Undivided Attention: a System

     "I have a system." 
     It was several months--maybe a year, at this point--when she finally told me. It's an ingenious trick that, I am certain, everyone should use.
     "I have a friend on standby. If the date doesn't go well, I send the text to have her call. Pretend that it's a family emergency. That way I get out without having to be a jerk."
     They always say that it could happen to you--something outrageous; something uncommon to the point of rarity. Faking memory loss or death to get out of a marriage rare. The story would be picked up by the Times or Reader's Digest. You'll see it if you're still a reader, which--let's face it--you probably aren't; who reads the newspaper anymore or the Digest? But it is safe to say that you will hear about it. No matter how far away you remove yourself from traditional written media, no matter how far you remove yourself from the news and nonfiction, the power of oral storytelling will always remain. And among the insipid gossip of celebrities or those who posture themselves as such, you will hear this story. Certainly, it will change. The facts and names will, but the core of the moral will remain. It could happen to you. It almost happened to me.
     And it all boiled down to that dinner. The one piece of normalcy that my fractured psyche could offer, almost made her put in the call within the first five minutes.
     "No one ever made me dinner before."
     "I thought it was nice."
     "It's weird."
     Which makes me wonder just where are we going in this day and age. It was not my showing off my cooking skills. It wasn't my manners, or unwillingness to make a move. It was not the fact that I cleaned house; she found that weird, also. It was the strangest part of me. It my fear of being left without anything to say that kept that call from coming.
     "So, Elliott, there is no such thing as undivided attention?"
     No. There is not. Like I said months ago before getting distracted and sick and learning just how poor my time management skills really are when it comes to doing things on my own without any monetary reward, it probably never existed. Our attention spans are just as bad today as they were fifty years ago. After all, our parents couldn't learn from history--or properly learn it. Neither can we.
     But for a shining moment I was able to hold--through Nietzschean practice and enough material to make Oprah feel like an introvert--that call off until her friend thought that she had been murdered. Then the call that came was one of, "I'm fine. I'm having a really good time."
     I think the moral really is this: be dedicated; motivated; practiced. Just because you can put something out willy nilly, doesn't mean you should. The extra love put into something is the difference between a fake emergency and a kiss good night at 3:30a.

That's all from Elliott at the Kitchen Table, drinking Blue Moon Valencia Grove Amber.

Come on, Meijer!--A Craft Beer Exxxxtravaganza!

     On my way to adulthood, like so many, I ran into a snag with a certain alcoholic beverage. This snag--mostly involving an eighteen year old blacking out in the city of Ann Arbor--combined with stupidity of youth with the mildly alcoholic presence of beer. And not just any beer! It was the most bland, commonplace, and trite beer of them all: Miller Lite. My run in with this run-of-the-miller, tried and true and overdone brewing recipe left me with a gag reflex that, from eighteen to nearly twenty-five, left me dry heaving the moment I could smell an American Lager--light or otherwise.
     However, time does go by; I got over my gagging issue, and I have, in recent days, been introduced to the world of craft brewing. It is just added irony that one of my favorite "craft" brewing companies are owned by the Miller-Coors conglomerate--a company only slightly less evil than the beverage giant In-Bev, who owns everything else essentially. Blue Moon is that one; and Bell's would have to be my current favorite independent. Though, Atwater, and New Holland. However, I--being the Michigander that I am--have a love for so many of "The Craft State" local breweries. 
     Yet, somehow the prominence of Michigan's in-state brewing industry does not translate when I actually go shopping for a brew. A quick run down for anyone who does not go to Meijer or Kroger in the same parts of Southeast Michigan that I do: there is one aisle only partially dedicated to beer. Mixed in is usually Mike's Hard beverages and cocktail mixers. Of the cooler and warm shelves, spanning roughly sixty feet long--I'm guessing--there is, maybe, ten feet of craft beer. That doesn't sound too bad, right? Here's the kicker: most of it is out of season or, worse yet, they never stock the seasonal beers to begin with.
     The beer that got me into beer was a seasonal beer: Blue Moon Pumpkin Ale. I live for seasonal brewing. And all I have to say is: Come on, Meijer! Yeah, I know that area that I live is not the most sophisticated, but why can I not get fall beer in the fall and spring beers in the summer? Oh, sure, I see a summer beer, now. It's freaking December! And where is all of your Sam Adam's? Oh you have the Boston lager out and Sam Light? Great! Where is the Alpine Spring or the Old Fezziwig?
     What are you so mad about? says my Meijer. You can always buy any one of our Budweiser beers. They take up half the aisle!
     No, Meijer, I don't think I will. I don't think that I will.
     
     Above are links to the company websites and wiki sites. Also, under "Craft State" is a good article with interviews from the Founders Brewing Company's...well, Founders. It's all worth reading and informative, especially if you are out of state and don't have a craft beer culture like Michigan's.

That's all for for now, from Elliott at the Kitchen Table, drinking Bell's Winter White Ale with a cold cut sandwich.