Bunny Bits (Part One)

Once when I was a proprietor of great tracts of land it occurred to me to build a shed to house the various quasi agricultural machines I needed to keep up the estate.

Having no clue on how to build structures other than to contract with a guy named "Louie" from Jersey City who smokes cigarettes through clenched teeth and repeatedly says "Smaddawidyou?" I got on Amazon to see what sort of books there were on shed building.

Apparently a lot. And I not longer get on Amazon because my current favorite list includes "Modern Pole Barns", "Outdoor Annexes", "Sheds for Every Season" and "Structures that Save".

Embarassing, to say the least. I can only thank good fortune that I didn't mistakenly click over from some porn site on my first visit to the venerated on line retailer. Or e-tailer. Or dot-commer. Or dot-commercer. Or guy with a website who managed to make it through the early milennia meltdown that had the rest of us wondering just where the fuck all that money got off to, it was here a second ago?

Remember sudden wealth syndrome?

I don't. But continual impoverishment affliction. Yeah. That one I know.

Swiss rolls. During the occasional grocery shopping jags I go on I might just pass by the tasty chocolate and sugar confections aisle and feel a little sorry for myself and there are the Swiss Rolls; yummy chocolate thingys with cream filling that just beg you to take them home. And since I forgot to adopt a third world child again this week, I figure what the hell? Somewhere as I'm scarfing these things down after another arduous grocery excursion, I'm actually reading the ad copy on the side of the box. You know, the extraneous stuff that someone has poured his or her heart and soul into just so it can be resolutely ignored by the great unwashed on the run to another plate full of temporal satisfaction? Sort of like this blog.

Anyway, here's what it says: "A favorite treat of the Swiss brought to America more than thirty years ago..."

ARE YOU FOR REAL?????

Look, I've been to Switzerland. They eat an incredible amount of cheese there, suck on hard candies once in a while and drink marginally sweetened soda. They have no idea of what this tasty crap is. Let's face it, Swiss Rolls are no more Swiss than Belgian Waffles are a product of Opp, Alabama and not Brussels. Swiss Rolls were concocted in Patterson New Jersey by some guy who had cake and cream filling left over and might have had a cuckoo clock in his basement bar. They don't get no more Swiss than that! Don't lie to me. This isn't a Swiss treat. These are instant fatty-makers among America's youth and if you keep sucking them down mercilessly we're going to have to put Crisco on the door jambs to make sure you get out next week for a little fresh air.

Did you ever notice that in some folksy paintings of Switzerland, you've got a bunch of idyllic little wood houses and barns, quaintly decorated and there are rocks on the roofs? What are the rocks there for? I can only suppose that this is some clever Swiss ruse to confuse potential avalanches in winter. See? Rocks down here. Not houses. Nothing of value to bury. Go careen down some other idyllic valley and suffocate its inhabitants in tons of snow. Nothing but a bunch of rocks down this one.

But I really didn't want to talk about Switzerland. I want to talk about the weather.

It's March. It's cold. Last January there were days when we'd go run at lunchtime in shorts and a t-shirt. January! Now here we are in March and it's shrinkingly and retractably cold. What's going on here, please? Enter like a lion, leave like a center cut of veal? Or is it enter like a diesel back up generator, leave like a cross town bus?

Whatever. I'm having Punxatawney Philburgers for dinner because this is the third year running that that little son of another goddam rodent has saddled us with six more weeks of this miserable season. Temperatures in the low sixties are my current favorite wet dream, that's how bad its gotten. I've foresaken Sandra Bullock and Michele Pfeiffer and handcuffs for a marginally warm day.

But right now we're running five miles in temps that will barely scratch thirty so it'll all be so cold there's no point in fantasizing about anything other that being boiled in oil.

Like a Swiss Roll. In a pole barn. With rocks on the roof. Whatever.

Bbbbbbunny on.