Crip Big Bang Support Comm

In looking at the amount of peanut butter I have, and in looking at the internet's suggestions of what to do with it, the best idea comes with a minor concern - namely, that peanut butter bread doesn't work with natural and organic peanut butters on account of the emulsifiers being necessary for the bread's crumb to effectively hold together. It doesn't seem possible to add in anything at home, whether it's another kind of vegetable oil or some extra egg whites, that'd address and fix the specific problem.

There's a few recipes I've found which are designed around natural peanut butters, and none of those look quite as much fun as the others - some of them even seem a bit finicky. They don't come across as something simple to make and stick in the freezer for quick snacks in the future. I've got more than enough of the peanut butter and not quite enough of the everything else to experiment, at least not more than two or three times, and I'm loathe to waste flour like that. I guess there's always noodles.

Before tonight's screening of Collateral - still astonishingly good and an excellent crowd, plenty of laughs and gasps - I spoke to someone else who'd also gotten there early, but instead of being early for the 7PM Collateral showing, they were early for the 9:15 screening of something completely different. They're both on the same night, both in the same screening room, and it's an easy, understandable thing to get confused. This person also had time to head out and grab some food, and their friend who was meeting them was understanding about the situation.

Weirdly, though, this person didn't say things like "how foolish of me" or "I've got time to grab something" or "this is an easy mistake and I'll remember this to attempt to avoid such things again." What they said were things like "I can't read" and "I'm such an idiot" and generally insulting themselves. It's got me baffled as to why someone would take that route and go for those reactions, and I can only hope they grow out of it.

When the clouds clear enough, and the moon comes out, it's almost a surprise - only almost, because you've seen it for ages, you know exactly where it is, but it's only when the clouds clear enough and the circle of the moon shows itself that you see it for what it is and not the light it gives. Because until the clouds clear, all you see is the moon's light. You don't see the moon for itself, for what it is, not quite yet. Standing up on the roof, looking skyward, all you see are the clouds and the light, not the moon. You see the reflection, not the thing itself.

Standing up there, the second night of Sukkot, the second night of the yearly harvest festival, the celebration that comes with the night of the full moon, I could see where the moon was by the light that pushed through the dense, dark clouds. Not the celestial body itself, but its light, its reminders and indicators of where and what it was. I could see where the moon was, and I could see, farther south, the breaks in the clouds that I knew would let me see it. I'd come from a Sukkah party of sorts, a dinner at a local synagogue that wasn't so much choreographed as it was loosely hosted: a sukkah built on the rooftop, with people bringing food of their own to have dinner in a sukkah and fulfill the requirements of the holiday. I talked about Greek museums, and riding the metaphor to work in Athens, and Hadrian's wall, and Los Angeles' architecture, and probably a dozen other topics, all while eating food and drinking wine in the temporary structure on the rooftop. There was some wine left over. I took the bottle with me to another rooftop. My parents' building doesn't close its roof the way my own building's does. My father wanted to see if he could see the moon.

It wasn't so much that he could see it as it was that he could see where it was. The clouds were moving south to north, along the eastern part of the sky. To the north, it was largely clear; to the south, the nighttime clouds loomed dark and uncaring, taking up as much of the sky as they could. I could see where they were thin and weak, and stayed to watch. My father had to go, satisfying himself by seeing where the moon was. I waited to see it, if I could. I knew I could, if I waited. I waited to open up the bottle and drink its remains when I saw the moon. I didn't wait long. The spinning of the earth and the motion of the clouds had them thin out and open up so it was more than seeing the light behind the clouds telling me where the moon was: it was seeing the moon itself. Waiting and watching, the darkness stopped for the light to come. It wasn't cold on the roof, not with the thick dress I was wearing and not with the wine I was drinking. The clouds weren't enough to hide the moon from me anymore. The faint spectrum around it, the blues and reds reflected by the thinnest clouds making a rainbow halo, told me exactly what I was seeing. The faintest reflection of sunlight turned into the strongest moonlight.

I watched the moon, and drank the wine. I looked at the clouds, and drank the last of the wine. I left when I was ready, and I don't know when next I'll see it - just that I'll remember having seen it tonight.