Elise Otto

DIRECTIONS

Take the Pullman to Colfax.
After dropping into the valley, veer right onto Highway 26. Take the 26 for about 15 miles and make a left at Dusty onto WA-127.
Cross the Snake.
127 will merge with the 12.
Go through Dayton and then Waitsburg and into
Walla Walla.
That is easy.
The signs say Walla Walla the whole way.
There is no doubt.
The trick is coming back.

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Sarah Haas, Lady Sweets Ultimate Frisbee Captain writes:

Side Cutting: When the disc moves to the sideline, the wing player must move IMMEDIATELY, otherwise the offense bogs down. The wing player can cut deep along the line, deep across the field, or in towards the middle. The wing player should not cut directly towards the disc, unless they have an easy catch for 15+ yards.

Sounds okay, but on the Thanksgiving-in-Oregon field of mud, I have no idea what I am doing. Someone on the sideline yells directions: “Okay, Run in! In! IN! .... Now CUT OUT CUT OUT...OUT.... Now in.. go go! IN!... oh okay now out again....contin––CONTINUING CUT!!” I cannot breathe; I cannot think about field position or the defense.

“What (deep breath) is (desperation) a (gasp) continuing cut...?”

“Oh it’s a... IN CUT IN NOW! ...that’s a nice cut-okay Out! BACK OUT!” I only get the disc when I intercept throws meant for others.

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Best New Cookbook says:

1. Adjust an oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat the oven to 375 degrees. — I heat the oven to 350 because I am baking cookies at the same time and leave racks where they are. — Butter inside of 2-quart soufflé dish with the tablespoon of softened butter, then coat the inside of the dish evenly with the tablespoon sugar... — No soufflé dish, I take a round ceramic casserole dish. I take butter directly out of the fridge, unwrap an end and rub it on the sides of the dish. Sugar doesn’t stick well to cold butter, so I skip that part — Refrigerate until ready to use. (532).

No room in the refrigerator. I leave the dish on the count- er assuming that hard butter cancels out the need to use the refrigerator.

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World Class Tennis Technique recommends:

To correct improper balance, place an upside-down turned cap on the top of your head. The cap must remain on your head throughout the stroke. This will ensure perfect turn rotation position and body balance. (108)

What Paul Roetert and Jack Groppel do not consider is that tennis clubs are social places. For many modern housewives, the tennis club has effectively replaced church as an outlet for potlucks, prophets, and generally snarky social interactions. Even if there were some dark alley tennis courts where I could try balancing an “upside-down turned cap” on my head, I would still need another person to hit balls with. They would see me with this silly upside down hat. I will take improper balance on my forehand over that any day.

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Exodus tells us what God asked Moses to do. The LORD even lights a bush on fire, just to make sure Moses listens.

The LORD says Let my people go ... if you refuse, the hand of the LORD will bring a terrible plague on your livestock in the field (10:3, 9:3) The LORD says Take handfuls of soot from a furnace and toss it into the air in the presence of Pharaoh. (9:8)

The LORD says Stretch out your hand over Egypt so that locusts will swarm over the land and devour everything growing in the fields, everything left by the hail. (10:12)
The LORD says Stretch out your hand toward the sky so that darkness will spread over Egypt—darkness that can be felt. (10:21)

A burning bush is obvious. God’s words are direct. The directions are clear. But you’d have to be a real looney tune to obey.

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Always develop a personal game style. Isolate the cutters in the middle of the field, where they can melt the chocolate and the remaining butter in a medium bowl set over a pan of simmering water. This is a tough position to be in for a defender, so go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of

Egypt. To perform the split-step efficiently, take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and turn off the heat and stir in the slat, vanilla and liqueur; set aside.

Abraham! Drop your body quickly and offer him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you. Gently stir a quarter of the whites in to the batter to lighten it. Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but clearing should be fast and aware. See the field to anticipate cuts and read the defense, but love your neighbor as yourself.

Take the 12 past Waitsburg. Look for the haunted brewery and the tannery. Go through Dayton. Think about the rolling wheat fields and thin eyebrows of prairie. Look for a burning bush. Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. LORD said do not take a left to Starbuck. Stay on the 12. If you beat the eggs too vigorously, the cake or soufflé may not rise. If you don’t incorporate the eggs properly you may be left with eggy patches in your meringue. You may end up at the only burger joint in Starbuck asking for directions to 1-90. Stay on the 12. You are going the right way.

Last three paragraphs use:
Genesis 22:2; Exodus 3:5,10; Leviticus 19:18; Mark 12:31, NIV. Best New Cookbook. “Chocolate Soufflé.” 532.

THE PATIO

A WARNING FOR THE HEART CHIPPERS

Star-crossed lovers beware,
Of the lithologies you choose
to carve your star-crossed messages into.
Tuffacacious rocks wear right away
Ten years...no seven, psychologists say
But that’s what you get for carving your name into ash, compacted only by its own weight.

Or carve your words into granite, the rough and resistant. Granite: from a place that would melt more than a heart …… …….and crush more than a dream. No, carve your words into granite and you’ll make no love …….in your quest for perfection.
100 years at the chisel and you’ve still got nothing.

Beware star-crossed lovers, these green peaks, like your love, .……erode away in the picturesque perfection of ecology. And the grey ones have much greater concerns than the …….melting and the crushing of the living. Do you want your …… love to be washed away or protected like a nose on Mount. …….Rushmore? No! I say. Leave your love not with rocks, of any lithology, instead carve your hopeless words into me.

THAT CRACK IN THE EARTH

Drive South on the 87 from Crescent Junction. Just outside of Moab the red dry earth has cracked, broken by time, geology, and the world of wetness running through its depths.

It’s not the Grand Canyon that I speak of but the crevasse that has appeared on my big toe on day three, camped at Nankoweap.

The ailments of those who run the Grand for a living are numerous. The river has been making men miserable since 1869 when it left Powell’s men cold and lonely, their bacon and coffee washed forebodingly downstream.

Coming from two seasons of rock dodging at 3,000 cfs in Idaho, This is my first Grand trip. I’m feeling as green as a post-monsoon Elves Cavern, so it’s no surprise that I’m headed in the Grand as I head into everything in life––aggressively soliciting the advice of others.

When I question my guide friends I expect demystifications
of rigging and rapid running, tales of wind battling and some pertinent comments about the dangers of the downstream oar. But instead, at least five people tell me to bring tons of lotion. And sunscreen.

“Do you have enough lotion?”
“bring two pairs of sunglasses.”
“extra sunscreen. bring extra sunscreen.”
“Bring ditch boots and change into them as soon as the sun goes down.”

This brings us to feet.

“Last trip I brought a spray bottle of bleach and sprayed my footwell every day.”

This brings us to foot fungus. And we are in too deep to get out. It is the Grand Canyon after-all.

THE DAVID’S CRACKS

Did the David know when he threw that rock?
He’d have millennial lull then 400 years to get over the goliath shock,
of being unfrocked, giant and stone,
was it worth that bloody god-given throne?

Did that twit Michelangelo omit
That David would have to stand in the courtyard cockpit, till his marble ankles start to split,
To submit to 369 years of frosbit marble rear,
daily moonlit onslaught of bird shit through the age of shakespeare,
With dimwhits taking pictures of his oversize dick?

If he’d known maybe maybe he’d say F*#k the Philistines and the Florentines, and F*#k art, F*#k the lyre that stupid harp, F*#k Saul, you know he didn’t care.
Why the Fuck am I even here?

David don’t throw that rock! Let Goliath break you like a beanstalk.

Let him run your people down, avoid that conflicted Isreali crown, let Bathsheba’s naked body drown.
doing good is awful swell, but do it well,
and those savants will politick you into a perfect alabaster hell.

Marble Immortality’s overrated, its best to be hated. seems to me the past is kind of garbled,

so why do we have to go and make it ivoRY? Let the David be.

(Written in response to “David’s Ankles: How Imperfections Could Bring Down the World’s Most Perfect Statue” by Sam Brooks, published in New York Times Magazine, August 17th, 2016)