It’s as if begging alone will guarantee a good spot in the hereafter.

At Grandpa Armstrong’s it was usually up to either my brother or me to say grace. I was terrible at ad-libbing prayers since we didn’t get much practice at home, so I always stuck with an old, childhood favorite:

God is great, God is good Let us thank Him for this food, Amen.

One time I accidentally – ACCIDENTALLY – flipped the middle line “Let Him thank us for this food” and got away with it, but that was rare. Grandma Armstrong had a great sense of humor except when it came to The Almighty. Prayer was to be taken seriously. You played it straight and didn’t take chances if you knew what was good for you.

At Grandma Bertula’s it was a different matter entirely. Grandma herself was pretty dour, but the rest of us were a fun-loving bunch. Jocularity and good-natured ribbing were de rigeur and pretty much nothing was off limits.

That extended all the way to saying grace; a task normally reserved for “the kids.” My Mother and Brother were spared, which meant it was up to Uncle Ray, Aunt Mary, and me. Ray did the honors when he was in town, and I’d pick up the slack when he wasn’t.

We had two classics, I’m not sure where Ray came up with them, but they were like well-worn friends. The first beautiful in and almost artfully minimalist:

Grace.

That was it. After that he’d dig right in and you’d miss the stuffing if you weren’t paying attention. The other, extravagant by comparison, was probably my favorite:

Rub a dub dub Thanks for the grub Yay God!

Every year Grandma Bertula acted annoyed, but I think it was all an act. Truthfully, I think she secretly enjoyed it. She’d smile, kind of sheepishly, and exclaim “Oh, Ray!”

My Uncle Ray and Aunt Cindy were visiting her family one year, so I was asked to do the honors. I didn’t dare look at Grandma because, she had this face she’d make. The disapproval face. In spite of our family’s long-running, if irreverent, tradition, she expected something more traditional. Somehow I just knew. So I just bowed my head, took a slight pause for dramatic effect, and said:

Clap your hands and stamp your feet Praise the Lord! Good God, let’s eat!

I remember getting a “Michael!” from someone, possibly Mom. I couldn’t tell if Grandma was more shocked or amused, although I did catch her stifling a smile. Either way I just beamed; I hadn’t chickened out and had pulled it off.

After all, if you can’t have fun with your family, you’re taking life far too seriously.

It was actually a pretty busy week: Association meeting on Tuesday, drinks with friends on Wednesday, Aimee Mann at the Zoo with Sherry on Thursday, Billy Bragg at The Cedar on Friday, then Stomp! at the Ordway on Saturday.

In the couple-dozen shows I’ve seen at The Cedar, this has been only the third where there were no chairs.

The first was Hoven Droven, a Celtic punk band at the Nordic Roots festival a couple years ago. The show started with chairs, but as the band got going people got up to dance. At first the chairs were (gently) shoved away from the stage, then quickly a bunch of people helped to stack them and put the chairs away properly. In under 5 minutes the floor was clear.

The second show was Konono No. 1, a percussion and thumb piano band from Africa. (Boy was that show loud!) They started the evening without the chairs so people could dance. The crowd really got hopping in sync with itself and you’d see this mass of heads bobbing into the air and back down again.

And then the Billy Bragg show. It was billed as limited seating, but I was surprised to find no chairs at all. I figured it meant the normal seating arrangement, but that there were more tickets than seats. I wouldn’t call Bragg’s music danceable – indeed, nobody really moved that much the entire show. However, the concert was sold out. With chairs The Cedar holds about 300 people but they must have sold 600+ tickets for this show. Standing room only in the truest sense.

The opening act was a guy named C. R. Avery. He did this beat-box, hip-hop, spoken word thing that was just great. I had to buy his two CDs after the show. If you’ve ever heard Kid Beyond before you’ve got the general idea, but with a bit more focus on the words than the beats and the looping.

Billy came out and it was just him and a couple guitars. One electric and one acoustic. He did several songs from the his latest album, Mr. Love and Justice, with a healthy dose of old stuff interspersed. I got to hear most of my favorites, including “Sexuality” and “The Space Race Is Over.” It was a really good show.

At one point, switching back from acoustic to electric, Bragg made a remark about amplification and apologized that I was getting the brunt of it standing there straight in front of his main stage amp. I just smiled, pointed to my ear plugs, and told him it was no sweat; I was getting a great show and couldn’t have picked a better spot about 6 feet off center right against the stage.

After the show he came out and signed autographs. He took the time to talk with everyone in line and come my turn he apologized again for the amplifier placement. I said he shouldn’t apologize, I knew what I was getting into by standing there. I have earplugs and could still hear every word, it just took the edge off. Sherry had helped me grab the set list from the stage, which he gladly signed and tried to point out the one or two spots where songs got added.

Then I asked him to autograph a couple CDs I had brought with me. As I handed them to him, I remarked that they were two of the old ones (not the oldest, but William Bloke and England, Half-English.) He started signing them, and asked “Who are they?” Confused, I looked and realized what had happened. He had written “To the Old Ones, “ and signed the first one.

Unable to make something up on the spot, I explained that I had said “Two of the old ones,” figuring he would just sign them and be done with it. Completely embarrassed, Billy remarked that after a show there is often no brain filtering information between ears and hands, so he’ll often just write whatever someone says because he’s talking with them at the same he signs stuff. “I’m just as likely to write ‘To the git that makes a terrible cup of coffee’ if someone said at the right time.” We all started riffing on “To the Old Ones” a bit, including my friend Kathy who was next in line, and eventually someone (I think it was Kathy) said “To the Young Ones.” The Young Ones was a British sit-com that played on MTV for a while here in the US. A bit more joking around and that’s what the second CD now says: “To the Young Ones, Billy Bragg.”

It was time to go, but I got a picture with Billy and he apologized again for the autograph mixup. I said it was no trouble at all. In fact it was great! Usually it’s just a signature, or “To Michael” at most – as if anyone would be fooled into thinking Billy and I were drinking buddies. These two CDs, “To the Old Ones” and “To the Young Ones” are now truly special. Not only do they have some good music on them, but I have a story to go with them.

Rubbish in one hand, recycling in the other, and barely awake, I ran into what would charitably be described as a formidable brunette coming up the stairs. Dressed in a long, purple coat, red scarf, and black pumps, she was not only quite drunk, but unbelievably ugly.

Turns out it was the guy who lived across the hall.

The neighbor I knew had a shaved head and Russian or Slavic features that were bloated from years of heavy drinking. Most of the time he wore stained blue-jeans and an open-front sport shirt that was never buttoned. I seldom saw him without a drink in hand, his usual poison being a 40-oz. malt liquor. Basically he looked like an alcoholic linebacker.

He always talked about being in the movie business, but I got the sense that it was more porn and less Hollywood. Still, he seemed decent enough — if stuck in one place and somewhat lost.

He was transfixed by the Internet, which at that time was still in its infancy. Attracted to many of the get-rich-quick schemes, he’d sometimes solicit my opinion. I’d always tell him the same thing, “If it seems too good to be true…”

But now, seeing him disguised as a remarkably homely woman, all I could do was stammer “Dude, it’s way too early for me to deal with this.”

I’m not sure who was more surprised: my neighbor because he really didn’t expect to run into anyone or me because…well, the obvious reason. He went into his apartment to change, and perhaps sober up, while I went on about my business; content to never give it a second thought.

Don’t get me wrong; as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else, I really don’t care. I like to think I’m as open-minded as the next person. Besides, if he wants to play with gender roles, who am I to get in the way. But I can’t shrug off honest surprise either.

Several minutes later he tapped at my door. Dressed as a man, he wanted to make sure I wouldn’t tell anyone. “It’s just something I do once in a while and I don’t want anyone to find out.”

“No worries,” I said, while thinking “Who’d believe me?”

Both dinners were pretty much the same: turkey and all the trimmings. We had candied yams (sweet potatoes), mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, rolls, asparagus (Grandma didn’t like broccoli), pie, and, and, and… And stuffing.

Now, Mom wasn’t known for taking shortcuts in her cooking. For Thanksgiving, she went all out, even making her own cranberry sauce. She’d start with bags upon bags of cranberries then boil them for hours down in water with a bunch of sugar. It’s primary purpose was to make yifta (it’s a real dish!), but one delicious benefit was that we never had to eat the stuff out of a can.

Mom would even make the stuffing from scratch, tearing the bread by hand; a task for which she got up early just to have time. The hard work certainly paid off, because the whole house smelled wonderful and dinner was amazing.

Yet year after year, one thing troubled my Mom – she never felt that her stuffing lived up to Grandma’s. She could never get it quite as moist or to taste just like her mother’s. Personally, I thought it was great, but Mom wasn’t satisfied.

Finally, as we sat down to Christmas Eve dinner, Mom took her first bite of Grandma’s stuffing. “I use your recipe every year and no matter what I do I can’t get my stuffing to come out like yours. I can’t figure out how you get it so perfect. How do you do it?”

With a wry smile on her face, Grandma said “The stuffing? I’ve been using Stove-Top for years.”

It happens every year. We’re gathered at the table, someone has said grace (a story for another time), and people are loading thier plates. When the mashed potatoes come around I quietly pass them along. That’s when it starts.

Mom: “Don’t you want any mashed potatoes?”

Me: “I don’t like mashed potatoes.”

“When did you stop liking mashed potatoes?”

“I’ve never actually liked them. It’s not about anyone’s in particular, I just don’t care for them.” My mom’s are quite good, by mashed potato standards, but that doesn’t really change anything as far as I’m concerned.

“You used to eat them. When did you stop?”

“When I was 8 or 9, I think. Old enough to load my own plate and therefore pass them along quietly, without further comment.”

Except, it seems, for the annual mashed potato conversation.

It’s a “sport” where people go to a local park and place a cache, typically a Tupperware box or other small container, with a log file and possibly some trinkets in it. The loot is along the lines of trading cards, gumball machine toys, Matchbox cars, and the like. Once hidden, they use their GPS (Global Positioning System) receiver to take coordinates and post them to the Geocaching web site with a short description and perhaps a or clue or two.

Others, using their GPS receivers, go to the same coordinates and try to find the stash. If successful, they sign the log and trade baubles. It’s not as easy as it sounds because the coordinates aren’t exact, they only get you within 10 or 20 feet. The point is really in the adventure and the outdoors, rather than the hidden goodies. Along the way we try to pick up trash in the park and leave things better than we found them.

Not known for going into a hobby half-hearted, I went out and bought a GPS receiver, a car mount, and some additional map software for the GPS. Talking about it with a friend, he quipped, “Worried you’ll get lost on the way to the bathroom?”

No, but it did occur to me that now I actually know where I am.

Sure, I knew before. It’s not like the drive to work is a Lewis and Clark expedition. Just two highways and perhaps a half-dozen side streets. However, the world is much bigger than work and home; before this I never really had a a sense of where “here” actually was.

Say what you will, but for me it’s fun to know — even good to know. It gives me a better sense of place. I feel a little less disconnected from the world now that I can see, right in front of me, where I’m going and where I’ve been. And it doesn’t hurt to have satellite confirmation down to a handful of feet.

It’s probably just some geek thing, but the GPS goes with nearly everywhere I go. Maybe it’s never being satisfied unless the answer is accurate to 10 places, but I find myself fascinated by what this gadget tells me. Not only location, but altitude, max speed, average speed, and miles traveled. With the extra maps, it can even tell me how to get there, no matter where “there” is.

If only it could tell me why I’m here.

I spent all day getting ready; cleaning the living room and kitchen, dusting furniture, straightening the mess that was my office.

I decided on pasta because it’s fairly easy and I make a mean red-sauce. Early afternoon I went shopping. Italian Sausage, tomato sauce, tomato paste, oregano, rigatoni noodles, cheese from the deli, garlic bread, a few other bits, and a decent bottle of wine.

My plan was to have dinner ready for when Vanessa arrived at 6 o’clock. I set about making the sauce, which would need to simmer for about an hour. I opened the tomato paste and tomato sauce, dumped them in a saucepan, and added a touch of oregano and a little something else to give it some zip. After that, I put the sausage on to brown and started water for the noodles.

Checking the sauce, something was off. Way off. It was runny and tasted horrible. Turns out I got the wrong stuff and had something closer to tomato soup than spaghetti sauce. Maybe I can recover.

The sausage needed a few minutes more, so I started the oven on low, put the bread in, and tried to find something that would save the sauce. Rifling through cupboards turned up nothing useful and there was no time for another trip to the store.

Right about then, Vanessa called to see if we were still on for dinner and if there was anything she could bring. Unwilling to admit defeat so early, I lied, “No thanks. Everything is fine on this end.” There was no turning back now.

It wasn’t enough that my kitchen skills weren’t the greatest—and I knew it. I really had a thing for this woman, so I had to complicate matters by trying to impress her. On top of it all, it had been a miserable week at work and I wasn’t feeling well. I wrote off the queasy stomache to simple nervousness and started thinking about what music to play.

To me, the right music is almost as important as the right food or the right wine. Choose wisely, and it helps make an entire evening. Choose poorly, and it can ruin your night, leaving it a crumpled, tattered mess.

Somewhere between The Cocteau Twins and Elvis Costello I was wrested from my musical reverie… What’s that smell? A sense of dread washed over me and headed toward the kitchen. Oh my God! The stove is on FIRE! As if to drive home the point, that was about when the smoke alarm started screaming. Thankfully I had the sense to cover the pan and get it off the heat before any real damage occured, but not before the room was completely hazed over and the sausage was beyond ruined. Opening a window, I tried to calm down and thought “OK, we’ll go meatless for the sauce.”

With cleanup operations underway and less than 15 minutes to go, I was getting desperate. I put the noodles on and made a quick check of the neighbors. Two not home and the third with nothing more than sauce in a jar. “No thanks, but I’ll Keep it in mind.” A call to my brother and my mother, both excellent cooks, for advice was no use; nobody home either place. I was on my own.

The noodles were doing fine and the smoke was cleared with help from a good size window fan. Looking in on the bread revealed no progress. No heat. No pilot light. Oven broken. Great. Wonderful.

Moving the noodles off the stove and over to drain them, I dropped the pot. Boiling water and rigatoni noodles exploded everywhere.

What I should have done was give up, but I was determined to see things through. Vanessa was supposed to be there any minute, so I had to think fast. There were regular spaghetti noodles in the cupboard, so I got the water going again and put them in, then back to the neighbor’s for that jar of sauce.

I had just finished dumping the jar into a pan when Vanessa arrived. In an effort to catch my breath and to hide my frazzled nerves, I sat to chat for a just a minute. One minute turned into five and then ten. All the while I didn’t let on what had transpired. “Is every thing OK? I think I smell smoke.”

“Not to worry,” my keen sense of understatement running full-tilt, “just a small problem with the stove earlier.”

Then she asked how long ago I had started the noodles and that should probably check on them. Too late; they were already over-done.

There it was, my abject failure on a plate. Sticky spaghetti under mediocre sauce with cold garlic bread and a passable salad. To top it off, the wine wasn’t very good either. Culinary disaster in three courses. Make that two–I completely forgot about dessert.

Awful as it was, Vanessa still found something nice to say. With as much sincerity as she could muster, considering the tears rolling down her face from trying not to laugh, she said “The sauce is good.”

“Here’s the thing,” I confessed, “it’s from a jar.”

Eventually it dawned on people as to what he meant. One person would figure it out and whisper it to the next. There would be the occasional “eewww” or disgusted look, but as word spread quickly around the room, people started to gather.

The surprising thing was that the group was divided almost perfectly 50/50. On each side there was a good mix of young and old, men and women, managers and worker-bees.

I’m left wondering what the guy from the party thinks about in quiet moments. Imagine sitting across from him at a meeting, he appears to be listening but really he’s thinking about weird stuff like crumpling vs. folding.

About 5 seconds after I get back to my desk, an IM comes in: “So, are you a crumpler or a folder?”

Now that I find myself looking for work, I also have to be concerned with filling out new-hire paperwork when I actually do find a job. The I-9 form is especially annoying because it requires a photo ID and some proof that you’re entitled to work in this country: citizenship papers, work visa, social security card…that kind of thing. But I don’t have a photo ID.

It’s a long story, but I don’t drive. My license expired roughly two years ago and I never bothered to renew it because I have no interest in driving. In the mean time, the ID card itself has gone missing. Best thing for my purposes is a state ID card. There’s paperwork involved, but no written or road test.

In Minnesota, when your license has been expired for more than a year, you have to start from scratch and, like any good beuracracy, they don’t make it easy. There are several possibilities, but for me the best option was going to be a certified copy of my birth certificate and my social security card. All of the other options were things like a passport or military ID. Now, if I had one of those, I wouldn’t need the state ID card, would I?

Then again, I don’t have a copy of my birth certificate, let alone a certified copy.

Through the State Health Department’s Web site, I figured out where to go. They made it seem like you just went in, filled out a form and got the certified copy of the certificate. Easy. I could do that and stop off at the DMV to fill out that paperwork on my way to work.

Once I got to the office, the folly of my endeavor became apparent. The form required every imaginable bit of information regarding my birth: name of parents, mother’s maiden name, birth date, city and county of birth and so on. When I handed the form to the registrar, she asked to see a photo ID. You know, the very thing that brought me there in the first place. I explained the situation but she wouldn’t budge and didn’t really see the fault in the logic.

Finally, she volunteered an alternative. Bring in someone I’ve known for over two years with their photo ID so they can vouch for me. They’re only open from 8:00am – 4:00pm, which means not only do I have to take more time away from work; I’ll be causing someone else time away from their job as well. Luckily they’ll be open Monday (Christmas Eve) and the day after Christmas, so I might be able to get a friend or someone in my family to help me out. But that still meant it wasn’t going to get done today.

I have a silver card case that holds my credit card, a couple business cards, and today it also held my social security card. When I got to work I discovered my card case was missing. I don’t normally carry my Social Security card, but had my original plan actually worked, I was going to need it at the DMV. I was freaked out. If getting a certified copy of my birth certificate from the state was this hard, imagine how painful it would be to replace a lost Social Security card. A frantic call to the Health Department confirmed I had left it there. Great. While my current nightmare was over, it meant another trip down there without completing my original mission.

Luckily, my boss (of over two years), offered me a lift back to the health department so I could retrieve my card case. He also volunteered to vouch for me. Excellent! At least I could get one thing done today.

While everything more or less worked out in the end, I understand why people go postal.

The streets were oddly bare, their weather pocked surfaces caught in the tri-color glow of traffic lights. It’s a time when the city’s day-dwellers are tucked safely in bed; where only the drunk and dispossesed roam free.

Finding the local Perkins closed, we headed for Mickey’s Diner, a streetcar-turned-restaurant parked in the middle of downtown St. Paul. The five of us wedged into spots along the counter…no mean feat considering the place seats no more than 40.

Talking amongst ourselves, we waited for the lone, overworked, counter-man to take our order. Counter-man doesn’t begin to describe it. He was equal parts bus-boy, waiter, cook, cashier and bouncer. He hears everything and throws an occasional wise-crack into the conversation.

The wait is short and a curt “Whatllyahave?” gets things rolling. I hesitated, assuming he’d want to grab a pad of paper. With all the patients of a cab driver at a green light he added, “Speak up or it’s coffee to-go.” Slightly rattled, I blurted out my reply but he seemed to understand, not without some satisfaction in having thrown me off-guard. After that, it’s a quick smile, a simple nod, and “Next!” right down the line.

He manages to carry on four separate conversations, argue with a guy that’s trying to pick a fight, read the early paper and not burn the food. It’s like some strange ballet where cooking and chatter replace leaps and spins.

When asked how long he had been doing this, the immediate answer was “since 11.” After a while he came back with the real answer, “16 years, and I love every minute…even if some of them do go on forever.”

Don’t like how he works? “Call my boss and tell him to fire me!” He’ll give you the number.