Cupid's post-Valentine's Day rescue plan
Feb 19, 2010
By Gale Hammond
You think the economy is hurting? Oh, friends, you have no idea. The troubled financial system is nothing compared to the poor guy who forgot his wife or girlfriend on the recent Valentine's holiday. C'mon, guys, you know who you are, and if you blew it big time this year, I have a way out of that doghouse you've been occupying the last few days all by your lonesome.
Now if your name is John Edwards or Mark "I'm hiking the Appalachian Trail" Sanford, I can't help you. No, I'm afraid your love life is dead in a ditch. But for the "Average Joe," I have a sure-fire solution certain to sweep your incensed sweetheart off her feet. It's called "Cooking in the Nude," and no, I am not making this up.
It's the title of a largely unknown recipe book I found the other day at the bottom of a long-forgotten heap of cookbooks in my kitchen. It was time to discard some of the old ones, you see. I've collected cookbooks for years, and frankly I haven't carted out some of the old "go-to" 1970s recipes since approximately the Carter administration. I mean, how long has it been since YOU made Chicken Divan?
This tome would have been trashed, too, had it not been for the recent Valentine's Day holiday and what I've learned from Valentine's Day disasters in years gone by. Now don't misunderstand me here. I am not talking about my spouse. Oh, no. He learned waaaaaay long ago that girls have a thing about being remembered on Valentine's Day. And he got with the program. But some guys take longer than others to get the hang of it, so as a valuable public service I am sharing this sage advice with the poor, Valentine-afflicted sufferers who blew it big time this year.
"So what's the plan?" you're probably saying. "Let's get to the good stuff." Yes, I know, it's hard to be patient when I tease you with such a saucy subject, if you'll pardon the pun.
Major alert: The author isn't suggesting you actually broil your burgers while cavorting about completely starkers unless you don't mind a few pops of hot grease getting into all that chest hair. Not that you can't take it, of course, you big, manly ... ummm, wait. Where was I?
Oh, yes. Before you can begin getting back into your sweetie's good graces, you must formulate a plan. This, according to the author, includes preparing a "Quickie Kit." OK, this sounds a little crass, but who knows? Being prepared is possibly ... not just for Boy Scouts anymore.
I mean, you just never know when you're going to get swept away with the desire to present a fabulous, romantically-conceived dinner for that special someone, right? Yep. Happens to me all the time. And presentation is everything. For example, you can't just rip off a hunk of paper towel and call it a napkin, now can you? No, no, no. This is the kind of thing that got you into trouble in the first place. So in your "Quickie Kit" you will store lovely cloth napkins complete with napkin rings. Now, wasn't that easy? You're well on your way back into your beloved's good graces already.
So after building your Quickie Kit containing such amorous items as wine, candles, "sensuous" music, bubble bath (bubble bath?) and the like, you'll need to plan your menu. And the cookbook doesn't disappoint. Here you can take your choice of passionate menu starters like "Suggestive Salad" or "Caesar and Please Her" and honestly, how long has it been since you've dressed your salad in "Voulez-Vouz Vinaigrette?"
Since an entree is imperative and if your passion is seafood, this book has you covered. Tempt your sweetheart with "Halibut My Place" or "Promiscuous Prawns," and if you want to get wild and crazy there's sole stuffed with scallops, crab and shrimp aptly named - you got it - "Menage a Trois."
Not a seafood fan? No problem. "Chicken Porno Bleu" or "Fowl Play" should please those poultry people in your life while "It had to be Ewe" and "Tempting Tenderloins" cover the red meat crowd.
A word about table etiquette: if you're a fan of the wildly lecherous "Tom Jones" movie scene of Tom and Mrs. Waters sitting opposite each other lustfully tearing into large turkey legs, banish that thought immediately! It's just not that appealing if, at the end of the feast, your plate appears to have been torn apart by wolves.
So I hope you and your sweetie are soon feeling the love, but should you decide to re-ignite those flames by "Cooking in the Nude," be careful out there. I certainly don't advise that you attempt a "moon landing" on your sizzling hot stove. Ouch!
Have some lemonade and a slice of life
Feb 3, 2010
By Gale Hammond
Recently a New Year's greeting came in the mail from my friend Susan. It was a photo card of Susan and her hubby with their four grandchildren. The message said, "A picture is worth a thousand Happy New Year greetings." Oh, you got that one right, sister!
Now I know your mind's eye is visualizing a picture-perfect family composed and beaming at the camera. Right? Ha! Your mind's eye is hallucinating because what Susan's picture conveys is a "real" slice of life, which brings an old adage to mind ... "When life hands you lemons, make lemonade."
I'm sure this platitude wasn't initially on Susan's mind when she began preparing for that fateful portrait. Because she tried. She really, really tried. Just like you or me, Susan was intent on getting the family photo picture perfect. No slacker in the planning department, Susan had ordered attractive red plaid shirts for herself and her hubby with matching hats for each of the grandkids. Now how cute is that?
Well, I'll tell you. It is cute and then some. In a snowy mountain scene, Susan, Les and their grandchildren are grouped in perfect Martha-Stewart-like-ambiance. At least THAT part went right. Les looks stoically into the distance (thinking, perhaps, about the long drive home?) as he holds Bella, 3, who apparently didn't get the memo regarding the color scheme, mysteriously electing to wear pink with her red plaid hat. Bella stares calmly at the camera, her tiny forefinger thrust into her mouth.
Next to Les and Bella, Susan holds baby Kess, but Kess wants down and seems most determined to get there. Something is askew with Kess's hat and Susan is attempting to squash the hat down into place, her outstretched arm obliterating her own face, allowing us just the teeniest glimpse of the laughter she's unable to contain.
In front of Les, Riley, nearly 9, is messing with his hat, apparently trying to get the thing on or off - it's not clear which - while younger brother Logan has rotated a quarter turn away from the camera where he does what comes naturally to 6-year-old boys: demonstrate his impressive "razzberries" technique, spewing out at no one in particular.
The photo is legendary, which is why Susan is one of those girlfriends who's a real keeper. I am blessed with several of those good kinds of girlfriends. That's right; they're the ones who let loose and laugh when life starts lobbing those lemons.
Maybe I gravitate toward folks who find humor in tough situations because I inherited this gene from my mom. Now there was a lady who took life's bitter lemons and not only make lemonade, she twisted the peel into fancy twirls and plopped them into a dry martini. Well, no, I just made that up about the martini. She was more of a whisky sour girl, but you get my drift.
So when my mother was diagnosed at the tender age of 64 with early onset Alzheimer's disease, a very unfunny illness, she sucked it up like any rational person would and concluded her doctor was nuts. "I don't like him very much," she sniffed as we exited his office. "And besides that, he doesn't know very much about medicine."
And although my mother did have Alzheimer's, she rode it out with grace and and good humor. Handed the bitterest of lemons she still found the tiniest kernel of humor in her predicament. "I don't care about getting older anymore," she told me once. "I can't remember how old I am anyway, so who cares?"
But it was when she was getting ready to attend her 50th high school class reunion that she really shined. She needed a new dress. Just in case. If her previously high-functioning brain threw her a curve at the reunion, she wanted to be looking good.
So we went shopping. Mom picked a couple of prospects off the rack, and we headed to the fitting rooms where I waited on a chair outside her cubicle. After some rustling around, she opened the door. She looked fantastic in a jazzy little black number with vibrant slashes of red and purple running throughout the fabric. And she loved it. Retreating back inside to try on the other dress, more rustling of hangers and fabric ensued. A few moments later the dressing room door popped open again, and there stood my mother - wearing the exact same dress! Huh???
"I don't think I like this dress as much as the first one," she declared, checking herself in the mirror. "Um, Mom, that IS the first one," I ventured nervously, whereupon she exploded with laughter at her mistake. Now that, my friends, is how to make some incredibly good lemonade.
Time for a ride in the 'way-back' machine
Jan 22, 2010
By Gale Hammond
Recently scientist and inventor Dean Kamen, creator of the mind-controlled prosthetic robot arm and the more-familiar Segway Transportation System, was interviewed on a cable news program about the technologies he couldn't live without. Interestingly, his first choice was an item that hasn't even been invented yet.
Kamen wants a time machine. "Life is short," he reminds us. "... I'd like to be able to travel at near instantaneous speed to get from one place to another."
You've read that right, friends. Yes, a brilliant guy like Kamen wants an apparatus peculiar to science-fiction novels and - who knows - perhaps such a mechanism actually lurks out there somewhere on the horizon.
Now this is intriguing. If a time machine allowed us to travel at "near instantaneous speed," perhaps it would let us do other things ... such as living the past all over again. Haven't you wished that at least once? Oh, come on - of course you have! How about all those times when you've thought, "Dang! If only I'd ..." after it's too late?
This would be your chance to set right the old wrongs and injustices; those times when somebody gave you major attitude and you were too stunned to come up with a good retort. With a time machine, you'd certainly come up with something snappier than spluttering pathetically all over yourself and shooting back
with the ultra clever, "Gahhaaeuhkjp nmmmph!" Oh, yeah! That really cut your tormenters off at the knees.
Or consider this: what if you could have a "do-over" of those crappy high school years when you were such a dweeb? This would be your ticket to being cool, friends. Being "with it." I mean, guys: if you had it to do all over again, wouldn't you abort that old buzz haircut that still haunts you from the pages of your yearbook and instead sport one of those smooth hairstyles that all the girls can't wait to run their fingers through? Or, girls: do-overs would mean you'd have cute shoes to match every outfit in your closet. Am I right? Yeah. You'd be a rock star.
And how about the really rotten times such as your entire freshmen and sophomore years? Those tragic days when the world was spinning out of control. With a time machine, you could re-write history.
For example: How about when your One True Love showed up at the prom with your BFF Marsha even when everyone agreed to go "stag" to the prom and there she was dancing with YOUR guy and to make matters worse the little @**$& was wearing your best bracelet on her skinny arm and she had simply BEGGED to borrow it so she could wear it to CHURCH for Pete's sake and then they left the prom together and you never found out exactly what happened because it was WAY too mortifying to go back to school for three whole days and you were so violently ill over the whole thing and by the time you did go back to school everybody was STILL talking about it. Huh? Wouldn't you love a chance to go back and fix that? No, me neither.
And let's say you decide (wisely, no doubt) to bypass high school and continue on back to when you were a little tyke. Now those were some fun times! Playing kick-the-can with your pals, putting on plays in the park, running through the sprinklers on a hot summer day, riding your bike until the street lights came on. Could a time machine take you back to that fun-in-the-sun childhood you left behind?
Sure, that would be great, but here's my problem: I am SO not a mechanical genius. And it goes without saying that a time-traveler would have to know how to operate that machine without a flaw. No approximations when it comes to the time where you are traveling, right? For instance, when I was little, my grandpa would lift me up on his lap where he would read to me. I'd ask him meaningful questions such as why did he have skin like a turkey on his neck? Now Grandpa thought this was cute when I was three. Not so cute if I was, say, 12 or 14. So if I chose to go back in time and sit on Grandpa's lap, I would have to hit that old time-travel nail square on the head.
But the A-number-one most important thing about a time machine would be getting back to the present where you belong. Except what if you hit the wrong button and you wound up a newborn baby? Sure, back to the womb would be interesting, although then what? I don't know about you, but I don't think I would want to relive ALL those years again. Seriously. Would you?
