Well, Willard Scott, III, Have I Got Some Advice for YOU!

I’m on a health kick again. I’ve decided I want to be a centenarian. My husband thinks we’re eating flax seed & pureed cauliflower because I want to get into my skinny jeans. That’s just a perk. With my 38th birthday fast approaching, I am quirky & eccentric on my best day, and I become more so by the minute. Even I might be surprised by what I’d say, imbathed in senility, when Willard Scott’s replacement asks, “So, what’s your secret for living such a long life?” It would be like playing The Game of Things with a national audience. Sadly, being that my husband, The Gambler, is several years older, he probably won’t be around to hear my answer, even with all that flax seed consumption. But, maybe he’ll become a centenarian himself. His answer to Willard, III, will be way cleverer than mine, after all.

With the crisp, autumn weather here, if I weren’t trying to become a centenarian, I’d make a high calorie breakfast such as this. Don’t be like me. Make this for your loved ones immediately. Sure, you won’t be around to hear my response to Willard, III, but who gets up that early anyway? And, I promise these pancakes are worth it!

Cinnamon Bun Pancakes
Pancakes:
1 ½ c all-purpose flour
3 Tbsp white sugar
½ tsp salt
4 tsp baking powder
1 Tbsp cinnamon
2 whole eggs, beaten
1 c milk
2 Tbsp corn syrup
¼ c butter, melted
1 Tbsp vanilla

Icing:
½ c powdered sugar
1 Tbsp milk
½ tsp vanilla

In a medium bowl, combine flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and cinnamon with a whisk. In a separate, large bowl, beat together eggs, milk, corn syrup, butter, & vanilla. Stir flour mixture into large bowl & mix until everything is combined.

Heat a lightly oiled griddle over medium/low heat. Pour ¼ c batter onto griddle. Brown on both sides.

For icing, mix powdered sugar, milk, & vanilla. Add more milk if necessary.

Drizzle with powdered sugar icing & maple syrup.

Special post note; here's a round from one of my favorite games of 'The Game of Things.'

Things you shouldn't write on a Valentine card:
"I'm taking 1/2 of everything."
"I used to be a man."
"Love, Tiger."

Go buy this game if you don't have it!!

The Chicken Mobile

I am deathly, irrationally, morbidly afraid, petrified, horrified, frightened, horror-stricken by chickens. Have I made myself clear? The clinical name for this is alektorophobia.

Washington Irving would have had a waaaaay scarier story if he’d written about a headless chicken. I’m just sayin’. I’m well aware that I need therapy, but I’m also Southern & eccentric, and I feel I wouldn’t be nearly as eccentric (i.e. fun) if I actually went into therapy, so right now I’m just staying away from chickens. No exposure therapy for this girl! For your sake. You’re welcome.

My close friends & family members are well aware of my aversion to all things feathered & flogging. My bestie, Shermetta, got me a coffee table book for Christmas one year that is nothing but pictures of chickens. The Schwendimann’s couldn’t WAIT for me to open that gift. (I don’t think I sent a thank you card for that one).

(I kid, I kid. I actually love this book, Extraordinary Chickens, by Stephen Green-Armytage. It lives on my coffee table, and my favorite pictures are below . . . 'cause even I can appreciate a fuzzy chicken).


My brother, owner of several fowl, is not an alektorophian. Obviously, the condition is not genetic. I would tell you my own sordid chicken tale, but I simply don’t want you to have nightmares. I’m no Washington Irving. Anywho, when my brother & his family went on vacation this year, he asked me to do the farm chores, excluding all chores involving the chickens. He had a young, sweet, non-crazy, untraumatized neighbor-girl collect eggs & feed & water those . . . those . . . those . . . birds. She survived the incident, but I think it should be noted that they paid her, whereas I worked for free. I think this only reinforces the idea of what dangerous work it is to raise chickens; World’s Most Dangerous Jobs: Coal Miners, Police Officers, Soldiers, Firemen, Oil Crews, and Chicken Farmers.

My brother is an experimental farmer. He’s always wanting to make his own cheese & such (special note – I will NOT be eating any cheese my brother makes). His most recent project is what I like to call “The Chicken Mobile.”



Yes, you are seeing that correctly, my friend. It is a chicken coop with wheels. Travel, after all, is very important . . . it really broadens one’s horizons. And my brother wants well-rounded chickens.

My husband & I have found great amusement in this chicken mobile, I’ll have to say. Many a pithy joke has been made at its expense. Today, however, it dawned on me that those devilish birds are close to my own home. What if they take a joyride to Lollygag Farm with their new wheels?!? You know, grab the keys & take off like whippersnappers are prone to do. I must put in extra security at my house, asap. World’s Most Dangerous Job: Chicken Farm Guard. Currently hiring.

(Please note that if The Gambler & I had chickens, our chicken mobile would look more like this, a Lexus amongst chicken mobiles. The Gambler is always fearful of us looking "white trashy." I keep telling him I'll get the refrigerator off the front porch very, very soon.)

Earth Day Blog – The Weed Man is a Stalker

In my 37 years, I have learned only one real truth in life . . . certain men are crazy about their yards and grass. My boss, Dr. Williams, happens to be one of those fellas. I catered a fancy party at The Williams’ house one Christmas. I was manning the punchbowl, trying to look invisible, while 5 male grass extremists discussed suing their mowing company for introducing crabgrass into their yards from a “contaminated neighbor.” Remember the “Sally’s Got Cooties” game from grade school? The upper-class version of this game is “Dr. Highland Has Crabgrass.” It’s the game played at all the elite parties.

Before I started working from home full-time, I worked in a business park. One of our business neighbors was “The Weed Man.” (I always found the business title funny, and I think it’s a small miracle that college students weren’t camped outside his door 24/7).

Dr. Williams would announce, “Give me the key; I’m going to the mailbox.” He’d then disappear for hours. If we needed him, we knew where to find him. He would go & sit with The Weed Man everyday, and they’d talk about the evils of creeping Charlie, dandelions, and knotweed. My friend & former co-worker, Shermetta, had just purchased a new home fairly close to the office, and Dr. Williams was worried about her weeds (in much the same way that a preacher worries about your soul). I can’t be positive, but I believe it kept him awake at night.

Well, one weekend, The Weed Man showed up at Shermetta’s house. He offered to kill her weeds for a small fee. The problem – instead of having a yard filled with green weeds, Shermetta ended up with ½ of her yard being dead and brown. The wheels of time have turned and her weeds have since grown back, her yard is once again fully green, and the Earth can continue spinning. But, I remain convinced to this very day that that wasn’t a normal door-to-door sales call. I believe Dr. Williams sent The Weed Man to stalk Shermetta. He might be in the bushes right now . . . lurking with his sprayer.

The Great Betty White Caper

Shermetta & I are in Panama City Beach, FL, right smack dab in the middle of spring break. We have decided that we could possibly commit murder, or at the very least rob a bank, and no one would suspect us because we are of a “mature age.” The perfect crime. We haven’t decided what crime we’ll commit yet, but I have a name for it once we have a consensus . . . The Great Betty White Caper.

We have turned a page . . . it started at check-in. The whippersnapper working the front desk said, “I gave you guys a room on the corner. It should be a little quieter than the rest. Normally we give out bracelets, but I think we can tell y’all apart from the ‘spring breakers.’” It continued at Wal-Mart. The elderly man working the door (a fellow AARP member) didn’t check our receipt to verify that we’d actually PAID for our bottle of wine (yes, you can actually BUY wine at Wal-Mart in FL, but don’t get me started on the ridiculous laws of TN).

Today we went to the beach to people watch (one of my very favorite pastimes). I was behind a gaggle of whippersnappers. I heard one young man advise to the other, “Okay, man, I want you to hit on every vag on the beach. Do you hear me? Every vag on the beach” (excluding any card-carrying member of the AARP, of course). About this time, a volleyball rolled in my direction. I tossed it back. The “vag” twins (as I’ve come to call them) immediately claimed me as their mother. No kidding. I took pictures of their group, and all the girls kept saying, “Thanks, Mom.” My advice to them was simple – “Don’t count on social security, kids. Oh, and don’t eat the fruit in the punch.” The punch comment was mainly for the girls – I’ve learned today that girls seem to be sloppier drunks than the boys.

Whippersnappers will also ask any person over the age of 30 for things their moms might carry. I had a guy run up to me and ask, “Do you have any sunscreen?” I did. But my favorites were the boogey boarders. There were four of them – two even wore wet suits. They stood beside of me for much of the day waiting for the perfect wave. During this time, they’d ask pretty girls walking by, “Would you like to make a porno later today?” (They had no takers – I could have told them the problem. Wet suits are just too revealing. Life lessons. These are simply life lessons). Finally, after several hours of watching them, I asked one of the wet suit clad fellers a question about boogey boarding. This young man, the very same fellow that had been making humping motions to his board just moments before, went into polite mode, “Yes, Ma’am.” I have become a ma’am. But, whatever. Betty White is a ma’am, and she’s the coolest woman ever. Am I right?

Another fun fact from our adventures today – I’m pretty sure Shermetta joined the Army while we were at the beach, so I’ll probably need to host a going-away party for her when we get back to TN. I'll have to make two stops for all my party needs because they don't sell wine at Wal-Mart in TN (I told you not to get me started on that).

I’m not sure what tomorrow will bring, but I hope a walking cane isn’t involved. Or laxatives. It would be nice if there are no laxatives involved.

Even the Rats are Smarter at Vanderbilt

Daddy has become a gym rat. That’s right, my senior citizen dad with the sweet tooth and diminishing turkey belly has become a gym rat, and he’s actually started running. Momma emailed me yesterday morning and wrote, “Your dad has been going to the senior citizen center to work out with Mr. West. He sets up the machines for Mr. West.” I emailed back and asked, “Who in the world is Mr. West?” Daddy is a social creature, so Mr. West could be anyone from the dogcatcher to the guy who makes his sandwiches at Subway. As it turns out, Mr. West is an 80 year-old-man from Woodbury that Daddy met during their rehabilitation.

Five months ago, I got a call in the middle of the night from Momma. Calls at 3:00 a.m. are never good news. She had taken Daddy to the emergency room with chest pains. They went to the ER at the Stones River Hospital in Woodbury. She left Daddy in the car and went to the ER door; it was locked (I could digress here and ask the question, “What the hell kind of ER locks their door??” but I won’t).

She rang the buzzer, but no one answered so off she goes to the main entrance. She does not find a single nurse, orderly, doctor, or mouse in the hospital, so she goes back to the car. Daddy is gone. Momma, a good Christian woman, thought, “My dear Lord has come back, and he has taken everyone but me.” As it turns out, the ER staff had answered the buzzer during Momma’s labyrinthine quest through the hospital looking for human life and had taken Daddy back to poke and prod him.

A nurse came to tell Momma, calmly filling out paperwork in the waiting area at this point, that Daddy had had a cardiopulmonary arrest, and the infant doctor, Dr. Cutie Pie, had to use a defibrillator to bring him back. When I arrived, Dr. Cutie Pie was a shaking mess. He couldn’t even figure out how to call Vanderbilt – thank goodness for his seasoned nurses! But, Dr. Cutie Pie, whom Momma keeps referring to as some woman’s (whom I’ve never met) grandson, had stabilized and saved Daddy’s life. Tony & I arrived before Daddy was whisked away. He was complaining that they’d ripped off his Auburntown Elementary School sweatshirt (where his granddaughters attend school). Now, that’s school spirit.

People always say that Momma and I look alike, but in fact, I am my father’s daughter, although, our appearance stops short after the sea blue eyes that we share. Daddy and I are both adventurous, fiercely competitive, cheeky, and social with addictive natures. But, people that know us well will tell you that just under the surface, found just below the cheekiness, we are extraordinarily kind and tenderhearted. My mother and brother were calm and cool, so strikingly different from Daddy and me. I began crying in the ER and didn’t stop for 24 hours.

Daddy was Lifeflighted to Vanderbilt; he had a 100% blockage. Momma & Donald drove to Nashville together, and Tony & I took my car. Tony drove, as I have no sense of direction. Driving in silence in the early morning hours, the song, “I Still Miss Someone” kept playing in my head. It is a song about a lost love, but the chorus is, “Oh, I’ll never get over those blue eyes . . .”

Daddy is doing remarkably well. He has changed his diet, he is exercising, and he has stopped smoking (cold turkey). And I can’t say enough about the staff at Vanderbilt. An intern named Matthew stopped by to talk with Daddy often. He was a nerdy, kind, socially awkward, young man from OK with a gynormous nose. Matthew would casually pick his substantial sniffer when talking with us. He will make a fine doctor someday, but I really should have told him that the whole nose-picking thing makes most folks feel a little uncomfortable (as I am cheeky, I tended to find it amusing/ridiculous rather than gross).

Our old family friends, Linda & Micheal, stopped by to visit during Daddy’s stay in the hospital. They found Momma & me eating Chinese food in the deserted cafeteria. We were sitting next to a window with a view of the courtyard. I heard Linda gasp and say, “I just saw a HUGE rat run by.” Even the rats are smarter at Vandy . . . of course they’d hang-out right outside the cafeteria. All the very best rats do.

I Work at the Moose Lodge, What Do YOU Do?

If you’re a longtime reader of my blog, you probably know that I’m a consultant, and I work from home. My sisters-in-law, Rita & Kay, were huddled together at my house last Thanksgiving, and Kay motioned me over. Kay asked, "Jenni, what do you do exactly? I asked Rita, but she just didn’t know." I never know how to answer this question because part of my job is explaining to gentleman with advanced degrees that, yes, cows can in-fact stand on a hillside, and no, two cow legs don’t become shorter than the other two over time. (May I please, please, please get my honorary doctorate now?) But, really my basic job description is the normal – tech support for the tragically untechy, proofing, writing standardized test questions, creating world peace, curing cancer, etc., etc. (although, Dr. Williams does understand my limitations . . . I have no sense of direction, and he refuses to use any marketing materials I create).

But Kay’s question reminded me of a trip to Knoxville Kay, her husband, Billy, my husband, Tony, and I took several years prior. Tony told me years ago that Kay, a fiery redhead, over a decade his brother’s junior, worked at the Moose Lodge. As a young, naïve girl, I took this as fact. I had never been to a Moose Lodge at that point in my life. BUT, my bestie, Desi, married a man named John, strangely resembling Reuben Kincaid from ‘The Partridge Family.’ John was a member of the Moose Lodge. John was also a serial killer. So, for me, the reputation of the Moose Lodge was forever sullied after realizing that they’d allow a member such as Reuben, errr, I mean John, to hold a moose head pin.

I asked Kay on this trip, "What exactly do you do at the Moose Lodge?" I had envisioned her basic job description to be holding the serial killers at bay . . . tricky, tricky. "What are you talking about?" she asked. "I’m the Parks and Recreations Planning Manager for the city of Smyrna," she explained. Tony asked, "Oh, when did you leave the Moose Lodge?" To my extreme relief, Kay answered that she’d NEVER worked for the Moose Lodge (although, my husband had been telling people that for years. Kay was THRILLED to learn that bit of trivia). I’m relieved. It is dangerous work dealing with serial killers on a daily basis.

An Exclamation Point at the End

I found this picture, and I really love it. Easy Lou has been teaching me how to play the guitar for the last year-and-a-half. He is a brave, untiring, long-suffering (and slightly deaf) man. I also play the piano. It came easily, but, alas, the guitar has proven to be a different beast altogether (by beast, I mean something making loud, yowling noises.) My fingernails have been nothing but nubs of their former selves on my left hand for ages, and I’ve developed calluses on the tips of my fingers. But my Dm and F chords are coming along. Progress. The dogs have stopped trying to hunch each other when I play. Progress. Even the Gambler said last night, "Hey, you’re really coming along." (I actually haven’t let him hear me play since the first, very painful "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," as the Gambler can have a very biting wit.) And, over the last year-and-a-half, I’ve grown less jealous of my childhood friend who plays by ear (which Easy Lou calls "wasting time." Trained guitarists can be very catty, I’ve learned).

But, I mainly love this photo because it reminds me of a very special man I met sitting in an oncology waiting room. He was listening to an iPod with a legal pad resting upon his knee and a pencil in his hand. The elderly, black man with a kind face would listen and jot, listen and jot. I asked to what he was listening. "I’m learning Spanish," was his reply. "I've always wanted to learn, and this is the time. Right here, and right now." We talked just a little about cancer and tumors, and he said the simplest, yet most profound thing to me. "Cancer is only a sentence within one paragraph. It is not my story." I went home that very night and told the Gambler I wanted to learn to play the guitar. My darling, my dear bought me a beautiful Taylor guitar that very year for my birthday. And I am forever left with the notion that a single sentence, even those having an exclamation point at the end, is never the complete story.

Dog Biscuits, Martha Stewart, and Too Many Panties

I love the bookstore. I do. I love the smell of books, and I love going to buy some delicious, overly priced coffee and joining my fellow bookworms (possibly wearing Spock ears) lounging in the comfy chairs in the sci-fi section on a Friday night. Yes, it’s true. My husband, The Gambler, and I are sci-fi nerds, though somewhat camouflaged. (We have to speak a little Klingon to the Friday night bookstore nerds before they’ll let us sit with them). Sure, I love the classics, too, but I find the sci-fi nerds to be much less pretentious than the crowd hangin’ in the classics section.

I must go into a bookstore whenever I’m out Christmas shopping. This last Christmas, four, yes, four different people on four different occasions suggested I buy this kit at the bookstore to make organic dog biscuits for my dogs. I really don’t know why I should go to all that trouble when Odie and Fat Ashley find cow poop to be the tastiest treat EVER. My dogs wouldn’t eat my gravy when I was trying to learn how to make that frustrating stuff, so I really don’t know that I could handle any more rejection.

Most of my friends don’t view me as a sci-fi nerd, and many completely ignore that facet of my personality. They choose, instead, to lump me into the "Martha Stewart" category, which is rubbish, I say, just rubbish. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I love me some Martha Stewart, but not because she’s crafty or has a 50-pound organic, perfectly browned bird every year for Thanksgiving. No, I love Martha because I believe her to be completely insane. You just never know what "Crazy Martha" is going to do. For Valentine’s Day this year, I watched, mesmerized, as Martha walked a gentleman through how to make panty roses. But this is Martha, mind you, so she wasn’t making one panty rose. Nope. Our girl was rolling enough panty roses to make an entire bouquet. The Gambler unsuspectingly joined in during the middle of the segment and said, "Did Martha Stewart just say ‘PANTY ROSES’?" He was hooked. We watched the segment entranced, feeling somewhat dirty afterwards. I was disappointed that The Gambler didn’t make me a bouquet of panty roses this year. But frankly, I just don’t know if I have enough room in my underwear drawer for a dozen fancy panties.

If You Feel Something Wet, Don’t Look Up

I work from home, and as it happens, I live in the middle of nowhere on my family farm, affectionately known as "Lollygag Farm." As a consultant, my daily "office" attire is practically a uniform of the following – a gown or flannel pj’s, colorful socks, greasy hair, makeup-less, and usually no bra. My office dress policy is my biggest perk . . . it makes up for the fact that I have to provide my own insurance and pay quarterly taxes.

There’s almost no traffic on my road, so I do a lot of stuff outside in my pj’s: weeding the garden, checking the mail, BBQing hamburgers. You name it. Just this evening, my husband and I were standing outside deciding where we’d like to put our water tap. I was dressed in a nightgown, a winter coat, and UGGS.

Yes, civilization is coming to Lollygag Farm in the form of city water, and we suddenly have workers littered across our rural neighborhood. I should probably be more careful about my outside attire. I have already gotten into trouble. My doorbell rang one afternoon recently. My office is upstairs, so I had to scramble to put on clothes and get downstairs. I couldn’t find a bra, so I just threw on a sweatshirt. It was the mailman, who happened to be an old classmate of mine that I hadn’t seen in 20 years. There I was, bra-less, makeup-less, in a pair of yoga pants with 4 holes in them. I pretended I didn’t know him, and I thanked him kindly for the package.

Living in the country does give one an opportunity to commune with nature in a way that one just doesn’t have in the city. My husband, for example, likes to pee outside. He will walk down a flight of stairs past 3 bathrooms to pee outside. He’s not alone . . . I’ve noticed many men like to be "exposed" to nature this way.

A few years ago, we built a federal-style house, complete with an upstairs balcony. Knowing his propensity to pee outside, I made my husband promise that he wouldn’t pee off the balcony. But, I fear that he will someday succumb to peer pressure when his friend, Micah, is over. I’m afraid they’ll have a liquid shooting contest from the balcony, trying to hit my Jehovah’s Witnesses that visit every few weeks. I suppose I really shouldn’t worry – if they can’t hit the toilet, I seriously doubt they could hit servants of God from 14-feet away.

Six Degrees of Separation

I got an email today from Terry. It is close to the holidays, and I always hear from him during the holidays. My friendship with Terry, which I’ll get into in just a moment, is six degrees of separation at its very finest.

If you’re unfamiliar with the basic concept of six degrees of separation, it is simply a human web – six people or less connect any given human to any other person on Earth. For example, my dear friend, Renee, was once a neighbor to Kim, who happened to be a close friend of my niece (she is married to my husband’s nephew, Ronnie). Renee met my niece, Cindy, through Kim long before she met me. I met Kim and her friend, Kristen, through Renee. Kristen’s boyfriend, Eddie, used to work with Alan, Renee’s husband, at Foot Locker back in the day. I am connected to Matthew Maconahay through Kristen, and to Peter Frampton through Renee, and they are connected to P. Diddy through me, but these are all freaky stories for another day.

Terry and I are strictly virtual friends. A couple of years ago around Thanksgiving, a close family member was diagnosed with a terminal illness. "Reply to All" emails would go out to the family with health updates, as well as basic holiday scheduling for November and December. My inbox would fill-up with responses from everyone, but I kept getting these random emails from "Terry Arnold." He’d write, "I’m bringing coconut cake for Christmas," which was strange, since we have Christmas breakfast. No one else seemed to notice that we’d acquired a new family member named Terry. After about a week of this, I finally did my own "reply to all" email asking if Terry was a newly discovered sibling (stranger things have happened – my husband’s father was quite the tomcat, from what I understand). But, I collect strays, and I will certainly welcome anyone into the family who will bring coconut cake.

Terry emailed me back. He had been waiting for someone to notice his virtual "fly on the wall" presence. My sister-in-law had typed in an incorrect email address on the initial email, and Terry got in the loop from all the "reply to all" responses. Terry, currently residing in DC, turned out to be originally from TN. He was simply mesmerized by my family’s email correspondences . . . and these are the days of our lives.

I’ve learned a few things about Terry over the years. He’s in a band, he had a band-mate who beat an illness similar to the one discussed in our many family emails years ago, he makes a killer peanut brittle in the microwave (he sent me the recipe; he actually uses cashews instead of peanuts), and he never fails to ask about my family member who is currently fighting her illness with courage, strength, wit, and faith. But, he’s family now, after all. We’ll be celebrating our Thanksgiving this Saturday at my house at noon. And on this Thanksgiving, I am thankful for six degrees of separation. Don’t forget to bring the coconut cake.

Terry’s Microwave Peanut Brittle Recipe:
1 c sugar
1/2 c light Karo syrup
1 c chopped peanuts, cashews, or walnuts (I used cashews)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp butter
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda

Butter cookie sheet & set aside. In 8-cup measure cup or 8 cup microwave safe bowl (I use glass) combine sugar & syrup. Mix well. Microwave on high for 4 minutes. Stir. Microwave for an additional 3 -7 minutes (this will vary based on your microwave. Mine takes 7 mines.) You want to microwave it until the mixture turns light brown in color.

Add nuts, cinnamon, & butter, & vanilla. Stir. Microwave for an additional minute. Take out of microwave. Add baking soda. Stir until light & foamy. Pour onto buttered cookie sheet. Cool 30 minutes or until firm. Break into 2 inch pieces.