Winter Smack Down

I have written several notes in the past few years about my neighbors and their decorating habits titled  “Bambi’s Pulling  Overtime”, “Heavy Decorating” and “Au Natural”, just to mention a few. I haven’t posted any of them here yet but here is one I think you can enjoy without much backstory.  There have up to now only been two real contestants in the “decorator challenge on a dime” in our neighpoorhood…until now. There is a new kid in town to take on the power-grid duo that have dominated for so long. There is the original neighbor, “The King of Lawn Art”…”The Picasso of Polyvinyl Inflatables”, who has mastered the art of blending Santa, Rudolph, Joseph, farm animals, a penguin and some camels into one big multicultural seasonal celebration…like a patchwork quilt from a memory soaked fabric of days gone by.  For the reader’s sake, I will call him “Blanket”.

Blanket is the one that last year had a big yard sale…literally…he sold the things from out of his yard that were already set up for Christmas to the guy  that lives diagonally across the street from him. I’ll call him “Diagonal Guy”…or DG for sort.  Well before Blanket or DG could even get set up this year, a new-comer jumped out into the lead of the neighborhood decorating pack. It is the drug dealer that is a few doors down (I’ll call him “Baggie”…’cause that’s what he sells).

Baggie came out first and strong with a huge selection of extra large inflatable creatures. They fill the middle of the front yard but stay out of reach of each side yard because of the fear of them falling into the clutches of the rope restrained thing that I am pretty sure is a cross between a Pit bull and some type of wild horse. I call it a “Pitstange”-it’s a monster of a dog/horse.  Anyvick, the inflatables are taller than I am and they blink…I don’t mean their eyes; I mean they have blinking lights inside.  There is also a massive penguin that stands off to the side but has no lights in it.  At night you can see the bright on again off again ensemble glow and cast a quick glimpse of a dark creature standing nearby. Since most of the penguin is black except for the stomach, and it has no lights, it kind of looks like a ghost…with its eyes closed. Baggie also wrapped his columns on the front porch in lights that blink in perfect non-unison.    It is all big, bold and eye catching (and could induce a seizure on you too if look at it for too long) and was up and running for three days before Blanket or DG got to set up.

Sunday was the big day. Blanket obviously couldn’t take it any longer or this past Sunday was just the red letter day for setting up his “Winter Wonderlawn”. With only one day’s all out effort, there is no argument that Blanket has now pulled ahead into a strong lead. He not only has already put up bigger and better inflatable creatures that are well above six to nine feet tall, but they all have lights in them…constant, bright, satellite identifiable lights. There are also the smaller, well lit creatures to help with dimension, scale and 3-D-ness. There is a new Santa and reindeer (lit) and the year round deer (former Santa reindeer that branched out) that look like real live plastic deer and are  still in their places from the summer. Even though I am sure that Blanket isn’t finished (there is still grass showing), he went ahead and set himself apart from the rest of neighborhood in his early attention to detail. It was if he was saying, “Here’s to you Diagonal guy…eat my snowflakes-they are on the power lines.  Here’s to you Baggie, my eight foot penguin is lit and I have a corner lot with a decorated side yard. You are waaay out of your league.”  Then Blanket did it; the piece de resistance, he went ahead and played his trump card …the card of all cards…the plastic baby Jesus…oh yeah…it’s on.  As I drove passed it tonight with my mouth hanging open, I looked at the glowing manger, Joseph, Mary, the wise men, the cow, they were all there, glowing and focused and surrounded by their towering frosty friends. For a moment, I thought I heard a voice…a soft, yet firm childlike voice coming from that tiny manger with a message to the rest of the neighborhood…”Bring it”.

Before Lift Off

I just pulled the cobbler from the oven. The barley and rice chicken soup is brewing with Crockzilla fired up on all pistons. The smell of okra and potatoes fills the air.  Now before I project the wrong persona here as someone who knows how to cook, let me make it perfectly clear that I do not…at all. As for the chicken soup, don't go thinking I went out and cooked a bird. I have never bought an animal carcass and cooked it and I can say that only twice in my life do I remember ever buying a pre-cooked whole chicken. Tonight was one of those nights. I just make it a habit not to eat anything that looks like the animal it came from. I don’t like feeling like I am in biology class dissecting an animal that I am about to eat. Plus there is all that extra…you know…discard.  Oouuup, there went the gag reflex. No, I am not much of the hunter gatherer, kill-it/skin-it/eat-it kind of guy. Just give me a boneless, skinless chicken patty and I am fine. There is a reason though why the house smells like okra, chicken and Hawaii; let me explain.

I got off schedule today and went to Kroger two hours past my normal dinner time to find something to eat. I was walking down the isles without any concept of what I wanted (shopping while hungry…yeah that’s always a good plan). I starting thinking about tonight’s pending tornadic activity along with what I wanted to eat for dinner and it all morphed into a “What would I have as my last meal?” shopping experience. Of course it was tainted by the constraints of what I know how to cook so my choices were from a very short list.

I guess this means I have not been challenging my brain enough or filling it with new ideas and concepts since now it tends to wander off into tangents like this. Nevertheless, that’s what it does and I found myself surfing the Kroger isles hungry and pretending it was my last meal before “lift off”.

The obvious answer was okra and potatoes, so I loaded up on them. There was one of those 10 for 10 sales going on so I was piling up my shopping cart with bags of frozen okra and looked up at my reflection in the glass of the freezer door. I looked like one of those extreme couponers who had just hit the “snip and save” jackpot…but it didn’t stop me. I was saving!

I started planning on making blackberry cobbler again, as it is my favorite, but got thrown completely off track when I passed the deli warmers displaying their roasted chickens all bagged up and ready to go. I grabbed a bird, threw it in the cart and then starting trying to figure out what I was going to do with it. I do love Crockzilla, and I remembered my bag of whole grain rice at home so bada-bing that was it. I was going to make chicken and rice soup in the crock pot. My stomach rumbled with excitement.

With a cart full of frozen okra and one dead chicken, I hungrily made another predatory lap down a few more isles. I passed a can of cream of coconut….eureka! I had a flashback to my pina-colabbler from over a year ago. I had to make it and this time add the cream of coconut.  With any luck I might even weigh myself down enough to not be able to be blown away! Now normally I try to make everything on the healthy side and I only gave the nutritional chart ( which I usually call the “warning label”)on the can of cream of coconut a quick glance. I remember seeing something about 5 grams of fat…it’s natural…that’s not so bad…it could be my last…go for it.

Once home I threw the okra/potato medley in the oven, the dismembered chicken into the Crockpot, and I started mixing everything together for the cobbler. I realized that I had never written down the recipe and that I was once again going to have to wing it. I read the cream of coconut can as I was pouring it in to the concoction and saw the 5 grams of fat and 130 calories per serving warning but then I saw how many servings were in the little 15 oz can…15! What? Fifteen serving in one little can? Once again I was glad that I have no ability whatsoever to do math in my head but still, 15 x130 calories for one ingredient = weight gain…with or without a calculator.

So I sat down to right all this and forgot to bring the timer in with me. I never heard the “ding”. It’s the pina-colabbler; the bottom burned. Since I made it I can over look it and have to say it is not bad at all…if you like things that tasted like something you might have tried to cook in college with the random ingredients you found left over in your refrigerator. For my guest one, it is perfect.

I know my love handles are getting ready to take on another “freshmen 10” from this as I will be the only one brave enough to eat it. I don’t want to be wasteful…I’ll just have a full waist. I think I can justify it all as I will be able to balance this with my barley and rice chicken soup (yep I finally found a use for the bag-o-barley that’s been hanging out on top of the microwave).

Oh yeah, the okra/potato medley was deeelish. Some last meal, huh? In reality, with me not cooking, the last meal would involve baby back ribs, crab legs and lobster tail. I know, it’s time for me to put this brain to work so it will stop wandering tangents like this so it can focus on more important issues of the day. I am wondering if that second bowl of cobbler will be as good as the first? There’s no time like the present…what with the pending tornadic activity and all.