Hold the Green Stuff

A close family member who shall remain nameless is a dedicated fan of Hooters - the restaurant, that is. He says they make great wings. Apparently he has not noticed that the winsome lasses who serve the wings wear very little in the way of clothing. He and his darling and longsuffering bride brought us to Hooters during our recent visit to Connecticut and, by Jesus, the wings were good!

Hooters Girls are a curious breed. I'm pretty sure they are all freshly minted in the back room before each shift, faces and uniforms sprayed on using the signature Hooters template. A few ounces of paint go a long way. The effect is like grinning Stepford wives with cleavage. Lots of cleavage.

When you order Hooters' Tater Tots appetizer . . . yeah, I know, but just ASSUME you were to order Tater Tots . . . they arrive garnished with slices of green onion. Personally, I like green onions, but my host for the night eschews vegetables in any form. Especially if they are crunchy. (This has been true since he was a little boy.) So he always asks for his Tater Tots with no onions. The problem is Tater Tots don't come with green onions. Right there on the menu, if you look closely, it says Tater Tots are garnished with chives. There's a picture.

But my host has been here before and he knows his green onions.So he orders his Tater Tots without green onions.

"I'm sorry, sir, they don't come with green onions. They come with chives."

"But I've had them before, and those are green onions. I don't like green stuff."

"Oh, no, sir. See the picture? Those are chives."

Wait for it - - -

"You'll have to have your Tater Tots without chives."

Since then, my host has compromised on "no green stuff," adroitly sidestepping the chive debate. If it were me, I'd stick to my guns just for the entertainment value. The Tater Tots were pretty good, by the way.

But they need chives.

Newt

Sell the Sand

A highlight of our Connecticut visit last month was the vegetables. Yellow corn, with kernels so fat they pop noisily when you bite them. And honest-to-God tomatoes, heavy ripe tomatoes that squirt juice down your shirt when you bite into one. Tomatoes that taste so sweet and acidy and tomatoey that your mouth aches with the pleasure of it.

You would think that the miraculous Florida sunshine would favor brilliant red-fleshed tomatoes the way it produces brilliant red-fleshed tourists. You would think it, but you would be wrong: Florida tomatoes suck. In fact, scientists have recently proven that all the Florida tomatoes sold at Publix are carved out of styrofoam and painted red.

So how can Connecticut, with its long, crappy winters and puny growing season, do with tomatoes what Florida can't? Answer: Connecticut has the one essential that Florida lacks: soil. Florida has no soil whatsoever. It has sand. No offense intended to Florida or to sand. Sand really dresses up Clearwater Beach, for instance, but you wouldn't want to grow anything in it.

My thought is that Florida could harvest the deep sand off all its tomato farms and export it to Singapore, which happens to be the world's largest importer of sand. Singapore is building a bigger Singapore out of sand. (Good luck with that, by the way.) With the money Florida makes selling sand, it could go up to Connecticut and buy soil - black, loamy topsoil with earthworms and other living things in it. Then Florida could build real farms by spreading the soil around where all the sand came from.

And grow tomatoes in it.

Newt

Damn the Scenery, Full Speed Ahead

In another life, I congregated with various automobile enthusiasts and similarly disreputable people.  After I bought a BMW M3 early in the millennium - I was, after all, a lawyer - I joined with like-minded individuals in the BMW Car Club of America (Connecticut Valley Chapter) and found them a great deal less, um, you know, than I expected.  A bunch of them even became friends (perhaps until they read this....)

So here's a picture of the car, taken during the irresponsible behavior described herein:

   

                (Photo credit Xtreme Sports Photography  No Commercial Use Allowed)

Anyway, the M3 is a very special car, even eight years later, and I still love to drive it fast whenever I can. I recently had a chance to flail away at some outstanding roads in Tennessee and North Carolina.  Here is the story of that ride, written from the perspective of the adrenalin junkie that lies within, for the benefit of some special adrenalin junkies that I left behind in Connecticut. I guess that makes the rest of you adrenalin voyeurs. Welcome to an especially peculiar corner of my world.

-------------------------------

It was high summer in sweltering Tampa Bay, so what to do?  Drive Judy’s Accord for two miserable days up I-95 to mooch off unsuspecting Connecticut relatives? Or take five days motoring up the Appalachian Mountains in the old M3? Oh, wait! I retired specifically so I could do this. Mooch off relatives, I mean. And drive the M3 to unsuspecting places.

I changed the oil and kicked the tires, and we lit out on a soggy July Monday morning, northbound on I-75 as far as mid-Georgia, where the real road trip commenced. We meandered around the North Carolina outback until we fetched up against the village of Deal’s Gap, which by no great coincidence is where the Tail of the Dragon begins. If you don’t know the name “Tail of the Dragon,” shame; stop reading now and spend an hour on Google. Short version: 318 hairpin turns in 11 miles of well-maintained pavement. Yee-hah!

As best we could tell, there is precisely nothing in Deal’s Gap, North Carolina but the southern terminus of the T/D and about 500 motorcycles doing burnouts in the local iron-monger’s parking lot. We cinched down on the luggage and assumed the position.

Reputedly, the local constabulary surveils the Tail of the Dragon via radar and the like, but it quickly became apparent that simple word-of-mouth would make surreptitious surveillance supremely unsuccessful. Boldly we proceeded, and at a spritely pace.

As a practical matter, the Tail of the Dragon is so thoroughly corkscrewed that exceeding the 30-35 mph speed limit* is not easy to accomplish, except maybe on the short straights that knit the corners together. The road is well-banked, even on left turns. That’s a good thing because rule number one is DO NOT cross the double-yellow. This sweet road goes both ways, and more than once we found ourselves in mid-hairpin, suddenly face to face with an oncoming biker dragging his knee into the same blind turn, separated from us by only those sacred yellow lines.

* Okay, I'm a little fuzzy on the exact speed limit because I was too busy breaking it to take notes. But it was somewhere in this ballpark.

Did I mention that the entire T/D is completely public? It forms a colorful and hair-raising part of US 129 between North Carolina and Tennessee. There are civilians out there. Bewildered civilians.

Despite the ranks of bikes at Deal’s Gap, the Tail of the Dragon itself was not crowded. Numerous turnouts allow slower traffic to get the hell out of the way, and most users readily comply. Especially the bewildered ones. Rarely was our ride impeded for more than a few hundred yards.

Squealing tires and loaded suspensions were the order of the day. Think “11-mile autocross” with soft, deep shoulders. And trees, lots of trees. Nothing focuses the mind like soft, deep shoulders and lots of trees.

                (Photo credit Xtreme Sports Photography  No Commercial Use Allowed)

Footnote:  Some details that the car nuts in Connecticut will notice in the two photos above other, saner folk might miss. For instance, in the photo at the top of this article, there is a pair of fuzzy dice in the windshield. A gift from my daughter - get over it. But you might notice that the dice are hanging at a peculiar angle. That's because the car was engaged in an epic right turn when the picture was snapped. The windshield glare hides the driver - that would be your humble scribe - grinning maniacally. Only the dice are left to tell the tale. In the second picture, notice that the right rear tire is barely in contact with the ground.That's about as hard as this car will corner with street tires. Okay, end of footnote.

After slaying the dragon (as it says on the T-shirts), we holed up in Gatlinburg for the night to let the adrenalin subside.

Now, the Tail of the Dragon is a wonderful road for removing excess rubber from your tires, but it doesn’t really get you any closer to Connecticut. For that, you'll need the Blue Ridge Parkway. The BRP begins just up the road a piece from Gatlinburg, in Cherokee, TN. Like a long, laid-back version of the Tail of the Dragon, the BRP snakes along the eastern continental divide for 469 eye-popping miles to Front Royal, VA. Scenery like none other in the U.S. competes for the driver’s attention with what may be the longest pure driver’s road in the country. Yee-hah!

Oh, I already said that. Sorry.  Anyway, there are stunning vistas everywhere, most of which the driver never sees because he’s busy calculating the best approach to the next curve. Judy tells me it was lovely.

Spend a few days in the Carolina mountains and you begin y’all-ing this and y’all-ing that, just like the local folk. We stopped somewhere near Buck Creek Gap one day for lunch and some unsweetened iced tea.

“Y’all ain’t from here, are y’all?” speculated the young lady with the order pad.

“Um, no. Why?” 

“Honey, we don’t say ‘iced tea’; we say ‘sweet tea.’”

“But we wanted UNsweet tea.”

“Rahht,” she purred, “that’ll be two unsweet sweet teas for y’all.”

We enjoyed the people as much – well, almost as much – as the roads and, as I understand it, the views.

A number – a really small number - of B&B’s, gas stops and other, generally simple accommodations lie just off the Blue Ridge Parkway, but the parkway itself is unspoiled along its entire length; if you want T-shirt shops, billboards and Days Inns, you’ll need to avail yourself of I-95, located a million miles east of the Appalachians. We don’t recommend it.

Newt 

Praying About Dogs

Despite not owning a pet, I live in the "pet section" here in Sugar Creek Mobile Home Park.  Owners in this section are allowed to have dogs - little dogs, that is.  On leashes.

Now I don't mind that these little dogs pee on my mailbox post and poop on my lawn near the sidewalk.  But lately, little dogs have been leading their owners into my side yard and up to my front windows where they proceed with their doggie business.

So yesterday, I'm sitting in my lanai - yeah, that one - when an owner follows his dog up to the window next to my La-Z-Boy.  The dog poops; the owner scoops and scoots.  "God," I pray quietly, "damn them!"

To my considerable surprise, there's a peal of thunder, and a biblical Voice booms, "WHY?"  Oh, crap!  It's God.

Me (after gathering my wits):  Whaddaya mean, 'Why?'  That little dog was way up on my lawn.

God:  Little dog?  Is it cute?

Me:  I suppose, but . . .

God:  Wait, cute dogs are the Wife's department.

Me:  What?  I didn't know . . .

Mrs. God:  What's the matter, dear?

Me:  Um, it's that little dog walking away from my place.  He just . . .

Mrs. God:  Oh, isn't he cute!

Me:  Cute or not, the little darling just pooped under my front window!

Mrs. God:  Oh, We didn't know that.  I don't do poop; that's My Husband's responsibility.  Dear?

God:  What now?

Me:  That little dog just pooped on my lawn.

God:  Well, why didn't you say so in the first place?  Are We supposed to know everything?

Me:  Actually . . .

God:  Don't get smart with Me, boy.  It's not always easy to keep up.

Me:  Sorry.  But can You just send that little dog and his owner somewhere besides my lawn.  Maybe somewhere warmer?

God:  Dogs don't go there.

Me:  But owners do, right?

God (sighing):  All too often, boy, all too often.  We had to add a special wing down there.  Do you know what brimstone costs at Hell Depot?

Me:  So that settles it?

Mrs. God:  If We do that, who will take care of that cute little puppy?

Me:  Oh, I didn't know You were still there.

God (interrupting):  Do You want another puppy, Pumpkin?

Mrs. God:  Oooh!

God:   All right, that does it.  But You have to walk him, Sweetie.

Mrs. God:  Luckily, We don't live in a trailer park. 

At that point, the little dog and his owner disappeared around the corner.  I haven't see them since.

Newt

My Deadbeating Heart

I love what Mayo Clinic did last year for my syncopated heart.  Every morning now I wake up to that sweet lub-dubbing that says that this day will be a pretty good one.  Cardiac electrophysiology (gosh, I love saying that I have a cardiac electrophysiologist on call) is Mayo's strong suit.  Billing accuracy, not so much so.  (Gosh, I hate the coolly ubiquitous phrase "not so much."  This linguistic bastard is one word short of idiomatic English.)  But I digress.  (I had a perpetually frustrated mentor once who erupted into foaming incoherence whenever he caught me indulging in parenthetical commentary.  Sorry, John.)

Anyway, I have this great health insurance plan that pays for everything after I surpass a near-astronomical yearly out-of-pocket maximum.  Since my darling Judy is a conspicuous consumer of all things medical, we routinely exceed that threshold before St. Swithin's Day each year.  Accordingly, when Mayo worked its electrophysiological magic on December 27-28 last, the entire -- wait for it -- $75,000 was covered.   So I thought.

Mayo thinks I still owe it about six grand.  That in itself is enough to pump a few extra lub-dubs into my personal mix.  God help me, I have entered into that twilight menage-a-trois that exists at the unhappy intersection of me, my insurance company and my hospital.

Once a week at dinnertime, "Gladys" phones me from Mayo, calls me a deadbeat, and demands that I pay up or return all those rhythmical cardiac contractions that so brighten my mornings.  This nearly always pisses me off.

Rushing to my aid, Ironically enough, are those annoying HIPPA laws -- the ones that generate all those moronic forms you have to sign before a doctor will unsheathe his stethoscope.  You see, before Gladys can talk to me about my specific consumption of medical services, she always has to ask for my date of birth.  Now, I am pretty sure that Gladys knows my DOB and does not need me to confirm that information.  So when I admit who I am but refuse to provide my DOB, Gladys is beyond flummoxed.  The balance of our conversation occurs only in some legal state of limbo, since Gladys cannot verify that someone with the same phone number as me is not for some nefarious reason pretending to be me.  You would think anyone nefarious enough to answer my phone could find out my DOB.

Why isn't my insurance company handling this? you might ask - - Lord knows, I have.  When I call the insurance company to inquire, I get "Lucille," who swears to me that I do not owe Mayo a thin dime and insists that I not pay them.  "Could you call Gladys," I ask, "and tell her that?"  That's where it gets dicey.

Now let's face it - "Gladys" and "Lucille" are made-up names for a couple of guys sitting in some third-world boiler room chewing khat or molesting small animals. For all I know, they sit in adjacent cubicles.   Whatever it is they are doing, however, seems to interfere with routine cerebration.  To confound matters even more, you can never talk to the same Gladys twice.  Calling to ask for Gladys or Lucille by name is a Marx Brothers exercise in runaway absurdity.  What's more, it should be obvious to even the casual observer that asking Gladys to phone Lucille raises the stakes to Laurel & Hardy levels.

Lest you were born in a pumpkin patch sometime in the past twenty-four hours, let me assure you that my current predicament is the norm and not the exception.  Someone still owes me $168 from the first time the kind folks at Mayo put their collective ear to my chest a couple years gone by.  Gladys swears that that someone is Lucille.

Lub-dub, lub-dub, etc.,

Newt