I'm Under the Cooking Curse

Maybe I have watched one too many Disney movies recently, or perhaps my Harry Potter excitement is finally getting to me, but I think I’m under a curse.

I can’t cook a thing, and it’s getting worse.

It would seem by some form of osmosis or just plain luck that someone my age should be able to master a few dishes by now, but the simple process of mixing, mincing, chopping, flambéing, broiling, par-boiling, sautéing, grilling, or baking ingredients together is so far beyond my scope of abilities it boggles the mind.

Even the basic skill of boiling something has eluded me. (“Here Tincan, boil this egg…ahh, call the fire department!”)

There are a few things I can do well, like play the guitar and write songs (I play a killer ‘G’ chord), shoot a basket ball (I’m an utter failure at the other aspects of basketball, like dribbling, passing and playing defense, but watch out world when it comes to playing H.O.R.S.E.) and write, but when I enter a kitchen I break out in cold sweat like a horse passing a glue factory.

This makes me feel like I’m an exhibit in one of those old fashioned traveling freak shows. (“Step right up folks and see the man who can follow the directions on the box or recipe down to the microgram and still have his food taste like it was prepared on the backside of a baboon!”)

The other night I butchered a batch of macaroni and cheese and though the look on my two daughter’s faces said it all, my five year old (Princess Supergirl) tried to make me feel better about my caveman like culinary skills.

“Dad, this is really good. If there was some kind of cooking contest you should enter this.”

When a five year old is taking pity on you and trying to make you feel better you know two things: you have a fantastic kid and you really need to see someone about this (like, perhaps a witch doctor).

This culinary inability extends even to making coffee.

Both my beautiful wife Special Sauce Caldwell and the creative wonder that is my mother have tried to teach me how to do this, showing me the proper water-to-scoop-of-coffee ratio that is best for a robust cup of morning java, but no matter how many scoops I do or how exacting I am in following directions, my coffee is always inferior and bland.

Recently while on vacation the curse briefly lifted and one morning I tasted my coffee and almost died of shock right there in my pajamas.

It was delicious.

My extended family all agreed that I could not have possibly made this pot of coffee, and when the video evidence was reviewed and the startling truth was revealed joyous phone calls were made and faxes were sent: “The curse has been lifted!”

The next morning I confidently scooped out coffee grounds while whistling We Are the Champions and when I smugly put the coffee to my lips a wave of disappointment hit me as the same old bland taste had returned.

The curse had found me while on vacation. It took a day or so to track me down, but like a GPS device the signal had finally came through.

Conversely, my wife has a magical touch with food. She could make a gourmet meal out of tin foil.

After ten years of marriage I’m still amazed at what she can concoct out of the basic elements of food or whatever leftovers are around. I’ll be convinced that there is nothing in the house to eat and on the phone with the Chinese food place down the street and she will calmly serve a fantastic meal that I’m convinced was created by mysterious forces that hide in our pantry.

So needless to say, there is a distinct division of responsibilities in our house, and I will, till the day I shuffle off this mortal coil, happily take out the garbage, scoop the cat box, do all the driving and remove all the headless mice and frogs our cats drag into the house if I can but enjoy the sumptuous meals she serves.

Right now she is currently out of the country finishing up some schooling in Spain and no doubt whipping up a batch of tapas for her roommates, who are no doubt saying the same thing I do (only in Spanish of course). “Wow, how did you make this out of the dust bunnies that are in our cupboards.”

Please hurry home dear; the girls can only eat so many hot dogs.

No Stuffed Animal Left Behind

Planning and packing for a trip takes 99% of the roughly 8% of my brain I am currently using.

There are some things you can do without even thinking about it, things that comes as natural to you as mouth-breathing was to a caveman.

For some athletics come easy; they have been catching balls or hitting slap shots since infancy and the desire to do so was always kind of around.

Some folks were born organized. The desire for order and structure are ever-present and they were probably organizing their own diaper bags(“Let's see, daytime diapers go here, overnights go right here and my selection of color coded pacifiers fits nicely here“) and writing memos to their mothers about the water-to-powder ratio in their formula mix (“Just a teaspoon more of Perrier water should do the trick mother“).

It’s not to say that there is not work and effort involved in being a truly great athlete or an organizing guru with your own line of self help books and a cable access TV show, it’s just that the original spark was there in most of these folks and absent in the rest of us.

For me, being creative always just sort came easy. I was making up stories since infancy, and thanks to a wonderful mother with a distinct collector’s gene, I have every story and scrap of creative idea that I ever had gumption to put down on paper. (Including the Pulitzer Prize worthy first grade story “Mighty Mustard and Crazy Catsup Fight the Evil Mayonnaise Man”, a story so profound and insightful that my teacher wept openly and sent it straight to the White House to be awarded a medal of honor.)

I have friends for whom public speaking or other creative endeavors are truly stressful ordeals. They sweat for weeks trying to come up with an original idea for a ten minute presentation. It takes everything they have.

But not this cat, I could write this column in my sleep. (Don’t tell my editor this, please!) Being funny and creative come pretty easy to me. (Of course the “funny” part is much more subjective than, say, the ability to shoot a basketball well, and depends greatly on the audience. I am considered a comedy genius in parts of the South and in the country of Korea, but people in Idaho and Russia have expressly told me to find another line of work.)

But what I find incredibly difficult is organizing my life, say for something like packing for the vacation I am currently enjoying on a beach in a certain state north of here. (Incidentally, the sand just now is warm and the gulls are circling overhead. Circling, circling…Oh no, everybody put up your umbrellas!)

Packing for a vacation that involves children takes about as much planning and forethought as the D-day invasion of France, only those brave soldiers never had to worry about running out of diapers on the turnpike in 100 degree weather.

I have learned that if I spread out the packing over the course of, say, five days, life is much easier.

Of course with five days to go till V-day my brain says to me “take it easy big guy; there’s plenty of time to make that checklist.”

Then, with less than twenty hours to go the panic button deep in the recesses of my subconscious finally gets pressed and it’s time to start thinking about what the family will need while “relaxing” somewhere.

Because if there is not a bit of forethought you will spend all of your precious beach time running from store to store trying to find that elusive item that you have ten of at home, yet here you are buying the eleventh one (say a child’s bathing suit or a cell phone re-charger). Also, that money you are spending on the fourteenth pair of flip-flops could be better spent on a novelty t-shirt that says “Maine, The Ninth Best Place To Live In America“, or “Maine, Now With Indoor Plumbing!”

And don’t forget that precious and beloved stuffed animal that your child can not sleep without. It would be better to forget the first aid kit or the tooth paste than this critically important and ragged ball of cotton with eyes on it. (“Is that a sheep or a monkey sweet heart? Oh, it’s a camel!”)

I call this whole packing and planning activity “Operation ’No Stuffed Animal Left Behind’.”

I can say with full confidence and swagger that this particular vacation I’m on was pulled off nicely and it helped that I put every single stuffed animal in my house in a garbage bag and brought them all along.

Now if you will excuse me, I think I spy an ice cream stand on the boardwalk.

And since I didn’t have to buy those flip flops, I think I’ll get a chocolate sundae.

Porta Potty Anxiety

“The 4th of July, when a man’s thoughts turn to freedom, family and porta potties" - Thomas Jefferson


There are four heroes of the summertime.

The first is the ice cream man.

This brave young man (usually a college student or roaming hippy) lures the children of my neighborhood out to the street with the tinkle of sweet music and then attempts to not run them over as they stream towards his moving vehicle.

This whole process could use a slight overhaul.

The second great hero of the summertime is the lifeguard. Without this stalwart guy or gal (again, usually a college student) sitting perch over the beaches of our fair land, parents could never go to sleep on their towels whilst their children frolic in the surf and eat sand.

The third is the camp counselor.

I myself spent my teen years (just before college) gloriously marching campers around in formation and playing epic games of Capture the Flag.

I greatly enjoyed my camp counselor years (the rugged conditions, the low pay, the spiders in my sleeping bag) and without them I would not know how to march my own children around and I would have missed learning the great song “There Ain’t No Flies On Us.”

The forth hero of the summertime is the guy who empties out the porta potties of the world (usually a recent college graduate who majored in Communications).

In the past decade many states have passed regulations that stipulate that a porta potty must be emptied at least once a week.

Thank your lucky stars if you live in one of these states.

My question when it comes to common sense issues like this is “if the modern porta potty has been around for, say, about fifty years, who was the porta potty owner that was so irresponsible that he forced a state to come up with a porta potty statute.”

Actually, I think I once used that porta potty in the summer of ‘83. (It still haunts me.)

I am pleased to report that the porta potty has come a long way since that fateful day at the state fair in the early 80’s.

The modern porta potty boasts such amenities as a mirror on the door, hand sanitizer dispenser (usually bone dry) and, new this year, a working lock on the door!

I have two strict policies when all other options fail and porta potty use cannot be avoided. These are “no staying inside for more than 30 seconds and absolutely no sitting.”

When you see a porta potty portrayed (a fun sentence to type) in a movie there is always a character sitting inside a sparkling clean unit reading a newspaper.

This is absolute nonsense. There is not a human being I’m aware of that would spend the time necessary to read anything while sitting casually inside a porta potty. The human survival instinct to too strong.

My two firm and fast porta potty policies (again, really fun to type) were sorely tested this past weekend while at a local festival.

I have made it 34 years in my life without sitting in a porta potty, but that particular afternoon it became plain to me that I had eaten some “fair food” that was causing me some distress and as I stood facing a neat row of units (otherwise known as the “porta potty party pack”) I questioned my sanity as I prepared to sit inside for the first time in my life.

But fear not dear readers, I was saved by my intricate knowledge of all the available bathrooms in the tri-state area (ranked in order of cleanliness, availability to the road and whether or not you need to ask for a key).

My bathroom knowledge index paid great dividends this day, and I remembered a nearby facility that saved my heretofore unbroken streak.

I highly suggest that you make a similar list for yourself. Go do it now. I’ll wait.

Are you back?

Great, you will thank me someday. (I take personal checks now too.)

I’m thankful for the gift of indoor plumbing, for I was told every day by my parents while growing up about the “outhouse days” of yore when a midnight urge necessitated a trip outside in the cold and dark.

And we won’t even talk about the disastrous “two story, double-decker” outhouse invented by the above mentioned Thomas Jefferson for use at his home plantation of Monticello in Virginia.

Is anyone feeling the need to excuse themselves for a minute?

Happy 4th of July everybody.

The Legend Of Sleeping Daddy (A True Fairy Tale)

Morning people run the world and night people entertain them.

Raise your hand if you are a morning person.

I see those hands.

If your are indeed one of the many who actively enjoy the morning time (I have never actually seen any of you as I am usually still asleep), then you are most likely reading this column while nursing a steaming cup of coffee that is no doubt subtly backlight by the early dawn light gently wafting in your kitchen window.

But if you are like me you are reading this delightfully amusing missive by the glaring light of noon while sipping coffee your beloved spouse brewed hours ago and eating a slice of last night’s pepperoni pizza.

I believe that Francis Scott Key, the writer of our beloved national anthem (which I would hear as a teenager late at night when the TV channels would go off the air, remember those days?), was a morning person.

The evidence for this is in the first line of the Star Spangled Banner, which says “O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light.”

If I had been on that British ship in Baltimore Harbor that day and had written this fantastic ode to our flag it would have gone like this, “O say can you see, by the hazy midmorning light as I stumble sleepily around the quarterdeck trying not to fall into the ocean before I can score a cup of grog and a rock-hard biscuit for breakfast.”

It’s not that I’m not a morning person. I’m simply a “night person.”

I’m tired of defining myself by something that I’m not. I don’t define myself as a man by saying “I’m not a woman” or as a married man by saying “I’m not single”, so why do I refer to myself as a night person by saying “I’m not a morning person”?

I’m proud of my identity as a night person. Some of the best writers and thinkers in history were night people.

I’m told that King David, writer of the sacred Psalms of the Bible, was a night person, and that his first foe Goliath was a morning person. This was one of the great “morning person-night guy” conflicts in history.

Score one for the night guys.

Also, I’m told that Hemmingway was a great night owl, and that he wrote A Farwell To Arms while frequenting Parisian all-night coffee shops. He was tagged as being a grumpy person by all of the old school editors of the time who insisted on meeting with him about his manuscripts at lunch time. This is why he spent his last years in Cuba. It’s way too hot there to go out in the daytime.

Incidentally, Paris, the city of light and culture, (the lights are tremendously important for a population that only comes out only at night) is the home base for us night guys, while I believe the home base for the morning people of the world was the old U.S.S.R.

Okay, that was too harsh.

I shall attempt to convey my feelings about the morning in the following parable…

Once upon a time in the far away kingdom of Snoozalot there was a prince born in the royal castle and the king and queen named him Prince Daddy.

This greatly confused the population of Snoozalot, but they were used to strange pronouncements from the castle, so they just went with it.

As Prince Daddy grew he enjoyed a great many naps and late mornings.

In the summer time when many in the royal household would arise early to watch the sunrise from the castle walls Prince Daddy would enjoy the sunset as he drank his royal chocolate milk or later, his royal coffee.

Then one day Prince Daddy, while proficiently playing bass guitar in a local band, spied Princess Morning Person across the performance hall and was captivated by her smoky voice, beautiful face and lovely green scarf she was wearing which reminded Prince Daddy of Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany‘s.

After a brief courtship the Prince and Princess married and greatly enjoyed each other’s company, though they could only communicate well between the hours of 9 am and 8 pm when Princess Morning Person turned into a pumpkin and had to go to bed.

Despite this difference, the Kingdom greatly rejoiced in this pairing.

And then Prince Daddy became an actual daddy, and his two princesses were no respecters of Price Daddy’s inability to think or make rational decisions in the morning. They would inexplicably be hungry at 7 am, forcing Prince Daddy to prepare food in his sleepy state.

"What vexes my children so that they desire to wake up a the ungodly hour of 6 am" he wondered over and over to himself.

But Prince Daddy greatly loved his royal family, and got up exactly at 7:30 am (after a great deal of coaxing from all of his princesses) and greet the day.

“Someday“, Prince Daddy would say to himself, “this will become easier to do.”

It’s up to you dear readers, to decide what parts of this parable is true and what indeed is a fairy tale.

Just don’t ask the night people to do it before 11 am.

Princess Supergirl Needs To Go To School

The following is a transcript from a conversation that took place at my house a few mornings ago:

"Dad, guess who I am!"

"Well sweetheart, I'd judge by the Snow White dress and Superman cape that you're wearing that you are some sort of royal superhero hybrid that I was previously unaware of."

"I'm Princess Supergirl."

"Oh, I see that now. How did I ever miss that? Well, Princess Supergirl needs to get ready for school."

"Princess Supergirl doesn't go to school."

"Oh no?"

"No, she stays home and fights crime."

Well I hate to disappoint Princess Supergirl, but there is not much crime around here. But there are a few lollipops missing from the jar of candy in the cupboard. Does Princess Supergirl know anything about what might have happened to them?"

"Uh, Princess Supergirl doesn't know anything about that."

"Could it have been your partner over there, Slobber Girl, who's sitting in her booster seat and nicely eating her breakfast?"

"It might have been her, it's hard to know."

"Well, let's go back to the subject of school. Does Princess Supergirl think it might be important to learn how to read? It's hard to fight crime when you can't read street signs or the instruction manual for the Super Jet."

"Princess Supergirl's dad could go with her to fight crime, and then he could also read to her at night when she was tired. He could be 'Dad-man'."

"Does Princess Supergirl know that Dad-man has a bad knee right now from when he fell out of the tree in the front yard when he was putting up Christmas lights?"

"That wasn't Dad-man's finest hour."

"No, no it wasn't."

"Well, maybe Mom-lady can drive Princess Supergirl around when she needs to fight crime."

"Well, Mom-lady also teaches Spanish. That could be useful when you go up against super villains from South America. Would Princess Supergirl prefer to fight crime in the Hyundai or the mini-van?"

"Would Princess Supergirl need to sit in her car seat, or could she sit in the front seat?"

"Princess Supergirl would still have to sit in her car seat."

"What if Princess Supergirl's cape gets caught in the sliding door?"

"That's a risk Princess Supergirl is going to have to take. Does she still want to fight crime?"

"Could Princess Supergirl still live at home?"

"Oh, I don't know about that. Superheroes usually fight crime from their secret hideouts."

"Could Princess Supergirl fight crime from her room?"

"She might need to take down that 'My Little Pony' poster that she has on her door."

"What if Princess Supergirl really likes that poster?"

"Well, I suppose it could stay, your secret identity could be as a little girl who lives with her parents."

"That's a great idea! Dad-man is pretty smart."

"He tries. Now I think Princess Supergirl should get her shoes on and get ready to go to school."

"Okay Dad-man."

"Does Princess Supergirl really want to wear her cowgirl boots to school with the rest of her costume? That seems to be sending a few mixed messages about her super identity."

"Princess Supergirl always wears her cowgirl boots to school."

"Is Princess Supergirl aware that she still has maple syrup on her face?"

"No she wasn't. Should she go wash her face?"

"Yes. Princess Supergirl should go wash her face."

End of transcript.

Readers note: Princess Supergirl is conveniently available for your crime fighting needs the hour between school and naptime and for one hour after supper.

Standing in Massachusetts with a Dollar in My Hand

I'm standing in Massachusetts with a cup of coffee in one hand and a dollar bill in the other.

I've stopped off at this particular gas station because the trip home is long, the hour is late and the need for coffee is urgent.

The sign for a ninety-nine cent cup of coffee persuaded me to pull in to this particular establishment because it just so happens that a dollar is what I have in the cup holder in the front of my mini-van, and after a day of swimming and barbecuing my wallet is somewhere in a bag in the back of the vehicle, directly under my sleeping children.

So I grabbed the dollar bill, hoping against hope that there is enough change left in there to pay the one toll on the way home.

I carefully selected the ninety-nine cent "small" sized cup and fill it to the brim with sweet hazelnut coffee, forgetting as always to leave a modicum of space for cream and sugar.

And now here I stand in line, ready to make my purchase and resume my life behind the wheel as "driving dad."

When the time comes I jovially set the cup of coffee on the counter and plunk down my dollar like a kid who's buying the latest version of his favorite comic book. (Something I know a little something about.)

But then a freezing chill comes over me as I hear the buttons on the cash register being pushed and a little blue set of digits appear on the readout that is facing towards me.

$1.07

Oh, yes I suddenly remember, sales tax!

Now, perhaps it's because I've spent too much time in the winds and waves today and I'm a little punch drunk from all that outside time, (I am after all a writer who's natural habitat is a dark coffee shop) but all of a sudden this seemingly simple transaction has taken on an epic air; the simple tired traveler versus the faceless corporation, a mere citizen versus big government run amok.

When I was a kid growing up in a certain other state, I could figure out sales tax like it was no one's business, computing numbers in my head on the fly when purchasing that coveted candy bar or comic book.

Because back then computation was an urgent skill needed because money was hard to come by and having exact change was as necessary to small town life (with one general store selling the required candy bars and Spider Man comic books) as knowing how to swim is to a Hawaiian.

Woe to the child who tried to buy a Snickers bar and came up five cents short.

You could either bike back home to get the nickel from your dad's change jar, or you could wait around on the general store porch and wait for someone you knew to lend you the sought after five cent piece.

I could knock out 7% sales tax like it was a frog on a lily pad and I was a kid with a B.B. gun.

I had to. Spider Man was calling.

But on this particular day I realize that living in the great State Of New Hampshire has made me soft in a couple of ways.

I have quite forgotten that the rest of the world has sales tax, and I'm not sure I could do the percentage math anymore if it was required of me.

And as all these thoughts fly through my head in a millisecond, I steal a quick, hopeful glance at the "take a penny, leave a penny" tray and realize with mounting dread that there isn't one.

Chalk it up as another piece of Americana lost to the technological age we find ourselves in. Debit cards are no doubt used in this establishment ninety percent of the time, and the spare change tray was deemed no longer necessary and was replaced with a display of small bottles of energy boosting liquids.

My options suddenly become clear, I can either depend on the good will of the young man behind the counter, (Phil, as his name tag says) explain to him my particular funny predicament ("honestly Phil, where I live the coffee really would be ninety-nine cents") and depend on his understanding and generous spirit, or I can trudge back out to the car and desperately search the seats for seven cents and run the risk of waking up the sleeping kids in the back.

In the end, Phil the cashier is generous and waves me along, and I breath a sigh of relief as I exit the convenience store with my steaming cup of brew in my hands; thankful to be returning to the land where coffee is the price that it is advertised to be.

The state of Massachusetts roads (poor)

Well, as the flat-as-a-board tire on my minivan can attest to, the state of Massachusetts did it to me again.

I've had only one accident and a few fender-benders in my adult driving life (I don't think that the first few months after you get your driver's license should count) and they have all been in the state of Massachusetts. Add to those accidents and fender-benders a series of flat tires (almost always during the holidays; "Merry Christmas and pass that tire iron") and the sum total of my road woes have come within the confines of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, a place where I do not live and only occasionally visit.

I have driven in such diverse places as China, Egypt and Israel and Ireland, yet I never feared for my life the way I do when that "Welcome To Massachusetts" sign appears on the horizon.

It's telling that this welcome sign does not have a tagline like other state signs do, such as Maine's "A Nice Place To Live", Vermont's "A Community Place" or New Jersey's "Prepare To Hold Your Breath."

The Massachusetts welcome sign should read, "Welcome To Massachusetts, We're Really Sorry For What's About To Happen To You."

You can feel the anger surge as you cross the border.

It's almost as if the drivers around me on the highway are werewolves and the state line is a full moon.

All of a sudden people are honking angrily, passing on the right at 95 miles an hour and simultaneously texting, drinking coffee and doing their makeup at the wheel.

Until this past visit I had never experienced the driving technique of passing multiple cars on the right on a two-lane road by driving on grass and sidewalks for 200 yards.

And the pot holes, oh my, the pot holes. (What's up with the term "pot hole"? There are no pots or pans out there, it's just a hole. And it's big enough to fit a family of bears in it for the winter.)

Now, all states have bad roads and bad drivers (except maybe Connecticut where folks are courteous and are so rich that the tollbooth attendant hands you money when you drive through), but it just feels like Massachusetts has made surviving a trip to the grocery store an art form.

Perhaps it's all a conspiracy pulled off by the state's auto body industry.

These folks must make a killing.

When I had my one bad accident back in 2002, I took my beloved, totaled Saab to a shop in Andover, Mass., and the grizzled technician took one look at the heap of metal that once had been the rear end of my car and, like a calm surgeon on the battlefield, said, "I've seen worse; I can have it back to you next week."

The state's auto body industry should advertise out of state. ("Is your car totaled? Send it to Massachusetts for repair; we've seen it all!")

Here is my solution.

If they can make a "Big Dig" that can let you traverse the city of Boston underground, then I propose and even "Bigger Dig" that lets you cross the state completely underground, with stops only at Fenway Park and the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield.

And to my family, friends and other assorted loved ones that call Massachusetts home, may all your road trips be incident-free, and please, please come see us next time.