Hello my lovlies,

I am alive and well, and back from my whirlwind east-coast tour. I have many updates to catch up on, and I’ll be doing so over the weekend, but first I must sleep or else run the risk of hallucination, which the sea otters surrounding my chair would probably find annoying.

But I wanted to let you all know that if you’re going to the massive nerd-fest known as comicon tomorrow in San Diego, I will not only be there, but I’ll be speaking on a panel called “Holy Bleep Batman, Censorship In Animation” (A new thing!). So stop by if you can.

With love,

–opus

Do your eyeballs like viewing things? Sure. So why not view some things related to All New Year?

Remember back when I voiced some drunk flowers for a PSA? Well the commercial is completed, and I think it’s pretty fun. Watch the whole thing yourself and let me know what you think. I play the flower on the left. The pretty, pretty pink one.

Also, if you’re one of the 7 people in America who get the cable channel “Fuel TV” you can watch me, my boss, and some waffles on The Daily Habit tomorrow night at 9.

Finally, you can see the season finale of Lil’ Bush tomorrow night at 10:30 on Comedy Central if you enjoy seeing what I actually get paid to write.

Get your eyeballs to work!

–opus

At dinner a few days earlier, my Granny mentioned that she had so many zucchini in her garden, we should just go around and hide them in people’s cars to give them away. She was kidding. I was not.

Long before I knew what a martini was, I knew what Martini Point was. On my mother’s side of the family, the half of the family tree rooted deep in gin and wine soaked soil, cocktail hour has always been important. So much so that long ago, an Uncle John took the unimaginatively named Ricker’s Head on Chebeague Island and dubbed it “Martini Point.” As a child, I took that as face value, not thinking of it any different than Chandler’s Cove or Indian Point.

Now that I’m older, I have enjoyed the drink that inspired the geographical name-change, and one of my missions was to enjoy one of those martinis on Martini Point. I wanted to know: Would Martini Point make a martini taste even better? And I thought that this would be a simple New Thing. Go, drink, enjoy.

There was a problem, however. We had neither vermouth nor olives in the house. And being on a small island off the coast of Maine, one cannot handily run down to the local liquor store unless one is Jesus. My Martini Point martini party was scuttled before it started!

My mother, though, thought of the dandily-dressed gentlemen we had met on the sandbar a few days earlier, the sort of chap wearing a boater and suspenders on a muddy stretch of beach. Ernie, my mother said, “seemed like the martini type.”

She was right. Ernie rescued us with a delivery of dry vermouth and olives, as long as we promised him he could use Martini Point sometime in the future. I made up a batch of my “famous” martinis (Gin, of course, Vodka martinis are strictly for the uncouth) and we headed out to see how they tasted on Martini Point.

Me, My Martini, and my Granny

Does Martini Point make a martini more delicious? Perhaps. Or maybe it’s just the presence of family and friends, the warm glow of being someplace you love with people who love you.

But probably it’s the gin. Delicious, delicious gin.

My dad is a very responsible person - that’s one of the things I admire most about him. He describes himself as a very “belt and suspenders” kind of guy, and subscribes to Consumer Reports and gets AAA Trip-Tics before every road trip. Every once and a while, with a sly wink and a smile, he’d pull out something a little off-kilter to show he enjoyed a good time.

One of those times was when he called for me to look at him as he was driving. He hands were jauntily behind his head as the car hurtled forward. I could feel the station wagon (tan with wood paneling, of course, the perfect Dad Car) correcting itself and asked one of my favorite questions of childhood, “How?”

Turns out dad was driving with his knees. Here on the wide-open Chebeague Islands, where the pedestrians are few and the cars are fewer, seemed to be the perfect place to try it out myself.

Don’t Try This At Home - Try It In Your Car.

Turns out it’s not that hard, when you have inherited the long, lanky legs that I have from my father. Sure, extreme turns are impossible, but the simple corrections of staying on the road prooved pretty easy. Next I may attempt my dad’s “my thumb-has-come-off-my-hand” trick. Anybody got a hacksaw?

This evening, under the influence of stars and wine, I sent a message in a bottle.

Beach-combers, let me know if you find it.

Thanks to the wonderful people at Jet Blue, I found myself without my camera for this Taco Tuesday. Jet Blue not only lost my luggage, but managed to find it and lose it again in the course of 24 hours. Then, they brought it to the ferry to bring it to me on the island, but somehow stopped just a few yards short: They left my bag in the hallway outside of the ferry’s office without mentioning it to anybody. It was as if the bag were a strange and foreign object that they hadn’t seen before, and weren’t sure what to do with.

Therefore my Taco Tuesday is mostly uneventful… we were having fresh Maine lobster caught by the lobsterman who lives down the road. My Granny always digs deep into the body of the lobster for the “Green Stuff” - a substance that looks exactly as it sounds. It’s green and gooey stuff that we had a considerable argument at the table defining what exactly it was. Some said liver, some said general guts. (It turns out it’s the liver and digestive system).

I had never tried the foul-looking goo so I gave it a try. Without the aid of video, alas.

Turns out it tastes sorta… sea-y. Like the way a lobster smells, plus some seaweed and salt water. My Granny says it’s the tastiest part of the lobster, and I’d respectfully disagree. I’d say it’s an edible part of the lobster, but nothing I’d give a second glance to.

Coming up - my bag is finally returned and I re-enact everybody’s least favorite Sting song. Stay tuned.

Originally, I thought that my New Thing would be getting my bags lost. But my father quickly reminded me that when I was 7 on a family trip to Florida, our bags got lost. I remember it only because we had to go shopping for emergency clothes and I got a shirt that said “Spring Break” on it and I felt super-cool.

But today was also the first time I’ve ever flown Jet Blue. Not thrilling, I know, but enjoyable right up until the luggage-getting-lost debacle. They had great tranquilizers built into every seat in the form of televisions, which kept us all docile and glass-eyed. In honor of the upcoming Simpsons movie, there was even an entire channel of just Simpsons reruns.

Unlike my luggage, I arrived at my destination just fine. After a quick stop to pick up fresh underpants and socks, I went off to the small island of Chebeague, Maine, for a week of relaxation and all new things.

Sunday was a day of cleaning in the Opus household. I discovered some rare and special treasure – a lost trove of pleated pants, from back before I realized how stupid they looked. But I figured that people at Goodwill might not be so sartorially picky. So I packed up a big bag of old clothes and dropped them off at Goodwill. If you see another Opus stalking the streets of Los Angeles, but with more pleats, please, do not be alarmed.