Sorry for the lack of Bloggin even though I had every intention of being here regularly this month. Last week I was so overcome with ennui that I just had to go somewhere. There is nothing I like better than temps in the 90's and humidity of at least 140 percent. Key West!

What I needed was a week or so of lounging on a chaize and watching the palmetto bugs steal the patio furniture. Key West in the summer is NOT the tourist season. The local clubs are loaded with locals and tourists too poor to visit in the winter. I knew I was in trouble when I invited some strangers to hang at my place. I just made a batch of pickle-juice popsicles (you have to churn them three or four times BEFORE inserting the stick) and without a pool or patio furniture there was nothing to do but sample my frozen delights and drink alcohol. The only thing I had to drink were a couple of dozen bottles of Miller Chill. Between the pickle-juice and the lime beer there was more puckering on my patio then at a Best Buns Contest on Castro Street in SF.

I learned at my Mother's knee or some other low-down joint, not to mix booze and since I was already 120 percent in the bag I agreed to go out. It was either hang with my new friends or the palmetto bugs so I ended up at some bar. Bars don't have a great attraction for me. I especially eschew bars where there is squeeling. There was more squeeling at this bar than at a Hormel Plant or a Best Buns Contest, for that matter. Since it was the "off" season, the buns weren't the best and the squeels were often those of disappointment. It sounded like Clay Aiken at a Little Oscar Buffet.

Eventually, I got home, finished off my last 2 bottles of Chill and rode my bed until I passed out. When I awoke six hours later, the palmetto's had rented a Ryder truck and cleaned out my place except my bed and refrigerator. All that was left was a half row of Saltines and a can of Vienna Sausages. They made be extremely self-concious and before I finished them I was squealing like George Michael when he sees a highway rest-stop exit sign.

I will be home next week just in time for the tourist season in Duluth. This year summer is on July 16th and I don't want to miss it. Watching the uninitiated go swimming in the always-cold Lake Superior is special. There's more shrinkage on Park Point beach then there is in Barry Bonds jock-strap. All that squealing makes me think of Key West.

Take care....

Rob

My friend, Mike, gave me a toaster in 1993. In 1988 or 89 I did a bridal registry at several department stores but never got a gift from that. I am not sure why Mike gave me a toaster and a very cheap toaster to boot. Even he admits this was a $7 toaster. All during my time in SF I used that toaster. I couldn't use the toaster and the micro-wave at the same time without blowing a fuse. It only had two narrow slots and was definitely a low-tech toaster. In 2003 it was time for an upgrade. It still worked, but I was fascinated by new toasters. A year ago I plunked down $49 dollars for a new toaster. The Mike Toaster went in the thrift store pile.

My new toaster has wide slots, warming, defrosting, and a toast-only-one-side-bagel-setting. This toaster was sketch from the start.

1. When finished it didn't pop up enough to grab with fingers and I had to use tongs to retrieve almost everything

2. To really toast something you had to double push. Unless you weren't after toast but merely warm bread

3. It was bulky and took lots of room.

4. Things seem to burst into flame frequently.

And now...it is stuck on Bagel! To toast both sides of ANYTHING you must rotate the item and since everything is a double push anyway that means to make two slices of toast you have to quadruple push! It was so much trouble that instead of making my own lunch I ate at the Olive Garden.

What really bugs me is that some special person who works at Goodwill had some really good toast for lunch.

Have a good week-end!

Rob

Not really angry but let's just say I'm in a bit of a snit. It's this tomato thing! Am I stupid or is it because people aren't washing the tomato before using them or is the problem that the 'taint' is actually IN the juice of the tomato. Like if something pollutes the tomato field and the polluted stuff gets sucked up the stem and is INSIDE the tomato. It isn't that I'm p.o.'d because the tomatos are bad. Come on....they say the Florida tomatos are o.k.....the California tomatos are o.k......so what does that leave. Is it the MEXICAN tomatos!!!! The LIBS want us to become more '3rd World'...Yeah! I just want more poopy tomatos in the U.S.

Here is the deal. When you are in the grocery store standing in front of the tomatos, simply stick your finger in your butt. Then take a tomato and sniff it. Then sniff your finger. If they both smell like ass....don't buy the tomato.

Today I had the cold hamburger sandwich I have dreamed about. My brother BBQ'd some burgers and I saved one for the fridge. I put the cold burger on a big hunk of sourdough with mayo, Dijon mustard, ice-berg lettuce, and a big dill pickle. Wow! I loved it. It is important to cut the cold burger in half and lightly salt the insides of the cold burger. Oh...I also had some left over cooked, but cold onions. Double Wow!

Rob

I had so intended to blog every day this month...or at least a lot of consecutive days....but yesterday I just didn't feel like it. I woke a little light headed, by noon was ditzy and by late afternoon became gaga before finally avoiding an out-right swoon by crawling into bed before 9pm. There wasn't anything on TV to watch anyway.

Making matters worse, I had been dreaming about my meatloaf sandwich since Saturday and just didn't have the energy to create one. Ended up with a couple of potato-flour white bread sandwiches. One a PB&J sandwich made with Dillman Farm All-Natural Peanut Butter and some huckleberry jelly from the Huckleberry Festival in Bingen, Washington. I toasted the the other sandwich slices, coverered the warm toast with peanut butter and sliced banana and sprinkled with cinnamon. I was almost out of milk (barely half a glass) and too lazy to go to the store so after stretching what milk I had with tiny sips, finished off the sandwiches with Cherry Kool-Aid.

My brother is BBQing burgers tomorrow and he has promised me a couple of extra to bring home with me. Now I'm dreaming of Thursday and a cold hamburger sandwich. I'll be in heaven.

Rob

A while back I was talking on the phone to my brother, Tim, and he was telling me some story about a comment his wife had made. The context of the account isn't important. What happened though, I laughed so hard that I fainted! Anyone who has ever fainted understands the strange feeling you have when you return to the concious world. It takes a moment for your mind to process where you are and why you are where you are. When I regained awareness it took me a moment to understand why I was slumped in chair and why my phone was between my body and the cushions and why my brother was no longer on the phone. It seems when I went silent, Tim had waited a few moments, hung up the phone and went to bed. It was until 20 minutes later when I called to explain why I had disappeared that they found out it was because I passed out.

I tell this story because this morning I came close again. I was watching a DVR of Dame Edna on some British show I recorded last night and I began laughing so hard I felt conciousness slipping away and was only saved by the pause button. When it is finally time to "....shed this mortal coil..." I hope this is how it is. Come to think of it if the end had come during that phone call with my brother or this morning watching Dame Edna, how wonderful it would be to have actually died laughing.

At some point in the last 25 years I read a Nero Wolfe mystery in which the title character and his chef, Fritz, are having a disagreement over how to cook scrambled eggs. Nero Wolfe suggests that any scrambled eggs that haven't been cooked for at least 40 minutes are inedible. You do realize that you have to cook them VERY slow for the cooking to take forty minutes. I have tried many times in the ensuing years and this morning achieved a personal best cooking my scrambled eggs for just over 34 minutes. Cooked in real butter and accompanied by some apple-maple-pork sausage and sourdough toast, the eggs were as creamy as melted ice-cream.

Nothing much on TV tonight. I'm looking forward to season 3 of Dexter, The Closer, the new episodes of Burn Notice and of course all the various reality competitions. Nothing on the horizon that will make me faint.

Rob

Went to see Zodan this afternoon and laughed my ass off. I am just sophomoric enough to find it very humorous. If the Arabs were upset with the Danish cartoons, this movie should put them in a frenzy. Good!

Saw the woman from last night again today. I told her I was going to the movies and she told me she hadn't been to a movie in 22 years. Can you imagine that? She missed Porky's and Porky's II...not to mention Deuce Bigalow! And that movie with Luicano Pavoratti....

Anyway, I have a veal meatloaf in the oven and plan to eat my dinner and watch the last two episodes of Dexter, Season II. Later sweet cheeks!

Rob

Why is it that where ever I live, I am surrounded by nuts! I spent a lot of San Francisco time surrounded by a cast of seriously psychotic people and it seems I have found the local mental institution. Just after lunch I took off and spent the day and evening with some friends. When I walked through the lobby door upon returning, my arms were full of packages and plastic bags and thankfully one of the other tenants was there to open the door for me. Her courtesty required me to listen to her complaints. It seems the the Fire Department across the street has been making a lot of unnecessary calls. The woman told me she doubted there were THAT many emergencies. (Of course...the Fire Department guys every so often turn on the sirens and drive around the block just to bug the old ladies in this building!...)...Also, she was wondering who to call because the planes have been flying too low, people have been slamming their car doors late at night ("Why can't they close them softly?")...and today the mail man was a different guy and didn't look 'kosher'. I am not exactly sure how to interpret that...if he didn't look 'kosher' does that mean the mailman wasn't circumsized?...or likes bagels and...peanut butter....or was just a crook who killed the regular guy and was stealing everyone's Suave Conditioner Sample? I shouldn't be surprised because last summer at the building picnic I was told that V.P. Cheney helped destroy the Trade Center, Roosevelt died in 1940 and was replaced by a double....and so was Churchill....and Bush should be tried and hanged...and....Kennedy was killed by Nixon...and the FBI....and ...and....and.....

I have never been much for fish sticks. Actually I have never tasted one. As a kid, Fridays were meatless for our family and I ate a lot of mushroom sauce spaghetti and grilled cheese sandwiches. For lunch today I stepped back into that Friday comfort food with a steaming bowl of tomato soup, lightly flavored with basil, and a three-cheese (Cheddar, Jack, and Mozzarella) grilled sandwich. I buttered both sides of a couple of slices of country white bread and piled on the cheeses. I cheated by sticking it in the microwave for about 15 seconds before grilling in a moderately hot skillet. I wanted to make sure the cheese melted and mingled without burning the butter. With grilled cheese sandwiches I have a foible. I dip them in ketchup. The sandwich, tomato soup and a glass of ice-cold milk and I was 12 again!

My webmaster is doing his monthly Air National Guard duty this week-end, so it will be Monday or Tuesday before the next chapter is posted. I'm already working on Chapter 23...

Hope you are all having a great week-end!

Rob

Since I am just killing some time before catching a movie, I thought I'd update you on my Chapter 22 progress. It is finished and just waiting for some fine tuning. Chapter 23 is in the early stages. As My Story progresses it seems to become more personal and perhaps that can be translated to more boring. Well, it's My Story and I'm sticking to it.

I've decided to catch Ironman. Its been out for weeks and I better check it out before it beats me to DVD. Only other new movie is the Sex In The City movie and I'd rather be in a major bike/car accident, run over by the ambulance driven by an EMT with a gorrilla on his back, delivered to the operating room to a surgeon who just secretly drank a quart of Jack Daniels before OD'ing on BreathSavers and as the life saving procedure begins the hospital oxygen tanks explode and every fire-hydrant between Duluth and Nova Scotia dries up just as a gang of hydrophobic chimpanzees escape from Chimp Eden and steal 1,000 typewriters in an attempt to duplicate the writings of Shakespeare than see Sex In The City.

I probably will skip the popcorn and just enjoy a Clif Bar during the movie. Last night I baked a couple of chicken breasts with hungarian paprika, garlic, and onions and put them in the fridge. For lunch I hand sliced a couple of thick pieces of 8 grain bread and buttered one slice. I piled a sliced chicken breast onto one slice and covered it with an ample dollop of home-made mayonaise mixed with just a drop or two of fresh lemon juice. I sprinkled cold-cooked spinach and sliced black olives on top of the mayo and covered it all with the other bread slice. Cut on the bias with a half a cup of cottage cheese sprinkled with parmesan cheese and sliced Roma tomatoes on the side, I won't need No Stinkin' Popcorn.

Question: What is your favorite song from the 'Disco Era'? Later.....Rob

Well! So far June is much better than May. I was actually putting some finishing touches on Chapter 22 for My Story and in addition to a break for lunch, thought I would do a bit of blogging. My friend, Rachel, whom I have know for 25 years is a wonderful blogger on My Space and she has shamed me into being more attentive to THIS...my personal blog. She and I are both aghast at the news of Clay Aikman's turkey-baster father-hood. I fixed a wonderful sandwich for lunch. On a couple of slices of crusty sourdough wheat bread I buttered one slice, piled on a couple of slices of canned Argentinian corned beef, a couple of very thin-sliced purple onion and some home-made Russian dressing with just a tad of horse-radish. It was so messy and crumbly I ended up eating it leaning over the sink.

Speaking of Clay Aikman, are all the 'hosts' on QVC and HSN gay? I sort of expect a flamer to be peddling women's make-up, hair-products, and stretch plus-size Capri pants but when they are selling a power washer and the host talks to a customer why do they ALWAYS end the phone call by saying, "Bub-Bi?" Why not Good Bye? Or why not, "See you"? or how about "Later"? or even "get off the phone, loser". Anything but...."BUB-BI".

Someone just wrote and asked me if I had any audio tapes of shows on KDWB. Hmmmm. Not really. Oh, well. What's the deal with Madilyn Migden...or whatever her name is...? Her entire face is petrified. Really. You don't even know who she is. You don't care. Well then.....Bub-bi.

Rob