Bloglet: As the Swallows to Capistrano

I suppose I shouldn't feel so bad about it. After all, Robert B. Parker wrote 39 novels about the same character (is there a record in that category?), so obviously he wasn't afraid to revisit the same territory more than once. In fact, there were times in the later years where it wasn't immediately obvious that it wasn't just the same novel, with some of the words rearranged... but I may be undermining my own point. But even with all of that, he's probably my favorite up-until-recently-living author.

When I planned our honeymoon umpty-ump years ago (all right, it was 1987), I went to all the hotel chains nearby and collected their thick little books that listed every one of their locations. Then I paged through and found the most likely prospects and made a bunch of phone calls. After that, I sat down with my Rand McNally road atlas and plotted the route.

The final destination was Boston, and when we got there we found one of those tourist guides with a street map in it. At one point, my lovely bride said she thought it would be neat to put her feet in the ocean... so I looked at the little map and said, "OK, we'll go this way for a couple miles and then turn and we should be there."

And in 10 or 15 minutes, she had her feet in the ocean.

We're going on vacation in a couple days. I've spent hours on the Internet, Googling hotels, checking hotels.com, looking for reviews, and then actually making the reservation. Now I have to go to one of the map sites and print out detailed directions... of course, I'll still have my GPS running the whole time as backup.

So as you can see, I'm back around to one of my pet topics, as surely as the swallows (and clearly, the swallows have a better press agent -- not to mention better taste in vacation destinations -- than the buzzards): even as much as I've lived it and read about it and written about it, it still blows my mind how much the world has changed within my lifetime, or even half my lifetime.

I suppose in the case of the trip, it might be a change for the worse; I'm pretty proud that I put together a honeymoon trip basically just by my wits, rather than making The Computer do it for me. After all, somehow the swallows still don't need GPS.

Bloglet #1: Chickening Out

It has also occurred to me, to resume my previous thought, that not every post has to be War and Peace... in the old days when I was very concerned about my stats, I tried to make every post 'legitimate'. I think I may experiment a bit with smaller posts, although the real issue for me is the time it takes me, not the number of words I put out. So here goes...

This evening, my daughter & I had a little "date"-- her brother was at their grandmother's, and mom was out for the evening, so we decided to have a little adventure. We took advantage of one of the great inventions of recent years: the fast-food location with two franchises. I suppose it's mostly that the food business has consolidated lately, but I sure wish they'd had this when I was a kid. In our area we have an A&W/KFC, a Taco Bell/Long John Silver's, and a KFC/Taco Bell, so plenty of fat & calories available in many varieties.

We chose the latter tonight; Taco Bell has a 99-cent taco that qualifies as a feast for her at a price it's not hard for me to love. And I am all about the fried chicken... ok, I know it's not really fried, it's Pressure-Cooked. With zero-trans-fat oil. So really, it's almost health food. You probably know that they don't use "fried" in their name any more -- it's just plain KFC -- but I really enjoy the way they get the subliminal benefit from the Implied Fried while at the same time sort of disavowing it.

When you go out for fast food, it's probably better not to think about the nutritional angle, and frankly I probably wouldn't have except in visiting the KFC website to see whether they really play up the pressure-cooking angle (I couldn't find a mention), I discovered a nifty nutrition calculator.

Here's the scoop on my relatively modest meal (2 pc thigh & drumstick, extra crispy; mac & cheese, a biscuit and a Pepsi):

• 1110 calories
• 87% of the recommended daily value for fat
• 51% for cholesterol
• 113% for sodium
• 5% for dietary fiber (that's almost all the biscuit, of which I only ate about half)

I should probably pause here to request that if I die before I finish this post, please tell my family I loved them...

After eating and before my arteries hardened all the way, I took my daughter to the rest room. Rather than turning her loose in what I'm sure was an absolutely pristine ladies' room, I took her into the men's room. As I opened the door, I was confronted face-to-face with the "men's products" vending machine. I got her settled into what she needed to do and sort of sidled over to the machine to begin to prepare the spiel for the inevitable... she always notices everything and wants to know why and how and who and where.

Here's what KFC thinks every man needs: (1) a small pack of Tylenol (2) a pack of temporary tattoos (although the label was actually spelled 'tatoos') and (3) a pack of glow sticks. By the way, the glow sticks had a disclaimer: should not be taken internally. In case you were feeling really literal about trying to get that 'inner glow'.

And of course, since I was prepared with an answer to "Daddy, what's that?" (although I would have been absolutely stumped by the inevitable follow-up, "Why do they have glow sticks in the bathroom?"), she didn't even notice.

I'm pretty sure the conversations are going to get worse anyway...