Getting Sauced

It's seems like everybody I know has
been talking about this hot sauce. There is even a commercial with an
old lady on it that says she puts it on everything. So, the other
night, I made a late night run to Kroger while I was hungry. Thirty
minutes later I was sitting down in front of the TV with a bucket of
pasta before me . I slathered on the Sriracha and Parmesan cheese and
was starving. It was  like a one man pasta eating contest...and I was
winning.



I was, I don't know, mid-bucket and I
suddenly came to the realization that my mouth was on fire. My taste
buds were numb, my gums were throbbing and my lips were growing....or
at least they felt like they were growing.



As I sniffled and wiped back the tears,
I wondered why in the world people like hot and spicy food. I've
never been a fan of it but for some reason, at that moment , with
half a bucket of flaming pasta staring at me, daring my fork to make
a move, I became a fan. I'm not sure what that was all about but
adding that layer of zing to the food, somehow appealed to me for the
first time.



I'm afraid that I am now addicted to
that inferno sensation and I  want to add it to everything.
Fortunately , I have a limited cooking knowledge so it I just going
on pasta. I think later on this summer, when I figure out how to put
a grill together, I'll make some kind of fresh off the grill fake
burger and add some of this sauce to it. My fear is that I am going
to find it is made out of some toxic chemicals, crack, Sudafed or
something and then take it off the market . I finally get “feel the
burn”.  No more need for the gym, I've got all the burn I could
ever need in a bottle. It even makes me sweat...and I don't mind. I'm
not too worried though. I am almost withing walking distance to an
Asian market that sells dehydrated endangered sea creatures in clear
plastic bags. I am pretty sure I will always be able  to order a case
of sauce from them.


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Proud Peggy Keep on Rolling

Wouldn't you know, after talking about
assumed names at Starbucks, that I would have “an incident”.
Yesterday I went to a Starbucks (location to remain secret) and used
my usual fake first name of “Perry”. I like that name and that is
how I am referred to at that location. It's not that far off, much
closer to my first name that “Ray Ray Crackson” that is used in
other locations. So, I sat there in the always crowded coffee shop,
waiting on my “heaven in a cup” and I heard the barista call out
name after name and I watched people react like they had just won the
lottery when they would hear their name called. Then it
happened...the incident...I heard him call out,
“Peggy..................Peggy......................Is there a
Peggy..............”? Well no one jumped up to claim their brew and
we all started looking around at each other wondering if the real
Peggy was going to stand up? Had someone forgotten their fake
identity name? I could see people looking and searching and we all
had that, “Who's Peggy? Where's Peggy? Is she in the bathroom? Is
Peggy wearing earphones? Is she hearing impaired? What's the deal
with Peggy? Why is she so slow?” look on our faces.



There was no Peggy.



Then, the barista called out the order
and I immediately knew that it was mine. I jumped up and let out an
“Oh!” and hopped up to the counter while all eyes were on me. I
let the guy know that my name was actually, at this Starbucks
location, “Perry”. He looked at me and the writing on the cup and
said, “Whatever” and walked off. REALLY? Did he just “whatever”
me? Did he have no customer service training? I don't know why but it
shook me up. I stopped myself from acting insulted and decided to not
let his rudeness ruin my frozen chocolate coffee experience.



It's times like this that I sometimes
miss what is important. All I could think about was the “whatever”
when what I should have been doing was thinking about turning around
and addressing the crowded room of caffeine addicts who were trying
to get their buzz on, and letting them know that my fake first name
was Perry, not Peggy. That never entered my mind until I drove off.
No,instead,  I grabbed my Peggy-shake, turned around at the counter,
held my somewhat insulted head high and walked out the door (like any
proud Peggy should do).



So, as I drove down the interstate, it
hit me that  I had just left a room full of people sitting there
thinking that they had just met a slow reacting guy named “Peggy”.
They may be thinking I am in “transition” as my hair is a bit
long right now. I can only imagine their version of the story. There
is no need in going back to try to explain; it will be a different
crowd. I think I will just stay away from that location for a while.
FYI, the Peggy-shake was delicious.

Drafted

I am not sure if everyone's days are like mine, I'm sure they are, but yesterday I found myself at a lunch for about 250 people and most of them were women. Everyone was seated and I was up at the front of the room and bent over top pick something up. All of the sudden I felt something pop. It's an odd sensation that is impossible to describe but if you have ever had this happen to you then you will know exactly what it is when it happens. There was the pop and then the gentle breeze. I had been drafted...aka, my pants had exploded. I don't mean I popped a few stitches, my pants exploded. From the back waistband to where my zipper begins, my-pants-exploded.

Oh my word, I could feel my pants legs flapping as I walked, enjoying their new found freedom and range of motion. There was no covering this up. You could see my shirt tail, my tail and possibly even a bit of my legs, sorry ladies. I exited. Thank goodness I made the switch to boxer briefs and even more importantly, black ones, as I was wearing black pants. In a flash (no pun intended) I remembered that my mom and her mom used to always match their purse to their shoes and I vowed right then to go undie -shopping to make sure I had enough boxer briefs in stock that matched all my pants, just for such an occasion.

I dropped my breezy pants off at a little Asian woman's house named “Yot” ( her name not the house's name) and she will have them good as new in a day. In the meantime, I may have to ramp up my “Operation Drop 30” . Each day this week someone has given me some kind of pastry. I didn't want to be rude soI ate every single one of them. This has to end ...or my end is going to have to go out and buy all new pants. I hear those Blue Diamond Gussett's are pretty sturdy. I may have to invest. For right now, I'm off to find more boxer briefs in black, gray, khaki and denim colors. TMI? Probably. Useful information? Yes.

Operation "Drop 30"

Operation “Drop 30 ” is official. It started with my weigh-in at the doctor’s office. After having them “try again” as I was sure the poor girl had done it wrong, I had to resolve myself to the reality check that stupid machine had digitally mocked me with. Fortunately, with my giant tonsils, I wasn’t too worried . I was convinced by the time I got home from my appointment, that I was simply suffering from HTS, aka: Heavy Tonsil Syndrome ( a new and highly  controversial diagnosis).

Unfortunately, my tonsils are now deflated and  my last doctor’s appointment included a quick stomp on those stubborn scales; they refused to budge. So this morning, while eating a piece of cheesecake,  I was mulling over the concept that I need to take the stress of my knees and drop 30. It was confirmed in my head and I needed to plot my course. Today at lunch, after my fourth lap around Old Chicago’s all-you-can-eat pizza buffet I made an important conclusion, this plan of mine wasn’t going to start today.

I thought about it with every slice. It’s definately going to take some planning. This may require veggie soup in the spring and more than 10 minutes of cardio once a week. As for my workout plan, I need to do some research and see if the sauna can substitute for anything. I am pretty good at sauna-ing, waterfountain-ing ,lobby sofa-ing and protein shake-ing. I just hope all this effort isn’t going to require sweating. It’s been a while since I’ve done that and from what I remember, I didn’t like it. Pore fatigue is a real thing, don’t judge. I don’t want to stretch this pizza/cheesecake denial thing out forever though. I am giving it three months...because I am a highly sacrificial, commited kind of guy. I’ll do whatever it takes as long it doesn't take more than I am willing to give. Whatever happens in three months happens. I am sure it will be easy.

#breakfastcheesecake
#saunaing

Cougar Town

 I don't know how I get myself into these situations but ooops, I did it again. I have had several people lately make the comment that I need to get out more often, and it's true so the other  night when some fellow co-workers decided to go hear one of our new employees go sing with a band, I decided to go too. It was reported to be that this restaurant/bar was the hot place in the area and that if you didn't get there early, you wouldn't even be able to get in the door. I had a hard time believing that but rushed over there to make sure I had a seat by 7.  This establishment was really more of a bar/restaurant than a restaurant/bar and it was situated in what I would call a non-upscale part of Nashville. It was packed and people were lined up at the door, 20 deep. My friends were there and had a table so I was good to go. It didn't take long to see that this crowd was not at all what I expected. It was pretty much all the swinging singles, 70 and up, from that area. Let me just say the possitive spin on this night was that  the dance floor was never empty and the band was great.
At our table of 11, were five guys under the age of 55 and none with a wedding ring. I now know how the butcher feels that works behind the meat counter and Kroger. Within a few minnutes we got a visit from a group of out of town gals that live in an upscale 55 and up  resort community. I am going to say they moved in to that resort area about 15-20 years ago. They were all very, very friendly.

Our table was right up front, right beside the dance floor. That was not a good choice. We somehow ended up with almost all the girls from  work on one side of the table and the guys on the other. Us guys were sitting right by the dance floor. That was a mistake. The good thing was though, that we had a front row seat to one of the most entertaining crowds I have seen in a long time. It looked like a scene from a movie, I wasn't sure which movie, but it was definately an interesting cast of characters.
As the band fired up some of the great classic rock and roll tunes, the real show began. There was one woman there, that I later heard in the lobby discussing her vitamin regime. I think she sold them. She was a tiny little thing, 70?, reminded me a bit of Brenda Lee, had Dolly Parton hair and very tight jeans. I am going to call  her "Bunny", short for "Energizer Bunny". Bunny stayed on that dance floor all night. She didn't dance on the beat, she danced on every note. She was moving and shaking and snapping and letting everybody in that room know she had tons of energy with some to spare. She was serious, focused and driven to keep that beat and her feet moving. I don't know how she kept up the pace but I have a feeling she might have given herself a B-12 injection in the parking lot and was sipping Red Bull laced with Five Hour Energy. She couldn't  stop moving and I couldn't stop staring. Her hair stayed in place all night.

Another character, and there were way too many to write about, was a woman wearing a lace/doily dress. It was ivory in color and reached right past her knees. It was very nice, like a church dress but nicer. It was more like  a wedding dress... for the third marriage. She was of advance years, had jet black hair the touched her shoulders and had heavy, straight-across bangs. Her face was deadpan...all night. At first I thought she might be a little sad (maybe #3 didn't work out or something) but by the end of the night I was convinced that she had probably spent the afternoon being  infused with a fresh bucket of botox.  I am sure she was having a great time but just wasn't able to express it in her face. I don't think she realized that even though from the neck down she looked like she was in a rumba contest, everything above from above the neck was at a funeral, total funeral face...all night. Her face  could not express the excitement she was feeling from the neck down. It was bizarre. Well, she entered the dance floor pretty early on, all by herself, sad face, wedding dress and all. I don't  know  that she every left the dance floor. I felt a bit sorry for her as I pictured her forcing herself out of the house after months of loneliness from being left all alone by husband number three and now forcing herself out onto the dance floor wearing her last happy dress, the dress that made her feel beautiful, her wedding dress #3. I was so wrong. No more "Lifetime" chick flicks for me.
I am going to call her Sqwerky, and here's why. She somehow managed to clear out about a six foot runway of sorts, right along the edge of the dance floor . That runway also happened to run the length of our table which was also infront of the row for the men at our table. Well Sqerrky was doing a walking Salsa type of move where she would dance and wiggle her way up and down her runway in front of our table, back and forth, back and forth. Her face was always facing our table and no matter how excited her dancing got, her face remained the same, funeral face. Suddenly I was back at the carnival as a small boy. I was holding a powerfu water pistol as a mechanical ducks faced me and went side to side as I tried to mow down as many as I could with my semi-automatic water pistol. I was lost in memory until the live runway show stopped right in front of me and the music kept playing. Squirky stopped and firmly planted her feet, gave her hips a preparatory wiggle, and slowly starting lowering herself. Down, down, down she went, until she had finally squatted all the way to the ground. I couldn't believe what I was watching. Then, she just hovered there. For a moment I thought that she just could't get back up. But as I watched this train wreck, I noticed that she was still moving...a little. I think she was trying to do some kind of twerk but I am not exacty sure. It was, I guess, a "senior twerk"? I'm not really sure what I saw but it was a combination of a squat/senior twerk...aka: Sqwerk. She was Sqwerking. Well she sqwerked all night at various , unannounced intervals. The only warning we had was when we would notice she was suddenly not working the runway but instead, had stopped to steadily plant her feet, thus signalling the beginnnings of a decent.
Not to be outdone or outshined by Sqwerky was a woman who probably had quite a time in the 60's, not her 60s' but in the 1960'. She was very bohemian with long curly wild hair and a short cheetah print dress. She could also go all the way down to the ground but had to take a much wider stance to accomplish it. We all looked away. I kind of thought that in that crowd, squatting down and getting back up was just showing off. So Sqwerky and Bohemian Rhapsody stayed on opposite sides of the dance floor most of the night each doing their thing. I was so afraid they were going to have some kind of "squat off" or something but it never came to that. Of course, I didn't close the place down so it all could have happened out in the parking lot afterwards, who knows?

So I was just sitting there being entertained and suddenly someone with a powerful grip, grabbed my hand to pull me out to the dance floor. It was one of the women who had come over to the table early to check out "what was on the menu" for the night. She was possibly one of the older ones, it's hard to tell once everything had been overhauled. Speaking for all of her friends, there had been some major construction, resufacing, lifted foundations, re-spacklig, replaced parts, you name it. This particular "old broad" as she constantly called herself (just in case I couldn't tell) wanted to dance. I am going to keep this PG and remember that I am in mixed company. We were dancing (I don't really know how) and were in that hold where one arm is straight out to the side (holding hands) while the other arm is wrapped around the other person . I had my hand in the middle of her back. Got it? She was one of those "yippee ki yay" "Annie Oakley" kind of women from the  old westerns and to accentuate her statements, at the end of a particular statement that she would be proud of, she would give a quick head jerk to the right while lifting her chin just a bit .

We danced to some fast song and somewhere in the middle of the song she said, "I'll bet you thought you were just going to be able to put this old broad out to pasture didn't you?" I have no idea what she meant by that and sort of figured it was a standard one-liner for her. I'm going to try not to overthink that one. Well we danced and that was the longest song of my life . Let's just say she liked to keep a good grip on her men. I am not sure what kind of steel support system she had made into her bra but if that song had lasted any longer I would have dislocated at least two of my frontal ribs. Granted not all of her parts were the same age and I do get putting your valuables behind a display case but man, that was just bizarre. I just knew I was going to be bruised the next day. I was "wedged" let's just leave it at that. I had a quck flashback to that movie where that guy was stuck between two bolders and had to cut his arm off to get free. I looked over at our table and all the silverware had been removed...plan B. Near the end of the song, under my hand that was in the middle of her back, something popped. I panicked  and tried not to react. I didn't know if her bra strap/suspension system had just snapped or if her back had just popped. We kept on moving and nothing hit the ground, so I am assuming it was her back and a common occurence. The song ended; it was one of the happiest moments of my life.

Well I drove home from Nashville feeling wierd. I just needed to un-experience that night. I had a nice long drive to detox and think. I had mixed emotions. It was great to see that older crowd acting and feeling like they were in their twenties but it was strange. I felt like I had been dropped down on to the set of the movie "Cocoon"...ah Cocoon, that's the movie. They really did seem to all act and feel like they were young again. I tried to tell myself that it should give me hope. That's when it hit me. That room of people, that is what you get when you mess with nature. That was a room full of hormone replacement therapy patients and men with little blue pills...and alcohol and a live band.  Everyone felt like a million bucks. That's good right? Maybe? I have a feeling that might also have been the perfect example of why you shouldn't mess with science. I think everyone there was on  a hormone high. One thing is for sure, it was entertaining. I am not sure if I can ever go back. If I do, I will sit in the back. On the other hand, I have never felt younger than I did that night.