If you've read much Coleridge or the writings of many of his contemporaries, you'll know that writing in altered states of mind--particularly those induced by opium--was part and parcel of the literary scene at the time. Now, I've never been into the drug scene, but I have noticed that alcohol occasionally has some interesting effects on the associative pathways down which my thoughts frequently travel. My friends typically think of me as having a quick wit (if an occasionally slow sense of propriety or judgement). While I won't say that this is dimmed by a few too many bends of the elbow, what I will comment on is the occasional oddness of the thoughts that occur to me.

For instance, when I'm at dinner with a group of friends and am enjoying a few bottles of wine with them, and I step away to take care of business, I am often struck by a sudden random thought. This evening, during dinner with friends, after a few drinks I stepped out to take the air for a few moments when the following came to mind out of the blue:

Each day is precious; how lamentable it is that we spend whole days in succession in yearning for some fixed date or event in the future! We miss the pleasure of living during days given over to anticipation. Will it be those kinds of days that we regret at the end of the line? Why not live each day now to the absolute fullest?

So why does it take a few drinks to face this kind of truth? What do a few single-malt scotches dislodge from the recesses of my heart and mind? What revelatory power does a well-hopped ale have? Why do I, in the absence of a reflective drink, sometimes skim the surface of life for ages? This is of course not to say that one must drink to know truth; in fact, even in the middle of such mental digressions I remember how much better it is to be sober than clouded in my judgement. And yet...there is truth in these thoughts, and key truths at that. It's as if a few good beers enable me to approach the same life issues from a new angle, and in so doing to see things anew altogether and to find new or forgotten priorities. I remember things I'd forgotten for a decade or more: the smell of something, a phrase a high school friend used to use, the feel of acceleration in a particular car, or the sense of homeliness of being in a particular kitchen. Some kind of synaptic memory is released in these moments.

And sometimes, I just remember that I'd forgotten to do something important, like pay rent on time.

I've been trying to find a way to start talking about my ongoing process in this particular area, and I don't think that there's really any particularly super way to start, aside from just starting to write. And, as E.M. Forster writes, "How do I know what I think until I see what I say?"

But this blog is not just about fun and games, as many of you have commented following the April 10th post on infertility.

In the coming days, I'll try to see how much explaining I can do about my faith issues here, and to lay things out in a clear way. Some of you may not know much about my faith shake-ups over the past couple of years, but most of you I think will have heard about them ad nauseam, so I'll try to keep the explanatory bits germane rather than mundane. Ideally this could be drawn out by questions or comments from you all as we go.

Here's a quick snapshot, divided into the poles of practice (what I do) and perspective (what I think or believe). I'd invite any of you who are interested in talking more about these things to pen your thoughts in the Comments link below this post.

Practice:

• I attend church, although usually arriving late and often only to meet my friends.
• I almost never read the Bible, but in fact recount it regularly.
• Prayer is an effort, but I choose to make it, both for myself and for my wife.

Perspective:

• I do not believe in the infallibility or the inerrancy of the Bible. On the contrary, I believe it to be a collection of translated texts that humans have used to tell stories about God to each other in various times and places, and to various ends--not all of them altruistic. I do believe that the Bible is inspired, though probably not uniformly. That line in Deuteronomy about the wife of one man grabbing the genitals of another man in a fistfight probably was written by a guy with an aching codpiece.
• I don't believe that the Bible has a special purchase on revealing God's truth, either. I think, for instance, that there is likely divine truth in the Brandenburg Concertos, in Hokusai's prints, in C.S. Lewis' writing, and in the mouths of my elders that has at least as much weight as the fossilized phrases of the book of Acts. Oh, and in Rogue Dead Guy Ale, too.
• I don't believe that we are living in the "end times,"; in fact, I think all attempts to map ostensible foretellings (e.g. , the book of Revelation) to our own circumstances are frankly ignoring the conventions of apocalyptic literature to which such texts belong.
• What about the historical Jesus? I guess these days I don't care too much about him, so much as I attach importance to the role that Christ plays in Christian belief: redemption, abundant life, community with the Father and with others, etc.

I guess that's enough for now -- just a quick take on a few of the evolving facets of my faith, which I have come to see as postevangelical.

Geez -- I am totally overwhelmed with work right now. They are looking to make me the point guy for faculty development, and that means that the whole thing is up to me to make happen. As it stands, I have like one other person I can use as a resource, and that person isn't overflowing with available time, either.

Shel's getting understandably tired of my bringing work home nearly every night; I'm getting tired of it too!

On the plus side, I'm now in a way to learn a lot of new things; my boss is very much into professional development, and I'm reading new stuff about assessment and instructional design models. Just joined the ASCD, which is an organization that is developing some cool approaches to instructional design. Specifically, I'm finding my work influenced by the Understanding by Design book series.

But somehow, someway, this pace has got to lighten up, or I have to toughen up and get more efficient. Likely both.

So we ran Nashville!

The day started with thunderstorms, which delayed our race start for 30 minutes. Everybody was hustled to nearby parking garages while the lightning cleared up. We all stayed drier than we might otherwise, thanks to a nice guy who brought a 100-roll of trashbags to the shuttle bus. All of us--except, curiously, Monkey Boy--donned them and stayed dry. Monkey Boy was soaked to the bone.

In the pre-race pre-dawn, the start area had Starbucks Coffee, fruit, water, and all sorts of goodies. They served the Starbucks in tiny little paper cups; my question to the attendants as to the official Starbucks name for that size went unanswered; "Really Big?" was about as close as it got. I guess nobody's on the top of their game at 5 A.M.

When young dawn finally managed to roll out of bed with her waterlogged fingers, it was to behold a huge sea of runners. The draw this year was that the race organizers had eliminated some big hills for a flatter, faster course. Let me just tell you that this course was anything but flat. Up and down, up and down...Chapel Hill was definitely good preparation.

And I did okay for the most part. I started to flag around mile 23, and my pace slowed quite a bit. Maybe it was all the walking and other non-running forward movement I was doing at that time. Actually, I was tired and feeling a little sick, but managed to pull myself together for a decent finish.

Shel and Sher met us all at different places in the race (thanks to cell phones) and cheered and took pictures (which will be posted here as soon as they are ready). And at the end, Shel, Sher, and the Fam that ran the 1/2 marathon were in the stands at the finish line cheering as I crossed! What a tremendous feeling.

According to the official results, my chip time was 4:24, but my watch chrono said that I finished in 4:15. I thought at first that my watch battery was getting low or something. But wait -- when I checked again at the race site online, I noticed that the official results also list my gun time as 4:24, which suggests that the start gate simply failed to register my crossing. For comparison, I checked on the times of a few of my running companions, and their chip and gun times were indeed different, as they should be. Gimme my nine minutes back!

And the Fam? Monkey Boy and the Club President put in a terrific showing for the half-marathon, which they ran together and completed in 2:43. La and her friend Maith powered through those 13 miles for a quick 2:40 tandem finish.

One of the coolest moments was when we were running the first out-and-back leg of the course, and about two miles in we hear this roar from the crowd ahead of us. Suddenly the leaders appear over the crest of the hill! The Kenyan men et al, flying past us in a dead heat. I didn't know the first thing about who was who, but I was screaming for them just like everybody else. And a few moments later, the Russian women, duking it out! We all screamed for them again. It's not everyday that you pass so close to world-class athletes.

We all ran with our own custom name banners pinned to our shirts, of course: La was "Wunder Woman," Grizzlius Grumpus was "Old Bear," I was "Black Buzzard," and Bruinus Aurelius, good sport that he is, wore his recently acquired moniker "Monkey Boy" with flair. And we all got plenty of shouts from the crowd; Monkey Boy took the overall props award, though, as his name alternately delighted and disturbed legions of shouting bystanders. He says that the runners around him eventually started asking each other out loud, "Why does everybody keep shouting for a 'Monkey Boy'?" To which MB would proudly turn to them mid-stride, puff his chest out and thumb his banner, and tell them "That's ME. I'M Monkey Boy!"

But it's anybody's guess as to what moment was proudest for our Monkey Boy. Perhaps the story that endears the MB to me the most involves an event that transpired place prior to the actual race start. It seems that just moments away from the start, MB's stomach decided that it had had enough of pre-race excitement and coffee, and demanded immediate attention. Ever alert, our spry simian quickly made his way to the nearest port-o-jon and opened the door, only to have fate greet him in the same way it greets virtually every female before the race: with the prospect of relieving oneself sans bath tissue.

What to do, Gentle Readers?! How could our Monkey Boy make do(o)? Quickly surveying his surroundings, MB scanned over the various forms of pre-race detritus that covered the ground and port-o-jon floor: cups, bottles, wrapper, discarded fruit in a multiplicity of shapes, until, perhaps drawn by some unseen inexorable force connected with his name...

"Aha! There it is, my salvation! Some obliging Dick or Jane has eaten a largish banana and left its peel neatly quartered -- I'm covered, as it were!"

The only decision left, of course, was whether to use the inside or the outside. MB assures me that the latter is much preferable, which leads me to believe that he had sufficient natural resources to experiment with both.

Long Winters Rocked: Shel and I went to see the show on Friday night, and it was indeed terrific. The three guys in The Long Winters were nice folks, and the lead vocalist/guitarist was funny, smart and interacted with the crowd well. These guys are pretty young, too, from what I could tell; late twenties, maybe?

They played all of the songs we wanted to hear, and a few we'd not heard, from their first album. I was pleased to see a lot of other people there who clearly knew the band and all of the lyrics to their songs. They played well in concert, and even though they didn't have an organist with them, their songs worked well with the standard 3-piece rock setup. They played a nice long set, too! Not bad for ten bucks a ticket.

On a sour note, I tried the Carolina Brewery's India Pale Ale on draft at the Cat's Cradle. It was like Killian's or similar, in that it wasn't worth the effort to bend my elbow, much less actually pay for the swill.

Gaming Update: In other news, I did indeed mod my GBA this weekend, installing an Afterburner with a Stealth dimmer chip. I got the Afterburner in okay, although I need to tweak the install a bit to get some dust particles out and secure the components a little better. The Stealth chip went in like a charm, and I'll take the opportunity to brag briefly on my own precision soldering.

What? What about the custom blue and orange LED, you ask? Well, let's just say that when I briefly bragged on my soldering skills, I meant very briefly. In short, I killed my battery LEDs, and have to order two more and try again. Meanwhile, I have a Stealth Battery LED to match my Stealth Dimmer chip.

Travelin' Tuesday: Tomorrow it's off to wonderful, lovely Utica, NY, again, through Thursday. This time I am determined to find MacGregor's, which eluded me last time despite three calls to the establishment for directions. Thanks to spectacularly uninformed employees at Macgregor's, I led my colleagues on a two-car beer expedition through the slums of Syracuse before we finally gave up the chase and stopped at "The Town Tavern" 5 minutes from the airport for PBR and a kielbasa sandwich. We never found that pub.

But this time's for real, pal! We are arriving in plenty of time tomorrow evening to take as long as necessary to find the place, and find it I will!

It has indeed been a long week for yours truly. Late nights every night, trying to get about a thousand faculty development things done, and erratic exercise. Ever feel like you aren't getting any time to do the things that you would love to just step aside for two hours to take care of?

I suppose that this week is anomalous; we had the stinking taxes to do, we had to deal with a brand new bed that was defective from the word go (which, BTW, the company is replacing tomorrow!), and it is crunch time for Shel at the Paste offices. Shoot, now that I think about it, I don't feel so bad! Of course we're tired.

But tonight we are kicking back -- going to start off the evening with some Carrburritos take-out, which we are going to wolf down while watching a couple episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine with P and T. Then, around nine, it's off to the Cat's Cradle to see The Long Winters open for the Pernice Brothers. Woo woo!

And then, assuming I can squirrel the time away to do it, I'm finally going to mod my Game Boy Advance. Here's what I hope to do:

• Add a Triton Labs Afterburner frontlight to it
• Couple that with a Division 6 Stealth Dimmer chip V.4
• Replace the green and red LED lights with custom blue and orange LEDs.

And here's what's likely to happen:

• Botch the Afterburner install by getting dust on the LCD!
• Short out the circuit board and the dimmer chip with crappy cold solder joints and unintentional bridges!
• Kluge up the LEDs so that neither the originals nor the replacements work!

Oh well -- There's always hoping!

Those of you who have visited our humble abode have heard certain stories about our cave-dwelling landlord and his fusty, musty ways. Frankly, the guy is brilliant -- a gifted computer guru, and he can be the nicest, most sensitive dude in the world. He is definitely off-balance, however, and on occasion has exhibited some of the most bizarre behavior you'll come across. He also has a Cap'n Jerko side, and here and there manages to rouse himself from his day job as a programmer to do his tenants (that's us) wrong. Examples include:

• Cranking up his stereo to blare techno music in the wee hours!
• Tossing his trash off of his balcony, which adjoins ours -- looks like the back side of a Chinese factory back there!
• Walking past our windows at odd hours like Tor Johnson in...in...in one of those movies Tor Johnson was in!
• Lighting up tha chronic next do' when my inlaws have come to visit! ("why, no, Jerry, I smell nothing odd...say, why don't we all go out to eat tonight?")
• And never, ever, ever initiating any repairs that don't directly concern him. Even in the case of the latter he often has to be prodded (one time I had to go wake him up on Sunday at 2 pm to make him call a repairman for the water pump which had gone out at 10 p.m. the night before).

Eeeyep, he is a joy to rent from. Typically, though, he's pretty trouble-free, given that he is usually oblivious to the world around him.

But the other night, he starts up the techno next door, and I'm like, "It's 12:30 -- what in the hell is Mongo thinking?" So I call him and ask him to turn it down. He was happy to do so, but he took the opportunity to remind us to pay our rent, which was, true enough, a couple of days late. What makes me mad, though, is that we have a list longer than Santa's of things he's never followed up on doing or has only done at the point of near-coercion. So we're a couple days late on rent. How about the fact that he's over a year late (and counting) on fixing our attic door? What about the fact that we invariably have to call repair folks ourselves and take it out of rent to avoid going through him?

Needless to say, we are getting tired of having to defer to the guy as the landlord. Soon, though, we'll be making the move to Chicagoland, and will finally upgrade our status from that of neanderthralls.

note: the image above is from www.flamewarriors.com, but it's such a great likeness of the guy I had to post it. Click the thumbnail to see the full portrait.

So tonight, after what seems like a week of rain, I finally got a 12-miler in. I hadn't run since Wednesday of last week. My body complained. It's still complaining, actually. Heart rate was too high during the run (averaging 155 over 1:56), although still within tempo range, at least.

Fortunately, Shel and I got our travel plans squared away for the big race. Turns out I'm traveling back to glorious Utica, NY, again next week, and am re-routing my return to go through Nashville. Shel will meet me there Thursday evening, using an airline voucher we got. Shel's mother Sher, her sister La, Grizzlus Grumpus and Bruinus Aurelius will be there as well; La, GG and BA will be running the half-marathon, while I run the big nasty.

I'm really getting excited about it. I still have to go get new shoes! Roadrunner Sports took a week to call me and tell me that my shoes were unavailable. I was like, "Thanks! I appreciate your letting me know in a timely fashion -- I only have to run 26 miles in a week and a half; what do I need broken-in shoes for?"

Dorks.

Anyway, it's late, and I'm up doing taxes. Or rather, I should be doing taxes, but am writing to you, Gentle Reader. You are much better company than Uncle Sam, who keeps hitting me up for money when I talk to him.

Recently, to fill a void in my fantasy reading, I've finally picked up some H.P. Lovecraft. Best known for his so-called Cthulhu mythos, Lovecraft appears to have been something of a nerd with an overweening sense of the macabre: imagine the film projector kid in 3rd grade telling ghost stories around the campfire. Throw in some highly stylized archaic phrasing, and you get the picture. Here's a sample:

"Thus of the very ancient city of Ib nothing was spared, save the seagreen stone idol chiseled in the likeness of Bokrug, the water-lizard. This the young warriors took back with them as a symbol of conquest over the old gods and beings of Ib, and as a sign of leadership in Mnar. But on the night after it was set up in the temple, a terrible thing must have happened, for weird lights were seen over the lake, and in the morning the people found the idol gone and the high-priest Taran-Ish lying dead, as from some fear unspeakable. And before he died, Taran-Ish had scrawled upon the altar of chrysolite with coarse shaky strokes the sign of DOOM."

Note that Ib must be very old, because, like Abraham's hometown of Ur, it predates towns boasting three-letter names and must therefore be extremely primal. Also catch the emphasis on the weirdness of the lights over the lake. Weirdness is like flaxseed for Lovecraft -- it's all a part of his regular function. But it isn't just any kind of weirdness -- it's the kind of weirdness that can only be described by using the word "weird." Beyond that, as seen above, it becomes unspeakable. Mnar must also be a fairly old culture, too, as their writing apparently doesn't include a division between upper- and lowercase letters.

Still, there's something compelling about his stories that occur in dream worlds, which he describes in terms as specific and detailed as one might do for a realist novel set in the waking world. I'm only partway through his early fiction at present, having made my way through the collection The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath and now in the middle of The Doom That Came to Sarnath. So far it's mildly diverting at best, but I keep reading. Why? Why?!!

It's just weird, you know? Unspeakably so.

This post is about infertility and adoption. Specifically, it's about Shel and I processing the increasing unlikelihood that we will have our own child, and what we've observed as a disturbing trend among those who encounter us in discussions about our infertility.

We are just this side of sterile as a couple. We can in fact go through about $25,000 in tests and procedures to get a kid of our own (in vitro with some racing modifications or something), but last time I checked, my wallet was a few decimal places short of that kind of dough. So we are stymied for the near future in terms of having our own.

That's been a painful thing to deal with over the last couple of years - as we've gone through an ever-increasing number of tests and an ever-escalating series of treatments, the sense of futility has been sneaking up on us. And now it's here.

Now, that's our problem. And it's uncomfortable: uncomfortable for us, for our family, for our concerned friends, and for anyone else who is unfortunate enough to engage us in conversation about it. But we've got to go through what amounts to a grieving process to get through this, and let it take its course.

That means we are going to be uncomfortable for some time to come.

Here's the bitch: What is it about people that spurs them to blithely suggest adoption within 60 seconds of hearing about our infertility? Do they think that perhaps we have plummeted from the sky and lack knowledge of all such options, or that we are talking to people to find a solution?

An acquaintance was talking with Shel recently, and of course took the quick route out of infertility discomfort to make a novel suggestion: "Why don't you adopt?" Shel responded that although yes, we had considered and were continuing to contemplate adoption, it just wasn't the same as having our own. Their answer? "Yeah, you say that now, but just wait until you get that baby in your arms." Real sensitive, pal. I might add that his wife is about to give birth to their third child.

Now, many of you are actually friends of ours who have indeed been grieving alongside us, and who are not running away from the discomfort of this. For that, we thank you. For the rest of you, on behalf of Shel and myself and for the sake of any other infertile couple you may encounter, I'd like to for once and for all offer the following response:

Thank you -- THANK YOU! -- for suggesting adoption. You know, that has never crossed our minds. Without you, we would probably have wandered in the reproductive wilderness for the next forty years! Oh, what a godsend you've been.

Now stop.

So why do people who hear about us and our fertility problems invariably (and nearly immediately) jump to the adoption option? Because it's easier to offer a solution than to stay in discomfort.

What about our genetic material? What about wanting a child that is an extension of US? Throwing the business of adoption in our faces -- long before it might be appropriate in a conversation -- at a root level invalidates not merely what Shel and I want, but more fundamentally, who Shel and I are.

So cut it out already! If you can't stand staying uncomfortable with us, then don't ask.

Opening the CD cabinet has become something of an adventure these days. As Shel does edits for all things Paste, we tend to stay abreast of new music happenings. That, and she gets musically bored real fast. So about every two weeks, she wails from the office, "we don't have any music to listen to! We need new music!"

What's great about this is that she's got the guts (or, perhaps is driven by the despair evinced above) to buy music she's not heard, simply by reputation or recommendation. So she'll visit Second Spin, and pick up a passel of mystery music. This means that many's the time when I'll reach into the stereo cabinet and grab something that neither of us have managed to listen to yet, and I'll be blown away by it. That's what happened with the Long Winters CD, and it's happened again.

Sun Kil Moon's Ghosts of the Great Highway is terrific! Is it Americana? Is it high-falutin mood music? Is it valium-laden grunge? Yes, and so much more! Imagine Hem crossed with the Czars, and you've about got the picture. Go out and buy it to-day.

Especially good: Track 2, "Carry Me Ohio." Yow!

McClelland and Co. has proven to be the tobacco company of choice for pipe smokers with educated palates. Whether it's their Mixture No. 1 with its refreshing blend of Virginias, their Bombay Extra with its light after-dinner aroma, or the ever-popular, always enjoyable Frog Morton on the Town, this company has the blend that will satisfy your senses.

Remember: When it's relaxing time, it's McClelland time.

Ahem.

So I like Frog Morton on the Town. Monkey Boy's been nursing a tin of the Mixture No. 1, which is right good. I've tried a variety of other tobaccos, including Cornell and Diehl (whose Brown Bear blend was about the worst thing I ever smoked) and G.L. Pease (whose Odyssey and Caravan blends are very good, but whose Piccadilly is to be avoided); at the end of the day, though, FMOTT gets the job done -- every time!

For those of you in the dark on this, I'm running the Country Music Marathon in Nashville on Saturday, April 24th. This will be my second marathon, having run the Marine Corps Marathon in 2001. I've been using a training plan from Hal Higdon's site, which I heartily recommend.

The plan I'm following (Intermediate Level I, for those of you morbidly interested) called for me to run two 20-mile runs near the end of the program, and I'm proud to say that I completed the second of the two on Monday night. Managed to finish in 3:19 and change; that's just under a 10-minute-mile, which is a bullseye for the long training run. I want to target a race pace right around 9:10/mile, and you're supposed to do your long training runs at between 45 and 90 seconds longer than your anticipated race pace.

Weirdly, I wasn't really sore after the 20-miler. Granted, I took a step back after the first 20-miler two weeks before, but still, you'd think I'd be hurting. I expected to hurt. I keep waiting for the hurt to jump me as I round a corner. I guess that's a good sign!

Anyway, from now until the race I taper down my runs to allow my body to recover from the stress of training. Woo hoo! Less work!

Grizzlus Grumpus, Bruinus Aurelius and yours truly, Buzzardus Maximus, were on hand this weekend at Michael Schueler's wedding in Augusta, GA. The event was marked by Sconyers' BBQ at the rehearsal dinner, and hot Krispy Kreme doughnuts throughout. The present members of the Ancient and Venerable Swat and Swoop Club, though lamenting the absence of the Club Bard, Vulturus Lyricus, maintained their high spirits with foaming flagons of brew and high-stakes games of sport.

Clubical Update: in an ill-advised duel of darts, Bruinus Aurelius suffered abject humiliation at the hands of the Club Secretary in a three-dart contest. More than just honor was lost, however, as the two had agreed that the loser should hereafter assume the title "Monkey Boy" in addition to his Clubical Name. Such being the case, Bruinus being the aforementioned loser, he is hereby promoted to the exalted rank of Monkey Boy for the duration of one year, after which time he has a terrible path before him. To escape his new position, he must successfully challenge another member of this here club to a mutually agreed-upon duel of honor. Should he prevail, Bruinus may choose to A) resign his post as Monkey Boy, or B) adopt his title permanently, and give a similarly honorable title of his own devising to the loser. In the case of B), the loser will wear the new title for a year, and then face the gauntlet as his simian brother will have done.

I actually did take a few snaps of the folks during their visit last week, but thanks to the glory that was my Utica trip I was a little short on time. Now, I actually made them breakfast, because I've recently managed to nail down a recipe for blueberry pancakes that I like and reliably make. Here's the recipe, for those of you who are kitchen fiends:

Dry ingredients

• 2 cups King Arthur All-Purpose flour, sifted
• 2 tablespoons turbinado sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt

Liquid ingredients

• 2 large eggs, beaten
• 2 1/4 cups fat-free buttermilk
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Blueberry ingredients

• 1 pint fresh blueberries (try to get smaller berries; these are invariably more flavorful than their fatso brethren)

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl, and make a little well in the center of the bowl. Pour the buttermilk, eggs, and butter into the center of the well, and stir with a spatula or mixing spoon until all ingredients are just combined. Do not overbeat! I learned the importance of this the hard way. Better to err on the side of lumpy batter than to beat the stuff too much and kill the flour.

Now, let the batter sit and rise for about 10 minutes or so, while you prep the blueberries. Just rinse the things and let them drain in the sink. Stir them in gingerly, and only until you have basic blueberry distribution. Again, don't mess with the batter any more than is absolutely crucial.

Heat up a nonstick pan on medium heat, until butter melts and browns on the top. I'd use about a 1/3 cup of batter per pancake, because I like mine a little larger than the ridiculous silver-dollar size most recipes assume. You can just use a 1/4 cup measure and heap it on.

From here on, cook 'em like normal. When the batter bubbles and the edges start forming, flip the pancakes. Serve with warm maple syrup (not disgusting log cabin or so-called pancake syrup) and butter or Brummel and Brown.

That's all there is to it! Here are a couple of pics of breakfast with my folks. Click to enlarge, as usual.

Well, the title says it all. You'll notice I have added a comment function to this here blog. Simply click the word "Comment" after the posting of your choice and say what's just gotta be said. Bring your own brand of moxie to the table, and put the "di" back in "diatribe."