Category Life

Happy Hot Sauce Day

Michael 8 Comments

Happy Hot Sauce Day! 😲 I’m not sure if that really should be capitalized but it sounds official enough so why not. I’ve looked into it but have not been able to determine the origin of Hot Sauce Day but I’m going to take a wild guess and say it’s relatively new and was dreamed up by a marketing company. I’m guessing it’s fairly new because when I was growing up there weren’t many hot sauces out there so there wouldn’t have been a need for a “day” and it probably would have been called chili pepper sauce day not hot sauce day. And I’m guessing it was the brain child of a marketing group because I’m not stupid.

Hot Sauce Day is a particularly significant day for me this year. I am finally getting some appetite back having been set back by pneumonia now going into its third week. But just because I want to eat doesn’t mean I can taste much of what I eat. Thus the addition of strong flavors to my foods. It’s amazing what a splash or two of Tabasco will do to scrambled eggs.

HotSauceTabasco is one of two hot sauces I keep in my pantry. The other is Frank’s. I don’t get any remuneration from either but if one, the other, or both would like to make an offer, I’m all taste buds.

Frank’s is the hot sauce most often associated with Buffalo wings although it serves a more subtle use in my kitchen. Anything made with ground beef, chicken, or turkey, such as meatloaf gets a few splashes of Frank’s. So too do most sauces and braising liquids. Tabasco, being lighter and more acidic is added to most dressings and marinades.

So today being Hot Sauce Day in one way isn’t such a big thing for me. Almost every day is Hot Sauce Day to me. On the other hand it’s a really big deal because instead of the controlled restraint I usually use on my hot sauce, today and for a few more I’ll be pouring it on like the typical macho bar fly uses his hot sauce. As a weapon against his taste buds.

Fortunately my taste buds are just as incapacitated as the rest of me and can stand a little extra jolt. Hmm. Jolt? No, that would be November 19, Carbonated Beverage with Caffeine Day. I wouldn’t make that up.

 

All Washed Up

Michael 12 Comments

Since the beginning of last week I’ve been fairly much home bound with my pneumania. I say daily much because I’ve still had to go to dialysis and the occasional outing for a lab draw or x-ray. That means I’ve had to make myself presentable to the general public. You know how us old people are. Um, how we old people are. I still dress up to fly.

I was beginning to think that I had better do something around the house and since I had a hamper full of germ laden clothes from the week I thought that might be a good place to start. Dust on the furniture and dirt in carpet could hang out for another few days. Used linen could wait since I have enough sheets and towels to outfit a good size bed and breakfast. But socks and underwear exist only in a finite supply.

So I tossed a small load of said mangerie in the machine, selected the load size and water temperature, and measured out the appropriate amount of liquid detergent. Just like on the television commercials. At the appropriate time, when I heard the machine shift from wash to rinse mode, I poured in the required amount of liquid fabric softener. You see, unlike the machines on those commercials, mine is not of the fancy variety with dispensers where you can pour everything into at the beginning and forget it. I have the cheap model that requires me to be my own dispenser of detergent, bleach, and fabric softener at the appropriate times in the cycle. (Darn apartment living!) As I was returning the fabric softener bottle to the shelf I realized something was in its space. What was it? Why, it was liquid fabric softener! Hmm. Then what was in my hand awaiting its return to this space? Why, it was the liquid detergent! But I knew I had my hands on fabric softener and indeed I had. At the beginning of the wash cycle! And that’s how I ended up washing that load twice. Well, they were germ laden and probably benefited from the extra spin around the tub.

At least I had to dry them only once.

 

Pneumania

Michael 14 Comments

“Yeah, they sound pretty junky.”  Not the thing you want to hear from your doctor while he’s pressing a stethoscope against your back but what I expected to hear from the time I woke up seven hours earlier. It would be “official” when the x-ray results showed what looked like the course diagram of a nine hole golf course where my right lower lung should be but I was pretty sure I had pneumonia when I coughed myself awake around 4 Monday morning.

I’d been moving slower than usual and had a little cough for a couple days before but I hadn’t considered that I was actually any sicker than usual. If it wasn’t for the fever, chills, dizziness, shortness of breath, and inability to get out of bed without falling over I might have thought I was overreacting when I said to myself, “Self, this ain’t no man flu. You got pneumania. You should call someone,” in between gasps.

ChestXrayYes, pneumania is a real thing. It’s just like the pneumonia that non-men get only it’s real. It’s not the “cough, cough, oh I feel so bad I think I have pneumonia but I’ll still make breakfast and pack everybody’s lunch then go to work and come home and still clean the house before I make a gourmet dinner then I’ll work on my hand crafted head bands for my Etsy shop and write 3 or 4 thousand words for my novel” type of pneumonia. No. What I have is a real pneumonia. A man’s pneumonia. Pneumania!

Ok, it’s true. You can get a little loopy from too much cough syrup. But hey, I got photograph proof that my life is in jeopardy. And not just from your lack of compassion. So there! 😛

Hmm. That might mean more if I didn’t live alone.

Cough, cough.

Sorry.

Cough.

 

Getting Your Money’s Worth

Michael 6 Comments

I went to a hockey game yesterday. My daughter is my usual hockey partner for these games. Hockey is a good bonding experience because we get to experience first-hand that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree especially after a particularly well placed goal, hard fought penalty kill, or extraordinary save, not to mention a rousing Dance for a Dilly Bar competition (so I won’t mention it). It’s also a good bonding experience because we get a good hour or so to ourselves with discussion topics that don’t usually come up in general daily conversation while driving to then sitting in our seats waiting for the puck drop.

For example, last night as we were closing in on our parking lot we noticed several cars in front of us slowing down at each parking entrance, perhaps checking out the remaining offerings or the event rates for that lot, then swerve back into traffic. We get to see this traffic ballet at almost every game but don’t think much of it. Yesterday, though, Daughter mentioned that she and Boyfriend were visiting friends between the holidays and they got caught behind a vehicle doing a similar wagon waltz as they proceeded through a neighborhood behind a driver who would slow down at each intersection, turn enough so his or her headlights illuminated the street sign, then veer back in front of them for another block. We dubbed it the “holiday home party shuffle.”

Another thing we both noted while we were coughing and hacking our mutual germs into the car’s enclosed atmosphere is that if you show up anywhere on the 2nd through 5th of January feeling under the weather you are greeted with “still working out New Year’s Eve are you?” Apparently germs take a holiday during the holidays.

Throughout the game you can track the progress of the team’s charitable foundation’s fifty-fifty raffle. Anybody who has been a parent of a high school sports participant, band member, cheerleader, or theater group is familiar with fifty-fifty raffles. For $5 you get three chances (or maybe 20 chances for $20) on half of whatever the erstwhile organization brings in that night. Having a daughter who was band-centric during her middle and high school years I got to sell lots of tickets and count lots of dollar bills. On a good day at an all-day regional band competition we’d bring in close to $400 and the winner walked away with half of that. I noticed last night’s fifty-fifty take on the same 3 for $5 chance was over $38,000 and the winner got to walk through the parking lot after the game with a check for $19,340. I didn’t hit that one either.

But here is perhaps the most blogworthy thing from last night’s hockey game. I have a half-season season ticket package. That gives me a pair of seats to every other home game. That’s about 20 or 21 regular season games per year. Twenty games is a lot of hockey especially for someone who doesn’t move particularly well without a cane and who still insists on leaping up from his seat whenever anything marginally leapworthy happens. So I go to about half of my alloted games doling out the others to Daughter, Hockey Loving Sister, or the resell market. Here’s what was blogworthy about last night’s game. Over 2+ seasons of just regular season games (since I started tracking this) I’ve been to about 26 hockey games. On two occasions did those games end in regulation time. Last night marked the 24th game I’ve seen that went into overtime.

I might not be hitting the fifty-fifty but I am getting my money’s worth!

greatdayforhockey

Lots of Hockey!

On a Clear Day

Michael 6 Comments

I was out driving in yesterday’s clear, cold, January afternoon when I decided that I don’t like driving in clear, cold, January afternoons. Well, it’s not that I don’t like driving in clear, cold, January afternoons. It’s that clear, cold, January afternoons come with a tremendous amount of glare. (Probably like clear, cold, July afternoons in Uruguay but I’m just supposing that.)

I don’t recall having glare issues until a few years ago. I’m not sure if I had better sunglasses before then, if sunglasses in general were better before then, if Polarizing (the trade mark kind, not what happens when you put Democrats and Republicans on the same Facebook page) actually worked before then, or if my eyes are just getting old and tired. Nah, can’t be that.

SunglassesI don’t think I would have even considered the tremendous amount of glare associated with clear, cold, January afternoons had I not yesterday morning saw a commercial for new “tactical” glasses that supposedly dramatically reduce tremendous amount of glare. Again, among the things that I’m not sure of, I’m not sure if I’m a sucker for things that dramatically reduce glare, if I’m a sucker about things called “tactical,” if I’m a sucker for glasses in general, or if I’m just a sucker. Nah. If I was just a sucker I’d be a sucker for things in the Sky Mall catalog, not the As Seen On TV bounty.

I’m sorry. How did I get from Polarized sunglasses to being a sucker? Clearly it was the $5 scratch off lottery ticket winnings burning a hole in my pocket. So as soon as I got home I got online and looked up “tactical glasses as seen on TV.” You know, just in case I might be out on another clear, cold, January afternoon. Do you have any idea how many tactical glasses have been on TV?!?! Fourteen! From $14.88 to $69.

That’s when I realized that I really need a hobby. Or more winning scratch off tickets. Or I have to stay indoors on clear, cold, January afternoons.

 

Retrospecting

Michael 9 Comments

I read a book way, way back in the 60s or 70s maybe. It was so far back that a million dollars was actually a lot of money. That’s actually germane to this post. I know, I know, I rarely have anything of substance to a post in the first sentence or two. You’re lucky if I ever get to around to anything of substance by the last sentence or two. It’s all part of my charm.

This particular book was written by a bona fide millionaire and I should have stopped reading it as soon as I got to that point. It was the basic “get rich without using your own money” scheme which roughly translates into “fall into or inherit money then write a book on how to make more money than you can count and pull it off as semi-legitimate even though your scheme is semi-criminal but you are after all a bona fide millionaire so who’s going to argue with you especially after they bought your book” scheme.

The only thing I got out of the book is that every January 1, the schmuck in question, aka the author, spent his day counting up his assets. Since reading that, I do the same. My worldly possessions take about 25 minutes to itemize. That leaves enough time to watch the big parade, the one with all the flowers, and the afternoon bowl games on TV. So how did that make me a millionaire?

Accounting

Image by Dreamtime

Unfortunately it didn’t. Oh, if I add up everything that I’ve ever made, salaries, investments, bonuses, sale of plasma in college, I’ve made more than that million. If you put it all together I’ve probably made close to 5 million dollars. If you add up all that I’ve put out I’ve probably spent a little over 5 million dollars. But every January 1 I diligently sit down with my checkbook, then ledger, then spreadsheet, then all those little receipts from the stores and ATM machines, and figure out how much I have.

While after those first 15 minutes when I really needed to concentrate I (mostly because I was getting into the part of the arithmetic that included “carrying”), something would distract me. A girl friend then a wife then a pet then a baby then the sounds of kids playing in the snow then a midwinter graduation party, then new friends and new relatives then new the new sounds of new places then the quiet the comes after everyone leaves.

Counting up the assets never took very long. Counting up the treasures … I’m still working on them.

Happy New Year

 

A Virtue by Any Other Name

Michael 8 Comments

I’m writing this at about 11:30 Wednesday morning while I’m waiting for my car to be serviced. It’s not the little roadster I’ve often mentioned here but the daily driver. Since my daily drives are now short, few, and far between, it is more aptly a daily parker. But still with even less than 5,000 miles added to its journeys since last December, it needs its annual safety inspection and oil change.

Although there are more than a handful of 29 minute oil change places within a few miles of me I opted for the dealership service department. It’s very close. Close enough I could walk home if I didn’t want to wait although an oil change and inspection is usually only a half hour wait and I can amuse myself reading the paper or tackling a crossword puzzle. And it’s only 9°F (-13°C) outside. That’s warmed up from the 5° it was when I got here 3 hours ago. Less than ideal outdoor walking weather.

Oh, yes, you read that right. Three hours. I have seen people come and people go and I’ve worked all the puzzles I’m I the mood to except the one that answers why it takes so long to drain old oil out, pour new oil in, honk the horn, flash the lights, and tap the brakes.

I guess that’s not a fair representation. I know there’s more to it than that and that those who have come and gone might have had even less work done. After all, it was only 5° at the start of the day. I’m sure lots if batteries are being sold and they can switch out 4 or 5 of them in the time it takes 5° oil to ooze out of crankcase.

I don’t know what you do but whatever you do somebody has said, why do you have to take so long, why do you charge so much, why did you have to go to school for that? All you’re doing is…

Knowing that I had been the subject of such complaints throughout my work days, I was certain I never said such a thing of others. Until 3 paragraphs ago. More than likely, until 50 years ago. Impatience is not one if the seven deadly sins but it certainly should be. I spent the first hour of waiting just fine. I sat in a comfortable chair in a warm lounge and read the morning paper. By the second hour I started getting impatient. The chair got hard, the paper was boring, and there was a definite chill in the air. Heading to the third hour I am close to irate. Why am I still here when I could be home in a comfortable chair …

in a warm room …

reading … um …

the rest … ah …

of …

the … um …

paper.

Hmm…

You know I don’t do resolutions at the beginning of the year but maybe I’ll make an exception and not do that again and hope that you don’t either. So it’s taking a little longer than I expected. Across the room is a father and son playing some sort of game on a tablet. In the corner is a young man appearing to be watching a webcast on his laptop, two seats down from me a pair of young women are planning a brunch before they take a third friend shopping for her wedding dress. They all have more things going on in their lives and don’t seem to mind the wait. I’m sure I can learn something from that.

Even at my advanced impatience.

 

Why We Eat

Michael 8 Comments

It’s the time of year that posts are flying all over the Internet with main dish recipes and cookie recipes and appetizers that don’t require cooking recipes and make ahead dessert recipes and the world’s best ever side dishes recipes. I gain weight every day just opening my tablet.

Seriously, I am gaining weight every day. I know because I weigh myself every day. There might be a little vanity in there. After years of avoiding scales because my weight was approaching numbers usually reserved for poor credit scores it’s refreshing to step on a scale and see a number more closely associated with IQ test scores. (Not my IQ but I’m ok with that. The world needs average people too.) Anyway, I get on the scale every morning and I see a number just a little higher than the day before. Over the last week I’d say a couple of pounds higher.* And I know why.

It’s not because of all the cookie pictures Facebook. Although they certainly aren’t helping. I would go through this unexplained weight gain when I was working, specifically anytime I was about to go out on a business trip.

Regular readers with good memories and occasional readers who visited just the right posts know that back in a different day when I was working I worked for a national health care company. An extra duty as assigned was visiting other facilities to do operational reviews. Unlike McDonald’s or Wendy’s which have the same food from coast to coast, our hospitals did not share that familiarity. There were some pretty bad cafeterias in those places. So I think subconsciously when I knew I was going away I’d eat a lot. Why ever it was, I knew that whenever I was going somewhere I was going at least two pounds heavier than the week before.

So, if we are to believe that a) there are no coincidences, b) the past is a harbinger of the future, and c) I historically always use three examples, I am gaining that weight for a reason and it has nothing to do with water weight gain and/or Christmas cookies in the kitchen. I’m going on a trip! Now since I haven’t planned anything on my own and since neither my bank balance nor my credit score is sufficient to finance a trip much farther than 12 to 15 miles down the road**, somebody is giving me a vacation for Christmas!***

Boy I hope it’s somewhere where sun block is recommended.

*For those of you of the metric persuasion that “couple of pounds” would be about a kilogram if you subscribe that a pound is 2.2kg or 1kg=0.454lb. I used to know why the abbreviation for pound is “lb.” but I don’t remember right now and it’s not all that important anyway. Probably more important is if you are somewhere that requires me clarifying the relationship between pounds and kilograms, do you also require clarification of the American credit score (or debt score as some would insist)? If you do, well, there is no reasonable explanation but the lowest FICO score possible is 300. In the VantageScore system the lowest score is 501. See. No sense at all. Just like the lowest SAT score is 400 but the lowest PSAT is 320. Oh. What’s SAT? This is going to take another post. My weight approached the lowest FICO score, not the VantageScore.

**19 to 24 kilometers (We really need to universalize weights and measures.)

***Holiday (We really need to universalize English too.)

What Not To Buy

Michael 8 Comments

Country Living magazine recently published a list of the 29 gifts you do not want to give for Christmas. I’ll tell you up front that I disagree with 28 of them as well as the entire idea of the list.

First, why 29? That seems arbitrary. Who comes up with a Top Twenty-Nine of anything? We’re they just sitting around in the production office and tossing out things they don’t like getting while tossing back some double fortified eggnog? If you can’t be firm on a topic and declare “These are the 10 worst gifts ever!!!” why should you expect anyone to take the basket full of suggested “don’t do it” gifts with any seriousness?

NoGiftsBeyond the idea itself being of little value to normal people, the items they chose would actually make pretty wonderful gifts. Assuming you are gifting to those you care about enough to give thought and consideration to your gift giving, 28 of the 29 items could be tops on anybody’s wish list.

For example, they had to hop on the “let’s hate fruit cake bandwagon” and include the delicacy on their never ever give list. I personally like fruit cake. If you gave me a fruitcake you would go directly to top of my I Love You list. Just don’t give me one that was prepared 11 months ago in a factory that also puts out sparklers for the summer market. If you gave me a mass produced chocolate lava cake made more than 4 hours ago I would use that as a stop to prop open the front door while I threw you out on your ear. So stop knocking my decision to like fruitcake and start practicing that inclusion stuff you keep posting on Facebook!

Another item in their list of taboo tchotchkes is fitness equipment lest you send the message that your giftee is in need of some serious body work. If your friend or family member is an avid exerciser would he or she not appreciate that your share their enthusiasm for self-improvement? One of the best gifts I ever received was my fitness tracker. It provides daily encouragement to keep moving else I find myself behind a walker again. Interestingly, among their suggestions in lieu of exercise equipment is a pocket wine aerator. Now isn’t that just the perfect thing to gift to you closest drunk on the go?

I could go on 26 more times but you get the idea. Gift guides are fun because you can look at stuff out there you may never have thought of and know somebody who would be just right for this or that. But non-gift guides are just mean! They send the message that if you considered any of those items that you’re a lesser person. You know what those on your list like and appreciate. Don’t let somebody you don’t know tell you what your friends and family want!

Oh, what was the one thing on their list I would agree with being a less than thoughtful present? Toilet paper. Yep, toilet paper. Did that really have to be on a list at all? Then again, we are the culture that came up with pet rocks (still available!) and designer sweatpants (on sale now!!).

Remember, only 7 shopping days until Christmas. Happy Holidays!

(No, I don’t get any compensation from the pet rock people, Saks Fifth Avenue, designer anybody, lava cake bakeries, the Association for the Ethical Treatment of Fruitcake (EAT-Fruitcake), toilet paper, and Country Living magazine.) (Although I do subscribe to Country Living so if they want to gift me a couple years renewal I won’t argue.) (If they want to cancel me, I will argue.) (If you haven’t already figured it out, EAT-Fruitcake doesn’t really exist, at least as far as I know. That was supposed to be funny.) (Come on! I said supposed to.)