Whaaat?

Posted on by

I just noticed on Facebook that my brother is on a yacht in the Bahamas with a couple of his friends. From the looks of it none of the rest of the family is there. Just Tommy and 4 or 5 guys only one of whom I recognize. Though truth be known,  I never really hung around with his friends — all at least 7 years younger than me.

The point is you can cruise along Facebook posts and see the same old 9 to 5. There’s the birthday party, the new dog, the pretty baby, weight loss, a new hat, the stand-up shot with a celebrity and so on and so on and then all of a sudden, Bam — there is something that is really unusual. Like having a brother traveling around the Bahamas on a yacht.

No, the real point is I shoulda’ paid a little more attention to his friends.

Man ‘n Moon

Posted on by

If you are an astronaut and have a canon power shot or a smart phone, you could wake up, look out the window and take a picture of the moon. That’s what Ron Garan does. He’s aboard the International Space Station that orbits earth every hour and a half. So he gets to see this, oh — ’bout 16 times a day.

I don’t know what else he does with his day, fiddles with dials and beepers, I imagine. Makes me wonder if it’s too late to tweak my career choice?

Image from Nasa, July 2011

Blech

Posted on by

Contrary to what I have previously suggested, do not, I repeat, do not attempt to bring home a half-eaten salad in a plastic container thinking that what you have is another great meal.

What you have is a soggy mess of limp greens, softish nuts, deflated blueberries and unnaturally slippery chunks of pineapple and strawberry. It is not and will never be either my or your idea of a good follow-up meal.

Oh, yeah, sure — take the sucker home when you can’t finish it. But remember, the clock starts the minute you swoop up the remains and walk to the car. Every 45 minutes, flavor, taste and appeal (FTA) take a big tumble.

(Seems like this should be an important revelation rather than a painfully obvious footnote.)

Thumbs Up

Posted on by

Too hot to cook? Of course it is.

Get yourself to Panera’s asap. Order the strawberry  chicken salad with a hunk of a French baguette and a frozen strawberry lemonade. Depending upon where your hunger rates on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being ravenous, anything 7 or below will have you toting home leftovers.

This St Louis headquartered restaurant chain has earned a lot of attention for its healthy menu choices — and the best thing about it, it just feels like a normal good-place-to-eat.

Home cooking, you’ve met a match.

Sunday Sundae

Posted on by

A real Soda Jerk (Image by Wikipedia)

A trio of people claim they invented the ice cream soda. But the good money (Wikipedia) says it was Philadelphia native Robert Green who in 1874 came up with the idea in order to steal customers away from a nearby vendor who had a bigger, fancier soda fountain.

Green mixed a scoop of vanilla with soda water and offered customers a choice of 16 different flavored syrups. They loved ‘em and over-night every self-respecting soda fountain had them on their menus.

But here is the weird thing. Soda was considered a miracle cure by many and so, was subject to control just like alcohol. In some places, dour conservatives managed to ban selling sodas entirely or at least on holy days. Not to be denied profit, the creative soda fountains owners came up with the soda-less ice cream sundae.

I love this story. It is triumph of Suh-weet over Sour.

Door to Door

Posted on by

I confess. I was home when the two nicely groomed men in short sleeves with black satchels came to the door, one of whom was holding a pamphlet of some sort. That’s the up side of having a paned-glass door, it’s never a surprise to see who is on the porch.

I backed up the staircase and went back to whatever I was doing, ignoring the second bleat of the door bell. Later, I picked up the Watchtower that had been left at the door and tossed it into recycling.

Best I can figure out is Jehovah Witness folks spend time door-to-door as a public service making sure people know that the Kingdom of God which they believe to be the ultimate government will replace all earthy governments sooner or later.

Given what’s going on in Washington, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that the heavenly bureaucrats are packing up their desks right now.