Bodacious Boomer

This is about the last day of an almost month long road trip to Colorado. We had Amanda’s best friend Ginny with us on this trip. Before we left Colorado to head home, Doug put all the money in his fanny pack. (That man was crazy for fanny packs for a few years.) We were on our way home having spent the day in Taos. What a cool place-very artsy. We’d decided we would get a motel room in Santa Fe that night, then push on the next day perhaps stopping one more night somewhere.

When we arrived in Santa Fe, Doug went to check us in only to discover that all the money in his fanny pack was gone. It was nylon and apparently the stitching at the bottom had just given way at some point and all the money had fallen out. It’s still hard to imagine that no one saw it fall, but it did and we didn’t. All we had left was the change from a $100 bill that I had broken to pay for lunch and gas earlier that day. Luckily I’d put that cash in my purse or we’d been screwed worse than we were. Obviously there would be no motel that night. (We didn’t travel with any plastic at all back then-strictly cash.)

We told the kids that we were going to drive straight thru to go home and just hunker down because it was going to be a long ride with very few stops. I was stressed and knew I couldn’t sleep right away so I told Doug I’d drive first. (He could instantly fall asleep on a bed of nails.) About ten miles out of town Brett said he had to pee. By now it was after10pm and we were on a fairly deserted road so I just pulled over so the troops could relieve themselves. The three pre-teens went up the hill to do their thing. Being a boy, Brett had no problem. Amanda apparently suffered no unfortunate consequences either. Ginny, though was not so lucky. She must’ve pulled her pants down, but not back. Her pants got soaked. Then we had to open the roof-top carrier, get down her bag so she could change, repack, etc.

About 11pm, the negotiations of who was going to sit where were finally finished, the bags repacked and I had found the back road I needed to take to get us to the highway. Doug is sleeping and I’ve settled in to drive for the first stretch. Just as I finally get us up to speed something huge jumped in front of the van. I stomp the brakes as hard as I could and swerved the car to the left. I didn’t have time to focus on what it was. Doug woke up and yelled “What the **** was that- a camel???!!!” (All I knew was it’s stomach was higher than the hood.) I later was told it was an elk. (I didn’t hit it, but now I needed to change my pants.) Elk are HUGE!

The whole way home all we ate were packs of Lance crackers which we purchased while we filled up the car. While dropping Ginny off at home I forgot to give her the jeans. While returning the van the next day I found her jeans. I threw them in the trunk of my car and there they stayed for almost 3 months. Have you ever popped open the trunk when there’s been a pair of urine soaked jeans marinating in it for 3 months? Martha would not say “It’s a good thing.” It’s a bad, very bad thing indeed. It took forever to get that smell out of the trunk. So what did we learn? Girls, always pull your pants back if you’re peeing on a slope. Elk are huge and really fast and never, ever, trust a nylon fanny pack. Words to live by.

The root of all evil?

According to a USA Today article a 38 yr. old former Army doc who served in Iraq waged a one-man war on obesity by by posting sardonic warnings on an electronic sign outside his office. He had been hired by the county health department to educate the public about health issues. The Dunkin Donuts=Death was just one of his adages. Dr. Newsome was just fired from his position because pressure was brought to bear by local business owners who owned doughnut shops. That just goes to show you the power that deep fried sweetened junk wields in the south.

In the south, we like things sweet. If there’s a group meeting of any kind, donuts are always there. The sweet tea sits next to the unsweetened in all family restaurants and many fast food joints. I don’t know why Southerners prefer things sweeter, but it’s just a fact that they do. I ordered peach cobbler at at an upscale B&B in New Hampshire 25 years ago. They brought me a little square of tasteless white cake on a saucer with a dab of peach preserves on top. I looked at the waitress like the RCA dog. What the Hell was this? Cobbler should have fresh peaches in it with a lot of sugar and a little cinnamon topped with a lattice crust. It’s served in a bowl to hold all the juices. It can be plain, which is really good, or ala mode-almost orgasmic.

A hot Krispy Kreme doughnut is also a favorite indulgence. I don’t know why they’re the best doughnut out there, but I think they are. Krispy Kreme doughnuts, started in Winston-Salem, NC in 1938 are legendary, often referenced in pop culture. They’ve been mentioned in Sex and the City and on Will & Grace. According to the book Making Dough, the 12 secret ingredients to Krispy Kreme’s success, Krispy Kreme was the third most recognized brand in the US in 2002, just behind Target and Apple Computer. This was done with an advertising budget of less than $100K. They are just that good. Even in Seattle, one of the fittest cities in the world, the first week a Krispy Kreme was open they did $454,125.00. That’s a lot of doughnuts!

Sweet potato pie and red velvet cake recipes are closely guarded family secrets. If you go to New Orleans you can watch brown sugar, butter, cream and pecans bubbling in huge copper cauldrons just waiting to become pralines. In the South it’s considered bad manners to have someone over to eat unless you’ve got something scrumptious for dessert. Cheese and fruit? I don’t think so.

So come on down South and have something sweet. Your hips and your heart may not like it, but you’ll have a really happy set of taste buds. What’s your favorite sweet indulgence?

Map of registered members of Couchsurfing.org

Do you surf? Better to ask- Do you know a surfer? Not surfing the web, not surfing the waves. A couch surfer. To be perfectly honest, until just a few years ago I really didn’t know what a couch surfer was. I remember the first time I really heard people talking about it was after the movie You, Me and Dupree, which came out in 2009.

When I was growing up the only people that stayed on someone else’s couch fell into one of two categories. First- they had a fight with their spouse and needed a spot just for one night or second- they were bums.

The Urban Dictionary has two definitions of couch surfing: a cheap form of lodging used mainly by college students or recent college grads where one stays on acquaintances couches rather than a hotel. Or, what someone does who can’t afford rent on their own or can’t find roommates quick enough does between places. Our son Brett AKA Beef, falls into the second category. Brett lives in Austin, TX where the University of Texas is located. Brett had an apartment for a year, then he shared a house with three roommates. When their lease was up June 1st, everybody went their separate ways. One guy went to his girlfriend’s place, one went to live with his boss, one was a bum who had never paid his rent anyway and then there’s Brett. He’ll be in his new place in a couple of weeks now I believe.

So, for about two months, Brett’s been a couch surfer. Apparently this is pretty common with this generation, at least in Austin. There’s no big social stigma involved as there would have been when we were his age. We were in Austin the day he was moving from the house this June. (Doug was a good dad and even helped put the place back in pristine condition.) Two big boxes of Brett’s stuff went into storage and he started hitting the couches.

I did a online search today and discovered there’s a huge network of people who couch surf that are neither displaced nor financially challenged. They actually fit into a third catagory. They just like to travel and enjoy meeting new people. The site I went to was couchsurfing.org. They have over 1,314,937 member registered on their site. (Registration is free.) There are 909,865 couches available in 231 countries. Of the registered members 2.7% or 28,000+ are between 50 and 60. Europe has the highest percentage of available couches. In the U.S., San Fransisco is the most popular destination.

According to Couchsurfing.org, 98% of their member’s experiences have been positive. I’ve read a lot of the testimonials on their site. If you go to it, you’ll see their are different levels of verification for the “surfers”. You can sign up to surf, host or both. A few years ago when I traveled I took everything I might possibly need on a trip. Now, I travel like a SEAL unit-fast and lean-or at least fast. (Actually, my bag is lean.) Who cares if I wear the same jewelry every day on a trip? (Being able to travel light is one of the necessities for successful surfing.) I did a search today for San Fransisco. Their were many options available to me. (Of course, the host would have to approve me also.)

When I told Doug about this posting he looked at me and asked, “Who would want to do that?” I looked at him and said “I would.” I love to meet new people and I’m loquacious. (I’ll talk to a stump.) My good friend Wanda Lamont AKA Billy and my niece Ginny both live in San Fransisco in tiny little apartments. I was planning to go for a visit sometime before Christmas. Now I’m planning to couch surf while I’m there. The money I’ll save on hotels will pay for my airfare. I would’ve done it in my 20’s or 30’s so why not now? Check out the Couchsurfing.org map. You can go almost anywhere.

Some members are set up to host couples, or even couples with kids. Also, there are many sub-groups you can join on the site-gay, vegetarians, musicians, just to name a few. It’s a long list. I know that this won’t appeal to everybody, that’s OK. Life’s all about making choices. However, I’m ready to do something new and this sounds like a good fit to me. So I’ll be grabbing my board and heading out -surf’s up!

Having grown up in Texas, eating BBQ was  a regular part of my life. Without exception, every weekend my dad would fire up the pit and cook a massive amount of BBQ. As I looked back I realized that he never cooked any beef brisket on the pit. Instead, every weekend he prepared ribs, sausage, steaks and chicken. Sometimes he’d smoke a whole pork shoulder. Then my mom would slice it thin and stack it on a toasted bun with sauce and coleslaw. (I guess that was their version of brisket.) It never seemed strange to me at the time that we didn’t have brisket. You can’t miss what you didn’t know I suppose.

Once in a great while if I was out with my dad for lunch he would take me to the Barbecue Inn on Crosstimbers. The waitresses all had names like “Flo”or “Eunice” and wore uniforms with little white aprons and caps that matched. Doug and I met a friend there within the last year or so. I think they still have a couple of the waitresses from back in the day. I find that sad. (I hope I’m not going to have to work that hard when I’m in my 70’s.)

When you’re away from home for awhile you start to miss food from home. One summer we spent three solid months in Colorado. While in Glenwood Springs, we really had a yen for some BBQ and wound up at a place called Marshall Dillon’s. When we traveled like that, getting from one festival to another, we didn’t eat “out”AKA fancy every day. Most days it was just sandwiches. So this was going to be a treat. Then I saw the server coming toward us with two big bowls on her tray. This made no sense I thought, we ordered barbecued beef ribs. She put it down in front of us with a big smile and went “Enjoy!”That was impossible. The ribs had been boiled (literally), then put in a bowl which held  a lagoon of Campbell’s Tomato Soup- at least that’s what it tasted like. (They tried to tell me it was BBQ sauce.) Those ribs were inedible. I asked if they were always served that way and was told “Sure that’s the way everybody likes them.” Obviously, “everybody” didn’t include any Texans.

When we finished our tour in Colorado we headed straight to Memphis for a 10 day event. Memphis is known for having some of the best BBQ restaurants anywhere. So while we were there, we hit two of them-the Rendezvous and Interstate BBQ. The pig cartoon at the top of this blog is from The Rendezvous. (It’s how to order their famous ribs online.) The Rendezvous is in a basement on 2nd st. When we were they told us how proud they were that some of the servers who’d started there in ‘48 were still with them- just like the Barbecue Inn. (Does BBQ have some heretofore undiscovered properties for life extension?) The ribs at the Rendezvous were really good, just very different from what we were used to since they are never sauced. They’re cooked with a dry rub on them.

The BBQ at Interstate seemed more familiar to me since it had BBQ sauce. However,  there were some things on the menu that seemed downright odd. I had never heard of BBQ spaghetti, a BBQ salad or BBQ nachos before. (They even had BBQ bologna.) “Give the people what they want and they’ll keep coming back.” they say. They’ve been there 30 years and have won beaucoup awards. I guess they’re the personification of that adage.

Have you ever noticed that some of the best food comes from some of the most “questionable” looking places? There was a place that like about 30 miles NW of Houston back in the day called “BlackBoys BBQ.” (No one gave a second thought to the name of his place back then.) My dad made sure that he ate there anytime he was in the area. BlackBoy plunged a huge BBQ fork into the brisket, then the entire brisket was placed on the table in front of you along with a butcher knife. You were given a loaf of white bread to go with it. (He took the whole “self-serve” concept to a new level.) If you wanted additional sauce it was put on your sandwich by a piece of undershirt wrapped around a stick that had been sitting in the sauce bucket all day. You ate as much as you wanted and paid accordingly when you were done. (I’m sure these days the health inspectors would be all over that place.) No one I knew ever got sick from eating there. BlackBoy put his two kids through college with the money from his little BBQ shack. If there’s food in Heaven, I’m sure BlackBoy’s up there cooking his brisket with my dad just waiting for it to be done.

We were away for a week or so due to a family emergency. Thank God everything is OK now and we’re back. While we were gone we were given the most wonderful gift ever- a cruise to Alaska. I think that we’re one of the few couples our age who have never been on a cruise and I’m so looking forward to it. Doug and I haven’t been anywhere in forever it seems. At least we haven’t been anywhere for fun. (Traveling to all the festivals in the Suburban doesn’t count.)

To make things even better, my good friends Ken and Evelyn are going as well. Nate and Amanda will be there too. As well as Brian, Nate’s brother, and his significant other. I’m glad we’re able to go with a group of people we know. Doug isn’t into nature nearly as much as I am. (I just hope the ship has ESPN.) I know that with Evelyn and Amanda there I’ll have someone to “ooh and ahh” with over the magnificent things we’ll be seeing. Doug even sat in the car while the kids and I visited the Monterrey Bay Aquarium a few years ago.

I’ve asked Evelyn what to wear since she has cruised five times. She said Carnival is casual, but this is Holland America, an upscale line. No shorts in the dining room at night. She said some people even wear a tuxedo or long gowns on formal night. I know we won’t be dressed like that, no matter what. It would be nice to have clothes like that to wear. However, I’d never have anyplace else to wear them. So, my dressier clothes will just have to do. Since I’ve been doing better with my exercise and healthy eating, maybe going through my closet trying on clothes won’t be so stressful. (I am thinking about having a glass of wine before I go in there though.) Anyway, I’ve put it off long enough. Wish me luck.