At the Zoo

Posted in Whimsies by kzmclain

Something tells me it’s all happening at the zoo.

I do believe it, I do believe it’s true.

The monkeys stand for honesty.

Giraffes are insincere.

The elephants are kindly but they’re dumb.

Orangutans are skeptical of changes in their cages

And the zookeeper is very fond of rum.

Zebras are reactionaries,

Antelopes are missionaries.

Pigeons plot in secrecy

And hamsters turn on frequently.

What gas you got to come and see

At the zoo. – Paul Simon

Visiting the zoo L-R, Maggie’s friend Allison, the child she babysits Cole, Maggie, and Lilly

The town in which I grew up had no zoo. Arguably when things got crazy at the bakery it seemed like a zoo, but for all intents and purposes, no zoo in Columbus, Nebraska.

Omaha, on the other hand, had a zoo. It still does. In fact, I think Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo is quite respected by people who know things about zoos. For my part, I can’t tell you a thing about it because, despite the fact that I was born in Nebraska, in a town only about 65 miles or so from the Henry Doorly Zoo, I never once went to that zoo.

Why? Because 65 miles might as well have been 500 miles. It was as likely that we would jump in the car and go to the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha as it was that we would drive to Chicago to the Lincoln Park Zoo. For various reasons, in those days, 65 miles was a commitment. And one we didn’t often make.

We went to Omaha twice a year – to go back-to-school shopping in the days before we wore school uniforms and at Christmas to see the decorations at the shopping mall.

Nowadays, it isn’t unusual for me to drive 100 miles or more in a single day. Particularly here in the Phoenix metro area which is spread out and things are far away from each other. But even back in Colorado, if I make a trip to the Denver Zoo, by time I pick up my grandkids, drive to the zoo, spend a few hours, drive them back home, and drive myself home, it is an easy 70 or 75 miles. And I do it often. Without blinking an eye.

Here’s the thing. Mom loved zoos. Or at least she loved the Denver Zoo after they moved to Colorado. We spent many a weekend afternoon at the Denver Zoo. Mom would pack up one of her famous picnics and Jen and her kids and Court and I would meet them at the zoo. If Bec and/or Dave and their families were in town, that was even better. We loved a day at the zoo.

Years ago when Bill and I were first married, we had memberships at the Museum of Natural History, the Art Museum, the Botanical Gardens, and Colorado Historical Museum, and of course the Denver Zoo. Eventually as the kids grew up and moved away, we dropped our memberships. Except

Austin is getting ready to take the plunge into the water

for the zoo.

Because like Mom, I love the zoo. Which is why I have a membership at both the Denver Zoo and the Phoenix Zoo. And I get my money’s worth out of both.

Yesterday Maggie and her kids invited me to join them and a friend of hers for an early-morning visit to the Phoenix Zoo. We were there by 9 o’clock, and walked around when it was still fairly quiet and cool. The

Phoenix Zoo has a little water park – one of those venues where water squirts up out of the ground. Quite frankly, that’s where we spent a lot of our time, because Austin has never met a stranger, so he played and played with the new friends he met at the water park.

“What is your friend’s name?” I asked him afterwards. He, of course, had no clue. They didn’t exchange names because it was unnecessary. They couldn’t have had more fun if they had known each other’s names. That’s the way of the world when you’re 4.

Soaking wet and self-proclaimed FREEZING COLD despite the fact that it was in the 80s!

So, like Paul Simon, I think it’s all happening at the zoo; I do believe it, I do believe it’s true.

25Mar2015

Morning at the Lake

Posted in Main Course, Recipes by kzmclain

Bill and I simply can’t talk ourselves into going to the gym on these beautiful March mornings. Though I feel guilty (for some reason, it seems like more genuine exercise if I’m walking on a treadmill than if I’m walking along the side of a lake), we are enjoying the clear and cool mornings as we walk around the lake in a park near our house.

By noon it’s already inching dangerously close to 90 degrees.

Yesterday morning we were out and about just after 7:30, and it was a nice time to enjoy our urban countryside.

I know those two terms seem contradictory. Still, that’s exactly what it is. A bit of country in the middle of the city.

When my cousin visited last weekend, her husband commented that we probably didn’t have a lot of birds in this area. Au contraire mon frere. Though it was exactly what I thought before we bought our house in the desert, I was surprised to learn that there are all sorts of birds in the area, including cardinals. And not just the football team.

Arizona Cardinals football player

The other Arizona Cardinal.

I have mentioned before that our backyard hosts a variety of birds including mockingbirds, quail, and mourning doves. In fact, as I watched the quail yesterday morning before we left for our walk, I told Bill that I think quails are a sign that God has a sense of humor. They are the funniest of birds.

But back to our walk. Red Mountain Park is quite large with several covered eating areas and a couple of playgrounds. The sidewalk winds all of the way around a beautiful lake that looks as if it could be out in the country. There are ducks and geese aplenty. One lap around the park is just under a mile, so a couple of laps gives you a pretty good walk.

This park, as I have observed is true in most parks in the area that have a lake, are open for fishing. And in the morning, especially as early as we walked, there were plenty of men and boys fishing. Most are sitting in lawn chairs paying little attention to their lines. Yesterday we saw a couple of men fly fishing, which I had not seen before.

Again, in the way that I have, I begin to invent stories. I think these are men from Minnesota or Wisconsin or Iowa who are retired and loving their new lives of leisure. They probably spend a few hours a couple of times a week fishing, not really interested in whether or not they catch anything. Probably throw them back if they do. What they used to do only on weekends in the summer they can do any day of the week!

Yesterday, in addition to many birds, we also saw a little bevy of bunnies. Perhaps they were divying up duties for the upcoming Easter holiday. They didn’t appear to be even remotely concerned about the nearness of humans. I guess they just figured if we try to harm them, they just won’t leave us any Easter candy!

As we near Easter and thus the end of Lent, I am going to offer one more Lenten recipe that we enjoyed. It just didn’t seem like much of a sacrifice…..

24Mar2015

Let’s All Go to the Snack Bar

Posted in Whimsies by kzmclain

I read a recent article in the Denver Post about a brand new state-of-the-art drive-in movie theater that will be opening up in the Denver metro area soon. It is supposed to be up and running by Memorial Day.

That news made me both happy and sad. Happy, because I LOVE drive-in theaters. I have absolutely splendid and numerous memories of adventures at drive-in theaters (and none of them are x-rated Mr. and Mrs. Mind-in-the-Gutter). Sad, because I simply don’t think the words drive-in theater and state-of-the-art should be in the same sentence. What is a drive-in movie without the crackling speaker hanging off your window? I’m guessing state-of-the-art doesn’t include crackling speakers.

Ah, drive-ins, where you could always see two movies for the price of one and eat stale popcorn and lukewarm hot dogs and call it entertainment. As a kid, it was very exciting because you got to stay up late since the movie generally didn’t even start until after 9. I’m pretty darn sure I never made it through an entire movie as a kid without falling asleep. But I usually woke up when I heard the dancing popcorn boxes and singing hot dogs cleverly encouraging us….Let’s all go to the snack bar, let’s all go to the snack bar, let’s all go to the snack bar, to get ourselves some treats.

As a teenager, it was particularly cheap entertainment because a group of six or seven of us would go to the movies together. The two or three smallest people got into the trunk (remember we were driving our parents’ 1970 Buick Le Sabres with trunks big enough to hold an entire African village), and we split the cost of the rest. As I was one of the smallest of my group of friends, I don’t think I ever saw the entrance of the theater as I was always stuffed in the trunk.

I’m sure the theater owner (Dad called him Burnsie) never suspected a thing.

I am compelled at this point to tell you a story about my father and Burnsie.

Burnsie owned the regular movie theater as well as the drive-in theater. The movie theater was across the street from Gloor’s Bakery, above which my father lived with his family. As a youngster, my father says he and his buddy would sneak into the theater by walking backwards in the crowd that was leaving the earlier movie.

Again, I’m sure Burnsie never suspected a thing.

Anyhoo, from the time my son Court was young until such time as he wouldn’t be caught dead alone with his mother, he and I would go to the Cinderella Twin Drive-in Theater in Denver at least once each summer. I would pop enough popcorn to fill a brown paper bag and load up a cooler with pop. Again, we saw two movies for the price of one – one of the best things about drive-in movies. A trip to the snack bar between movies satisfied our candy needs. It was late when we would drive home. Usually about 1 o’clock in the morning or later.

I remember once when he was in elementary school, we were driving down the dark street towards home. There was the occasional lit-up house since it was probably a Saturday night (or really, early Sunday morning). We were both quiet as it was late and we were tired.

“You know what I like to do Mom?” I remember him saying suddenly. “I like to look at the windows that are all lit up and try to imagine what the people inside are doing. Why are they up so late? Are they a mom and dad with kids? Are they having a party? Or are they up with one of the kids? I like to make up stories in my head about them.”

Boom.

I was suddenly reminded that my DNA ran through my boy. Just like his mom, that boy was born to write.

And he’s a writer to this day. Much better than his mom.

I will undoubtedly be visiting the new drive-in theater this summer, probably with a handful of my grandkids, making new memories. But I will still be sneaking in popcorn and sodas.

Bill said the sound will probably come through the car’s FM radio. I will miss those crackling speakers.

23Mar2015

Lilies of the Field

Posted in Whimsies by kzmclain

Every year about this time, I start itchin’ to plant something. Anything. Flowers. Vegetables. Trees. It’s good that I now greet Spring while in Arizona. I’ve wasted a lot of money planting hundreds of dollars’ worth of plants in Colorado because we have a week of 60s and 70s, only to have my garden thwarted by a spring freeze. I can’t seem to help myself.

I’ve lived in Colorado long enough to know you DON’T PLANT FLOWERS BEFORE MOTHERS’ DAY, STUPID.

The funny thing about my desire to get my hands into the soil is that, much as it pains me to say this, I simply don’t like to garden. I only like to look at and eat the results of gardening.

Clearly Jesus loved gardening, as many of his parables talk about planting seeds. In yesterday’s Gospel reading from St. John, Jesus reminded us that our faith is like a kernel of wheat that must die before it can grow. In other sermons, Jesus talks about tiny mustard seeds that grow into large plants when nurtured, and suggests we should have faith in God like the lilies of the field.

And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. –Matthew 6: 28-29

Beautiful parables based on gardening.

Though I’m glad to greet Spring in the desert, I don’t want to start a lot of plants here in Arizona, however, because it won’t be too long before we are packing up and heading back to Denver. However, I certainly enjoy my potted flowers and my herb plants…..

And there are such beautiful desert plants that burst in bloom about this time of year…..

And in an entirely unrelated note, because, try as I might, I can’t figure out how to tie these two topics together and so you must WORK WITH ME PEOPLE, Bill and I spent the afternoon with other branches of our family tree (Yay! I did find a gardening connection!), specifically my sister Bec and my cousin and her husband Marilyn and Roger, who are visiting from Columbus.

I’m thrilled to tell you that thanks to her faithful readership of my blog, Marilyn wanted to eat the sandwich I described with such delight in this post. It was as good as I described, I’m happy to report. But the best part was connecting up with my much loved family, always a gift from God….

Bec, Bill, Kris, Marilyn, and Roger enjoying Guidos.

21Mar2015

Saturday Smile: Fifty Shades of Poodle Puff

Posted in Whimsies by kzmclain

I fear this is going to be one of those “you had to be there” stories, but I’m going to tell it anyway because it made me laugh out loud.

The other day I was driving to lunch on one of the East Valley’s very busy east-west corridors, Warner. I glance over at the sidewalk that lines the street, and here’s what I see: a young twenty-something woman wearing exercise clothes and pushing a baby stroller.

Not that unusual, right?

Except that accompanying this particular woman were three standard-sized poodles, white, all clipped in that weird show-ring way with the odd puffs of balls on the sides of their bodies and the poufs of fur on their heads, tails, and feet.

Like this….

That was an astounding sight in and of itself, but suddenly I noticed that the baby carriage didn’t hold the expected toddler. Instead, the stroller was full of four or five little wiggling balls of white fur — poodle puppies.

My guess is two out of the three adult poodles are the parents of the wiggling puppies. The other poodle wasn’t quite as lucky and could only watch.

Poodle porn.

For good measure, here are a couple of photos that tickled me this week….

What’s a kid supposed to do when they’re in Florida besides hold an alligator? My great niece and nephew Mackenzie and Carter display the reptiles.

10-1/2 month old Cole looks like he’s ready to go to a Broncos’ game.

Have a great weekend.

20Mar2015

Friday Book Whimsy: The Life Intended

Posted in Book Reviews by kzmclain

Kate and Patrick are blissful newlyweds. One morning Patrick tells Kate that he has something important to talk to her about that evening. Unfortunately, he is killed in a random accident that day. (It happens in the first three pages of the book, and it’s the gist of the story, so I’m not giving away a secret.) Kate is inconsolable over losing her husband whom she loves so much. Randomly, she doesn’t seem to give one single thought to what he was going to tell her that evening.

Fast forward 12 years, and our Kate is getting ready to marry Dan, perfect husband material. She should be delighted, but isn’t. She just can’t get over the death of Patrick. It doesn’t help that she begins having weirdly realistic dreams about her life with Patrick as though he hadn’t died. In the dreams, she has a happy life that includes a hard-of-hearing daughter. From that moment on, the reader must begin suspending reality. Kate knows things because she sees them in her dreams.

I found The Life Intended, by Kristin Harmel, to be enjoyably readable, even if unrealistic. The main character, Kate, begins learning sign language as a result of her dreams so that she will be able to understand her daughter in future dreams. Through her ASL classes, she meets Andrew, who works with the Deaf community, especially young people. Kate begins to help him out through her occupation as a music therapist. Life unfolds….

Despite the decidedly odd premise of the story, I enjoyed this book I liked learning about the Deaf community, about sign language, and about music therapy. I enjoyed Harmel’s character development and liked the characters I was supposed to like and disliked the ones I should. I got a bit tired of Kate’s mooning over Patrick after 12 years. (I don’t think grief has a time period, but seriously, moooooooning). Still, the author was aptly able to depict the nature of Kate and Patrick’s relationship in just a few pages, and that is impressive.

Though some of the events that happened at the end were predictable, I was caught by surprise at others.

I definitely would pick up another of Harmel’s books based on The Life Intended.

Buy The Life Intended from Amazon here.

Buy The Life Intended from Barnes and Noble here.

Buy The Life Intended from Tattered Cover here.

Buy The Life Intended from Changing Hands here.

19Mar2015

Generation Next

Posted in Main Course, Recipes by kzmclain

When I was a small girl, my mom’s sister Ann lived near us. Well, to be perfectly honest, Columbus was/is a pretty small town, so arguably everyone lived near us. For a period of time, Ann lived in a house that at various times accommodated different members of my mother’s family.

My recollection is that when Ann resided in that house it had a HUGE rock garden with beautiful flowers. When I drive by the house today, there is no garden, and the side yard where the garden once was located is just a normal sized yard. Ah, the eyes of children….

But what I really remember about that house is that Ann’s decorating taste ran to, well, let’s call it busy. There were pictures or crafts or some kind of tchotchke on every part of her walls. I’m not trying to be unkind. It wasn’t particularly tacky. It was just, well, I can’t think of a better word than busy.

Very unlike our house. My mother’s style was simple. Our house was decorated with impeccable taste.

In other words, not busy.

I thought about different decorating styles yesterday morning as Bill and I took a three-mile walk around our neighborhood. Our route took us past a block of single family homes that seemingly house older residents. You can just tell.

One house in particular gave off the vibe of housing an elderly person. (And remember, an elderly person is anyone older than you. As time goes on, there are fewer and fewer people older than you. Sigh.) The yard was filled with garden gnomes and geese wearing clothing and artificial flowers. As we walked past, I said to Bill, “Do you think there will come a time when will I start putting garden gnomes and artificial flowers in our front yard?”

But I realized that I likely never will. It’s just what each generation brings to the table as a result of experiences and what you grew up with. And each generation is different. My generation doesn’t really do garden gnomes.

In my blog yesterday I talked about vegetables. One of my commenters noted that her mother always cooked vegetables – even broccoli – an hour, until they were mush. Her comment made me think about the dining room in the retirement community in which my mother-in-law resides. Their chef, God bless her, offers fresh vegetables at each meal, and every time I’ve been there, Wilma and her friends have complained that the vegetables are undercooked. They aren’t happy unless the green beans or the broccoli are a pale green and can be swallowed without chewing. It’s what they grew up with.

My generation, trained to cook by the Food Network, steams the vegetables until cooked but not mush. Later generations will probably just take a pill instead of eating vegetables at all.

Different generations; different ideas. Life goes on.

And speaking of vegetables, in keeping with my promise to offer a meat-free recipe each week during Lent, here is today’s offering…

The grocery stores are carrying something new from Fleischman’s (and perhaps others as well) called Pizza Crust Yeast. I’m not sure how the yeast is different, but you can literally have a homemade-from-scratch pizza in less than a half hour because the dough doesn’t require any time to rise.

Our pizza was heavy on the cheese and included a few vegetables on half the pizza. Guess whose half?

Please, please, please don’t let the idea of kneading throw you off the notion of making this pizza. The dough is soft and easily worked, and you just knead it for 3 – 4 minutes. Push it away from you, fold it over, push it again. Kneading is easy.

I was able to shape the pizza without a rolling pin, though I did then use the pin to make it an even thickness. I baked it right on my pizza stone that I sprinkled with corn meal, but you can put it on a greased pizza pan or cookie sheet as an alternative. Still try the corn meal. Yum.

The recipe makes one thicker crust, or two thinner crusts. I haven’t yet tried dividing the dough.

That’s amore!

18Mar2015

The A’s Have It

Posted in Recipes, Side Dishes by kzmclain

There are lots of very satisfying things about spring. The flowers begin to pop out. The weather is mostly lovely. Here in the East Valley of Phoenix, weather in March is spectacular. Not yet hot and almost always sunny. People are driving around with the tops down on their convertibles – something they cannot do in the summer when it’s too hot.

In Colorado, there is always the possibility of a spring snowstorm. Still, even in Colorado, there are probably more nice days than not starting in March.

My first three-day dill pickles of the year! They’re about a minute old at this point.

But one of the best things about spring is the emergence of some of my favorite fruits and vegetables. Strawberries are luscious, red, and juicy. Pickling cucumbers are starting to appear in Arizona grocery stores. Pretty soon the sweet Vidalia onions will begin showing up on the store shelves, and they are ever so delicious to grill.

But let’s give it up for the three A’s. Although you can get avocados all year round, come March, they are not only delicious but they are inexpensive. Artichokes…two bucks each. And what can I say about fresh asparagus? Why, I make asparagus probably four times a week, and each time I smack my lips with satisfaction.

At the grocery store the other day, the woman who checked me out was young – and not just young compared to me as many people are. She was, I would say, barely in her 20s. She still had braces on her teeth, though that doesn’t necessarily say much. I had braces on my teeth when I was in my 40s.

But she was quite puzzled by a couple of my vegetables. She looked at my leek as though it was from outer space. She called over to the next check stand, holding the leek carefully with her thumb and her forefinger as though it would bite.

“A leek,” I said patiently.

And because I was so patient, she then pointed to my artichoke. “What’s that?” she asked, her face aghast.

Training, Store Managers. Training.

“An artichoke,” I said, still patient. And this particular vegetable she really should pick up carefully, as those leaves have quite pointy ends, as you may know if you’ve been poked.

I have absolutely no reason to be snotty about her lack of knowledge of these vegetables. I had literally never heard of an artichoke until I was an adult, or very near. Artichokes were not in my mother’s vegetable repertoire. (As an aside, despite the fact that my mother was a very good cook, nearly every single night she opened a can of vegetables for the family. I think that was a 50s and 60s thing. The only fresh vegetables we ever ate were corn on the cob and green beans in season.)

My family’s very first experience with the admittedly hard-to-figure-out artichoke was with my dad’s sister Myrta, who offered it to us one night at her house for dinner. Despite the oddity of the vegetable, every single one of us was immediately hooked. And I believe every single one of us prepares artichokes the way Myrta did – cooked for an hour or so in water with a garlic clove. Served with a side of butter.

As an alternative – pull off a large number of the outer leaves, slice the artichoke in half, clean out the “choke” in the center and cook it on the grill. Very Italian. But I don’t like it quite as well as the old fashioned method.

I’m pretty sure I had also not tasted an avocado until we moved to Leadville and began eating Mexican food. Avocados, like artichokes, were love at first bite. My entire family loves guacamole – haven’t met one we dislike. But I also love to slice up an avocado, a delicious ripe summer tomato, and either a red onion or a couple of scallions, drizzle it with a good deal of olive oil and squeeze a couple of limes over the whole kit and caboodle, along with salt. Yum.

We did eat asparagus as a child, but, well, OUT OF A CAN. When I bought my first house after my divorce, the first spring following our moving in, I noticed unusual sprouts coming out of the ground. It took me quite a while to realize that the sprouts were asparagus spears. I was so freaked out about IF and WHEN I should harvest them that I missed out on the whole thing.

As I mentioned above, I cook asparagus for myself four or five times a week. Bill is not a fan. That’s okay. More for me. I drizzle it in olive oil and season it with season salt or Montreal seasoning and either grill it or roast it in the oven. I want some right NOW.

Enjoy vegetables in season when they taste the best and are the least expensive. When the price goes up, the flavor goes down.

Happy Spring!

17Mar2015

Mora Na Maidine Dhuit

Posted in Cocktails, Recipes, Whimsies by kzmclain

Despite my last name (which I married), I don’t have a Celtic bone in my body. They say everyone is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day, but I’m not. Nope. I’m still half Swiss and half Polish. I don’t even wear green despite the danger of being pinched. Kelly green is not in my color wheel.

I don’t mean to sound as if I’m opposed to the Irish. Some of my best friends are of Irish heritage. If I liked beer at all I wouldn’t mind if it was dyed green. I think St. Patrick was one heck of a good saint – one of the best, in fact. I spent 13 years as a “Shamrock” since this was the mascot of St. Bonaventure Elementary School, and Scotus Junior High and High School (though I’ve never known why since St. Bonaventure was Italian and Duns Scotus was Scottish).

But I really do think St. Patrick’s Day is as good an excuse as any to have corned beef and cabbage.

The past couple of years, my sister Bec (who also is not Irish) has had us over for corned beef. This year, however, she is away for the week, watching her beloved Washington Nationals play spring ball in Florida. Go Nats. They’re also not Irish.

So I’m on my own for corned beef and cabbage, which admittedly is not rocket science to prepare. In fact, I recently learned that it isn’t even particularly Irish. According to Wikipedia (which, as you know, is NEVER wrong), they rarely even ate beef in Ireland, preferring pork. It wasn’t until the Irish started immigrating to the United States and found the cost of pork prohibitive that they started eating beef.

Bottom line: corned beef and cabbage is about as Irish as spaghetti and meatballs is Italian.

Now you think I’m going to offer a recipe for corned beef and cabbage, but you’re wrong. Just stick your corned beef in the crock pot with some water, the spices, and some carrots, and enjoy your meal eight hours later with a side of braised cabbage.

Nope, I’m going to do you one better. I’m going to offer you a recipe for homemade Bailey’s Irish Cream.

You can thank me later.

Take it up a notch and make some ice cubes out of coffee. Serve your Irish cream over the coffee cubes. Thank you Pinterest.

Now, what do I do with a fifth of Jamison minus 1-2/3 cup? Oh, I know; make some more Irish Cream!

And as they would toast in Ireland….May you live to be a hundred years, with one extra year to repent.

16Mar2015

When the Cat’s Away…Well, Not Much

Posted in Whimsies by kzmclain

Many years ago when I was still employed and got paid to write, the company for which I worked administered the Myers-Briggs personality test to its employees. The company was big on personality and motivational testing. For a bit of time, they actually printed the Myers-Briggs personality type next to the employees’ names on the internal phone list. Knowing the personality score of the person you were calling was supposed to enhance communication. Failed experiment.

I don’t remember what the test indicated my personality was (ESPN? IPAD? ETSY?), but I remember it was the one where the person requires being around other people in order to be energized and motivated.

I knew immediately that was incorrect because being around a lot of people absolutely WEARS ME OUT. I want to go behind a tree and hide. I like people, but then I just need some quiet time to unwind. I quickly figured out that the reason my score was so skewed was that I had answered the questions the way I wanted my personality to be instead of the way it actually was. I lied to both Myers and Briggs.

All of this is to say that when Bill left early yesterday morning to spend the day watching NASCAR with my brother, I danced a little jig as soon as they were out of the driveway. Don’t get me wrong. I love my husband and enjoy spending time with him. It’s just that when we are in Arizona, due to the small size of our house and the fact that we only have one car, we spend probably 90 percent of our time within sight of one another.

I had the entire day ahead of me to do WHATEVER I WANTED. Heaven.

Here’s how my day went….

I decided to start with a walk. Bill and I exercise regularly, but since he’s taken to working on the outdoor kitchen he’s building from the twitter of the first mockingbird at dawn until I drag him in for dinner, exercise has been put on the back burner temporarily. In fact, Saturday morning he was eyeing the electric drill and the power saw hungrily at 7 o’clock in the morning. I knew if he started power tools at the crack of dawn on a Saturday, our neighbor (who you might remember is often naked or nearly naked; if you don’t remember, read this…) might come storming over, and we definitely didn’t want that. I took him out to breakfast instead.

Anyhoo, yesterday, I set off on a two-mile trek.

Almost immediately, a man about my age came out of his driveway and started walking as well. I figured I would lose him when I turned west towards Superstition Mountain, but nope, he went the same direction, just a bit ahead of me.

As we walked, it became apparent that I was walking about a millionth of a second faster than he. What to do, what to do? I knew I would eventually overtake him, but oh so slowly. Should I just let it happen naturally, which would likely result in him being creeped out as I slowly inch toward him? Or should I bolt ahead of him at an unnatural and uncomfortable pace? I elected a version of the latter.

I raised my arms and began swinging them like a runner, up near my heart. I pretended to be a power walker – walk, walk, swing, swing – until I surpassed him. I kept up the charade for about 10 minutes until I was safely passed him, and then slowed down to a comfortable pace. Crisis averted.

Food choice also dominated my lovely quiet day. Now, understand, Bill never complains about what I cook, and he almost always goes along with where I want to eat, despite the fact that I groan every time he chooses the dining place – always pizza. But yesterday I could eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted as much as I wanted.

Sushi for lunch, grilled salmon for dinner. See what I mean? No meat on Friday is no sacrifice for me.

I’ve mentioned before that I heartily dislike housekeeping, and put it off as long as I can. In fact, it would be safe to say that Bill does much, if not most, of the housecleaning. But yesterday, on that day by myself, I spent an hour-and-a-half cleaning house. I turned on my ipod, set it to shuffle my country songs, and played it loud and sang along while I cleaned. Dusted, scrubbed floors, changed bedsheets, did three loads of wash, sang along with Scotty McCreery and Taylor Swift (back in the olden days when she was country).

And then there were the movies. While I persuade Bill to go to places of my choosing to eat, I don’t even try to talk him into watching chick movies. So I watched three movies yesterday afternoon that he wouldn’t want to see – Mystic Pizza (have I mentioned I love Julia Roberts?), Stand By Me, and The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, which I plumb forgot is probably my favorite movies of all time.

All in all, a totally pleasant and quiet day.

Nana's Whimsies

Musings of a Baby Boomer….

Author Archives: kzmclain

At the Zoo

Morning at the Lake

Let’s All Go to the Snack Bar

Lilies of the Field

Saturday Smile: Fifty Shades of Poodle Puff

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