Breakfast AT IHOP

    Lyssa got called in to go to work in a few hours and her husband was already at work so she called up her sister to see if she would take her two sons for the afternoon and evening. Her sister, Sherrie, said she would be happy to so they arranged to meet at IHOP to have breakfast and hand off the children. Cisco was seven and Zachery was four and Sherrie liked spending time with the children and kept them often.

     When Lyssa pulled up in the parking lot Sherrie was already there waiting for her. She met her at the entrance to the restaurant.

     “Hi. How are you boys this morning?” Sherrie inquired.

     “Good, are we going to get to ride in your new car?” Cisco asked.

     “Yes you are. I thought maybe we would go to the park and play on the swings. Does that sound like fun?”

     “I want to go to the place that has the goats and the rabbits.” Cisco replied.

     “Me too.” Zachery added.   

     “We can probably do that, let’s go inside and have some breakfast.”

       Lyssa and Sherrie briefly talked about the new job Lyssa was starting while they waited for a table. The waitress brought them water, coffee and menus.

     “What looks good to you Cisco?” Lyssa asked her oldest son.

     “I want lots of bacon and an egg. And chocolate milk.” 

     “I don’t know if they have chocolate milk but if they do you can have some. What do you want Zach?”

     Sherrie was sitting next to Zachery and she was going over the children’s menu with him. “Which breakfast looks good to you?” She was pointing to the pictures on the menu.

     “I want these pancakes.” He pointed to a picture of chocolate chip pancakes.

     “Are you sure? Have you ever had chocolate chip pancakes before?”

     “Yes.” He wanted what he wanted.

     “I am not sure you will like them but you can have them.” Lyssa said to him.

     The waitress took their orders and the boys colored on their placemats while they were waiting and the sisters visited. Their orders came and they all started eating, at least everyone except Zachery. Zachery stared at his pancakes. The girls tried to ignore him at first thinking he would eventually eat.

     “What’s the matter?”

     “ I don’t want these.”

     “But they are what you said you wanted.”

     “This isn’t what I wanted.”

     “Why don’t you try them?”

     “ I don’t want to. They look funny.”

     “They look like chocolate chip pancakes. Do you want some of my omelet?”

     “No.”

     “Ok that’s fine, you don’t have to eat but the rest of us are going to eat our food.”

Everyone ate their breakfast and Zachery just sat there with a pouty look on his face. The waitress came by and asked if they were done and they said yes. She cleared all the plates away.

     The girls left a tip and got up from the table. Zachery stayed there.

    “Come on Zach we are going to leave now.” Sherrie pleaded with him.

     “I want my pancakes.”

     “ The waitress took them and threw them away because you said you didn’t want them.”  Lyssa added.

    “ I do too want them.” He started to cry.

    “ Well, it’s too late.” Lyssa told him and went to the front counter to pay the bill.

       He started crying loudly. Lyssa was at the counter paying the bill while Zachery wailed away.

      Sherrie walked Zachery up to where Lyssa was standing. He grabbed her around the legs.

     “I want my pancakes.”

     “Your pancakes are gone because you said you didn’t want them.”

      Everyone in the restaurant was now staring at the scene playing out at the cash register. The girls started to feel like child abusers even though they hadn’t done anything wrong. They figured that was what everyone was thinking when a kid threw a fit of this caliber.

     A waitress walked up with a cheesy toy and Zachery responded by slapping it out of her hand. The girls thanked her and proceeded to drag him out of the restaurant kicking and screaming. Cisco thought it was hilarious and was laughing at the fit his little brother was throwing.

    Zachery was uncooperative the whole way and by the time he was half dragged and half carried out to the car they were thoroughly embarrassed and ready to kill him at the same time. As soon as they got out to the car he stopped crying.

     “I want to sit in the front seat.” He said and he and Cisco started fighting over who got to sit in the front seat. Breakfast was now forgotten and Sherrie and Lyssa were thinking it was going to be a long time before they took the kids out for breakfast again.

      

Blue Corn Chip Chicken Breast Munchies

Blue Cheese, 4 ounces crumbled

Corn Chips, 1 ½ to 2 cups

Chicken Breasts, 1 cup chopped and cooked

Hot Sauce, to taste

Sprinkle cooked chicken breasts and blue cheese on top of corn chips. Broil for a couple of minutes until cheese slightly melts. Sprinkle with Frank’s or whatever kind of hot sauce you like. This is a quick and savory snack. Try it you’ll like it!

​Mexican Style Stew with Queso Crema

½ pound beef steak, cut into cubes

½ pound pork steak, cut into cubes

1 tablespoon olive oil

½ diced onion

4 sliced carrots

1 diced potato

1 can hominy or corn

4 oz. can diced green chilies

8 oz can Salsa Casera (tomatoes, onions and jalapenos)

2 cups water or broth

½ cup red wine

2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon chili powder

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon hot paprika

1 teaspoon oregano

4 ounces queso crema (cream cheese)

Flour tortillas

Heat olive oil in pan and season meat with salt and brown for about 10 to 15 minutes and add onions and carrots. In another 10 minutes add the rest of the ingredients to the pot except the cream cheese. Simmer over very low heat for about an hour. Taste and add salt if needed. Add cream cheese and when it is melted serve the stew with tortillas to dunk in the rich flavored sauce. 

Life On The Outside

     The smallish black cat lays on top of the dark manhole cover warming his body on the forest green metal that has absorbed some of the winter sun’s rays. He once thought he wanted to be inside the house but he slipped in there one time when the lady wasn’t looking, she didn’t notice he was on her heels, when she opened the door and was greeted with extreme hostility from the cats and dogs that already lived in the house.

     He tried hiding in the entryway between the kitchen and the bedroom behind the door with a small hole in the bottom just the right size for a cat to go through. He got to lay there in the warm air coming from the wall for a couple of hours before the male cat who lived in the house noticed he was there and started growling and howling from the other side of the door.

     Eventually the dogs came over to see what the cat was having such a fit about and started to whine at him. This brought the lady of the house over to see what the problem was and she discovered the small fluffy black cat with light brown fringe huddling behind the door and she gently shooed him outside to obtain peace in the house again. He had been hiding out at her little farm for several years. She wanted him to leave, and had tried to get him to by not feeding him. She had been told by a neighbor that he belonged to another neighbor who lived on the other side but this kitty wasn’t going to go home.

     His owner had gotten in a bad car wreck three years earlier and was gone for a long time and so he had to start finding his own food. At first he started out by sneaking over to the neighbor who fed his cats outside of the house on the porch where he could steal some of the food when the cats were elsewhere. Unfortunately the man also had two dogs, they were not kept in a fence like the lady whose place he moved on to, and they would chase him and threaten to bite him until he climbed up high. That was when he ventured on to the place off the road which had a barn and a nice field to hunt mice in and he became a very good hunter. He rarely went hungry.

     After two years of hoping the little cat would leave the lady felt sorry for him, even though he didn’t ever seem to be skinny, and after a big snow one winter she started feeding him food outside the house in a small bowl. That was when he started living under her front porch so he could hear whenever she came to the door. He always greeted her and then ate half of the food she gave him and saved the rest for later in the day. If she left in the car he would save some for when she got home so he could be eating it when she came back in the house. She would stroke his fur when she walked by him eating and that felt good. After two years of being on his own he finally had place to sleep and eat again. He tried to go home once to his first house but the man no longer came outside and fed him anymore so he went back to his new place. At least he felt safe and loved in a way. It was better than it had been before he came to live outside her house. 

Quick and Easy Philly Cheese Sans

The other day my friend and I wanted something to eat that was tasty and not fast food for lunch. This was about the same price as buying two sandwiches from Arby’s but oh so much better! This makes 3 sandwiches.

10 ounce rib eye steak, cut into thin 1 inch slices

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 small onion, thinly sliced

1 small green pepper, thinly sliced

1 tablespoon butter

4 large mushrooms, thinly sliced

4 ounces cream cheese

3 sourdough hoagie style rolls

Sriracha sauce to taste

Cut up meat and vegies. Season meat with salt and pepper. Heat up olive oil over medium high heat and sauté onions until golden, about 10 minutes, and add green peppers. When green peppers are soft, about 5 minutes, remove to a plate and add butter to pan. Season mushrooms lightly with salt and add to butter. Cook until the liquid is rendered out, about 5 minutes, and remove to plate with onions and peppers. Heat pan again and add steak and sear on both sides until meat is cooked to medium, about 5 to 10 minutes. Toast rolls and spread cream cheese thickly on the bottom side. Pile on vegies and meat and season the top with sriracha sauce to taste.

Fear of Flying

      “She’s touching me.”

      “She’s on my side of the seat.”

      “Quit fighting.” Our mother vehemently said and glared at my sister and me.

        There were a few minutes of silence as we watched our parents fly the airplane and talk about how bad the weather was. We could tell they were tense but it didn’t seem that scary to us and we continued to fight.

     “Knock it off you two.” Our mother spoke loudly this time.

     “She’s looking at me.” My sister answered.

     “Don’t look back.” Our mother replied.

       Then the most incredible thing happened. She actually reached back and slapped each of us on the legs. We couldn’t believe it. We looked at each and started laughing. It didn’t hurt at all. She hadn’t ever hit us before this. Her first attempt at corporal punishment had failed miserably.

     “You girls need to stop fighting. We are going to have to land the plane because the weather is too bad to keep flying. Please quit. Dave and I are trying to find a place to land.”

      We quit fighting. Not because she hit us but because she seemed so genuinely scared.  Our stepfather landed the plane shortly after that at a small airport a few hours away from our home.  This was the last part of our family vacation to Yellowstone Park that hadn’t gone as well as I expect my parents intended it to.

      First off I got air sick about an hour into the flight. It was a beautiful day but there were lots of air pockets and it was like being on one of the rides at the fair that always made me sick to my stomach. The small four passengers Cessna 182 bounced up and down almost immediately after we took off. When I got sick into the small bag I had been given it caused my younger sister to get sick as well. We had two more hours to go before we got to the airport at Yellowstone.

      Having a plane sounds cool when you tell people that you get to ride in it to go to cool places for trips and vacations but the reality wasn’t all that cool. For an airplane ride to breakfast at a town a couple hours away we had to drive to the airport in the car and then wait while our parents got the plane out of the hangar and get it ready for us kids to get in. About a half an hour to an hour later we took off. That part was cool. Our stepfather would hold the plane on the ground until the very last minute and then take off really fast. I always liked the way all of the houses got really small when we took off. He would frequently fly low in our neighborhood so we could look at how our house which looked like a toy down below us.

     Then came the part I didn’t like.  By the time we got to the place we were going to have breakfast at I was usually sick to my stomach as it usually took about 20 to 30 minutes and by the time we landed and walked in to the restaurant at the airport we flew in to I had no desire to eat even though I was hungry. Between the amounts of time it took to get to the airport, then to get the plane out of the hangar and ready to fly and then to fly to the destination and back it took the same amount of time as if we had just driven there. I guess it is obvious what my preference was.

     We weren’t rich but my stepfather was self-employed and had caught the flying bug from my mother. She was the first female pilot in the state of Oregon.  She did acrobatics in an open cockpit plane with my father. My father was an airplane engineer who died in a plane crash in a plane he had repaired to factory specifications. Unfortunately they were faulty and when he tried to take off the flaps on the plane went the wrong way and flipped him upside down and crushed him immediately. My mother was watching and she was six months pregnant with my little sister and I was three months short of being born. The schematics from the manufacturer were backwards and they paid my mother $15,000 for the loss of her husband. This was the maximum amount that could be sued for the state we lived in. Melvin Belli was willing to take the case but my mother would have had to move to California and she wasn’t willing to do that. My father’s death is one of the early reasons that airplanes became required to test the flaps and ailerons before they took off from the runway. Disaster is the mother of safety laws.

     My stepfather bought the plane he had with two partners, Chad Long, who was a policeman, and Bob Haxby, who had been his flying instructor. I don’t like flying and it has nothing to do with my father dying in an airplane. I get sick to my stomach and I also don’t like the fact that I have no control over what will happen if something goes wrong. I am a good driver and I enjoy driving to places in cars. I feel like I have some degree of control over what happens when I drive. Though I do wholeheartedly believe that driving down the road in a car is when a person exhibits extreme faith. It takes an amazing amount of faith to drive down the road and believe that the other people driving will stay in their lane, because frequently they don’t. It is almost more unlikely to believe that people will stay in their own lane than to believe in God. As far as flying goes I do fly if I have to, like when I went to Spain many years ago. It is the only way to get there.

     So, this two hundred thousand dollar airplane, with two partners that they made payments on was not cheap but not as expensive as it sounded like, was my stepfather’s toy. The biggest issue was that he felt guilty for having such an expensive toy, even though he was technically the one who was working and making the payments. He wanted the family to participate in the airplane so he could justify it. So that meant he tried to get us to fly as many places as he could. To any vacation spot, to the twenty acres in Central Oregon that my grandfather bought for us to vacation on which happened to have a small runway a mile away besides the out to breakfast trips.

     Then there was the year we flew to Yellowstone and it was by far the most memorable trip we ever took in the airplane. Besides the part where I got sick on the flight there were other issues. Like the rooms we got at the motel, it had horribly uncomfortable beds to sleep on. Our parents traded beds with my sister and I because the bed was sloped to the middle and I ended up choosing to sleep on the floor because of how bad it was. My sister would lay on the side by the wall and push me out of the bed, she was asleep so we had to assume it was subconscious. The air conditioning in the rental car quit working halfway into the first day so we had to drive through the first half of the park without it working in 100 degree weather because it would have taken too long to return it and still see the entire park in the three days we had to do it in. We did get a different car for the other two days.

     I do have memories of this trip that were good. It was a beautiful place but the things that were bad still live in my memory forty years later. And I still don’t like to fly.

White Christmas

     It was Christmas Eve and the snow had started coming down way before dawn.  Our family had been having our Christmas Eve celebration in the country at my parents’ house for many years. Their house was the only one large enough for everyone to sleep overnight at was the main reason. We enjoyed having hot buttered rums and wine and didn’t believe in driving after imbibing.  Spending Christmas there had become a family tradition for my sister and me, along with whoever we wanted to bring along, to eat, drink and be merry with. It had started as soon as she and I moved away from home after high school.

    This year would be no exception even with the heavy snowfall. Everyone would make it there in their various four wheel drive vehicles no matter how much snow fell. We always spent the night there so we could all be together on Christmas day. This would be the eighth year we had been engaging in this tradition. 

     My sister and her husband Randy, with their two sons who were six and three, arrived at our parents’ house first in their four wheel drive Explorer. Next on the scene was a good friend of both of us two daughters, his name was Aaron and we frequently referred to him as our brother. Aaron usually went to his parents’ house for Christmas. They lived two hours north of us and because of the heavy snow it was too dangerous to drive there so he drove out to join the party in the country with his second family.  Aaron arrived in his old four wheel drive jeep that he owned for just this kind of occasion.

     My boyfriend, Greg, and I arrived last in Greg’s Volkswagen bug which navigated the snow very well. We would be sleeping on the pull out couch in the family room. Aaron would get the large couch in the living room where Annette’s two boys would sleep on the floor in sleeping bags and Annette and Randy would get the spare bedroom. There used to be a third bedroom but our father had turned it into his hobby room after my sister and I moved out and had kicked the bed out of it.

     By the time Greg and I arrived the hot buttered rums were flowing freely and everyone was getting buzzed on the alcohol. The two boys were outside playing in the deep snow. When they came in the house they would steal a drink out of someone’s unwatched glass now and then. The snow hadn’t let up all day and by the time it got dark there was over three feet of snow on the ground.

     “Hey Dave, do you have a sled around here?” Randy asked his father-in-law.

     “There is one up in the barn. It’s hanging on the wall over the shop. Do you want me to go out there and show you where it is?”

     “No I am sure I can find it. Aaron, do you go up to the barn with me to get the sled?”

     “Sure. Let me go put on my sweater and snow pants. I’ll be right out.” Aaron left the room to go get the clothes he brought that were still out in his jeep.

     They went out to the barn and returned with the sled.

     “So who wants to go down the hill on the sled with me?” Randy looked around the room.

      His two sons jumped up. “Let me ride it.” They both yelled at the same time.

     Randy and the boys went outside and everyone else watched from the living room. Randy sat the kids on the sled and shoved it down the hill. After a while the kids got tired of sledding and came back in the house to lust after the presents that were sitting unopened under the tree. Aaron took the sled down the hill after the boys and took an unplanned journey off of the road into the bushes.

     Randy, Greg, Aaron and Dave proceeded to get quite toasted on hot buttered rum. The women were not too happy with the men.

     “Dave, how about you and me and Greg go down the hill together on the sled?” Randy suggested.

     “You have got to be kidding. It’s pitch black out there.” Greg wasn’t too enthusiastic.

     “I can hold a flashlight.” Randy responded.

     “Oh really.  How can you hold a flashlight and hold on to the sled?” Greg asked.

     “I can tape it on my head,” and Randy proceeded to take duct tape and taped the flashlight on top of his head. Michele quickly grabbed her camera and took photos, she figured this ought to be good blackmail material when she got the photos developed.

      Michele, Annette and their mother couldn’t quit laughing as they watched the spectacle unfold. Dave laid down on the sled first and Greg lay on top of him. Then Randy, with the flashlight taped to his head, got on the very top and the three of them proceeded down the hill.

     The women watched from the living room window as the three drunken fools took off on the sled. When they were went around the corner out of sight they went to the kitchen and brought out the Christmas Eve munchies feast. This was the family tradition to have a meal consisting of all appetizers on Christmas Eve and then have a traditional dinner the next day.

     When the three men walked back in the house they found everyone was sitting at the table eating.

     “What took so long?” Michele asked.

     “When we got to the big corner Dave couldn’t get the sled turned so the sled went off the road and ran us into the blackberries. We aren’t going to do that again.”

     “Do you know how stupid you looked with that flashlight taped around your head?” Annette remarked.

     “The best part is I’ve got a photograph. That is going to be a priceless photo!” Michele had trouble talking she was laughing so hard.

     “I don’t care, you girls can screw off!” Randy was drunk and couldn’t really get too mad.

      Everyone continued sitting at the table and ate the munchies the women had prepared. The boys were chomping at the bit to open their presents.

     “It’s getting really late. Can we open the presents you said we could?” Zak pleaded to his mother.

     “Oh you boys sound so pitiful. Go ahead and open them!” Annette laughed.

     As soon as she had given the boys permission they rushed to the tree to find the presents that had been set aside for Christmas Eve. The rest of them would be opened the next morning.  Everyone watched as the boys tore open their Christmas Eve presents. This was the real reason everyone was there this evening. Snow and sledding had been a bonus.