Caught In The Middle Of Time Change

Did you change all 28 of your clocks and other timed devices, even the watch in your drawer that you only wear on special occasions and the clock in the spare bedroom that you only go in when guests are coming?

"Springing" forward is certainly a lot easier than "falling" back where with many clocks you have to go through 23 hours to get to where you want to go. And if you go too far you have to do it all over again.
At least you have to admit that for once the government got it right by making the change effective at 2 a.m.

Can you imagine what could happen if the change took place during the day when we were in the middle of something?

Just think if the time change occurred during school and you found you had to spend an extra hour in math class or while you were taking the FCAT and your time was shortened by an hour. Or worse, you finally get that dream date with that special someone only to find out you have an hour less that you had hoped for. Or worse still, you are being visited by the relatives written about in horror stories and you have to spend an extra hour entertaining them.

A person could go crazy trying to figure out all the things that could happen to them.

I guess that's why we are armed with sayings like "stuff happens" and "learn to roll with the punches."

Speaking about sayings reminds me of a recent conversation I had at a local restaurant.

Sam's Sayings
We stopped over at the Lake Placid Family Restaurant kbm (known by me) as Sam's for some of his signature Friday only BBQ ribs. Owner Sam Weaver sat down with us and chatted for a while. One thing about Sam: he's never at a loss for giving his customers a bit of his homespun philosophy. And he was in good form last week.

"You know," he said, "if you can't be happy here, you can't be happy there."

"After all," he continued, getting on about the present economy, "greed put us there and fear is keeping us here." And I for one have spent about as much time here as I have there so I'm inclined to agree with the sage saying slinger.

When we got to talking about the good old days he summed them up before heading back to the cash register to tend to business, "The good old days," he said, "was when we got indoor plumbing and store-bought bread."

By the way, Sam's added a new twist to his home style cooking: potato chips deep-fried in the kitchen.
Out with the little bag of chips, in with a thicker more flavorful "side."

I wonder if Sam and company ever watch the Food Network? I was watching Tyler Florence prepare a meal recently. He made potato chips, but he added a kick to them by cooking herbs (sage, rosemary and thyme) and garlic in the oil before adding the potatoes and then sprinkling Parmesan cheese on the chips after cooking.

On the same show Tyler also made a peach cobbler. His not so secret ingredient: bourbon. I wonder if the Lake Placid restaurateur knows my preference for Jack Daniel's?

Holy Senior Citizen
It's hard to believe that the venerable Barbie Doll was unveiled 50 years ago last Monday, March 9, by Mattel at a toy show in New York.

Since then, over a billion of the pretty, pert lass has been sold. If laid from head to toe, the dolls, named after Barbara, the daughter of the founders of Mattel, would easily stretch all the way from here to there.

It's a bit disconcerting to think that you, like me, may belong to a generation that remembers a world where girls didn't have a Barbie doll to dress.

I wonder if the AARP organization is going to grant America's most famous senior citizen an honorary membership?

Overheard
Overheard at the checkout counter: Now is the time to decide if we have more than we need.