scottsbluff – Page 2 – HappyStinkingJoy

From Meth to Nikki Minaj: Low-Stress Careers in the Panhandle…

I originally started writing this blog to capture my journey through turning 40 and the pain that journey entailed. I wanted to, at least somewhat humorously, document how much turning 40 sucked. Well, I turned 40, it did suck, and now here I am at 42 and things get no better. People always say crap like, “Just give it time, things will get better,” or “At least things can’t get any worse.” Well, I have come to a realization: people lie. The only thing my future potentially holds is turning 50; I’m sure that will be a joy ride.

If you are down in the dumps or have a touch of the blues, people say ‘things will get better’ to prevent you from jumping off of a bridge or walking through the local Walmart with your hunting rifle a’blazing or something. There is no real guarantee that anything is going to get any better. In fact, things run a pretty substantial risk of getting worse. Still, you should not jump off of a bridge or take out the entire population of a Walmart (believe it or not, there may actually a few good people in there).

When I start feeling down about the suckiness that life often dishes out, I blog. It makes me feel better. It might piss some people off, but then maybe they need to start their own blogs. A small part of me has always thought that if I sit down and practice writing on a regular basis (i.e. blog), I might improve my writing skills to the level where I can actually making a living writing.

“Why would you want to make a living writing?” you may ask.

I don’t like dealing with people. Any form of conflict stresses me out to a degree that I can barely function, and you cannot deal with people and avoid conflict. What really amazes me are people who seem to thrive on conflict. You know them, the people who can take a completely calm situation and turn it upside down by inserting a touch of drama… which always leads to conflict. These people need to be locked away on their own island… hey, Total Drama Island!

Photobucket — Good cartoon... I miss it 🙁

I have not always been like this, but over the last several years, the degree of my anti-social thoughts and feelings has multiplied to the point that I really am pretty miserable a lot of the time. This is mostly related to time when I am actually earning a living. At home, and even in the occasional social setting, I am happy and pretty comfortable. I have tried to think of a job where I would have very little personal contact with people in the realm of the method I use to earn an income, and writing seems to be an excellent choice. There are additional choices, but none of them seem to fit quite right:

Methamphetamine Manufacturer

Oh sure, making the meth sounds like a great way to make a living.

*You can work at home.

*You make a very high (no pun intended) return on investment.

*All of the simple instructions are easily accessible online.

*The only people you would have to deal with would be your dealers.

*I’ve seen some of the people who make this stuff… you don’t have to be a rocket scientist.

*You are making a product that is in demand and makes people feel better about their miserable lives.

However, if you really look at the consequences of making meth, you find that there may be some drawbacks.

*You can burn down your home.

*Meth may make people feel better, but it has been discovered that it may not be good for them.

*Apparently, making meth is illegal.

*The only people you would have to deal with would be your dealers.

So… meth is out.

Pornography Actor

Okay, so you would have to deal with people, but I’m sure there wouldn’t be much conflict. Even if there is conflict, who cares?. Three words: female porn stars! This doesn’t sound like a bad choice…

And then reality sets in…

CPAP — Yeah... no one is going to pay to see that...

Crap! I think the wife may have an issue with me being in porn… as would God. Porn is out.

Let’s see… what are some more jobs that would either be enjoyable or have limited conflict…

Bookstore Owner/Employee

I love books and used to think working in like a Barnes & Nobles would be a blast. I mean, who in their right mind would be unhappy in a bookstore. I used to think that way, until I saw some poor information booth employee at Barnes & Nobles get chewed up one side and down the other by some jerkwad who was bent out of shape because the store didn’t have a copy of some obscure philosophy book. Jerkwad was upset that he would have to wait a couple of days for the store to get in a copy of Larry Fleitzerhinie’s Mans’ Walk on an Impartial Plain of Reason in the Twilight of the Mountains of Contradiction… or something like that. “What kind of bookstore is this,” Jerkwad yelled. Seriously… is there not a job on this planet where jerkwads are not present? So the bookstore idea is out.

Working with Children

I used to work at Discovery Zone (a Chuck E. Cheese-like place with tubes and tunnels and ball pits and video games and birthday parties etc. etc. etc.). One would think that a fun place like that would be reasonably stress free… but one would be wrong. Parents become absolute imbeciles when it comes to the happiness of their children… especially when they are paying for it. And these imbeciles love to yell at whatever employee is closest to them when their child is for one second not having the ultimate in fun (like the kid just got reprimanded for biting another kid in the butt).

“You have no right to discipline my child, you minimum-wage piece of $@#&!”

Meanwhile, the parent of the child who was bitten is screaming, “You need to keep better control of the kids in here. I should sue!”

Of course, neither of these parents say a word to each other… let’s just take it all out on the minimum-wage piece of $@#&!

So it is becoming relatively clear at this point that there is no such thing as an enjoyable job… or at least a job that is stress-free. I understand that stress is supposed to be a good thing in small amounts because it helps us make decisions and whatnot… but I’m getting too old to deal with the stress crap anymore. You know, if I had the money flowing in that I expected to be making in my “prime income-earning years”, the stress probably wouldn’t get to me as much. Sounds silly, but it’s true. If I was making six figures, I think my tolerance for all things stressful would be a little higher because I’d be able to put a sizable amount of that away for retirement and I’d have the knowledge that I would not have to deal with the crap forever. However, given my current situation, I will be dealing with some sort of crap for every single workday for the rest of my natural life.

Go ahead, say it. I know there is someone out there who is wanting to say it…

“Suck it up! Quit your whining and do what you need to do!”

“Nobody ever said life was going to be fair, so shut your mouth and get busy working!”

“People who complain like you need to be thankful they aren’t a starving child in Africa!”

“If you worked as hard as you complained, you’d be making more money!”

“Quit feeling sorry for yourself! We all gotta deal with it and you don’t hear us complaining, do you?”

Oh my… if I had a nickel for every time I was the recipient of one of these comments, I’d already be able to retire. I have never stated that I am not thankful for what I have. I just want more out of life than being a working stiff who begrudgingly works a job until the day he dies. I think it is best stated by Drake in Nikki Minaj’s song Moment 4 Life:

“I’m really tryna make it more than what it is, cuz everybody dies but not everybody lives!”

Word! … does anybody really say “word” anymore? Yeah, probably not. I’m kind of out of the loop. I am 42, after all…

Good gravy – I’m quoting a Nikki Minaj song?!? ‘Bout time to wrap this post up.

Anywho, writing is about the only job I can think of that would have the limited public contact necessary to eradicate a large portion of the work-related stress from my life. Of course, I only enjoy writing as a way to bitch. If I had to write how-to manuals or reviews of laundry soaps or something like that, writing would suck.

So, if anyone knows of a good writing gig that requires a whiny writer who loves to bitch, give me a shout out. Word!

Once Every Blue Moon Or So, Something Nice Happens Here…

Last night, the wife and I took our youngest boy and two of our nieces to see the local high school’s rendition of The Wizard of Oz. I’ve been to a couple of high school plays here locally (Beauty and the Beast and High School Musical), and they were both very enjoyable. Good acting, great singing, a good testament to local talent destined to find futures somewhere outside of the panhandle where their talents will be useful. Last night’s performance, however, was something really special.

The wiring that caused the Wicked Witch and her monkeys to fly was cool, but that wasn’t the reason this performance was so special. The pyrotechnics made me jump on more than one occasion, but they weren’t the reason the performance won’t be soon forgotten. The reason I found Scottsbluff High School’s performance of The Wizard of Oz so endearing was… they got it right!

The original movie starring Judy Garland is over 70 years old. I grew up watching that stupid old movie once a year, every year, throughout my adolescent years. It never got old. It was always exciting. And last night, I felt like those teen-aged kids up on the stage had seen that stupid movie even more times than I had. All of the kids in this play were excellent. Even the tiny munchkins, played by a bunch of little kids who were up way past their bed times, were absolutely amazing. It was a few of the leads, though, who stole my heart.

Maggie Hopp, who played Dorothy, pulled off Judy Garland’s pouty, defiant innocence with flair. She sang Somewhere Over the Rainbow to near-perfection. At times, I almost believed that the late-Garland’s spirit had possessed young Hopp. Watching her made me feel like a child again, sitting in our small living room in front of our small television, my brother, sister, mom, dad and me, wishing for Dorothy to be able to click her heels at least one more time and once again return to Kansas. If I had realized then what I know now (that Kansas is a lot like Nebraska), I would have wished for poor Dorothy to go to New York, or Los Angeles, or somewhere she and Toto could have a successful future… but I didn’t.

Carlos Santana (no, not the aged-musician who still rocks) was amazing as the Cowardly Lion. His no-holds-barred performance was hysterical. For a teenage boy to get up in front of a full auditorium and hold nothing back in his performance of the blubbering coward who slowly finds his courage… it was unforgettable in the best of ways. It takes someone with a lot of talent and self-confidence to get up on stage and play a chicken so well 🙂

Chris Brening pulled-off a convincing and very likable Scarecrow. Like Carlos, Chris didn’t seem to have an issue being a complete goofball on stage, and this character needs to be goofy…. and dance… and wobble around… without falling off of the small stage. There was more than one occasion where I thought the Scarecrow was going to fall into the orchestra pit, but he didn’t!

During the first half of the play, Aaron Aguallo’s microphone wasn’t working very well and he was hard to hear. After the intermission, Aaron’s voice brought life to the heartless Tin Woodsman. Once I could hear his voice, I had a very hard time believing that Jack Haley himself wasn’t actually up on stage instead of Aaron. This was what was so cool about this performance: the kids pulled off the characters so closely to the original casts’ rendition… yet each with just a hint of uniqueness that made them their own.

Karenna Booth was stunning as the good witch Glinda, and her singing gave me goosebumps. The only things that commonly gives me goosebumps in Nebraska are the chilly winter nights.

Emily Yanke was terrifically evil as the Wicked Witch of the West. She cackled like an old pro and seemed to relish her inhumanity. Kind of makes me wonder what this young lady does to small animals on the weekends… but her performance was superb… and that’s not a word I use much 🙂

I could go on and on… but I’m not really used to having nice things to say. Don’t get used to it! If you don’t already have tickets to tonight’s performance or the final performance on Saturday, you are probably out of luck. Both nights are sold out. However, if you know someone who has tickets and you don’t like them very much… steal them. This show is worth petty larceny.

Thanks to the cast and crew of the The Wizard of Oz. Old guys like me seldom feel young anymore, but all of you helped me feel a little younger for a couple of hours last night.

Next post: back to bitching, I promise…

The Hardest Job in the World…

What is the hardest job in the world?

Is it a rocket scientist — ensuring the trajectory of space bound thingies and other such sciencey stuff?

Is it a brain surgeon — holding all consciousness and memories (in essence, the entire “being”) of an individual between her fingers as she attempts to save a life?

Is it perhaps the President of the United States — deciding where to send our soldiers to die and who in our economy will suffer and how to make nice-nice with the rich and famous?

These are all good answers, but none are truly the hardest job in the world. The hardest job in the world recently had a vacancy, and it was recently filled.

Scotts Bluff County recently filled the hardest job in the world. Congratulation to Brenda Leisy…
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holder of the hardest job in the world. Brenda was hired by Scotts Bluff County as the county’s tourism director.

Tourism director: one who tries to get tourists to stop and spend their had earned money in our area by convincing said tourists that there is something worth stopping and spending money on here. Like I already pointed out, this is (in my opinion) the hardest job in the world.

Scotts Bluff County has little to offer. It’s kind of… what’s a nice way of putting this… boring here. There are many who disagree with me, but I’m sticking to my personal guns on this. There is nothing to do here.

“Oh, there’s a lot to do here!” scream the long-time residents who hate anyone speaking the truth about their beloved Nebraska.

“Like what?” someone may ask.

“Well… uh… you can go for a walk on the pathway by the river!” says the Nebraska-lover.

“I’ve done that before,” someone may say.

“Do it again,” says Nebraska-lover.

“Uh… why?” someone may ask.

“Maybe you’ll see a goose… or something,” says Nebraska-lover.

“I saw a goose the last time I walked the path,” someone may say.

“Well, go to the top of Scotts Bluff National Monument,” Nebrasaka-lover recommends.

“That’s fun to do about once every two or three years,” someone may say, “and I did that last summer.”

“Go fishing,” says Nebraska-lover.

“Fishing here sucks,” someone may say, “unless you like catching tiny trout and sunfish, which is all I ever catch. I suck at fishing, thus I don’t really like fishing, and can you imagine trying to get my 8-year-old son to sit still long enough to catch a stinking blue gill? Yeah, fishing isn’t for me.”

“There is good hunting,” says Nebraska-lover.

“No there’s not,” someone may say. “All of the good hunting is on private land, and landowners here would rather shoot you than look at you. You have to have some sort of backwater relationship with a landowner to access that landowner’s land, and I have no such relationships. Hunting here sucks.”

“Well,” says Nebraska-lover, a hint of doubt becoming evident in her eyes, “there’s always… uh… what about a trek in the Wildcat Hills?”

“Oh yeah, a hike through sage brush and cactus,” someone may say, “with the seasonal threat of rattlesnakes and the ever-present threat of mountain lions. Doesn’t sound like my cup of tea. Besides, you keep mentioning all of these outdoor activities, and Scotts Bluff County is notoriously bad for allergens. Spending time outside in the wind with snot running down my face and claw marks on my eyeballs from all of the scratching doesn’t sound very fun.”

“We have… uh… we have a mall,” Nebraska-lover says, as if she just remembered.

“Yeah, the mall,” someone may say. “The mall here is about, what, 1/4 empty? And it’s a small mall in the first place. Walking around the mall is good for about 15 minutes of wasting time.”

“Our downtown business areas in Scottsbluff and Gering…” Nebraska-lover tries to say.

“… suck,” someone may finish. “Parking downtown is horrible, there are very few shops that interest me or are within my price range, and very few of the downtown businesses have public restrooms, so you end up peeing in the freaking alley if you gotta go. I have an 8-year-old boy. My son now believes that it is acceptable to pee in an alley… which I’m sure is going to benefit him in his adulthood. Thanks, downtown businesses!”

“Well… uh… we have… uh…” Nebraska-lover stammers, “we have a lot of bars and liquor stores.”

“Yes,” someone may say. “Yes we do.”

“I could sure use a drink,” Nebraska-lover says.

“I’m buying,” someone may say.

There really isn’t much to do around here. You have to keep your kids uber-involved in sports and other activities to keep them away from the drugs, alcohol and sex. The teen-pregnancy rate in the area is high, as are the teen alcohol and drug usage rates. Why? Because there isn’t anything to do here. Adult alcoholism and drug use also run rampant in Scotts Bluff County. Why? Because there isn’t anything to do here… and there are many adults who are trying to numb the pain of watching their hopes, dreams, and aspirations float down the North Platte River.

I know that in the past, the county’s tourism department has stressed how important it is for “front-line” employees (employees in low-paying jobs who actually deal with potential tourists) to present a positive, excited portrayal of the community to aid tourism. This may be hard for a hung-over, pregnant teen to do while she is trying to figure out where she is going to score her next hit of meth. The only positive thing many front-line employees can think about is how in the hell they are going to get out of here, so it may be hard to convince them to speak positively about their communities. Front-line employees can’t figure out what to do with their free time, so how can they be expected to help tourists find something to do around here?

Congratulations once again to Brenda Leisy! She has the hardest job in the world, and I wish her all of the luck I can muster. She’s going to need it…

NEXT: The Panhandle’s Social Elite…

There is an organization here in the wonderful panhandle of Nebraska called NEXT. NEXT is a group of “young professionals” who have taken it upon themselves to be leaders in the community. They have made it their job to promote the panhandle as a great place to live. Good for them.

On their website, the folks at NEXT make some very clear statements as to what they are… and what they are not. For example, NEXT is: “A group of the Panhandle’s future elite leaders, not the social elite.” What a great statement… too bad it’s not true. If you visit NEXT’s website and click on the “board” tab, you will see the leaders of this “leaders’ group”. Judging from the last names of these leaders, the names of the businesses they work for, and the dates those businesses were established, I’m assuming three of the five board members have parents or grandparents who started successful businesses… and these kids are able to ride on those coattails. Can you say “trust fund”? The other two board members are pretty faces, and we all know that the pretty people have a higher likelihood of success than us normal (or, in my case, morbidly disgusting) people.

I am not saying that these people didn’t work hard to reach their current levels of success. I don’t personally know any of them (we don’t hang in the same social circles — oh wait, I don’t have a social circle…) All I’m saying is that, in my opinion, being a pretty person or having rich parents gives you quite an advantage over the rest of the population when it comes to future success.

So, the rich and the pretty… how in the hell is that not the social elite? This is life in the panhandle: have parents or grandparents who were successful — or be pretty — and you have a shot at true success. It takes money and/or looks to make it here… which is why there are so many of us who can’t really make it. The rest of us work to serve the social elite. Maybe this isn’t a panhandle problem. Maybe this is an American problem…

The rich and pretty of NEXT have made one of their goals to retain and encourage potential leaders (i.e. other rich and pretty people who either leave after 2-3 years because they think it sucks here… or don’t become involved in community leadership roles because they are too busy pushing their slaves to make them more money) to become active in the community by stressing “the great life that the Panhandle offers”. Are they referring to the same panhandle that I live in? Maybe there is another panhandle (one that deserves to be capitalized) that I’m not familiar with. Or maybe if you are part of the social elite and have the rest of the community bowing down to serve you, life can be pretty good here. Who knows?

Another of the statements made by NEXT is that they are “A group using a social platform to accomplish objectives, not a Saturday night social club.” Really? Again, looking at their website, the last few events listed were a “Mardi Gras” event in February of 2009, a “Peacocks and Potluck” event (at the zoo, I’m assuming) in May of 2009, and a “Comedy on the Rocks” event in June of 2010. Those all sound an awful lot like “Saturday night social club” events to me… but what do I know; I’m not part of the social elite.

I think I need to start my own leadership group. You know, a group for guys and gals who once thought they could find some measure of financial success but have come to realize that just ain’t going to happen. We could get together on Saturday nights once every couple of months and sit around a keg of Old Milwaukee eating chicken wings and talking about how we can’t understand why we are all still living here. We won’t be able to stay up late, however, because many of us will probably have to get up the next morning to go to work (because we will all be working at serving the social elite until the day we die). We could charge all members a cover charge to cover the cheap beer and hot wings, and whatever is left over could be donated to a local charity… I’m thinking Habitat-for-the-Non-Social-Elite may be a good choice…

*****INTERESTING TIDBIT ALERT*****

You know the saying “piss poor”? Do you know where this comes from? In the olden days, apparently tanners used urine to tan hides. If your family was poor, often the family would all pee in a collective pot to be taken and sold to the tanner. Your family was “piss poor”. Of course, if your family was super duper poor, you “wouldn’t have a pot to piss in”.

How do I know this is true? I found it on the Internet. Everything on the Internet is true, right?

I kind of wish tanners still used urine to tan hides. Not that I would want to be “piss poor”, it would just be an easy way to make a little extra cash…

*****INTERESTING TIDBIT COMPLETE****

So, until I get my own leadership group together, I guess I’ll have to make do with making fun of the existing organizations. You know what, though? NEXT is at least doing something to try to make the panhandle a better place. They even recently participated in an event that benefited Special Olympics, and I can’t dog on that. I am, however, skeptical of their motives because I believe they are mostly looking out for themselves. They could give a crap-less how the ordinary citizens of the panhandle are doing (as long as they keep flipping burgers and mowing lawns and painting houses and controlling pests and collecting garbage or any job where some peon is available to be yelled at when the elite feel like yelling). They want more rich, pretty people in the area to hang out with so they can defend themselves when the unruly, unclean masses finally rise up! But still, they are doing something. I have to give them credit for that. People who sit around and bitch like me probably drive the elite absolutely insane… hahaha… and that’s why I do what I do 🙂

The Palm Trees in My Basement Bathroom…

We have this bathroom in our basement. I love this room. This room is where I go when I want to spend some quality time alone. The wife has decorated our little downstairs bathroom with a “theme”. The “theme” of this room is palm trees.
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I used to wonder how the lovely wife came up with the theme of palm trees for this particular room. I suspected that Walmart had a clearance rack of toilet-related materials and the only matching set the wife could find was palm trees. The wife claims the theme arrived in remembrance of our honeymoon almost 18 years ago in Cancun…
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… and the soft, warm breezes on the beach and the hint of lime in every shrimp quesadilla… or lobster taco… or 39 peso cheeseburger at McDonalds (seriously, every thing from Budweiser to bacon in Cancun has a hint of lime). Whenever I inquire about the theme downstairs, the wife waxes nostalgic of a time right after she and I stood before a man of God, all our family, and most of of friends and proclaimed our undying love for each other. Cancun for the wife and I was the whipped cream on the Hot Fudge Brownie Delight that is married life. Remember when Dairy Queen used to sell Hot Fudge Brownie Delights? These were the calorie-laden monstrosities that consisted of mountains of delectable soft-serve ice cream resting on plains of nut-covered chocolate brownies separated only by seemingly endless rivers of hot, steamy fudge… and then irresponsibly topped with the snow capped ridges of 100% dairy-and-sugar filled whipped cream. The foundation of marriage is the brownies and ice cream and I do not for an instance regret any part of it… but our honeymoon was the whipped topping, full of fun and sweetness and decadence…
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… everything that convinces a man that he is settling down with the right woman to begin a life of work and responsibilities and children and STINKING FUNDRAISERS!!! I digress…

So, anyway, I spend a large portion of my “free time” in our downstairs bathroom staring at the shower curtain that rests directly in front of the toilet.
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You may wonder to yourself, “now, what exactly could he be doing on the toilet for any measurable amount of time that would lead him to spend an inordinate amount of time staring at a shower curtain?” Well, you may be slightly dented for asking such a question. What goes in must come out, and I am sincerely sorry to point this out, but even Johnny Depp and Katy Perry spend time staring at the palm trees… if you know what I mean 😉

The wife dreams of tropical places when she and I discuss the wonderful places we would like to settle down once we figure out what we are going to do with the rest of our lives. I, on the other hand, tend to lean more towards something more mountainous.
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Of course, both of us are open to the ideas of the other. I would be almost as content in a bungalow on the beach, and she seems fine with the thought of fresh mountain air and fresh-caught trout with wild asparagus for supper a couple of nights a week. One problem is that we don’t know quite how to get to either of these locals. The second problem is that we live in Nebraska, which does have a scenery all its own, like this…
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… and this…
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… and this…
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… along with…
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and, occasionally even…
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… which leads to…
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… and ultimately…
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… but is about as far as you can get from either a tropical paradise or a scenic mountain retreat.

Living in either a tropical paradise or a mountain of solitude would require an income that currently surpasses us here where we actually have jobs, let alone in a remote location where jobs are few and far between. I’d like to think that we would be able to use our retirement savings to get us to our dream location, but I would also like to think that I don’t look my age and that the tooth fairy pays out even more when the elderly loose their teeth. All three of these wishes are pipe dreams. I figure that the only way the wife and I are ever going to see our dreams come true is found in three simple words:

third world country.

Third world countries can be tropical, and third world countries can have mountains. Third world countries are a lot cheaper to live in than the United States. Help me, Third World Country… you’re my only hope!

I figure if the wife and I can save up a few thousand dollars, we should be able to move to some neato place like Guatemala or Somalia or, heck, I hear there are some good deals on property in Afghanistan right now. Guatemala and Somalia both have some nice oceanfront property
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and Afghanistan is known for it’s mountainous regions.

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Heck, that’s where all the fugitive Taliban hide, right?
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For a few thousand dollars, we should be able to live like a king and queen! Oh sure, there would be some language barriers, but I’m sure that any self-respecting country would teach English as a second language, right? And even if they don’t, just think of the millions of Mexicans who migrate to the US who don’t speak a word of English. The Mexicans get by just fine. In fact, many companies and even our government bend over backwards to make sure our Spanish speaking friends don’t have to bother with learning English. After all, on almost any telephone call you can always “apriete dos para español.” As ass-backwards as the US is viewed by the rest of the world, I’m sure these third world countries have even better programs in place to make non-native tongue people feel welcome, right? Of course they do.

There may be some other small hindrances, like decent health care, or a clean water supply, or a reliable food source. And the fact that the wife and I are Christian may lead to a problem or two. We may have to fend off the occasional suicide bomber or be weary of any Muslims with a big knife and a penchant for heads, but I’m sure it will be worth it to live in the type of surroundings that we dream of. I mean, it’s pretty obvious we aren’t going to make those dreams come true in the US.

Ahh… so maybe our dreams really can come true. Maybe there is some hope for our future outside of the good life that can only be found in Nebraska. I mean, either dying a martyr at the hands of a radical Muslim, or staring at another corn field and watching another disappointing Husker football season. At least the martyrdom would be on a beach… or in the mountains…

Well, that’s enough for now. I had a big supper, and my daily fiber seems to be kicking in. I have a date with some palm trees…
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The Panhandle Smells… Apparently Like Money…

I remember back to when I first moved to the panhandle of Nebraska way too many years ago. I remember all of the disgusting smells that should have warned me that I wasn’t going to like it here, smells that I ignored and have somewhat gotten used to. I remember complaining about those smells only to have one crusty old codger or another tell me not to complain. “Smells like money,” was the codgerly proclamation. I didn’t understand it then, and I don’t understand it now. Money, from what little interaction I have with it here in the panhandle, smells of musty paper and cocaine. None of the things around the panhandle have what I consider to be the smell of money. I have people tell me that I need to appreciate the beauty of the panhandle. These are the same people who go around taking pictures of weeds and sunsets and crap and find beauty in these simple things. My observations tend to tilt in a little different direction, so I have tried to capture the stench of the panhandle through pictures. One of the first smells I had to adjust to was the smell of processing sugar beets.

A sugar beet is a tuber-thingie that tastes like a potato. Apparently, through some magical chemical process, sugar can be drawn out of these bland wads of starch. I don’t know exactly how it is done, but I know it involves lime, a lot of heat, and the production of some major stink.

Sugar beet is a major crop around these parts, and you can see the harvested beets in seemingly endless piles around the area.

I remember the first time I inquired about this stench. “Smells like money,” I was told. I don’t remember ever opening up my wallet and being met with the smell of sun-ripened vomit, but I guess, to some, that’s what money smells like. And, apparently, the smell of money is good for the environment, too.

There is another smell that permeates the region from time to time.

No, that’s dead possum. Although it didn’t smell that much more unpleasant than what I’m referring to… and it does remind me of a series of unrelated pictures that I have on my phone. I think I’ll share them here. In other words, here lies a totally unrelated sidetrack. Stay tuned for more of the stench of the panhandle…

Okay, so last winter after one of my posts dogging on Nebraska, this guy comes up to me and says, “Why don’t you try to find the beauty in our area? Why can’t you be more like Katie Bradshaw?” Apparently, Katie recently moved here. She does a blog on her experiences (which are far different from mine), and she has major photo-taking abilities. Her blog actually landed her a position with one of the the local newspapers. I don’t have much in the way of photo-taking abilities, but I thought I would give it a shot.

I thought I could document the businesses that have gone under in our spectacular rural community.

Problem is, this business is still open. This business was a car wash, tanning salon, custom embroidery, restaurant, cocktail bar with a self-service dog wash. No kidding, I couldn’t make something this ludicrous up. Apparently, the rest of the business is doing great, they just had to close, you know, the restaurant part?!?

Then there are the plethora of these:

During my younger days in Montana, I used to hunt… a lot. Public land was everywhere, and finding a deer or an antelope or a pheasant or a grouse to take home and put in the freezer was easy. In Nebraska, private land rules the range, and if you don’t know some crotchety old landowner, there is no reason to buy a hunting license. Needless to say, even after 15+ years of living here, I don’t know any crotchety old landowners.

I could have focused on what we meager-wage-earners have to look forward to here in the panhandle…

… but that would have just been plain-old depressing.

I’m going to throw this one in just because I think it’s cool. It’s from a local tattoo shop and the outrage that it created was extraordinary. It was free speech versus the anally uptight… and free speech won 🙂

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Wait a second! What’s that beautiful dark figure in the awesomely artistic photograph I have taken below?

Ah, the beauty of a winter’s night in the panhandle of Nebraska. Is it a beautiful winter street flower? Is it a fairy from the tales of old?

Yeah, no, it’s a dead cat. This stupid cat had been in the road by my house for like a week. Poor thing was hit by one of the speed-limit breaking residents of the trailer park up the road. I was going to dispose of it when I first saw it, but I figured there may be a little girl somewhere missing her lost kitty. I wanted the family to be able to find the cat for, you know, some closure. However, after a week, I was tired of looking at it and decided to scrape it’s frozen butt off the street and throw it gently place it in the trash receptacle. So, I scraped it and bagged it. Little did I realize that frozen cats are a little… pointy.

So, I did what any good samaritan would have done… I double bagged it.

Still pointy. If not so morbid, it’d almost be a bit funny… you know, how pointy that frozen cat was. Wouldn’t want to swing it around because you could put an eye out or something.

Anyway, so ended my attempt at capturing the beauty of the panhandle in pictures. I disposed of the cat properly, said a few words for the family who was probably still looking for her, and may have made a pointy-cat joke or two. Katie Bradshaw can keep her picture-taking ability.

Okay, so now we get back on-track to the smell of money that reminds me of roadkill.

That’s right, the good old feedlots. When the breeze blows just right, you can get your face full of the smell of feedlot at any given time of the year. Summer seems to be best though.

“Smells like money!”

Seriously? Are you sure that smells like money?

“Yep, smells like money!”

Smells like cow shit to me, but to each his own, I guess.

Finally, the third horse of the smells-like-money trifecta: the railroad. In our little community, we have not one railroad line usurping the positive energy from our lives, but two monstrosities of greed and power to interfere with our daily being. Stupid BNSF and Union Pacific.

“Don’t complain, ’cause it smells like money!”

But the railroads don’t really have a smell, do they. I mean, that really doesn’t even make any sense…

“Shut up, whiny boy! Smells like money!”

Okay, whatever. The railroads apparently smell like money, too. A few years ago here in the wonderful panhandle of Nebraska, BNSF smelled like benzine. We got us a little national press coverage, and BNSF paid-off a lot of people to guarantee the prevention of future lawsuits. Now, all is well. I mean, there is the occasional child born with extra digits and whatnot, but we make them feel extra special… like one of the X-men.

“I’m gonna count your piggy toes… yes I am! 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13! 13 just means you’ve been blessed by the benzine, and your special… like Wolverine… except with extra piggy toes instead of super claws. We’ll call you Piggy-Toe Man, and your foot stench will be extra powerful… because, you know, you have extra piggy toes…”

Ah, the joys of benzine. They should put it in our water… you know, like fluoride. ‘Cause I’m guessing benzine may actually be less toxic than fluoride…

The tragic thing is, you can actually get stopped by multiple trains at multiple crossings if you are traveling from one end of Scottsbluff to the opposite end of Gering. That’s right, not only can you get stopped by both BNSF and UP trains, you can get stopped by more than one train at each crossing. But you know what really sucks? What really sucks is when BNSF decides to close multiple crossings in Scottsbluff for repairs… AT THE SAME TIME! BNSF has like 6 crossings within the Scottsbluff city limits, and 4 of them are currently closed.

Talk about throwing a major screw-up wrench in the daily lives of thousands of people. What mongoloid idiot made that insane decision… and why did no one from the city do anything to alter those magnificently dubious plans? City manager Rick Kuckkahn made a statement to local news outlet KNEB and he said he understood drivers’ frustrations. Does he really? Apparently BNSF has “extra people” in town, so the jobs can be completed quicker than normal. Notice all of the people humping ass to get the work done in my pictures above? Yeah, drive by any of the closed crossings and they all look pretty much the same. And not only is there an apparent lack of urgency in completing the work necessary to re-open the crossings, now all of the trains creep through town at like a quarter of there normal speed. Talk about some small town gridlock. Mr. Kuckkahn said the closings were “unavoidable.” Really, Rick, unavoidable? The city manager has no say on not closing the majority of crossings in the town he manages? I don’t think Rick Kuckkahn understands much of anything. Smells like money to me.

I have come to a distinct conclusion after considering the various smells of money that permeate our community: there may very well come a time when one must stop living in a community where one can smell the money and move to a community where one can actually earn it.

Manly Men Like Pumpkin Butter… even though it sounds like something little Mary would serve at her make believe tea party…

The time of year is upon us for some pretty cool seasonal food. I grew a few things this summer, and it always kind of sucks to have to wait for the fall stuff until… well… fall. I did well with buttercup squash and pumpkins. I only planted one pumpkin plant, and it only grew 4 pumpkins, but I think I’m set on pumpkin for awhile…

A beagle and her pumpkins — Our old beagle has a spot in every room that she calls her own. In this room, pumpkins invaded her space. She was pissed.

Now, I like pumpkin pie as much as the next dude. Three of the four pumpkins we grew are in the picture above. The two that are a darker orange color weigh over 100# each. The lighter-orange pumpkin weighs slightly over 80#, and one more pumpkin not pictured weighed in at over 40#. That’s over 320# of pumpkin… how much pie can a fellow eat?!? Although one or two of these may end up wasted as jack-o-lanterns, this is way too much food to not find some different ways to eat pumpkin. Deciding to try out the smallest (40#!) pumpkin first, I decided on a pumpkin soup and some pumpkin butter. The pumpkin soup was okay, but the butter rocked, so I thought I would share my recipe and experience.

The first thing we did was to split the pumpkin, gut it, and bake it.

40# pumpkin — Don't throw them seeds away! Clean 'em, soak them in salt water overnight, and roast them in the oven at 300 degrees or so for a couple of hours. Awesome snackin'!

I cut a bit of it off raw to make the pumpkin soup, but the rest of it went in the over at 350° for about an hour. Remember, this was a BIG pumpkin… I had to do 2 shifts to cook the entire thing. I made the pumpkin soup while the pumpkin baked 🙂

Baked pumpkin — The whole house smelled like Thanksgiving... in early October. It was awesome 🙂

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Once it was nice and soft, I removed it carefully from the oven and drained of the juices (there were a ton of juice cooked out of this sucker). Then, I got out a knife to start removing the flesh from the shell. Of course, being a dude, I like my knives big and sharp.

The big knife was, of course, a mistake. Almost every time I get together with a knife in the kitchen, someone gets cut. And seeing as how no one will enter the kitchen if I am holding a knife, it’s always me.

Stupid knife — I always seem to cut little bits from the exact same place on my finger... every time. One of these times, it's just going to refuse to grow back.

So, with my finger hurting, I soldier on and remove the pumpkin flesh. It all goes into a bowl and I mash it up. Now, as you can imagine, I got me a ton of pumpkin meat… way more than I’m going to need to make a little bit of pumpkin butter. The nice thing about pumpkin is it freezes really well. So, I decide I’m going to make about 8 cups of pumpkin puree into pumpkin butter, so I blended and set aside 8 cups.

Pumpkin puree — I decided to use 8 cups because... uh... that's the biggest measuring thingie I had.

I freeze the rest of the flesh just mashed.

Mashed pumpkin — Nothing quite as appetizing as mashed pumpkin...

I froze it mashed instead of pureed in case I came across a recipe where the pumpkin needed to have a little more substance… but I’m guessing it’s mostly going to go in soup, more butter, and some pies. But, it’s easy enough to blend it after it thaws.

To freeze it, I just filled quart freezer bags with 4 cups of mash.

Uh... Yeah... More pumpkin — Yummy... er... well, someday it will be.

A neat way to get the air out is to stick a straw into the bag and suck as you seal it up.

Pumpkin shake — Nothing like having your teenage son walk into the kitchen, spy you sucking on a bag of pumpkin, roll his eyes, and, without saying a word, turn right back around and leave.

Okay, I’m getting close to ending the freezing of the pumpkin. Of course, my hands are all slimed up with pumpkin. I wash my hands and realize…

Uh oh — Uh... this doesn't look right...

… something is missing. I know I had a bandage on my freshly cut finger. I know it hasn’t been off that finger for very long. I know I didn’t have it when I went to wash my hands. For crying out loud, where could it be?

Oh no. I had a pretty strong suspicion I knew where the bandage was. See, the masher did a decent job of mashing the pumpkins, but every once in awhile, there was a piece the masher didn’t get. I’d just stick my hand in that goop and mush it with my hands. So, I went “fishing”.

Fishing — Yeah, it feels as creepy as it looks.

It didn’t take long until I found what I was looking for.

The big catch — Strangely enough, I didn't end up reusing the bandage.

Yeah, I just tossed it… the bandage, that is. I’m not going to waste good pumpkin. I just marked the package extra special so I knew which one not to eat myself.

Special batch — That one's going into pumpkin bread to give away during the holidays 🙂

Finally, I finished getting all of the extra pumpkin and was ready to start in on the pumpkin butter.

Following is what you will need to make a batch of pumpkin butter. I actually made a double batch. However, I went the slow cooker route to cook the butter (cause there is no stirring or watching or any of that crap) and I quickly realized that my concoction was a little much for a standard slow cooker.

It was a little messy. If you want to double the recipe, do so at your own risk 🙂

* 4 cups pumpkin puree

* 1 cup brown sugar

* 1/2 cup white sugar

* 3/4 cup apple juice

* 1 Tbs vanilla

* 1/4 tsp allspice

* 1/4 tsp ground cloves

* 1/4 tsp ground ginger

* 1/2 tsp nutmeg

* 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

* 1 Tbs lime juice

That’s it. Mix it all together and throw it in the slow cooker. I cooked the double batch for about 12 hours overnight on high in the slow cooker. A smaller batch probably won’t take quite as long. Make sure you tilt the lid on the cooker so that a lot of the the moisture cooks off.

Full lid — Tilt it, or crack it. I wrote "crack"... hahaha!

You want your pumpkin butter to be nice and thick… you know, so that sticks to the back of a spoon. You want it spreadable. I love that word: spreadable. Sounds kind of sexy, doesn’t it? Sweet and spreadable.

While I’m getting prepared to cook this overnight, the wife says to me, “Uh, that slow cooker looks a little full,”

“Yeah,” I say, “I want lots of butter.”

“You realize that is going to make a mess, right,” the wife says.

“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’ll clean it up.”

Well, you see, I have this little habit of saying I’ll clean stuff up and then, for some reason, I never really clean it up. Or rather, I don’t clean it up fast enough for the wife and she ends up cleaning it up herself. Long story short, the wife doesn’t let me cook my pumpkin butter in the kitchen. I am relegated to complete my cooking project in the basement.

My cooking space... apparently... — For some reason, seems like a lot of my cooking projects end up here...

After about 12 hours, my slow cooker full of goodness…

…had reduced to the perfect consistency. Too bad so much of it was water.

Messy much? — Okay... so it was a little messy.

All that work and I get a couple of jars of pumpkin butter.

I was trying to decide if I wanted to process the butter by canning to make it last longer (which isn’t apparently recommended), but I decided that it wasn’t going to take long for the family to go through what I had made. I stuck one jar in the fridge for now and one jar in the freezer for later. The hardest part was preparing the pumpkin. The rest was a cake walk. It sure is good… and I have the reassurance that if I want to make more, I’ve got plenty of pumpkin to make that happen.

I can always make more... — How much pumpkin butter can one family eat?

Now, I just need to figure out what I am going to do with my squash…

The Leaves of Fall

A few years back, I had a job that required me to spend a large portion of my time behind the wheel of a truck. Early mornings were common, and I’d drive a lot of miles before returning home. One memory stands out in my head above all others from that period of my life, and I believe that memory helped shape my current attitude toward the community I currently call home.

The day I remember must have been really close to this time if year. The leaves had mostly turned, early mornings demanded a slight scraping of frost from the windshield, and the jacket I wore to brace against the frigid morning breeze rested on the seat beside me before noon. Fall in Nebraska is almost like two seasons in one: the pleasant, warm time while the sun brightens the day, and the crappy, cold time when the sun, too, has had its fill of Nebraska. On this particular day, I had left at around 3:00 am for some early morning business in Kimball. The business in Kimball didn’t take too awful long, and I found myself driving back into Scottsbluff at around 11:00am. As I drove north on Highway 71 and drove over the bridge spanning the meek North Platte River, I couldn’t help but notice all of the leaves that littered the side of the road. The area around the river is one of the few places where you can find a multitude of trees all in one spot in western Nebraska, and a significant wind must have blown through the previous night. I can not remember a time before nor after that day where I have seen an exodus of leaves along the roadside of that magnitude. I was so impressed that I actually pulled over to the side of the road and just stared at the leaves.

A light breeze blew, and the leaves tumbled and twirled along the embankment. Brown leaves, yellow leaves, and even some green leaves and the occasional red leaf — leaves of all shape and size, though mostly cottonwood leaves — bustled along in an attempt to find the final resting place where decay could completely consume them. The leaves fascinated me. They were just a bunch of stinking leaves, but they were beautiful in their own way. As I watched the leaves, I realized that they had all come to this stretch of road in Scotts Bluff County, probably through no choice of their own (I don’t think leaves have “choice”, do they?) either to die or because they were already dead.

While watching the leaves from my truck by the bridge over the North Platte River, I remembered a man I had recently seen at Walmart. A funny looking man standing back in the dairy section caught my eye. From a distance, the man appeared to be quite well-off. He appeared to be dressed in a nice suit with shiny shoes and a stunning little bowler hat.

“How odd for someone to be dressed like that in Walmart,” I thought to myself, “and it’s not even Sunday.”

As I pushed my shopping cart closer to the man, his clean, crisp image began to unravel. The man’s suit was not really very nice at all; it was haggard and stained… and it smelled… smelled bad. His shoes (although it was obvious that a great deal of care had gone into their shining) barely had any soles, his right toe peeked out from not only the right shoe but the right sock as well, and the frayed laces appeared to be just getting the job done of keeping the shoes on his feet. The white sweat stain that circled the man’s bowler added to the appearance of age that the runs in the bowler’s fabric created. The old man seemed to be in a hurry to find something. As I passed him, however, he offered a sincere, toothless smile as he gently touched the brim of his hat… then he bustled on his way.

The memory of the man faded, and once again I watched the leaves — the leaves whose sole remaining purpose was to become fertilizer for the next generation — the leaves whose final resting place may be a stretch of road in the panhandle of Nebraska.

My mind wandered again, this time to the overweight population of Scottsbluff. In 2009, Quality Health ran an article titled “10 Fattest Cities in America.” Scottsbluff (not a community that graces many “top ten” lists) with 31% of its population classified as obese, came in at number seven. Seventh fattest city in America… there’s something to take pride in. See what a little corn-fed beef and buttered corn on the cob can do for a community? And don’t forget about the wonderful high fructose corn syrup! Corn… it’s what for dinner… and it leads to obesity! Maybe people here just don’t know how to take care of themselves. Maybe people here just don’t care. Maybe people in the panhandle of Nebraska are just trying to tumble and twirl through life and get what little pleasure they can along the way. A lot of pleasure can be found in a couple of Big Macs with a large fries and a Coke.

As I continued to watch the bustling leaves, I started to get cold. The leaves I watched put on quite a show, but I started to realize that they really weren’t as beautiful as I originally thought. I began to suspect that, upon closer inspection, the leaves might actually be kind of gnarly — full of bug bites and patches of disease and torn flesh and broken dreams. I thought of the people that I know who have a bachelor’s degree in this or a master’s degree in that, and they are stocking shelves at a grocery store or working as para-educators or slinging a construction hammer. The leaves weren’t searching for a fulfilling life there along the side of the road in Scottsbluff, NE; they were there because they were dying or dead.

My appetite for watching the leaves gone, I suddenly just wanted to go home. Still chilly, I slid on my jacket from the seat beside me as I started the truck and bustled toward home with the dawning realization that I probably had a lawn full of leaves in need of raking…

Little Moon Supper Club

The wife and I just celebrated our 17th anniversary. I know, I know… the fact that there is a woman alive who would be willing to put up with my crap for 17 years may lead one to question her sanity. Well, the fact that she is slightly tilted doesn’t make me love her any less. Anyway, one of the biggest problems we have here in the craphandle of Nebraska when it comes to celebrating events is the lack of good places to eat. We have a ton of little Mexican restaurants which are good and fine and all, but we weren’t in the mood for Mexican. We have a Chili’s and an Applebee’s, which are pretty interchangeable chains. We have a Shari’s and a Perkin’s, which, once again, are pretty interchangeable chains. We have a few fast food places, and a couple of bar and grills that tend to be more bar than grill… and our anniversary fell on the eve of a Husker game… so being surrounded by a bunch of drunk Husker fans didn’t sound like the most romantic choice. We wanted to go somewhere for a good steak-type meal, but didn’t want to have to take out a home equity loan to be able to afford it. We have a chain here called Whiskey Creek that isn’t bad, but again… bar and grillish with a Husker game. There is a place here called The Emporium, but it seems to be sort of European in flair (which means although the food is excellent, you get very little of it and spend a small fortune). Last time we ate at The Emporium, I had to swing through the drive-through at McDonald’s just to get filled up afterwards.

One of the great things about Facebook is that it is filled with people more than willing to give their biased recommendations. I put a post on Facebook asking for some recommendations for somewhere decent to eat. Of course, I know all of the restaurants in the area, but I was figuring there may be one I just wasn’t thinking of that someone else could remind me of. Lucky for me, just such a thing happened. One of my Facebook friends recommended the Little Moon Lake Supper Club. It had probably been 12-years since I had been to Little Moon, and I had forgot all about it. I could hardly remember the place, but I remembered that I liked the food. So, we were off to Little Moon!

The Little Moon Lake Supper Club isn’t in Scottsbluff, NE. The Little Moon Lake Supper Club isn’t in Gering, NE. The Little Lake Moon Supper Club is right outside Henry, NE.

“Where is Henry, NE?”

Henry, NE is in the middle of NOWHERE! Little Moon is not in Henry, but is located about a mile back on a dirt road outside of Henry, and it is about 30 miles from my house… and it’s getting dark… and it’s raining cats and dogs.

We drove through the pouring rain. This is the first decent rain we have had in weeks, so the roads are a little oiled-up-slicky. We crept along at a safe speed well below the speed limit. Now, I can’t exactly remember how to get to Little Moon, I just remember that there is a sign off the highway that points the way. So, we were driving for over a half-hour when we finally got to Henry. I slowed down and started looking for the sign once we passed town, and there it was.

So we turned south and drove over a pot-holy, washboardy, rain covered, muddy road very slowly for the next mile. This is what the visibility was like:

Rainy night — Okay... maybe the visibility wasn't this bad, but it was for the camera on my Droid.

Finally, after much bouncing and jarring and being splattered by muddy water, off in the distance, we saw what we thought might be our destination.

“Is that it?” I asked the wife.

“I think so,” said the wife.

“Not much too it, is there?” I said.

“No, but I remember the food being good,” said the wife.

Well, I guess if your first impression is bad, the odds go up of thinking the food is better than expected, right?!?

Once we got a little closer, it looked a little better… and I stress little.

Outside — Night-time pictures taken by a Droid in a rainstorm kind of... uh... suck.

Once we got inside, things started to look a even better (or, at least I can take a little better pictures).

We walked in and there is like no one there. I saw tables up ahead, but there is no one sitting at them. There was one dude wandering around with a jacket on, but he appeared to be slightly disturbed, so we left him alone. This seems strange, since the gravel parking lot was pretty full of cars. I looked to my left and there’s a bar, but there is no one at the bar.

The bar — Kind of reminds me of the bar in The Shining... as most empty bars do.

There were some people leaving, and the disturbed dude in the jacket, but I didn’t see anyone eating fabulous grub. Finally, a harried lady came shooting out from a little room on the side and asks how we’re doing. We told her we were fabulous, and she asked if we have reservations.

Oh crap.

We most definitely did not have reservations. The lady said that they have room and that wouldn’t be an issue, they just need to do some rearranging. She quickly disappears back into the room and I saw her darting back and forth past the door and stuff clanged and clattered.

“Oh crap, do you really think they have room?” I asked the wife.

“I’m sure she wouldn’t have told us they do if they don’t,” said the wife.

The harried lady jetted back and forth past the door a few more times as more clanging and clattering transpired. Finally, she reappeared back by the bar, brushing her hair away from her sweat-covered brow.

“I can seat you now,” she said.

So, we followed her through the little side door and found ourselves in a nice little dining area. The paneling on the walls, carpet on the floors, and lighting hanging from the ceiling all screamed “I was cool before disco was a glint in it’s father’s eye,” but it was clean. There were a few empty table, but most of the tables held groups of people who were dressed a lot fancier than the wife and me. We sat down and scoped the place out. There was apparently another room off of the dining room we were in, because people came in and went through another door in our dining room and disappeared… never to return. Also, the waitresses would disappear back in that nether-region, but they would reappear. So, there was either like a private party going on back there… or those unlucky guests who disappeared into the “special” seating section were actually what we ate later that evening. Either way, there were only two waitresses on duty, and they both seemed as harried as the seating lady. There did seem to be an awful lot of people for only two waitresses. Guess that’s why places like you to make reservations. I made a mental note.

In addition to the two waitresses and the seating lady, there was a young woman who, I’m guessing, was on her first night as an employee. The young lady looked like she may still be in high school, and she appeared to be terrified of screwing something up. She was very fun to watch. Harried-seating lady directed the young-one to get us water. Young-one nervously brought over a pitcher and attempted to pour out of the side of the pitcher into the wife’s and my glasses. She did the wife first, and a small splash of water spilled over onto the glass-topped table.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Young-one.

“It’s alright,” the wife smiled. Really, it wasn’t that big of a spill. In fact, we wouldn’t have probably even noticed the small spill if Young-one didn’t seem so nervous and hadn’t apologized for it.

Young-one slowly brought the pitcher to my glass and hesitantly poured from the side, shaking the pitcher slightly in an attempt to get some ice into my glass. She would shake and pour a little bit, and then stop… and breath… and then shake and pour a little bit more. After several start and stop combinations, she finally got my glass about half full. I think she decided that was about all the fuller she could risk getting my glass without spilling, because she stopped at half, set my glass down, and left. I looked at my half-full glass and then at my wife, who was smiling.

“Poor thing,” said the wife. “She seems so nervous. Must be her first night.”

“Yeah, poor thing,” I agreed. “You don’t think she’s our waitress, do you?”

We saw Harried-seating lady pull Young-one aside. Harried-seating lady took Young-one over to an empty table at the far side of the dining room and proceeded to show Young-one how to properly fill a glass by pouring from the side of a pitcher. Young-one nodded and a light seemed to go off somewhere in the recesses of her consciousness. I don’t know if she actually understood what Harried-seating lady was saying or if she was remembering a fond memory from her childhood… from a couple of weeks ago… but she seemed to understand something, and that made me feel good.

Harried-seating lady finally returned to us. “All of our menus are out, so it will be just a couple of minutes before we can show you a menu.”

“That’s fine,” I said, looking around at all of the other diners in our dining room, not one of whom had a menu.

“Can I start you with something to drink?”

So, I order iced tea and the wife ordered a Sprite. Harried-seating lady hurried off in search of our drinks.

When Harried-seating lady left, I asked the wife, “Where do you think all of those menus are?”

“They must be in the other dining room,” she said.

I looked again to the door leading to the mysterious dining area from which diners entered but never returned.

“Yeah… the other dining room,” I said.

From the kitchen, Young-one emerged carrying a glass of iced tea in one hand and a glass of Sprite in the other.

“Watch this,” I said to the wife in anticipation of something funny.

We watched Young-one carefully bring each glass to the table… without spilling a drop. She gently set each glass down, smiled (in relief, I believe), and scampered on her merry way.

“Dang it,” I said, “she didn’t spill them.”

The wife rolled her eyes.

Finally, one of the two harried waitresses brought a couple of menus from the “other” dining room and handed them to us with a smile. I glanced over mine for traces of fresh blood, but found none. We looked over the menu and both decided that steak sounded quite good. After this stupid new “eating healthy” crap that we’d been doing, a little red meat seemed like an excellent choice. Also, I ordered the appetizer combo… ’cause nothing says “cheat day” like a big pile of deep-fat-fried crispiness.

While we were waiting for our cardiac-arrest appetizer tray, our waitress brought over a surprise relish tray. I like surprises… even if they are healthy.

In anticipation of the big cheat we were taking from our new healthy way of eating with this meal, the wife and I had barely eaten anything all day. We polished off that relish tray in short order. And then came the appetizer.

Appetizer — There was actually more than this. We both dug into it before I could get the Droid out to take a picture.

Oh man, was that greasy stuff good. There were fried mushrooms, fried mozzarella sticks, and some of the biggest, best homemade onion rings that I have ever seen or tasted in my life. We almost polished off the appetizer tray before the steaks came, but not quite. We had a little left over to take back for the kiddos.

The steaks arrived. I’m kind of pissed, because I took a picture of my steak dinner in all of it’s glory, but my stupid Droid didn’t save it. Picture if you will a beautiful piece of seared meat, blood slowly spreading beneath it’s rare goodness, surrounded by crispy french fries and a Mexican corn medley. It was good sized, even though I ordered the small ribeye (yeah, I knew with the fat-filled appetizer I wouldn’t need a large… even when splurging, I was being a little health conscience… ’cause I would have never ordered a small before). I could have sliced it with a butter knife. The first bite absolutely melted in my mouth. I don’t know if it was just because it had been over 2 weeks since I had eaten any real red meat, but that was the tastiest steak I have ever tasted. I didn’t even care if it wasn’t beef… if, perhaps, it came from some illicit activity in the “other” dining room… I ate that whole thing in no time flat.

While we’re eating, Young-one noticed that our drink glasses were empty.

“Would you like refills?” she nervously asked.

“Why, yes, thank you,” I replied, and she scampered off with our empty glasses. She sure liked to scamper.

“Poor thing,” mutters the wife.

During the course of our meal, I had a blast watching Young-one take increasingly larger and larger piles of dirty dishes from the empty tables to the kitchen. I could see her self-confidence growing as her piles of dirty dishes grew larger. She seemed, to me, to be growing reckless… and I was loving it.

“Ooh…ooh,” I whispered to the wife, “watch this. I think she’s gonna lose it.”

“She is not,” the wife said. “Don’t be mean. Poor thing.”

Needless to say, she never lost the dishes. Needless to say, I was disappointed. I mean, it was neat to see that young girl smile with pride as she navigated the large piles of dirty dishes flawlessly to the kitchen, but it would have been neater to see the dishes crash to the floor and her fleeing the dining room in tears. Just sayin’…

Anyway, Young-one returned with our filled drinks and easily set the wife’s Sprite down in front of her. As she was sliding my iced tea into position, her wrist lightly brushed against the lemon placed on the rim of my cup, and the lemon tumbled down into the basket of butter on the table. Young-one bit her lower lip, and I swear her eyes suddenly grew moist. She set my glass down, started to reach for the lemon wedge, and drew her hand back. Her hand flew forward again in an attempt to grasp the lemon, only to return to her side as her eyes grew increasingly wet. I just smiled, watching in amazement. The wife nudged me, but I ignored her. Finally, Young-one reached forward one last time and gently placed her index finger and thumb on the outer rind of my lemon wedge. She was careful to only touch the outer rind. She held the lemon wedge up in front of her chest, looked at it, and then held it out to me like it was something she wished dearly to get rid of.

“I didn’t want to touch it,” she whispered to me as she blinked back tears.

I took the lemon from her and dropped it in my glass of tea to show her that I wasn’t afraid of her cooties.

“That’s okay,” I said. “No big deal.”

Her trembling lip turned up in a slight, forced smile as she turned and walked quickly out of the room. I started to snigger.

“Poor thing,” the wife said, but she sounded like she was ready to burst out laughing as well.

We were in such a good mood that, even though we were stuffed, we ordered a piece of pecan cheesecake to share… and it was awesome.

We had a really good time at the Little Moon Lake Supper Club. The service was exceptional (especially considering the fact that I think they may have been a little short on staff). We didn’t wait an unacceptable amount of time for any of the courses. All of the food was exceptional… not a thing sucked. Young-one’s entertainment was superb. I really hope she doesn’t get discouraged and quit, ’cause she’s fun 🙂 Even the price was very reasonable. With tip (and we tip pretty well), we got out of there for around $60. Of course, we didn’t drink the alcohol, which I’m sure would add heavily to a tab, but we were both stuffed on good food and we even had some to take home.

If I were to give out stars or thumbs or anything like that, I’d give the Little Moon Lake Supper Club in Henry, NE some stars, and my thumbs would all be up. Good value, great food, pleasant staff, and the funny new girl. Poor thing…

How Your Health Just Goes In the Toilet Once You Hit 40…

So about six months ago, I go to our Quick Care clinic to get a referral for a sleep study. I leave the appointment with the referral… and a brand-spanking new prescription for blood pressure medication. Stinking people looking out for my health. Anyway, so I had a six-month prescription, and that prescription was about to run out, so I figured that I better go see a real doctor about my blood pressure.

Now, when I went to Quick Care, my blood pressure was like 170/130. I’ve been tracking it ever since, and although there are times when it spikes in the 160/110 range (which is pretty much any time I get pissed off… which, as you can imagine, is almost daily), it’s usually in the 140s/90s. Still high, but better, no?

I make an appointment with an actual real doctor (figure I’m about at the age where I need a family physician). The appointment comes, I go to see the doctor, and my stupid blood pressure is still high. It’s 148/98. So, the doctor wants to double the dosage of the lisinopril that I’m on, and I’m fine with that. Aside from a constant nagging cough, I don’t really suffer any side-effects. Then the doctor tells me that he wants to check my cholesterol. Crap. I have no doubt that my cholesterol is high, and I’m sure that I’m going to have to fork out money for a prescription for that crap every month too. The nurse sticks a needle in my arm and draws a couple of vials of blood. I’m amazed at how dark the blood is… almost black… and I’m thinking to myself that may be part of my problem. With all of the tons of fat that I have eaten in my 41-years of life (’cause, damn it, it tastes good), the crap has actually morphed into actual oil in my system. Of course my blood pressure is going to be high with Pennzoil 10w30 running through my veins, and I’m way past the 3 month/3000 mile mark. Can’t I just get a stinking oil change and a lube job?.

I heard from the doctor’s office today. Low and behold, I have high cholesterol. SURPRISE! They called in a prescription for some statin-thingie to Walgreens, and as of tomorrow, I’ll be medicated for my condition. Possible side effects are muscle cramps, drowsiness, and liver damage. They recommend taking it before bed so that the side effects are less noticeable. The drowsiness thing happening while I’m sleeping makes sense. However, being awoken in the middle of the night with a charlie horse doesn’t sound very pleasant, and I’m sure my wife would agree with me on that. As far as the liver damage part goes, I’m kind of hoping to avoid that. I guess if I have liver failure or something, having that happen while I’m asleep might be a plus?!?

Why is everything that tastes good bad for you (and if someone tries to tell me that steamed broccoli or broiled fish “tastes good”… I may punch him or her in the lying, filthy little mouth)? “Everything in moderation,” you may say, but I would reply that moderation sucks. Stupid common sense. If I’m stuck in the Craphandle of Nebraska with nothing to do and no real future worth caring about, I want to be able to eat what I want when I want. Eating is one of the very few pleasures I have… and now it just happens to be killing me.

AARGH!

Apparently, high cholesterol makes one very pirate-like?

With the history of high blood pressure and heart disease that infests my family tree, I figured all of this was coming. I just hoped that maybe I was going to be the branch that could remain healthy. I’m telling you, optimism in all shapes, colors and sizes, leads to nothing but disappointment, which is why I usually do such a wonderful job of avoiding it.

Okay, so here’s the Catch-22. The potential side effects of the statin-thingie don’t sound very pleasant. So, I figure I need to lose about 20 to 30 pounds and start eating gross crap, which doesn’t sound very fun. Then, when I’m all sickly skinny and eating leaves and twigs, there is still a chance that I will need to remain on cholesterol medication. Stupid genetics. So, do I just let the doctor medicate the hell out of me and potentially destroy my liver (a problem that may never come to be… look at me, the stinking optimist) while I continue to enjoy one of the few simple pleasures I have in life: eating good food? Or, do I give up one of the few simple pleasures that I can experience in the Craphandle of Nebraska in an effort to extend my life so that I can potentially live out an extended life in the Craphandle of Nebraska with no simple pleasures? And even if I give up the simple pleasure, there is still the chance that I will need to remain on the liver-destroying medication, so I may actually give up the simple pleasure and still die of liver failure. Sounds pretty much like a lose-lose-lose situation to me. There… now I’m sounding a little more like the pessimist that I know and dislike an awful lot of the time.

So, now I have a doctor. He wants to see me again after about 30 days on the current medications to measure my progress. I should be proud of myself for taking some responsibility for my health and trying to be there for my family’s future, right? But all I can think about is how I’m 41… and it is just going to be a matter of time before Mr. Dr. is going to be thinking that he needs to be sticking his finger up my butt. Seriously… if I’m falling apart this much in my 40s, what bright, shiny stars can I expect in my 50s… and beyond? Well, with the Dr. seemingly intent on destroying my liver, I may not have to worry about it at all…