Flowing Chi

Friday, August 29, 2008

This morning, Ernie chucks a dry-erase marker point blank at my face.

JAKE: “Why did you do that?”

ERNIE: “Because we are friends.”

JAKE: “If that’s how you treat your friends, I’d hate to see how you treat your enemies.”

ERNIE: “I ignore my enemies.”

Later, Ernie tells Kenny G. to hug me because my self-esteem is low. Kenny G. hugs me in the only way  a mellow soft-pop saxophone musician can- with flowing Chi.

Ernie tries to embrace me from behind, but I poke him in the throat with my finger.

ERNIE: “Ow, Bruce Lee! You hit my Adam’s Apple.”

I didn’t know Muppets had Adam’s Apples.

KENNY G: (Cooing) “Why is your self-esteem so low?”

JAKE: “My self-esteem is fine. Ernie just feels bad because he did a terrible thing and now he wants to make up for it.”

Ernie re-enacts the dry erase marker hurl to Kenny G. who slowly walks away from us.

Later, I receive a text from a friend who is a phlebotomist. She tells me that a bag of human plasma exploded in her face. She was sitting in the emergency room because some of the plasma spurted in her mouth and she needs to be tested for rabies or tetanus or something. I hope she is OK. How would it be to have a bag of human juice explode on you? Probably gross.

JAKE: “What is the strangest food you’ve ever eaten?”

ERNIE: “Cow Brains.”

JAKE: “Straight from the cow?”

ERNIE: “No.”

I tell Ernie about an exotic food I tried in The Philippines called ‘balut.’ From Wikipedia: Balut is a fertilized duck egg with a nearly-developed embryo inside that is boiled and eaten in the shell. Popularly believed to be an aphrodisiac and considered a high-protein, hearty snack, balut are mostly sold by street vendors at night in the regions where they are available. They are often served with beer. The Filipino and Malay word balut (balot) means "wrapped" – depending on pronunciation.

Even though Ernie says he didn’t eat brains straight from the cow, I like to imagine him saddled to a bucking bovine, fork in hand, digging in for seconds as the mad cow rages on. The picture would show an orange bumpy blur swirling atop a dust cloud in the southwestern desert.

Giddy up, cowboy. Yee-haw!