We had a culinary adventure this week that taught me several important lessons.   We went with friends to one of our favorite Mexican restaurants.  These are folks who have eaten with us countless times over the past 25 years and know me fairly well.  Of course, my husband, who knows me like a book, was present, seated next to me.

               The adventure started when I was looking for one of my favorite dishes on the menu.  It’s called Tortilla Loco, but for decades we’ve referred to it as “taco loco.” There’s no reason for this, it just is.  Anyway, this dish is a flat tortilla shell covered in meat of your choice, beans, tomatoes, and cheese.  It’s very good.

               But, I couldn’t find it on the menu.  I did find a dish called a Mexican Pizza, and its’ description was quite similar to the taco loco.  I discussed this with my husband and my friends at length, because people of a certain age spend a lot of time talking about what they can and can’t and will and won’t eat. My husband reminded me that we had had the pizza in the past and neither of us was fond of it.

               When the waiter arrived to take our order, my husband asked if they still had the taco loco (but he used the correct name).  We were assured that they did have it, but I didn’t want to make trouble, so I decided to order the Mexican Pizza.

               I ordered and was careful to specify to leave off the refried beans (as my older digestive system prefers a bean-free diet) and the tomatoes.  Again, my digestive system is picky about things.  I love tomatoes, but they are not my friend.

               So I was feeling pretty hopeful for a great meal and didn’t notice the three people at the table giving me puzzled looks.

               When the food arrived, the waiter was holding a large plate of food out first.  It looked heavy (and hot) and he said, “Mexican Flag?” to me.  I shook my head and pointed to my friend across the table. She quickly claimed the enchilada and he extended the heavy plate towards me, apologizing because there were a few tomato chunks in the corner.  I was puzzled but he continued to put the plate down in front of me, saying again, “Mexican Flag.”

               When he left, I said to the group, “But I didn’t order this.” All three of them assured me (practically in harmony), “yes, you did!”

               I ordered a Mexican Flag!  Well, it’s a large plate of food, very heavy and hot.  It has a shredded beef enchilada (spicy) with tomato sauce; rice; a spicy chicken enchilada; rice, and a grilled chile releno with ground beef.  Oh, yes, and a small lettuce/tomato salad on the side.  Normally the second rice would be refried beans, but they had listened to my request and left them off.

               So I had a large plate of food, of which I could eat only a small portion – the chile releno.  Well, I thought I could eat it.  I found out about 8 hours later that chile releno is another dish my digestive system wants me to avoid.

               My friends and husband expressed surprise that I had changed from the two dishes I had discussed at length, but they thought I was just branching out.  My husband, especially, said he had almost said something when I ordered, but didn’t want to be presumptuous.

               Please, be presumptuous.  I’m getting older and sometimes the words that come out of my mouth aren’t the words I’m thinking.  Mostly this isn’t a problem, but when it comes to food that gives you heartburn, you need to speak up!

Last week I was working in the kitchen and said to my husband, “I am one of the craziest people on earth.”  He was reading the paper at the time and mildly commented, “Well, not really, but you’re certainly in the group.”

               It was so mildly said that I almost missed the fact that he was agreeing with me! 

               While I’d like to take umbrage, in all honesty, he has had ample reasons to form this opinion.  There was the day I called him from a parking lot in a panic, telling him (tearfully), that I had lost my phone.  Yeah, the phone that I was using to call him.

               More routinely, I find myself wandering around large parking lots, trying to hear my car beep when I press “lock.” Because of my hearing loss on one side, I find it difficult to localize sound.  So I just walk around aisles, punching the button and turning in the direction I think I hear the beeps coming from.  Let me digress to say that it would be more helpful if car builders made a button for “finding car” and made the beep rather loud.  In fact, having a flag extend out of your roof would be useful, too.

               But at any rate, I never see anyone else strolling around, pushing their remote buttons repeatedly, so I’m thinking this is a “me” issue.  And before you say it, yes, I could try to remember where I’ve parked.  In my defense, not every parking lot has cart corrals or big lettered signs as airports do.

               I’ve made the mistake of relating these adventures to my husband, so he does have those examples to ponder.

               He’s actually witnessed first-hand my response to GPS – both in the car and on my phone.  I have a tendency – actually I do it all the time – to talk to the GPS voice. I know it’s just a computer, but when the voice starts telling me “turn in 1 mile, turn in ½ a mile, turn in 1000 feet,” I respond back.  Sometimes it’s just “Ok, ok, I know,” but other times it’s more colorful.  I get especially talkative when GPS tells me I’ve “reached my destination,” but it’s an empty lot.

               The craziest thing I do is when I prepare eggs.  Doesn’t matter if they are scrambled, fried, or going into a cake, I always remove the white stringy thing from the yolk.  Over the years, I’ve used two forks, strawberry stem pinchers, and knives, but I will get those things out of my eggs and toss them away.

               I only know one other person on the planet who does this and (in my opinion), he’s totally sane.  However, that person is not my husband, so he may not understand this behavior.  The fact is, there’s a name for that stringy thing – it’s called “chalaza.” 

               My logic is this:  If they named it, it means it’s not a normal, acceptable part of the yolk to which it is attached.  And it’s disgusting, so I’m getting it out of there.

               I may be crazy, but I’m chalaza free!

We’ve lived in the same place in the country for a long time.  For many of those years – most of them, in fact – we’ve appreciated the various services provided by our county and/or township.  Road repair, ditch mowing, snow removal, and animal removal are some of the many services for which we are grateful.

               During those years, we’ve had few problems with any of them, either.  Occasionally it takes a long time to get our ditch mowed, but then we are the only house on our road for the time being.  But up until two years ago, we had no major complaints.

               Then, the winter of 2021 came and the person who runs the snow plow seemed to think that a good bit of our yard was part of the road.  We were dismayed to see ruts and jagged cuts pushed several feet into our yard.            

               We waited until spring, raked and planted grass seed, and everything seemed okay.  Figuring the person had been new, we didn’t complain to anyone.  Plus, we weren’t really sure if the county plowed that particular road, or the township, so…who do we complain to?

               Then this past winter arrived and it happened again!  I stomped out in frustration and took several photos of our torn-up yard.  It was early February and I fired off the picture with a polite email to the county, asking, first, if they are the responsible party for the snow plowing on our road.  If so, I continued, we would appreciate it if the plow-operators could be a bit more careful about how far into a yard they push the scoop.

               As you might expect, I received no reply.  I had no idea if this meant they didn’t care, or that they weren’t responsible.  But when February morphed into April, we raked and planted grass seed, and our lawn was again intact by May.

               Then last week, I received an email from the county engineer.  It’s mid-July and it appears he “just received” my email.  He assured me that he had been out to our property and assessed it and could find no evidence of damage.

               Well, duh.  It makes total sense that damage to a lawn from a snow plow in February would not be evident in July.  At least, not in Ohio.

               I responded, politely, I might add, because my mother raised me right.  I mean, I had included a picture and it was six months ago, but I didn’t mention those things.  I merely pointed out that he was a bit late in assessing snow plow damage and that we’d appreciate some better training or more care from the snow plow operators.  Grass seed doesn’t grow on trees (I didn’t say that either, but thought it pretty hard).

               I’m going to assume that the county services will, overall, continue to be excellent.  But the whole exchange, while pretty hilarious, didn’t instill confidence that we won’t be planting grass seed next spring.

To be honest, I’ve never been totally on board with the idea of “self-driven” cars.  I mean, first of all there’s a tiny little trust issue.  They appear to be asking me to trust a computer more than my own senses.  So there’s that.  Then there’s the fact that people make these machines and computers and people, frankly, make mistakes.  The best quality control in the world doesn’t catch everything.  But…on the other hand, I have come to appreciate my car’s keyless ignition and that backup camera, so I was going to give this new technology a fair shake.

               Until this summer.  It all started with our lawn mower.  Spring came and since we mow about 10 acres or so, we need both our big riding mowers plus a trimmer to get it all done.  One of our mowers was reluctant to start, which caused us to have a delay in our normal mowing routine (not to mention the cost of the repair).

               Right after we got the mower back, we planned to power wash our fence and subsequently stain it.  The power washer – which worked fine last fall – was caput.  My husband took it to the repair shop and showed them the tiny crack, explaining , “there’s a crack in the manifold here.” Three weeks later, the man from the shop called to tell us the news: “there’s a crack in your manifold.”  (This did little to dissuade me that people make errors).  He also told us the cost of the repair.  Several weeks and many dollars later, we have a working power washer.  Again, our timeline for projects was delayed.

               Then I was being a good mom and took our son’s car in for an oil change.  While there, they discovered a nail in his left rear tire.  I paid additional money for the patch and felt pretty good about my supportive nature.  Until ten days later, when the same tire was flatter than a flitter in his parking garage in downtown Dayton.  He got new tires and was on his merry way the following day, but seriously, shouldn’t that patch have lasted a teeny bit longer?

               The very next day after that, we decided to go out for dinner.  Fortunately for us, the place we chose to eat was across the street from a car repair shop.  Because as we approached the restaurant, a warning light came on in my husband’s truck’s dashboard.  The warning light indicated the antifreeze was low.

               So we purchased some antifreeze and put it in, only to see it pour out of the engine under the truck body.  We left the truck at the repair shop, walked to dinner, and our son (with his new tires) picked us up and brought us home.

               The following day, the truck had a new water pump.  And we were out about two paychecks.  No more eating out for us for a while!

               I’ve been trying hard not to feel worried about the machinery in our lives and how they are messing with us.  Or I was until tonight when we went to go to bed and smelled something a bit hot.  Turns out our air conditioner isn’t working.  We turned it off and wrote a note to call the heating/plumbing guys tomorrow.

               Yeesh.  Yeah, self-driving cars.  Not sounding good to me right now.