Sandwiches

Sometimes I get into silly moods. Now I know that's hard to believe, but you'll just have to humor me. Yesterday I had a hysterical exchange of emails with my friend Lia about sandwiches, and I just had to share it. It was silly from the start, because i was writing an email to her and threw in a quick comment about my having just eaten the best sandwich ever. And it just evolved from there.

Me:
Man, I just had the most delicious deli turkey sandwich ever. It was so good I almost wept openly. Okay, it wasn't that extreme, but it was a good sandwich. Ever had a sandwich that good before?

Lia:
Nope, but I've had a half-sour pickle that came pretty damn close. Just out of curiosity, what makes a deli sandwich good enough to make one weep?

Me:Oh, oh, there are many things involving all five senses that make a deli turkey
sandwich good enough to weep.

#1- Sound
It is wrapped in perfect deli butcher block paper. It has "TURKEY" written roughly on it with black marker as the Gods at the delicatessen named their masterpiece. The sound the paper makes as you rip it open is perfect in every way.

#2- Sight
The sight of the most perfect looking sandwich. It must be packed full of good ingredients. For me in this case, it was perfectly sliced deli turkey, with provolone cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, and mayo, all on the most perfect plain ol' white bread. The mere sight of said perfect sandwich must make you shake with anticipation, knowing it will taste just as good as it looks.

#3- Touch
When you grab the big honkin' sandwich, it feels right. It's firm and so chock full of yummy goodness, pieces of it fall out. It's too much for its own self to contain. Yes, this sandwich cannot even handle itself.

#4- Smell
It smells like the most heavenly sandwich ever as you go to bite into it. It's like a party for your sense of smell, and everyone's invited.

#5- Taste
When you eat it, it reminds you of everything breath-takingly beautiful you've ever seen. Like the Grand Canyon or a sunset. It's so good you want to both eat it all and also leave some behind so there's always some left to keep eating. But then you can hardly keep yourself from eating your own hands while holding it becauseyou just can't stop eating.

If the sandwich meets all those points, then you will weep. Before, during, and after you're done. For the rest of the day, you will think about it. You'll glance longingly at the remains of the butcher block paper in the waste basket next to your desk. God will be smiling as well, knowing a piece of heaven has graced his creation.

Yup, I think that about covers it.

Does that make sense?
Me

ps - My boss added this important fact: With the remaining crumbs on your desk,
you'll spell out "Thank You, Lord" and then eat them.

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

Lia later pointed out that I had totally forgotten the sixth sense. She said, 'Isn't it also important for this perfect sandwich to be able to telepathically communicate with you as well?"

Yes it is.

To add to that fun, I decided to interrupt my wife's day at the office by calling her with my question of the day. She picked up the phone and I just said, "Honey, have you ever had a sandwich that was so good you wept?"

What was funny was that she's in a very serious office (unlike mine) and could not laugh out loud. Hearing her trying to stifle a laugh while pretending to have a serious business call was very funny.

My boss also called her husband on his cell and asked him the same question. He was in a meeting and she said it was hilarious to hear him trying to not laugh while in the meeting.

So, how about it -- have you ever had a sandwich so good you openly wept?

Texas bugs, and Heather's personal triumph

If you're looking for more proof that God has a sense of humor and/or proof that he hates you, here it is:

Cockroaches in Texas can fly.

My guides during my week of Texas travel informed me of that horrifying fact when I mentioned my seeing a gigantic cicada shell outside our van in Falfurrias. This is also proof that the farther south you go, the larger and more terrifying the bugs get.

While walking around a church in Falfurrias, I heard cicadas. They sounded much meaner than the ones up north. Then I saw the shell. It was gi-normous. I had been thinking that our Brood X 17-year cicadas up north were the biggest. But the cicada shell in Texas dwarfed the shells we have up here in Maryland.

When I pointed out the jumbo shell to my guides, they said, "Oh yeah, it's true, everything's bigger in Texas -- especially the bugs."

My eyes got wide.

"You should see the cockroaches -- they even fly down here."

At that point I ran screaming from the car.

Okay, maybe not. But it grossed me out even without having seen one. I told them if I did end up seeing one, much screaming and flailing would ensue.

"Oh, it'd just fly after you," they all laughed.

I woke up an hour later. Apparently I had fainted right there next to the car in the parking lot of the First United Methodist Church in Falfurrias, Texas. *wink*

I've seen big cockroaches before. I remember laughing and being grossed out at the same time on a trip to Venezuela when one of our Venezuelan friends ran after a huge cockroach to kill it. It was the biggest roach I'd ever seen.

Anyway, I made it through the Texas trip without seeing any members of the flying roach circus, thankfully.

One of my tour guides for the week also told me more about the tarantulas he'd had around his yard in San Antonio. Ugh. If there's something I hate more than roaches, it's large spiders. Actually, it's spiders in general, but the bigger, the more horrible. He said they only killed the ones that got close to the house. I can't imagine killing something that large. I mean, you can't just whack a tarantula with a newspaper and be done with it. Hell, it'd probably take the newspaper away and start chasing you with it.

I am a total bug pansy. A wimp. A wuss.

But last night, there was a moment of triumph in my own apartment. Recently in our apartment we'd been getting a few of those bugs that have too many legs. You know what I'm talking about. The bugs that have more legs than any creature could possibly need. And they move very fast.

Well last night, we were coming back into the apartment when I saw something on the floor. I thought, I don't remember that piece of dirt being there. Then the dirt started running. It was one of those leggy bugs, a HUGE one. And it was making a run for it.

I yelled at my bug terminating wife. "AH! Get it, it's one of those huge leggy bugs!" But she didn't see it. If I wanted to destroy this thing before it hid behind our entertainment center, I would have to take bug termination into my own hands. There was no Raid around either.

Fortunately, I had my shoes on. So I ran screaming at the thing and jumped on it. Repeatedly. All while screaming about how horrible and creepy it made me feel.

"*THUMP!* Agh, this is creepy *THUMP!* Ewwwww, I can't believe I'm *THUMP!* killing this thing myself *THUMP!* This is so gross *THUMP! DIE DIE *THUMP!* DIE YOU LEGGY BASTARD!! *THUMP!*"

And so on and so forth.

After turning it into a pulverized speck, I made my wife take care of the remains. Then I sat in the corner and rocked for a while, trying to shed that icky feeling.

I consider it a victory.

All my ex's live in...

Yes, I'm still in Texas. It's been quite the tour this week. Everyone please get out your maps and follow along with Heather's Tour: Corpus Christi, Falfurrias, Edinburg, McAllen, Brownsville, Corpus Christi again, Palacios, Port Lavaca, Bay City, Matagorda, Austin, and right now I'm in San Antonio.

I fly back tomorrow evening -- which is good because not only am I exhausted from all the work and travel, but also because the word "y'all" has mysteriously crept into my vocabulary. Time for me to head back to the east coast and destroy any type of accent I may have started to obtain.

Must...return...to....my....bland...Ohio....accent....

Where's my pop?

Okay, I'm fine now.

Anywho, the trip has been fantastic. When I get a little more time, I'll tell some more stories about where I've been. I do have time to share a few more Texas observations, though.

-If there is a crack in your windshield in Texas (which is very common), it's called a "Texas windshield."

-If you are on a two lane highway and someone in front of you is driving slowly, they will move over to the shoulder and let you pass. To thank them, you must turn on your four-way flashers for a few quick blinks.

There's more to come, but I've got about two million emails to get back to. When I was in Bay City, a gigantic thunderstorm went through (which is a cool story I'll share later), and knocked out all of earthlink's dial-up lines. So I couldn't check my email for about two days.

More Texas to come....y'all.....

Messing with Texas

Greetings from warm and sunny Texas, folks. I’m down here all week on business, and thought I’d pass on some things I’ve noticed and see so far.

I flew out yesterday afternoon. I took Southwest, the cattle drive of airlines, and after I checked in, learned that we’d be flying through Birmingham, Alabama. So I’d have to sit on the plane until we unloaded and loaded up new passengers. They like to spring these things on you.

We had this wacky pilot too, who enjoyed long pauses during his mid-flight announcements.

“Greetings, folks (10 second pause) thanks for choosing Southwest…(15 seconds)….we’re about (20 seconds) 24,000 feet right now (10 seconds)…”

You get the idea. At one point when he was asking people to not stand around in the aisles, he also said,

“and, also, please don’t stand in the galleys, or where the stewardesses are, and please – for your own comfort and the comfort of the other passengers, please do not exit the plane during flight.”

I think what was funnier is that no one laughed at that except me.

On the flight from Baltimore to Birmingham, I sat in front of two little kids whose pastime was kicking my seat. I was getting annoyed, and then I heard one kid say, “Dad, why is there no sound in space?” The kid was now instant cool.

Later, I noticed that all those little ashtray/trash thingees on the armrests are now welded shut.
Flying from Birmingham to Houston, our plane left very late – in usual Southwest fashion. I hardly had any layover in Houston, so I was worried about making my connection down to Corpus Christi. Every other time I’ve arrived late to make a connection, I’ve always had to run across the airport to catch my plane in the complete opposite terminal.

This time, I ran off the plane, checked the flight monitor, only to discover that my next gate was right next to the one I’d just exited. Weird.

The flight was delayed due to a big storm anyway, so the closeness didn’t end up helping me, but that’s okay. I wandered over to the waiting area and discovered a big crowd of folks all sitting facing the TV. America’s Funniest Home Videos was on, and people were all laughing and going “oooh” and “aaah” at the same time. It was really funny.

Also, a sign that I was now in Texas: a guy was eating food from a Styrofoam takeout container, but instead of something small, he was eating a huge rack of ribs. Awesome.

So we were delayed due to a major storm. Flying into Houston was awesome, as we got to see all these tower clouds and one major anvil cloud – sure signs of big storms (yes, I’m a weather geek). It was so cool to see these clouds from an airplane’s view. Those kinds of clouds end up being thousands of feet tall.

40 minutes later, there was enough of a break to get us all into the air. It was a short flight, where I alternated staring out the window and pretending to not read this high school kid’s yearbook that she had open.

Anywho, Texas is pretty cool. I’ve been here before, but only spent a short time in San Antonio then. This time, it’s my tour down the eastern coast of Texas.

Texas seems very flat to me, and the sky seems huge. It’s very hot, which is fine by me. I’d rather be hot than cold. Today I saw my first dead armadillo along the side of the road, causing me to yell out, ‘Whoa, look at that dead armadillo!’ to my guides for the week. They just laughed at me and said the only kind of armadillo in Texas is a dead armadillo. They’re born dead on the side of the road.

So my guides are introducing me to Texas life. Today I learned (besides the armadillo thing) that Dairy Queen is also known as the “Texas Stop Sign.” That made me laugh.

The drives are gorgeous, and it takes at least an hour to get anywhere. Today the big sky was filled with fluffy white clouds that just went on for as far as the eye could see. There are huge yellow daisies along the side of the road, and it’s all farm country down here. I think it’s very beautiful. I don’t know that I’d ever want to live here, but it’s not as horrible looking as some might want you to believe.

Anyway, I’m in Edinburg, Texas, for tonight after going to visit Falfurrias earlier. Tomorrow it’s off to McAllen and Brownsville. Then it’s back up north of Corpus Christi.

Good times. I’m sure it will produce more interesting Texas notations.

Growing up

This past weekend I was in Athens, Ohio, for a business and personal trip. The business part was to write up an article on the flooding that hit the area mid-May. The personal part was to attend and speak at a retirement dinner for my campus pastor.

This was the first time I drove back Athens on my own, which makes the six hour drive not the most fun. I rented a car, and they gave me this little Suzuki Aerio tin can that actually handled the mountains along I-68 in Maryland and West Virginia fairly well. I thought sure the tiny hamster-run engine would start smoking and die going up some of the mountains, but I made it. The drive out there is beautiful,at least.

On Friday I headed up Route 13 in southeast Ohio to follow the path of flood destruction, and I met some interesting people. Stopping by one local Salvation Army flood donations center in Glouster, I hoped to chat with some workers. I got much more than that.

As I walked up to the front door, this guy sitting out front immediately goes, "Well, you must be a reporter."

I laughed and said that I was, was it the notepad and camera bag that gave me away?

He ended up being a fantastic person to talk to, and we talked for over an hour about everything from flood relief to his run for county commissioner to his idea on how to make welfare and Medicare better programs.

From there I headed up to Corning, Ohio. All these small Appalachia towns are so interesting. Their tiny downtown sections look like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting, although many are also run-down. But I loved looking at all the old storefronts. And at the time, I hated how my cell phone got absolutely no reception out there, but looking back, that was also kind of cool. I had to scrounge up some quarters and stop at the local gas station to call up my local contacts.

That made me really appreciate the town more. I got to stand at the pay phone and look around town. People-watching is something I really love doing -- and in this case, it gave me ideas about the how the towns worked and felt. Hard to describe, but things just moved much slower, which is a nice change from the craziness of the Baltimore/DC area.

After Corning, I traveled up and over a big mountain and headed down into the tiniest of tiny towns, Hemlock. This was definitely one of those towns that if you blinked, you would miss it. In Hemlock I had to get over my nerves of approaching disaster survivors while not being with another local. Does that make sense? It's much easier to talk to disaster survivors when you are with someone local who knows the area and knows them. It's like an approval thing.

Anyway, my local contact wasn't able to be there with me, but told me to check out this one house that had been pushed off its foundation during the flood. The house wasn't immediately obvious to me, but I found one that could be it.

So I got out of the car, and the homeowners came to the front door before I could get there. They seemed stand-offish at first, but I name-dropped and stumbled about how I was writing for a faith-based news site, etc.., and they let me take a look at the damage. A fairly uncomfortable conversation ensued, but they were at least friendly enough to let me ask them a few questions and take a few pictures.

I always come out of these on-site stories feeling sad. This area of Ohio is the poorest in the state, and the survivors I spoke with were definitely living in hard times. Almost none had flood insurance, many couldn't even live in their homes, and most weren't sure how they were going to move on from now. The whole experience definitely keeps me grounded and grateful for what I have in life, and grateful for the people and organizations who work 24/7 to help those in need. The experience also makes me grateful for my job, which helps out people that get forgotten about after disasters -- people like the folks along Route 13 in southeast Ohio.

Back down in Chauncey, Ohio, I stopped at another gas station. My cell was back in service again, so I checked in with my editor, and then grabbed a burger from the gas station food section. I ate in the car, with the driver's side door open and my feet on the pavement, watching folks move around the station and enjoying the light rain that had just started falling.

I keep meaning to take a picture of the inside of a reporter's car when they're on-assignment, as it's sometimes humorous and always an organized mess. Well, at least that's what my business trip rental cars turn into. The passenger side floor is the garbage can/storage place for stuff that you may use soon (maps, CDs, etc...). The passenger seat holds all things that are important right now (maps, camera, notebook, cell phone, snacks, CDs, etc..), and the items placed there will be switched between the passenger side floor and the seat. Anything in the back seat will not be touched until you leave the car for the day -- which means it will probably just stay in the hotel room until needed.

Back at the hotel for the weekend (which was an extra room in the home of a college friend), I banged out an article, emailed it off, and then switched to me-on-vacation.

I spent Saturday wandering around Athens with a good friend who also came in town for the retirement dinner. We had a really good time chatting about jobs, significant others, complaining about how college students dress these days, comparing how the college looked now to how it did back in our day, and just about everything else.

We both realized that we're growing up, and talked about the thoughts of buying our first homes and if we'd ever have kids. I told her I knew I was growing up as soon as our furniture not only started to match, but also that we were its first owners. She said it was her recent meeting with a financial planner to discuss retirement savings that scared her.

That night we headed over to the retirement dinner, which was fantastic. I saw folks I hadn't seen since graduating four years ago. I was also honored to be one of the few speakers, and my speech went over very well. It's funny, I've done improv for several years now and been on stage many other times, but I was still nervous to speak this time. Maybe because I really wanted folks to enjoy my speech and honor the retiree.

But people liked it, and one guy even asked if I ever wanted to come back to Ohio and run for office. I told him I'd think about it.

And then just like that, the weekend was over. Early Sunday morning, I got back into the Suzuki tin can and headed home.

Driving time is good thinking time. I've said the following to many folks and lots agree -- I think one's 20s are meant to be spent figuring things out. I know other life decades also include figuring things out, but each is significant. The 20s is usually first real jobs, maybe marriage, maybe buying a home, some have kids, etc...

I don't have everything figured out -- and I don't think I ever want to have everything figured out at any time -- and I'm perfectly happy with that.

Of Prairie Dogs and New Dining Room Sets

Yes, it's true. My brother called me a lazy poster. I think it's mostly just because I have nothing funny to say. It's easier to come up with funny stories when people that live upstairs from you have freak chicken defrosting accidents or when jumbo-sized squirrels are challenging you for ownership of the bird feeder.

So maybe I'll tell the stories of my weekend. We had some lovely friends come down to visit us for the big holiday weekend. Saturday night we headed to Baltimore's lovely inner harbor to see a free concert by They Might Be Giants. I love that band and I've listened to them since I was a freshman in high school. This is the second time I've seen them in concert, and it wasn't too bad. They didn't really seem that 'on.' I think it was a tough crowd, really. They were playing for the grand-opening of the Maryland Science Center -- so the crowd was a mix of parents and their young kids AND those of us die-hard fans. I know TMBG has recently been making children's albums, which is great, but I also think that made it tough for them to please both types of audience members.

But it was free, so whatever.

Sunday was new furniture day. We just got a new dining room set, but it was over at JC Penney. There was no way it would fit into my Saturn (not that I'm ripping on Saturn's trunk space -- hell, we've fit a fold-up mattress into that tiny two-door before!), so I borrowed my boss' truck. She offered it to me when she heard me calling up truck rental places at work -- and my favorite part of the conversation where she offered it to me was when she said, "It's an older truck, but still good, except for its odd habit of randomly stalling out when you're going 50 and slowing down to take a curve." Hmmm.

Yet still, it's better than shelling out $$ for a Budget truck we'd only be using for a 15 minute trip. So I braved the old stalling manual truck, and it did just fine.

I drove the truck to JC Penney, and the wife and my friends followed in the Saturn. My mom had warned me that the dining room set was going to be large and heavy (it was a house-warming gift from the parents, who rock). She said that one part of it was supposed to weigh around 150lbs. Rrrrrright, I said. How could anyone make a dining room table weigh that much unless it was marble or concrete?

She wanted us to get someone to help move it in to the apartment because it would be so heavy. But we had four women on the job, so I wasn't worried. And we're all tough. I may look skinny, but I'm a regular muscle machine.

Please stop laughing.

We arrive at JC Penney, and they start rolling out all the boxes. They just keep coming, and the last one is gigantic. Even the JC Penney warehouse loading guy is having to drag it with all his might. Still, I wasn't scared. I merely walked around like I was a bodybuilder, asking if anyone knew where the weight room was.

I kid.

Anywho, the loading guys get the jumbo set loaded into the truck and Saturn, and we head back to the apartment.

We got all the chairs and the sideboard into the apartment fine. They weren't heavy, just awkward (like me).

As for the remaining box,I can admit it, my mom was right. The table-top weighed 1 million pounds. We had to take it out of the box to be able to navigate it.

But we did it. That's right. Uh huh. My arms are still sore, but we wrangled that thing down from the parking lot, down the stairs to my building, back up the stairs into my building, and into the apartment. High-fives were exchanged. So were oxygen tanks. But whatever, we did it.

And boy, is it beautiful. The new set makes the rest of our furniture look trashy! I think every other piece of furniture we own is from a thrift store. But, we gave the table its big debut on Monday night with a nice little dinner party. Way cool.

We came, they loaded, we conquered. And then we dined.

On Memorial Day, we headed to to the National Zoo in DC. I love how all the Smithsonian museums are free, so then you feel like you don't have to cram everything in to get your money's worth. And for that reason, I've been to the National Zoo several times, sometimes just to watch the prairie dogs.

The zoo was great. Unfortunately, they had no prairie dogs on display, but we saw all kinds of other fun critters, like an alligator, a baby elephant, some big fat hippos, a giraffe, creepy snakes, some monkeys (even though I hate monkeys), a tiger, and many other things I can't pronounce or spell that live in Africa or Asia.

This weekend I'm off to Athens, Ohio, again. It's part business, part fun. Hopefully I'll come back with some good stories.