We Are Having Hamburgers For Dinner

We are having hamburgers for dinner.

Two inches of snow fell in northeastern Kansas last night. Naturally, school had to be closed. In northern states, school children of all ages walk to school in two inches of snow so often that if someone comments on it the answer is usually, “It snowed last night?” The people who are paid to make a wild guess at the weather forecast predicted that we’d be getting more snow this afternoon, which I suspect is the real reason that the school district shut down. Egads! Bobby and Susie might have to walk home in four inches of snow.

A few hours after shoveling our walk and our driveway, and after clearing off the Boss’ car, I strolled over to Bob’s house to shovel his driveway. That was when General Mayhem told me that he broke our shovel. He was using it in the backyard to gather snow for a fort. I was really annoyed, but only due to the fact that I did not have another shovel with which to shovel Bob’s place. Our snow shovel was old and well used. It died in service to yet another snowfall. May it rest in a landfill for a thousand years in peace. I appreciated the General’s honesty.

Bob was wearing pants when he answered his front door, which was a bonus but is not always a guarantee. I asked him if I could use his shovel to clear his driveway.

“Why?!” he exclaimed, shaking his head. “The snow will be gone by my birthday!”

His birthday is in July.

“Because this is wet, heavy, heart attack snow,” I told him. “And I know you. You’ll get a wild hair and decide to shovel.”

He went in search of his snow shovel, but couldn’t find it. I spent the next half an hour shoveling his driveway and front walk using a square garden shovel. It did a great job. I was able to scrape off the ice and snow clear to the pavement, and the blade was so small that I couldn’t pick up a large, heavy scoop full of snow. Large, heavy scoops full of wet snow have brought down more than a few shovelers with massive heart attacks.

Bob disappeared into his house while I cleared the ground. I thought he was going back inside to put in his teeth. Sometimes he does that. Bob has dress teeth and work teeth and no teeth. His dress teeth are his nicest pair. He wears them for church and visits to the doctor. His work teeth aren’t as pleasant, and they are missing a couple of teeth in the front, but I guess they work for chewing. Today he was going au natural. When he came out of his house he handed me a bag.  It contained three pounds of ground beef.

"I bought the wrong kind of beef," he gummed.

The fat content was too high, and he wanted to make room in the freezer for the new ground beef that he was going to buy. Bob also told me that he was a bit high on Oxycontin for pain in his back and legs. I suspect that he wanted to do something to thank me for shoveling his walk. It is the first time that I have been paid with beef for shoveling snow.

And that is why we are having hamburgers for dinner.

Any Way You Look at it, We're Talking Buns Today

The two most frequently asked questions from recent blogs appear to be, “Arby, how do you know that you do not look good in leggings?” and “Did the heart and shamrock shaped burgers hold their shape?” It is refreshing to see that my readers are focusing on the important issues of the day. Let’s take the second question first, as it is the easiest to answer.

The heart and shamrock shaped burgers held their forms quite well. The biggest complaint I received from the family came from the Boss and the General. They both thought that I was a little weird for making something other than boring old round hamburgers. They both found that the burgers were a tad dry. That had nothing at all to do with the shape of the burgers, but rather the meat that I used. 92% lean beef doesn’t make for the tastiest of burgers. The Boss mumbled something about sand through a mouthful of crumbly beef. Let’s face it; you need just a little more fat than 8% for a tasty burger. So, we’ll be downgrading to 85-15 for our next round of burgers. I might venture into other shapes in the near future, as well as play around with making the corresponding shaped buns. Since this appears to be a topic of great interest, I will keep everyone posted as my burger experiments continue.

By the way, if you didn’t read Brownie’s comment on the burger blog, her “Eat your heart out” line was fantastic. I am sooooo jealous that I missed that one!

As for the leggings, well, just look for yourself. There is not a man on the face of the planet that looks good in these:

Does the word "Herm" come to mind?

Here's some stylin' hoops attire.

  Someone should be testing the water in this place.  Dig the love handles on the guy on the far right.

If those pictures don't make my case for the fact that no man should wear anything tighter than a burlap sack, consider the fact that a few decades ago I was a Madrigal singer. Madrigal singers wear fancy period costumes. Unfortunately, those fancy period costumes rarely include pants. They require leggings of some sort, usually the thin kind commonly referred to as tights. This presents a particular dilemma for the average guy, because if you don’t wear one of these tortuous contraptions

while wearing tights, you enter into Pudgyville. I think these were used quite effectively by Torquemada to convert heretics during the Spanish Inquisition.  Anyway, Pudgyville is not a good place to visit for the average man. If you doubt me, revisit the first picture.  Now, the problem that I discovered while wearing one of those contraptions pictured here is that they seriously chafe in an area that is just plain wrong. It’s like walking around with a permanent wedgy. Some places are just not meant to be flossed. And before anyone protests too much, I’ve never asked a woman to wear any equivalent items of undergarment and I never will. Women folk are crazy if they do. While a few women can pull off the no-panty-line look, I've never understood the whole fashion/pain thing.  I'll take the Boss in a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt any day of the week. 
 
I am confident that no one I know from my madrigal days reads this blog, so no one will be sharing any pictures of me in tights. I do not have any to post. I wouldn’t even if I did, but I can say with complete honesty that since I do not relish reliving nightmares, I did not retain any pictures from that earlier period of my life.
 
I know.  I have demons.  They all started the day that the rump roast started talking to me.  But that's for another blog.

Anybody Can Make Hamburgers

Anybody can make hamburgers.

I made shamrock and heart burgers!

Why?

Because, we are so lucky to be such a loving family, of course.

(You’ll find the air sickness bags in the pocket of the seat back in front of you.)

DING!

You are now free to move about the internet.