For the love of socks...

Today was a bright sunny winter day...and I found my socks. Yes, I found my socks. I got in late last night, I went out to a friend’s after x-mas dinner, and being as I was spent, worn out, tired and just plain exhausted, I kicked off my shoes and socks into the middle of the floor.

I have two cats, Tom and Jerry, whom where both sleeping, on top of each other, (I think my cats are gay or something.), and saw me sit down at the computer. Tom stretched and come to me. Jerry, on the other hand, never comes to me. He just laid there looked at me and went back to resting his eyes.

As Tom approached I threw my socks on his back. He continued to walk around my legs. He's no fun. I took the socks off his back and threw them on the floor. I would have picked up the next day anyway. After a while I went upstairs to bed, both cats following.

This morning, at 7 a.m., the alarm went off and on either side of me were the cats. I don't remember them getting into the bed. They usually tear up the house in the early morning and don't come and get in the bed with me, well, most times. It's been colder, lately, and they are looking for heat and the heat goes off at 11 pm., I guess I am the furnace, for now.

Anyway, as I made my way downstairs, opened all of the blinds, fed them, made my tea and a bowl of cereal, I headed to my computer. Lo and behold, my socks were gone, which is weird, considering the shoes were still there. I never paid attention, but one of my socks was sitting, askew, on the stairs. But, I couldn't for the love of me, find my other sock.

A couple of hours later, still no sock. For some odd reason I went into the kitchen to throw something into the trash bin and I looked over to the dining room table. Wrapped around the dining room table leg was my other sock. Mystery solved. I now keep watch over my socks!

Sometimes my cats are way too cute. They do some of the cutest things or they fight like two crazed...cats. All for fun, I hope, considering I read that they'll do that a lot. I don't know where Jerry was, well, I kind of know, usually eating his and Tom's food. He's a fat, 18 pound cat and Tom is a skinny, 12 pound cat.

Anyway, Tom walks into the TV room and sits in the sunshine beam shinning on the floor, still looking for some heat. Tom is also very, very vocal. I remember my sister told me, when I went on vacation for a month and she was housesitting my house, that Tom talked to her so much that she was about to go mad and kill my cat. Jerry, on the other hand can say, yes or no, or at least that's what I think he's saying.

As Tom was crouched on the floor I asked him a question...Yeah, I know he doesn't speak English, and I don't speak kittenese, I just said, “how you doing?” He turned his head, looking at me and without blinking an eye; cats usually never blink their eyes, well unless you are having a starting contest with em, and threw-up.

Yup, he threw-up on the carpet. It wasn't a hair ball; it was all of his breakfast. I went and got some paper towel and cleaned up his mess. He stayed in his sunbeam for a few minutes and headed back into the kitchen; put his face back into his bowl and consumed more of his seafood platter, canned of course.

I figured that this is the first time, in a while; one or both of the cats have thrown up. Usually they do more of that in the summer months. Gosh, now that I think about it, I found a large slug of fur downstairs in the basement, one of them put it there. That was one big hair ball! Anyway, I can count the throw ups on both of my hands, in the last couple of years.

I just hate when they are lying in my bedroom window and throw-up. Now, that’s a cleanup job, windows. Many times they just eat what they throw up. I guess, to them, it’s still food. Oh well...

How to make breakfast for your kids when your wife leaves you, on the weekends.

I was speaking with my son the other day and he told me that that he was coming by and he was hungry. No big deal when you first think about it, because he is always hungry. But what caught my attention was the fact that he wanted pancakes. I don’t mind making pancakes, but it was late in the afternoon and I had no mix left, that day.

Now, this isn’t the first time he has mentioned this to me, but now I am hearing that he tells everyone about how great my pancakes are. That got me thinking about when I started my son’s on the pancake intake, many years ago. I wrote a story about it, sent it to a magazine, it was too long so the so they rejected it.

It took me awhile to find it and find it I finally did. I thought I would reintroduce my story on how I got my kids to eat pancakes, entitled; How to make breakfast for your kids, on the weekends.

After I got divorced I had my two sons’ every other weekend and every summer. That leaves me to tend to my boys, Darien, 8 and Kristopher, 4. That also means I have to bathe, dress, feed and find some way to entertain them.

On the weekends I tended to sleep late or lock myself in my room and write or work in the backyard. My boys would let me do neither, peacefully or quietly.

At the time I still didn’t know a lot about raising kids, only because the never taught it in school. Babies are okay, I know how to feed them, change their diapers, and burp them. Older kids are something else. They have a mind of their own and that’s the scary part.

Anyway, here is an example of one of those weekends.

For some reason I stayed up until four a.m. to watch a great movie. At 8:38 a.m., I know this because I always look at the clock when I hear the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs.

A body was either flung or it jumped into the bed, onto my body with enough force to expel the air from my lungs. With a couple of swipes of a tiny hand across my ear I woke up long enough to get a bead on the tiny perpetrator.

He looked me in the eye and said, “I’m hungry! I want some pancakes!” A couple of years ago I started making the kids pancakes, yes, that’s right, I can cook, a little, even if what I cook is only instant. Anyway, after ten minutes of hopping on my back, racking my ears, and prying my eyes open I got up, put on my robe and went downstairs into the kitchen.

Kris jumped into his place at the kitchen table. I turned on the television so that his attention would be diverted from me. Thirty seconds after the TV came on, his brother, Darien, entered the room. Television is his life force.

He looked at me and said, “I want some pancakes!” I had created a monster. I directed him back to his room to put his cloths on, considering he only had his underwear on.

While the boys were busy I dug through the cabinets to get the mix. After a few minutes I thought, “The heck with this…,” and pulled out the old standby, oatmeal, instant of course. Out of the blue Kris says, “I want some cereal.”

There wasn’t any of his favorite available, at the time; I usually do all my grocery shopping on Sunday. So, I made his some of my favorite, Shredded Wheat ‘n’ Brand and made some oatmeal for myself.

“Daddy, I don’t want this.” Kris said.

“What do you mean, Kris?” I countered.

“I want oatmeal.” He said.

I took the shredded wheat; thank goodness I didn’t put any sugar on it, and gave him the oatmeal. After one spoonful he said, and I quote, “Daddy, Pick out the bugs!” It had raisins and walnuts in it.

By that time Darien re-entered the room, “I only want peaches and cream.” He said. So, I made him a bowl and made a little more for Kris, after picking out the raisins and walnuts.

I fixed the rest of the breakfast, juice and toast, and then went downstairs to the family room to close my eyes. No such luck, Kris finished, what he was going to finish, and joined me. He jumped on me and started to rack my ears again. So, I put a movie in the VCR, the one I watched, I mean, slept through, again.

It was about that time I had finally figured out what I was doing and thought I’d share it with all you first time fathers, and those of you who have been around while and don’t know what to do on Saturday mornings.

It’s quite possible I can give you a little insight, that is, for all of you who have not taken the time to learn how to make breakfast. Now, you have to make sure you follow these instructions in order. And if you miss one step go back over the list again until you get it right. I guarantee you’ll be happy and your boys, okay, girls too, will be happy.

Step 1: First, don’t stay up late Friday night if you know the kids will there for that weekend.

Step 2: Set up everything in the kitchen the day, or night before they get there, on Saturday. Like eggs? Take a guess as to how many you think you will need. Milk, for the pancakes, water, if using instant, butter, jelly, syrup, etc.

Step 3: Make sure you have enough cereal and oatmeal, with and without raisins to satisfy your youngsters. Oh, and pancake mix too, that is, if you feel like making it, if you didn’t stay up late on Friday night.

Step 4: Get up early enough to bathe yourself or, (Optional) the kids, then help them dress, the older kids can do this themselves.

Step 5: If you followed step two you should have at least three eggs lined up, depending on how many kids you are serving, sitting in front of you. Now, separate the eggs…not from the two other eggs, and place them in a bowl. Add a little milk; this gives the eggs a light yellow color, like in the restaurant. Beat the mixture until it’s well blended.

Step 6: A small pan should already be on the stove, keep step two in mind. Put a pat of butter into the pan, for those of you who are a little health conscious, use Pam, then turn the burner to number five, medium if you are using gas.

Step 7: Put a large skillet on the stove, step two guys! – on the right burner, if left handed, the left burner. Repeat step six.

Step 8: Take the pancake mix out of the refrigerator, are you paying attention? Step two should be firmly planted in your minds by now, stir it, just a little so it will be ready to pour.

Step 9: Okay, now pour the eggs into the small pan; the pan should now be hot and ready.

Step 10: pour the pancake mix into the skillet, but make them no bigger than four inches, silver dollars sized if you feel lucky. This is so you can get more in the pan at one time. For those of you who feel a little macho this morning, you can make them at least as big as the pan. But, it’s easier to flip them when they are small and the kids will like that size too.

Step 11: Your eggs should now be solid on the bottom. Now, lift the pan, then lift one edge of the eggs with a spoon and let the gooey part run underneath. Repeat the same thing on the other side of the egg. Where there is no more egg goo to run underneath, scramble them suckers.

Step 12: By now your pancake should be done on one side. With your spatula at the ready, slide it under the pancake and flip it over onto its undone side. Again, you macho dads won’t need a spatula, just take the whole pan and flip the cake into the air, then catch it in the pan.

Step 13: Everything should be ready by now. The finished pancakes should be on a plate. Butter each of the pancakes, add syrup…but only if they ask…this is because they might want grape jelly on it or nothing at all, like my son Kris likes em. Now add a little pepper to the eggs and serve then whole shebang hot.

Now, if your kids say they don’t want that great breakfast you just made, serve them the cold cereal and eat all the eggs and pancakes yourself.

If by chance you happen to forget steps one and two, the local pancake house is open for your convenience. Remember you’ll be happier and the little ones will love you even more if you do the above in order, that is, if you can out guess them little buggers.

Good old veggie burgers

Today I just finished eating my lunch. I had an egg salad sandwich and a bowl of vegetable soup. That, for some odd reason got me to thinking about, 30 years ago, when I became a vegetarian. Yes, it will be 32 years, this coming January, when I stopped eating meat... cow, fish, chicken, horse, etc., etc.

That only lasted 10 years, though. Now, I eat chicken and fish, but I can really enjoy a meal of nothing but vegetables. Like last night, I had rice with peas, corn and carrots, and it was great. I looked in the freezer and all I have a super-sized bag of chicken breasts. I will get around to them one of these days.

I guess I may or may not go back to being a total vegetarian, one of these days. I really felt better, looked better, but I guess I was a lot younger then, also. No, I don't miss eating Big Mac's and such or hot dogs. But, I do remember, way back when, that I had dreams of eating meats and burgers. And I really loved hot dogs!

Now I eat veggie dogs or turkey dogs when I find em. I do have a pack in the fridge now. I didn't give up eating meat to “save the whales” or cows, or anything like that. I say do what you want to do but don't push your dogma on me. There were two reasons why I gave up eating meat, either one is legit, sort of.

The first reason, is kind of iffy, of sorts. I knew my younger brother was on some kind of kick like that. Into meditation, and stuff like that. And I kind of sort of followed him to that door. In other words I was headed in that direction, a vegetarian. Just a little later I met this guy at the gym and we kind of hit it off, as friends.

He told me, one day, that I had a very good aura. A little later he told me that he was in to all kinds of meditations and wanted to teach me those ways. One of them included going meatless. I remember going to a friend’s house, right after Christmas, to watch the football game. That night I we went to McDonald and I ordered two big Mac's, a large box of fries, two cherry pies, and a large strawberry milkshake.

January 1^st, 1979, I started fasting. I had read a lot about it and instead of only going a few day, or a week or for that matter, two week, I fasted for 30 days. I really felt great after that. And I stayed in the gym. Around March I was weighting in at about 155 pounds. And I was bench pressing about 300 pounds! Then, I really got into me. In fact there were calling me “cookie monster”, because I would always go to the health food store, across the street from the gym and get those big organic cookies.

Now, the second reason, which happened several months before I became a vegetarian happened at an old high school friends, aunt's house. I was invited to a card game. They were playing pinochle, which I didn't know, at the time, how to play so I just watched. As I watched I was offered something to eat.

Whatever it was it was great. It was a red meat, with sweet potatoes, greens and cornbread. I didn't think much about the meat, because it was very tasty, I guess cooked with the sweet potatoes. I only noticed the dark red color.

I finished the plate and was asked if I wanted some more. My friend’s aunt said that if I wanted more I would have to go and get it for myself. I went into the kitchen and lifted the lid off of a very large pot, the kind you put a turkey in for thanksgiving.

What startled me, well...inside the pot was a body! I thought it was a baby, at first. But, it had little clawed hands, balled up and both its hands and feet where sticking up, like you see those dead animals in cartoons. Only this animal had no head and its ribs were showing and, and...

My friend's aunt asked me what the problem was, because I was standing so long with the pots lid in my hand. I just asked, “What is that?!” She said it was Possum. I just nodded and put the lid back on the pot and I remember saying my goodbyes and going home.

I guess that is what leads up to my deciding to go for all veggies, at the time. Now that I think about it, it probably was shorter than 10 years, because I got married in 1980 and I know that well after, I would have to say, about 1985 or so, I started eating chicken and fish. That was because my, wife, back then, loved to cook and I guess she got tired of cooking veggies for only me.

I know my mother, during special occasions, and or Thanksgiving or when I came over for dinner, would make a veggie only meal for me. She probably was the only one who respected me being a vegetarian.

Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking with it. I may or may not give up eating chicken or fish. A lot of times I don't have the taste for it and may just eat a PB&J sandwich, with beer and be satisfied. Oh well...

EGGNOG

Today is a cold and cloudy day, and the first day of winter. I was going to write about a wonderful day, but it’s been a bad day for me. No, not the fire and brimstone type of day just for me a day I hope doesn’t happen to come again.

In retrospect, all my days are good, as in everyday is Saturday, except Sunday. But, last night I went to the store to purchase some Eggnog so I could drink my Captain Morgan spicy rum. Of course I wandered the store and picked more that I went into the store to get.

As I got to the spot where the milk was I spotted my favorite eggnog, but as I opened the door I also noted that there was a sale of eggnog, the store brand, in a half a gallon size. The more the merrier and it only cost $1.99, the real stuff cost about $4 to $5! I thought I was saving a few bucks.

Anyway, I kind of got busy last night, working on my blog page and I had sold a book on Half.com, which was kind of cool and surprising to me. Because, I had only set the page up the day before, someone wanted that book. Then I got online with my daughter-in-law (future) and we chatted online for about an hour. After that I went and watched an old western, one of my favorites, Silverado.

By the time I was going to bed I had forgotten to make my rum and spicy eggnog drink, so I decided to drink a glass of the eggnog by itself. I opened up the plastic eggnog jug and poured in almost eight ounces of the creamy, sweet milk. Much to my surprise, it was awful, Terrible and nasty!

And to top it off, I don’t know, I have no sane reason why I finished off that glass of crap. I guess something to do when I was a kid and my mother drilled it into my, and my siblings, don’t waste food. I remember the, kids in China are starving speech, and starving kids in Africa speech. So, I am one of those people, now, who hates to waste food.

In fact I remember when I was married, my ex-wife loved to cook, and she cooked for a party of ten, sometimes, and there was only me, her and my two sons. So, what happens, I would clean my children’s plates when they wouldn’t eat theirs. And of course the left-overs, too. Now that I think about it, in the 10 years we were together, I went from 155 (at 6’) to 280! After the divorce I spent about four hours a day, for two years in the gym.

In any case, I got into bed, watched the local news, played with the cat, who wouldn’t leave me along…(he’s now sitting on my lap as I type this, they just won’t leave me alone, but that is another story, coming soon.). Around midnight, the lights went out and I think I might have drifted off, but I know I didn’t.

My heart was pounding and I was sweating, and there was a buzzing in my ears and to top it off my stomach was talking to me. I couldn’t quite make out what it was saying, but it sounded familiar, I know I had heard it before, but it had been a while.

Now, you might be asking yourself, why the heck did he drink the eggnog when that drink is very rich, thick and way too sweet? Well, I’ll tell you, it because it is great with Captain Morgan spicy rum, that’s why. And I have been drinking eggnog with rum since around Thanksgiving. I have just started on my second bottle, I am not a big drinker, it took me a month to finish that first bottle and it had been in the shelf for at least a year or more.

So, those 4 or so quarts of eggnog didn’t bother me, of course it was mixed with rum, at the time. Now that I think about it I remember having a glass or two of eggnog without rum and nothing happened to me. Sometimes I am lactose intolerant and sometimes I not. I wasn’t as a kid or for that matter growing up. I might go for years, no problem. Hit McDonalds one day, because they have the best milkshakes, and BANG, lactose is kicking my butt, literally.

Speaking of kicking my butt, that’s what happened last night. I remember tossing and turning most of the night. I guess in my mind I wanted to see the eclipse that just happened to be going on last night. Around 3:34am I woke up, my stomach asked me an important question and I had to answer.

So, I ran to the bathroom and sat there for a good 20 minutes. Of course my cat, Tom, decided to follow me, I was sure he was sound asleep. It's funny, because he doesn’t like to step on cold tile, which my bathroom is, except the little square rug in front of the toilet. So he leaped over the tile and onto the carpet and just sat there on the lookout for Jerry, who was asleep somewhere else in the house.

I woke up at seven a.m. to a hungry cat. He likes to walk all over me and lately he has been punching me in my mouth when I first wake up. I think he is trying to tell me to feed him. Anyway, my stomach was still talking to me, so I just had tea and toast for breakfast, today. When I finished my daily exercise and meditation the bubbling and pain stopped. All is well for now.

I took the rest of the eggnog and the unopened eggnog back to the store for a refund. I left with two expensive jugs of eggnog, lesson learned.