Date: July 22, 2010
Location: Plattekill, NY
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What is there to do on your day off? You can decide to explore the surrounding area to enhance your enjoyment of being where it is you find yourself. That was a task which Connie and I handled quite handsomely on our first day off this week. You can, of course, do your weekly chores and larder replenishing demands which is what we had to accomplish on our second day off. I guess that is not bad, it just is. It does, however, challenge any blog writer in his attempts to come up with something interesting with which to bore his audience.
Yesterday was a day of wandering the aisles of Wally-World and trying not to get too distressed. The Walmart in Newburgh is not our favorite place, nor our favorite shopping venue. It usually gives us a feeling of revulsion as we load our carriage and escape the parking lot with the few items we seem forced to purchase there. Walmart gives their shoppers the choices that best profit Walmart and not the choices that satisfy the customer. And yet, the parking lot is full, the aisles are crowed and the 2 checkout lanes that are located in the row of 64 cash resisters are always long and slow moving. Can you guess I really do not like Walmart?
Connie had a list of “taxable” items that were needed for our supply chest and we needed something for dinner. Most things that come in a box are ok to purchase at Wally-World, but I try to stay away from anything that resembles food, fresh or packaged. The shelves in the Newburgh Walmart were, as usual, not well stocked, not well cleaned, and not enticing to this customer. The check out line was long a slow and 98 percent of the registers were for show only because not a single clerk came within 50 feet of them. With a few bags of items, a new found dislike for the whole Walton family and a need for a shower we left Walmart hoping to never return. I realize that we must at sometime in the future.
We went to our new favorite food store for our ingestible items of need. Hannaford’s is as accommodating, clean and pleasant as the other place is not. We purchased some chicken and a few other items and headed for home. We had decided to have some bar-b-qued chicken and creamed asparagus tips on rice and why would we purchase any of that any place other than a family grocery store that actually made you want to buy something that might end up in your body. With a new found enjoyment for shopping we headed home with a few more bags and a far better attitude.
The rest of our day was not too eventful. I spent a lot of time trying to learn how to add pictures to my blog. I also spent a lot of time just writing my blog of some 4 or 5 pages. Who ever said I was short winded when it comes to placing thought to paper, or computer screen? It was a pretty quiet restful day off, but after our bite out of the Big Apple the previous day I think we deserved a slight rest. I guess it is not entirely wrong to rest a bit on at least one of your days off.
By 6:30 the desire of filing my tummy returned and it was time for me to head outside and prepare the charcoal. Connie had already pre-cooked the chicken, made the rice, and prepared the gourmet asparagus tips in cream sauce. It was time for me to enter the scene and take all the credit for the chicken dinner. A bag of charcoal, a little lighter fluid and a match and I was ready. What could be easier? Did I mention that there were thunderstorms and pockets of horrendous down pouring rain storms that marched across our little area yesterday?
If you had driven by our campsite last night at about 6:30 or so you would have seen some crazy old fart standing in the rain trying to hold an umbrella, brush on some bar-b-que sauce turn 5 chicken quarters and still manage to sip his glass of wine. Where is America’s Funniest Home Video’s when you need them? Standing in a thunder storm with lightening all around, holding a metal tip umbrella, is probably not the smartest thing I have ever done, but the coals were hot, the chicken was not and I was hungry. By the time the storm had passed us the chicken was, I prayed, hot the coals were very weak and rather wet and my wine was half water due to the 5 inches of rain we got in the half hour I was taking a public shower with my cloths on while pretending to cook chicken. I decided that the chicken would have to be dome enough, that I needed a towel to dry off and I really needed a refill on my wine. In came the chicken, down came some more rain and Connie corrected my aquatic wine situation. After a drying session we sat down to a rather delicious dinner. The slow cooking of the chicken seemed to enhance the flavor. Maybe it was all the smoke from the wet charcoal that peaked the flavor. The rice and asparagus tips were a perfect match for our dinner and wine with out rainwater is a much better vintage. It was a very good dinner and I had that “Charlie Urbano” moment of cooking in the rain under an umbrella to add to my memory files. It was a really good ending to a pretty good day.
Into each life a little rain must fall, but it does not have to stop the opportunity to enjoy a fantastic dinner prepared over smoldering charcoal. Shelanskey’s 1; Mother Nature 0, for this day.
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