There’s a Whole Lotta XX Going on in My House Right Now

Did I mention RUABelle is hosting a baby shower for the DogDoc’s wife. Things seem to be going swimmingly.

But that’s why me and Nellie The Nervous Pudelhund are in Centennial Park diggin’ on the cool steel pan band I read about in NiT yesterday.

Thanks for the heads up.

Missed Opportunity

In what I consider an extremely smart PR move, Belmont University sets aside one day a year to give back to the neighborhood around the campus. It was today and is called Belmont Bruin Den Day.

Teams of students volunteer to help out neighbors with household tasks in return for filling the streets with cars and occasionally blocking our driveways before Belmont/Lipscomb basketball games. It’s not a bad trade in my opinion. The university sends out a mailing about a month in advance asking for specific job requests so that they can put together and schedule the teams of workers.

So this morning as I was taking my jog, I was stopped dead in my tracks by the sight of six very attractive coeds wearing pink shirts and shorts weeding the flowerbed of the house behind mine while my neighbor stood on his front porch in a bathrobe and smoked a cigar.

Too bad we didn’t get our request in on time. I could have been really good at that.

I Got my Good Deed of the Day Accomplished Early Today

I notice a lot more things when I’m jogging than when I’m driving.  Mainly used condoms and dead animals. (Is that a small possum or a big rat?)

Today I was running around the Dragon Park when I happened to see a wallet on the ground.  I looked around to see if anybody else may have dropped it while jogging, but didn’t see anybody.  I could tell it had just been thrown there because there was no money in it and some of the credit cards had slipped out and were scattered around on the ground.

I found a high school ID inside and realized that it belonged to a senior at the all boys prep school which I attended for 2 1/2 years before there was (ahem) an incident.  So I got to wander the campus of my Almost Mater this morning and deliver my find to the high school office.  I didn’t meet the kid, but I’ll bet he has a lot better weekend knowing where his driver’s license is.

I guess I can be a total asshat the rest of the day now.  Too bad for Ivy and Kathy T. who I’m meeting for lunch…

Man, That Guy is Good!

RUABelle and I went to the Dragon’s Concert starring Delbert McClinton last night. It was the 10th annual show he has done to benefit the Nashville Childrens Theatre. As always, he put on a great show and raised a potload of money for one of my favorite causes.

Anyhoo, RUABelle and I were standing around smelling the bbq buffet (darned Lent!) when we saw an old classmate of mine who we met at the Blogger Xmas pary at the Mothership. It was my personal favorite mayoral candidate, David Briley. I was very pleased that he showed up at the fundraiser, since the NCT is a great gift to the children of Middle Tennessee and also because the Metro Council is our landlord. So I told him I was glad to see him and we chatted for a little while.

Immediately afterwards, I had to go to the bathroom (didn’t give up beer for Lent) in one of those kiddie urinals about three inches above my shoetops. As is my wont, I checked my email while I was in there so that my lovely girlfriend who thinks I’m obsessive about the internet wouldn’t know that I was being obsessive about the internet.

Lo and behold, what in my email inbox should appear? That’s right, a fundraising appeal email from David Briley for mayor. Three minutes after I just got done talking to him. He’s already got my money, but color me darned impressed with his organization and internet savvy.

If he can act on issues confronting our city in this timely fashion, he’ll make a great mayor.

Paranoia Will Destroy Ya

Two people I work with at two different jobs have come down with MRSA.  You know, the flesh-eating super bug staph infection.

They’re both doing much better, thanks to the liberal application of IV antibiotics.  But now I have a little bump on the side of my forehead that wasn’t there yesterday.  So if my head rots off in the next couple of days, I probably won’t be posting quite as much.

Whatever you do, do not Google “MRSA pictures.” (no link provided)

The Post Where I Alienate Half of my Readers…

…and then the other half.

Just to make the curbly.com folks green with envy, here’s a picture of me from Saturday with Edward Walker of Trading Spaces fame.

My friend who we were visiting in New Orleans does the PR for an interior design store, and she invited us out to the grand opening of the store and the roll-out of Edward’s new line of hand painted throw pillows.  We got there early to help her set up, so there was nobody else in the store.  Edward spent about a half hour going through his whole collection with us one piece at a time and answering RUABelle’s decorating questions about our house.

We ended up buying the first pillow he has ever sold to his effusive thanks.  He said afterwards that it was his favorite piece of art he’s done yet this year.   Nobody gets sold like a salesman…  Yeah, it cost more than I paid for my first sofa, but it wasn’t crazy expensive for a piece of art.  (That the cat may throw up on.) Anyway, he was as nice a guy as you could hope to meet and literally ran after our car as we left for the ride home to wish us a safe trip.

Now to appease the defunct Staggering Prophets and bore the Curbliers, I got to spend part of Friday night drinking with Cris Carter in a bar before dinner.  He was a little more, ahem, reserved than Edward.  He wouldn’t give up why he was in the Big Easy, but at least I knew if we were eating in the same restaurant it was probably a good place.  Turns out that he was right.

Homeward Bound

I’m gonna need a vacation to rest up from our vacation. But I imagine that tomorrow will be a day for mowing the meadow that I’m sure my lawn has become, running and sweating out some toxins and returning my internal clock to a diurnal cycle.

I don’t suppose all of that pollen went away while I was gone, did it?

At Least it Was Healthy

RUABelle and I had a couple of hours to kill between lunch and dinner (our only planned activities for the day), so we decided to head over to the funky Magazine Street district to do a little shopping.

We circled several blocks and finally found a metered spot to park. After digging through all the seat cushions in the car, we scraped together enough change to pay for exactly 68 minutes of parking time.

So where did we spend an hour shopping?

In a Whole Foods supermarket.

That’s right, we bought a cooler and food as souvenirs. We are so strange some times. OK, most times.

But we’re bringing home crawfish!

A Public Service Announcement

CeeElCee & RUABelle’s Party Rules for New Orleans (excerpted)

1. Pee whenever you can, whether you need to or not. You never know when the next opportunity will arise.

4. Hurry up and finish your drink so we can go have more fun.

8. Check the neck. If she’s got an apple, she’s got a banana.

I’m in Trouble Now

RUABelle went to the bathroom in a club where we were watching a badass funk band, and suddenly I found myself surrounded by a pack of Tri-Delts from Kansas State who look like contestants from a Jewel look-alike competition.

Send help.

Is There a Priest in the House?

We need a Lenten ruling…

As some of you know, RUABelle and I gave up meat for Lent, but we’ve allowed ourselves the protein out of seafood, especially while we’re here in New Orleans.

But what about alligator? Meat or seafood? It lives in the water, but tastes like chicken. I imagine whatever ruling would extend to frog legs.

Opinions? Somebody contact the Vatican for us.

Mmmmm…

What is it that makes a Johnny’s shrimp po-boy possibly the perfect sandwich?

Is it the bread, crunchy and crispy on the outside but airy and chewy on the inside?

Is it the shrimp, flash-fried in a light batter to a perfect temperature which doesn’t mask its flavor?

Is it the dressing of ripe tomato, crisp lettuce, crunchy pickles, a light stripe of mayo and a kick of hot sauce?

Or is it the brusque counter service that makes you feel like you’re interrupting something with your order?

Yes, it is.

Greetings from the Pink Light District

From the balcony of our room we can see the DMZ of Bourbon Street three blocks away which divide the Frat Hole section from the alternative lifestyle zone where we are staying. A group of people wearing crisp white shirts stands there holding up a neon cross.

They cursed us as “Godless Sodomites” as we walked by last night. They were not amused by my response of, “Sodomites?! Well, not today yet, but thanks for the idea.”

I got up early this morning for a short run along the Mississippi. The good news is that you really can’t find a flatter place to run than along a river. And the scenery was very interesting in combination with the opportunity to people-watch the early people coming out crossing paths with the late people heading home.

The bad news is that I was quite the object of curiosity among the groups of school children disembarking from their buses on the way to field trips at the aquarium. I heard several variations of this exchange:

“What’s that crazy white man doin’?”

“He runnin.’”

People apparently don’t run in New Orleans. They eat. And they drink.

My sweat smells like blackened bourbon.

Taking Appropriate Precautions

When RUABelle and I returned from our mountain top vacation a little early yesterday so I could go to business meeting, we were unaware that the Nashville blogosphere was under a quarantine lockdown.

So we’re doing the only responsible thing to try to stop the spread of these viruses at patient zero and patient one. (B and B)

We’ve gassed up the car, packed a small bag, put the Meters on the stereo and we’re headed for New Orleans. When we have our bloodstreams sufficiently innoculated with jazz and cajun spices, we shall return.

Mountaintop Poetry

Bradford Pear

You are the first to show off your gaudy spring plumage

and then quickly fade to a formless dull blob.

Your sickly sweet cloying odor overwhelms and offends me

–masking the other more subtle aromas of the season that I treasure.

At the first sign of stress

or w-i-n-d

You crack the middle
d
o
w
n

Leaving your previously sculptured symmetry hideously disfigured.

 

Yet, you are everywhere I look. Everywhere I look. Everywhere I look.

Apparently for some unknown reason everyone wants you around.

 

You are the Paris Hilton of trees.

You Wanna Know Something That Makes Me Smile?

When the weedeater cranks on the first pull of the starter cord after a long winter’s nap. Gotta love a Honda. It was worth the extra hundred bucks I spent four years ago. Most cheaper models I’ve bought were good for about one season.

Did I mention I’m on vacation this week for RUABelle’s spring break? Time for some Sewanee yard work.

Halftime Report

Well, RUABelle and I are 26 days into our 46 day Lenten vegetarian challenge.  Yeah, I thought it was 40 days too.  Apparently you’re not supposed to count the Sundays.  Go figure.  We haven’t come off of Lent on Sundays, even though a certain somebody has been begging for a cheeseburger.  I’m not even Catholic, so I consider this a test of self-control and I don’t want to fall off the wagon.

It hasn’t been as painful as I worried, but I am pretty tired of soup and caesar salads.  I thought it might be a good time to give you all “The Carnivore’s Guide to Meatless Products” in case any of y’all want to attempt this in the future.

First the misses:

Nothing we’ve eaten has been horrendous, but some have been worse than others.  Our main complaints have been an overly strong soy taste in some products and the consistency and mouth feel of some of the meat substitutes.

One of the first things we tried was a chipotle tempeh salad from Wild Oats deli section.  It got a resounding “eh” from both of us.   Like many things we’ve tried, it was better on a tortilla chip to give it some texture.

We’ve cooked with quite a few of the “Smart” line of products from LiteLines.  Some were definitely better than others.  Smart Pepperoni-not so much.  We added it to a fresh tomato pasta sauce to try to conceal the soy taste, but it was like eating matchbooks.  It was to real pepperoni what Arbys is to real roast beef.

Morningstar breakfast links were a item of disagreement.  I was fine with them, but then again I was eating them with pancakes so the syrup masked some of the flavor.  RUABelle thought they were too mushy.

Smart BBQ shredded vegetable protein (I could have definitely done without the subtitle) was another we disagreed on.  While it’s no Mothership, I thought it tasted just about like  any other grocery store bbq I’ve ever scooped out of a tub.  It helped that I toasted the hamburger buns so that the soggy wheat germ or whatever the heck it was didn’t soak through the bun as quickly.  The sauce was not overpowering, but the whole schmeer was kinda stringy and disconcertingly unidentifiable.  The package was supposed to have three servings in the pouch, but it barely made two small sandwiches.  I’ll wait until after Easter and get me some real bbq.  (that Hutch owes me.)

The last miss was the Smart Taco product.  I had high hopes for this since I figured I like bean burritos anyway, so how bad could it be?  The answer is pretty darn bad.  Maybe the problem was that we made soft tacos in whole wheat tortillas, but on the whole it was like something from a “Survivor” eating competition.  We decided it might be passable as an element of nachos with some nice crispy lettuce on top to overcome the mealiness.

So now the good news.  There are two things that we look for in a successful vegetarian product.  Of course we care about how it tastes.  Is it good on its own or is it good at mimicking whatever it is supposed to be a substitute for?  Secondly, we have what we call “The DogDoc Test.”  Would it fool our good friend who is a 99.9% carnivore?  Now that he’s reading this, he’ll probably never come over for dinner again.  The winners below passed both of these conditions.
First and foremost was something that you should order the next time you go out to eat at PF Chang’s.  Get the vegetarian lettuce wraps!  I think they may even be a buck or two cheaper than the chicken wraps, but I defy you to tell the difference once you’ve put on that rockin’ chile sauce they make tableside.  The chicken is normally shredded anyway, so the tofu is a perfectly acceptable sub.

Several folks have recommended Morningstar Tofu Corn Dogs to us.  They were all correct.  Now, I wouldn’t microwave them, but if you take the time to bake them in the oven (or God forbid deep fry them), they are every bit as good as your typical Sonic Drive-in carnival midway fare.

Boca Breakfast Patties don’t taste as good as some of the sagey farm-fresh sausage that we can get in the small groceries around Sewanee, but it’s at least as good as what Jimmy Dean foists upon us as mass-produced pork tubes.  We’ve had trouble finding this particular brand anywhere we shop, but when we can get it, we enjoy it.

Smart Bacon  tasted pretty much like Baco’s.  Because that’s pretty much what Baco’s are.  With bacon possibly being God’s perfect food, Smart’s a got a tough row to hoe.  But crumbled on top of a salad or as part of a nice BLT with some really good L and T, it gets the job done.

A surprise to me was the Smart Soy Cheese Substitute.  I was unaware we were even giving up dairy during Lent, but it somehow made the way into our grocery cart.  It’s at least as tasty as most other American cheese slices that you’d put on top of a sandwich, so if you’re willing to aim low you can at least hit a Shetland Pony every now and then.

Our staple food has been the Smart Ground product.  I have to ask RUABelle to leave the room when I start cooking with it, because it comes in a tube and looks a lot like that stuff from the “Products from Uranus” commercial which was either in “Kentucky Fried Movie” or “The Groove Tube.”  It has the texture and aroma of refried beans when you first start working with it, but once you get it broken apart and cooking in a skillet with a little olive oil, it could actually pass as ground beef.  It’s downright tolerable, especially when you use it in pasta sauces or mix it with some bread crumbs to make a “meatloaf” or some “meatballs” which you can torque up a little bit with spices.

So in conclusion, we’re making it work.  It’s not been fun, but we know that it’s been good for us. I’ve lost a lot of weight and RUABelle is noticing that she feels a lot more toned in certain parts of her body which has apparently been storing up lard for the past few years.  Who knew that’s where you were supposed to store it?  And dang, we’re regular now.  I was about a month behind on back issues of “Entertainment Weekly” before Lent began, but now I’m completely caught up and halfway through Anna Karenina.  Don’t try to call my cell phone at 7:00 am, 9:30 am or 10:00 pm.  I’ll be indisposed.

Greetings From the Decherd Walmart

Where nobody has to worry about getting pinched on St. Patrick’s Day…

…because, luckily, most camoflauge clothing is green.

It’s 9:00 on Friday Night, Nashville. Do You Know Where Your Teenage Daughter Is?

She’s here with me at the Nashville Arena watching Justin Timberlake. And you should be ashamed about how you let her dress. I know she probably didn’t leave the house wearing that denim microskirt and those pink flip flops, but she stopped in a Mapco restroom with her girlfriends and changed clothes on the way to the show. I recommend you buy her some Desenex in the morning.

I’d tell you about the opening act, Pink, but we completely missed her because the people we were meeting to go to the show were an hour late because they went to the Green Hills Mall to get hair extensions for Justin. I’m not kidding. One of the ladies complained on the three block walk from the restaurant where we ate dinner that if her extensions fell out in the wind, Justin wouldn’t love her. I told her she could just say she was here on a Make a Wish Foundation trip. She actually said that sounded like a good idea.

Visually, Timberlake’s show has been stunning, even from the top row. The special effects and screen projections have been outstanding. I like how his dancers aren’t all x-ray skinny. They look like real people. And they’re very talented.

As far as how he sounds, I have no clue. The shrieking in this place makes me think about what it must have been like to see the Beatles forty years ago. Girls are passing out from forgetting to inhale. It’s really spectacular. Not necessarily my cup of tea, but fun nonetheless.

Luckily, I’m enough of a nerd to have Googled the set list in advance. We’ll be out of here during the penultimate song and on our way to the Sportsman’s. Parents, come get your daughters.

It’s “True Confession Thursday”

I don’t know any other way to put this…

RUABelle and I are going to see Justin Timberlake tomorrow night.

There, I said it.

We didn’t mean to. I just had a friend of mine ask me if I could help him get tickets to the show for his girlfriend and happened to say, “Oh that sounds like fun.” Y’know, just to show polite interest. And he bought two extra seats for us and said if we buy dinner, they’ll pay for the show.

Ugh. Can’t really figure a way out of this one.

At least it’ll give me something to blog about. And Pink is opening.

Double ugh.

Did I mention we’re in the top row of the arena because he didn’t score these primo tickets until last week?

“Hey, I think that little ant down there is shaking his thorax and saying something about bringing his Lexus back.”

To be fair, I downloaded the latest album from iTunes and have been running to (from?) it all week. It’s not horrible. It’s like a Prince album that Prince didn’t write, sing or play on. So maybe from the rafters, we can just pretend we’re watching Prince on an off night.

Pray for us, Nashville.