Don't Grow Up Too Fast! Owen's Jacket and Xavier High School

Owen’s Jacket and Xavier High School

Owen, my older and only brother, has four years on me.  Right around the time he left the house, he purchased a new jacket – probably the black leather --  and said he no longer needed or wanted his old jacket.  The old one was a wool-lined brown leather aviator jacket.  Of course he looked great in it, and while he wore it to death, it was still quite wearable and very fashionable when he was done with it.

I asked Mom if it would be OK if I wore this hand-me-down; she said no, because I wasn’t old enough to wear a jacket like that (I was about 13).  I was disappointed, but knew that I could not argue the logic.

About a year earlier, I spent the summer between seventh and eighth grade commuting from Jamaica, Queens to Xavier High School, a Jesuit all-male college preparatory school on 16^th Street in Manhattan.  It was just something to keep me busy all summer, and I loved every bit of commuting both ways on my own and studying and learning during the summer months (yes, I loved it!).  I especially loved all the sports we played:  track and field, whiffleball in the courtyard, and most especially organized basketball.  This is when and where I actually started to understand the game.  Of course, I enjoyed running up and down the court.  The rest, like developing offensive skills and a taste for rebounding and defense, would come later.

As the summer session ended, I was offered the opportunity to skip a grade and enter Xavier as a freshman that fall.  I was really excited and couldn’t wait to tell Mom.  I loved the school, loved the thought of getting a great education there, and figured Mom would like the idea of skipping a year’s tuition.

Guess what?  Mom thought that I should finish out my career at St. Catherine’s by attending eighth grade.  Again, I was a bit flustered, but I trusted my Mom’s judgment.

That winter, Mr. Piemonte, my 8^th-grade homeroom teacher, gave me a brochure about Regis High School, a tuition-free, all-male, Jesuit college preparatory school located on East 84^th Street on Manhattan’s Upper East Side .The brochure said something about an entrance examination; I took the exam and did some interviews at the school a few weeks after, and was accepted as a freshman for the Class of 1979.  Regis is one of the well-known, highly-regarded Jesuit all-male college prep schools in New York City.  Two others are Xavier and Fordham Prep; there are a few more, but I digress.  Regis was/is the only one that offers a tuition-free education to every single student.  In my graduation year, all 104 graduates were accepted to college and about 40 percent were accepted to Ivy League schools.  I was accepted at Yale, the only school I applied to.

Was Mom right?  You betcha!  Things could not have worked out better.  Oh yeah, and as for the jacket – by the time I could wear it, I didn’t like it any more.  I had purchased another coat for $20 – a faux shearling from the Burlington Coat Factory – that my mom and I both loved to death!  And I can remember Mom occasionally wearing Owen’s old jacket around the house on winter evenings when we had to keep the thermostat at 68 degrees per President Ford.

Lesson learned:  Don’t grow up too fast.  What’s the rush?

[Author's note:  Next time I come into some money, I am going to write Regis a big check.]

Writing Burst

At 8:04AM I got a surprise call from the dialysis center.  There was a slot available on the first shift if I wanted it.  It just so happened that I was awake and alert and feeling pretty damn good.  I was a little overdue for my workout and was pondering reasons to weasel out of it for another day when the phone rang.  Blessed, sweet dialysis...who would have thought the day would come when I would actually be happy to not only go in for a session, but go in early?  What the fleck is going on?  [Note:  I am writing so furiously right now that my hand is starting to cramp.  I will keep going until my hand -- oops, it just told me to stop]

So -- for once I’ll get out of the “the chair” by 2:15 PM.  Normally I don’t even get to the dialysis center until about 3PM.  The question beckons:  what do I do with the rest of the day?  The first idea that came to mind was to check out the cherry blossoms down by the Mall.  Second thought was to just buy a big burrito (?) and go straight home.  Third thought was to just go straight home and count my blessings.  Latest thought:  Stop at the fishmarket and load up on some snapper, and stop to admire the cherry blossoms at the Southwest Waterfront marina (Haines Point) to the Metro.

There is something different about this morning.  I’m thinking clearly as I usually do nowadays.  I do not mind the thought of dialysis.  The music I’m listening to (my usual hip-hop/R&B/classical mix) sounds exceptionally good.  My hurried mid-dialysis breakfast (a BIG no-no!...Yeah, right) of two White Castle sliders tasted delicious!  (My wife brought home waffles last night, so today’s breakfast was supposed to be waffles, scrambled eggs and turkey sausage, and I was seriously looking forward to it.)  For some reason or for no reason, so far today everything is breaking my way!

Word to the wise:  I may not say much, but I notice EVERYTHING.  Oops, the new girl I was looking at walked off while I was writing this down.  Damn it, where did she go?

OK, here’s the plan:  1) Stop at the fishmarket and load up on snapper, calamari and two ears of corn; 2) take the long way back to Metro so I can admire the cherry blossoms; and 3) go home.  Fresh calamari and turkey sausage for lunch; snapper, corn, onion rings and apple rings for dinner.  Maybe a handful of cookies for dessert.

Sure, my life can get better, but today I am not complaining.  Things could be much, much worse.  I am blessed.

Stomach is starting to yap.  I’ll never make it home without eating something.  Next stop:  Wendy’s for a $1.59 chicken sandwich.  Then on to the Metro...

Changed my mind.  If I’m going to get one $1.59 chicken sandwich, may as well get two.  If I’m going to spend that much, I may as well go to Subway and get a $5.00 footlong.  Black Forest Ham with provolone, lettuce, red onion, green peppers, banana peppers, and honey mustard on Italian.

Long story short -- I changed my mind a couple more times but was safely home before 4PM.  So far I have eaten half of the footlong, some Cheetos (yes, I cheated again!!!!!) and a plate of waffles.  And those six duplex cremes keep staring at me.  My diet is NOT a sham, I swear!

So what’s for dinner?

Dave's Joy of Cooking

Dave’s Joy of Cooking

Five or six years ago, I paid good money for one of those career aptitude tests.  The test came back with the result “craftsman”, which I puzzled over for years.  It sort of made sense, but it really didn’t connect with anything that I liked doing.  It came to me this morning while I was chopping onions and bell peppers for tonight’s dinner (burgers and chips):  I love prepping food.

I love my seven-inch Santoku knife.  I’ve had it for about four years; it’s in that sweet spot of its existence where it seems to get sharper with each use.  I use it almost exclusively (I use other knives to cut bread and to peel and scrape).  I’m still a novice with meats and poultry, so I mostly buy prepped stuff that does not need additional cutting.

Of course, I enjoy watching the cooking shows.  Even before the current reality cooking rage, I loved to watch “Julia & Jacques” and “Two Fat Ladies”, among others.  My current favorite is “Top Chef”, with “Chopped” a close second.  My favorite food shows are “Bizarre Foods” and “Man v. Food”.

Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations” is in a class by itself.  It’s part travelogue, part rant, part culture shock, and part kitchen.  My favorite part is when Mr. Bourdain is invited into someone’s kitchen and is accepted into the family circle long enough to get true insight into a family’s or community’s cooking roots.  I get jealous (in a good way) when he dishes (pun intended) about how uniquely delicious everything tastes, and I know that he can’t be wrong!  Week after week he pounds home the fact that when food is made with loving hands, it has to taste good.

I love creating food that tastes good.  I also love creating food that is healthy and saves money.  Two of my favorites are carrot juice and hamburgers.  What supermarkets charge for carrot juice is just ridiculous!  I can chop/blend/liquefy one dollar’s worth of carrots into a gallon of carrot juice.  Go price a half-gallon of carrot juice at your local market; you’ll see why my blender paid for itself years ago!  And the kicker – homemade carrot juice is about the healthiest thing you can drink!  Same thing with burgers.  For $5 I can make four big, delicious, healthy beef or turkey burgers at home – enough for at least two meals.  How many truly healthy meals can be purchased outside the home with $5.00?  (The only thing that comes to mind is Subway.  I do looove me some Subway!)

I used to make mozzarella, tomato and basil tarts 4-5 years ago.  Not only were they fun to make, the end result was absolutely delicious!  It’s a shame that my renal diet precludes me from making this dish nowadays.  What I still love about it is that the tomatoes, which are mostly water, retained the heat for hours after taking the tarts out of the oven.  The first time I made them, I took the picture you see above.

So, if I love cooking so much, why not try it as a profession?  Here’s why:  I am way past the point where working 70-80 hours a week (or more) is considered cool or anything remotely resembling healthy.  Even if I wanted to do it, I don’t think I am physically able.  Also, there are things I am better at that won’t demand as much of my time.  Like IT.  Whatever career I choose this time, I promise I will manage the job – instead of the other way around.

[Author’s note:  Hilva brought home some sandwiches last night, so I had a burger with chips for breakfast this morning.]

Springtime Haiku

hope springs eternal

for each end a beginning

for all a fresh start

Sandy (The Shaggy Dog Story)

Sandy, our family pet, was with us for 13 years or so.  He was an ASPCA rescue.  When we picked him out, the choice came down to either him or his brother; Sandy was so much more energetic and happy to meet us that we unanimously decided that he was the one!  Sandy was a German shepherd mix; we think he was part chow because he was big and he had the same sandy brown color as a chow, hence his name.  Mom still has the one or two pictures of him that exist; as soon as I get the opportunity, I will scan those suckers so Sandy lives on the Internet forever as he lives in my mind right now.

I promised myself that I would only tell one Sandy story, so here we go:  One summer afternoon I was home with Sandy and Mom was at work or school; my brother and sister had moved away by then.  It was mid-afternoon and I had chained him up in the backyard.  His collar was connected to an iron bolt by a long, heavy-gauge chain (not too heavy for him, as he was full-grown and then some by then), and a dish of water, a shade tree and green grass to play in were nearby.  As I was watching TV and eating, I heard him barking excitedly; I went to the upstairs sitting room window and looked outside.  Sandy was being teased by Franchot Murphy.  The Murphy family was the one that no one really wanted their kids to hang out with because they would turn out bad.  There was one girl and five or six boys.  Ronnie Murphy was a year younger than I; Franchot was a couple of years older.  The one older than Franchot was the true terror of the bunch; I seem to have blanked his name out of my memory.  Anyway, Franchot (along with someone I did not recognize) had walked down our driveway into the backyard area, and were just standing there inches away from Sandy, who was straining to get at them while giving them his best “I don’t like you” barkbarkbark.

I just stood there and watched the scene play out, mostly because I didn’t want to get the crap beaten out of me.  Well -- OK, entirely because I didn’t want to get the crap beaten out of me.  I hoped that the confrontation would fizzle out on its own.  It did, as Franchot and his friend got tired of teasing after only a couple of minutes and walked away.

After waiting a suitable period of time, I went outside and to the backyard to check on my buddy.  Sandy saw me coming and rushed toward me as he usually did; the chain tensed up for about half a second, and he broke the chain like it wasn’t even there, and tackled me like Dino tackles Fred on “The Flintstones”.  Even as he was giving me an unwanted facial, I realized that something very special had just happened.  Did he hold back on purpose when the boys were teasing him?  Did a burst of adrenaline make him pop the chain because he was so happy to see me?  Was this the bidding of a higher power?  Surely if he had broken loose when the boys were there, he would have bitten one or both of them and probably would have been put down as a result, or they would have seriously injured him in self-defense.  As it turned out, it was just another non-incident on 193^rd Street.  I just shortened up on the chain about six inches so the broken link was no longer used, and we kept putting Sandy outside on nice afternoons.

Dave's Birthday Food Wish List (subject to change)

Thanks to dietary restrictions, there are dozens of delicious foods I can no longer eat.  Every once in a while, one of them makes a cameo appearance in my head; right now, I am salivating wildly because I am thinking of so many of them!  (I think it's because I just finished working out and having lunch, and my body is screaming for more fuel.)

Following is a list of foods that I may or may not enjoy on my next birthday:

McDonald's french fries (drenched in ketchup)
Breyer's chocolate ice cream
Lobster bisque (just a cup - a bowl will not leave room for anything else)
Four big-ass chewy, chunky chocolate chip cookies
A large McDonald's chocolate shake (I really miss McDonald's)
An authentic pizza margherita
Two big handfuls of M&Ms (yes, I miss chocolate)
Peanut butter cups
Chocolate fudge cake (I know, I know)
Zeppoles with vanilla ice cream (added 4/9/11 -- thanks to "Tiffany & Co.")
A big plate of toll house cookies with a big, cold glass of skim milk (added 4/10/11 thanks to television)
Double bacon cheeseburger slathered with ketchup (three no-nos for the price of one!)
A giant bag of Cheetos (fried) (added 5/9/11 -- I broke down and got some Cheetos)
A large order of nachos with EVERYTHING.  (added 5/15/11)
Sugar coated cashews (added 5/24/11)
A box of Entenmann's chocolate donuts.  If I choose this, I get to eat the entire box in 2 days -- maybe 3 -- but I don't get a second selection.  (Added 6/17/11)

Upon review of this list, it becomes apparent that I ate a lot of chocolate.  Also, my all-time favorite thing to eat -- lasagna -- is not on the list because I make two pans of it twice a year, doctor's orders be damned.

Realistically, I'll probably only have two or three of the above items.  The one certainty is that I will not attempt to eat them all at once -- if eating all of this in one day did not kill me, I would certainly wish that it did!  In the meantime ... I'm hongry!  I think I'll go get a nosh.  Later.

Haiku - Stop Wasting Time

same snit different day

world will be here tomorrow

but will you be here?