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Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad

Michael Leave a comment

What would you do if someone told you that you had to lose two-thirds of all that you have? I told myself that and it’s hard!

Eventually I’m going to be moving. I can’t navigate the different levels of my house nor maintain the building and surrounding yard. Even with the help of family and neighbors, the time to downsize has come. If you haven’t yet, someday you will consider living somewhere smaller and of less maintenance.  I recall an apartment I had that consisted of one smallish room about 15 by 20 feet, a galley kitchen so small you had to stand to the side when you opened the refrigerator door, and a bathroom so small you had to sit to the side when you…when, you…umm, you know. Anyway, that would be a good size for me now.

Instead I now live in about 1900 sq. ft. of house, ten rooms each fully furnished, and every closet and storage area filled to capacity. The plan is to move into a four room, 700 sq. ft. apartment, give or take. And boy is there a lot of giving going on!

Everybody knows the “rules” of keeping a handle on one’s stuff. If you haven’t worn it yet this year, donate it! If you haven’t cooked with it in the past six months, get rid of it! If you haven’t read that paper since your last tax filing, shred it! (Copies of tax returns notwithstanding.)  Those rules work well under most circumstances. But these aren’t most.

What do you do with the roasting pan that you use only one time a year at Thanksgiving but you have plenty of storage space so you let it hang out for the other 364 days? What should become of that big puffy coat that you wear only when it goes below zero and that only happens once every 3 years? What happens to the clock shaped like a football your father gave you for Christmas when you were ten?

More than one person has told me that stuff is stuff. You’ll haven’t had twenty people over for Thanksgiving dinner for 15 years and if you want to roast a turkey it will be a small one and either get a disposable pan or deal with what you have. It has been below zero once in the past 12 years and you didn’t go out that day anyway. And it took you 3 weeks to find that clock in the back of the garage.

Yep, stuff is stuff and there’s still going to be plenty left. So when it comes time to downsize your life, close your eyes, pick two of every three things to shed, and move on. I’m getting rid of the roaster and coat.

Now, that’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

If Only Restaurants Did Outpatient Surgery

Michael Leave a comment

Regular readers noted that there was nothing to read on Monday. Unfortunately, I spent Monday at the hospital and hadn’t had time to schedule a post for then. Nothing horrible, just a little procedure. The last time I wandered into a hospital it was five months before I wandered back home. Thus I can be a little skittish about returning there.

While I was waiting there my mind wandered. It almost always does. I got to thinking about a post we did more than three years ago, “If Only the ER Served Margaritas,” a tale of an adventure we had at a local restaurant comparing the level of activity to that of the local emergency room. While I was thinking of that, I started noticing how much the hospital resembles one’s regular eatery. Stay with me here.

You know how at a restaurant or tavern where you might be a regular there will always be a place for you. And when you get that place you will always be handed your menus, served your usuals, or surprised with an appetizer. Well, when I got to the hospital I was greeted by name by the surgery gatekeeper, bypassed the waiting room, and led directly to the first prep room inside the pre-op area. There my doctor was already waiting for me and went over the procedure like I had never had it done before.

Back at dinner where they know you, all of the wait staff will drop by, say hello, and give you their opinion of the best entrée of the evening. Your waitperson knows if you want ice or not in your water, will make certain that you haven’t changed your favorite beverage, and knows just how long you’ll chat over the starter before bringing your main courses. Back at the hospital where they know you, the phlebotomist knows what vein to use when you’re normally a “hard stick” for anybody else, the pre-op nurse just has to fill in anything new to your history, and the anesthesiologist knows exactly how much is enough. Those not directly involved in your care that day will still stop, say hello, and see how you’re doing as they walk by your area.

After the main course at the restaurant you don’t even get a dessert menu, those taking care of you will tell you the best available and all you have to decide is one portion or two. After the main event at the hospital you wake up to a can of ginger ale and some saltines without ever having to ask.

Ok, so it’s not as much fun as dinner and a margarita but coming off a five month hospital tour I had to make it some fun!

Now, that’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?
(Read the original, it’s a lot better if I say so myself.)

It’s a Sign I Tell You, a Sign

Michael Leave a comment

It must be hard to make a good sign. Professional sign makers all across the country, all across the world, have botched up otherwise perfectly good signs with some single silly mistake.  A misspelled word, poor placement, an incorrect font size, a bad color. If the pros are subject to these kinds of guffaws, think what the poor amateur must go through. You don’t even have to think actually. Just read the signs!

Summer is here in all its glory. And what do we do in summer? We party! There are family reunions, high school graduation parties, block parties, church festivals, and nationality days. Summer is also the time for garage sales and yard sales. Every one of these events is marked with a hunk of poster board stapled to a utility pole and with a colorful helium-filled balloon attached to a corner.

Signs are great ideas. Before the days of GPS how else did we get from Point A to Stop 2. And then, since most people knew their relatives, local parks, classmates, and neighbors, signs didn’t have to say that much. A boldly printed “Penny’s Party” with a good size arrow pointing the way mounted at a critical intersection was enough to do the trick.

Today they are still good ideas, even in the presence of GPS. Unfortunately, they aren’t so well executed anymore. Instead of a poster board and a Sharpee, one is more apt to come across a sign printed on a home computer. That means small paper that somebody thought would look good with a cute graphic which took up half of the available space so that little writing can be printed and/or seen and then printed on an ink jet printer whose print bleeds off the page after the first morning’s dew. I saw one sign whose “owner” thought it a good idea to highlight all of the words on the sign. After it rained, the only thing on the sign was a series of yellow lines.

Occasionally someone will make a good sign. So good is it that the person who put it up leaves it up. There is a sign at the bottom of the hill I live on that says “Garage Sale, Saturday, 9-1.” It’s been there for 6 weeks.

There is one sign in the area that I particularly like. It’s big enough to see form the road and the font is big enough to read from the road. It’s in eye-catching colors of a white font on a dark blue background. There is an arrow printed right on the sign, not an extra tacked above or below it waiting to fall off on its own accord. It’s such a good sign I’d like to follow it and congratulate the sign maker. Except I don’t know who or what to look for. You see, the only word on that large, well thought out, very visible sign is “Event.”

But then, if you’re one of those who have been invited (whom have been invited?) (umm…If you’re one of the invitees), do you really need much more information than that? Naw, probably not.

Now, that’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Drive-In Theaters and the Batteries That Died There

Michael Leave a comment

I was reading the movie listings in the paper and noticed that drive-ins are making a comeback. At least here they are. Sort of. A quick check of the papers and Internet reveals there are about a dozen drive-in theaters within 20 miles of where I live. When I was a just a kid, there were 40 within 10 miles, but that was a different time.

Drive-ins were, still are, an experience. IMAX theaters notwithstanding, drive-in screens are huge! They have to be to be seen from the last row. Drive-in concession stands are cool! Oh sure, you can get burgers and pizza at some of the bigger indoor theaters now but for years, the only real food at the movies was at the concrete bomb shelter that doubled as the drive-in concession stand. And you still only find the more carnival like snacks like cotton candy, snow cones, and funnel cakes at the outdoor theaters.  Drive-ins are anything but boring! You can talk, text, chomp, snuggle, kiss, sing along with the soundtrack, and play “what movie did we see her in last year?” all that you want to without antagonizing those sitting behind you.

As much as it sounds like I have a real vested interest in them, I never went to many drive-ins.  Even though I grew up within a mile of two theaters, we weren’t big drive-in people. I could have walked to them but that would be a whole different post. By the time I was old enough to drive to them, drive-ins were starting on their decline. Indoor theaters were by and large still single screens and got all of the first run movies. The outdoor venues were home to last year’s big, and not so big, hits. In efforts to make them seem more “hi tech” (for those days), sound was piped over a radio frequency replacing the old speaker boxes that you hung on your window. That meant leaving your car in the “accessory” mode risking a dead battery, particularly in the kind of cars we were apt to be driving. If you were in the back row where nobody behind you would be poisoned by your exhaust fumes, you could leave your car running but then risk running out of gas before the double feature ended. Girls never believed you didn’t plan in that way.

Today some of those old relics of outdoor fun are being refurbished and re-opened. They will never approach their peak of the late fifties when over 4,000 drive-in theaters played to families across the USA.  Now there are just over 400 theaters with 600-some screens showing movies in America.

The only problem I see with drive-ins is that they don’t start the movie until dusk. In the summer months, that’s past my bedtime!

Now, that’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

The Best Best-Seller That I Never Read

Michael Leave a comment

The other day I was looking up the best selling books of all time – because I have that kind of time – and found some interesting stuff.  I think it started because I received a mailer from the city’s summer stock theater that the Man of La Mancha would be opening soon.  That sparked something in my head about Don Quixote being the best selling book ever.

Upon researching it, I found out that Don Quixote indeed is considered to be the best best-seller of ever. This classic was first published in the 1600s, the early 1600s, when there was no Internet to track sales so some of this might be conjecture on the part of whoever (whomever?) came up with the list. The estimate is that over 500 million (that’s half a billion!) copies have been sold. Since it occupies the Number One spot on several such lists, it must be a fairly reliable estimate.

There are some classics that take residence in the Top Ten of book selling lists. Titles everyone knows like A Tale of Two Cities, Lord of the Rings, and The Little Prince. And there are a couple that everyone knows but wouldn’t think they would be among the best selling of the best-sellers.  Agatha Christie is often mentioned as the world’s best selling author. She sold over two billion copies of her books but then she wrote 85 of them. One cracked the Top Ten and that was And Then There Were None selling about 100 million. An author just missing the top ten of authors coming in at number 11 and having published only 11 volumes is J. K. Rowling.  All seven of her Harry Potter installments meet in most lists’ top 25 best-selling books and they are still selling.  But the first of the series, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, hits most lists’ Top Five at 107 million copies sold.

It was fascinating to read about all of these most successful books and the authors who wrote them.  I spent hours reading the stories behind the stories. I had to pick a floor so I stopped when I saw books that sold less than 50 million copies. Excluding religious, text, and reference books there are thirty-five books that have sold at least that many.  There is no pattern, no magic formula. They are adventures, mysteries, romance, children’s, and fantasy. The only thing these books have in common is that they all hit a common chord in the world’s readers, some literally for centuries.

The other thing they have in common is I haven’t read many of them. Ok, of the 35 best-selling books of all time I haven’t read 33 of them.  And I thought I was a big reader.  I better go pick out another pair of reading glasses. I might be busy this summer.

Now, that’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Close Enough, Part 2

Michael Leave a comment

Normally I don’t mind doing anything in the kitchen. I’ll slice, I’ll dice, I’ll juice and zest and shred and grate. I’ll fry or steam, I even make ice cream. But I hate slicing tomatoes. I don’t think it’s the slicing so much as the cleaning up after. I love tomatoes but they can make a mess with their juice and seeds on my cutting board. So a while ago I started using an apple slicer to make perfect tomato pieces for any salad.  Want that tomato diced? Swap out the regular slicing blade for a French fry blade and the battle is half won. That might not be what Mr. Buchi had in mind when he patented his apple slicer in 1923, but I figure it’s close enough.

That’s not the first time I’ve bastardized the intent of a perfectly good kitchen gadget.  I have a smallish kitchen and can fit only so many gizmos so they better be willing to be flexible. Like the hard-boiled egg slicer that also slices mushrooms, artichoke hearts, and strawberries. That’s especially good for me since you found out recently that I am hard-boiled egg challenged yet still have said implement. Then there is the large stir-fry pan which doubles as a wok, triples as a popcorn popper, and quadruples as a braiser. So far the only thing I have come up with for the small stir-fry pan to do other than frying is small batch popcorn popping. But I’m working on it!

There is a frying pan that wins the versatility award.  It’s a 14 inch job that is perfect for combining pastas and sauces, making frittata large enough for the neighborhood, doing paella small enough for the family, and searing the largest roasts.  Its only problem is that it has no lid. Sometimes you need a lid.  Fortunately a pizza pan works just fine to cover this monster.

Closely related to kitchen gadgets, bar accessories can also have split personalities.  Wine stoppers make great cruet toppers (or vice-a-versa depending on which you have and which you need).  And speed pourers also do a dandy job of controlling the flow of your oils and vinegars.

Gadgets are cool. I rarely walk into any department or discount store without checking the gadget wall. A kitchen equipment store is downright dangerous for me to be in. But no matter where I am perusing the latest food prep thingamajigs, it better be able to do more than what the package says if it wants to go home with me.

Now, that’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Close Enough

Michael Leave a comment

A few days ago I was walking through the parking lot to a medical office building.  Heading in my direction at a pretty good pace was a young man who I figured was on his way to an appointment. It’s pretty clever the way I figure out things like that. As he got closer he asked if I knew what time it was.  I checked my watch and told him “a quarter after 10.” To that he stopped and stared at me. I thought perhaps he hadn’t heard me so I repeated “a quarter after 10.” When he still hadn’t acknowledged me I said what was going to be for my last time, “ten-fifteen.”  His eyes unglazed, he thanked me, and resumed his way to the building, now a little more leisurely since he probably had more time than he thought he had.

I hadn’t given it much thought until I got to my own car, started it, glanced at the dashboard clock, saw that it read “10:17” and calculated in my head, “a quarter after, take a half hour to get home, be there around a quarter till.”  Actually, I live only twenty minutes from that building so to be precise (or accurate, I know there’s a difference but I’ve never been sure what it is) I would arrive home at 10:37, eight full minutes shy of a quarter to eleven. But I figured that’s close enough.

I’m not sure when we all decided to become as accurate (or precise) (compulsive?) about time.  Was it a generation ago when digital clocks were all you could find on somebody’s wrist?  Or is it a more recent phenomenon brought on by most people using phones for watches leaving wrists unadorned? And does it matter that much anyway? Every time I’m in an airport I smile at the optimism of the person timing flights. Somehow they know that the plane that took off over 2,000 miles away and made 2 other stops will get here at exactly 5:36.

And it’s not just a timing issue.  Weather people have gotten into the act also.  Only 10 years ago the forecast would have been that today will be in the mid-70s. Now it’s a specific number at a specific time. You’re most likely to hear, “At 7:00am it will be 67 degrees, noon 72, at 4 we’re looking at 76, and 71 degrees at 8 this evening” in the morning weather report.

Even the stock market was more cavalier about its numbers once upon a time. Used to be stocks were reported and sold in eighths of a dollar as in “International Widget is up 3/8.” Of course, an eighth is 12½ cents and there haven’t been half-cents since the late 1800s.  But that’s ok, nobody ever buys just one share of stock anyway.  Today what with all the computer trading, stock prices are very specific (precise?) and they don’t use real money anymore.  The broker just pulls it out of an account you set up for him.  Or her.  They could be pricing things down to the one-hundredth of a penny and it all magically gets rounded up to an even dollar amount.

When did we become such sticklers for accuracy (specificity) (precision)?  You’d think people would understand when I say “a quarter after” is close enough. They certainly didn’t when I color-coded my closet.

Now, that’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Eggsactly My Point

Michael 1 Comment

I have cookbooks. Boy do I have cookbooks! I have gadgets too but that’s a post for another time. Now we’re talking  cookbooks. I have books that are classics like Betty Crocker, books by famous chefs like Mario Batali, books by famous non-chefs like Fannie Flagg, books based on TV shows like Good Eats and on movies like Casablanca (with some really cool recipes). I have books with nothing in them but meat, others with nothing but veggies, and others that are all pasta, all the time. I have fundraiser cookbooks, overpriced cookbooks, and some with more post-it notes marking more pages than Bushes have beans. You’d think somewhere in there I could find a decent recipe for hard boiled eggs.

I admit it. I can’t hard boil an egg. I can soft boil an egg. I can fry an egg, I can turn an egg over without the use of a spatula, I can poach an egg, I can even make egg salad as long as somebody else does the boiling for me. And it’s not as though I’m a dolt around a stove top. I can make a carbonara with my eyes closed. Risotto? Child’s play. But a hard boiled egg? Not so much.

I think the problem is in all those cookbooks. I have run across at least a dozen (no pun intended) recipes and quick tips for hard boiled eggs. There are the boiling methods, the simmering methods, the off the heat methods.There’s even one recipe that calls for baking the eggs to get a perfect hard boiled egg. And there is the time element. There are recipes calling for 8 to 30 minutes. One method alone claims perfect hard cooked eggs in 8,10,12,15,and 20 minutes.

I’m just going to stick with my over easy eggs. At least they aren’t hiding behind a shell to thwart your breakfast.

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

Textiquette

Michael Leave a comment

These aren’t novel observations. In fact, She noted much of this several years ago when cell phone use just exploded. To make a long story short, we need more phone use etiquette, particularly when texting. To make a short story a blog post, read on.

What people weren’t listening to just a little while ago is now hitting morning radio, Internet sites, news fillers, and feature stories. Everybody has their own pet peeve that semms to have finally reached the last straw. Now that it is happening to them, they want somebody to do something.

Some of the annoyances people are tired of include:

People who don’t answer their phones but then text back a “what’s up?”
People who don’t answer their phone but will answer a text.
People who call and if you don’t answer leave a voice mail and then text the same message.
People who call to tell you that they just sent a text.
People who can’t end a text and/or have to get in the last word.
Texts so long they require scrolling.

They don’t seem like much but they are getting lots of ink as we used to say in the old days. But then, in the old days most of this would have been covered under the general heading of good manners.

Odd, nobody mentioned texting at the dinner table.

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

Subconsciously Yours

Michael Leave a comment

Does anybody have any idea what our minds actually do while we are sleeping? Let me explain. Since I got out of the hospital my body has taken revenge for all those weeks that I ignored it and is making life challenging. Perhaps due to the rigors of physical therapy and a twice daily set of exercises designed to satisfy the Marquis de Sade, I am asleep every night by 8pm, up again around 2am for an hour or so, then back to sleep until 6 or 7. It’s during that second phase that the mind is now joining the body in a quest to make me wake up most mornings with “huh?” on my mind.

I rarely remember my dreams. Sometimes I’ll get a snippet of the movie my sleeping subconscious played for me, but most often I wake up blissfully ignorant of what went on inside my head those few hours. All that has changed recently.

Now I’m waking with vivid details of the sleep show. And I’ve figured out where they are coming from. One recent day I heard Pinball Wizard on the radio. I recall that iconic rock opera as one of my favorites from overture to finale. Throughout the day I was humming and singing (just to myself in my head) that famous modern aria. The next morning I arose fairly exhausted from having been chased by a silver ball in a life-size pinball machine never finding the drain that would have saved me from exhaustion.

A day or two of returned blissful ignorance and then it happened again. I was reading a novel, a favorite past-time, but was really too sleepy to have been reading with any concentration. As a result I kept reading the same passage over and again. I was at the part in the story where the good guy had chased the bad guy to a concert hall then to the concert hall’s basement, then to its sub-basement. Sure enough, the next morning found me waking wondering how I had become the good guy and chased the bad guy through several sub-basements including a fruit cellar, wine stores, utility rooms, a secret laboratory, a bomb shelter, fur storage, and garage. When I finally cornered the villain trying to hotwire a 40 year old MG Midget he surrendered and we rode an escalator back to the surface.

Then there was the day I read in the paper about the upcoming art show in the city and woke up the next morning having wondered why I was painting a geometric abstract including the use of a carpenter’s square and a hand held scientific calculator straight out of the 1970s. And I was painting this masterpiece from inside the canvas.

So you can see why I’m leery of going to bed at all tonight having spent the day craving ice cream. I guess I should wear my flannel pajamas – just in case.

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