Gravy

This Thanksgiving I wanted to do some cooking, so I stopped by the grocery store on Thursday morning on my way to my mom’s house to pick up a few things. As I was walking through the isles I was stopped by a guy who said, “Scewz meh, cud ya tuhl me whur uh cud fine smm gurayvee”.
Having a hard time sifting through his thick southern accent, I asked, “Excuse me”.
To which he repeated his question, “Uh sed, cud ya tuhl me whur uh cud fine smm gurayvee”.
“Gravy? Umm, I think you might find some canned gravy by the soup, but I’m not sure”. I then looked down at his handful of items and realized that this guy was trying to piece together a Thanksgiving meal. I felt a bit sorry for him, thinking that maybe he didn’t have anywhere to spend Thanksgiving or perhaps that his wife was punishing him by making him cook it this year. But whatever the background story, it was abundantly clear that he didn’t know how to cook. For a moment I thought I should explain to him that you generally don’t buy gravy, you make it, but then I thought that it would probably take several days of cooking shows to get the point across, so I simply said, “Good luck”. He reminded me of one of those guys on the Carl’s Junior commercials that is poking a package of ground beef with a befuddled look on his face trying to figure out how to turn it into a burger.
I’m not sure where I picked it up, probably through my parents and brother, or through simply following a recipe, or through trial and error, but this year I’m thankful for knowing how to cook. That, and a whole bunch of the other things I generally take for granted; like knowing how to iron, check my oil, do my own laundry, fold my clothes, make my bed, vaccum, clean the bathroom, mow the lawn, change a tire, fix drywall, replace a light, paint a wall, wash my car, shine my shoes, pay my bills, prune a shrub, tie a tie, shave, install a video card, install a car radio, swallow a pill, ride mass transit, fill a propane tank, run a snow blower, assemble a piece of furniture, chop wood, hang a picture, wash a dog, jump start a car, and even how to make gravy.

Happy Thanksgiving! (Only a week late.)

My New Hat

I went to the Jazz game tonight and my buddy took this picture of me. Do you like my new hat?

A Victory for the Ages

On Sunday night, I was invited to play Cities and Knights with Doug and Tom, two of my brother’s friends who are pros at the game. Not only are they pros as Cities and Knights, but they are also pros at life in general. They live in a posh east side neighborhood in large houses, drive cool cars, have great families, sweet jobs, and are genuinely kind and caring people. The invitation to play that I got while sitting in my room that I rent from my friend on the opposite side of the city is one that I wouldn’t possibly turn down. We played at Tom’s house, which is beautiful. I had starry eyes all night. The outing was like the AA Springfield Mud Ducks playing against the New York Yankees in Yankee Stadium. Because of my general excitement just to be there and because I hadn’t played the game in several months, I made several dumb mistakes at the game’s outset; first, I placed my city and settlement on hexes with identical numbers, so only three numbers out of twelve would produce resources, second, I placed my city in a location that would only produce one type of commodity, and third, I wasn’t adjacent to a single ore hex, a highly critical resource. On this night, not only were the Mud Ducks playing the Yankees in Yankee Stadium, but I penciled in my left hander that throws like a little girl as my starter. I was in deep trouble. I knew it, Tom knew it, Doug knew it, and even Tom’s little girls who came in at the start to see what game we were playing knew it. The game progressed along as expected with the two thoroughbreds dieseling around the track in the lead with the pony trailing along behind with its jockey just trying to get it to stop smelling the daisies or keeping it from running in circles. Tom and Doug had serious strategy steaming out their ears while I sat on the side being the banker and trying not to be humiliated when asking to be reminded about certain rules or what on earth certain cards even did. Towards the end of the game, Tom was one point away from winning, Doug was close behind, and I was still not adjacent to a single ore hex. And then, on one fateful turn, I was able to earn 4 points while Tom and Doug were busy trying to keep each other from winning. At first I thought I was just saving face, but then Doug decided to count up my points, and it turns out that I had thirteen, the amount needed for victory. In shock, Tom recounted, and then Doug recounted, and both arrived again at thirteen. I recounted and came up with eleven, and then blushed as Tom and Doug counted one more time to assure that I indeed had won. Luck is all it was, but nonetheless a come-from-behind victory on par with Superbowl 3, or the Music City Miracle, or the Maverick’s being bounced in the first round of the playoffs by the Warriors. I couldn’t believe it, but also couldn’t stop grinning. As I walked to my car, I raised my forefinger high into the air, just like Broadway Joe. Okay, not really, but I wanted to. I then fired up my wobbly station wagon and drove away from the poshness back to my rented bedroom. Small victories . . .

Plain and Precious

I used to have trouble driving a manual transmission. This issue was probably because when I was a teenager I didn’t have a car with a manual transmission at my disposal to drive. In fact, I rarely had a car at my disposal at all. If I needed to go somewhere, I would usually ride my bike, or walk. During college I drove my mom’s old Corolla that had an automatic transmission. Occasionally someone would ask me to drive their cars with manual transmissions, and I would struggle. The worst was getting stuck in the intersection without being able to keep from killing the engine. People behind you are honking, people to your sides are laughing, the dang light is turning yellow, and if you don’t get your act together soon it’s going to be whiplash gang up time at the amusement park bumper car ride of your youth all over again. My heart would start racing and I’d get so nervous that instead of letting out the clutch smoothly, I would end up stomping on it like the bass petal of a drum set. At that moment, when I would look down at my leg and realize that I no longer had any control over it, the look on my face can only be described as the same look that Dr. Emmitt Brown had when he saw the tree branch fall and disconnect the lightning harnessing power line that, if not reconnected in the next five seconds, wouldn’t boost the Delorean into time travel but strand Marty McFly in the year 1955. Great Scott! The lowest point of my manual transmission education came when I had to drop my brother off at school and got stranded in an intersection on the south side of Chicago. I thought I was going to die, but luckily was able to peel out of there and make it home alive. Once that old Corolla started to teeter, I decided I needed a new car and the one I wanted had a manual transmission. I went to a parking lot to practice and took a buddy of mine along for the ride. After killing it a few times, my friend got frustrated and said, “Look, just do it like this”, and then made a motion with his hands, one representing the gas and the other the clutch. For some reason, that little lesson made driving with a transmission click in my brain and I’ve been able to do it ever since. I recently had a similar experience. My doctor recently prescribed pills for me to take. (Refer to a past post.) I’ve always had issues with pills, probably because I’ve rarely had to take any. I was talking with a coworker during lunch one day and told her of my predicament. After laughing at me for about 5 minutes, she looked at me and said, “Look, just do it like this”. After watching her swallow her own pill, something in my brain just clicked, and I’ve been able to swallow pills ever since. Occasionally one of my horse pills will go down sideways and the panic will begin to rise in my stomach, but overall it’s been smooth sailing. Thank goodness for plain and simple lessons that just click!

Deseret Rent-a-Blues

I feel like this blog is just becoming my personal soap box, but here I go again anyway. So on Saturday I cleaned up my room and bathroom and cleaned out my closet as well. I ended up with a garbage bag of clothes and shoes that I no longer want and have plans to take to the local thrift store, the Deseret Industries. This is a local chain of thrift stores that are largely managed by the mentally disabled and handicapped to give them an income. Well, I sort of got busy watching football and getting ready for Halloween parties that night, so I didn’t make it to the thrift store on Saturday. My plan was to drop off my bag on my way home from church, since there is a DI close to my home. When I got there, I noticed a rent-a-cop sitting in his car in the drop off area and signs that said, “No Donations Today”. Not wanting to make a scene on a Sunday afternoon, I just went home with the intention of dropping by with my bag on my way home one night this week. The other night I got around to doing it on my way home, but I don’t usually make it home until late, and the other night was no different. I think it was about 8:30pm or 9:00pm. Again, I pulled up to the drop off zone, and again there was a rent-a-cop sitting in his car working his way through a book of Sudoku. I didn’t want to come back a third time, so I got out of my car so I could get my bag out of my back seat and throw it in the donation bin. But the second my left foot hit the asphalt this rent-a-cop was all over me with his clenched fists and flared nostrils. Not wanting to get hit in the face with an overreacted blast of mace, I got back in my car and left. Apparently, you can only donate during business hours, and I’m at work during business hours, so I’m stuck with this bag of old clothes in my back seat.

Everyone has their procedures to follow, I get it, but this is the DI, a thrift store full of stuff that no one will pay more than a dollar per item for anyway. At a dollar per item, I was dropping off about $10 worth of old dress shoes and pants that didn’t fit right. What are they afraid of? Will some homeless guy come by and pick through my bag and take a pair of pants and cut their gross sales by a dollar? Hello, that’s a dollar! And besides, it’s a Not-for-profit, that dollar goes towards paying for salaries anyway and the pants would probably be purchased by the same guy. Will that dollar they don’t get from my pair of pants inhibit them from making payroll? If not, their product will end up in the same hands. Fire the rent-a-cop; let people steal a pair of pants once in a while, and you’ll come out ahead in the end. And besides, you have fewer products to sell when you dissuade donations, right? I also thought that they may be concerned that someone would come by and vandalize the donations. If so, who cares! How often could that possibly happen; once a month? When it does happen, just throw my bag of clothes in the dumpster. I know I would have if I could have found one somewhere between the DI and my home the other night. I couldn’t, so now I’m stuck with this bag in my car. I’m sure not going to take a day off so I can make it to the DI during business hours. Does anyone know of a thrift store that isn’t crawling with rent-a-cops?