Bacon

Because some emails just need to be shared.  This came from a colleague and friend based in Indiana, who sent a few of us here in the office some delicious bacon.  Enjoy.

From: Phil 
Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2013 8:42 PM
To: Jason; Alexandria; Donald; Jeffrey; Phillip; Timothy; Edward; Janean 
Cc: Phil 
Subject: Bacon

To all who have received……

For you rookies this is no normal bacon. Its strong, smoky and salty. You need to NOT overcook it…. In fact the directions suggest under cooking it…. Follow the directions and “use the force Luke”. Allen Benton is the yoda of pig.

My suggestion……..this bacon is very intimidating on its own.  If you love a BLT as much as I do, make one with it. But make sure you use a good tomato and crisp iceberg lettuce…. And cut a chunk of the wedge into one piece , don’t pull it apart. And lots of mayo. And Brownberry makes Healthnut bread. Toast it,,, in fact over toast it till its crunchy.  I may not be the smartest guy but in my next life I’ll make BLT’s for a living….I’ve mastered them. Just over toast the bread (and use Brownberry healthnut) and don’t overcook the bacon. The rest is common sense.

Have fun. Be careful. Look both ways before crossing the street.

Catching Up

It's the little things, sometimes.

I had so many little things that had been piling up, awaiting my attention, and it was driving me crazy.  Birthday cards to buy, receipts to put in the checkbook, clean laundry to hang, emails to answer - things like that.  Nothing major.  Nothing mission critical.  But enough of them had accumulated that I was stressed out.

Thankfully, I had some time last night to attack these things.  Checkbook is up to date; birthday cards are sent (better late than never); shirts are hanging in the closet; etc.  It felt good to have, and to take, that hour or two last night just to plow through them all.

Sometimes, it doesn't take much.  But it's enough.

Weekend In Review

What a nice weekend I had.

On Friday, I headed west a bit to see my friend Laura.  She and I then headed into downtown York, PA to have a delightful dinner and then to see one of my favorite groups, Straight No Chaser, in concert.  Such a great show!  Those guys seriously do some amazing stuff.  There were a lot of great songs and moments, but I think the highlight for me was the last song they did.  It was "Kiss From a Rose" by Seal - but they did it without microphones, just their natual, un-amplified voices.  Honestly, I didn't know that microphones would make such a difference...but wow.  It was just powerful.

Saturday we had ourselves a little spa day, which was heavenly.  I had a nice sugar scrub, then a wonderful aromatherapy massage.  Bless.  The only bad part was when I decided to use the razors and shaving cream provided in the fancy locker rooms to shave my hairy face.  With a disposable, single-blade razor.  Well, to make a long story short, ouch.  And it would not stop bleeding.  So I spent a few hours with a band-aid very prominently displayed on my chin.  Boo.

There was then an early dinner with Laura and some others (her boyfriend, her brother and his wife), which was great.  I was then on the road again, this time up to my mom's.

It's so peaceful up there.  I like visiting my mother.  And on Sunday we really didn't do too much...A lot of nothing.  But it was just...nice.  After an excellent dinner I headed home, where I ran some errands, did some chores, unpacked and generally got back into the swing of things.

And now it's Monday, and I'm at work.  Boo for that, but yay for a great weekend with friends, family and good music.

Splash

So.  I was having a perfectly nice lazy Sunday evening last night, curled up on the couch, reading.  It was just about 10:00, I was nicely drowsy, so I decided to head for bed.  I first went into the kitchen for a quick drink of water; I grabbed my glass, put it under the tap, lifted the lever to turn on the water, and SPLASH suddenly I have a faceful of water.  It was streaming up from the base of the faucet onto my face, my chest, the wall and all over the counter.

Well.  I was quite awake after that, thank you.

Of course I had turned the water off almost immediately.  Then, of course, I cleaned off my glasses so I could see.  I looked and saw, much to my surprise, a big crack in the steel faucet.  Jagged, and abouthalf an inch long.  It looked kind of like this: /\/\/\/\/\/\.  Weird, right?  Especially since I had done dishes after lunch and it wasn't there!

So.  Now I find myself in the unfortunate position of watering my entire kitchen whenever I go to use the faucet.  I've put some plumber's tape (and electrical tape) around it, which has minimized the spraying by about 75%; not too shabby.  Still, I can't really do dishes there or wash my hands even.

And the faucet isn't loose.  I tried lifting it up to close the crack, and it didn't budge.  I honestly have no idea what happened.  But I do know that I need a new one...

Plumber comes Wednesday morning.  I guess I'll head to Home Depot at lunch, or after work, to buy a new faucet.  Oh, did I mention that the one I have is only about five years old?  And a good brand name?

WEIRD.  And not how you want to end a Sunday night.  Or start a Monday morning.

Special

I heard someone talking today about how she was thinking about the earth, then the solar system, then the universe, the galaxy, etc - and how it just keeps going.  And how that made her really think about how special we are...and my mind drifted.  Because, really, are we?  Are we special?  And, if so, what makes us that way?

On the one hand, sure we are.  We're humans!  We can destroy the planet!  On the other hand, our time here will come to an end, I'm sure, just as the dinosaurs' did.  (Maybe not any time soon, but still.)  So maybe we aren't special at all.  And what about all of the other life forms on this planet - and maybe on other planets?  Are my cats special?  Are mosquitoes special?  Who's to say?

I bet you that, to the president of France, I'm no one special at all.  To the person on the other end of the phone when I call customer service - I'm no one special.  But to my friends, to my family, to those who care about me, I think I'm pretty darn special.  Then that made me think of lovebirds; they are so pretty.  And a mated pair will cuddle with and preen each other...So while I may look at them as just another pair of birds, they are pretty darn special to each other.

So maybe it isn't an "are we or aren't we" kind of a question, because the answer is that we are AND we aren't.  Maybe what makes us special is our connections with others, our relations in our lives (perhaps human and, even, otherwise).

Maybe.