Two Bloody Idiots

I am idiot number one. Those who read this blog regularly (all two of you) know that I have a great fondness for the Scottish Highland Cattle who inhabit a pasture nearby. They get blogged periodically and photographed often and I'm like a ga-ga grandma when a new calf arrives. Weekly I schlep one or two bags of fruit and vegetable scraps to the pasture and feed the cows. Mostly, they come runnning when they see me, unless the day is hot and the shade too tempting. Like today. So there am I with my bag of stuff, some of it none too fresh by now, waving it in the air and whistling at the cows who are deep into the shade. The big mama raises her head and stares at me for a few minutes. No baby in sight but I do see the baby from last August who had been isolated from the others this week and who I was afraid had been sold into cow slavery. He and the "shy" cow looked at me but didn't budge. I'm whistling and waving the garbage bag like (sic) a bloody idiot. Finally I start to heave lettuce cores, orange peels (yum!) and bits of produce into the pasture. Mama takes notice and moves a few steps out of the shade. The other two stand up. Progress. More waving and tossing and whistling. At last they are coming. Not a stampede, but steady progress. The baby finally breaks into a gallop. He/she has started eating people food. He spurns the scallion tops but eats a piece of lettuce. Finally they are at the fence. Cucumber not to their liking. Lettuce and orange peel gobbled up. Flies omnipresent. Mama is always mean to last year's baby. Not her calf. Finally they wander back to the shade, but I have delivered the food scraps and the food scraps are gone.

Second bloody idiot. This morning, we are leaving the health club, and I have hefted almost 8000 pounds and deserves a decent breakfast, none of this cereal with skim milk and a few little dribbles of fruit stuff. Significant other mentions home fries. I remind him that the yummy cakes we used to buy in Chicago can't be found in New England. Still, the taste buds quiver. We debate going into the (nameless) supermarket close to our gym, because there is invariably a hassle of some kind at the check out line. Sunday at 11:30 a.m. Who could there be?

At the frozen food aisle, we care barely find frozen home fries, never mind the nice little cakes that serve two and also serve as portion control for middle-aged waistlines. Seems to be mostly french fries and weird stuff that you put into a toaster. What kind of crap potatoes would that produce? We settle on the only home fries. To the check out line with our potatoes and 4 plums at .88 per pound, such a deal.

Three people ahead of us. The man (no gentleman) checking out has either 11 or 12 items in the 10 item line. I feel a curmudgeonly churlishness coming on. This is bad enough, then he whips out a checkbook and the clerk has to find someone to approve the check. Wait wait wait. What I want to do it take his photo and tell him he is under symbolic arrest as today's checkout idiot, and that I will post his photo on the web with a history of his checkout misdeeds. Instead, I stare daggers. Leave Significant Other standing there to keep our place (now 5 more people are behind us. In a loud voice, I tell S.O. I'lll check for quicker lines. Next guy in line looks to have about 12 items, too, and is either using a debit card (fast) or a credit card (not as fast). When I return to say that all the lines are long, three carts average, the person who was supposed to approve the check has arrived. The clerk tells him to take care of us, whose grumbling and grousing cannot have a positive effect of the morale of the quick, well, supposed-to-be-quick checkout line. I hope the checkout-idiot gets behind some ancient lady whose trembling fingers count out 89 cents very slowly and then decides she needs a package of cigarettes which have to be fetched from locked cabinet with a key. I hope he gets behind the woman who has a $2 off coupon (expired) on a ham and tells the clerk that she has a special dispensation from the manufacturer to use the coupon. I hope he gets behind Significant Other in a wool-gathering mood who once let a clerk ring up the woman in front of him together with our groceries and was that ever ugly except I couldn't stop laughing.

I cooked the potatoes in canola oil and bacon greast (the yin/yang theory) and they weren't half bad. Thank you Ore-Ida.

The first idiot

Grapeshot