West Texas Lawn

I take back everything nice I said about our neighbor, Bacon. Actually, I would just question his choice in lawn service companies. This morning, the lawn service came by, mowed, edged and raked Bacon's yard. Later this afternoon, I went to the side of the house between our properties and saw this:

Yes, that's very well manicured lawn/dirt. Now I suppose it's possible they are planting grass over there, regardless, this is west Texas, and we are in a drought so a dirt yard versus a yard of weeds, it's tough to pick a winner. But notice the pile of leaves behind the tree on the left (which is our property). Yes, the fine lawn service raked up the leaves and just dumped them on our side. Well done.

I can see the fine fifth grade reasoning behind this:

“There's already leaves over there, so we can just add this stack to theirs, and no one will notice. And by the time the leaves get blown back into Bacon's yard, we'll be long gone and counting our twenty dollars.”

Honorable Bacon

A few months ago, while setting up the wireless network in our new house, I saw a list of neighborhood wireless networks that included “BaconBuddie.” I assumed that was the wifi network for the little breakfast cafe around the corner and thought that was pretty cool.

Flash forward five months later when St. Pauli Girl came home late one afternoon and noticed the tree on the side of our house was now literally on the side of our house. As in leaning against. As in uprooted with our house as its lone crutch. It hadn't really done much damage, but it could fall completely over at any minute, not only damaging our house but our neighbors' as well, or their motor home parked nearby.

Hence, we had to meet our neighbors to ask them to move their motor home so the tree could be hauled away. They turned out to be a sweet older couple who claimed to be in their nineties. And guess what the ninety-somethings names are? Bacon (Mr.) and Buddie (Mrs.). No joke! Bacon is short, slim, and wears a baseball cap and cowboy boots, which is pretty much what I'd imagine someone named Bacon to look like.

St. Pauli Girl and I discussed whether that was his given name or just a nickname. We finally decided that it had to be his given name which must have put Bacon the child under a lot of pressure. Someone named Bacon must be honorable and salt of the earth. He/she must be firm and dress crisply. A Bacon may never be destined to be president, but he/she must be a hardworker and honest as the day is long. The expectations of the name are the equivalent of naming a child Sam Houston, or Eli Whitney or Lancelot Link or Wishbone.

Now onto a tangent: Last Saturday St. Pauli Girl and I went out to brunch at a local wine bar that also has live jazz music. That should give you a good indication of the pretentiousness and prices of the place. For my entree, I ordered a crepe stuffed with eggs, sausage, potatoes, and hollandaise sauce, which of course is just a breakfast burrito priced four times higher because of the words “crepe” and “hollandaise.” For my one side dish, I ordered bacon.

The burrito, er crepe, was okay (would have been great with Tapatio hot sauce) but for the first time in my life, I actually let them take my plate with uneaten bacon on it (as did St. Pauli Girl). This is the equivalent of the Pope canceling Sunday services on a whim. It was truly the worst bacon that I can recall since 1985.

Using my fingers, I held up a piece that drooped over my hand spilling grease down my arm. “I thought they stopped making Sizzlean in the eighties?” I asked St. Pauli Girl. “I can't decide if it's just poor quality or they tried to microwave it or both.”

If in fact it had been microwaved on a bunch of paper towels, they might as well have served up strips of the paper towels instead, because they were that limp, greasy, and tasteless. It’s not “brunch” if the bacon is not even on the same level as IHOP’s or Denny's (not that there's anything wrong with IHOP or Denny's bacon). A Grand Slam it wasn’t. More like a broken bat bloop single.

In the end, bacon the food and Bacon the name fall under the caveat of “to those who much was given, much more will be required.” Restaurant bacon must be firm, crisp, salty and smell like heaven. A person named Bacon must be humble, hardworking, crisply dressed and wear cowboy boots.

For all I know, our neighbor Bacon could be a serial killer, but I will never believe it.

Mmmmmm, Dog Jerky Treats

I’ve never been crazy about beef jerky. It’s about as interesting as chewing on a salty shoe. Dogs are less picky, so we recently started buying chicken jerky treats for our dogs. The dried-out slices of chicken parts are long and thin and look like bacon. The dogs love them and everyday at 5:00 p.m. they come running around and begging for the treats. Lately I’ve noticed when I pull them from the bag, they look really good. They smell like dried, processed chicken, but as I’ve said, they look like bacon. And what’s not to love about bacon? I’ve found myself really wanting to try one.

It’s crazy, I know! I’m sure it would break my teeth and make me long for the salty rubber flavor of a Slim Jim. But when I look at them, I think of Sunday brunch and a juicy, fat slice of crispy bacon. And French toast with a side of hash browns. And champagne. I really want to eat one of these treats.

Then I realized if I wanted to make an entertaining blog about it, I should film myself eating it and post it on youtube. I could title it “Crazy Guy Eats Dog Treats.” And now for your viewing pleasure, here’s the clip…

No I couldn’t do it. I finally realized there’re probably scarier videos out there and sure enough, a brief search leads to “Girl Eats Dog Food Naked.” (It’s a 2-minute clip so I’ll wait here until you finish.)

This scenario reminds me of another problem I have: when I’m doing laundry and I pour the liquid detergent into the cap, I have to remind myself not to drink it. I have no desire to drink it, but for some reason my brain is reminded of pouring a glass of water or wine and has to nudge me that this is indeed not wine. (Amazingly, I don’t have this problem with bleach but maybe that’s because I pour the bleach directly into the water rather than a measuring cup.)

After I pour in the detergent, I breathe a sigh of relief that once again I have avoided drinking it but then find myself going over scenarios of what I should do the day that I actually do drink it. Hopefully I’ll catch myself before I drink too much. If not, I’ll perform a self-Heimlich maneuver by thrusting my stomach against the washing machine lid. Then I’ll rinse my mouth out with water. And hopefully the worst thing that happens is I burp soap bubbles for a few days. Because I’m certainly not telling St. Pauli Girl.

She’ll probably say, “Why did you do that?”

“I don’t know. Seemed like a good idea. I think my mind noticed that it was a rare vintage.”

So I struggle through my daily life trying not to eat the dog treats and drinking laundry detergent though I know at some point in the future, I will fail. Perhaps if I just eat a dog treat today, that will stop me from ever putting anything stupid in my mouth again. At least that’s the excuse I’ll use when St. Pauli Girl catches me with a hunk of dog jerky hanging out of my mouth.