My day

Well it's a beautiful day in Iowa, high must have been in the 50's, which doesn't sound as good to those of you in the deep south or even the east coast, but since we had snow yesterday, it's pretty good. One of the best things about it warming up, is grilling. Now I'm not much of a gourmet, but sitting on my deck, cooking some food, drinking a beer, is a pretty good life if you ask me. We have a store here in Des Moines that really does have a great selection of meat. With all due respect to my former in-laws who have a grocery store with a butcher shop (it's excellent), I go to Fareway because its on my way home and the New York strips are to die for. So I get my steaks and I'm in line to check out, which of course is the slowest moving line of them all. When I go to the store with Marcy, I make her pick the line because I guarantee I will pick the molasses line. So I'm standing in my non moving line, when I notice the line 2 registers away has nobody in it. I've fallen for the "empty line" before, where you leave your line only to find out that the person in the "open" line is just admiring the cash register and not actually waiting to help anyone. Now you have lost your spot in line, so you can either slink to the back of the line like an idiot (everyone else has moved up your body void and look the other way when you try to make eye contact to see if you can get your spot back), or you can act like you forgot something, make a lap around the store and try to find a different line further down away from the snickers, that's laughter not the candy bar. I notice out of the corner of my eye that there is a line, with an employee standing there, that appears to be open. I look over hopefully and I hear the girl say something but I can't quite hear her. Now I'm looking right at her, trying to pick up her conversation to see if she says anything that makes me believe she is working. She says something again and I notice she is slightly cross eyed and is actually talking to me. Apparently she is telling me she can help me and I'm just staring at her like a freak. I walk over and give her my steaks to ring up, but I'm slightly embarrassed because I'm pretty sure she knows why I didn't respond. After all, she wasn't looking at me, as far as I could tell.



When I get home, I'm trying to cook the steaks, plus some chicken kabobs and clean the house, all at the same time. We are having two kids from Gallup NM stay the night with us and I'd like them to be able to walk to their room with out any safety gear. Max doesn't think that is necessary, so he keeps adding to the mess as I subtract from it. The steaks are cooking, I'm scrubbing a toilet, when I see smoke coming from the grill. I wash my hands and run out, lifting the lid so the smoke rolls out and notice that my steaks are on fire. This is not a good thing since I'm not actually trying to make them Cajun. I move them up and let the fire burn out and head off to do the rest of my business. After awhile, I notice the steaks are on fire again. This is not turning out to be my best grill night. I get the fire out and after 2 fires, they still don't look too bad. As I cut into them, I thank God for making up cows and all of their tasty goodness. And for making Fareway.