Weekend Roundup

Warning: Long and rambling post follows.

Saturday:

On "Splendid Table" one of the callers asked about how to spice up meatloaf. This discussion started me thinking about 2 things. One - where could I get meatloaf for dinner? Two - Dad's forays into meatloaf.

Dad will get on kicks and cook the same thing over and over for weeks. Try pork chops 3 times a week for a month or rice pudding. Sometimes good, sometimes not so much. Years ago he decided to make meatloaf (I think it was the first one either of my parents had made my entire life.) and he kept making it for about 6 months. Luckily we didn't have it multiple times a week. He never made the exact same recipe twice; he kept trying new ones. Well, one time he ran out of bread crumbs and he had some leftover popcorn from lunch, so he substituted popcorn for about half the breadcrumbs. Then he thought mozzarella cheese would be good in the meatloaf. But he didn't shred it, he used the string cheese in the fridge. The resulting meatloaf, while tasting fine, was a little weird looking. It was medium grey and the slices had lighter spots where the cheese slices were. One of my brothers, his wife, and kids were staying with us at the time. The kids didn't even try it; they went straight for the peanut butter and jelly.

After "Splendid Table", APR airs "Travel with Rick Steves". One of his callers talked about how wonderful it was to travel with his son. His family had been to Europe 14 times with his now 19 year-old son and it had been great for his education and broadened his horizons, etc. This made me think of a funny story from an uncle and aunt of mine.

My Uncle Danny was a french teacher and they went to France several times while my cousins were growing up. One summer they went to southern France, including the beaches. If you've never been to Europe you may not know that going topless on the beaches is pretty common and women don't necessarily cover up before leaving the beach. (Similar to going to the Walmart in Panama City Beach and there being girls shopping in a bathing suit and towel, only less.) My cousins were a pre-teen and teenagers on this trip. Just the perfect age to see topless woman walking nonchalantly down the street. Their jaws hit the ground when the first lady walked by. Aunt Judy just looked at her boys and said "You say one word and I'm doing it." The threat of seeing their mother topless was enough to keep Jonathon and Robbie in line.

Saturday afternoon Ellen and I took Honey and Izzy to the park. Izzy was tuckered out from the mile long walk. We would've eaten at Roly Poly's but they were closed, "gone to the game." So we sat at Ken's next door. The next restaurant over (New Orleans Bar and Grill) was, apparently, the place for all the LSU students without tickets to hang out, in the outside seating. They had been drinking since at least kick-off and when we got there, towards the end of the 2nd quarter, several were getting loud. And the first half didn't go their way. Note: The f-bomb really loses its punch when it is every other word out of your mouth.

Sunday:

If you want service go to the Centerville McDonald's. They had more people working at late lunchtime, at a small store than the Micky D's in Taylorville ever has. Didn't make them terribly fast with the iced coffee, because they were out of cups, but they gave Mom two apple pies for making us wait. After picking up Nettie, we went riding. Patches was a bit of a snot. He settled down for me, but kept giving Nettie trouble. She did an awesome job handling him. She made him back-up by accident a couple of time, but did really well. I think part of the problem was she has to use these extra stirrups (which were a little short for her) and the regular stirrups were bouncing a bit on him so Patches was getting some mixed signals.

(My hair looks weird and, God, I look fat. Don't know why Nettie looks so serious.)

Then I had to come home and scrub out the dryer so I wouldn't get candy or gum or whatever that purple stuff was on my clothes.


Oh, the puppies eyes are open (They are two weeks old.) and Ellen started a new job Friday.