sort of strangely, i can’t recall seeing any photos of my parents before their wedding portraits in 1968. there are stories: first date at aunt jemima’s house of waffles (my father ate his and then finished hers — if i remember correctly), my mother going against my grandfather’s wishes and visiting my father in incredibly snowy oswego ny for homecoming weekend, etc. but no photos.

luckily, lately, my aunt has been scanning and sending photos from her old collection. i think that this one is my favorite because it gives me a glimpse into my parents’ pre-married lives (i’m pretty sure this is pre-1968). though the more that i look at it, the more i realize that their pre-married lives don’t look particularly dissimilar from their lives now (minus the cut-off levi’s). that’s something, i think. forty years is a long time.

oh, and the other reason i love this photo is the hands on the neck. without smiles, the context changes, especially given the three people he already strangled on the ground behind them. just kidding, pop.

i do love me some tough winter greens. i’ve been working on this kale salad recipe for a few months. i don’t think it’s going past this point, so here’s where i share.

1 head of green kale
1 avocado
juice of 1 lime
6-8 sundried tomatoes (soaked for 30min and then diced)
habanero pepper (diced)
6 olives (i rinse the salt off and then dice them)

de-spine the kale. put it in a salad bowl. pour the lime juice over it and tear the kale into small pieces, this will soften it up and ‘cook it’ (similar to the way ceviche works). dice the avocado and mash it into the kale/lime mixture with your hands. drain the soaked tomatoes, dice them, and dump them in. same with the pepper and the olives. let the whole thing sit for a few minutes so that the kale softens a little more. devour. this salad is so good. i’ve been craving it lately.

dude. i just got home from seeing rambo. that shit did not disappoint. three things:

1. not only was this maybe the most violent movie i’ve ever seen, i believe that it has raised the bar for cinematic violence. to its credit, it wasn’t all hott machine gun action, as mr stallone was able to work in a subtle homage to road house with some manual windpipe removal that i found to be quite satisfying.
2. i can’t believe that all both members of the myanmar tourist board didn’t do everything in their power to stop the latest rambo installment from ever hitting a projection screen. this movie is pretty much myanmar’s the killing fields, and i needn’t remind you that it took cambodia nearly 20 years to become a tourist powerhouse again after that thing got released.
3. hgh is awesome. i want some. i want to look swollen.

you’d think that after eight days of surfing in mexico that i’d be sick of it but i woke up this morning thinking that i’d much rather be surfing in mexico. turns out that dropping out of the normal routine was the best thing i could do for myself. i didn’t find out who won the superbowl until wednesday. i didn’t find out that romney dropped out of the race until sunday. when i set the alarm on my phone each night to wake me up for a sunrise surf session, my phone would remind me of all the meetings that i had missed that day and you know what? eh.

today marks the first day back to a fairly busy life. i can’t say that i ever wanted to be a weekend warrior/dude who needs vacations to get some stress reduction, but i guess that’s sort of how it turned out. also eh.

see you next year, long left break.

see you next year, senor iguana.