Say Cheese

Me Pops had a good friend who hailed from Alabama, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who asked Dad for help driving his family down for a visit one summer. As this was in the days before the Interstate Highway system, it helped on long trips to have two drivers alternate in order to keep moving.

They left on a Friday a bit before Noon. I should add that this also was in the days where Catholics couldn't eat meat on any Friday of the year. Dad was a serious Catholic, even at 20 years old.

Anyway, they made great time, and found themselves approaching an all night diner well after dark. Cloyce gave Mrs. Cloyce some money and told her to buy him, her, and their kids some hamburgers. "But don't get Bill nothing with meat, he can't eat it today," were his final instructions.

Mrs. Cloyce returned a few minutes later with hamburgers. And a cheeseburger for me Pops.

When she realized the brain cramp Mrs. Cloyce apologized profusely. "Don't worry," Dad assured her, "It's about 11:30. Leave it on the dash and I can eat it in a half hour."

No harm, no foul, right?

Friday Oatmeal

We're all, well, many of us anyway, a little too undisciplined with our spending. I know I am. And the fact is that it generally isn't the big expenditures which break our budgets. It's the nickel and dime stuff which leave us with $12.87 and payday three days off.

So in resolving to try and spend more wisely, on Fridays I am eating oatmeal for breakfast until I've eaten all the Quaker Oats I have. I'm trying to be old school Catholic anyhow and go meatless on Fridays as it is. This should help.

What brought this on was the big box of instant oatmeal which I bought at a warehouse store back in July. It was on sale, I liked the various flavors offered, and I should eat more oatmeal anyway, right? Good source of fiber or roughage or something, my doctor tells me. 

So there's 52 servings of instant oatmeal which I had to have back in July, and four of them have been consumed. Two of those were by my son and daughter in law respectively when they were in for Christmas. And that's not including the 8 count box of pumpkin spice flavor I bought in October because, pumpkin spice, right? So there's 52-4+8, or, wait, getting my calculator, 56 packets of instant oatmeal in a box on the fridge.

I'm going to eat them, two at a time, for my Friday breakfasts until they're gone. Then I will not buy that much oatmeal at once ever again. 

Unless it's a good price.

And it's the fruit and cream flavors.

And until the next time I lose my self discipline.

But up till then, it's not happening.

Fish Frydays

I like this time of year, and for rather selfish reasons. I know that it's Lent; it's supposed to be a time of renewal. But what I like seeing the most renewed are the Friday Fish Frys in so many Churches.

Catholics cannot eat meat on Fridays during Lent. That's one of the reasons fish frys are so popular. Part of me wishes the Church would go old school and ban meat eating on all Fridays during the year just so that fish frys might happen around the calendar. Technically Catholics are still supposed to go meatless on Fridays or offer some other penance in its place, but that's another question.

I have been pining for weeks for the fish fry at St. Francis of Assisi here in Detroit, and this afternoon I get to actually attend one. For the next seven Fridays ol' Marty will be in fish heaven. Thursdays will become interminable as the days before Fridays as I long for the next day's dinner.

Yeah, I'm kinda missing the point of Lent thinking this way. I'm a little too happy about a time meant for seeking forgiveness. Yet that time will come, and probably from gluttony as I lament eating too many fish filets this afternoon. And hey, pining counts as penance, doesn't it?