It is Sunday, July 19 and there are only 85 days until Columbus Day.  I think we should all make a plan to get lost that day in honor of that intrepid explorer.  Today we remember the birthdays of Roald Amundsen, Barbara Stanwyck and Orville Redenbacher.  On this day in 1439 kissing was banned in England, in 1769 Father Serra founded Mission San Diego, the first mission in California and in 1951 “Catcher in the Rye” by JD Salinger was published.  In Bolivia it is La Paz Day and in Washington, DC it is District of Columbia Day.

Recently, the lovely Elaine and I were out running some errands.  It was getting to be dinner time and it occurred to us that, once again, we had failed to plan for dinner.  When I brought up the subject of eating, she asked what we had in the freezer at home.  My reply was that we had nothing that would thaw in time for us to eat it that night.  We decided that we would eat out that evening.  We then began the conversation about where to go eat.  “I don’t know.  Where do you want to go?

“I don’t know.  What do you feel like eating?”

“I don’t care.  We should eat, but I don’t know what I want.”

“Neither do I.  I suppose we could just go to the diner.”

“Which one?  We haven’t been too happy with any of them lately.”

“Let’s go to the so and so diner.  We haven’t been there in a while, maybe they’ve improved (they hadn’t, by the way).”

I did not indicate who was saying which line because the conversation is always the same, but it could have been started by me or Elaine.  The worst part is, that once we have been to eat and been disappointed, we go home saying that it will be some time before we go back.  In the next few days we will read about a restaurant and remember that we had heard about the place and thought we should go there.  The problem is that we never think of any of those places when we are having the above conversation.

Anyway, the reason I brought this whole thing up was to talk about a phenomenon that occurs when eating certain types of food.  Specifically, pancakes or waffles.  Have you ever noticed that whenever you have pancakes, either at a diner or at home, you always end up with syrup on your fingers, the table, your silverware, etc.  Don’t give me that  “what kind of a slob are you” look.  It happens to all of us to some degree.  I am not talking about syrup running down your arm and chin and dripping onto your lap.  I am talking about the little that always seems to come from the bottle or pitcher and ends up on your fingers and then transfers to your fork and the handle of your coffee or tea cup. 

What makes it worse is that no matter what you do, you still end up with some of it on your hands.  You go to the restroom to wash your hands and figure you have solved the problem.  You come back to the table, pick up your cup to finish your coffee and get the syrup from the handle and start the fun all over again.  That happens to me all the time.  No matter how careful I am, I still end up with some syrup on my hands.  On our last foray to a diner, I felt like having pancakes.  They served the syrup in sealed packets so I thought I would be safe.  I would not have to worry about syrup left over from previous users and I would be able to control the situation.  WRONG!

I was very careful pouring the syrup and disposing of the packets.  I tried to be as neat as possible while eating.  I made sure that my utensils did not slide into the syrup.  I was studious in my efforts to not drip syrup on the edge of the plate or the table.  And yet … by the time I was halfway through my meal, I felt that familiar stickiness on my fork and coffee cup.  I finally surrendered to the syrup god, realizing that there are certain things you just cannot avoid.  When I finished eating, I went to the restroom, washed my hands and returned to the table being careful not to touch anything on the table.  But, on the way out to the car, I felt just a little sticky between a couple fingers.  I think I will just have cheeseburgers at the diner from now on.

On the new home front, the lovely Elaine and I are moving ever-closer to closing on the new house.  We are packing things like crazy, but I am not sure there are enough boxes in our town to hold all the bubble-wrapped items we have.  In our spare time we are also scheduling the various inspections that still need to be done, scheduling appointments with painters for estimates, planning to have a carpet person come in to give an estimate for one of the rooms, still trying to narrow the paint color possibilities down to 20 or so and making a list of all the people we need to notify once our address has changed.  Phew (at this point I have done the symbolic wiping my hand across my forehead)!  I am not too concerned.  I am confident that we will get everything done.  The lovely Elaine is not so sure.  We will see.

This week our fact tells us that many species of birds copulate in the air.  I wonder if they have a mile high club?  In general, a couple will fly to a very high altitude and then drop.  During the descent, the birds mate .  Sometimes, they get too involved and SPLAT!  And people get angry when a bird craps on their windshield.