Author: Dave

Clearly, I have something to say. This blog was born of a desire to elevate our language, using the more eloquent words of past generations (and the more inventive words of today’s generation). The stories I share are life itself, and each comes with a bonus: an uncommon word I hope you’ll go on to use more often. Read “Deutschland-ish Improvements” to learn about my backyard European wish list. Read “Slush Fun” for the throwback years of the 7-Eleven convenience store. Read "Iced Coffee" to discover the plight of the rural French cafe. On the lighter side, read "Late Night Racquet Sports" for my adventures with our latest moth invasion. As Walt Whitman said, “That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.” Here then, my verse. Welcome to "Life In A Word".

No News is Good News

Posted on July 8, 2020July 9, 2020 by Dave

As a kid, my parents would sometimes take my brothers and me to a restaurant called Sir George’s Smorgasbord. Sir George’s was one of those all-you-can-eat places, and in the 1960’s it cost you a mere $1.69 a plate! I don’t remember the “royal buffet” being so kid-friendly (except for the fried dough balls for dessert) but that didn’t matter so much. The idea you could assemble your own dinner from dozens of selections was a dream compared to some of mom’s mandated meals.

Sir George’s closed its doors in the late 1970’s, but I thought about the place the other night. For years my wife and I used to watch a half-hour of local news on television – our before-bed catch-up on the happenings of the day. I was always impressed with how many stories the newscasters crammed into thirty minutes; an almost breathless smorgasbord of headlines and reports. Alas, the real-time information of mobile devices removed much of the appeal of the late-night news (except the weather – always an important topic here in Colorado). But maybe the loss of appeal should be blamed on something else. Something more troubling.

With the pandemic and protests of late, my wife and I tune into the news again. We seek an encouraging stat or bit of research we’ve missed, or we yearn for a better angle on the justification of our country’s continuing unrest. Whatever the reason, we find we’re tuning out the news almost as fast. What used to be a buffet of international, national, and local news has changed into something else entirely: essentially a waste of our time.

I’m guessing news broadcasts look about the same in every American locale right now. The lead story is an incident-based piece on racial injustice (i.e. Seattle’s CHOP), followed by something similar at the local level (i.e. a peaceful protest). These stories are followed by a statistical update on COVID-19 (global, national, local), which leads to the latest state/city mandates and recommendations.

Click the stopwatch. Fifteen minutes have already been consumed by protests and pandemic, leaving the other fifteen minutes for weather, sports, and everything else a viewer “needs to know”. Actually, make that ten minutes. Our news takes a break halfway through for commercials, then again just before wrapping things up. Weather is only newsworthy if you live in a place where it changes daily. Sports isn’t newsworthy at all, at least not right now.

You see where I’m going with this. The late-night news is simply not “news” anymore. Without taking anything away from the seriousness of the pandemic and the issues behind the myriad protests, neither topic is end-of-day compelling when you’ve already consumed a healthy dose of both from your phone and newsfeed. You seek something else entirely late at night, at least to avoid EGO (eyes glazing over). You seek something newsworthy.

The news lineup won’t change, of course. Networks broadcast what they think you want to see and hear. Or more accurately, they broadcast what they want you to see and hear. Daily pandemic coverage is designed to elevate fear and maybe drive safer practices. Daily protest coverage is designed to elevate the significance of the issues and maybe drive actual change. But sorry; these topics are not the most newsworthy day-in and day-out. They’re not “breaking news”. Here’s breaking news: the other day we had a large brush fire just to the north of us, threatening our very homes and lives. By my stopwatch, the news got to that story seventeen minutes after the hour. Should’ve been the lead.

If the networks retitle these broadcasts something like “Pandemic and Protests Daily” at least I know what to expect. I could set my DVR to record the show once a week and that’d be all the tuning-in I’d need. Kind of like daytime soaps, where you can skip a whole week and then watch the next Monday’s episode to get caught up on all you missed.

Mark my words, the nightly news will soon lumber off like the dinosaurs, never to be seen again. You might ask yourself: will its demise be attributed to the real-time pings of your mobile phone, or because the networks didn’t choose to acknowledge the vast buffet of topics right in front of them?

I say bring back Sir George’s.

Late Night Racquet Sports

Posted on July 2, 2020 by Dave

My newsfeed nets a lot of headlines, but I almost missed the one about the Saharan sandstorm last week, blowing its way across the southern United States. Our son lives in Austin and said you can’t miss it: eerie dusty brownish fog center-stage in an otherwise hot and humid Texas day. (The silver lining: the sunsets are spectacular.) I can’t spin a sandstorm positive. Instead, I picture every granule as a moth and every moth descending on my house like Japanese Zeroes, somehow finding entry and making my life a living hell.

They’re at it again, Mr. & Mrs. Miller and their countless compadres. The million (billion?) miller moth march made its way across the Midwest (today’s letter is “M”), destined for an oasis called Colorado and a house called mine. The little winged beasties arrived unannounced and in droves (awful word: drove). One night I noticed one or two of the millers performing their spastic dance around the outside lights and I thought, “Oh no… scouts“. The next night one of them sounded a tiny bugle at dusk and the swarming commenced. I’m convinced miller moths have air traffic controllers, letting them know “Roger that Moth 259 – you’re cleared for landing on any ceiling or wall in Dave’s house”.

From the minimal research I’ve conducted (like, I don’t want to know moths have 8,000 eyes or whatever), the high country of the Rocky Mountains is a miller moth’s summer resort. Picture Colorado as their Motel 6 for the night (just don’t “leave the light on”), feeding on backyard flowers and storing up oxygen for the next day’s flight to altitude. They seem to be headed towards Utah in particular. Maybe the flowers are better over there. Maybe moths are Mormon and the Utah state line feels like the pearly gates of heaven. Here’s what I say: if Utah really is “The Beehive State”, train those yellow-jacketed armies to take down the miller moths as soon as they arrive. The massacre would be an event worth pay-per-view prices.

I thought I’d developed a sound battle plan for Mr. & Mrs. Miller this year. Turn out ALL the lights and live in hermit darkness for several nights (like Halloween, when you don’t want any trick-or-treaters at your door). Then maybe they’d fly over to my neighbor’s place instead. Wrong. They see your glowing phones. They see the little LED’s you can’t cover up on your electronic devices. They just park in the dark in discreet places around the house, waiting for you to wake up the next morning so they can announce, “WE’RE HERE!!!”

There was no avoiding battle with this year’s crop of “Army cutworms” (an image even worse than “miller moth”). At first I was a mercenary, developing a cupping technique with my hands where I could catch-and-release (moths are the devil’s mess if you squash ’em). But I rapidly tired of saving their little one-inch lives one at a time. Try getting ready for bed at night brushing your teeth while a half-dozen bombers circle your head. Or reaching for the water glass only to find a miller has staged a glorious dramatic death at the bottom.

Armed with a fly swatter, I thought to myself time for a little badminton (actually, I just thought “kill”). But here’s the reality: moths have half a brain, wings, ears (or at least a sense of hearing), and endless energy. They know you’re coming almost before you do. They hover close to the ceiling, frustratingly out of reach just beckoning you to climb to unsafe heights.

Our bathtub’s too small to accommodate a ladder so I was forced to balance precariously on the porcelain edge while swinging the swatter skyward. The best analogy I can give you is this: picture King Kong on the top of the Empire State Building, gripping with his feet and flailing with his arms, only in men’s pajamas. Little buzzing machines dart about him. He knocks down one or two (with an instant and satisfying plummet back to earth), but most of the time he just swings at the air while trying not to die in a bathtub. It’s part-cardio, part-yoga (only you’re more stressed when you’re done).

Let’s visit the Army cutworm’s half-brain again. I believe moths are designed by Mom Nature to taunt their predators. One of mine made it into the refrigerator and probably enjoyed a helping of leftovers. Another survived a tumble of laundry dryer clothes and still came out intact (though it was hard to tell if he was dizzy or just flitting as normal). Yet another spent the night in the soaking water of our dirty dishes, popped up the next morning when I approached the sink, and said, “Have a nice day!” as he darted away. Trust me; these mini-monsters don’t die easy. Even a spirited swipe of the racquet (er, swatter) – picture enough force to explode a shuttlecock – doesn’t always kill a moth. Bless their pitter-patter hearts – they sometimes need three or four good whacks before raising the white flag.

Enough about Mr. & Mrs. Miller, right? To swat this topic once and for all, most of you know the movie monster Godzilla but what about his nemesis Mothra? Back in the 1960’s, (sick) Japanese filmmakers created a “good-girl” winged creature; an awkward-looking mega-insect who defies the laws of physics by flying. Mothra’s just what you picture in my worst nightmares: a moth the size of a jumbo jet. She was labeled “the protector of island culture, the Earth, and Japan” and revered among the Japanese film-going public (especially women). Mothra sold a lot of movie tickets.

So, the Japanese think a moth is damn near a heroine, eh? Well then, they should come to Colorado next summer for a visit. I’ll leave the light on for ’em.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

True Colors

Posted on June 25, 2020June 25, 2020 by Dave

In the kitchen cabinet convenient to our countertop coffeemaker (I’m on a roll with the letter C today), we keep a couple of large mugs; souvenirs from the San Diego Zoo. Identical in size and shape, both mugs have images of animals on them. More importantly, one mug is light blue while the other is bright red. For this reason and no other, I place the blue mug at the front of the cabinet and the red mug further back. My preference is the blue one.

If these same mugs were in your kitchen cabinet, which would you choose? What if I added a green mug and a purple mug – would your choice be just as clear? It should be, since we all have favorite colors. Unless we’re colorblind we concur when something is blue, or something is red. We even agree when something blue is “pretty” (say, the summer sky) or something red is not (say, the heart of a forest fire). But that’s just preference by association. Favorite colors are part of our DNA.

As far back as I can remember my favorite color is green. I also like blue and purple, but if I only get a single Skittles make it green. With board games, I choose the green pieces. With my wardrobe, I own several green shirts (but no red ones). My wife and I once owned – one after the other – a green van, followed by a green sedan, followed by a green mini-van; even though the more popular vehicle colors are white, silver, black, and dark grey. It may be no coincidence the colors of my alma mater are blue, gold… and green.

Don’t let the numbers influence your choice but 35% of Americans prefer blue while 16% prefer green, 10% purple, and 9% red. Orange, yellow, and brown sit together at the back of the bus. Also, gentlemen may prefer blondes, but gentlemen definitely prefer blondes in red. To heterosexual men at least, women in red draw more romantic attention than any other color.

Infants show a preference for color as early as twelve weeks old. That’s hardly an age where you associate colors with material things. Toddlers show a preference for pink and blue regardless of sex (and cool colors over warm), but choose yellow over both of them – perhaps owing to association with the sun, flowers, and other “happy” things.

Here’s where favorite colors get interesting. At five years of age you begin to associate colors with more than just “things”. You associate with feelings and states of mind as well. Consider the table above. My preference for green suggests a good/bad combination of traits. Immodestly I like to think I have good taste. Unquestionably I put a premium on my health. Envy? Sure, every now and then. Eco-friendly? Nope, not really.

Red and blue make for better arguments. The “lust”, “power”, and “speed” associated with red explain why it’s the color of choice for sports cars, and why red uniforms statistically improve performance in certain sports (think Tiger Woods). All five blue traits explain why the color is so prevalent in the American workplace (and primary in the logos of standard brands like Ford, Facebook, and IBM). Even the traits of violet/purple make sense: the color most associated with royalty.

Our desire to interpret the meaning of favorite colors has been around a long time. The Rose of Temperaments is a wheel-like image from the late eighteenth century, matching colors to character traits and occupations. See what your color says about you. If green goes to my very soul, the rose is strikingly accurate. I can make a case for every trait in the list of phlegmatic. My tendencies are also more introverted than extroverted. The rose gives me reasons for envying red, yellow, or blue (and reasons for not), but I can’t deny it: I am literally defined by my favorite color.

Speaking of the basic colors, we also favor color names. Mother Nature’s rainbow just doesn’t do it anymore. In a recent remodel project my wife and I chose the paint color “Cocoa Whip” over “Havana Coffee” and “Wild Truffle”; when in fact we were simply choosing a shade of brown. In product tests, participants shown swatches of the same color consistently preferred the one with the most elegant name.

Closing comment on my favorite color green. You do know what they say about green M&M’s, don’t you? The aphrodisiacal effects (urban legend) are explained by the color’s association with fertility. However, the better story comes from 1976, when the FDA banned the chemical “red dye #2” and red M&M’s temporarily departed the production line. Rumor had it the reds were the real aphrodisiacs, employees were pocketing them straight from the line, and the whole red dye #2 story was a cover-up. Red, green, whatever the color; they all taste good to me. Even the brown ones, which testers swear taste more like chocolate than any other color.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”, and Snopes.com.

Hex Marks the Spot

Posted on June 18, 2020June 19, 2020 by Dave

In the opening scenes of the 1981 classic, “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, intrepid explorer Indiana Jones navigates a deep jungle, a river, the betrayal of his fellow adventurers, and the lethal booby-traps inside a mountainside cave to capture a priceless statue of gold. Indy’s return to civilization includes more death-defying maneuvers, yet he still completes the entire escapade in the first ten minutes of the film. That’s far less time than it took another thrill-seeker to find the real-life hidden treasure of Forrest Fenn.

Perhaps you’re not familiar with Forrest Fenn. Hardly anybody would be, were it not for Fenn’s decision back in 1988 to set aside $2 million of his amassed fortune as a reward for an ambitious treasure hunt through the vast Rocky Mountains. Gold nuggets, rare coins, jewelry, and gemstones; all piled up together inside a twelfth-century bronze box and cached in a region of over 500,000 square miles. Treasure hunt indeed… but no treasure map! Instead, Fenn documented clues in the stories and poems contained in his self-published book, The Thrill of the Chase: A Memoir.

Remarkably, Fenn’s treasure appears to have been claimed. The whole story found its way back into national headlines just ten days ago, when Fenn himself declared, “I do not know the person who found it but… the search is over. Look for more information and photos in the coming days.” Conveniently, the one snap of the treasure chest in its hidden location does not indicate when it was taken. Just as convenient, the finder has yet to be identified; only labeled “anonymous searcher from the East Coast”.

Forgive my skepticism, but I’d say Forrest just raised the first red flag on this whole adventure. It sounds good on paper but the more I read the more I sense fairy tale instead of actual tale. To repeat, Mr. or Mrs. East Coast has yet to come forward. The single photo of the treasure could’ve been taken by Fenn himself. Do the homework and you’ll soon start to wonder, does the treasure really exist? For that matter, does Forrest Fenn himself exist? Even his name sounds make-believe.

Body-double aside, Fenn appears to be very much alive, but the case can be made for calling the man eccentric. Consider, Fenn’s initial intent for the treasure was kind of an “X marks the spot” for his final resting place. In 1988, diagnosed with cancer (likely terminal) Fenn was motivated to set up the treasure hunt before his demise. But somewhere in the next 22 years, Fenn recovered from his illness and then penned the memoir, complete with treasure-hunt clues. This sequence of events alone is suspect. What was Fenn’s original intent: secret burial in the Rockies and whoever stumbled upon his grave (and thought to dig it up) wins the prize?

courtesy of oldsantafetradingcompany.com

Undeterred, thousands pursued Fenn’s treasure after the memoir was published. Five died in the search. Of those five, only one cause of death was confirmed – a fall down a steep slope in Yellowstone National Park. The bodies of the other four, at first identified as “missing persons”, were found later (at different times and places) along the supposed route to Fenn’s treasure. No cause of death determined with any of them. Add to that a dozen or more arrests, detainments, citations, and lawsuits with other hunters and you start to get a real mess on your hands. Sounds more like a “hex marks the spot” doesn’t it? Fenn considered the request of authorities to suspend the hunt, but public opinion swayed him to keep things going.

Ten days ago, Fenn acknowledged the (apparent) hunt winner and he/she possesses the (supposed) treasure. No doubt this isn’t the last of the eccentric tale of Forrest Fenn. I hope we tune into the news one of these nights and see our latest Indiana Jones, posing in front of the heaping bronze chest like a lottery winner with a giant check (please also, with fedora and bullwhip). I hope Forrest Fenn is posing right there alongside him/her, and prepared to detail this crazy adventure from start to finish. Then we’ll know whether the inevitable production from Hollywood will be fact or fiction.

Some content sourced from the Fenn’s Treasure website, Westword, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Banana Ranting (again)

Posted on June 11, 2020 by Dave

Take a good look at this photo. My wife and I have this weird assortment of foods on our kitchen counter right now. Store-brand hamburger buns. A half-loaf of “artisan-style” marble rye against the backsplash. Below both, a package of ready-to-use French-style crepes. To the right, a spaghetti squash and a handful of wrapped Lindor truffles. To the further right, an oft-visited plastic container of peanut butter pretzels, fronted by a watermelon just itching to join a fruit salad.

These foods are not “still life” waiting to become paint on canvas. They’re not even past-due items from the back-of-store sale rack. They’re just random samplings from trips to the grocery store; items kicked to the kitchen curb instead of the pantry or frig. Two questions, then. If you were given this lot on “Top Chef” could you whip up something appetizing? Would you even care to try?

More importantly, I made it to the third paragraph before mentioning the pair of bananas taking up prime real estate front and center in the photo. I HATE bananas, be it look, feel, texture, or taste. Bananas need to go back to the primeval jungle from which they escaped. In my world, bananas should be called “no-passion fruit”. If I were starving on a desert island, shadowed under the gently waving fronds of a banana palm, I’d nosh on the fronds, then the tree bark, then the tree itself before tossing its worthless bananas into the ocean. Hell, I’d choke down sand before eating bananas. Put a gun to my head (or a banana); I still wouldn’t eat one.

For Pete’s sake though; no matter the magnitude of my banana hate, the yellow curvies still find a way to remain relevant. Take this pandemic for instance. Stuck at home means more time in the kitchen. More time in the kitchen means comfort food, and comfort food includes baking bread. Sourdough. Pizza dough. Baguettes. Challah. Naan. Sadly, we rookie bakers discover the ingredients in our pantry are as past due as our bills. Way past due. Flour tastes sour. Honey ≠ sugar. Past-its-prime yeast does not make the loaf say, “All rise!” Even with fresh ingredients we butcher the recipe by feeding, kneading, and reading too much into every step. Instead of baking bread we’re breaking bread. We need a no-brainer no-spoiler kinda baked good. Banana bread to the rescue!

Banana bread is easy; it really is. Call yourself a breadmaker with as few as five items – none of them “yeast” or “starter”. Sift together flour and baking soda. Whisk together eggs, butter, and mashed bananas (mashed bananas? Isn’t that what I threw up regularly as a kid?) Combine in a loaf pan, bake, and voila – banana bread. You’ll find the first four ingredients in your pantry already and if you also have bananas, they’re probably overripe (i.e. perfect for banana bread). Just like the bananas on my kitchen counter. I made the mistake of picking them up when I took the above photo. They’re so ripe they feel like half-filled water balloons. Or half-filled hot dogs. Or Twinkies submerged in water for a few hours. You get the idea. Ewwwwwww.

Now for the irony/paradox/contradiction/twist/flourish of today’s post (take your pick). I like banana bread. I’m on the fence of almost loving banana bread. Slice a thick piece, warm it in the oven, slather with butter, and it’s pretty damned good. As I admitted almost four years ago in my post Banana Rant, bananas work inside of bread like figs work inside a package of Newtons. As a standalone they’re a horror-filled rubbery package disguised as one of Mother Nature’s edibles. Downgraded to an ingredient they stand on the fringes of the vast arena known as “food”.

Enough with the spotlight on bananas already. Trust me, I had better topics to blog about this week. My pandemic-born obsession with Netflix. A lamentation to Major League Baseball for a season that’s never gonna start. A keyboard pounding to the heavens for dumping several inches of snow on our neighborhood this week (for God’s sake, it’s June!) But no, I chose to discuss the best use of “water-logged Twinkies” instead, keeping bananas a front and center topic. Kind of like walking into the grocery store and the very… first… thing… in your field of view is an acre of bananas grinning their pathetic yellowy smiles. They should go back to the jungle where they belong. I’ll make do with soury-dough bread instead.

Some content inspired by the 4/20/20 Wall Street Journal article, “Forget the Sourdough. Everybody’s Baking Banana Bread”.

Whistle Work

Posted on June 4, 2020June 5, 2020 by Dave

Last weekend my wife and I drove north a couple hours to visit our granddaughters. The last time we saw them was in the pre-pandemic days of yesteryear. We spent most of Saturday afternoon in the backyard playing little-kid games in the makeshift pool and breaking out a plastic Tee-Ball set. Later on after a barbeque, it was time to clean up the toys. My son and his wife promptly requested the “The Clean Up Song” from Alexa, and my granddaughter hopped to it. Watching her I caught myself thinking, can’t I help with the clean up too?

Google The Clean Up Song and you’ll find several dozen versions to choose from. Cleaning-to-music for kids has been around a little while now. I wish we’d used this approach more often when our own children were little. It’s a song! It’s a game! It’s almost whistling while you work.

For me, household chores morphed to something more therapeutic as the kids grew up and out of the house. Taking out the trash became extra steps towards my ten thousand (we have a long driveway). Washing dishes became a mini-spa of warm water and soap bubbles. Making the bed and arranging its pillows channeled my inner Marie Kondo. Folding clothes was how to avoid lazing on the couch while watching TV. (On that note, an ironing board should be called a “clothes-folding board”, if you go by my folding minutes (100%) vs. ironing minutes (0%).

Lest you think me compulsive, a recent Wall Street Journal study comes to my rescue. During these stay-at-home times – locked-down residents find similar stress relief in housework. Washing windows allows the slow, deliberate wax-on-wax-off zen of “The Karate Kid”. Cleaning countertops tempts flowing dance, like Julia Stiles in the diner in “The Prince and Me”. Ironing doubles as light weightlifting. And vacuuming? Nah, I got nothing there. Vacuuming’s still just a chore.

The lovely Ms. Stiles and her diner dance

Headspace, a software company focused on meditation and better sleep, includes housecleaning exercises on its app. They recommend “quiet housework in dim lighting” just before bed (but then how do you see what you’re cleaning?) They want you to sweep the floor and wipe the counter in smooth, restorative motions. Laugh all you want but the use of their “cleaning-related content” is up 20% since mid-March.

Household products are trending the same way. Swiffer wants you to mop with “a clean home and a clear mind” and suggests a facial treatment while you’re at it. They switch “clean the counter” to “give your surfaces a little TLC” (as if your surfaces are close friends). Proctor & Gamble fortifies its “Gain” laundry detergent with essential oils like lavender and eucalyptus, touted for their calming effects. “Clear Your Mind with a Cooling Clean! A Soothing Scent with a Mindful Twist!”

Call me one-in-five (not compulsive) because P&G research claims 20% of us clean to relax or reduce stress. Sure, but we also clean to clean.

I never thought about laundry this way but the Journal article likens clothes-cleaning to problem-solving (which we guys are all about). Sort the clothes, dose the detergent/softener, fold according to best-fit in drawers, and then put everything away. It’s a process, and it’s a new puzzle every time.

To take it one step more spiritual, household chores are considered seva – a form of selfless-service. Says one yogi about dirty dishes, “You’re reminding yourself you’re washing for the divine grace that flows through your husband, your wife, your children, or your parents.” Whoa now. Me, I’m just washing dishes.

I’ve neglected to mention another household chore: cleaning bathrooms. It can be “healing” sponging the porcelain to a sparkling-white shine, conducting the bowl brush in large, lazy circles, or returning to nature in the gentle flow of the sink (waterfall) or toilet (whirlpool). No, no, NO. I don’t do bathrooms. Not even if you ask Alexa to play “The Clean Up Song”.

Some content sourced from the 5/27/2020 Wall Street Journal article, “Sick of Cleaning? Turn It Into Meditation”.

Going Against the Grains

Posted on May 28, 2020May 30, 2020 by Dave

When I was a kid – many moons ago – my mother made breakfast almost every morning; a service I full-on took for granted. She made eggs or pancakes a lot, but on days she ran late (or just didn’t feel like it) she’d put out big boxes of brightly colored breakfast cereal. Lord how my brothers and I heaped our bowls with those chemical-laden nuggets. Lucky Charms. Cap’n Crunch. Frosted Flakes. Sure beat the horrid porridges my mother also chose to make. So, forgive my double-take when I sat down to a delicious helping of steel-cut oats the other day, deliberately passing up a beckoning box of Golden Grahams.

Like tomatoes, avocados, and yogurt, I have zero fond memories of hot cereal in my childhood. I recall coming downstairs for breakfast, and before even reaching the kitchen I’d smell the distinct nastiness of cooked grains. Quaker Oats. Cream of Rice. Cream of Wheat. Wheatena (the worst of them all). My mother had more choices for hot cereal than she had sons (and she had a lot of sons). It’s like she wanted us to vote for “blandest breakfast”. Mercifully, she allowed small amounts of brown sugar and/or raisins to sweeten things up. And milk. Lots and lots of milk.

I should’ve figured this out decades ago. Hot cereal’s a whole lot better with fresh fruit (raisins are a poor excuse for fruit). Strawberries, blueberries, apples – they all turn “mush” into an appealing “meal”. And the learning curve continues. Rolled oats are better than instant oats. Steel-cut oats are way better than instant oats. And lest you’ve forgotten: anything is better than Wheatena (even tomatoes and avocados).

Tell me this: when was the last time you used “porridge” in a sentence (Brits aside)? What an utterly dated word. The last time – the only time I uttered “porridge” was reading “Goldilocks and The Three Bears” or jigging to “Peas Porridge Hot” (“…peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old…”). My nursery-rhyme days. Porridge doesn’t have a modern ring to it (did it ever?) and yet that’s exactly what we’re talking about today by definition: hot breakfast cereal made by boiling grains in water (or milk). Wikipedia counted ’em – all grain types included – and came up with seventy-five distinctly different porridges. Doesn’t matter. If I’m a kid I still opt for Froot Loops.

You need porridge trivia for your next socially-distant gathering and I’m happy to oblige. Consider the following:

Whole-grain oats date back to 7,000 BC, which sounds like dinosaur times to me (even though it isn’t). The Chinese and the Greeks made claim to the first versions of porridge back then.
Lisa Williams and “The Golden Spurtle”
If you’re supremely proud of your cooking, there’s a World Porridge-Making Championship in Scotland every October. The list of winners looks suspiciously Scottish (i.e. “Duncan Hilditch”, “Ian Cruickshank”, “Addy Daggert”) but last year’s champ was England’s Lisa Williams. She earned “The Golden Spurtle“, which begs a most excellent trivia question: What do you call a stick for stirring porridge?
In 1755 it was documented oats were horse food in England but people food in Scotland. Not exactly a boost to Scottish pride (although to be fair the people’s version was cleaned, toasted, hulled, and cooked).
In Portland, OR you used to be able to buy hot cereal from an oatmeal-only food cart. “Bloop” – with made-to-order mush like “Peanut Butter Banana Dreams” and “Good For You Goodness” – shuttered its wheels in 2011 after a single year in business. I get it: oatmeal’s no passing fad but it’s also no passing food truck.
Your standard can of oats (18 oz.) contains over 26,000 grains. Don’t count; just trust.
The oat capital of America is (drum roll…) Cedar Rapids, Iowa, home of most-popular-brand Quaker Oats. Small town, big factory.
Once upon a time, Quaker Oats included coupons in its oatmeal boxes redeemable for legal deeds to property in Milford, CT. Granted, the lots were only 10’x10′ but you could still be a landowner with a modest purchase of oatmeal. The whole scheme became a property tax collector’s nightmare and the lots were eventually condemned.

Speaking of the Quaker Oats Company, in the 1970’s they came out with flavored instant versions of their hot cereals. “Apples & Cinnamon” and “Maple & Brown Sugar” come to mind (“Ready in Just 90 Seconds!”). God answered my prayers to distance myself from Wheatena. Also deserving kudos, Quaker Oats used to own Fisher-Price Toys. Can’t you just picture the marketing division, trying to develop an “oatmeal plush” doll?

I’m devoted to my steel-cut oats these days but I’m not gonna pretend I’m not tempted by alternatives. Cheerios (especially the “Honey-Nut” variety) is the ultimate oat cereal. Life (especially the “Cinnamon” variety) is another delicious Quaker Oats product. And I’ll never get my childhood love for Lucky Charms out of my DNA. They’ll always be a little more “magically delicious” than porridge.

Some content sourced from fabFood, One Green Planet, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Not-So-Fast Food

Posted on May 21, 2020 by Dave

If you’re like me, you’re prepping meals at home more often than you used to. Your grocery lists are electronic or paper instead of in your head. You may even be meal-planning and on your way to becoming America’s next gourmet chef. But no matter the approach eventually you succumb to food out instead of food in. “Taking away” meals these days means navigating an app, a website, a drive-thru, a phone call, or for the really daring, an unscheduled appearance at the front doors. You never know which approach works until you try a couple. Sometimes you simply give up.

Case in point. Last Friday we took my wife’s truck for a service – scheduled just after sun-up. Leaving the house so early meant breakfast would be out instead of in. My first thought? McDonald’s. An Egg McMuffin is still a pretty good on-the-go breakfast, and navigating McDonald’s hasn’t changed (drive thru, pay at the window, drive away, enjoy). I also admit to a soft spot for the Golden Arches because I worked there in high school.

My wife had other ideas. Since a breakfast sandwich was the order of the day she wanted Einstein Brothers Bagels, and with good reason. Einstein’s offers a choice of five “classic” breakfast sandwiches and another seven “signature” specials: twelve different spins on bagels and eggs. While Egg McMuffins are assembled from just four mass-produced ingredients, Einstein’s creations are made-to-order adventures with options like chorizo, avocado, spinach, and mushrooms. If the choice is Einstein’s or McDonald’s it’s a no-brainer. Except now.

Not knowing Einstein’s take-away approach during COVID, I parked in front of the restaurant while my wife went inside to place the order. Nope. Einstein’s allows two options: DoorDash or order from the app. Well blast my bagels – DoorDash doesn’t even deliver to our neighborhood so it was either the app or go hungry. Fine. A quick download and I went in search of the “Order” button. Nope. Einstein’s wants an account first – phone number, email, birthday, credit card, and so on. Fine. At last we assembled our on-line order and I went in search of the “Pay” button. Nope. Einstein’s makes you bank a minimum balance first (and welcome to “Shmear Society Rewards”). Really? A cash reserve for a breakfast sandwich? Once and for all, nope. I X’d out of the app, deleted it from my phone, and left a skid mark or two as I accelerated away.

McDonald’s was also on the way home, a couple miles up the road. We didn’t have their app either but so what? Order at the drive-thru, pay at the window, drive away with an Egg McMuffin, enjoy. We even splurged on hash browns (and an order of breakfast sausage for the dog). A McDonald’s breakfast for two people and a pet costs far less than a similar order at Einstein’s. Was my Egg McMuffin forgettable? Yes. Did I consume my sandwich within minutes of leaving the restaurant? Yes (today’s Egg McMuffin is smaller than your palm). Did I wish I’d had a custom-made Einstein’s instead? Of course. But not if I must jump through a bunch of electronic hoops to get one.

I want to support restaurants through the COVID pandemic; I really do. Our favorite Mexican place has nothing electronic, so you just place a phone order and take-away fifteen minutes later. Our favorite coffeehouse is a converted bank, so it’s drive-thru, pay, and go, lickety-split. That’s all I’m asking for: simple process, no hoops.

Einstein’s theory of relativity assumes accelerated motion (say, a car pulling away from a restaurant with an order of food). Einstein’s Bagels requires decelerated motion (say, the unanticipated time to download, setup, and bank-load their app). Take your pick: Einstein’s approach or Einstein Brothers’ approach? For me, it’s Albert’s way every time.

(Not) Paying the Piper

Posted on May 14, 2020May 15, 2020 by Dave

Our church is weighing creative approaches to conducting in-person services next month. Pastor Bob sent out a survey recently asking we-the-congregation to consider options like outdoor church, weekday church, and evening church – all in the name of social distancing. We’ll also be shaking up the service “touchpoints”, like sharing the peace, passing the (offering) plate, and partaking in communion. The Big Guy doesn’t care about the where’s, when’s, and how’s, of course – just that we have church. On the other hand, He (She?) might have something to say about the music. After all, how does a church organ sound after a three-month absence from tuning?

It’s bad enough our congregation is gloriously inharmonious when we bellow out the hymns (no choir of angels are we), but add in a fully discordant church organ and you have a complete mess. Organs need tuning like the human back needs a chiropractor: maintenance is key. When dust accumulates and seasons change, organ pipes sound noticeably different than they’re supposed to (hence the term “off-key”). Imagine the pitch-perfect tones of a bass saxophone, but instead you get more of a sour wail. That’s an organ pipe sans “tune-up”.

Tuning organ pipes is serious business and can run thousands of dollars per visit. Consider, the biggest organs have as many as 25,000 pipes. The booming bass pipes can be thirty feet long and two feet in diameter, while the little pixie sopranos look more like metal soda straws. Each pipe must be individually tested and tuned no matter how big or small. Tuner A presses a key on the (up to four) keyboards down below, while Tuner B adjusts the pitch of the pipe up above (sometimes on a ladder, sometimes on a suspended platform). It’s hours and hours of monotonous – and in the case of cathedrals, death-defying work, one demanding pipe at a time. Better love what you do.

Here’s another reason organ tuners deserve hazard pay. Imagine you’re suspended hundreds of feet above the sanctuary floor on a swaying rope-suspended platform (I’m already saying “no”), virtually floating like the angels, and as you reach over to adjust the pitch of a mid-sized pipe, bats fly out. Yep, that’s the kind of critters tuners encounter when an organ wants for too long (or a single pipe sounds suspiciously out-of-tune). Squirrels even make their homes in the pipes – though don’t ask me how they don’t go plummeting to their death the moment a note is blasted from the keyboard. Maybe they’re flying squirrels?

In the land of COVID-19 there are no organ tuners (or very few). Those Peter Pipers are being denied access to their church-bound “patients” because a) COVID may reside on a surface like, say, a keyboard, and b) no congregation means no offering plate means precious few payments to the Piper. So what do stay-at-home tuners do instead? Why, they tune their pianos of course! Then they play those pianos hours on end. We may come out of COVID with a whole new genre of classical music called “tuner tunes”.

Talk about a sprint from feast to famine. An organ tuner’s busiest weeks are those leading up to Easter, often requiring extra staff and longer hours. COVID downpoured on that parade. Demand for pre-Easter tuning disappeared faster than Mr. Bunny himself. In the case of one tuner – profiled in the Wall Street Journal – 100 contracts withered to less than a dozen inside of two weeks. He furloughed his entire workforce, worried instead over simply paying the rent on his shop.

One day soon, we faithful will walk away from our laptops and wander back into church sanctuaries instead. We’ll spread out over more services. We’ll wave hands instead of shake hands. We’ll drop the offering into the plate from a “safe height”. We’ll bypass communion servers and help ourselves to the bread and wine instead. The organist will play and the congregation will sing; both noticeably off-key. And when that happens give a nod to the organ tuners, who will someday get the pipes pitch-perfect again.

Just hope they don’t need an exterminator as well.

Some content sourced from the 3/25/2020 Wall Street Journal article, “As Coronavirus Shutters Churches, an Organ Whisperer Changes Key”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Vicious Circles

Posted on May 7, 2020May 7, 2020 by Dave

When I was ten years old, the progressive rock band “Yes” released an unforgettable song called “Roundabout”. The lyrics included trippy phrases like, “… mountains come out of the sky and they stand there…”, and, “… go closer hold the land feel partly no more than grains of sand…” The words made no sense but the melody hooked me with its driving beat and wandering synthesizer. “Roundabout” and “Stairway to Heaven” – both released in 1971 – are perfect examples of my rock music baptism.

Turns out, “Roundabout” was not a metaphor for the song’s underlying message nor even a made-up word. The lyrics really were spawned from an overdose of traffic circles. Yes was on tour and traveling from Aberdeen to Glasgow when its lead singer Jon Anderson says their van passed through “maybe 40 or so” roundabouts. Anderson promptly teamed up with guitarist Steve Howe to produce one of Yes’s biggest hits. Wikipedia dedicates an entire article to “Roundabout” here.

Fifty years forward, roundabouts are more prevalent than ever on our city streets – and in some setups, as mind-boggling to navigate as a Yessong lyric. In a neighborhood near my house, I pass through three consecutive roundabouts to get to a friend’s house. Each has two lanes entering and exiting the circle from four directions. If I’m not conscious of the lane I’m in when I enter a circle, I’ll find myself going round and round before I remember it’s safe to exit from both lanes. If I lose track of which circle I’m in (all three look entirely alike), I’ll exit onto a street nowhere near my friend’s house.

You’d think we’d have them figured out by now since roundabouts first appeared in 1966 and have proliferated ever since. (By definition, we’re talking about circles tight enough to induce centrifugal force, not the more leisurely curves of an urban “rotary”.) The Wall Street Journal reports traffic authorities still toy with public awareness campaigns, signage, and modified roadway designs in an almost desperate effort to reduce roundabout fender-benders.

Here are two lingering oversights with the rules of roundabouts. First, drivers entering the circle sometimes assume they have the right-of-way over drivers already in the circle. Second, drivers approaching a two-lane roundabout don’t check signage to see whether one or both lanes also exit the roundabout. On the latter problem, I admit to several instances where I had to quickly change lanes while circling, just to exit where I needed to. Changing lanes in a roundabout ranks among the scariest driving maneuvers of them all.

Roundabouts really do make a lot of sense, even if drivers never, ever figure them out. They eliminate electronic signal systems or stop signs. They create a safer environment for pedestrians (who only have to look one direction for oncoming traffic instead of three). They force vehicles to slow down, and statistics show a dramatic reduction in the number of T-bone and head-on collisions. Finally, roundabouts require less asphalt to create a new intersection, and are sometimes enhanced with an eye-pleasing landscaped island in the center.

Look closely and you’ll see (all four) Bristol Circles

The first time I ever drove in circles was in West Los Angeles. A street known as “Bristol Avenue” earned the nickname “Bristol Circles” by teenage drivers in the neighborhood. That’s because Bristol’s four rotaries allowed for a lively game of “car tag”, where my friends and I would zoom around trying to “tag” each other with the headlights of our cars. If we were really daring (i.e stupid), we included the topmost of Bristol’s four circles, which is bisected by busy, unpredictable Sunset Blvd.

Cities in the northeastern states of the U.S. have some pretty good-sized rotaries these days but for the really daring, it’s hard to beat the giant urban circles in France or the tighter many-tentacled roundabouts in the UK. Paris’s Arc de Triomphe rotary may deserve the title “most vicious circle”. Watch the following video and see if you don’t agree. This rotary may be the genesis of the term “distracted driving”. Note to viewer: no lanes. Note to self: no thanks.

Some content sourced from the 3/14/2020 Wall Street Journal article, “Car Crash Mystery: Why Can’t Drivers Figure Out Roundabouts?” and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.