The Grill of My Dreams

The Grill of My Dreams

Today I bought a spare tank for my tabletop gas grill.  it reminded me of all the fine meals we have enjoyed on this little grill.  We've been living in our downsized abode for a little under eight months.  While we are happy to have done it, downsizing has its drawbacks.  The most immediate drawback that comes to mind is the restriction on the use of a charcoal or gas-fired grill.

When asked, as we were about to purchase our condo, the condominium property manager provided regulations for the property that indicate no outdoor grilling.  It is permitted only in the area of the pool on the single communal gas grill provided there.  There are over ninety units here, so I concluded the rule was not going to work for me.  Talking to my prospective upstairs neighbor, the former president of the property owners association, I learned that grilling was permitted as long as the grill was at ground level and resting on concrete or concrete block.  The POA rule is intended to prevent people from grilling on the wooden-floored balconies that most units have.

Not long after this conversation, I found myself at Costco, and there I spotted a tabletop grill.  It's no ordinary tabletop grill.  It has a stainless steel cover, a 20 inch gas burner, with a push-button ignitor.  It stands nine inches tall at its highest, and has a two hundred forty square inch cooking surface.  It also attaches to a standard fifteen gallon gas canister, although you can use a smaller one if you prefer.

It looked like the answer to my problem.  With this little grill, I could cook--perhaps even under the cover of darkness., then bring the grill back inside where no one could see.  

  

Superpowers

Superpowers

A writing prompt, which is an idea created to help us when we are bereft completely of anything to say (writer's block, some call it), will usually seem to me to be so ridiculous that it isn't worth pursuing in a straightforward manner.  Instead, I find myself twisting it all out of shape over one portion of it.  So instead of repeating the prompt that got me started, as I have the last few times, I will simply put forth the piece I am twisting over.

It's been suggested that a Superpower (like those that Superman has, not the political term for the largest and most powerful of nations) might have a power like this--The power to make any two people agree with one another.

What do you make of this one?  A Superpower, really?  Making any two people agree with one another--does that not imply that we should all agree on everything?  I admit it might be helpful if we all agreed on one or two fundamental things, but I am not sure just what those things should be.  I don't think we want to expand those things too broadly, however.  Doesn't disagreement usually prompt some sort of incremental step forward after it has been resolved?  I mean, if Galileo had been made to agree with everyone who thought the world was flat, would we be aware the Earth is round?

Somebody has to disagree, or at least doubt, what everyone else thinks in order for our knowledge to progress.  We have to understand the existing theory before we can disagree with it.  In order to understand people and their ideas we have to get close to them.  But we don't necessarily have to agree with someone to get close to them.  We can get close and still disagree.  Courtesy and diplomacy are required if you intend to maintain a relationship, even friendship with the person or persons with whom you will eventually disagree.

It seems to me that the ability to stay close while disagreeing is the missing ingredient in the body politic, at least publicly.  I'd accept that they have a civil relationship personally, while they publicly call each other names.  Hard to maintain if you insist on disagreeing with everyone publicly.