Cooking Lesson

"Do you like eggplant?"

"I. . ."

"Listen to this.  Slice eggplant into one-and-a-half inch thick slices."

"Slice it parallel to its equator, or parallel to its polar axis?"

"Slice eggplant into one-and-a-half inch thick slices.  Salt each slice on each side, set aside and allow them to weep for thirty minutes."

"It's making me cry, just thinking about it."

"In a one-and one-half quart saucepan,"  and here she starts to list ingredients.  Tomatoes, basil, cheeses, and I say,

"Aha! The cover-up.  Disguise the taste of the vegetable!"

She continues with the entire rigamarole, ultimately "covering the slices with the sauce."

"And that," I say, "is eggplant parmesan.  If you'd cover five slices of white bread with the same sauce, they would taste the same."

She keeps insisting that I should take an interest in cooking, learn a thing or two, "in the event that something happens to me and you have to take care of yourself."  Well, it's the thought that counts; and it is a loving thought.

summer afternoon; and evening

rain falls in buckets

 that’s not right, it’s bucketsful

and a whole lot more

JD Tuesday night

Oldsters eat for two-thirds price

Count me; I’m hungry.

Karma

The Fisker Karma stopped right beside me at the red light.  My mode of transportation, a $79 bicycle, his a $100,000+ electric hybrid automobile.  Same red light, same wait.  But then, in all honesty, when the light changed, I was looking at his rear end two blocks down the street before I had gone 100 yards.

So why do I mention this?  Because I am envious?  Not in the least; but because it is the first time I had seen an actual Finnish electric auto in our town.  Pretty thing, I'll give them that.

Here is a picture and further info if you have not seen one.

Love in the Second-degree

Her parents died, first her mother, then two years later, her father.  Shortly after Father passed, she came home from a three-day visit with her sister, only to find her husband's personal items gone, he nowhere to be found.  But he did leave a note, "I want the divorce."

A few days, she tracked him down and confronted him.  "Thirty-two years of marriage and three children, and now this. Why?"

His response?  "I loved your parents so much that I married you.  Now that they are gone, there is no reason for us to stay together."


btw, true story, pretty much.

Customer Service

Very colorful item, eye-catching, one might say. 50-foot hose, accordions to 32 inches!  The old kinky hose needs replacement anyway.

Bought the thing, took it home.  Unpacked, hooked it up, and before I could actually spray my flowers, the fitting on the male end popped right out of the hose.  I'm not big on repairing new products before I can use them.  Back to the store.

"What's wrong with it?"

"The fitting popped out the end of the hose."

The lady pulls the package open, grabs the fitting in one hand, hose in the other, and, as I told her, it slipped right out.  She jammed it back in, closed the packaging.  As she is getting my refund cash from the register, I hear her, almost muttering, "There is nothing wrong with it."

"Okay," I said, "put me down as dissatisfied customer."

"All I care about is that it is okay.  I can sell it to somebody else."

There you go, I think.  Create another dissatisfied customer.  I took my money without giving her the well-deserved ethics lesson, for after all, I just wanted my money back.

Absolutely

So nobody figured out that if we let the deconstructionists take over, everything falls apart.

--Church Curmudgeon

Exactly so. 1) If we let the deconstructionists take over, everything falls apart.

2) Nobody has figured this out. Except for me and the Curmudgeon. Come on, Folks. Get on board.

Too, I mean this generally, whether we are speaking of literature, history, philosophy, you name it. A pox on it, and on its twin, postmodernism.

There are absolutes. Like it or not.

A Buggy Buggy Ride

I had forgotten some of the pleasures of a Summer Evening drive in Hoosierland.  You know-- the corn towering so high on both sides the road, creating a green tunnel through which one hurtles toward the destination.  The glare of the sunlight through the windshield as the sun lowers directly to the driver's eye level.  The bugs.  Oh, the kabillion bugs confronting the vehicle, yet, as the spouse says, "they won't have the guts to do that again."  But their legions of comrades will.

So, on the two hour drive home last night, I stopped twice to wash and clean the windshield.  Yes, indeed.  One had best have towels and water, and detergent, too.  Arrived safely home, parked in the driveway.  Tired.  Went in, flopped to rest a bit.  Ten minutes before dark, back to the car, wash water and terry towel.  Clean those things off, for tomorrow they will have embedded themselves more or less permanently into the finish.

The joys of evening drives in the Hoosierland summer.

People Watching, Episode #?

The couple, mid-forties, walked into the restaurant, he in blue jeans, she in a pretty summer frock, each with a ponytail.  His, brown, tied below the baseball cap, hung just past the shoulders; hers, a striking blond, loosely tied at the nape, hung two inches below her knees.

We having all finished our repast at about the same time, they paid at the register just ahead of me.  As I stepped up to pay, I noted the cashier's eyes, big as saucers, followed the mane as it walked out.

"Wonder how much that weighs?" I ventured.

"I was wondering how on earth she washes it," replied the girl.