Author Archives: kzmclain

Thursday Thoughts

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Alfredo the Dark
My sister Bec took Bill and me for lunch at our favorite pizza restaurant here in the east valley – Oregano’s. We nearly always order a pizza, but this time Bec and I were in the mood for something besides pizza – namely pasta. So Bill was on his own, and I ordered something they call Alfredo the Dark. It’s basically an alfredo with a bit of a Mexican flare. Poblanos, pasta, and a light cream sauce, with a grilled jalapeno on the side. Man, it was so good. I ordered it with a side of Italian sausage, but I wouldn’t do it again. Despite the fact that it was the lunch version, it was a lot of food. I seem to be doing restaurant reviews as of late. Hmmmm…….

Where are the Wet Wipes?
I’m not the only one who enjoyed my food yesterday. My nephew Erik and his family went out for hot wings last night. My great nephew Carter does love him some wings. Perhaps he shouldn’t eat them if he’s wearing white…….

Messy pastries
Among my very favorite pastry treats are crispies. Or krispies. However you spell it, they are delicious. My dad used to make them at the bakery, and if we were good, Mom would bring some home to eat on a Saturday or Sunday morning. Crispies are flat puff pastry, cinnamon, and big pieces of sugar. At the bakery, they came six to a pack. We wrapped them in stiff cellophane that was sealed by using a heavy and very hot iron that looked something like this…..

Anyhoo, Basha’s makes crispies, and quite good crispies. My brother knows how much I love them, so he will occasionally bring me a package that he has made because he makes the very best crispies – no lie. He sent me a text message the other day with a photo of a crispie attached. His message said If there was a beauty contest for crispies, I introduce the winner……

 

I had to agree with him. I asked him if he’d made it, and he admitted he had.  And 73 more just like it, he added.

Dumpster Diving
I get a weekly digital newsletter from PERA (my retirement plan), and it’s usually a bit bland, but might have an interesting story or two. But the one I got Tuesday had an item that took me by surprise. The article was about inexpensive things to do for fun in Colorado this summer. Cheap seats at a Rockies game, for example. But one of their ideas seemed a bit odd. They recommend dumpster diving in Cherry Hills, a high-end village in the southern part of the metro area. Grab a few friends and hunt down their dumpsters – we bet you there is GOLD inside. Seriously? They are suggesting we dig through trash dumpsters in someone’s back yards? Sometimes I think I’m just getting old. But that seems intrusive, if not illegal. Really PERA? Seriously, tell me if that lands on you as odd as it did on me.

Homeward Bound

We leave Monday for Denver. Among the many things I’ll miss about AZ are evening skies that look like this…..

Ciao.

When the Moon Hits Your Eye

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In a blog post from way back in 2014, I mentioned a couple with whom we are casual friends who had visited Italy. They stunned us when they told us how awful they found the food during their travels. Stunned us, because Bill and I loved the food in Italy. I would be hard-pressed to think of a meal that I didn’t like. Of course, I never did get brave enough to try the horsemeat that was on the menu during the spring months in northern Italy, so there’s that….

Anyway, what we concluded is that this couple was expecting Italian-American food, which is quite different from the food served in Italy. At least the food served in restaurants that didn’t cater to Americans. In a recent visit to an Italian restaurant in Mesa, we overheard the server introduce himself to the table next to us, and start out his whole spiel with the caveat that they featured genuine Italian food and not the Italian-American food with which most are familiar. He had apparently been pummeled with dissatisfied customers looking for spaghetti and meatballs.

One of the best foods we ate throughout Italy was pizza. Italian pizza is amazing, and we did plenty of research, I assure you. However, in general, it is quite different from pizza you would (and likely do) get in the U.S. For one thing, it is often baked in a wood-burning oven. Not a gas oven with flames, but an oven heated using some kind of hardwood and stoked by red-faced chefs to keep the 700-some temps in place. The crusts are generally thin, though not cracker-crust, and usually bubbly and toasted and imperfectly round. They are served unsliced, and the Italians eat them with a knife and fork. That was hard for us to get used to, but we managed to power through. They aren’t covered with red sauce and smothered in mozzarella cheese as they are here. Often there is no sauce at all, but only tomatoes, garlic, basil, fresh mozzarella, and hot peppers. Yum.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not being a snob. I love pizza here in the good ol’ U.S. of A. But we sure did enjoy Italian pizza. While in Rome (where we probably ate the best pizza of all) we often dined with Bill’s nephew, a Catholic priest who at that time lived in Rome, and had for some time. The first time we had pizza with him, we were surprised when he turned up his nose at the first place we suggested.

Nope, he told us. That is pizza made for American tourists. He would look at the menu posted outside, and if the pizza cost more than five euros, he looked elsewhere. He didn’t steer us wrong, that’s for sure.

There is a pizza place in Phoenix that has pizza as much like Italian pizza as any we have found here in the United States. Pizzeria Bianco is located near downtown Phoenix, right across from Chase Field – home of the Arizona Diamondbacks. It is small in size, and if you try and go for dinner, fuggetaboudit. So we go at lunch, and always get right in. The smell when you enter is familiar – a combination of baked bread, burning wood, and red sauce.

The simple ingredients and the bubbly crust were also familiar, and oh so tasty….

Our before and after photo shows you that we didn’t hate the pizza.

Just as with many of the restaurants in which we dined throughout Italy, there is an herb garden from which the pizza chefs pull the fresh herbs that help give the amazing flavor to the pizzas….

And then there’s this…..

My brother begs me – BEGS ME – to do a pizza review every Friday rather than a book review. I’m sticking with my book reviews because I like sharing books with my readers. But perhaps more than that, I’m reluctant to do any kind of food review because I hate tempting someone with a delicious pizza that’s in Phoenix and they live in Omaha. Or Seattle. You get the picture. Nevertheless, if you’re ever in Arizona, Pizzeria Bianco is a must-visit restaurant.

This post linked to Grammy’s Grid Link Party.

Walking in Circles; Praying in Circles

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In a desperate attempt to make my exercise routine less boring, I googled how to make your exercise routine less boring. Don’t tell me I’m not clever.

My exercise of choice right this minute is walking, and the park in which I walk requires that I progress around in a circle (albeit a BIG circle) three times in order to get the distance I desire. I like the predictability of walking in circles, but it can get boring. Thus, the googling.

One of the things that kept coming up is the idea of listening to something engaging while you walk. So often I will listen to music. I like listening to music because I tend to walk in tempo with the music, and this results in me changing my speed regularly, something else exercise web sites tell you to do to fight boredom.

But one google search suggested listening to interesting podcasts. Hmmm. I like podcasts, at least to the extent that I have listened to them. I have enjoyed listening to Dan Patrick yap on and on about sports. And heaven knows I have enjoyed the Serial podcasts. I could listen to Sarah Koenig read me the telephone book.

But after contemplating a number of podcasts, I landed on a podcast called Two Catholic Guys. I know. I know. I’m a big nerd. But I have heard their program occasionally on Syrius radio and I have enjoyed listening to their often funny, but ultimately serious take on Catholicism. These aren’t Catholic haters, but instead, two men who love their Catholic faith with all of its faults. As do I, except the notion of having a podcast called One Lonely Catholic Baby Boomer Lady doesn’t resonate.

The Two Catholic Guys podcast I listened to most recently was on the rosary. That caught my attention as I am a big fan of the rosary. Such a fan, in fact, that I have a rosary by my bed and one by my reading chair here in Mesa, and also one by my bed and another readily accessible in Denver. I carry one in my purse to grab if the need arises. Non-Catholics, and probably many Catholics, find it hard to understand the rosary, and consider it to be one of the so-called “voodoo” worship methods of those darn Papists.

I learned my love of the rosary from my parents. My mother was a firm believer in the rosary as a means of prayer. The rosary she had in her hands when she died – and for countless years prior to her death – had small silver beads that would have driven most people crazy but was perfect for her small hands.

My father, while perhaps not quite as devoted as my mother, also prayed the rosary. In fact, one of my favorite stories about my father was that when he would run for exercise, he would pray the rosary. That’s perhaps even better than listening to podcasts.

According to the Two Catholic Guys, St. Pope John Paul II had a strong devotion to the rosary. In fact, it was St. John Paul who, when he was pope, added a whole new set of what Catholics call the Mysteries to the rosary prayer. While there used to be Joyful Mysteries (which concentrated on Jesus’ life as a child, ending when he was found by his parents in the temple), Sorrowful Mysteries (which focused on Christ’s passion), and Glorious Mysteries (which are dedicated to Christ after his resurrection), he recognized that there was a whole section of Jesus’ life being left out of rosary contemplation, that being his whole public life. Kind of important, I would suggest. So the pope added the Luminous Mysteries.

As a child, I sort of considered that there was something just short of magical about the rosary – not the prayer; the actual set of beads. As such – and as I still do today – I would get my rosary blessed by a priest. As I have reached a more mature age, I recognize that the rosary itself is not magical, but only an implement for counting prayers.

And the prayers of the rosary, at least for me, are soothing and peaceful. I have actually taken my blood pressure before and after saying a rosary and it has dropped 20 points. But I have to continually remind myself that the rosary is a contemplative prayer rather than a race. That’s hard for me, because despite the fact that I’m retired with rarely anyplace I have to be, I’m always in a hurry. While I’m sure my 10-minute rosaries reach God’s ears, the meditative aspect leaves something to be desired.

I’m not trying to convert a single reader into a being a devotee of the rosary. But the words of the Two Catholic Guys just reminded me that there are so many ways to pray. And since I have devoted many rosaries to a friend of mine with pancreatic cancer, the fact that she called me yesterday to tell me her cancer numbers are entirely normal and the results of a PT scan yesterday show the tumor has shrunk to the point that her doctor is scratching her head in amazement indicate that God listens to all sorts of prayer.

The Hole Picture

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I recently read an article someone had posted on Facebook about the so-called Best Doughnuts in the city in which the person lived. Being the daughter and the sister of men who have made literally thousands and thousands of doughnuts between the two of them – and a doughnut-lover of the first degree myself – I was very interested to see just what sorts of doughnuts made the top 10 list.

After about the third doughnut on the list that purported to be a “healthier alternative” by being baked rather than fried, I abandoned ship. Donuts aren’t baked. Donuts are fried. Doughnuts, my friends, are not meant to be healthy. You want healthy, have a whole-grain bagel or a smoothie made with spinach and acai. My dad was rolling in his grave.

When we were in Italy back in 2008, we spent two weeks living in an apartment in Rome. Right across the street was a restaurant that opened in the morning and served food all day. Italians aren’t much for breakfast. They might have a doppio espresso or a cappuccino and something sweet if they have anything. Bill – a true-blue doughnut lover himself – had read that the Italian word for doughnut was bomboloni. So he walked into the restaurant the first morning, pointed to the doughnuts sitting on the counter, and confidently asked for two bomboloni.  The man working the counter literally laughed out loud.

“No bomboloni,” he said, still snickering. “Ciambelle.”

Whatevah, Bill thought.

But having grown up around doughnuts, I knew why the man laughed. Bomboloni are filled doughnuts, what we might call bismarks. Ciambelle are the doughnuts with which many of us are most familiar – round with a hole in the middle, generally covered in glaze. It would be like going into a doughnut shop, pointing to a glazed doughnut and asking for one of those bismarks. A subtle difference, but a difference nonetheless. Those particular doughnuts – or ciambelle – were thickly covered in granulated sugar and sat on top of about a half-inch of additional sugar. They were delicious. I had one daily for the whole time we were in Rome. Bill would wash his hands after eating one. I licked my fingers. I wish I had one right now.

And they were fried, not baked. Because doughnuts are fried, no matter what country.

My brother, who has been in a bakery nearly every day of his life and KNOWS HIS DOUGHNUTS, told me this when I asked him what, in his opinion, constitutes a good doughnut: When I am testing doughnuts, I eat them with no glaze and cooled off. Because as dad said, you can put glaze on a hot pile of s**t and it would taste good. Not greasy and light is good.

Dave’s aforementioned quote from my dad is straight from the horse’s mouth, of course, curse word and all. My dad had a way with words. But it is how he justified people’s love for Krispie Kreme doughnuts. As you can tell, he wasn’t a Krispie Kreme fan, nor is my brother. I tend to agree. They’re good when they’re hot. When they’re cool, they’re ordinary.

By the way, we Gloors are all rather an opinionated bunch when it comes to bakery items, and to baking itself. One of my pet peeves when watching cooking shows is when the cheerful chef tells the viewer to put your cake in the oven and COOK IT for 40 minutes. Every time I hear that – EVERY SINGLE TIME – I say through gritted teeth, “Bake it, not cook it.” But I recently was with my brother when someone talked about cooking something in the oven, and I was pleased when I heard him say, “Bake in the oven, not cook.” There’s right and wrong, people.

But I digress.

I wrote a blog post not that long ago about doughnuts, because apparently I’m obsessed with them. Fried doughnuts, not baked. It was after I visited Voodoo Doughnuts, a doughnut shop that originated in the northwest and has since expanded to other states. Its popularity isn’t based on the doughnuts being inexpensive, as they ran in the neighborhood of $15 a dozen.

But even though in my opinion doughnuts are not supposed to look like this…..

….at least they were fried. See above. Have I mentioned that doughnuts are not health food?

One last thing I learned from my brother yesterday about doughnuts: one sign of a good doughnut apparently is if it has a clear skunkline. What is that, you may ask? I myself didn’t know until yesterday. The skunkline is the white line that goes around a nicely fried doughnut. Here are examples of doughnuts perfectly fried by my brother……

Having wasted over 800 words on the topic of doughnuts, I will leave you with this so that you can know that our love for doughnuts runs in our family, as Dagny demonstrates…..

 

This post linked to the GRAND Social

 

Saturday Smile: Jump

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My post about our hot air balloon experience drew a lot of comments. One of my favorites came from my cousin Kate, who told me a hot air balloon ride was on her bucket list. She forwarded the post on to her husband. His response was, “Let’s go jumping.” And then she sent me these photos from a bungee jump adventure her husband had experienced from Victoria Falls Bridge in Africa. All I can say is, NO……

NO….

and most assuredly, NOOOOOOO…….

Have a great weekend.

Friday Book Whimsy: The Whole Town’s Talking

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Quite frankly, no one could have gotten away with this book except the author Fannie Flagg. For what other author would someone be patient enough to read a book in which most of the characters are dead and buried? Especially if it’s not a horror story?

As far as this reviewer is concerned, Fannie Flagg will never write a story as funny, poignant, and compelling as Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café, but I’m glad she keeps trying. While I don’t absolutely LOVE every one of her books, I think it’s safe to say that they nearly all – or at least the ones I have read – make me smile.

That’s because the stories are all character-driven, and her characters are all lovable. Even if they’re dead.

The story begins many years ago with Lordor Nordstrom, an immigrant from Sweden homesteading in Missouri. The area in which he lives is made up entirely of Swedish immigrants. With Lordor taking the lead, the people eventually begin building the makings of a town, which they call Elmwood Springs, with Lordor serving as mayor. They build businesses, churches and even a cemetery.

The town becomes a bustling community with loving friends and neighbors, business owners, preachers, and all manner of people who make up a normal town. But things become interesting when people begin to die. Because lo, and behold, though they are buried in the cemetery, they are still able to talk and observe what’s going on in their little community.

And that’s about all that happens in the book. The story is told almost primarily through the voices of the dead. And it’s okay. Because they people of Elmwood Springs watch out for each other whether living or dead.

There are so many characters over so many years that it becomes confusing for the reader, or at least for this reader. Still, I enjoyed the book very much and it left me feeling good.

That’s about as good a compliment as I can give a novel.

Here is a link to the book.

Thursday Thoughts

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Creative Worrying
This week I wrote a blog post about my recent hot air balloon ride. I got a lot of comments, both on Facebook (where I post my blog daily) and on my post itself. A few people had ridden a balloon themselves, but more were impressed that Bill and I had been brave enough to do so. But my favorite comment was from my brother-in-law David, who has done just about everything you can imagine in his life, from driving a NASCAR to going on safari in Africa. His comment? We did that in Utah in ski season years ago. Could be addictive. Very peaceful, wasn’t it? I had nightmares several nights before we went. Dreamed the bottom of the basket fell out. Friends, I thought I had the patent on creative ways to worry. The bottom of the basket falling out never even occurred to me. I’m slacking.

The World’s Editor
Bill and I have a standing joke. Well it’s really my standing joke, since I’m the only one who finds it funny. Every time I see a misspelling in a book or a sign, or a misuse of our lovely English language somewhere in the public, I will always comment, “Must I be the world’s editor?” And the need arose again last Saturday night when Bill and I went to the Indie car race at Phoenix International Speedway. We were picking up our tickets at Will Call, when I overheard this conversation in the line next to me. The young man was speaking to the ticket-seller. He said, “I also need to get a parking pass because I’m illegally parked. The parking attendant told me she couldn’t give me the parking pass, but that I needed to get it from you. Isn’t that redundant?” Nope, I thought to myself. It certainly isn’t redundant (which means no longer needed or superfluous). It’s counter-productive, certainly. And quite a stupid system, undoubtedly. I don’t blame you for being annoyed. But it’s not redundant. I think someone recently learned a new word.

It’s Puzzling
Bill has not had very many projects during our entire time in AZ this season. And let me tell you, the man does not like to be bored. So maybe four or five weeks ago, he went to our closet and pulled out a puzzle that had been sitting there for several years unopened. The reason it was unopened was that it simply looked too flipping difficult to me. I absolutely love puzzles, but I don’t want them to be so challenging that it takes forever between finding pieces that fit. So while I started out helping him – in fact, I did a lot of the border – I soon lost interest. He plowed on, however. He spent literally hours over that puzzle, which was a beautiful picture of Portofino, Italy. Finally, Tuesday evening, he let out a yelp. Done! It is pretty, but soon will be taken apart, put away in the box, and sent to Goodwill for some other sap to work on….

Professor Plum in the Library with a Candlestick
The last week or so, I have been doing my exercise outdoors, walking around nearby Red Mountain Park. I really like the park, and the path meanders around a pretty lake. There are always lots of geese and ducks and bunnies and lizards. The signs warn me about scorpions and rattlesnakes too, but I don’t veer from the path, so I feel pretty safe. Monday, when Bill and I walked, I noticed an area of the sidewalk that was splattered with blood. As we walked further, I saw occasional drippings of blood until finally, the drippings stopped. I didn’t say anything the first time I saw it, but since we walk around three times, the second time I mentioned it to Bill. He looked at it and confirmed that it was, indeed, blood. Being an avid murder mystery reader, I immediately began thinking about just who had been bludgeoned and when it had happened. Being much more realistic, Bill suggested to me that it was very likely a bunny who was murdered by a coyote and carried off to be eaten. Boring…..

On a brighter note, the jacaranda trees are in bloom, and I simply LOVE the bright purple flowers that come out in Spring…..

PC
With all of the focus these days on women’s rights and how the glass ceiling is still very much there and Facebook is one of the most serious offenders, blah blah blah, it is with great amusement that I noted that there is no longer Take Your Daughter to Work Day. It is now Take Your Child to Work Day. My recollection was that Take Your Daughter to Work Day was created so that young girls could see that they could work anywhere they wanted. Evidently political correctness got the best of us. Maybe some 8-year-old boy filed a suit because he didn’t get a day off school to go to work with Mom or Dad. Anyway, Kaiya and Mylee got a day off of school and went to work with their daddy on Take Your Child to Work Day. They got to see first-hand just what it is their father does for a living. Now, if they could just explain it to me……

Ciao.

I Scream, You Scream

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I’m not a screamer. Oh, get your mind out of the gutter, I’m not talking about sex. It’s just that while I am admittedly afraid of almost everything, I don’t scream.

Nope. I’m not a screamer. I am more of a suck-in-my-breath-loudly-and-clutch-my-breast-and-let-out-a-sharp-yelper.

In horror movies, despite the fact that there is a serial murderer on the loose who wears long metal claws on his hands with which he tears out women’s throats before killing them, the young women go downstairs to check out a strange noise in the basement without turning on the lights. What’s up with that? Is their electric bill too high? And when they encounter the above-mentioned serial murderer, they stand completely frozen to the spot and SCREAM. And then they get their throats cut.

Not me. I would suck in my breath loudly and clutch my breast and let out a sharp yelp. Plus I would have turned on the light. Plus I would run like hell.

I don’t even scream on the rare occurrence when I lose my sanity and agree to go on a roller coaster. That has happened exactly twice in my life if I don’t count Space Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain, both of which are relatively tame (though Space Mountain does have the added disadvantage of being dark so you can’t see when you are about to plummet). California Adventure – part of Disneyland – has a roller coaster called California Screamin’. It’s called that because purportedly that’s what you do when you ride it – scream.

Fake photo with smiles photoshopped onto their faces. It has to be.

A couple of years ago when Bill and I went to Disneyland, he somehow convinced me to go on California Screamin’. I can’t imagine why I said yes, but it had something to do with the fact that he had gone on Small World with me. Not only is it a serious roller coaster, but it has one of those loopty loops. I still can’t believe I agreed to ride. Anyway, the ride begins with a recorded voice that says, five, four, three, two, one……scureeeeeeeeeeeeeem! And then the coaster takes off about a thousand miles an hour and stays at that speed for what feels like three hours. I was terrified. My eyes were tightly closed. But I didn’t scream – not one single time. Instead, I spent the entire ride with my eyes shut and praying the Hail Mary prayer over and over out loud, interspersed with an occasional Oh My God.

The other day, Bill and I were walking home from the neighborhood grocery store. Since I tell stories almost daily that involve walking home from the grocery store, you must think I spend my days at the local market. And you would be nearly right. I go at least once a day. But on this day, we stepped off the sidewalk to walk across the street to our neighborhood. I was looking for oncoming cars and not looking down. Just as I set my feet down on the street, Bill said, “SNAKE!”

I sucked in my breath loudly and clutched my breast and let out a sharp yelp. And jumped into the air about three feet.

“Well, it’s a dead snake,” Bill said somewhat sheepishly, understanding immediately that I might have had a heart attack.

And it was dead. And flat from being run over. But it was still a snake, a rattlesnake to boot. And to be fair to Bill, I’m not sure I would have reacted any differently if he had yelled out, “DEAD SNAKE!” A snake is a snake, my friends.

When I went back later after calming down, intending to take a photo of the snake to show my sister Jen just how close to deadly wildlife our house is, the snake was gone. As it had been as flat as a tortilla, there is no chance it slithered away on its own. My money is on a high school kid picking it up, and my heart goes out to the poor kid with the locker next to his who opened his locker door the next day to find a snake hanging from the top of the locker.

I’ll bet he screamed.

This post linked to Grammy’s Grid.

Get Off My Lawn

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I started wondering yesterday while walking home from a grocery store visit during which I was particularly cranky at what age we all start getting consistently grouchy. You know, when do we stop saying come over to my house for a backyard lawn party and start saying get off my lawn.

Because I’m convinced it happens to all of us. But why, I wonder.

Is it because we never feel perfectly good? When you’re a youngster, you might have skinned knees like my grandson Micah……

….or you might have to wear a homemade graduation cap that is too tight around your neck, like my niece Lilly…..

…..or suffer the humiliation of having to swim naked because your parents forgot your swim suit like my niece Faith…..

…..but you basically feel good. You feel like you’re going to live to be a hundred.

However, starting in the mid-50s (though it probably varies from person to person), there likely isn’t a time when there isn’t an ache in some part of your body. For me, it started in my early 40s when my neck began hurting from spending hours at the computer in the evening working on my master’s degree after spending hours at the computer making a living. It’s not a great ache, but it’s tenacious.

When we were growing up, we lived at the end of a block. We had friends in the neighborhood who lived a few houses away from ours. For reasons I never understood, there was no sidewalk on our side of the street, though there was a perfectly lovely sidewalk across the street. And our street was fairly busy. It’s true our town was small – only 10,000 folks – but the street was somewhat of a main drag from the highway heading south through town. So to get to our friends’ houses, we had two choices – walk on the busy street or walk on our neighbor’s lawn. We chose the lawn.

For many years, this caused no angst to anyone. The neighbors were our friends. My mother and the neighbor lady had coffee klatches each morning. You know, coffee klatches. What women did to communicate and bond before there was Snapchat and Starbucks. Walk through the hole in the hedge and open the neighbor’s screen door and holler, “Hellooooo. Do you have time for a cup of coffee?”

But then life happened and suddenly, when we would innocently walk to our friends’ houses, unthinkingly stepping on the lawn, the neighbors would open the front door and yell, “Get off the lawn.” I’m not sure why. There might have been a rift. They might have entered a Beautiful Lawn Contest. Their necks might have been hurting. But we took to stopping at the edge of the lawn, glancing carefully at the front door for signs of eyes peering out the little window, and then running like the dickens to the next lawn, where they didn’t care so much if we walked on their lawn.

By the way, what made me cranky at the grocery store was that the store only has one checkstand open in the morning because there are not that many shoppers at 8:30 a.m. However, if there are even 10 shoppers, and if even half of them are ready to pay, there is a line. At that point, the store managers (if they’re paying attention) call up one of the merchandise stockers to be a cashier. Except today she didn’t turn on her light. So as I walked up, I saw a long line at the one check stand that had a light on, and a short line at the checkstand at which the stocker was working. Having worked as a grocery store cashier (albeit nearly 45 years ago), I know that when the light goes off, the cashier wants to close down and go back to stocking shelves. So I dutifully got in the long line at the lit-up checkout stand.

Except others shoppers kept getting in the other lane and she kept checking them out. And it made me cranky. Which took me to the place where I started this blog post, wondering how I got so cranky. Because, you see, I’m retired. I have so much time in my day that I could stand in the checkout lane for eight hours and not miss an appointment.

So go ahead. Walk on my lawn. I’m getting a grip.

Up, Up and Away

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The world’s a nicer place in my beautiful balloon
It wears a nicer face in my beautiful balloon
We can sing a song and sal along the silver sky
For we can fly, we can fly. – Jimmy Webb

I hate to fly. I’m scared of flying. In fact, the older I get, the more I realize I’m scared of just about everything. Well, except for eating hot dogs. Despite all of the dire information we get about just what’s in a lowly Oscar Mayer weenie (or any other kind of weenie for that matter) I could eat one every day. But most everything else is cause for alarm.

So, when I opened my Christmas present from Dave and Jll last December and saw that it was a gift certificate for a hot air balloon ride, my eyes momentarily glazed over in terror, but I swallowed hard, said my thanks, and vowed to myself that I was just going to put on my big girl pants and go for a ride in a hot air balloon. If the Wizard of Oz could do it, so could I.

The gift certificate was for a ride for two, so despite the fact that Bill is just about as afraid of heights as I, he agreed to be my plus one. We decided to make the reservation for April because by that time any company we expected would have come and gone and the mornings would be a bit warmer. We decided on the Saturday before Easter, and couldn’t think of a thing that would go wrong.

And then Bill’s mom passed away on Good Friday. Still, our plane reservation to Chicago wasn’t until Monday, and after much discussion, we decided we would go ahead with it as a welcome distraction.

We met our balloon pilot Duane and his chaser (a human, not a beer), Keith, at literally the crack of dawn the morning of April 15 at a Starbucks near Chandler Airport. Since we were so near a small airport, I assumed that somehow the balloon would take off from that spot. Instead, we crawled into the truck with the two men, the basket perkily sitting on the back of the trailer being pulled by the truck, and took off to follow the wind.

That morning, it seems there wasn’t a great deal of wind. That was good news for Bill and me because it meant not only could we take off from the first place they tested, but the balloon ride looked to be a gentle one. Had the wind conditions not been right, our pilot and his pal would have driven on until they found JUST the right spot.

We watched as they laid out the balloon and began filling it with cool air. The brightly colored balloon needed to be full of air that could be heated up so that it would fly. The balloon’s size caught me off guard, having only seen them up in the sky where they appear to be about one inch in diameter.

As the balloon filled, my heart began thumping in my chest. I was really nervous. I mentioned my fear to the pilot, who told me that most everyone is nervous before the ride, but almost everyone is fearless by time the balloon comes to its sudden halt at the end. Yeah, I thought. Well, he doesn’t know this woman who gets nervous looking down from the church choir loft.

He had warned us that when the balloon was ready to fly, we needed to be ready to hop into the basket. There was no door like I expected. Hopping into the basket meant literally placing your feet in the tiny holes and throwing yourself into the smaller-than-expected basket (literally about the size of a small kitchen table). As you can imagine, I was all grace and gentility.

Our pilot told me later that I was shaking so hard that he could feel the basket shake. Recognizing pure, unadulterated fear when he sees it, the wise man took it very easy and kept us fairly near the ground as we began. I wanted to take photos, but I was absolutely too scared to let go of the side of the basket for quite some time.

However, just as he’d promised, it wasn’t long before I grew comfortable with the gentle gliding of the balloon. So comfortable, in fact, that I began taking photos. After about a half hour, he asked if I was comfortable enough for him to go higher, and both Bill and I agreed. I think we reached 5,000 feet. I’m sure he can go and has gone higher, but being an astute observer of mankind, he reckoned that was high enough.

We floated above the area for a full hour before he began searching for a safe place to land. In the meantime, his chaser kept his eye on us, and his experience allowed him to pretty much know which direction we would head and where we would land. Our pilot confirmed his intentions, and we prepared for landing.

It was abrupt, as landings go. Of course, I am wholly unfamiliar with balloon landings, so no complaints here. And I knew that treats and champagne were in my future.

Which they were…….

At the end of the day, I think Bill agrees that it was an absolutely lovely way to spend a clear and cool Saturday morning, and we both would do it again in a heartbeat.

This post linked to Grand Social and Blogging Grandmother’s Link Party.