of their dorm room windows, so that when it catches a ray of sunlight it dots the walls with trippy little specs of color.

Man, I have no idea where I was going with that. By the time I finished the sentence, I wasn’t even sure I was lunch-blogging any longer. Let’s be clear about it: Lamb is nothing like a stoner’s trinket. For starters, I’m pretty sure it can’t refract light. Alright, that’s enough. We’re not having this conversation now.

Lamb is the one meat that when I think about it, I see the actual animal in my mind’s eye. Show me a rib eye, I don’t see a cow. Mention a Cornish game hen, and…hell, I don’t even know what a Cornish game hen is so how can I possibly visualize one? Bring up lamb, though, and I immediately see it. And it’s always standing in a moist, green meadow staring at me with a coy look on its face. I imagine I experience this because of all the meat-producing animals I find lamb to be the most attractive.

This morning I found a seal-a-meal bag in the freezer that had lamb and red chile in it (see Figure 1). It was from last August. I brought it to work and had it for lunch. That’s my point.

I haven’t produced a blog posting of such low quality in a few months. I guess I was due.


Figure 1. Lambs bleat, right? Because that’s what I’m hearing echo off the aspen grove on the far side of the valley when I look at this.

You see, the Battle Ax and I have been on a diet for the last few months, and it has had a dramatic impact on my ability to deliver excellence in the lunch arena. Lunches for the most part have been mundane affairs, where I sit at my desk and feel sorry for myself. Those adventure-filled lunches of the past have taken on the muted hues of a fading dream, as if they had experienced a collective apoptosis and have been excreted from the part of my brain where lunch best practices are formulated.

I am reluctant to share with you what I’ve been eating lately because I fear you will make fun of me. Garden burgers, soy milk fruit things, and scrambled tofu. Go ahead, laugh it up. Bastards.

But this weekend was Thanksgiving, and I’ve always lived by the maxim that if you’re in the NFL draft and given the choice, you pick the best athlete available rather than simply backfilling-in the weak spots in your roster. So for lunch yesterday as we we’re driving home, I declared to the Battle Ax, “I’m going to stop at the next McDonalds and get two cheeseburgers and a cup of coffee.” She started to protest, but I just held up my hand. The decision had been made.

By the time we hit the drive-through she wanted one too, so I ordered three. We sat in the parking lot and ate them in silence with the windows rolled down. Then we made out for a few minutes before getting back on the highway.

You’re welcome to disagree, but I don’t care for the obligatory bag of chips that you get with your lunch at many sandwich shops. It’s low-effort. If you really cared about me, Ricky, you’d offer up a nice cole slaw or German potato salad to complement my sandwich. But chips? Weak. Why bother. Might as well just take that old, scratched-up Rheingold serving try out of the goodwill box in the back of the garage, wrap it up and give it to me for Christmas. Thanks for nothing. This is the worst Christmas ever. What I really wanted was one of those vibrating football games. Go ahead, call Santa and tell him to come take all my presents back. I read somewhere that Santa doesn’t even have a phone, so you’re just making a horse’s ass of yourself.

I pulled down yesterday’s blog posting because it sucked. If you had the misfortune of being exposed to it, I apologize. It was hardly the stuff of thought-leadership.

I recall seeing a documentary some years back showing a fine looking kangaroo rise up and challenge the older, recognized alpha male of the herd, or pride, or pack, or whatever a bunch of kangaroos that hang out together call themselves. It’s a forgone conclusion that if the young upstart is victorious in his challenge, the deposed leader is shunned by the rest of the troop and dies shortly thereafter—useless, broken, and resented for having had intercourse, repeatedly, with all the other kangaroos’ hot wives and daughters.

I don’t know where I’m going with this. I do know that yesterday’s posting was awful though.

I like the kangaroo story. It has both violence and sex in it. Now that I think about it, I’m not even sure I saw that in a documentary. I may have just been daydreaming about being a powerful kangaroo at some point.

For what it’s worth, I went to the Mediterranean place today for lunch and got some of that sampler.

Strange, but I am relieved when no one comments on my lunch blog postings, as has been the trend recently. It gives me the feeling that I’m unsupervised in the lunch blog-o-sphere, and that I can do whatever I want and no one will ever know. It’s kinda like right after the Battle Ax leaves for work in the morning and I rummage through her dresser, stripping off my pajamas and trying on her capri pants and poodle sweaters before I get in the shower. Your silence gives me that same sense of naughty independence. It’S quite liberating, and I thank you for it.

I had two lunches yesterday. First, I stopped at a fast food place and got a fast-food salad. I ate it there and listened to the conversation at the next table. This guy was whining to his friend about how he doesn’t even have enough money to take his wife out to dinner, ever—like once every 6 months, at most.

Then a couple of hours later I had my second lunch—a can of organic black bean soup, which I heated up in the microwave after Jake showed me how to use the child-safe can opener, which doesn’t leave any sharp edges. I ate it at my desk, and realized right as I finished that I was making slurping noises.



Figure 1. Ricky looks a lot like this each morning between 7:05 and 7:15, only he has a head and two hands.

On Saturday we went to this so-called Austrian-themed place for a late breakfast, which I deemed late enough to be lunch. I’ve decided to write a blog posting about it.

They had some fancy items on the menu, like crepes and stuff with hollandaise sauce on it. I guess that’S enough to qualify for the Austrian designation. I had eggs and a nice slab of ham.

They had a big mural painted on the outside of the place that frightened me. It was a picture of two deformed Austrian children who were possessed by demons and condemned to wear perverted pygmy costumes for their entire lives. As we entered I became concerned that these creatures might actually be inside, perhaps bussing tables or filling coffee mugs and water glasses. I didn’t want to cross either of their paths, but I manned up and pretended everything was fine.

I know you don’t believe me so I took a picture (see Figure 1, below).



Figure 1. Mutant Alpine mountain children. Wisely, they are kept away from the dining room and are confined to the kitchen where they clean the grease traps and yodel--or maybe just shriek--off key.