More food for thought

Years ago we were quite impressed when a restaurant had open air dining. That’s because we were treated to beautiful views of forests, mountains, lakes, golf course fairways and other sights making our lunch or dinner a pleasurable experience.  Unfortunately it was rare for us to experience these patio pleasures locally.  More than likely we enjoyed these on vacation trips to more exotic places.

Boy has this changed.  We can now dine with spectacular views of traffic on Queen street in Southington and many other urban venues.  If that doesn’t rock your boat why not try dining at Wood N’ Tap and view the cars parked in Friendly's and the Price Chopper’s parking lot.  Oh, and there’s another Queen street restaurant on a corner that tops that with views of not only Queen street, but a street that directs traffic to Home Depot.  This way you get an even greater thrill seeing all those trucks going up the hill for supplies.  I could go on and on describing all these newly constructed walled in patios bedecked with trees and flowers, both real and fake.

Since New England offers scant weeks to enjoy this new found phenomenon, some have even provided portable heaters to stretch the season, and perhaps marvel at the Fall foliage on the “Charlie Brown” type trees along these city streets.  Who in the world started this ridiculous trend?  I guess if one does it the rest must follow suit to avoid losing all that business created by outdoor dining….lol.  I for one am going to continue dining inside and relax in air- conditioned comfort away from the flies and bees that always seem to locate me.

Food for thought

"The entire institution of gift giving makes no sense. Let's say that I go out and I spend 50 dollars on you. It's a laborious activity because I have to imagine what you need whereas you know what you need. Now I could simplify things, just give you the 50 dollars directly and then you could give me 50 dollars on my birthday and so on until one of us dies leaving the other one old and 50 dollars richer. And I ask you, is it worth it?  A quote from Dr. Sheldon Cooper of the Big Bang Theory”

This quote came to mind when October rolled around. Birthdays and Anniversaries abound for our family in the month of October, four birthdays and two anniversaries  Years ago we decided that we couldn’t handle all those celebrations.  The solution: one big family Octoberfest to take care of them all.  I think we’ve even included the stragglers celebrating November events. This year’s Octoberfest will feature a Sunday brunch and is being hosted by my son.  The celebrations are taken care of, but now the tough stuff.  What do you buy for everyone? Grandchildren are no longer a problem since most of them covet that green stuff or gift certificates to their favorite store, but the grownups are the real headaches. 

I say we go with the “Sheldon Cooper Solution”

We’re taking a little ride up to Southern Vermont today.  Hey, how about jugs of Maple Syrup or Cheese?

It's about time - an October blog

I’m frightened.  This is day three of my attempt to enter a Blog which I haven’t done since May.

 Day one:  Not having written since May, I had loads of catching up to do. We had a great deal of work done at the house, much to write about.  We also went on two trips, one out west to visit Mount Rushmore, Salt Lake City, Jackson Hole Wyoming and other sites.  Trip two was a five day cruise to Bermuda with all eighteen family members.  Kept rambling on and wrote a whole page.  Decided to rest my brain and pick up the stories the next day. 

Day two:  Went to my documents and could not locate the Blog.  The idiot author forgot to save it.  Back to the drawing board.  Did my best to remember what I wrote on day one and created another full page.

Day three:  Will review my masterpiece, add some, correct some and send it out into the world.  Guess what?  Couldn’t find it again.  The idiot did it again.  How the hell did this happen?

During my lifetime:  I have to admit that I rarely have any tolerance for the stupidity displayed by most of the world’s populous.  A character flaw I’m not particularly proud of, but one I now have to live with since I’ve joined that segment of the population.  Excuse me for a minute; I’m going to save this now.  Twice is enough and I can’t handle anymore stupidity on my part.  Actually the whole thing surprised and scared the hell out of me. I promised myself that it will never happen again “save again”.  I’ve decided that I will not attempt to recreate those lost pages. 

Next big project:  After reaching a point of almost beating the computer with a hammer I decide to check and see when I bought this contraption. Bought it in 2005.  Can you just imagine how much crap is sitting on my hard drive?  No wonder it is constantly freezing up, not allowing me out of programs and just about anything else that can go wrong, making me spend hours just looking at my emails and checking up on my kids in facebook.  Heaven forbid I try to download anything. Eight years has seen a great deal of changes in computer technology, so much so that I’ve become a Cyber Virgin.

What should I buy:   The other day we were talking about some of the negative effects of advancing age? During my lifetime I’ve learned how to do many things, carpentry, electrical, plumbing, painting, landscaping, bartending, you name it.  Unfortunately my body now has decided that it can’t or doesn’t want to do any of these things anymore.  We recently created a personal phone book with sections such as doctors, service people, friends etc.  In case you’re curious Marge and I have one whole page for doctors and have now matched it with a whole page of “our guys”.  These are the guys we call on to do all the stuff Bill no longer does.  I recently added another guy.  This my computer guru guy, one I am engaging so that I don’t make any stupid purchases in my attempt to modernize my technology.

Here I go again

Why does it take me so long to do these Blog entries?  I enjoy writing them and am excited when someone tells me they liked the entry, so what’s holding me back.  I come downstairs each day with good intentions and inevitably get side tracked checking emails and looking at what’s going on in the world until that little spark of ambition disappears.  When I do finally regroup and key into Microsoft Word I end up staring at the blank screen waiting for an inspiration.  Looking down at my hand I see that the fingers are not moving toward the keys, just laying there in an arthritic like stupor.  Why can’t I get something going?  Just checked the records and discovered that I had not written anything since January 2^nd. 

When I began doing these Blogs my intention was to use this as a vehicle to vent my bitches which seemed to become more and more frequent as I entered my Golden Years. Since the Blog was begun I’ve made 106 entries which dealt with many, many of my complaints.  I think my hesitation in writing is the fear of repeating myself and boring my readers. 

Well I wrote the above on Thursday, left it alone till Friday afternoon with the hope that exciting, funny, enlightening things would pop into my brain.  Sorry to report it isn’t so. I’ve been trying to take it easy in the eating department to see if I could lose a few pounds and fit into a batch of “too small pants” that have been nestled in the back of my closet.  Scale this morning shows the departure of about 9-1/2 (I’ll write it out: nine and one half, looks better).  Not too bad for a couple of weeks of behavior, but still a long way from that locked in treasure trove of pants.  Even so, I thought I’d go outside and give this slightly smaller body a test.

I grabbed the jug of weed killer and started bending over and squirting those green things sprouting from the spaces in my driveway pavers.  Key word here is bending, didn’t take long before I was sucking wind and hoping I’ll be able to stand up.  Guess what, success was mine.  I even decided I’d tackle something else.  Weeds began to take over such a large circle around a pine tree, spraying would give me a carpel tunnel syndrome and create a major rise in “Round Up” stock.  So with this new developing body I grabbed a rake and attacked.  Well about half way through the project breathing became difficult, arms got tired and sweat found its way all over my body my body.  All of a sudden my brain kicked into high gear and I leaned the rack against the fence and left the pile of raked weeds and came down here to tell you all about it.

What happened to this body of mine?   It seems to have fallen apart overnight. It’s been fun being a “Strong Polish Bull” most of my life, but I guess I’ll have to try and get used to the new me.

Do you see what just happened here?  I’m back to and aging bitch.  I’m sure if I keep writing I’ll be back to complaining about TV commercials, restaurant food and service, and my lousy golf game, so I’m signing off…….see you when an exciting thought jumps into this skull of mine.

One more little Blog

Well, all those good omen signs that I wrote about in the first Blog of 2013 didn’t even last the day.  I consider myself a very decent cook who rarely experiences any real gastronomic failures, but I didn’t even get through the first day of 2013 without having one. I decided to bake some nice boneless chicken thighs coated with a Chutney mixture, herb roasted potatoes and accompany them with those previously discussed Chinese peas. Preheated the oven, popped everything in and went to read my Kindle book. After a very nice salad I went to remove my anticipated wonderful meal from the oven.  Could not believe my eyes. The bottom of the chicken dish was coated with a crusty black Chutney residue and the potatoes looked like little pieces of coal.  After the initial shock I looked at the temperature I had set the oven at.  Well you guessed it, 475 degrees, which was a wee bit higher than I wanted. Actually it looked real bad, but it did prove edible so we made our way through this disaster that altered my thinking concerning the direction 2013 was taking.  And by the way, those Chinese peas sucked, hard as little green marbles I used to play with when I was a kid.  We ate some of them, but dumped the rest.  I think I’ll stay with fresh.

To make my day even worse, I was criticized by a good (I thought) friend for using a picture that misrepresented my true age on my Blogs. As you can see I replaced it with a picture taken on our Grand Canyon trip.  I did explain that I have very few photos of myself since I’m usually the one taking pictures and no one else seems to be interested in taking mine.  By the way this friend was also on the same trip and was where I met him and his lovely and nice wife.

I apologize for overloading you with these entries…..don’t know what’s gotten into me.

First Blog of 2013

Except for the usual morning visit of my nasty friend “Art Ritus”,  2013 started out real great.  Like the good Catholic that I am, the first order of the year was a visit to church to celebrate a New Year’s Day Mass.  It seems that Rome doesn’t know who they wish to honor on this day, but this year they decided it should be Mary.  The church trip might have set the year on a good path, because our first breakfast of 2013 was great.  Got a parking space right in front of the entrance, my sausage egg and cheese on a grilled hard roll with mayonnaise and thin slices of raw onion was done to perfection and even Marge’s

Pancakes and sausage drew no complaints. Coffee cup was bottomless and waitress was pleasant and efficient.  What the hell is happening here, is this an “Omen” of things to come?  What will I be able to bitch about if this continues?

Well, I did immediately think of something, the Fiscal Cliff!!  Are you as sick of this bullshit as I am?  Do they know that this isn’t a race with the clock like the food network “Chopped”?  What the hell were these elected fools doing the rest of the year.  America, we better get smart come next election and do some house cleaning, both parties.

In my last Blog I wrote how things develop a life of their own when they drop on the floor and scurry into the darkest inaccessible corners.  The only exception is a buttered piece of bread which doesn’t run away, but plops itself, always on its buttered side….how come, is it because that side is heavier or does it develop a nasty streak on its downward flight? It’s hard to enforce the 5 second rule when this happens.

A couple of days ago I was at Price Chopper getting a few things for dinner.  We don’t often buy canned vegetables, but I figured I’d be lazy on New Year’s Day so I strolled down the can goods section.  I immediately spotted a can of peas that was wearing a strange but attractive label. yellow with a picture of nice looking small (I like the small ones) peas.  It even had a neat name, First Harvest.  If it was the first harvest, they had to be good.  This morning I was displaying this brilliant purchase to Marge and began reading the back of the label.  Can you believe that even these peas came form China?  How can the grow them, can them, ship them, distribute them and sell them for 68 cents a can?  And what the hell is wrong with this country when we have to import peas.  The worse part is that I’m wondering what the stuff in this can is……I’ll let you know if I’m still able to.