So jump.

We recently vacationed with my wife’s family in Dale Hollow, Tennessee. Her folks had rented a cabin and a speedboat on the lake. Most of our days were spent motoring along in the boat, water skiing, tubing, swimming, and fishing.

On day four, we happened upon a cliff face on water’s edge. Ascending in a stepwise arrangement were four perches from which swimmers of increasing bravado could jump into the drink. Normally, the ledges would be approximately 1, 10, 20, and 30 feet above the lake surface, but in this summer of drought and fallen water levels, one could legitimately add 10 feet to each height.

I had been unable to impress the in-laws with any sort of water skiing ability (pictured at right is about as far as I got on water skis).

And, while my tubing had been the source of much laughter and amusement, there was no skill or bravery involved. I decided I’d show the family-in-law what I was made of by jumping off the successively higher perches.

I climbed the first and jumped in, toes first, graceful as ever. No one seemed to notice or be impressed, so I mounted the second step and before I had time to consider what I was doing flung myself into the lake. I popped to the water surface to a few muffled “ooh”s and “ahh”s. Not satisfied by the underwhelming accolades, I scaled the third and penultimate peak. This time, I looked down to 30 feet of elevation between me and the glassy sea and felt my heart momentarily visit my throat. I paused. “Are you really going to do that?” my wife asked. That was the impetus I needed—doubt. Without another thought I leapt from the step and actually had time while I was midair to think about myself falling, flailing before: SMACK. I had tried to keep my body as rigid and toes-down as possible, but in the course of 360 or so inches, my body had managed to rotate about my pelvis such that a pseudo-belly flop resulted.

“Way to go,” my wife said. “Wow,” said some other family member… maybe it was my father-in-law… maybe it was my sister-in-law… I had no time to revel in my own derring-do; in my periphery, I spied a descending body-shaped object descending from on high. Splash! Buoyed up by her life jacket, my mother-in-law popped to the surface. She had jumped from the 40-foot perch.

I had been outdone. “Woohoo, Mom!!!” shouted my wife. “That was amazing,” my father-in-law praised her. Whatever street credibility I’d achieved by jumping 30 feet had completely vanished with my mother-in-law’s 40-foot leap of glory.

“Wow, that hurt,” she said after regaining her composure. But I didn’t have time to let those words sink in. I was scaling the crag. I rushed to the peak from which she had jumped, but when I looked over the edge I had second thoughts. From the water, my wife and in-laws expressed their misgivings. “Honey, please don’t do this,” my wife importuned. “Yeah, it really wasn’t even fun,” my mother-in-law chimed in. “It just hurt.”

I stood, teetering on the edge, legitimately frightened by the distance. “People break their necks jumping from that height,” my father-in-law shouted up to me. I nearly backed down, when, after a few minutes of consideration and reconsideration, my mother-in-law appeared behind me. “I’m going again,” she said, smiling.

“I thought you said it wasn’t fun.”

“Well, it wasn’t that much fun, and it hurt, but now that I’ve done it once, I think I can do it right.”

“Oh, ok.”

I deferred to her, and she jumped again off the cliff.

I stepped forward again but was talked down by my wife. “Please, honey, you might hurt yourself.” In a moment, my life flashed before my eyes, and I acquiesced. I gave in. I punked out. I descended the cliff face, slipped into the water, doggy paddled in place for some time, tail between my legs, as my mother-in-law claimed the glory I sought after.

Poll Results: Pottermania sweeps Land of Yajeev…

…followed closely by Hendersonmania and hairdressermania.


When asked who their favorite Harry was, 35% of Land of Yajeev readers selected magical boy wonder Harry Potter, which isn’t all that surprising given the mega-million dollar ad campaign.














The real winner in this poll is Bigfoot Harry of Harry and the Hendersons, played by the late Kevin Peter Hall. You might also recognize Hall from his role in Predator and Predator 2 (he played the Predator). Even without the ongoing publicity and endless promotion, the hairy Harry’s following is as vibrant as ever with 30% of blog readers selecting him as their favorite.









25% of Land of Yajeev readers chose my wife’s hairdresser Harry as their favorite. Good choice. And, no, I have not logged onto my own site from five different computers to vote for her hairdresser. Although, honey, if you are reading this, your hair looks as lovely as ever. Thanks to all who voted for Harry the Hairdresser, from the bottom of my heart.




“Give ‘em hell” Harry S. Truman was the favorite Harry of 10% of poll respondents. The buck stops here!







Bringing up the rear of vote getters were the multi-talented Harry Shearer (actor and voiceover artist) and Harry Anderson (actor and sideshow magician). Each received 5% of the votes (i.e. one apiece).





















Speaking of magicians, Harry Houdini did not receive a single vote. It seems he has disappeared into relative anonymity, at least among Land of Yajeev readers.




If you’re doing the math, you’ll notice that the total value adds up to 110%. Before you cry "Fuzzy math!" or "Election fraud!" and demand to have the voting machines and chads checked, remember that voters were allowed, in this poll, to make more than one selection. n=20.

Thanks for voting!

But wait, there's more to blog about!

So last night, I was in the middle of composing a new blog post entitled “In Praise of Rulebreakers” thanking the anonymous fellows who were illegally driving down the road marked “authorized delivery vehicles only” (think: UPS, FedEx, singing telegrams) when I (birthday cake in tow) took the now infamous ankle-spraining tumble (see my previous entry). These two Samaritans stopped their car, thereby increasing the risk of being spotted and apprehended by campus law enforcement officers, and insisted on driving me to my lab.

Mid-blogging, the wife and I decided to go out for ice cream. I saved what I had written so far, and (with some pain) put on my shoes and socks. My wife and Watson (our faux labradoodle) were the first to go outside. By the time I had made it to the door, Watson had found the neighbor dog, and they were frolicking by our front steps. I reached down to pet the neighbor dog, when my uninjured ankle did a little wobble wobble. I kid you not: I sprained my second ankle in two days. This time, I fell the distance of two steps to the grassy lawn in front of our house.

“Are you okay?” my wife asked, rushing to help me up.

“Yes, yes, I’m fine. Let’s just get to the car,” I replied, hurrying to my feet, embarrassed by my most recent collision with the ground. Our neighbor hastened to the scene of the crash, but I quickly brushed off the dirt and grass, and darted (as best I could on two swollen, unyielding ankles) to the car.

This morning, I have two bruised ankles, and an ego to match. I probably won’t be leaving this couch for a while.

“Then at least I’d have something to blog about.”

Those were my penultimate words in the cell phone conversation I had with my wife moments before I got out of my car with the birthday cake she had finely crafted for a fellow lab member.

The cake was a culinary sensation. It was bi-layered and chocolate, stuffed with a vanilla-pudding-based banana cream filling, topped with delectable icing, and drizzled with chocolate fudge. A sight to behold, painstakingly assembled with meticulous attention to every last excruciating detail.

The night before, she had spent literally hours preparing and putting the finishing touches on the dessert. Opting against a standard Tupperware-style container for cake transport, she carefully packaged it within an optimally sized special cake box to prevent accidental contact with container edges, preserving detail along the confection’s perimeter.

I typically park about half mile from the lab. “Couldn’t you park any closer?” she had asked, fearing the distance was too great a span she could expect me to traverse without incident.

“Not unless I pay ten dollars. Relax, I’ll be careful.”

As I turned into the parking lot this morning, cake in tow, my cell phone rang. It was her. She wished to remind to me exercise extreme caution when transporting the precious cargo from door to door.

“Be careful,” she repeated. “You never know when a little mouse will trip you up and send you to the ground.”

“Ha,” I laughed, insulted by her doubt in my agility and coordination. I then uttered the dooming words at the title of this post and bid her goodbye.

Amused and slightly irked by her skepticism, I carefully gathered my belongings and the chocolate delight. Through the parking lot, down the steps of the garage, around the corner, I walked, gingerly, even daintily, watchful for curbs, mice, and distractions of all varieties. “Left, right, left, right,” I uttered to myself, concentrating alternately on the forward motions of each foot.

I must have been thinking about the wrong foot, or maybe it was a tiny mouse that scurried around my feet outside of my peripheral vision, because all of a sudden, I know not how it began, but I was falling— no, hurtling— forward. The pavement-aimed descent seemed to occur in slow motion. One thing was certain, though: I was not going to release my grip on the cake box. I began to lift the box (lovingly marked “this side up” to preempt careless transport or placement) over my head to prevent it from crashing to ground in front of me when—crunch—an intense pain exploded in my ankle. The rest of the plunge occurred in shaky-cam fast-forward as my limbs flailed uncontrollably and the box burst forth from my hands. It must have experienced about 2 seconds of weightless air-time before it crashed and rolled.

Before the falling object that was my person came to its final rest, my body parts strewn unnaturally in three dimensions, I realized what had was now happening: I had ruined the cake and fulfilled my own prophecy—I now had something to blog about.



For those interested in the rest of the story:

* My lab mates still happily devoured the dessert formerly known as chocolate cake. Fortunately, my ever-creative spouse, in unaccounted-for prescience, had separately packaged little signs that said: “Happy Birthday!” attached to popsicle sticks. Before serving the cakeslop, I neatly inserted them into the pudding/cake/banana amalgam.

* My ankle is sprained. I could place little weight on it after I fell. Tonight, it can bear almost none.

* Both my wife and the birthday girl forgive my misstep. Pretty hard to hold a grudge against a hobbling mess such as myself. (My wife insists: “Give us more credit. Even if you hadn’t hurt yourself, we wouldn’t have been mad.” She pauses. “Although, hurting yourself doesn’t hurt your cause.”)

Hungry Man

Last weekend, I attended my wife’s graduation from the Masters in Gifted Education program at the University of Connecticut (for context, please see: http://landofyajeev.blogspot.com/2007/07/will-blog-for-food.html).

Pictured here is the highlight of the weekend: a giant pumpkin-ice-cream-on-chocolate-chip-cookie sandwich.

Er, one of two highlights of the weekend. Lisa’s graduating was pretty cool, too. Way to go, Lisa.

Will blog for food

It has been apocryphally fabled that my first words upon entering this world were: What's for dinner?

It has been non-apocryphally fabled that my first words upon entering the world of matrimony were: What's for dinner?

I have only missed dinner once. I was 5. Presumably, I became distracted by Hot Wheels and bathtime and had not noticed that supper had not been served. My mom put me to bed. I remember laying there, tossing and turning, with the strange, unsettling sensation that something was amiss. My stomach gurgled. Then I felt the pang. I bolted upright and yelled at the top of my lungs, announcing my mother's failure to provide for her child's nutritional needs to all the neighborhood: "MOM! YOU FORGOT TO FEED ME!"

Flash forward 22 years. My wife is in Connecticut where she is completing her pursuit of becoming a Master of Gifted Education. She left the dog and me to fend for ourselves at home.

Thus far, I've found subsistence in the form of Chinese leftovers and Hungry Man microwave tv dinners.

I've finished the Chinese food and have only 1 Hungry Man meal left and 10 days until Lisa comes home. I'm not sure what I'm going to do when the Hungry Men run out. I fear we'll be reduced to animals.

Scrounge for crumbs, I guess. Maybe share Watson's kibble. Pop over at the neighbors' at dinner time...

Perhaps the good Lord will send some (hungry) manna from heaven.

Lisa... come home soon... you forgot to feed me.



Originally Posted: Tuesday, June 27, 2007
(Then) Curent Mood: soon to be hungry, i fear
http://blog.myspace.com/yajeev

Not for consumption

Today, Lisa made two deserts: a strawberry pie for our own consumption and a strawberry jello pretzel salad for her co-workers to enjoy during a birthday party at work on Monday.

Also, today, I went grocery shopping and returned home with a panoply of edibles (as is not uncommon for a shopper such as myself--see blog for November 30, 2006).

So the stage is set: a refrigerator filled to near overflowing with recent purchases and culinary creations. On the top shelf, among countless other items, are the strawberry pie (for our own consumption), milk, and salad dressing. The strawberry jello pretzel salad (for her co-workers to enjoy during a birthday party at work on Monday) can be found in the bottom shelf milieu of goods.

After dinner (a delicous shrimp fra diavolo, also prepared by Lisa), Lisa was kind enough to serve us both some desert: we each had a slice of strawberry pie (which had, of course, been created for the express purpose of our own consumption). Topped with a dollop of fat-free Cool Whip, it was an utterly delectable desert, so delightful, in fact, that I decided upon seconds. "No, honey," I said. "I'll get it myself." (Foreshadowing: I have since come to regret these words.)

I gracefully emerged from my recliner, approached the refrigerator wtih aplomp, opened the door, reached for the pie, and, in a rare spasm of dyskinesia, jostled the salad dressing while my hand was en route to the strawberry pie (created for own consumption).

The dressing wobbled, forward, then back. And, then, it took the fateful swivel and tilted sideways. The bottle moved in slow motion, yet it all happened to so fast. Before I could correct my error, the thousand islands teetered off the edge of the top shelf and plummeted. The plummeting ended with a muffled plop. Before the visual stimulus before me could traverse my optic chiasm, I knew what I had done. I had caused the dressing to fall from its perch next to the strawberry pie (which was for own consumption) into (not next to or in front of, but smack dab into the middle of) the strawberry jello pretzel salad (prepared for her co-workers to enjoy during a birthday party at work on Monday).

The strawberry jello pretzel salad (which had been intended for her co-workers to enjoy during a birthday party at work on Monday) could no longer be served to her co-workers to enjoy during a birthday party at work on Monday... and, disfigured (but still delicious) is now for our own consumption.

Lisa has graciously forgiven me. I feel just awful.

I'm going to get some more.



Originally Posted: Tuesday, May 19, 2007
(Then) Curent Mood: full
http://blog.myspace.com/yajeev

Meep meep!

I can't be sure, but I think my wife may be trying to kill me.

I have suffered too many near-death mishaps at her hands in the past two weeks for this to be a coincidence.

First, I was descending our staircase with a basket of laundry (which she must have known I would wash), my computer, and a bowl of dog food. On the penultimate stair was a well-placed grocery store bag filled with stuff she had been 'meaning' to take upstairs. My normally steady foot landed on the bag, and I slid as if on a banana peel. In the air flew towels, underwear, hundreds of kibbles, my computer, and my otherwise nimble body. And with a thud, both I and the computer fell to the tile floor, rained upon by a gentle shower of dog food. I survived, and so did my computer, but barely. This crash resulted in a $341 repair which may have been death for my wallet if not for myself.

Second, seven days later, she had us pulling up our carpet so that we could install laminate flooring. There I was, on my hands and knees, prying out staples from the underlying flooring so that we would have a nice, smooth surface on which to overlay the laminate planks. I looked up just in time to see our stand-alone corner dish cabinet falling towards my head. And, somehow, someway, I had the presence of mind to reach out my hands and stop the plummeting hazard mere inches from crushing my head like a melon. And, who was behind the cabinet? You guessed it. She claims she was just trying to move the piece of furniture to tear out what was the conveniently placed final piece of old carpet remaining on the floor.

Third, same day. On the shopping list she gave me was a pre-mixed bag of salad, which I compliantly purchased. I mentioned three days later, when she was cooking corn for herself for dinner, that we still had the salad. She replied that she could not eat it, but that I should. When I examined the sald bag I discovered that the salad had expired! I pointed this critical fact out to her, and she shrugged her shoulders, unphased. Look, I may not have a PhD in biochemistry or molecular genetics, but I am fully aware of the dangers lurking in leafy appetizers--E. coli, salmonella, ebola... and the risk must increase exponentially with each day after the expiration date. I did not eat the salad.

Finally, two days ago, after she claimed to have lost her cell phone, I found it that same night face down in the toilet, dead. The next day she was leading a field trip on which she simply had to have a cell phone. So, she borrowed mine. As my faithful and discerning readers will recognize, my cell phone represents more to me than the freedom to hear and be heard by millions on my nationwide network. My cell phone represents the addiction with which I struggle daily: cell phone Yahtzee Deluxe. And removing my phone for a full day at a time forces me to cease digital dice rolling cold turkey. The withdrawal symptoms were intense. Fortunately, I found a replacement phone for her last night. Were I forced to endure another Yahtzee Deluxe-free day, the tremors might well have done me in.

Ever vigilant, I will not succomb to her devices (though I may to crippling paranoia). Like Gloria Gayner (and Diana Ross after her), I will survive. I will be the Road Runner to her Wile E. Coyote. The Bugs Bunny to her Elmer Fudd. The Osama bin Laden to her American led multinational coalition of armed forces. I will dodge her blows and live to tell the stories. Probably in my blog.


Originally Posted: Tuesday, March 1, 2007
(Then) Curent Mood: scared
http://blog.myspace.com/yajeev

I had a dream

Earlier this week I had a dream.

Lisa (my wife), Watson (my dog), and I visited my parents only to find that they had purchased a new dog. The unsettling thing was that the dog was identical to our Watson with one subtle distinction: the dog had two heads. This dog insisted on following me everywhere I went. At one point I had to change my clothes in the room that had once been my bedroom, and naturally I wanted privacy from this strange dog (by strange, I mean unfamiliar). However, the two-headed Watson clone would not have it. He insisted on sharing my privacy. I ran into the bedroom and tried to slam the door shut, but the dog forced his way through before I could lock myself in. The dog of super strength, having gained entrance to my once sacred domain, lunged at me, knocking me onto my back. He was on top of me, both heads furiously licking my face. I struggled and writhed but the dog was the victor. In the midst of futile resistance, I awoke from my dream with a start, relieved to see, lying asleep on the floor next to my own bed, my single-headed Watson.

This dream has been troubling me all week, and I am looking for a (non-Freudian) interpretation.

Please help.


Originally Posted: Tuesday, November 3, 2006
(Then) Curent Mood: confused
http://blog.myspace.com/yajeev

How long?

My wife and I are shopping for a new car for her. We were looking at the Honda Civic, and the salesman asked us how long we hoped to keep the car.

I replied, "Till she's dead."

The car, not my wife.

Apparently I could have been a little clearer. Would've saved me some grief.



Originally Posted: Tuesday, July 19, 2006
(Then) Curent Mood: awake
http://blog.myspace.com/yajeev