The Perfect Song Blog

This is nothing new except for writing it down.  I’m on vacation this week.  So I’m going to write a list of all the things I want to accomplish.  At the end,   I’ll do a post on what I actually did do and what I did that I didn’t plan on.  Here it is:

-Seal the north deck

-Finish the walkway in the meditation garden

-dry mint, basil, peppers and catnip

-mow the lawn and weedwhack around the property (a couple acres; sometimes I feel like a groundskeeper)

-read PC World, Wired, New Yorker, one work-related book and one novel

-cook supper for us every night to give Linda a week off

-write two reports for work (not a legit vacation activity but necessary; this is America)

-Watch at least two episodes of Mad Men

-Clean my office

-haul out the chainsaw and knock down some trees in the woods

-replace some siding on the storage shed

-clean the cellar to make room for 8 tons of wood pellets

-clean the dog kennel and put in fresh straw which gives the three dogs (our boys) no end of joy

Clean and wash the Nissan and Jeep

Take Linda out to lunch or dinner

All of this is in between making breakfast, sitting on the deck and appreciating our gardens, the wonders of God and nature, playing with the dogs and making short runs to get groceries and other supplies.

Life has a wonderful and frustrating habit of getting the way of planned lists, but I’m going to see how it works out.

Finally, a weekend in which nothing expensive broke, the weather was good and life for the most part made sense.

Up at 9:30 (how did I sleep so long again?  Ah, we watched The Express until after midnight.  I loved the biopic about Ernie Davis and the brief appearance of the actor portraying Al Mallette, a colleague of mine at the Star Gazette in the 1960s who discovered Davis).

Coffee.  A Pipe.  Play with the dogs on a brisk but beautiful Sunday morning.  Breakfast, then over to Sam’s Club.  I bought six ink cartridges for Leigh’s printers, toilet paper, paper towels, two cans of Folgers, a 40-pound bag Purina dog food, and two frying chickens.

My knees felt wobbly when the register rang up $277!

What the hell are we coming to here, folks?  My cart was not quite full–eight items!– nearly 300 bucks!

Came home, made a couple concrete plaques for Leigh’s garden areas, checked my garden, my spot of peace, serenity and ongoing battles with weeds and mint.

Spent the afternoon sealing the deck while listening to various podcasts on my iPod.  Put the chicken on the spit and fired up the grill, took my shirt off and basked in the sun while sealing a hundred deck spindles.

We’re slaves to our deck, lawn, gardens, patios and house, but then, we created them.  We have a responsibility to maintain them and keep them healthy.

I hope God feels the same way about us. I’m pretty sure he does.  I hope he has a chance to relax and enjoy the beautiful days, too.

*  *  *

Over the past few months a lot of folks from Russia have subscribed to my blog.  So I send a big hello to all of you.  Thanks for your interest!

Standing in line at Tops, the tabloid headline blared:  “Bigfoot Diet, Loses 150 Pounds.”

I weigh 149 pounds. Losing that much would shrink me to a cell, but I was interested.  If Bigfoot can do it, why can’t the rest of America, 66% of whom are overweight?  Bigfoot should be an inspiration to us all.

Through the miracles of technology, I tracked down Bigfoot’s cell phone and lined up an interview.

“So Bigfoot — can I call you BF?”

“Sure.  People have called me worse.”

“What’s this new diet you’re on and, I guess, why?  I mean you’re a pretty free spirit.  People occasionally report a sighting on you, but for the most part, you’re just out there in nature, skulking.”

“Well, Dennis, the world has been closing in.  What with cell phone cameras, video and that infernal Twitter, I just don’t have that much privacy anymore.”

“But the diet, the weight loss.”

BF paused.  “When the world’s eyes are on you, you’ve got to look your best.  I finally gave in and hired a PR firm.  First thing they said was, ‘you got to get rid of the gut.  Being big and hairy is one thing.  Being big and hairy and fat doesn’t is so uncool.’  So I went on a regimen to lose 150 pounds.”

“Going from 800 pounds to 650 is pretty impressive.  The drawings of you look great. You’ve got a barrel chest, huge shoulders and biceps–”

“Thank you.  The drawings are pretty accurate by the way.”

“So are you going to lose the hair, too?”

“No!  The hair is part of my heritage.  Besides, I watched The 40-Year Old Virgin.  Did you see that scene where they put tape on Steve Carrell’s tummy and ripped his hair off?  No way am I going through that.  Besides, I’ve got an image to uphold.  I’ll lose the gut but the hair stays.  Actually I think hair is the next bald, you know?  I’ve been around awhile, and I can tell you, women like hair.  Especially big hairy women.  All this bald shit is for reptiles,”

“If I wore a t-shirt it would say ‘Mammals Love Hair.’”

“Speaking of t-shirts,” I said, “I see you’re wearing a breech cloth to cover your privates.”

There was a pause.  “Yeah.  That was the PR firm again.  Said if I was going to be on the cover of Weekly World News I had to hide Winky.  It’s in the grocery stores, you know, the newspaper, I mean.”

I pressed on.  “But in all the photos and videos caught of you, there are no clothes.”

“Yeah, well, and my back is always to the camera.”  There was a slight silence as he pondered this.  “I think the real thing is male insecurity, you know?  Now that I’m slimmed down to 650 pounds, Winky looks a lot more impressive than he did when he was stunted by my gut.  I’m not into size issues, but, look, I know the more women fantasize, the more men get shaky.  Men are so insecure. . . . . ”

“So what’s your next step now that you’re slim and have gone public?”

“Well,” he said quietly.  “I’d like to go on Dancing with the Stars.  I’ve got a pretty good routine called In Step with Big Foot.“  He chuckled to himself.  “There’s a good double entendre there.  Get it?”

There was another pause as if he were considering how much to divulge. “A couple football teams have approached me but, honestly, I don’t like the sport.  Too violent.  Oh, and my agent is working with Hollywood to develop feature length movie, “Big Steps to Glory.”

“Wow, you’ve really come out,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said enthusiastically.  I really have. . . . And I love public service.  I’m doing some consulting with the Boy Scouts right now, developing a program in outdoor recreation.  And of course there’s the upcoming book The Bigfoot All Natural Diet.  It’s a big change from the painfully shy guy I used to be.”

“That’s great, Big Foot,” I said.  “I’m sure it took a lot of courage to do the diet, put on some clothes and move out into society the way you have.”

“Yes,” he said quietly.  “My Mom is pretty proud.”

Kids should not be allowed in grocery stores. I have good reasons for saying this.

I’ve taken over the grocery shopping to give Leigh more time with her business. I don’t mind extra duty but I do shop like a male.

I have a list. I want to find an item as quickly as possible, cross it off and move on.

I don’t mind other shoppers who pull off to the side of the aisle and park as they study ingredients on a package or compare prices. I don’t mind the elderly who move at a slower pace. I can pass them, just as someday, a new generation will pass me.

What I absolutely can’t stand are shopping carts that have little kids attached to them – to the front, the sides, the back and to mom’s pants. One, two, sometimes three hyperactive, nose-picking rug rats all vying for attention while Mom is trying to find the best prices and make sure she remembers her husband’s favorite beer.

I don’t even like the ones who are trying to be good, standing still—in the middle of the aisle. The last thing I as a male am going to do is ask the child to get out of the way and trigger the terrifying ire of a mother whose child is being threatened by a male.

No, I am going to stand there politely, gritting my teeth and trying to maintain an expression of empathetic patience until the mom sees the traffic blockage and says: “Come over here, Megan. Stay out of the way.”

She then gives me a look that says: “Thanks for your patience. And polite as you are, please get lost and don’t interrupt us again.”

Grocery shopping is the one recurring life experience in which a woman has to question the practicality of motherhood. She’s looking for low sodium pickles while trying to watch the whirling, kicking kids and hoping they don’t pick up a jar and drop it. . .or throw it at a sibling.

If they’re not trying to get mom’s attention by asking questions, the kids are doing it by crying or pleading for some sugar-laden treat that’s making them hyper and fat. They’re wild cards, not staying on their side of the lane, darting in and out, bouncing , grabbing stuff off shelves, begging mom to buy something or (I’ve seen it), sneaking it into the cart.

Kids are shifty little buggers and we don’t give them enough credit.

They also do not belong here. Grocery stores should be for adults only.

Really.

And those damnable “grocery cars” are the worst thing to ever occupy into a grocery store. In the next post I’ll tell you why.

It’s a story you won’t believe, but it is, I swear, true.

My quest:  to make great barbecued spare ribs.

Not just great, but outstanding. Fall-off-the-bone. Melt-in-your-mouth.

The first couple tries were failures with dry, tough meat that left jaws aching from all the chewing. But last Sunday, I knew I had it down. I put the baby-back rack in the oven at 300 degrees. I would do them for six hours, checking every two hours to make sure there was water on them to keep them moist and tender.

At 5:30 I asked Leigh if she’d made the barbecue sauce. She hadn’t. I said I would. I knew where the recipe was. I was in a rush because all the side dishes were done. I tossed in a quarter cup of ketchup, measured out the mustard, crushed the garlic clove and added a dash of worchestershire sauce.

The last ingredient was ¼ cup of strong coffee. I measured it out and poured it in. I brought it to a slow, simmering boil.

Leigh came out to the kitchen. “What’s wrong with that sauce?”

I shrugged. “Nothing that I know of. I followed the recipe.”

“It looks dark.”

“I followed the recipe.”

It was a beautiful day so we ate on the deck. I brought out the ribs and as I dished them out I was quietly ecstatic that they did, indeed, fall off the bone. I picked off a test piece. Ahh, melt-in-the-mouth it did.

“I don’t understand why the barbecue sauce looks so dark,” Leigh said again.

We spooned some out and put it on the done-to-perfection ribs.

“Ooh,” Leigh said quietly. What’s that funny taste?”

I took a bite. Something wasn’t right.

“Why’s it crunchy?” She asked.

As soon as she asked that, I had a suspicion of some wrong doing.

“Are these crunchy things coffee grounds?”

Bingo!

“Mmm, yeah. It said ¼ cup strong coffee.”

“It’s supposed to be coffee! Boiled coffee. Not coffee grounds.

I had to admit that her observation made perfect sense. I tried another bite. The most tender baby back ribs in the world still tasted wretched in a sauce made of coffee grounds.

She ran into the kitchen and in five minutes made a barbecue sauce that did justice to the ribs.

Okay. I got the ribs down.

Now I work on the sauce.

Life can be complicated sometimes.

Kim flew in from Alaska Thursday as a surprise for her brother Nathan’s birthday. She was due to arrive at midnight Wednesday but storms in Chicago stopped all flights and she wound up with a several hour wait in Philadelphia.

Nathan was scheduled to come up Thursday night but at the last minute said he’d forgotten he’d scheduled band practice. Leigh tricked him into coming up.

Kim sat out on the deck in the darkness wearing a ski mask and holding a bottle of Alaskan beer. I’ve never seen such a puzzled, disoriented, shocked look on Nathan’s face when he realized it was Kim.

Anyway, one of Kim’s passions, aside from her dog, the outdoors and reading, is food. So this morning we drove up to Wegman’s in Ithaca.

Yes, some people like to go to baseball games.

Others go to museums.

We go to the grocery store.

I don’t know what it is about Wegman’s. It’s always chaos, especially in the produce section. If you’re moving, you’re always about to hit someone. God help you if you stop. People are milling, armed with grocery carts pushing them like benevolent torpedoes, intent on the produce and absently ramming you as they study the state of the organic shitake mushrooms.

I stocked up on dried Chinese soups, knowing this is stuff is a double threat. In it’s best state it’s not healthy. It’s all sodium, for God’s sakes. In addition, lately the Chinese have been inadvertently killing people all over the world with the tainted food they’re sending out.

Ah, well, live dangerously. I love the flavor. At the check out counter I got a cooking lesson from Jason, a tall, lanky kid with dark hair. “Hey, my favorite food!” He exclaims, holding up my hot and sour mix. “Give me a microwave and I’m an excellent cook! You know, it’s not the minutes on the microwave that’s important. It’s the seconds. You put it in for too long and it’s too hot to eat. Get it a few seconds too short and you have to mic it again. I’ve got the seconds down to a science. Now, if my microwave dies, I’ll starve.” He holds up a plastic bowl of chicken mushroom instant soup. “Ah! My favorite!”

He looks at me and I know there’s a bond that no one can take away.

It was not the most intellectually stimulating conversation I’ve had with a cashier, but what the heck, everyone has his specialty.

Here are a couple of photos of Kim.