Crikey! Tripe!!

Tripe: The lining of the large stomach of ruminating animals, when prepared as food.

I received a note today from an old friend, Spandex Junior.  He's one of the many eggers-on that I have in my life; if I'm going to do something new or something new and BIG, the eggers- on are right there, egging me on.  I don't mean this in a bad way, either, but in a Don't Play It Safe way. Playing It Safe is no fun at all. 

Spandex Junior passed along a quote from an interview given by a famous theatrical composer that he admires.  He never forgot this line: "The worst thing that you can do is fall off a low rung - if you're going to make a mistake, make a big one."  This is great advice, generally, I think, except for the times that I have fallen off very high rungs right on my head.  Then, not so much.  
This is why the eggers-on are so much fun to hang around with.  They're the ones saying: "Sure you can hit the pool from the 4th floor balcony."  

I spent so much of my pre-sober life sitting in front of The TV, watching shows that I couldn't remember the next day.  I'm done with that - I'm glad I try new things.  It reminded me of the time I was in a little village in France where the specialty was stuffed tripe.  It sounded disgusting to me but I figured I was never going to get back to a place that served hog intestine full of mystery meat, and called it the best thing on the menu.  Well, as god is my witness it was the most disgusting thing I've ever eaten.  I eat everything but this very well could have been cat food - I could have dug through the dumpster out back and come up with something that was tastier.

The waiter whisked away my uneaten tripe, informing me that there were two selections for dessert: brie and fromage blanc.  I had eaten brie which left me with fromage blanc.  Fromage blanc appeared to be something in between chunky, unflavored yogurt and rotten brie cheese.  It made me long for the stuffed tripe.