The blogger is in (again)

The illness and death of a loved one has kept me away from the blog for a while. That's all I'm going to say about it; there are large chunks of my life that I don't care to display here on the blog. But I'd like to send out a big warm thank-you to everyone who has wondered about me and waited for me to post again.

The other day as my hunk o' burnin' love and I drove from Texas to our home in the midwest, I reached for my iPod and dragged my computer onto my lap and tried to think of something to blog about when I got home. I ended up with a list of observations that some of you (well, my sister, anyway) might find mildly entertaining. Most of them are about music or food, which is what I tend to focus on during long car trips. See for yourself:

I was never a big Bruce Springsteen fan, but "Born to Run" is still the greatest rock song ever written. Don't argue with me on this.

It has been at least twenty years since I have seen Crepes Suzette on a restaurant menu. Even in French restaurants, and that's just wrong. I'm thinking about buying a bottle of Grand Marnier when I get home so I can make my own Crepes Suzette. They're easy, which is why I'm so puzzled that nobody eats them anymore.

Potato chips are a poor choice for snacking on during long car trips. Not because of the empty calories or the crumbs, but because they're time-wasters. Potato chips must be washed down with soft drinks, and consumption of soft drinks makes people stop at gas stations far more often than they actually need to buy gas. And of course, gas stations exacerbate this problem by selling potato chips and soft drinks...

I didn't notice before we left home that somebody had taken all of the CDs out of this car except one containing some very old Rolling Stones music. My hunk o' burnin' love has never liked the Stones, but he needed some music to keep him alert, so he plugged in the only available CD. Just outside of Little Rock when he thought I was napping, I saw him bobbing his head to "Fancy Man Blues." I suspect he enjoyed "Wild Horses," also. So I think he should stop pretending that he was doing me a huge favor when he let the CD play all the way through two times before he ejected it.

Every Cracker Barrel restaurant looks exactly the same and they all carry exactly the same items--stocked in exactly the same locations--in their gift shops. If anyone wants to buy quilted makeup bags like the ones I picked up, they're on the last shelf before you get to the back wall of the store, to the right of a rack of sweatshirts. I'd like to add that Cracker Barrel's ham (both kinds) is way too salty and their scrambled eggs slightly overcooked, but their sourdough bread makes excellent toast.

On a cold, drizzly day, it's lovely to ease your car seat back and snuggle under a down lap blanket and let the slap-slap of windshield wipers lull you to sleep. Unless you're occupying the driver's seat, of course.

We have tickets to see Garrison Keillor a couple of days after we get home. We have seen him three or four times in the past twenty years and he has always worn exactly the same outfit: dark suit, red tie, red socks. I wonder how many pairs of red socks Garrison Keillor owns.

Howie Day's best song (and I know this because I have all three of his CDs and have listened to each of them twice on this trip) is "Come Lay Down." But his most impressive piece of work (in terms of showcasing his amazingly expressive voice and its fabulous range) is "Morning After", from his first album, "Australia," which he self-produced in 2000 when he was just 19 years old. Amazing.

Hey. If you think these observations are inane, you should have seen the ones I deleted.

Have a great weekend, everyone, and be sure that pond ice is nice and thick before you go skating on it.