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http://Baloooma.stumbleupon.com/review/28783140/

Sun, 28 Dec 2008 09:47:40 -0800

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Tommy accidentally baloooma'd his computer last night :) Perhaps this is a good time to be offline for a bit. Yes, baloooma is a verb, too. Have a nice holiday, mina-san.

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http://Baloooma.stumbleupon.com/review/28403372/

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 08:23:05 -0800

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"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Arthur C. Clarke

[Like perhaps our own awareness? :]

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http://Baloooma.stumbleupon.com/review/26972727/

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 22:56:48 -0700

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[Here's a short non-fiction piece I wrote about ten years ago. It's been lost for seven or eight, and recently a good friend helped me find a copy.]

Scarborough Fudge

Chocolate fudge has always worked a bit of magic over me.

As a boy my grandmother would visit each year from Des Moines
at Christmas time. A 500-mile journey by train to Cincinnati.
We called her Nana. And it never failed. Upon her arrival
stashed neatly in her bag and wrapped in wax paper were long
and hefty bars of chocolate fudge.

I only saw her on these yearly excursions, but my Nana
became a stable influence in my life, and the fudge she brought
seemed to be the taste and the warmth of that influence. I came to
depend on this annual delight.

Now that I am decades older and have been in Japan six years,
little has changed. I still depend on chocolate fudge at least once a
year. But it's a little hard to find in Tokyo, so I ask my manager
from the U.S. to play the role of my Nana.

On his annual trips to Tokyo, he knows there are two things he needs to bring
to enter Japan. One is a passport and the other is chocolate fudge.
I'm not particular. Any brand, and flavor. He's just got to bring some.

A few Sunday afternoons ago I picked him up from Narita airport. We
waited with his bags on the platform for a train back to Tokyo.

"I got it." he said.

"You got it?" I couldn't contain my excitement. "What, Russel Stover?"

"No," he said.

"Greaters?"

"No, not Graeters," he said. "Graeters was completely out. I don't know
what this is," he said, his hand reached into his bag. "Had to drive through
half 'a Cincinnati last Saturday to find this stuff. Took me three hours.
Finally ran into some little candy store. You know me and Cincinnati, I'm still a
newcomer," he said. "But I found it."

He pulled out a white paper package.

"Here ya go. Chocolate fudge. Two pounds. That oughta hold ya
a couple days."

"Two pounds? Thanks!" I slipped the clear plastic container from the bag.

The name on the package label startled me: The Fawn.

"Where did you find this?" I asked Dave.

"I don't have a clue", he said, "I just ran into some little mom and pop candy store."

I couldn't believe it. The Fawn. I can still hear her saying it. And me not
quite understanding what she was talking about.

"Come on let's go to The Fawn," she said.

"What's the fawn." I said.

"You don't know? It's a candy shop in Cheviot. Come on lets go before
they close."

"I don't know, Tina." I said.

We started walking. I was uncomfortable with this. This was, at twelve years old,
like my first date in broad daylight. I had been to her house before. Once. On a Saturday
night. Just before Christmas. 1967. I was bringing her a stuffed bear for a
Christmas present. She was waiting to give me a monogrammed bracelet. Her parents
and siblings had cleared out for the evening to give us some time alone. We sat in
her living room. Dark except for a lighted Christmas tree and a small corner lamp.

(continued below) 12:56am

http://Baloooma.stumbleupon.com/review/26972829/

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 22:56:32 -0700

(continued from above) 12:56am

We talked easily to each other. She led me upstairs to show me her
bedroom. We walked in with the lights off. She stood there close to me
waiting for me to kiss her. But I couldn't. I wasn't ready for it. Or
so I told myself later.

"She doesn't think you like her anymore," her friend said a few weeks later.

I assured her I did. "Maybe I like her too much," I said. Being near her
made me nervous in a way that was both joyful and paralyzing.

So here she was dragging me to a candy shop called The Fawn in Cheviot
some Saturday afternoon a few months later and I couldn't even get up the nerve
to walk right next to her. I walked about five yards ahead.

One day, about a year before, our sixth grade teacher passed out to each
of the students pocket sized phone books donated by a local bank.
We were supposed to use them to collect the phone numbers of our friends.
The moment Tina was given hers, she turned to me, one row of desks and
several seats away, and said, "Tom can I have your phone number?" She smiled.

I was stunned. This was Tina Jones. Long blond hair. Blue eyes. Very cute.
A charmer. Spontaneous. Full of the devil. Tina Jones. She had older
brothers and an older sister. They were cool. Tina was cool. And she
was asking me for my phone number?

"Tina likes you," another girl said the next day. "She wants you
to call her sometime."

"Call her?"

"Yeah, like on the phone. You know."

"Oh yeah, okay."

So on that Saturday afternoon in late winter she ran ahead showing the
way to The Fawn. "Are you sure you've never been here", she said? She
pushed her way through the door and I followed the smells of fresh
home-made candies and chocolates.

"Wow, they have fudge," I said. "They really have fudge." I had just
enough money. Two dimes for two thick pieces. She bought some
penny candy and we walked out.

"What's so special about fudge," she said.

And I told her about my Nana, how we'd go meet her at Union Terminal
every Christmas and how fudge was a rare enjoyment in my life. She laughed
at how silly that sounded and I laughed at the sudden realization that I was
walking right next to her and feeling pretty good about it too.

When we got back to her house she pulled out her brother's Martin guitar.

"It's what Peter Paul and Mary play," she said, and it looked beautiful
with her arms wrapped around it. She turned on the radio.

"I can play this one on the drums," I said. It was "Love is All Around". The Troggs.

Songs played on. "Summer in the City." Lovin Spoonful. "This was the first song
I learned," I said. More songs played.

"Who is this Rosemary girl," she asked me smiling.

"Rosemary," I asked? "I don't know a Rosemary."

"Oh yes you do, it says so in this song."

"In this song," I said?

"Yeah," she said! "Parsley Sage Rosemary and Tom." She sang it right along
with Simon and Garfunkel. "They're singing your name in that song.
You and Rosemary. You better not be seeing her," she smiled.

Over the years every time I have heard the name Tina I have heard her
laugh. Every time I have heard that song I have seen her smile. And
now, at the age of 43, holding two pounds of chocolate fudge from The
Fawn, and standing on a platform at a train station outside Tokyo, Japan, I
was feeling her presence again.

In the fourth year following that Saturday afternoon date to the Fawn,
my Nana, Ruby O'Brien died of Parkinson's Disease and my first love,
Tina Jones, died in an automobile accident.

July 1998, Tokyo.

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http://Baloooma.stumbleupon.com/review/26803124/

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 17:50:13 -0700

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http://Baloooma.stumbleupon.com/review/26802950/

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 17:43:35 -0700

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http://Baloooma.stumbleupon.com/review/26802866/

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 17:40:01 -0700

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http://Baloooma.stumbleupon.com/review/26802770/

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 17:36:11 -0700

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http://Baloooma.stumbleupon.com/review/26802711/

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 17:33:00 -0700

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http://Baloooma.stumbleupon.com/review/26802611/

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 17:29:31 -0700

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