Favorite Foods – It’s All Good

On Saturday, while I was in town doing the grocery shopping, Dizzy-Dick was expounding upon his favorite foods. I must admit, his description of his favorite boudin sausage and cheese stuffed deep fried jalapenos from Jack-in-the-Box got my mouth to watering, but his waxing poetic over rare to medium-rare  grilled beef liver for lunch had me nearly drowning from drool.

I suffer food gladly. There’s damn little I won’t eat or at least try a couple of times before giving up. I’m not overly fond of SWMBO’s beloved raw wieners, but that’s OK – I just brown mine up before dumping in the baked beans and rice that goes with them in this household these days.

Crustaceans are my downfall. I loves me some lobster. Mud bugs be me. Crabs ‘r’ us, too. Mollusks are little hard-shelled jewels. I love the simple pleasure of escargots in garlic butter with a hot, crispy loaf of French bread as an accompaniment . Steamed clams and drawn butter, or mussels ‘ca vin. Heck, deep-fried grasshoppers alongside of fried shrimp would be a delightful contrast, both served up with cocktail sauce and Thai peanut curry sauce. Then there’s oysters. Is there such a thing as a raw oyster too cold on ice in a hot chili cocktail sauce, a slice of lime at my side to spread the glory even farther…

I like meat. Steak, rare and hot off the grill, lightly seasoned with garlic butter, salt and pepper gets my gastric juices just a-flowin’. Roasted venison, braised bear, BBQ pork, chicken, turkey, and other poultry in all the myriad ways it may be prepared – delightful.

I’d probably die of terminal confusion, just trying to pick out a last meal on death row. We haven’t even started on all the cheeses, veggies, breads, soups and stews, salads.

Man, I love to eat and this old body shows the result. I’m not just roly-poly, I’m officially, majorly, obese. The only way I’m ever going to lose weight is to stop eating and I don’t see that happening anytime soon. C’est la vie, eh? There be far worse ways to go, that’s for sure.

So unlike Dizzy-Dick, there’s no picking favorites … it’s all good.

Dawn's early light

Moon full at 5:15

Morning comes sneaking up on me...

It probably comes as no surprise that we've been experiencing what passes for summer in these parts the last few days. All the heat and humidity takes it out of this fat old man. So, I tend to doze off in the evening watching the boob-tube, only to awaken as Craig McPherson is signing off the Late, Late Show at 1:30 AM. Said three or four hours of sleep is it for that night...

I pulled that same stunt tonight. I picked and liked, read, played alligator, listened to my music with earphones and had a pleasant enough time, if you don't want to be sleeping, that is.

About 5AM I looked out the window and observed that just a month ago the sun would be fully above the horizon at that hour of the morning. Not this morning. It looked like the moon had set, it was so dark.

Fifteen minutes later I went out with Iggy - he to water the trees and I refilled the generator. At that point, dawn was breaking and I discovered the moon was high in the Southwest. Who knew?

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Bad Choices Are Me… or The Fecal Matter Has Hit The Fan!

 

 

About 7:15 yesterday morning as SWMBO braves the vagaries of our bilge pump-powered shower, I heard the now infamous words, “Honey, the water isn’t draining…!”

Phooey, thinks I, it’s too soon to have to empty the holding tanks – I only did it a week ago. I check the notoriously unreliable electronic gauges and they both indicate ‘Full’ tanks. Damn.

Wrong conclusion, Dawg.

So I quickly hatched the scheme to take off about 25 gallons of grey water into the “blue boy” so my wife can finish her ablutions.

Bad choice #1.

I pull the stinky slinky hose out and make up to the waste tank and pull the valve open. And all Hell breaks loose – the portable tank end of the hose separates from the connection fitting and I have 100 gallons of  sewage gushing onto the ground.

Stink – “oh my”, as George Takei would say. So much for driving the boss to work. I’m covered from head to toe in effluent, gagging at the stench, and still have to empty the portable tank into the septic system.

First trip is nothing too exciting. Since I’m already slimed, I decide to take care of the current supply of black waste water, too.

Bad choice #2.

I make up the spare slinky hose to the portable tank and open the valve and wouldn’t you know it, that hose separates from the trailer end fitting and now I have raw sewage all over the ground, the portable tank and me, too. Gag me to the max. George Takai has a clothes pin on his nose and he’s doing the Wave of Shame we all used as kids at me and my predicament. I have no choice but to try to dilute the pollution. Wouldn’t you know it …

Bad choice #3.

The Rule 800 bilge pump chooses that very moment to give up the ghost and stop pumping.

I may be obtuse, but even I know when Murphy has hit a grand slam between my eyeballs with a 2x4. There’s nothing for it but grab some buckets, wade into the lake up to my waist to wash the merde off me and start the dilution* process by manual bucket brigade, with me being the only brigade member to show up for the party.

My wife missed all of this, having found it necessary to take the truck and drive herself to work (she hates doing that, preferring to apply make-up and prepare herself mentally while I negotiate with the vehicle-bound terrorists that pass themselves off as early morning commuters).

An hour or two later, I have all of the various hoses repaired, the area around the trailer where all of this effluvia was discharged has been diluted as much as I dare (didn’t want the trailer sinking out of sight in suddenly saturated ground, now did I) and I have cleaned up enough that I can contemplate drinking my first cup of coffee of the day, take my pills and figure out my next mistake, er, adventure.

Walked the dog, only beating him a half dozen times for trying to roll in the smelly stuff and then bowed to the inevitable – I donned my breathing apparatus and mowed the lawn. It is too bad the mask only filters out pollen, molds and dust, or I’d have used it to keep the sewage stench at bay…

So that was my day. How was yours?

 

 

* ”The solution to Pollution is Dilution” was one of those little catch phrases that stuck with me from wastewater management class.