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For Sale

Michael Leave a comment

They tell me that you only need three things to make a car look good: black tires, shiny chrome, and clean glass. I spent this weekend getting the little convertible ready to go on the selling block. Its tires have been black ever since I’ve been buying tires for it. There really is no chrome to speak of. Now, isn’t two out of three good enough?

I have never, ever, ever, never been good at cleaning windows. That might be why I like convertibles. In the right configuration there is only one window to worry about keeping clean. It’s the one that is hardest to keep clean but that’s the way it goes for me sometimes. Oh alright, most of the times.

Why do windows hate me so much? And not just car windows. Any window is my nemesis. Even some non-windows treat me like windows. TV screens, computer displays, mirrors, eyeglasses, and would you believe even snow globes are out to make my life a living hell. I’ve tried every tip, trick, and old wife and maiden aunt tale. I’ve used cotton rags, polyester no-longer-fit-to-be-hand-me-downs, microfiber cloths, newsprint, and brown craft paper. I’ve used brand name cleaner, cheap cleaner, foaming cleaning, ammonia, water, and combinations of two, some, or all of the aforementioned. I’ve spritzed the cleaner on the glass and on the wiper. Now that I think about it, I’ve even used wipers. You know, those squeegee thingees.

I think I’m just not destined to have clean glass in my life.

But wait a minute. Let’s rewind a few paragraphs. I’m selling the little convertible? I guess so. For 15 years it has defined me: short, squat, red, and not much on top. I suppose I’ve had my fun with it and the fun I had with it was in a different place in my life. I’m getting old and can’t get in and out of it without making some very interesting noises, fortunately mostly verbal. So even though it has been brought up in more posts than any family member, it is time to set it free. If you know anybody interested in a very well maintained, low mileage, revered red roadster, drop me a line.

Buyer to clean glass.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

A Sticky Situation

Michael Leave a comment

I finally got my syrup last weekend. Regular readers know that I’ve been without my local syrup for the past few months having missed the 2015 sugaring season. But last week I was able to get to one of the local maple festivals and replenish my supply. In fact, I might have overplenished it but I’ve always said you can’t have enough pure maple syrup. I’m sure I’ve said it sometime. At least once.

Anyway, to make a short story long, I picked up a couple of jugs of some freshly prepared syrup for all my maple needs and discovered somebody changed the grading system for my syrup. You may have heard this before and if you had feel free to skip the next couple of paragraphs and go straight to the bit about food that comes right after them. Of course you do know I’ll feel horrible about it if you do.

What once was a fairly straightforward grading system has been turned into a jumble of color and taste. Some say it more appropriately describes the product. I say the big sugarers have finally gotten their way. There are still four grades of syrup. But where there used to be Fancy, Grade A Amber/Dark Amber, Grade B, and Grade C, there are now Grade A, Grade A, Grade A, and Grade A. Really, four grades all A. I can see it now – “Major Mega Marketer Maple Syrup, Now New and Improved with only Grade A Syrup!”

Really, there are now four (4!) Grade A syrups – Grade A: Golden Color and Delicate Taste (formerly Fancy), Grade A: Amber Color and Rich Flavor (Formerly Grade A Amber and Grade A Dark Amber), Grade A: Dark Color and Robust Flavor (Formerly Grade B), and Grade A: Very Dark and Strong Flavor (Formerly Grade C or Commercial (not routinely sold as is (or was) but sold to factories and confectioners for use in other products)).

Whatever you call it, I picked up some dark colored, robustly flavored former Grade B syrup (because I use it in cooking as much as over pancakes) and celebrated with a great maple dinner. You make it too.

In a small sauce pan sweat one coarsely chopped small onion, add a small can baked beans and stir in one ounce (2 tablespoonsful) syrup, a couple of dashes of hot sauce, and salt and pepper to taste. While that’s going on, brown 1 tablespoonsful of butter in a small pan, add an one-half ounce syrup. Add a single portion ham steak to the pan and baste with the butter/syrup mixture until the ham is warm through.  Remove the ham and toss a handful or spring peas in the remaining butter/syrup glaze. Serves one.

You can be a maple nut too. Replace the sugar in almost any recipe with former Grade B maple syrup substituting ¾ cup syrup for each cup sugar and reduce the liquid in your recipe by about 75%.

Four Grade A classifications. By an official department of the United States of America. Of course that department is the Department of Agriculture, the same department that keeps reshaping the food pyramid. And they are some people who worry that the next president might be Hillary or The Donald.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Fishing For Memories

Michael Leave a comment

Trout season begins this week. Saturday specifically. In my state. I’ve never fished for trout. I’ve fished for walleye, I’ve fished for bass, I’ve fished for compliments. But I’ve never fished for trout. And that’s unusual for around here because there is a lot of trout around here. Of course, to catch trout around here you have to fish around here and I’ve never done that either.

Around here is huge on fishing. The county I live in issues more fishing licenses than anywhere else in the state, odd for an urban area but the numbers don’t lie. Even though the county sports only 10 percent of the state’s population it has ranked number 1 in fish licenses since 1919. Probably before that but that’s as far back as I could find records. For most of those years there were more fishing licenses issued in this one county than in the rest of the state combined.

I’m not a real fisherman – or fisherperson as the TV reporter reminded the viewing public of the start of trout season put it. I fish, or fished, once or twice a year and at what could at best be called sporadically over 40 years or so.

My first fishing memory was of my father taking me up into the mountains for an overnight trip with two friends of his and their sons. I didn’t catch anything. I’m not sure that anybody caught anything. I remember cooking something outside for dinner but it was probably hamburgers. After dark we piled into someone’s station wagon and went deer spotting and that night slept in someone else’s hunting cabin. That was the first fishing memory I have. It is also the first memory I have of doing something special with my father.

My second fishing memory came 20 years later and 20 states away. Floating in the middle of some lake in the middle of Texas were me and an Army friend in a rented bass boat. It had all that was required for fishing for bass. We had the trolling motor attached to the bow, the big Merc mounted on the stern, the electronic fish finder, the funny chairs that looked like bar stools. We got just far enough out to finish our to-go coffees and were when his pager went off. Return to base. His unit was being mobilized. In less time to write about it we were back at the dock, secured the boat, gotten to the car, and were two-thirds of the 15 minute drive to base. That’s when my pager went off.  Later that day we found ourselves as parts of one of the largest training exercises our base had mounted in years. We ate in the field that night but it wasn’t fish.

Another 20 years and in the middle of another lake, this one called Erie, I was one of a group of five pulling in our 30th, and last, walleye. After years of doing so, my friend had the planning down pat for this trip. We left the day before for the drive north, now mostly highway making it a relatively quick trip. Quick enough that we got there hours before anyone else. We picked up our licenses, checked into the hotel, and asked for wake up calls for 4 the next morning. That gave us twelve hours to meet the rest of the gang, have a few beers, have dinner, retell our lies from previous years’ trips, make our ways back to the hotel, and turn in for the night. What was much more than but felt much less than a couple of hours later we were back in the lobby with our coffees and headed for the dock. Our hired captain and his boat were waiting in the dark and we clambered in for the ride to where the fish waited in the dark. The lines weren’t all in yet when the first walleye struck. As he was being brought in another line was hit. The first fish was landed, pictured, and chucked into the well when number three hooked on. And so it went. Nobody remembered a year when the fish came so willingly to us. We had reached our limit and turned back to the docks before some other boats had begun their day. The picture of us with our racks straining under the morning take was on the captain’s charter company’s website the following day. A copy of it is still on one of my walls. A week later we reassembled in my friend’s back yard to fry fish and tell lies. That was the last fishing memory I’ve had. Three weeks later I was in the hospital where a surgeon took longer than we did to fish for his limit.

Trout season starts this Saturday. I’ve never fished for trout.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

Eat your veggies!

Michael Leave a comment

Supermarkets are a great place to get your dinner. Duh. No Kidding? Isn’t that what they are for? Well yes, you can get all the bits and pieces you need to make a dinner. Yes, they have your meats or non-meats as you prefer, bins and bins full of fresh produce, rices, pastas, salad fixings, and desserts both ready to eat and in pieces waiting for you to create them. But today’s mega-marts also have their own salad bars, hot foods lines, and prepared dishes. Sort of semi-healthy fast food alternatives.

My most often visited market has taken to packaging some of their more common selections into grab-and-go choices sized for one. They have each package, in fact the entire section, labeled “Meals For One.” It’s nice and handy and it saves the single shopper like me the embarrassment of asking the attendant at the prepared food counter for the ridiculously small portions only one requires. I can’t tell you the number of over-the-glasses-glances I’ve received after asking for a quarter pound of orange chicken and one egg roll. It’s nice to be able to take refuge at my own cooler of prepackaged loser portions – err, solo selections.

But they still don’t have a good handle on how much, or more appropriately how little only one eats at one meal. It’s not often that I’ll want to eat one pound of rigatoni in meat sauce at one sitting. Nor do they yet have a grasp of what makes a meal. At my last visit to the market I noted packages of the aforementioned rigatoni along with chicken marsala, stuffed shells, baby back ribs, chicken wings, and General Tso chicken with a choice of rice or lo mein. Except for the inscrutable general, none of them included anything other than the protein. No veggies, indeed no sides anywhere in site. Your mother would not approve.

They mean well. They just have to temper their desire to sell, sell, sell with the single consumer’s wish to save, save, save. Still, I grabbed a packaged chicken marsala knowing I could augment it with pasta and a nice salad after I got home.  That’s when I saw it. Proudly labeled Meals For One there was a pound of fried mozzarella sticks. With marinara. Back in went the chicken and into my cart when the cheese sticks. Hey, it’s not my place to argue with professionals about what makes a meal. And a tomato is a vegetable. Our government said so.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Are you ready for some Bockey?

Michael Leave a comment

My favorite season began yesterday. No, not spring. That was a couple weeks ago, but it has what has been called a sign of spring, baseball. Actually, my favorite season is the ultimate overlap of seasons of baseball and hockey – it’s Bockey Season.

Major League Baseball 2016 opened down the road from me as the “Boys of Summer” braved temperatures in the 30s in their home opener. Then a few hours later across the river, the “Boys of Winter” burned up the ice at their last regular season home game for 2016. There’s nothing in common between the two sports other than they are my favorite sports. People around this town would call it anti-American but I don’t care much for football. People across the world would call it most typical for an American but I don’t care much for soccer. Basketball is best played by college kids and only for a couple of weeks around now. Golf confuses me, tennis exhausts me, curling is ok but even with rumors of a local club (with a waiting list to play even) try to find it to somewhere sometime, anywhere anytime.

For my money baseball and hockey are the way to go. To those who say baseball goes too slow or hockey goes too fast I say they aren’t paying close enough attention to either. Strategy and purpose abound in the movement of both games. A swing of the bat or stroke of the stick doesn’t just send the puck or the ball on its way but the choreographed movement of everybody on the playing surface. If you think hockey games are only where fights break out and baseball games are only good for catching up on your afternoon napping you clearly need to spend some time actually watching the games to see what really goes on in them.

If you don’t share my enthusiasm for these two sports that’s fine. I’ll still enjoy them – and I’ll get to enjoy them for a couple months. And they have more in common than just having me for a mutual fan. They might be the Boys of Winter but when the playoffs get tight and the wins go back and forth, the Stanley Cup might not be raised until mid June less than a week before the solstice. And before the Boys of Summer threw out the first pitch yesterday, the grounds crew had to scrape the snow off the outfield. That’s blending the seasons.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

A Healthy Rant

Michael Leave a comment

You know how much I hate fine print. It’s right up there with insurance companies, banks, ads for prescription drugs, car sales and lease restrictions, cable TV and cell phone service disclaimers, and lawyers. Most of those I can all sort of let go. If somebody wants to really believe he or she can save $500 switching insurance, will actually pay only $49 for phone service, or can qualify for that $99 lease that’s on them for taking tooth fairy believability to life. Well, caveat emptor and all that. Except for lawyers. I still haven’t figured out if they actually serve any sort of redeeming purpose. But that’s a post for a different time. This post is all about a new line of fine print I saw on an ad and I could have died when I saw it. Actually I could have wished death on the person who came up with it and the other ones who willingly went along with it.

I had the television on the other afternoon. It’s annoying as hell to watch television during the afternoon but not because of the programming, because of the ads. All three of them. No matter what the show or what the channel, if it’s between 11am and 4pm you will get a steady diet of commercials touting credit repair, Medicare supplement insurances, and denture adhesives.  And every now and then something completely different.

The something different I saw was an ad for a hospital. Not a donation request asking for $19 a month but an ad designed to make you want to go to a particular hospital.  Not a local hospital for your general hospital needs. This was an ad for a national specialty hospital where cancer is all they treat. There were patients and patients’ families, doctors, and professional voice-over actors all promoting their brand of care resulting in their kind of success. As a cancer survivor and a health care professional I took interest in that ad for as much as I can take interest in any ad between 11am and 4pm. But my interest waned when they got to the end and those teeny words crawled across the bottom on the screen. “You should not expect a similar outcome.”

Beneath the large, bold list of their few locations across the country, their phone number and web address, and the insurance plans they accept, after spending 60 seconds telling you how they understand, how much they care, and how they are different, they slipped in at the bottom of the screen at the end of the ad, in a print sized to make an optometrist cringe, “You should not expect a similar outcome.” You should not expect the same result as the patient whose testimonial was presented during the ad. You should not expect to be relieved of your pain and suffering, you should not expect to be returned to your family and loved ones, you should not expect to return to a fulfilling life, you should not expect to be happy and upbeat when your treatment is complete. But please, be sure to break your neck to set off across the country to not get what the ad encourages you to believe in.

Can you imagine if every ad ended with “you should not expect a similar outcome?” Would you ever spend money again on reducing the chance of cavities, removing unsightly grass stains, or eliminating underwear creep? What do you think would happen to you when you pay your rent or mortgage, your utilities and credit cards, and you include the note “don’t expect this every month” with each check?

You know what I think? I think it’s time to forget buyer beware and it’s time for seller be truthful. Quid a conceptu!

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Going to Town

Michael Leave a comment

Last week I had to go into town. Going to town around here isn’t quite the event as for someone from Queens going into Manhattan. But it’s close.

When I just a youngster, back in a different century, I grew up about 20 miles from town. Then going into town was indeed an event. Actually we had to differentiate our in-town trips. If we went “downtown” that was to the business district of our suburban hamlet. That was easy. Every piled into Dad’s car and in 10 or 15 minutes we made the one mile excursion from home to shopping, a rare dinner out, or to the Saturday matinee.. If you weren’t in a hurry a bus could get you there in about a half an hour. But going “to town” – that was something else.

We went “to town” once or twice a year and it required serious planning. Did we drive in or take the train? And when we said train we meant train. This wasn’t some glorified subway extension or light rail system. This was a big one with names like Baltimore and Ohio, Wabash, or the Pennsylvania Rail Road. Our line was the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Rail Road. (Even though the P&LE began business in 1875 it didn’t actually make it all the way to Lake Erie until sometime in the 1970s. You got to love their spunk back then!)  If we drove it would only be after the car had a serious going over. Tires, oil, and water checked and double checked. There was a bus that made the trip but that was a true adventure. If you didn’t mind a little walking you could make it to town with only one transfer. I don’t think I did the trip by bus until I was in college and then would make a weekly commute from dorm to home with real food, a television set (although black and white) and a washing machine. And the 2 hours gave me some study time.

Last week’s trip was an easy one. Now I’m only a half dozen miles out of the center of the city and even budgeting for rush hour and parking it’s a quick 15 minute commute that I made twice daily for almost thirty years.

Since I stopped work I haven’t been to town other than once or twice a year just like from back in my youth. All those years later there are still diners and restaurants, bakeries and pastry shops, meat markets and delis that don’t have anything to do with national brands. You can still buy artisan products from meats and cheeses to fixtures and furniture from real artisans that you can watch being artisanal. There’s even a classic haberdasher.

Yes, it can still be quite the event. Only now when I get home I have to do my own laundry.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Gilding the Lily

Michael Leave a comment

With less than a handful of days until Easter Sunday I saw my first lily yesterday. I was wondering what became of them. Lilies at Easter are like poinsettias at Christmas. The day can go on without them but they would be missed.

Even though I live alone and my most frequent visitors are the mailman and the UPS driver, I still have the place properly decorated for the season. I have my plastic eggs nestled in my plastic grass in my plastic basket. The plastic wreath is bedecked with silk flowers. It’s quite a display, just missing a lily or three. Now they have finally hit the stores I can pick up one or two and finish off the scene at my front door.

Why, if I have no compunction to displaying artificial anything and everything else, do I wait for the real thing when it comes to the Easter lily? Because those other things are merely the lead to the great day itself. The lily is the first symbol of new the life this time heralds and by Sunday will be joined by other welcoming signs of the season.

The Easter lily is said to have been born of the tears Eve wept as she was leaving the Garden of Eden and were the first signs of repentance, which is the whole idea of Lent leading to the great day itself. It is also said that they grew where Jesus wept in the Garden of Gethsemane as He prayed before His betrayal after the Last Supper. In both occasions they symbolize purity, innocence, and hope of a new life.

Yep, it’s a good thing those racks of lilies have finally shown up at the greenhouses and flower shops and supermarkets. You wouldn’t want to miss them this weekend.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Filled with Passion

Michael Leave a comment

I had a post all written, proofed, rewritten, mulled over, written again, and ready to upload when I stopped there and walked away from the computer. Something wasn’t just right with it and a wait of a while or so wouldn’t hurt it any.

So I stopped, had a late Sunday dinner, read a bit, turned on the TV, and started watching the musical Passion on Fox. And then I realized what was wrong with my post. It sucked. It was trivial, dull, and rambling. Not much different from most of my posts but it didn’t belong here today.

See, this all started in my mind Saturday evening at the Palm Sunday vigil. Last year I never got to do any of my Easter traditions. I was in the hospital through the whole of the Easter season. So for me there was no Ash Wednesday, no Lent, no Palm Sunday, no Holy Thursday, Good Friday, or Easter Vigil. And no Easter. Oh they happened but I hardly took part in any of them. Even though for me I actually looked forward to the Easter holy days they never held the big recognizable traditions of say Christmas. Yet without Easter we’d not have Christmas.

Later on Saturday night I wondered if I could turn the beginning of Holy Week into a blog post. After all, Easter is as universal as Christmas. Nobody minds if anybody clogs up the blogways with Christmas stories. Easter should get just as much play. But, I couldn’t come up with an angle. So by Sunday afternoon I was penning several hundred words on why it was snowing on the first day of Spring. I’m nothing if not unoriginal.

Then after having written and proofed and mulled and written again, I hesitated. Walked away. Let it sit. And was glad I did.

I don’t know that I planned on watching the Passion. I don’t think I actually planned on watching anything at all. As I scrolled through the guide it seemed like if nothing else it would be entertaining and it hadn’t started yet – always a plus for me when I watch a program. So I sat back, tuned in, and became amazed.

Nobody needs to be reminded of the Passion. It might be the most told story in the world. It touches almost every culture and if you don’t know the story you probably know most parts of it and didn’t know they came from the Passion. From the four gospels to thousands of articles, books, symphonies, movies, art, and opera, the Passion has been written, sung, played, and painted. But whoever put together Fox’s offering did something nobody else had. They started with pieces that weren’t ever meant to be part of the story. And from that they created a powerful story, perhaps the greatest story ever told. Or at least this year.

None of the music was written for this production. The locations weren’t selected because of their ability to mimic first century Jerusalem. The crowd looked like they wanted to be there. Nothing like any traditional Passion play. And they hit it.

If you didn’t see it, go find it and watch it. I couldn’t come up with the right angle but I didn’t have to. It was already out there.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

You think your commute is challenging

Michael Leave a comment

The weather forecasters are saying it will be chilly this weekend, somewhere between 25 and 30 degrees colder than the first half of this week and only 8 degrees above freezing during the daytime. That will probably be a better time to take the little car out for a spin than in clear, 70 degree, sunshiney weather.

If you’ve been reading for a while you know I have a little red convertible that gets about as much use as you would imagine in an area where the average temperature is 52 degrees F and it rains or snows almost 150 days a year. But when the sun comes out the top goes down and I understand the true meaning of the phrase “worth the wait.” Right up until some guy with more testosterone than brains spots me.

I went out in the middle of the day when the real men with huge pick-up trucks riding on 28 inch wheels with massive brush guards, multiple running lights, and chrome steps to get into the cab should have been at work doing something involving torches and welders’ masks and comparing tattoos. But no, there was one about ¾ mile behind me when I slipped onto the onramp of the local expressway. I heard him, or rather his mufflerless behemoth, snarling up behind me. He closed that ¾ mile before I made it all the way to the end of the acceleration ramp and in his desire to make certain I knew he had more horsepower at his disposal than I did, he passed me on the single lane ramp and launched himself onto the highway mainline. Right in front of another mini-monster truck a few miles per hour above the speed limit. It was a spectacular sight in my rear view mirror. You could almost see their premiums going up.

I pulled onto the shoulder and waited until I saw that both of the not quite matured miscreants were moving about on their own power and then eased back into traffic and continued on my spring shake-out tour. You would think I’d have been shocked at the carnage (or trucknage if you prefer) and I was the first time or two such craziness happened. Unfortunately this goes on every year when I, and presumably everyone else with a weekend roadster, first hit the road.

In a month or so the craziness will wane perhaps because the crazy mongers become used to seeing us on the road again or perhaps because they run out of clean underwear.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

(Yes, I know this is St. Patrick’s Day and I didn’t say anything about that in my post. Monday was Pi Day and I didn’t bring that up then either. I’m not totally predictable.) (Am I?)