Dragon Buffet

Jorge, ever the buffoon, asks the waitperson, "Is there any dragon on today's menu?"  The cute, dark haired Asian beauty looks at him questioningly.  In the cartoon balloon above her head are a half dozen questions, none of them printable.  He repeats himself, "Are you serving dragon today?" That's where I step in.  I can't remember exactly what I said.  Perhaps it was just the circling motion next to my temple indicating this guy's cuckoo. Then she laughs. "Oh, you so funny!"

When Jorge drops us off, I open the first fortune cookie, withdraw the paper and give the crunchy cookie  to my dog for a treat. The above was inside.  I open Jorge's fortune cookie.  He's dieting and restricting the intake of carbs.  He gives it to me.  The cookie advises him to quit buying things on sale. Buy only what you need. An apt description of Jorge.

The only reason he asked the wait person at the Dragon Buffet about dragon on the menu is because I said to him as we walked in, "I 'll give you a dollar if you ask her if they serve "dragon".   " You owe me a buck", he replies. 

Hunh?

Ten things you'd like to forget?  It took me 24 minutes today to add a new blog to my blog list.  Yesterday and today I'm plagued with tech problems.  Pictures I wanted to download wouldn't.  Posts I didn't want to add, did. WTF?

Turns out that comedy comes in the weirdest ways.  No, I didn't forget ten things that I wanted to forget. I merely changed the title of the post. Blogger took over from there. I don't remember what I wanted to forget.

2006 Miss Nude Russet Potato Contest

There was a time when I had the time to play with my food, as the picture suggests.  Carrots with forked legs, tomatoes with tuber noses, obscene zucchini and ridiculous cross bred vegetables like squashkins. This photo was one that wouldn't download for yesterday's post.

In the east bedroom of our converted schoolhouse Willy Coyote is propped against the back wall. He's named Willy because he's not too clever.  There is a smaller version on a shelf I call Tammy Wylette.  Willy wears a twenty two bullet necklace and has wires in his ears to make them stand up straight.  His nose droops forever  When I bought the thing, it was an outrageous expense. The kids couldn't care less.

The coyote figures prominently in my youth.  Saturday cartoons were a must watch.  I rooted for the coyote.   Many frustrating moments were spent enduring his foiled attempts to snatch a feathered meal. Living in Arizona, I got to see Roadrunners live and in action.  I admired them greatly for their foraging habits and curious way of running.  Observing quail families-mom, pop and 17 f feather balls walking across the cul-de-sac down our arroyo was another real treat.  I wear a Phoenix Coyote baseball cap when I get dressed up. The double irony: he's the mascot for an Arizona ice hockey team and a symbol of the trickster. 

When my daughter attended the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, she lived in a building purchased from Hugh Hefner. Yes, the original Playboy Mansion.  Weird things happened there. She was not happy living there. I gave her a coyote tooth necklace(a real tooth) to ward off the trickster.  Coyote is also famous among western Native Americans as the sexual buffoon.  I'm not sure it helped ward off weirdness as my shy, blond haired, blue-eyed daughter now wears a snake tattoo down her left arm.  But that's my own perspective.

A disgusted Willy Coyote

Kisses and Licks

A long time ago a Popsicle cost 5 cents and gas is 27 cents a gallon during price wars.  Gas stations are called filling stations and someone would come out and ask if you wanted your oil checked.  It didn't cost you a buck to have your windshield cleaned by a vagrant with a greasy rag(remember then?) About that time, I regularly e-mailed the town clerk tidbits of trite information just like this post. She was the friend of a friend.

So I begin by telling her about a dream of mine.  I was kissing Marilyn Monroe.  "I'M NOT INTERESTED IN YOUR DREAMS," she replied. I never got to the point of the e-mail which,  if it were a blog post, it would be titled, No Big Deal , because that's what it was.  I was so surprised that a huge sex symbol like Marilyn Monroe would be a so-so kisser. There's probably deep down psycho-babble meaning here.

Recently I dreamed I was licked in the face by a comely woman. When I was a kid,  I'd surprise Auntie Irma who'd bend over to pinch my cheek and give me a smooch by giving her a huge slurpy lick.  That'll teach her to pinch my cheek.

The cartoon balloon over my head in the dream says, "In all my eighty years, I've never been licked!"  Eighty years?  I may be older, but I can assure you I haven't reached that golden age. When you awaken you tell yourself you should write that one down, but you don't.  Musing the dream over breakfast, I decide I must stop letting Mandy Mae, my dog, lick my face.  It's causing me nightmares.

Dawn calls me yestewrday afternoon to tell me the blood test results came back positive for Lyme disease.  First the dog and now my wife.  My first thought?  Is it catching.  I'm waiting for the doctor to call back.  Nights in front of the tube, Dawn positions a hoist over my recliner so that she can extract me so I can take the dog out before bed.  I don't sit on the couch anymore because it's so soft, it swallows you up.  Dawn has to prop her feet against my behind and give me a good push to get me up.  I rationalize it's due to all the field work.It may be Lyme disease.

I got my peas in yesterday.  I planted three varieties of spinach.  Tyee, Baby Leaf hybrid and Bloomsdale long standing are sleeping snugly in 24 foot long rows each.  On either side of a 16 foot long cattle panel are edible podded peas and snow peas.  We're in the first quarter leading up to a full moon.  Mother Nature's on the opposing team so I have to balance weather events against the moon signs.  The Amish act as sideline coaches when I do not have enough information. Spuds ( two 80 foot plots) and two onion plots are next.  I'm saving eggshells for the bottom of the holes of the 20 tomato plants I put in the ground.

The good news is that spud production is now totally organic .  My seed potatoes last year weren't organic.  I am not independently wealthy to afford the organic variety of seed potatoes.  This year I have a good supply of my own organically raised potatoes to plant a field that could supply a small village.More good news.  The recent 80 degree weather over the weekend that caused a spate of broken tree limbs and razor sharp, flying tin carpets I used to cover a woodpile have caused only a minor amount of spud sprouting in the dark reaches of the summer kitchen.  Goes to show that one does not need a heavy chemical dose of growth retardant on potatoes. The russet were harvested last August. Count on your fingers- Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec. Jan. Feb. March April- 8 months and they're still good.  The secret?  Storage temperature. Most of the fall and winter they were kept just above freezing in the summer kitchen, in total darkness, unwashed. Optimally the humidity should be 90%.

 

Ten Things You Want To Forget

Kisses and Licks

Stay tuned folks for a segment called Kisses and Licks. It's a dream.  No time at present.  The other segment, maybe I'll combine the two is Broken Wind. We had a heck of a windstorm yesterday. 

Voyeur

Corn garden on a rainy day

Dawn asks what I want for my birthday.
"Flame thrower," I tell her.
Sarcasm and dull witted statements are the norm, therefore, her reply-
"Really?" 
"Really," I say.
"I thought you were kidding because of the grass fire."
Lee Valley Tools has one in their garden catalog for April. She folds back the page for future reference.  Later, I check the price of nozzle, hose and connector. Wow.
"spendy"
( paraphrasing the fetilizer sales man at the agri-center).
Since there are no dimension to the width of the flame on this weed killer, I conjure up this scene.
Tra-La-La-, Tra-La-La.Tra-La-La...
Gavrillo skipping down rows of onions killing weeds and making french onion soup at the same time.
Let's get practical. More birthday shoes.
The 46X30 foot plot (mid-left photo) is our corn garden.  In the lower left hand side of the corn garden is Pucci Kitty's favorite poop spot.  The sand pile below the white frame structure we use to dry onions is another of the Pooch's outhouses.It's no longer the granddaughter's sand pile.
Lee Valley sells a Cat Scat ( not the trade marked name in the catalog) ultra-sonic device to repel cats
(white cats, older cats, exotic breeds may not be affected).
"Spendy."
Dream on about peasant knives, wheel hoes, collapsible rain barrels,heat activated window openers and a nifty stainless steel spatula for $9.95 to replace the worn, inexpensive chrome plated one I use.

Dog and I journey to Johnson's One Stop in Seneca.  The route follows the Kickapoo River up to and beyond Gays Mills.  I watch for waterfowl in abundant wetlands while Mandy keeps an eye on an undulating, twisting road.  The hills are broader, the fields larger and the countryside makes me want to plow deep furrows with a $200,000 John Deere tractor while listening to Bruce Springsteen and John Mellencamp.  I'd toss in some Laurie Anderson to counteract eons of country music that lie fermenting beneath the topsoil, excluding, of course Willie Nelson, Hank Williams, Hank Williams Jr. and Patsy Cline. I hum Crazy and I Fall To Pieces as we pass Tavern Lane ( there's no tavern on Tavern Lane). A little way down the road we pass a one story white steel building that says, "Christians Who Worship Jesus In His Everlasting Glory But Only on Weekends"  Wow. That's a really long moniker. I tsk tsk and cluck my tongue at names I see on businesses and buildings.  "Ed's" & "Dicks" are two of my favorite names for grocery stores.  Ed's Super Value always brings to mind tons of delicious fruit, select meat and fresh produce.  "Dicks Grocery Store."  It could only be surpassed by Ricky's Finer Foods.

Johnson's One Stop turns out to be an accurate description.  Grocery store, hardware, lumber mill and agri-center combined.  I'm looking for an organic (can be used up to the day of harvest) dust for Colorado potato beetles, squash bugs and an assortment of other leaf eating pests.  The one pound containers are on sale. In the height of the season the local hardware stores sell it for twice the price.  Grass seed, chicken leg quarters, Cannelini bean seed, country ribs, butter and twine complete the list.  I wait in a long line at two register lanes squeezed into the last aisle between a bank of freezers on the right and canned goods at left wondering why the owner doesn't put loss-leader specials and impulse purchases on the shelves instead of canned goods. The lady in front of me has eighteen pounds of butter and a leaning Tower of Pisa stack of  frozen pizzas. The old gent at my left is grinning and carrying a cardboard case of country ribs.
"I bet they're counting the dollar bills flying through, " he says to me. The farmer to the left of Pizza lady is wearing train engineer, seersucker bibs that are badly stained  in the butt portion. "Need to wipe off that tractor seat Bub,"  I muse.He could be a stand-in for Grandpa in The Grapes of Wrath. When he munches his free popcorn his nose touches his chin.

As I load my purchases in the car, a grocery bagger woman comes rushing out to snatch the cart I'd pushed across highway 27.  Fearful that I'd load the cart into the truck of my Chevy, she grins as I thank her for saving me the walk across Main Street. I gaze at the many wonders of Southwest Wisconsin on the way back.

Two stately Victorian bed and breakfasts sit dangerously close to the river.  Highwater marks many of the houses in the two block long stretch of downtown Gays Mills.  One house is on steel beams ready for relocating which  forecasts the creation of another ghost town like the original town of Soldiers Grove.  The Mt.Sterling  goat cheese factory,  plywood aliens waving from Crazy Frank's, Digger Don, "Go Westby Girl's", Thurfane (whatizzit?), "We smoke anything" at the meat locker.   

Working on a new sign for the front field,

Blackbird Farm

Organically Grown

Vegetables

 I swat two mosquitoes.  When I mention it to my wife, she says, Not already."  "Yes, already."

 

Pall Mall

It's election day in Tunnel-ville.  Same goes for Kickapoo Center.  If you're wondering, yes, there is a Tunnel-ville. It's nearby.  Mountain Man Johann explained the origins of the place in a journey across the tundra through the Kickapoo Reserve.  My faulty memory says it has to do with tunnels and an old railroad grade.  In Sedona, actually the Village of Oak Creek, a road sign announces a side road called Back O 'Beyond. Clever pioneers, yes they were.

Since I'll be going to the polling place today, I'll need to spruce up. I'll forgo my favorite khaki shirt with the frayed collar for a maroon L.L.Bean chamois shirt. I've got a few more days in these blue jeans.  I won't, however, have to turn them inside out like Jeannette Walls' grandmother did in Half Broke Horses.

No one's running for office in Kickapoo Center because no has lived there for 100 years.  In the Town of Kickapoo all of the town board is running unopposed. The former town chairman calls on our land line yesterday.  After nine rings, I decide to answer the phone. Telephone solicitors usually give up after eight.  I'm guessing  Jorge is trying to get in touch and is out of telephone minutes on his cell.

"Were you sleeping?" he asks.  "No," I reply. "I don't answer this phone because some one tries to sell me something when I do."

"I'm not selling," he says.  "I'm buying. I need your vote.Write me in tomorrow. They never applied for the grant to repair town roads. I got a grant three out of four times when I applied."

I'm sold..  Disgruntled because of the condition of our road after the town snow plow scrapes all the gravel and a swath a half mile wide with their front mounted plow and side swinging scraper.  I'm frazzled and worn from three hours  spent repairing huge divots, raking boulders off the lawn and replanting turf.  It's a dead end road, for cripes sake. Dawn, myself and the telephone company are the only travelers on this road the town crew figures should be wide enough for two 18 wheelers to pass simultaneously. ...And there are three more hours of road work left.

The best reason to vote is the election for State Supreme Court.  A Republican governor nominates David J. Prosser jr. to the Supreme Court in 1998.  His opponent is(according to my wife who heard an interview on NPR) an articulate speaker, Assistant Attorney General Joanne Kloppenberg.  The news media quickly fixed attention on Prosser after he loses the key support of a respected former governor, is quoted as labeling liberal Supreme Court Justice Shirley Abrahamson, "a total bitch", is endorsed by none other than Sarah Palin and  has turned a normally non-partisan, dull election into a proxy fight closely allied to Skippy Walker's anti-union bill.  We need another conservative Republican judge playing politics in office?

If you're wondering Pall Mall is an alley in London.  A game similar to croquet, knocking balls through iron hoops, originated there.