My Bathroom is Rad-ish

As of Friday my life has changed.  I now belong to a brotherhood shared with the likes of John Deere, my grandfather Sylvester "Butch" Bordewick, and Jennifer Gardner . . . I think.  For I am now a farmer.

On Friday I threw out my old, dead Ikea hanging plant I'd previously killed despite it's "easy to care for" label, and planted fresh, nubile radish seeds.  Now, in 4 short weeks, I will be feasting on - or at least garnishing drinks and dishes with - tasty radishes like the kings of ole.  I'd post pictures, but at this point it just looks like a pot of dirt.  This is one of the cases when a picture is not worth 1000 words.  Imagine a pot.  Now imagine that the pot is full of dirt.  That's exactly what it looks like.

I've placed my pot-o-dirt in the bathroom so it's now self-watering via reverse osmosis of shower steam (Thanks 10th Grade Biology!)  I realize that "Bathroom Radish" doesn't sound like the most appetizing dish.  In fact, "Bathroom Radish" sound more like a slang term for an STD you'd pick up from a public toilet seat than something you'd eat, but the thought of eating a non-bathroom radish is not very appetizing either.  Radishes are always the last thing left on the vegetable tray at a party, and the vegetable tray is always the last thing left after the other food is eaten.  The radish is the last of the last.  Poor Radish is the last kid picked at recess.  Or worse,  Radish is the kid who's last picked and then the captain of the team who should have him says, "You can have Radish"  like he's doing the other team a favor.  In reality, he knows that his team is stronger being one man short than having even numbers if one of them is Radish.  Poor Radish.

Really, the only redeeming quality of the radish is it's name.  Rad-ish.  I bet a lot of unfunny-funny people in the 80's used that as a regular pun.

For my astute readers, you may have noticed that I have already killed a plant this year.  True.  Apparently, if you have three plants and you leave them unattended in a freezing cold, dark flat for three weeks while you gallivant around the United Sates by the time you get home: one of them will commit suicide, another will look fairly sick, and the third will not have noticed you've ever left.  It's okay though, these circumstances will most likely lead you to being a popular radish farmer.

Fact about me #66

I've never grown anything . . . before now.

Boundin'

Forgive my absence, but sometimes I am absent.  It's not because my life has been boring so let me begin my back log now.

My friend Mike came in October/November and here's what we did:

1. Spurs game - Tottenham wins!

2. Time in London:

Sadly, I'm missing the best photo of the trip - Britain's Oldest Door.  But here's a blurry one of the London Eye and a hooka bar in Soho where we met 4 different drug addicts.  The best of the four said, "I'm not gonna lie.  I do do drugs, and I'd sure like to sprinkle some crack in there."  We gave her a pound.

3. We went to Dublin, but it was cold and rainy so if you want to see what we did just turn on MTV, watch it for a few hours, and then go to an alcohol manufacturer and buy a hat.

4. Belfast is awesome.  We took a black cab tour to see all the murals outlining the conflict of the city, and we signed the peace wall.  We also saw Oasis.

I'm realizing now that I didn't document that trip as well as I should have.  It's probably best summarized by this last photo which is Mike in a hostel holding 4 Liters of cheep cider, some salt and vinegar crisps, and a net bag of baby bells.  This could have been any night of the trip, but it really was the spirit of us in the UK.

Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires or Will You Marry Me, The Derek Till Story

Derek Till is engaged. Now I'm really lonely. But while I like to think that my perpetual loneliness is the sub theme of this blog, that is not what this is about. This is about my big brother, Derek.

So Derek got engaged, and despite his best efforts, did not burn down a forest in the process. A few weeks ago my big brother, Derek, asked his girlfriend, Aleks, to marry him, and what I imagine as the same tone as the Virgin Mary used with the angel Gabriel, she said yes. But unlike my visions of my own wedding - leap year, February 29, 2012 - Derek Till was romantic about it.

First, Derek contacted Aleks's favorite artist to paint her a picture asking, "Will you marry me?" Second, Derek met Aleks on a designers weekend festival thingy that Aleks was in charge of . . . an important weekend to her. Then he placed the original art on a conveniently (for purposes of proposals by original paintings) placed stone fireplace in the middle of the Minnesotan wilderness. Some other John-Cusiacian-Romantically-Minded individual had already arranged candles around said stone mantle, so Derek lit the candles and met Aleks for an autumn walk.

Now Derek is no fool, and he realized that leaving a load of lit candles in the middle of dry autumn wilderness surrounding an original piece of artwork that potentially defines the precise moment his future went from rolling 12-sided dies to rolling to Home Depot for domestic repairs, is a bad idea. So he b-lined it to the engagement site. And regardless of the awkwardness that followed, including pulling a ring out of his right hand coat pocket with his right arm was around his beloved - I'm still not sure how he did this - all is well that ends well, and my big brother is engaged.

Now comes the excitement of telling family and friends. My parents, who knew this was coming, gracefully overwhelmed the couple with a champagne toast. Then - I would assume - came telling Aleks's parents and sisters as well as Derek's two sisters and his only brother and future best man, me. Now, I'm aware of the day and age in which we live, but I am not apparently aware of the formalities of Facebook. And while I plan on getting married on leap year 2012 so that I only have to celebrate an anniversary once every four year, and as soon as I find a non-mingin' girl who's into getting married on this Wednesday, I will ask her to marry me, I will still let my immediate family know who said girl is by at least a phone call - I've already told them the date and they are not impressed, but my mom seems to like it a little more then when I was dead set on eloping. Anyway, back on subject, Smokey the Bear/my brother, chose to send me a beautifully worded, if misspelled, Facebook message about his engagement:

Subject: some big news

"Aleks and I got engaged on Saturday. Really don't haave much more info than that. Give me a call soon (612) 310 #### and we will talk. Love ya

Dtill"

Classy.

I actually knew that this was coming because of the awkward goodbye my mother left on my message machine a few days eariler, "Hi B, it's Mom. I'm just calling to say hi. Give me a call if you want. Love you, bye . . . You might want to call your brother . . . ok, bye." But still. Come on. I'm the only brother involved here. And while 6 hours away, you could always call me in the middle of the night and plead ignorance to time zones. It's a good thing I'm never bitter.

But truth be told, in spite of his affinity for Facebook, everyone who knows Derek knows what an outstanding man he truly is. To me he's been the cool older brother who bought me Taco Bell when I was 12, the quirky dork whose been getting me hooked on nerdy sci-fi shows since I was 16, and the brother and friend I know at 26. More importantly, everyone who knows Aleks knows how good she is for, and with Derek. This engagement is a blessing for both of our families, and I'm honored to be able to expand my family with a cool new sister like Aleks, even if it does mean I will have to send one more Facebook message in 2012.

Fact about me #32

I want to have a baseball themed wedding where the bride wears a big white dress and looks like a baseball, I wear a tux that looks like a catchers mit, her father is a giant bat who hits her down the isle, and the priest is dressed as an umpire who has us say, "Strike!" insted of "I do." There will also be bunt cake.

Hey, Remember When You Were Run Over by That Bus?

Lame to post a link, but this is crazy. The good news is that this boy survived. The bad news is that he was run over by a bus.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7598674.stm


I'm sure he's not thinking about this now, but this will be all that people ask him about for the rest of his life . . . probably. He now has two choices: 1.) Win nobel prize so he can talk about something else or 2.) spend the rest of his life explaining to people what it feels like to be run over by a bus. If I ever meet him I will probably call him Regina George and ask him if he remembers that time he was run over by a bus.

My Job

If you want to know what I do all day just watch this video. Make sure you get to the part where Jesus "Zaps" people.

If You're Happy and You Know It . . .

I drove into London today. No big deal. I've pirated a car journey to the centre of town dozen times or so, but every time it is its own adventure. I can guarantee you that I will get lost every time. If I have a SatNav, I will manage to make the SatNav get lost. I aggravate the other drivers on the road, scare the bejesus out of my passengers, and inevitably take a few years off my own life.

Other people only gain confidence in me when I utter such popular phrases as "This feels right" or "This just doesn't feel right" in the exact same tone that a blind man would say it if he were in a bisexual strip club. I don't know any street names in central London which is fine because it's near impossible to find where the streets are labeled when in a car. No matter. I don't need them. I feel my way around London like Jodi Foster in the end of Silence of the Lambs.

So, needless to say, today I was a little lost. I was also driving rampant enough to aggravate the Ferrari behind me. This Ferrari seemed to have a hard time finding second gear and his engine revved so loudly that it drown out the ABBA on my stereo, so I think my crazy driving was justified - like a Justin Timberlake album. Anyway, this Houdini managed to squeeze his £100,000 lifestyle around my £10,000 Vauxhall, and upon passing I realized that the man I was pissing off was Muhammad Al Fayed. This is the man who owns Herrods. For my US readers this is the man whose son was porking Princess Di before they both took a fatal drive through The City of Lights.

And as if this brush with (take your pick) fame/richness/don't-give-a-shit wasn't exciting enough, more excitement came when I drove past Hyde Park and was suddenly stuck in the middle of a street protest. According to their posters, these people were protesting Israel, but according to their chant, they were protesting - like all Europeans - Grorge W. Bush. Their chant was to the tune of "If You're Happy and You Know It" but the words were: "If you hate George Bush, clap your hands" and the slightly more disturbing second verse "Burn in hell Mr. Bush, clap your hands."

The moral of my story? Nothing makes me feel more at home than people who hate G.W.

If it wasn't called "Snowdonia" more people would probably go there.

Hello friends, and yet again forgive my absence.  I assure you that I will get around to writing about all my misadventures, pointing out the ironic intracricies of both the English and my family from the week I spent back home - and yes it includes both photos of poo in the toilet and wild lizards - but I can't tonight.  Tonight I have to get ready to go to Snowdonia.

Now for most of us Snowdonia is that place that the ugly little kids from the Narnia movies go to eat Turkish Delight, but for the British it is an actual place.  Apparently there is a mountain in Wales called Mt. Snowdon and I'm going to climb it.  I'm not exactly sure what I'll need, but I'd imagine it includes all the arrows that my quiver can hold.  I leave at 6:00am tomorrow by a trusty mini-bus which I call Shadowfax, and shant return for 4 whole days.

In the meantime, perhaps you can research the question that has bewildered many a fine American: What the hell is Wales when not referring to a giant sea mammal?