Sub zero dreams

"It's a little chilly out there", is a much-heard phrase in the winter. Minnesotans have a way of not admitting its really cold. But when it slips to double-digits below zero, we finally throw in the towel and confess that just like the rest of the country, we're cold. It may have taken us longer to get there, but we are shivering. School is closed today, and we are secretly a bit ashamed.

I stand in my living room and look out the window. My smoker has snow piled around it from earlier days spent shoveling snow on the patio. I have since given up on keeping it clear. My trusty Weber grille has a nice round mound of snow on the cover. A container of lighter fluid is nestled in the snow nearby, a silent sentry in the barbecue army.

Looking toward the woods there is not a single sign of life. No birds. No squirrels. No red tailed fox hunting mice under the snow. As I drink a cup of coffee I am the only thing moving as far as I can see. 

My deck gives a loud pop, as it does when we get below zero. Like I need a reminder of how cold it is out there. Looking across the lake it is hard to imagine that in a few months there will be boats and water skis and canoes. First will come a hardy canoe or two. Soon after the docks will begin to appear, mysterious fingers coming up from the soil and stretching out into the water.

But for now, on days of minus this or minus that, we simply look out the window, taking a little solace from the fact that the sun is now out at 5pm and that wondrous rotation of the earth is turning toward summer. Mr. Winter is at his strongest this week. But he is getting old. Soon he'll glance to the north and take a tiny step in retreat.

A Weber Grille makes a fine smoker, in a pinch

There are times when i'm away from home and wish I had my clunky old smoker with me. That's not possible but there are great ways to improvise when the real equipment isn't available. A Weber grille makes a great smoker for when your needs are small, the weather is great, and you just want an afternoon to show off your improvisational skills.

There's no real magic to this. You just put a dozen coals in one corner of the grille and light em up. Add the meat on the far side of the grille. Feed a few coals from time to time and keep the wet woodchips piled on. Turn the top vent so that it's about halfway open and on the opposite side of the coals and woodchips. That forces the smoke to travel over the meat and out the top.  Keep an eye on the temp for that magical 225 number.

We did this over two weekends at my brother's house in Charlotte. Last weekend it was a small pork shoulder and a chicken. This weekend it was two chickens and a pack of bacon. All of it came out great and my brother now thinks I'm the McGuyver of barbecue.

The bacon was a last minute thing. We bought a pack of the cheapest bacon and tossed it on for a few hours. After about three hours we started sampling and had eaten most of it by the six hour point. The chickens were smoked for about six hours. At the five hour point I stood them up on their legs to drain all the juices that had accumulated in the cavity. The little pack of tin foil that you see has the liver, gizzard, etc. They weren't that great and I wouldn't mess with them next time.

Two brothers, a makeshift smoker, perfect fall weather, cigars handcrafted by Onyx and Hoyo DeMonterey, an always-brewing pot of fresh coffee, and Cardinals baseball in the background. Top that off with a growing list of answered prayers and its hard to imagine a better weekend.

Aunts and Uncles

A few weeks ago I was asked to share a memory of my Aunt Joyce for her birthday. Below is what I wrote....

The best thing about aunts and uncles is they usually treat you like a grownup long before your parents do. They blaze the trail and send signals to the rest of the family that the kid is growing up.

In 1976 or so, when i was 19, i spent a few days with my Aunt Joyce and her family. She took me to an Amway event and other cool things, showing me a little about what her grownup life was like. I got so caught up in the excitement that i whipped out my pack of salems and had coffee and cigarettes with the Amway folk, just like i was a big kid.

Later that night she and i stayed up til around 1, talking Amway and politics and family history and college adventures, and all sorts of other things. AND! We smokedcigarettes together!!! "your mom would kill me if she knew i was letting you smoke in my house", she said. And so for a few hours it was just me and my aunt, drinkin coffee, smokin, talkin, laughin.

Whenever i think of that day it makes me want to take up cigarettes again. But obviously it is my aunt that i miss, not the habit.

Over the years i have had many wonderful times with my Aunt Joyce, but none so great as the day she walked me down the road to perdition with a cup of coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

Aroma

I was walking through the Minneapolis skyway the other day on my way to work and passed a Subway restaurant that had just pulled out a tray of fresh baked bread. Immediately the smell reminded me of the lunchroom at Myrtle Grove Elementary School in Florida, where the lunch ladies made fresh rolls for the kids every day. Funny how certain smells, good or bad ones, can take you back to another place. Got me to thinking about other great smells,
2. Babies
3. Newly cut grass
4. Sun tan lotion on skin at the beach
5. Cigarettes and coffee, early in the morning
6. Gasoline
7. Old Spice after shave
8. Tomato plants in the South in July
9. A baseball glove

Roan Mountain Shopping list 2012

This is the shopping list for the annual family trek to Roan Mountain, Tennessee. It's not all the groceries, just what my family needs to navigate through the meals supplied by others. While most years I buy from the local "American Owned" Ingles grocery in Newland, NC, this year I went to Walmart in Columbia, SC. Why I had those two to choose from is for another posting.

Bacon

Bananas

Bath Soap

BB Cards

Biscuits

Bread

Buns

Cereal

Charcoal

Cheese - Wisconsin

Cigars

Coffee

Condiments

Corn Chips

Crackers

Crystal Light

Dr Enuf and other sodas

Eggs

Esquire, etc.

Flour

Foil

Fruit

Hamburger for 8

Lighter Fluid Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies

Lunch Meat

Margarine

Matches

Milk

Mt Olive Bread and Butter Pickles

Onion

Paper Plates

Paper Towels

Peanuts in Shell

Pinto Beans

Pork Roast

Potatoes?

Potted Meat

Pringles

Salsa

Salt and Pepper

Sausage

Sugar, SweetLo, etc

Tabasco

Tomatoes

Vienna Sausage

Wasp Spray

Wood Chips

The things scratched out will remain on the list for next year, we didnt need them this time, but you never know when we might. As usual we had too many condiments, too much charcoal, not enough margarine, just enough cigars. In addition to buying this stuff, there were numerous trips to Jacks grocery for more ice, more tomatoes, more onions. The mysteries surrounding the closing of the Davis Girls Peach shed in Roan Mountain and the unusually hard peaches at the Hump Mountain Produce Stand will remain unsolved until another year.

It was another weekend well spent. Included a nice drive with Mom from Columbia, SC to the mountain. A trip to my grandparents gravesite. A minor league game between the Elizabethton Twins and the Burlington Royals. Rain delayed the game but we got to walk around the park and get some souvenirs. A drive with cousins Becky and Barbara to Fred's General Store in Beech Mountain. Lunch at Bob's Dairyland for bbq sandwiches. The best steak dinner of the year. Hiking around Carver's Gap and the torturous jog up to the Miller homestead. Sunday morning sermon at the campground, a bit rambling but heart-felt and full of truth. Kevin's story of Inez and Aunt Bill at Harry's wake, which seems to get funnier and weirder each time I hear it. Numerous games of dominoes. NT's passion for Moose Tracks ice cream. And no gathering is complete without a few heated family arguments about things important and things trivial. A good time.

Cousins

Cousins are interesting relations. When you're growing up they are a measuring stick for how your life is faring versus that of others in your extended family. Your parents and their parents were siblings so you sense that the parenting should be the same. Would be nice if you could pick what you like best from the attributes of each. You would think that at a minimum the rules would be similar, as in, "mom, why do we have to go to church today? Aunt Trudy lets her kids skip..."

You feel that you should also in some way be on equal ground with them when it comes to the material things of this world. "Dad, can we get a motorcycle like Uncle Ted?" Somewhere along the way the comparing ends as lives just get too complicated and too different. Deaths, births, college, work, illnesses, family crises affect us all in different ways.

If you're blessed, as my family is, you finally get to the place where you simply enjoy that shared experience of having a same set of grandparents. It is something special to to share, and I do so with thirteen other people. One of these is my cousin Barbara.

Barbara and her daughter, my cousin Becky, came to visit us last week. Barbara was, to her family, what my daughter Rachel was to ours, the first grandchild. Supposedly the chosen one, as they might both think. The one lavished with attention for something they had nothing to do with, landing on earth ahead of the hoard to follow. 

When we were growing up the age difference between us seemed massive, so I have few childhood memories of Barbara. She was the grownup cousin who was so old she hung out with my aunts, and at places only teenagers could understand, with mysterious names like "The Blue Circle". She was in the background as I did things with younger cousins. Now the difference is not so big, as I am catching up on her in age. And it is good that after all these years we have that family bond and a long list of similar experiences to draw us together. She and Becky serve as the best reminder to all of us, that after the parenting is over with, parents and children can be very good friends. They enjoy being together and it shows.

Becky and I have the unique shared experience of once having ordered blistering hot coffee in an outdoor restaurant overlooking DC in the middle of the hottest night of summer. It was an atmosphere so sweltering it could have been the waiting room of hell in some old movie. It was about the stupidest thing to order but it seemed like the thing to do. Because that's what our family does when family gets together. We drink coffee and then we drink some more coffee. This may not seem unique but we really had no control over the situation. It was something our people do.

The funny thing about cousins is that you know tons about each other as it relates to family travails and experiences, but often know little about their real lives. And that's why at this stage in life it is so good to spend time with them. To compare notes on experiences shared and unshared.

I am glad they are both my cousins and I am especially glad that in the year 2012 I enjoy their company more than at any time in the past.

Big Road Trip

We took Caroline to college this week. While it was hard to say goodbye it was also wonderful to watch her say hello to her new world, Baylor University. It took us two days to get down there, but after a taste of the 108+ heat, only one day to get back. Here's how our drive of 1060 miles went. The one day drive back included 15:02 hours of driving time and 54 minutes of stops. Multiple cups of coffee.  Not bad.






Monday August 15th                 Wednesday and Thursday - Orientation and move-in
7am left the house                        Friday August 19
8 Faribault, MN                           5am Waco
9 Clear Lake, Ia                           6  Burleson, TX
10 Story City, Ia                          7  Sanger, TX
11 Des Moines                            8  Ardmore, OK
12pm Leon, Ia                             9  Norman, OK
1 Pleasant Ridge, MO                  10 Orlando, OK
2 Liberty, MO                             11 Wellington, KS
3 Ottawa, KS                              12pm El Dorado, KS
4 Emporia, KS                              1 Neosho Rapids, KS
5 Wichita, KS                               2 Overland Park, KS
6 Blackwell, OK                           3 Cameron, MO
7 Guthrie, OK                              4 Lamoni, IA
8 Oklahoma City                          5 Jewell, IA
Tuesday August 16                     6 Clear Lake, IA
930 am - Left OKCity                  7 Owatonna, MN
11 Davis, Ok                               8:55 pm home.
12pm Gainesville, Tx
1 Fort Worth
230 Waco

Still the world's worst coffee

Captain Jacks snack bar, Helena Montana airport. I have mentioned them a couple of times on this blog. I've had the coffee at least three times on a 6am flight back to the Twin Cities. It is always bad and tastes like it was made days before. I guess not even Big Sky country is perfect.

One year later, still the world's worst coffee

Captain Jack's snack bar. Helena, Montana Airport. A weak brown beverage that smells like coffee but always tastes like it is simply last night's leftover with water added. Great service. $2.50 for a large.

On the plus side, saw antelope and a bald eagle while driving around outside the city.

There are days that start out perfectly

New Orleans Louisiana, 19 February 2009, 730 am, walking down Royal Street toward Cafe DuMonde. "Bad Moon Rising" is blaring from the stereo of one of countless bars. So weird to hear that song at breakfast time it has to make one smile. In a couple of hours i'll be a money manager discussing strategy with a client in a boardroom across town. For now i'm just another guy in jeans looking for a good cup of coffee in the french quarter.

It's a bit chilly at the cafe and the only tables are inside. I've had coffee here a half dozen times but always outside, never inside. A painting on the wall has the caption ..." It seemed like an ordinary day until I had coffee with Jesus at Cafe Du Monde.

Helena, Montana - Tim's Exxon, bad coffee, mountain biking

If my Cafe Du Monde trip is among my best coffee experiences, the cup I had at Gate 2 at the Helena, Montana airport has to be the opposite. Cold, expensive, smelly, old. Otherwise a great trip. My Dad once said there's no such thing as a bad cup of coffee. He was wrong.

One of the most memorable things about this trip was my stop at Tim's Exxon at 1721 Cedar St.

Filled my tank there yesterday morning, using a credit card to pay at the pump. I did not go inside, just a quck stop to fill the rental car on my way to the airport. But that did not stop the attendant from stepping outside as I was getting into my car and saying "Thanks for coming by sir, have a good day!"

That may not seem like a big deal but it was so surprising. I don't think I've ever had that happen before at a gas station, certainly never when paying at the pump. Great way to start the day. If I lived in Helena I would never buy gas anywhere else. Looked the station up on Yahoo yellow pages and found out I was not the first person to experience the great service from these folks.

Prior day, September 11th, was my first attempt at mountain biking, also in Helena with Dave Roberts. Took a bike path uphill for about a half hour. I run every day but the steepness, the elevation and the use of muscles long dormant made me feel like the most out of shape lardass on the planet. Once at the top of the trail it was a great trail gradually downward. Expect that I pushed the bike about two thirds of the uphill portion, just could not get the coordination/rhythym/strength and balance right. Would definitely give it a try again.