Tag Fun

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?

Now they’re really making things up, really

Michael Leave a comment

Lately I’ve been thinking about food a lot.  Just look at some of my most recent posts. Soup, kale,eggrolls. Soup is pretty straightforward. A few posts ago I talked about “them” making up new foods like chia seeds. I got to thinking about more made up stuff when I saw a Taco Bell commercial for a “Doubledilla.” Restaurants, particularly fast food restaurants have a long history of making up stuff. There were no McMuffins before there were McDonalds. But I found a group who are really making up stuff in or for or around the kitchen. Novelists. Yes, those people whose jobs are to make up stuff. And they have taken to food like a nutritionist takes to quinoa.

Many years ago, in a whole different century, I encountered my first food related novel – Someone Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe by Nan and Ivan Lyons. Now this isn’t your classic mystery or (my favorite) a hard boiled crime story. But it has murders in it so that was good enough for me to pluck it off the bookstore shelf. It was also on clearance, is relatively short for a quick weekend read, and it looked pretty fun based on the backflap synopsis. So I bit. And I still go back and read it today.

Since then, whenever I’ve needed a break from gritty crime and mayhem I’ll crack open a fun, lighthearted food mystery ala Joann Fluke or Chris Cavender. Silly stories you don’t have to concentrate hard on and usually figure out whodunnit somewhere around page 6.

I recently (and finally) slogged my way through Dan Brown’s latest. After several hundred pages of dashing across Florence I needed fluff. So I went off in the search of The Marshmallow Fluff Murders or something similar. Boy did I find similar!

As I was perusing the B&N catalog I found some of the most remarkably titled tomes. I don’t know how good any of the books are but the names are wonderful. We have Battered to Death, All the President’s Menus, As Gouda as Dead, Basil Instinct, Bread on Arrival, and about a hundred other bad puns masquerading as book titles. (Yes, you can really search using the phrase “Foodie Mysteries.”)

There once was a day when if I wanted to mix meals with murder I had to read Robert B. Parker’s “Spenser” mysteries. It seemed at least once every 10 or so chapters our hero would cogitate over his most recent discovery while fixing dinner. And Mr. Parker worked great detail into those fixings.

But today, we have our “Foodie Mysteries” and I don’t dare Roux the Day that I discovered them.

That’s what I think. How ’bout you?

Pacing Myself

Michael Leave a comment

The other day I was cutting into an eggroll and it reminded me of a story. Yes, I cut into the eggroll.  With a knife. So I could pick up a piece with a fork. What’s wrong with that? Oh sure, I’ve picked up eggrolls and eaten them out of hand. But I most likely will split it down the middle, add some duck sauce and hot mustard to the innards and then consume it slice by tasty slice.  Yum.

I guess there are other things I eat differently from others.  I always slice the corn off the cob rather than gnawing my way along it although just the thought of butter dripping down the front of my face makes me salivate. Unless there is a chocolate milkshake handy I dip french fries in mayonnaise. That’s the most efficient way to double up on fat that I can think of. And when I eat asparagus I have to start with the stalk and save the crown for last.

So what was the story that made the eggroll become a reminder? Once upon a time, She of We and I were dining at a Chinese restaurant. I know I wanted the General Tso but couldn’t decide between chicken and shrimp.  So I took the diplomatic route and ordered the combination of both.  (When it arrived I had to alternate between the two proteins, never doubling up on one or the other. But we’ve already covered my dining proclivities.) She asked how they were and I said I that the chicken could have been better. Later when the fortune cookies arrived and we went through our ritual of determining who got which, I opened mine, unfolded the tiny slip with the tiny print, squinted at it then almost fell out of my chair.  Printed there in red and white was “Next time order the shrimp.”  True story!

Oh. How does any of this relate to the title of today’s post? Obviously if I have to tkae the extra time to carve an eggroll or arrange my asparagus I obviously take some time to eat.  But that’s OK. I’m just pacing myself.  If I pace myself slow enough I could end up eating just one meal a day, all day. Sort of Roman Emperor-ish.

That’s what I think. How ’bout you?

A Spring and a Miss

Michael Leave a comment

I missed the coldest winter we ever had and the snowiest February we ever had (I think or else it was really, really close). I didn’t mind that at all. But then Spring came and I kept on missing stuff. I sort of minded that.

We started out by missing the Home Show. I hadn’t missed a home show for probably a dozen years.  And I always bought something that you couldn’t find anywhere else. Odd looking but really cool holders for my herb pots on the deck. Lids of all sizes that really work to make my food storage cups useful again.  Of course there were other things we just got a good laugh out of like the $99 iron. Oh well,they’ll be back next year.

I also missed the Maple Festival. We’ve written about that before. It is THE PLACE to get your local syrup and honey.  No log cabins there, just the real stuff.

The local jazz festival changed venues and time this year.  They managed to schedule it right during my unavailable period. The nerve of them! It was at this festival a couple of years ago that She of We found a fellow high schooler now a featured jazz singer. Amazing how small the world really is.

There’s still quite a bit of Spring to go and every week the paper has pages of interesting things to see and do. I’ll just have to make sure to leave a little time available so I don’t miss it all. After all, what good is a Spring if you can’t connect with it?

That’s what I think. How ’bout you?

Swing Your Partner

Michael 1 Comment

Did you ever run across something that is just so bizarre you can’t stop watching?  Then you are ready to experience the world of tractor square dancing.  Go ahead and re-read that sentence all you want.  It really does end with “tractor square dancing.”

I don’t know when I first ran across this spectacle (there really is no other word for it).  I think it might have been some 10 years ago when my mother was sick and I would spend afternoons with her so she wouldn’t be alone.  It was this time of year and our state was holding its annual farm show which was televised on the statewide cable network.  Yes, I know this is January.  Yes, I said farm show.  No I don’t live in the southern hemisphere.  Yes, this is getting sillier by the paragraph.  Anyway, on television back then, in the middle of the afternoon, there were soap operas, Jerry Springer shows, or silly cable programs.  Neither my mother nor I were farm people, animal people other than the occasional house pet, prize winning produce people, and certainly not tractor people.  Yet between choosing among soaps, Springer, or Farmville, tractor square dancing caught our attention.

There was a couple year period when I thought I might have successfully detoxed from the phenomenon.  Again, it was about this time of year and I was on the phone with She.  Our televisions were on and the inevitable “What are you watching?” was asked.  “The farm show.”  “Haven’t seen that for a while.  What’s on?” “Tractor square dancing!”  Another victim — err, fan.

That was when I gave up and made it a point that every January I would click my way around the TV remote until I landed on the Tractor Square Dance event.  Four “couples” of antique tractors in a dirt arena, do-si-do-ing and allemande-ing under the direction of a dance caller just like a regular square dance but this one powered by John Deere and diesel.

I see you don’t believe me.  Go to your favorite search engine and type in “Tractor square dance.”  Among the 300,000 or so returns you will find plenty of clubs dong it all across the country.  And videos!  Watch the videos!  But don’t blame me if you get addicted.

Although not even a regular (?) square dance person, tractor square dancing is so out of the ordinary that I considered it (albeit briefly) for inclusion on the bucket list.  Apparently there is a group not that far from me that is always looking for new drivers.  No experience necessary.  In fact, no tractor necessary either.  They keep their own stable of antique tricycle configured contraptions.  I’m pretty good with a riding lawn mower.  How hard could it be?

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

 

Those Who Can, Do

Michael Leave a comment

The latest community college non-credit course catalog is out.  We have taken advantage of our community college offerings for years.  Dance classes, photography classes, pasta making classes, wine pairing classes, even Italian for tourists classes have seen us on their rosters.  Subjects that were just plain fun.  But this semester, things aren’t headed in the direction one usually associates with adult education.  Certainly not with Just Plain Fun.

There are still some courses that are useful, practical, and add to the enjoyment of everyday living.  Gardening classes, painting classes, and writing classes are still being offered.  The more casual language classes seem to be a casualty of downsizing.  No longer is there “[Insert Your Favorite Foreign Language Here] for Tourists.”  If you want to learn “How to Play [One of Any Number of Previously Offered Musical Instruments Other Than Guitar or Piano]” you’ll have to do it at the local music academy.   Fortunately, “Freshwater Fishing” is still offered.  (No, that isn’t a typo.)

Perhaps I should explain the “Italian for Tourists” class.  You’re probably saying to yourself, “I’ve read every post these people have put on this blog.  There are trips to Puerto Rico, to maple festivals (whatever those are), unspecified distant time zones, and Niagara Falls.  There are trips by plane, tram, car, and shuttles.  There are no trips to Italy.”  And you would be right.  There are no trips to Italy.  But there have been trips to southern Florida and the general concentration of Italian speakers there is eclipsed only by that of Spanish speakers.  Not that anybody actually speaks Italian there.  But I digress.

There are some new offerings in the community college Community Education Catalog this year.  For the more sensitive type there are now offerings in “Chakra Balancing,” “Contacting Your Spirit Guides,” and “Psychic Development.”  Another new offering is “Turn Your Pain into Peace.”  I read the course synopsis and nowhere is bourbon mentioned.  If you’re going to turn pain into anything, bourbon is pretty much essential.  Of course without any home beer making, wine making, or spirits making (the potable type, not the ones that require guides), the essentials seem to have become superfluous.   That must be why they no longer call it “adult education.”

There is one new course that sounds interesting – The Business of Blogging.  According to the course description you turn a blog into a profitable business.  Hmm …

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

 

On Rode the 300

Michael Leave a comment

It’s milestone day!  Or should that be Milestone Day?  Subtle differences make differences.  Anyway…

It’s a milestone day – this is Post #300!  That means the next one starts counting all over again.  And it will, but the first 300 still hang out.  It’s also the start of a new year (or New Year if you prefer).  That means there should be some changes.  And there are but the old stays just as dear as always.

Like we did with the first and second hundred there are some favorites to call out.  It held to the original concept of the first post – this is real reality, not what some housewife, fisherman, storage locker junkie, dancer, prancer, or gator-bait would have you believe is.  What gets posted here really happened – unscripted, unplanned, sometimes unwanted, but always real.  Scary.

What were some of the best of the really real?  Well, best is in the eye of the beholder – or reader – not unlike an ugly Christmas sweater in one of the more recent and memorable posts “Being Beholden” (Dec. 11, 2014).  Another favorite on this side of the keyboard was “Good Things, Small Spaces” (Oct. 6, 2014), the real life adventures of a visit to a public restroom where everything was automatic and proved it!

Rarely was a post controversial other than if it actually fit in the selected category.  One that bucked that trend was “You Thought That Was Politically Incorrect” (Aug. 11, 2014) which was written after He completed several real surveys, each with remarkably different multiple choice answers to the same question – what race are you?  Seemed that someone said that shouldn’t be important yet it keeps getting asked.  Discrimination that made a difference was the subject of “Hair Today, Gone Yesterday” (Aug. 4, 2014), the true tale of a man getting a haircut in the twenty-first century.

There were lots of posts about spending money and buying stuff.  One of the more obtuse offerings was “What I Did on My Summer Vacation” (July 21, 2014).  The title notwithstanding it was about sales, Back to School sales specifically and a search for a new toaster.  Real, not necessary rational.   Shopping took a nasty turn at “Handicap Hate Crime” (June 19, 2014) another true story (they all are), this one of how one grocery store almost crippled the recovering He trying to negotiate his way to the handicapped parking slots.  Technology is not always wonderful.

With all this shopping there has to be somebody doing the selling.  Posts abounded about salespeople and clerks, with an emphasis on the occupant of the drive-thru window.  “If You Give a Teen a Penny” (April 7, 2014) detailed what was the first day behind the cash register for a high schooler whose parents you know told her to get a job.  Unfortunately, they didn’t tell her how to make change.

Fashion is always abuzz (not to be confused with a buzz).  The first post for this 100 posts hitting the fashion world was “Winter Rules” (Feb. 17, 2014).  It included the first two rules of winter fashion.  I’ll add Rule #3 here – It may be a new winter but use the old rules.

Almost a year ago we posted the recap of the second hundred posts with “Marching Onto the Third Hundred” (Jan. 2, 2014).  There we said “If we were going to pick a “best of” list we wouldn’t be able.  Yes, we liked them all but more than that, we liked what they all said about us.   What gets said in the third hundred might be completely different. But it will still say this is who we are and what we do.”

Well the third hundred has been different.  You might have noticed more of the posts were what He did rather than what We did.  She is still there in posts and in thoughts but sometime over the year the blog became more his chronicles.  And they will continue every Monday and Thursday as planned.  Or at least as anticipated.  About the only differences you might notice are more “I” and “me” than “he” and “we.”

And so the Real Reality Show Blog marches onto the four hundred however funny, thoughtful, observant, or a little off-kilter.   That’s the thing about blogs.  They are what you make of them.  And whether there are readers or not, there will always be writers.  And happy new year, too.

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

 

Being Beholden

Michael 1 Comment

It’s here.  Or soon will be.  It is Friday, December 12, 2014, otherwise known as Ugly Christmas Sweater Day.  (And can somebody please explain why it’s ok to call it an ugly Christmas sweater but to be politically correct we have to wish each other happy holidays?) (But that’s a post for a different day.)  (Thank holidays.)

OK, Ugly Christmas Sweater Day has been officially going on for quite a few years but now seems to be really getting traction.  It could be because there are more television shows with ugly sweater themes, it could be because there are now television commercials with ugly sweater themes, or it could be that there are now commercials for ugly sweaters.  True, you won’t see them in prime time network airspace but they are there.  Plop “Ugly Sweater” into your favorite search engine and see what you get back.  One or two news blurbs and a lot of sales!  If you don’t want to buy you can even rent.

To be sure, Ugly Christmas Sweater Day is not at all about ugly Christmas sweaters any more than ugly Christmas sweaters are about ugly sweaters.  It’s a day to do its best to make you smile your smilest – err, your biggest smile.  🙂   Maybe even more than Ice Cream for Breakfast Day.  (If you forgot, that’s the first Saturday in February.)

To be even more sure, Ugly Christmas Sweater Day is to sweaters and sweatshirts and jerseys what ugly Christmas tie day is to ties and ugly Christmas hat day is to hats and ugly Christmas decorations day is to decorations.  It’s about the people who wear them and their exuberance for the holiday.  (Yes, the holiday – singular, as in Christmas, not the generic holidays – plural, for everyone too ashamed to admit there is something special that happened and is worth commemorating with all the energy befitting an irreplaceable occasion.)  (But that’s still a post for a different day.)  (Thank holidays.)

The people who celebrate Ugly Christmas Sweater Day aren’t interested in whether you think their sweaters are ugly.  Nor their ties or hats or Town Square Christmas trees.  They know they aren’t.  If they were they (the sweaters) would still be on the store shelves.  To them (the sweater wearers) they (the sweaters) are the most beautiful pieces of clothing they (do we really need to keep going) own.  Beautiful because they (sweaters) symbolize the joy and energy they (people) get to feel not just at Christmas but all year long.  Because, let’s even be most sure, you know darn well these are the same people who have an ugly Easter bonnet hiding in a closet for next spring.   And that’s just fine too!

Ugly Christmas Sweater Day, a new tradition worthy of being carried on through the next few generations, or at least the next few weeks.  And it’s so easy.  Find a sweater you think is just too cool to not be shared with everybody you pass on Ugly Christmas Sweater Day.  Wear it and share it.  Repeat.  Why should turkey be the only holiday tradition that returns for several days?

Now that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you.