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.      

Ozarks at New Year’s

My muse this morning perched upon my shoulder

Just to jabber at me about getting older.

Now I sit here in the daylight at the Matye’s Lake House

Mostly trying out here to be quiet as a mouse.

We’ve come to observe the arrival of the year 2020.

If I’ve heard it right I think we’ll see chocolate aplenty.

What else, if you please, would you find in a “chocolate martini”

Chocolate Bailey’s, liqueur and syrup in a glass not so teeny.

Me, I prefer the contemplative moments, 

Soberly looking at the parting year’s remnants.

Who and what lives on, what is frowned upon,

Lake d’Ozark’s a fine place to gaze down on.

 My conclusion—we should all stick around another year 

While we breathe there’s nary a thing to fear.

Waiting For Those Gingerbread Men

Days before Christmas are still in double digits

As he sits sadly around the house and fidgets.

He’s the anxious cookie maker. 

Not willing to be such a premature baker

Of his most-favored cookie treats

That his gems get stale and no one eats.

The Emperor in Action

This Emperor of Ours 

He’s the only one who could possibly know

The Ukrainians were given no quid pro quo

What the Democrats say about holding back aid

Was just one of those deals that had to be made.

And there are no rooms at his grand hotels

For those who wish to blow their whist-els.

It sure seems the emperor has no clothes

Or so one who hears all this might suppose.

I Wonder Where That Blogger Went

If you wonder where that blogger went

If his absence leaves you discontent

There’s a path I know 

Where you just might go

.......................................................

To some light verse will just annoy

To others it brings some simple joy

There’s a pocketful of dreadful rhymes

That don’t rise to the level of crimes

Stay If they cheer you on your way

But if you dislike them, just go away.

Its location’s at one of those “blogspot.com’s”

Idontknowson3rd.blogspot.com

Go ahead, type it in, it is no sin

The workings of a silly mind you’ll find therein.

Who's on 1st, What's on 2nd, I Don't Know's on 3rd

Somewhere in the past fifteen years I discovered Blogger, and things have never really been the same.  I took a look at life through the lens of the famous Laurel and Hardy bit referred to in the title of this piece.  Recently, it occurred to me that I am approaching a transition in my life.  Peering at life through the lens of "Who's on 1st, etc.," I can see my life in these three phases--Who's on 1st, What's on 2nd and I Don't Know's on 3rd.

Who's on 1st--my younger adult years were lived in a sort of whirlwind.  We married, had two children and I pursued the ups and downs and caroming around that was my life.  We caromed from South Bend to St. Louis, to Chicago, to Atlanta, to Savannah, finally coming to rest in Hilton Head.  Careerwise, I moved from liquor store clerk to Personnel Trainee to Assistant Director of HR and to Director of HR (the latter in a company that ceased to exist some six or seven years after I moved on).  I ended up as a Senior Labor Relations Consultant in a Fortune 100 Company (Big Deal!).  It was a career I enjoyed and one that took care of me and my family as well as we needed.  Throughout this period, I did little reflection, and never sat down to write about it unless I was preparing a resume.  ]

Somewhere in my 50's I began to think about what was coming next.  This has taken shape as the period of What's on 2nd, or what else does life have in store for me.  I thought about what was on 2nd and some of those musings found their way here as entries in my Whatison2nd.blog post.  Tonight, as sleep eluded me once again, I thought about an article I saw but skimmed very lightly in my email today.  All I get in my email these days are publications, magazines, newspapers, commentaries, ads, and more ads from every organization I've had the pleasure of doing even the smallest transaction with...  Is that the same for you? or do you actually receive a personal email on occasion?  Anyway, the topic of the article I'll be searching for after I finish this piece had to do with ending well.  Hence, "I Don't Know's on 3rd" comes to mind.

Now, let me be clear about this--it's not about where we will go next.  I have a strong Faith that answers that question for me to a great degree (although I do wonder sometimes about what this afterlife I'm hoping to head for if I live the way I should actually looks like?  Is it a single unified center of being that we are all returning to?  Is it a replica of all that is/was good on Earth--and does that include my Golden Retriever Walter?

OH, but back to the subject at hand--ending well.  I don't know how to do this, but I want to try.  Let me be clear on another point--the author of the piece I skimmed earlier today suggests that regular doses of LSD would be a good approach.  While that is a novel approach, I really don't think it is any good for me.  I am, after all, working hard to stay in my right mind through the end of my life.  

I just created my newest blog, entitled "I Dom't Know's on 3rd."  I have barely begun a layout, etc., but it's there--and this entry will appear in both What Is on 2nd (this blog) and "I Don't Know's on 3rd.  If you'll excuse me, I need to go look for that article I skimmed before I forget.  I'll probably return after I have read it through....