Monthly Archives: January 2012

When My Captain was in 3rd grade, his big brother, Dallas, was swinging a bat and accidentally confused My Captain’s head with a baseball.  The bat tore an artery in his forehead that squirted all over the ceiling of his parent’s house.  His mother, lovingly known as Goggy,  aka “The Saint”,  calmly put a dishtowel over it, made a mental note to wash the ceiling, and took the wounded little imp to the hospital.

While the little guy was stuck at home healing, a friend of his dad’s had his son, Ty, keep him company.  Actually, the story goes that Ty was made to play with My Captain.  As in, he didn’t have a choice.

That was a bizillion years ago.  But to this day, they are long standing, loyal-to-the-core best friends.    In fact, Ty and his wife, Maggie, made us dinner on our Wedding Night.  (If you are ever looking for a fantastic Shrimp Scampi, get Maggie’s recipe…better yet, ask Maggie to cook it for you.  You might have to get married or something equally big, but its worth it.)

Now here is the “Awwww!” part of this story.

The boys grew up together, went to the same high school, and volunteered at the same fire station as teens. And now as men, both My Captain and Ty are Captains in the same Fire Department.  They are also both seasoned Paramedics.  Both Troy and Ty are very tall, quite handsome, scary smart, quietly heroic, and irritatingly in shape.  The ONLY difference is that Ty kept his hair, whereas Troy decided he didn’t need his.

Put these two together, and you get all kinds of stories of trouble.  You’d never know looking at them now that they were little hellions then.

A couple of years ago, a local pub decided to have a fundraiser on St. Patrick’s Day, with guest bartenders.  Somehow the manager finagled to get two of the handsomest Captains Montgomery County Fire and Rescue has to offer (I say that with absolute objectivity) to fill the slot.  Here is what the patrons got an eyeful of:

I don’t recall how much money they raised for the cause at the time, but I also don’t recall caring.  I was happy just to sit there and watch.

Is that wrong?

And just think, this amazing friendship, and all this do-gooding might not have happened if his brother had not accidentally bludgeoned him back in 3rd grade.

Life is so weird.

No, it’s not the Jersey Shore.  We have our own situation here in Dickerson, Maryland.  First it started with Troy.  Then my son, Garrick.  Then Gwendolyn.  Then my mom, Jane.  One by one they are being sucked in….assimilated….picked off.  And I see no way to save them.  No way to redeem them.  It’s so very sad.   We were such a happy little family (except during New Years, but we’ll let that little gem of a family trip to the Mountains of Western Maryland fade to a distant ugly memory).

And then it happened.  As insidiously as my doormat and my blanket fetishes took hold of me, my family has been shanghaied by….

Angry Birds.

And, near as I can tell, it is the STUPIDEST game of all time.  Stupider than Pacman, Pong, and Asteroid all put together.   Even the premise of it…. birds are angry at pigs for stealing and eating their eggs….is dopey.

And now, as soon as Garrick gets off the bus, he rushes through is homework so he can disengage from the family to play it.  Troy has been known to disappear with his phone (which has the app, of course) for over an hour.  My mom does it whenever we are in the car together.  Only Gwen has hope.  She finds it as inane as I do.  But she still plays it.

And now this laughable, senseless game is getting absorbed fully into pop culture.  I’ve seen the birds made into pillows and merchandised to the Nth degree.  REALLY?  Are we that hard up as a nation for enriching entertainment?  Holy. Stinkin. Moly.  I would put World Wide Wrestling higher on the list for possible entertainment for kids.

And how about this little gem of a thought:  My family would rather play this witless game than hang out with eachother! What does that say about me? About my ability to entertain?

I think I will invent a game called “Angry Mama”. It will be a husky, middle-aged soccer mom rampaging through the Angry birds and their retarded egg-eating pigs.  Possibly with a bazooka or some other over the top weapon.  It’ll have way cool sound effects, and lots of blood.

Now, who wants to program this baby for me?

My mother has been dating Mike Buchanan (the newscaster) for years now.  She’s happy.  I like that.  I also like that he makes her laugh.  I like that he makes my kids and Troy laugh.  I like that he brought the rubber chicken I gave him for Christmas last year, back to us this year, to continue the Holiday Rubber Chicken Tradition.

But one thing I don’t like.  One thing I cannot seem to get around.  One thing that has me cringeing even as I write this, is that they kiss.  (EWWwwwwwwWWWWWwwWWW)

My mother is kissing Mike Buchanan.  And he is kissing her back.  And my kids have seen this and I have seen this and I think we’re all scarred.  It has burned through my eyesockets and into my brain forever.

Mother’s DON’T kiss.  Or anything else remotely closely associated with physical displays of affection.  Unless it’s with their kids or grandkids.   Otherwise, its just not right.  Wrong, in fact, on so many levels.  Like, unbalance-the-universe kind of wrong.

Don’t ask me why that is the rule.  It just is.  Somethings are not meant to be questioned.

In fact, the only exception to this rule is Troy and me.  We’re allowed.

I had brunch at Alexander’s in Buckeyestown, Maryland today that was so good, I considered jumping up on the table and rolling in it.  (Sorry for that visual.  Couldn’t be helped.)

There was bacon in the Hollandaise sauce!  The sausage is smoked on the premises to perfection!  The biscuits were the right amount of soft and crumby and grandma-like!  Even the coffee stood out.  I’m telling you, this meal was fantastic.  I had to meet the creator of this palate pleasing gastronomic adventure.

He came out.  We laughed.  We cried.  I begged for recipes….

….shamelessly.

And Check this out!  Chef Smallwood uses beer when crafting his over-the-top pot roast!   Here’s a chef who appreciates Bacon and Beer, and uses them liberally in his southern-style cooking!  I tell you, if I wasn’t already hopelessly in love with My Captain, I would have been hurling myself unabashedly at this Chef like a teenie bopper to Justin Bieber. (Sorry for that visual.  That was really bad.)

Sure, Bacon and Beer don’t sound very sophisticated,  and maybe they’re not very healthy, but if loving them is wrong, I don’t wanna be right.

This guy has a good understanding of what makes a belly happy.  At least my prodigious belly, at any rate.  And come on, who are you going to trust for this kind of recommendation?  A skinny chick, or a fat chick?  HELLOOoooo!  Fat Chicks know food.  Go with me on this.

Alexander’s in Buckeystown.  You’ve gotta try them.  And no, this isn’t a paid advertisement!  http://www.alexandersatbuckeystown.com/

Go.  Try them today.  Right now.  You mustn’t live another minute without this experience.

Amen.

Last night we had some dear friends over for dinner.

They were delicious.  Ba Dum Bum.

I am not a wine connoisseur, and I’m not a beer connoisseur, but when it comes to cold, sweet drinks, I’ve TOTALLY got it covered.  I am a master of the way-over-the-top-foofie-chick drink.  My specialty is the chocolate martini, but THAT is for another post, altogether.

To serve with our roast I made “Sangria”. (Please use your fingers to make the quotation mark motion when saying it.  Try it again. “Sangria”.  Good.  Thank you.)

I called it Sangria.  But it was really just cheap wine with some frozen lemonade concentrate and a bunch of fruit thrown in.  I’m sure if I had taken the time to look up the recipe, I would have found that I should have added brandy or sugar syrup, or some other impressively gourmet ingredients, but I live in the real world, where real time is really short….

And sometimes lemonade concentrate is all you need.  Throw in a bunch of perilously old fruit found in the part of your fridgerator that used to have a drawer, and you’ve got yourself a popular Spanish liquid treat.  No worries, friends, the alcohol kills any bacteria.

Our guests last night have traveled to many distant places, lived there, eaten authentic ethnic foods, and know a good Sangria when they drink one.  And they all loved mine.  Oh don’t worry, I didn’t pass it off for anything better than what it was.  I’m not about posturing!     But it gave me two noteworthy theories:

1) That this probably was an authentic Sangria, because ten-to-one the drink was invented out of necessity.  I can envision some poor spaniard, with barely two Pesetas to rub together, looking forlornly at his cheap wine and nearly rotten fruit, …. and coming up with this delicious wine cooler among wine coolers.

and

2) Humble simplicity can be more endearing than elitist gourmet, or, as I like to call it, “Fancy Schmancy”.  If you need to impress someone with the beverages you are serving, you’ve got bigger problems than rotten fruit.

What can you take away from this? If you want a good litmus test to see who your true friends are, serve them some crappy Sangria.  If, at the end of the night, your pitcher is empty of all but orange rinds, you’ve got some keepers.

You can quote me on that.  If you are sure you want to quote me.