Sunday Night Supper

            My wife says that when we first met one of the things she found attractive was that I had been “pre-trained.”  Specifically, she found it appealing that I had grown up in a family of five sisters and had thus been exposed to the lofty standards of behavior that females expect, such as no spitting in the house and closing the bathroom door before you settle in to make a boom-boom.

            In addition to such things, we boys (I have two brothers) were also taught how to cook and do laundry. If you were a male growing up on our dairy farm, you had to possess a Swiss Army knife-like skill set, capable of sorting cattle in the morning, clothes in the afternoon.

            I’m not complaining. On the contrary, learning how to perform domestic chores came in handy when, for a few years, I led the life of a Norwegian bachelor farmer. It was useful to know which household tasks – such as extinguishing a grease fire – required immediate attention and which jobs could be put off until later. For instance, who, exactly, cares about the petrified spaghetti that has glued itself to the couch cushion? It’s not as if the President is going to drop by!

            One of the earliest domestic lessons I learned was how to whip up enough pancakes to feed ten people.

            It somehow became a tradition at our house to have a Sunday evening supper of pancakes and bacon. Perhaps it was a subliminal echo of Sunday morning church services with its Communion wafers and syrupy wine.

            When Sunday evening’s milking hit the halfway mark, I would be sent to the house to construct a pancake supper. Our pancake recipe is a snap: two of everything except for the sugar, which is a third of a cup.

            Getting the batter right is an art. Too runny and your pancakes will be thin as Bible leaves; too thick and your flapjacks will be tough and doughy and will have approximately the same density as lead.

            We had a massive cast iron griddle that could accommodate six pancakes at a time. Gauging the proper griddle temperature is a marriage of magic and science. When a droplet of water (or spit; not that I would know anything about that) hisses and bounces across the griddle, it’s ready.

            As the pancakes piled up in quantities that were measured by the foot, I was also frying mounds of bacon. One spring, Dad took a skinny old sow to the butcher shop and she bestowed us with strips of bacon that were nearly a yard long and lean as shoe leather. Just as tough, too.

            The objective was for supper to be on the table by the time milking was finished. We could thus be done eating by the time Bonanza came on.

            Bonanza was a popular television series about a single dad who was struggling to raise a family under difficult conditions. And by “difficult” I mean “on a replica of the Old West frontier as envisioned by Hollywood set designers.”

            Bonanza detailed the travails of the red-blooded, all-American Cartwright clan. Its rugged, steely-eyed patriarch was portrayed by Lorne Greene, a Canadian actor who was of Russian descent. The Cartwrights employed a cook named Hop Sing, a Chinese gentleman who neither hopped nor sang.

            Our pancake supper would be narfed down swiftly and our family would gather around the TV. We didn’t want to miss a millisecond of our time with the Cartwrights!

            The cast of Bonanza were all guys, so there was a lot of manly action such as fistfights, gunslinging and posse chasing. Despite the distinct lack of feminine influences in the Cartwright household, none of the guys ever sat on the couch and clipped their toenails with a hedge trimmer or excavated navel lint with barbecue tongs. They were a pretty genteel bunch.

            A female love interest would occasionally pop up on the show, but the gals never stayed for long. Ben, the paterfamilias, had buried three wives; perhaps the ladies got wind of this and wisely decided that attempting to domesticate the Cartwright guys wasn’t worth the risk.

            After Bonanza was over, we might enjoy a dessert of root beer floats. This was an era before fat or cholesterol or even calories had been discovered.

            All that domestic training had molded me into a pretty impressive package by the time I met my wife. I think I sealed the deal, though, when I invited her out to my farm one evening and whipped up a romantic meal of pancakes and bacon. And root beer floats for dessert.

                       

 

A Valentine's Day Romance

            Valentine’s Day can be a tricky proposition for us guys much in the same way that playing with balloons can be a tricky proposition for porcupines.

            For some reason, it seems that society (mostly the female portion) expects us guys to be virtuosos of all things romantic. This despite overwhelming evidence that most of us have no such skills and that many, such as me, actually have a negative romance IQ.

            My unromantic instincts revealed themselves in seventh grade, when my buddies and I noticed a startling development regarding the girls: many of them were starting to develop!

            Up until then, we boys had regarded our female classmate as a species that warranted only mild curiosity. Girls generally spent recess gathered in small herds, talking, whispering, sharing secret girl stuff. They had zero interest in joining our marathon game of No Rules Kickball, which lasted all the way through elementary school.   

            But then the girls began to acquire curves. We boys found this new look fascinating, although we couldn’t say exactly why. Girls – the creatures whom we had ignored due to their total lack of kickball skills – were suddenly infinitely intriguing.

            Our social hierarchy was thrown into a cement mixer. We boys now had to consider the feelings of an entirely new segment of the population!

            It wasn’t long before a particular boy expressed a romantic interest in a particular girl. The girls got wind of this and dispatched an emissary to make inquiries. Was it true that the boy liked the girl? Did he simply “like” her or did he, in fact, “really like” her? Notes were sent back and forth. The girl couriers had the demeanor of a person who had been entrusted with super-secret high-level diplomatic correspondences. The fate of future generations was in their hands!  

            Soon it became known that the boy and the girl were “going steady,” which meant that the boy was allowed to walk beside the girl between classes. When he was also allowed to carry her books, it was declared that things were “getting serious.”

            The rest of us boys instantly began to want to “go steady.” We signaled our deep  feelings toward the girls by hanging around near them and punching each other in the shoulder.

            As Valentine’s Day drew near, the pressure to be “going steady” skyrocketed. Anyone who was single on the most romantic day of the year would be looked down upon as a lonesome loser.    

            One girl seemed especially going steady-worthy to me. She was tall and gangly and had mousy hair. In addition to these obvious charms, she possessed a quality that I found supremely attractive, namely, she was unattached.

            I cranked up my courage and sent a message through the proper channels. A female envoy carrying a piece of paper soon approached me. A note! My heart jackhammered in my chest.   

            But it wasn’t a note. The girl plenipotentiary instead popped the paper into a beak-shaped fortuneteller.

            “Ellen says that she isn’t sure what to do so she’s going to let the fortuneteller decide,” said the courier as she chewed her bubblegum meaningfully.

            I dutifully chose a color on the outside and a number on the inside.

            “It says ‘Not likely,’” said the go-between, her smile betraying secret knowledge.

            I was crushed. Not just because Ellen was my only shot at having an official Valentine’s “steady,” but also because I knew that this debacle would be discussed and dissected and whispered about for months.

            I later happened to see a familiar-looking wad of paper in the trash. It was the fortuneteller that had dashed my romantic hopes. Reading its contents, I learned that its answers ranged from “Fat chance!” to “I would rather kiss a moose!” and realized that I had actually been let down easy. I was grateful that Fate had been so kind.

            It’s been said that we learn more from our failures than our successes, but this doesn’t seem true for me. Many years later, when I first set eyes on the young woman who would become my wife, I telegraphed my interest in her by punching my buddy Steve in the shoulder. Good thing he was there or else I would have been forced to punch my own shoulder!

            My wife and I have now spent more than 30 Valentine’s Days together. Flowers and candy are fine for this occasion, but I prefer something handmade. Not only is this more romantic, it’s usually less expensive.

            This year, I think a paper fortuneteller might do the trick. And I have a pretty good idea of what type of messages it won’t contain.                                     

                     

An Americal Mall Experience

            My wife and I recently made a quick business trip to the Twin Cities.

            She totally hates to drive in any metropolis that’s larger than a dozen structures. This is because we live out in the boonies. For us, a traffic jam involves politely waving the other driver on at a stop sign. Even though it wasn’t rush hour when we arrived in the Cities, we felt overwhelmed. Every driver who was on the route that we were taking seemed to have highly questionable driving skills!

            We were billeted at a large hotel and given a room located on the top floor. Looking out our window lent us a commanding view of the hotel’s parking lot and the freeway and beyond that, a picket fence of skyscrapers. This is somewhat different than our house, where the tallest structure that greets the eye are the distant spires of the co-op elevator’s grain silos.

            At breakfast I was able to observe the American Businessman in his natural habitat. I noted that their preferred plumage seems to be suits and ties and lanyard name badges and briefcases.     

            I felt lost amidst this assemblage of Masters of the Universe, the impeccably coiffed and cologned men who grease the wheels of our nation’s economy. But then again, they would probably feel lost if they were to be plunked down amidst our corn fields.

            As I munched my French toast, I surreptitiously studied a pair of businessmen who were breakfasting nearby.

            They chatted as they noshed, although both of these processes were halted at random moments when they had to turn their attentions to their smart phones. One of the guys also had an open laptop on the table in front of him, distracting him even further. It was strange to witness all that non-communication happening in the midst of all that supposed communication.

            After our meetings were over, my wife and I opted to visit our oldest son, who lives and works in the Twin Cities. We chose to meet at an easy-to-find venue called the Mall Of America.

            Near as I can tell, it was named the Mall Of America because it covers a major percentage of America. Like a gigantic terrarium, the mall contains a self-sustaining ecosystem. At the center of this ecosystem is an amusement park, the main purpose of which seems to be extracting screams from its youthful riders. Perhaps this is necessary for maintaining the mall’s biosphere.              

            A person could live their entire life in the Mall Of America. I saw a bridal shop and a wedding chapel, several maternity stores and an infinite number of clothing, bedding, food and consumer electronic outlets. The only thing missing was a funeral home and a cemetery, but there were large portions of the mall that we left unexplored. 

            My wife and I strolled the endless hallways. Even though the mall is essentially a giant square, we couldn’t shake the feeling that we had become lost. The Mall Of America is so vast, by the time we passed a store we had seen before we had all but forgotten that we’d already been there. I was beginning to worry that the authorities might someday discover our skeletonized remains in a forgotten hallway labeled “Free Samples” when we finally saw something familiar.

            “Didn’t we pass that sign for the Sea Life Aquarium a while ago?” asked my wife.

            We had. There was still some time before we were to meet our son, so we opted to visit the aquarium.

            It was a bit startling to see a slew of tropical sea life in the middle of a mall in the middle of Minnesota in the middle of the winter. But we had by then become so inured to the artificial wonders of the colossal mall that nothing seemed improbable.

            We ambled down a long glass tunnel as sharks and rays glided gracefully overhead. I enjoyed it immensely. My wife, however, was too busy worrying about whether or not the glass tunnel would choose to implode just as we walked through.

            I suddenly espied a familiar face.

            “Whoa!” I exclaimed, “It’s Crush from ‘Finding Nemo’!” I tapped on the glass and said loudly, “Duude! What’s up?”

            Crush couldn’t be bothered to reply. Either that or it was another sea turtle.

            “I can’t take you anywhere!” said my wife. “Look! Now there are nose prints on the glass!”

            Thank goodness our son arrived just then to Sherpa us from the wilds of the Mall Of America! We motored back home just fine and are glad to again be driving on roads that aren’t being hogged by eejits.

           

Downton vs the Super Bowl

            Sunday afternoons at our house are spent waiting for Downton Abbey to air.

            It wasn’t always this way. There once was a time when Sunday afternoon meant anticipating such manly shows as The Simpsons and Family Guy and Futurama. But my wife likes Downton Abbey – and I mean really likes it, much in the same way that a dog really likes peanut butter – so we watch Downton Abbey.

            “Why should I care about those kajillionaires and their problems?” I asked my wife as the Masterpiece Theatre theme thrummed. “Folks who have servants whose sole purpose is to hang around and help them get suited up! A bunch of people who are waited on hand and foot and are kowtowed to wherever they go!”

            “And how does that differ from the group of guys who will be playing in the Super Bowl?”

            “Well, it’s, um... That’s entirely different! I can’t tell you how just this second, but it is!”

            My wife often opines that she was born in the wrong historical period. She loves the frilly, girly-girl clothing that was worn back in the Victorian era. We’re talking dresses that contain enough square footage of cloth to construct the sails of a clipper ship. And that’s just the outerwear!

            I pointed out to her that the sheer logistics of wearing such togs must have been a nightmare. “It would take two grown women and a small child just to take a bathroom break!” I said.

            “That’s why we go to the loo in pairs,” she replied. “It’s a girly-girl tradition.”

            I blame the English. They are the ones who began such frivolous practices as “high tea” (As opposed to what? “mid-level tea?”) and extending your pinky daintily when you eat a crumpet (whatever that is!) and surrounding your abode with large lawns that require constant care. Thank goodness America had some fortitude or else we would also be driving on the wrong side of the road!         

            But there’s little we can do about any of that now. The English invaded and left us with their system of inches and ounces and roods and firkins. And now, Downton Abbey.

            We have two televisions in our house, so it’s not like anyone is being forced to watch a particular program. But the second TV is much smaller than our main TV, which has a commanding presence in the living room. It’s like riding shotgun versus being consigned to the backseat.

            There are some major differences between watching a British period drama and watching the Super Bowl. The food situation is a huge for instance.

            Viewing the Super Bowl traditionally involves mass quantities of manly and artery-clogging snacks, including buckets of melted cheese and brats the size of fence posts and those cute little cocktail weenies. This is all washed down by an all-American beverage such as Budweiser, a beer that’s delivered by an all-American dream team of draft horses. This is why a beer is often referred to as a draft.

            Oops! Just a second. I did some Googling and learned that Budweiser is owned by a Belgian company and that the Clydesdale breed originated in Scotland. Oh, well. At least the TV you’re watching was likely manufactured in the good old U.S of A.!

            The correct behavior expected of Super Bowl viewers involves zero correctness. You’re free to whoop or yell “In your face!” or “Sacked him like a bushel of potatoes!” And should you find the action on the field sufficiently moving, you can whip off your shirt and whirl it above your head like a helicopter rotor. Even the ladies are free to do so; unlike those sissy British dramas, football doesn’t impose strict gender roles.

            Compare this to the behavior engendered by watching Downton Abbey. 

            “It’s half-seven. Shall I ring for Carson and inform him that we are ready to dine?” your wife might ask with an elegance that makes it clear she attended the finest finishing schools.

            “Fortnight,” you might reply since you don’t really know how to speak British. “Quid. Blimey. Whinge.”

            “Don’t be so cheeky! By the by, what do you think of the latest developments regarding Lady Mary and Lord Gillingham?”

            “Lurgy,” you reply.

            “I quite agree. How do you feel about Lord Aldrich’s invitation to holiday with them at their summer cottage in Poshampshire?”

            “Anti-clockwise! Petrol!”

            “Good! It’s settled, then. You look knackered. Perhaps supper will reinvigorate you. We’re having bubble and squeak, toad-in-the-hole and spotted dick.”

            “Spiffing! Bob’s your uncle!”

            I’m just glad that baseball season arrives soon. I need to counteract all this refinement with some all-American spitting and scratching.               

           

                       

An Elliptical Experience

            Among the exhibits at the Ag Heritage Museum is an ancient wooden treadmill. It was designed so that a sheep – or a goat, or some other small domestic animal such as a teenager – could walk upon the treadmill, thus spinning a shaft that would power such things as a clothes washer or a water pump or an iPhone charger.

            There were several advantages to this system. First was portability, but only if you define “portable” as “approximately same the size and weight as a Sherman tank.” Second was the fact that should your power source fail to provide enough power, you could simply sell it.

            The sheep or the goat, that is. Teenagers cannot be sold. You generally need to pay to have a teenager taken off your hands.

            I have recently begun to feel a measure of empathy for the sheep.

            Like many Americans, my wife and I have gotten the message that we need to “get in shape,” even though it isn’t entirely clear what shape that should be. And like many, my wife and I are gradually getting older. We have passed through the Collectable phase and are currently in our Classic years. Next up is Museum Piece.

            These and other factors prompted our recent purchase of an exercise machine. The thing is called an elliptical, although I can’t see anything ovoid about its construction.

            We considered joining a gym, but think it’s weird to go to a place where a bunch of strangers are straining and sweating and chuffing. We saw enough of that when we tried to do some last-minute Christmas shopping. Besides, I got my fill of locker room towel-snapping in junior high gym class.

            Plus we live out in the boondocks. In the wintertime, getting into town to do a workout might involve shoveling a path out to the car, scraping off the snow and ice, trying to start the car, searching for the jumper cables and so on. After all that, who has the energy for a workout?

            I personally favor a brisk walk on our township road as a means to get exercise. But this winter has brought some brutally cold weather, along with wind speeds that have bordered on supersonic. Bundling up to brave such weather requires more protective clothing than a space walk.   

            We quickly discovered that there are many choices regarding exercise gadgets. There is the “el cheapo” level of quality, which often involves contraptions that resemble a conglomeration of baling wire. On the other end of the spectrum is the “Cadillac” level, but some of those machines cost more than our actual car.

            There are also numerous bells and whistles from which to choose. Some exercise devices have an internet connection that will track your fitness level with a web-based app. No, thanks! Bad enough that we know how out of shape we are; the NSA doesn’t need to know too.

            So we have begun to work out on this elliptical thingamabob. The movements it requires are similar to that of pedaling a bike while standing, along with a slow punching motion. If you need somebody to pedal your bike uphill while delivering a slow-mo punch to someone’s face, I’m your guy.

            The scenery never changes during my workout. No matter how hard or fast I pedal, I’m still stuck in the bedroom. Thank goodness for the TV! Ironically, the TV is also a major reason for us needing exercise.

            The whole idea of working just to work strikes me as odd. When I was a kid, such a thing would have been deemed the height of folly. Back then, when we worked it was toward a purpose. At the end of the day, you had the satisfaction of knowing that grain had been shoveled from Point A to Point B or that your exertions in the calf pen had raised its ceiling by several inches.          

            Nothing comes of the effort expended on an exercise apparatus. All that energy is lost, evaporated into the ether. I might feel better about this if some of it could be used to power the TV or to help keep the earth’s magnetic field on an even keel.

            Perhaps someday exercise machines will all have flux capacitors. After a predetermined amount of pedaling – KAZAM! – you’ll be transported into the future and the future you will be svelte and muscular and won’t need to work out on any silly exercise gizmos.

            At least that’s what I’m hoping for. In the meantime, I’m thinking about buying a specially trained sheep to fill in whenever I can’t find time to ellipse.

 

             

           

                       

           

                       

           

           

The Colonoscpy

            The twin Pratt & Whitney turbo ramjet engines on the SR-71 Blackbird produce 34,000 pounds of thrust apiece, enabling the spy plane to blast through the sky at speeds in excess of Mach 3.

            This and other useless factoids tumbled through my brain as I languished in the loo at 2:30 a.m., conducting the “cleanse” that one must endure to prepare for a colonoscopy. It may have been sleep deprivation, but the bathroom ceiling sometimes seemed awfully close.

            If caught early, colon cancer can be over 90% curable, so everyone who has had more than 50 birthdays should be screened. For the past several years my doc has been strongly hinting that I should take this test, implying that it’s my duty to let them peek up my booty.

            Plus, my grandpa Nelson passed away from colon cancer. It did not look like fun.

            I finally yielded to my doc’s advice and called to make an appointment with a gastroenterologist. I was told that it would be more than a month before they could fit me in! One would think that there wouldn’t be any waiting list for such an unappealing event.               

            I was issued a prescription for the colonoscopy prep solution. This consisted of a gallon (37 liters) bottle which contained some white powder. You fill the bottle with water, shake it and – ta-da! – you have the runs in a jug.

            The prep mixture tastes approximately like warm snot. Drinking it is a form of torture and should be declared cruel and unusual, on par with waterboarding. I was given a lemon flavoring packet to help with the taste, but this was akin to using a toy squirt gun of flavor to fight off a flamethrower of ick.

            The first half gallon went down without a hitch. Nothing was happening and I was beginning to think (and hope!) that my prep mixture was a dud. Then came rumblings similar to those that preceded the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

            Things soon began to move quite rapidly. I learned several lessons during the course of that long night: 1. It’s never just gas; 2. Your best friend is super-soft toilet paper; 3. Two words: diaper cream.

            My intestinal discomfort wasn’t all that bad. Certainly it was no worse than the gut bug that tied to kill me some months ago. One of the hardest parts of the prep was the not eating. You have no idea how many advertisements there are for food until you’re told that you aren’t allowed to eat!

            The next morning my wife drove me to the medical facility. There, a nice nurse named Janae instructed me to disrobe and don a hospital gown. This was the first time that the rear opening feature made any sense.

            Janae started an IV drip in my arm. I chatted with her and hung out with my wife until another nurse arrived and announced that it was my turn.

            I was carted to the procedure room where it was explained to me what would happen next. My perception was that a two horsepower DeWalt air compressor would be used to inflate me to 85 PSI, after which a periscope salvaged from a WW II German U-boat would be used to “take a quick peek.”

            No, that’s not true. What happened next was...

            ATTENTION KIDS: Don’t do drugs! Drugs can wreck your life and can cause infinite amounts of misery! Just say no!

            ATTENTION PARENTS: Don’t let your kids read the next part!

            Drugs are wonderful! I have no idea what happened after they explained what would happen! I don’t know what they slipped into my IV, but it must have been the  same stuff they use when they perform prostate exams on grizzly bears. I woke up in the recovery room and my wife was at my side telling me that it was all over and I was being plied with orange juice and cookies. Thank goodness for modern pharmaceuticals!

            In the end (ha!) I was given a clean bill of health. No polyps, no weird-looking spots, no trace of Jimmy Hoffa.

            It appears that I have gotten away with a slew of dietary sins. The carnivorous habits, the predilection for all manner of charred meats, the fact that it’s been a long time since I’ve received Communion. All that worry about all those trespasses seem to have been for naught!

            It’s also great to have the peace of mind. And best of all, I won’t have to endure that ordeal again for some while. That is, unless SpaceX calls to say that they need an extra engine for their Falcon rocket.