Beer kills keyboards

Kinda like rock-paper-scissors, only different.

In other news, Lenny's Bar and Grill and Swap Meet is still alive and well and just down the road.

We swung in the other day for what was either a late second lunch or an early first dinner. A cheeseburger, at any rate, because we were passing by and it's the best cheeseburger in the county. And the beer's cold (and for dogs, it's served in stainless steel bowls right inside the door).

At that time of day, Wendy was working the front while Lenny worked the grill. I seriously wish it were the other way around, so that having Wendy shill the burgers didn't seem so trite. But it was what it was. And it's always that way mid-afternoon in the middle of the week. Oh, well. At least this Wendy doesn't wear pigtails, and Lenny doesn't make the burgers thin and square: they're round and thick and juicy: worthy of mayonnaise. Like I said - the best burgers in the county.

So we ate our burgers and swiped our curly fries through the beefy-mayonnaisey residues, and we drank our beer, and an hour later we were ready to take our leave.

We wished Wendy a good day. She looked at her watch and said, "Yep. In forty-five minutes."

I wish that hadn't happened, because it tells me that as much as we enjoy her presence behind the bar, she'd just as soon she had moved on to something else.

I'm not inclined to deny anyone further aspirations, and Wendy beyond a doubt deserves success in hers.

It also reminded me that one of the things about retirement is that we no longer have quitting time to look forward to. And we don't get tips anymore, either.

Boneless birds

Alpha grew up in a family where beinlose fugel (boneless birds) are a family Christmas tradition, and I love it when he and Beta spend an afternoon making them in honor of that tradition: there are scraps of meat to be harvested off the floor, and chunks of stray carrot to munch on.

Most of the recipes you find on the internet for boneless birds don't mention carrots at all, and I don't understand how that can be: how can you have a "bird" without that strip of carrot poking out to mimic a neck? Of course, most of those same recipes mention bacon, and that might be an improvement over the packaged sausage that A & B use. Bacon's even better than squirrel. And it doesn't run away. But I'm cool with sausage.

So I was excited when Alpha and Beta got back from the grocery store this afternoon with a bunch of tenderized steak. I knew immediately what was about to happen: even if the tenderized steak in Texas is destined for chicken-fried steak , in our house it's for the birds.

It was a good afternoon. Spices flew around the kitchen, Alpha split carrots lengthwise (and made sure there were some spare chunks), Beta laid out chunks of steak and spread sausage on them (and made sure some of the trimmings fell on the floor).

But then, as I sprawled on the floor with my belly full, with visions of bacon and squirrels dancing in my head, I thought a think: what if we merged the Texas tradition with the Scandinavian tradition, and made Chicken-Fried Boneless Birds. Would that be cool or what?

Sweet

Got my visits per day down close to one. Another couple weeks and I'll be able to just sort out my own thoughts for my own self, right here on this free typing platform.