Until recently I had never even heard of a culinary concoction called ‘chicken and waffles’. Then my friend Dave posted a picture of himself eating this at a bar/restaurant in Memphis. He was on a road trip to see Iowa State play in the Liberty Bowl. That is ‘liberty’, as in ‘freedom’, a concept Google and Facebook and Gavin (no gas stoves or heaters, and vax or else) Newsom could take a few lessons in.

Dave posted a photo of his plate of fried chicken and waffles and syrup and butter. with a large craft beer to wash it down. Dave is a tall and rangy fellow, and how he stays so slim eating like this is a mystery. If I even look at a pizza or burrito I gain 5 lbs.

So I went to the internet, and apparently ‘chicken and waffles’ is a real thing. The story is that it originated in Harlem during the heyday of jazz. The musicians would play late into the night and afterwards wanted to get something to eat, but the restaurant kitchens were closed. Some enterprising and accommodating chef threw together left over pieces of fried chicken and whipped up some waffles to accompany them, and an instant culinary classic was born.

Of course this story, like every part of history, is being debunked, but whatever its birthplace, chicken and waffles is a well known dish in much of the southern U.S. Not on Brumby Road though, where our cultural cooking leans more toward pesto or home made salami or polenta with mushroom gravy. And yes, we call it ‘gravy’, not sauce.

But even food can get you in trouble these days…

A New York middle school is apologizing after serving students with a meal on the first day of Black History Month that was deemed to be culturally insensitive.
Administrators at Nyack Middle School say that the hot lunch menu was changed by the vendor without their knowledge on February 1st, the first day of Black History Month, to include chicken and waffles with a watermelon dessert which the school’s principal called an “unfortunate situation”, The Journal News reported.
“We are extremely disappointed by this regrettable situation and apologize to the entire Nyack community for the cultural insensitivity displayed by our food service provider,” Nyack Middle School Principal David Johnson said in a statement.

Now let me say that when I was in school, if the kitchen had served me fried chicken and waffles for lunch I would have been in heaven, no matter what day it was. But that was back when schools taught grammar and arithmetic and spelling and not gender awareness. We never considered how the food we ate and when we ate it could be culturally insensitive. Because it’s food, not a political statement.

Besides, it seems to me that serving chicken and waffles, if it is indeed a product of Black culinary tradition, is a TRIBUTE on the first day of Black History Month, not a demeaning culturally insensitive stereotype. If I go to a Cinco de Mayo celebration, I expect to consume tacos or burritos and drink a Negra Modelo. And gain the aforementioned 5 lbs. If a school serves tacos on Cinco de Mayo are they going to be reprimanded and forced into diversity training? On St. Patrick’s day the consumption of corned beef and cabbage and beer dyed green goes off the charts and nobody gets mad about it.

Since Stoker and I are retired, we barely know what day of the week it is, so it would be easy for us to slip up and order something ethnic on an insensitive date. But I doubt chicken and waffles are going to be a part of our diet, whatever day it is. So, for this one ‘trigger’, we are safe.

This photo appeared on a friend’s Facebook page. Apparently one of his favorite restaurants had to close because of a skunk under their building. As they say in poker “I’ll see your skunk and raise you a dozen…”

Stoker and I love our quiet home on Brumby Road, but living in the country poses a few challenges. Coyotes trot by, worrying Stoker and driving Luke crazy. Raccoons come into our yard looking for water from the birdbaths when things are dry, and threatening to eat Diane’s Koi for a late night snack.

One time we noticed a distinct but faint odor of skunk in our house. We started to see skunks wandering around our yard and discovered that they had taken up residence in the crawl space under our house.

We were kind of desperate and I took to the internet trying to find a pest control company to deal with the problem. This turned out to be quite difficult, but then a miracle occurred and I stumbled across a real life Daniel Boone type who could trap anything. And he had the required Silver Card, a state license for structural pest control, so he was legit. I know about these things because I myself had a Brown Card, the agricultural pest control equivalent.

He came to our house over the course of three weeks and caught 13 skunks, three possums and a raccoon. We paid him for each visit and when he finally had them all I added a generous tip to his bill.

I got to thinking about the skunks yesterday when I started to notice another scent common in the country: the smell of a decomposing rat that crawled into our wall to die after eating the rat poison I put under the house. There is nothing you can do about the stench except wait it out, unless you want to tear all the sheet rock off of the interior walls.

Usually the problem goes away in a day or two, but this one seemed to be lingering. I asked Stoker if she noticed anything, and she said no. Then the light bulb came on..

When I had the flap, one of the many joys was the rather putrid odor. Since the wound was so close to my nostrils, I got a good whiff.

After I was de-flapped I felt so much better that I didn’t realize that the healing had to continue. What I though was a decomposing rat turned out to be my healing post-flap wounds. I finally realized how similar the two smells are. It isn’t as intense as before but it is still there.

The stitches are supposed to come out February 9. That should put and end to the dead rat smell I’ve been living with since December 28. I’m cleared to start exercising on February 2, which means I have zero cycling miles in my legs instead of the 600+ I usually do to start the year. They say you never forget how to ride a bicycle, but I think my cardio has lost the thread of how to climb anything higher than a freeway overpass.

But un-able to cycle for at least another week.

I just had the un-flapping surgery. It was scheduled for 30 minutes but ended up taking almost an hour. Lots of needles, pressure, cutting, cauterization, and discomfort. A very unpleasant process.

After it was over I asked about exercise and the dermatologist said to wait at least a week. So the entire month of January will be ride free. I’ve written about ‘starting from zero’ before, but after this layoff I’m into negative numbers.

Now all I have are two areas of stitches that don’t need to be bandaged all the time. So life can return to something resembling normal:

Example 1: the flap made it impossible for me to kiss Stoker. Before this a quick buss was the first thing we did upon seeing each other in the morning. Now it has been over a month since I’ve kissed any part of her. Something I intend to rectify later this afternoon.

Example 2: I need bifocals to read and different glasses to see the computer. The flap made wearing glasses in the correct position impossible. Plus the bandage, which partially covered my left eye, impeded my vision and depth perception. I was able to drive but I had to be extra cautious. Speaking of cautious…

Example 3: I now have less to worry about. After the flap failed and came off the first time, I spent the next two weeks in mortal fear that it would happen again. And since December 28 I have been paranoid about getting sick, since I couldn’t blow my nose or sneeze without risking disaster. So I limited my exposure to people the way Dr. Fauci wanted me to during Covid. No lunch out or socializing. Now I can relax about that. Finally I never thought about getting into a car accident when I’m behind the wheel, until I started to visualize what an air bag deployment would do the my flapped visage. Not a pretty thought… and no longer an issue.

So my flap flap is almost over. Supposedly I can start riding in a week and begin the long road back to some cycling fitness. The stitches come out in two weeks and I have been warned that things are going to look ‘lumpy and bumpy’ for a while, as the dermatologist put it. He also said there are things they could do to improve that…I’m pretty sure I’m going to pass.

I had the pedicle flap procedure on December 28. It detached on January 9. Why it detached is anyone’s guess. The doctor is not taking responsibility, so that leaves me. I was as careful as I could be but it just came loose. I could suspect a faulty first flap fusion, but I have no proof.

He reattached it on January 10. More needles, stitches and stinging pain. I heard him tell the nurse to schedule me for surgery on January 19th.

On Tuesday this week the nurse called to check on me. I asked her what would happen on Thursday. She said the doctor would remove the flap and suture the wounds, then two weeks later remove the final stitches and restore me to my normal good looking self. She also told me I could start riding after a day or two. Finally!

Today is the 19th. The nurse had me down for a 30 minute surgery. That is what she heard the doctor order on January 10. That is what I heard on January 10. That is what it said on the medical record. But the doctor claims that is not what he said.

When I saw him today he said there had been a ‘miscommunication.’ Today was just an exam and I need another week of healing.

Confronted by this depressing news, I questioned him about the previous detachment. He said it had never happened before. I told him I was incredibly careful, much more gentle than the nurse when she cleaned me up. He said he couldn’t speak to what I had or had not done. The clear implication was that it was my fault.

Later the nurse told me it had happened before, once. But she said it so quietly and reluctantly that I’m sensing a conspiracy.

So either I am incredibly ham-handed, incredibly unlucky, or something else is going on. Also either the nurse and I both misheard the doctor or are both deaf dolts, or he did in fact schedule a surgery instead of an exam.

So after getting so excited about returning to a kind of normal life, I have to live with this flap for another week. No exercise, no cycling. I have to be cautions about colds so I don’t see people, and I’m even limiting driving since if the air bag deployed it would f… up the flap. Another week of bandages and Vaseline and an itching eye.

I did my last road ride on December 26. I did four trainer sessions in early January. My return is now delayed to January 28 at the earliest. Want to bet? Take the over…

Today Diane and I mark forty years of marriage. On January 13, 1983 we said our nuptials in our rented condo in Des Moines, Iowa. There were 7 guests. We catered our own wedding feast: Korbel Brut for an aperitif, a prime rib roast with all the timings accompanied by BV Private Reserve cabernet sauvignon, and an ice cream wedding cake from Baskin Robbins. After dinner the male guests adjourned to the living room to watch the second half of the Iowa Hawkeys basketball game.

No newly married couple can really be sure about what the future will bring. Remember my blog about the only serious question? If not you have some homework to do.

The only serious question is “Who knows how to make love stay?” We’re not sure, but our forty years together might mean the answer is ‘We do”.

Not everything has been sweetness and light however. Occasionally there was friction, shouting, and anger. Followed by resolution and reconciliation and re-connection, which can be most enjoyable.

I remember one particularly acerbic dispute. Actually I don’t have a clue what we were arguing about, although it was almost certainly my fault. I know we went to bed, in separate rooms, still quite angry. What followed is about as close as Diane has come to going all “Lorena Bobbit” on her husband.

This happened back when I was still farming. It was summer, and I got out of the house early. I think my job that day was to cut dead wood out of cherry trees. One of those jobs Americans won’t do.

About 9 am I see Diane coming towards me, crying her eyes out, We shared a hug and she bawled “Rich, I did a terrible thing! I’m so sorry!”

OMG, what could it be? Reformat my hard drive? Dump pesticide into the well? Take a hacksaw to my Look 586? “I cut off one of your sprinklers” she sobbed, the tears flowing.

She continued “I was so mad that after you went to bed I got your pruning shears and went into the orchard. I wasn’t going to do anything but I put the shears around the pipe and pulled just a little, and it broke! I’m so sorry!”

I tried to keep from laughing. When a sprinkler breaks on top, say because someone trips on it, the fix is easy. On the other hand, if a tractor of backhoe runs over it, the break occurs about 2 feet down and is a wet muddy mess to repair. Kind of like my flap.

She showed me where it was. I brought my sprinkle fixing supplies bucket, and it took all of 5 minutes to make everything right. Just like we both apologized for being stupid the night before, making everything right between us too.

And for forty years, there has been a lot more of everything being ‘right between us’ than otherwise. So happy anniversary Stoker! My flap will have to modify our plans, but we can make adjustments.

Have I mentioned that I can’t ride my bike? In fact any exercise more strenuous that walking Luke the Dog is verboten.

After Monday’s flap fail, I’m not taking any chances with the reattachment. I don’t have to bandage it if I’m inside the house, so I stay inside the house. I don’t think the bandage was the reason the flap detached, but I’m not going to take the chance.

So I’m going a little crazy. But not as crazy as professors at USC.

The University of Southern California’s School of Social Work will no longer use the word “field” because it “may have connotations for descendants of slavery and immigrant workers that are not benign,” according to a letter from the department.

My father and his father spent their entire working lives doing ‘field work’ in their fields. And I don’t mean sociology, economics, engineering or mathematics. I mean fields with dirt that grow food. I don’t think they consider the success they had at making a living that way demeaning.

And guess what? After getting a BS in mathematics, working for an ag consulting firm in DC, and a year of grad school I did the same thing! I spent 25 years doing those proverbial ‘jobs Americans won’t do”!

My math degree taught me that there were three elements to algebra. Abstract algebra that is, not the kind taught in high school. They are Group Theory, Field Theory, and Ring Theory. Apparently only one of these is racist. Memo to USC Math Department from the Department of Social Work: change the terminology. WOKE UP!

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On Monday I was concerned enough about the state of my flap to call the doctor’s office The nurse gave me a script for antibiotics over the phone. But I decided if it really was infected it should be looked at and maybe have a culture taken. The doctor said everything was normal and there wasn’t anything to worry about. When I mentioned the continued oozing and the odor and the pain, he said all was normal. They took a sample to culture and in a few days I will know if I have an infection or not, but I’m taking the antibiotics anyway.

That night I removed the bandage covering my flap to clean the area and apply the recommended Vaseline. I was very careful and gentle. I applied alcohol (the rubbing kind, not Stolichnaya) to loosen the tape that holds the non-adhesive pad in place. The tape gave way easily, but the pad kind of stuck to the flap. I gave slight tug and suddenly the connection between flap and nose tip was severed. Time to panic…

There was no pain and no blood and the upper end of the flap was still attached to the bridge of my nose, but the rest of it was swinging freely, similar to another, much more enjoyable appendage somewhere south of the now flapping flap. An emergency call to the doctor’s cell phone produced instructions: bandage it in place and come to the office the next morning, He gave me his cell phone number right after the first surgery back on December 28. Perhaps he knew something about the likelihood of necessary ‘redo’s’ with this procedure that I didn’t.

I went in and he reattached the flap to the tip of my nose. It sounds so easy. It isn’t. Numbing needles which really sting, followed by more stitches. Recall that the December 28 procedure produced uncontrolled bleeding and about 1/3 of it had to be redone that same afternoon. And now this.

The cause of the flapping flap is unclear. Was it my fault for carelessly removing the bandage? The nurse said not so. One MD friend says that if I have an infection it could weaken the stitches. The dermatologist said that was not correct, and that I didn’t have an infection anyway, although the culture is pending. I’m still going to take the pills.

Since I have a new wound with stitches, I have been ordered not to exercise at all until the flap is scheduled to be removed (on purpose this time) on January 19. That will entail another couple of weeks on not riding while those wounds heal. I might get back on my bikes in February.

The last time I rode my bike on the road was December 26. I got cleared to exercise on January 5 and I did 4 indoor cycling rides. That’s going to be all for January.

Oh yes, our 40th anniversary is this Friday. We were planning a getaway with an ocean and a fireplace and Veuve Clicquot. Another failure thanks to the flap.

I saw the dermatologist yesterday, and he informed me that my flap and skull sutures are healing normally. I guess normal means slight oozing and continuing pain. I feel like there is a bee sting under my left eye extending to my forehead.

I also got an updated timetable for this unending ‘repair’. Next Thursday the stitches in my forehead come out. Two weeks from today I have another surgery (Oh Joy!) to cut off the flap. I’m sure that means some new stitches and some more healing time. Then perhaps a month from now the last stitches will come out and I will finally be back to my handsome self. Try to restrain your laughter.

The flap has really changed life on Brumby Road. Example: I always get up before Stoker, usually by a couple of hours. When she finally arises the first thing we do upon seeing each other is to enjoy a quick kiss, to remind us of what is really important. The flap makes that a dubious choice, and even a buss on the head is uncomfortably close to the stitches. I suppose she could kiss my feet, but she doesn’t worship the ground I trod on.

Another change: I am now concerned about things I normally don’t worry about. When I drive somewhere, I imagine what a disaster it would be if I was in a collision and the airbag deployed. My flap would be f….ed. (I like alliteration but not profanity in my blog: you get the idea). Consequently I only drive when necessary, which is mostly to the skin doctor’s office.

Also I really cannot afford to get a cold or flu or Covid or RSV or CVS just now. I can hardly touch my nose let along blow it or sneeze. So I’ve decided to shelter in place here on Brumby Road. No lunch with friends or grocery shopping or socializing until I’m unflappable. At least another two weeks. And I’m doing something I have never done: wearing a mask without being mandated to do so. I had to run an errand at the UPS store yesterday and I wore a mask over my bandaged face (not easy to do). I normally don’t worry but the flap is flipping me out.

One good piece of news from the doctor: he says I can exercise. I asked him specifically if I could perspire and he said I could. Until yesterday I was under orders not to do anything strenuous. Obviously I cannot ride my bike on the road, since I can’t possibly wear a helmet or risk a fall which would f… my flap. But I bought a Kickr trainer and did my first ride on it yesterday. One whole hour!

So that is how things stand on Brumby Road. The Sampson is complaining about being put in bondage on the Kickr, and the Look and Tarmac are looking at me with woeful eyes wondering why they are being neglected. And Stoker and I wave at each other in the morning.

From December 27 until January 1, I dumped almost 8 inches of rain from my gauge. After all this precipitation, on New Year’s Eve winds of 50+ mph blew through our area leaving fallen trees, broken limbs and downed power lines behind. On Brumby Road the power went out at 10:11 PM. We stumbled around looking for candles and flashlights, got out some extra blankets, and went to bed.

A call to the PGE outage line at 6 AM on New Year’s Day told us they were aware of the outage and we would get an update at 7 AM. That update told us that a crew would be in our area at 2 PM. Didn’t happen, but another update was planned for 7 PM. That update informed us that we should to expect the outage to continue overnight.

When the power goes out on Brumby Road, we obviously have no lights or TV or Wifi. Our cell phones worked, but we couldn’t recharge them. And our house well water pump is dead, so our water supply is quite limited and must be conserved. No showers or baths, and flush only when absolutely necessary. We have a heat pump, so we can’t heat our house.

We do have a propane stove, so we were able to warm up some leftovers and have a hot dinner. We needed it, by this point the temperature inside our house was down to 59 degrees. After dinner we sat under some blankets sipping Côtes du Rhône and watching the candles flicker. And so to bed…

Finally at 3 AM the power came back on. Soon everything was back and functioning. Another Memorable New Year’s Eve…

I say that because while Stoker and I were sipping the wine by candle light, we reminisced about another rainy New Year’s Eve sometime back in the late 1980’s. We had a very special bottle of sparkling wine on ice. In those days our budget could not accommodate Veuve Clicquot, so it was probably Korbel Brut. We also had a very nice red to accompany the steak au poivre we planned for supper. Things did not go as planned…

We used to have pet goats, and that year one of them was getting near the end of his life. But on December 31 the poor guy got down and couldn’t get up. Diane called the vet, but they couldn’t come until the next day, when we knew we were going to have to put poor Macavity out of his misery.

Macavity got his name from one of the cats in Cats. The other two goats were named Jennyanydots (also from Cats) and Pogo. They arrived as a set of three and Diane loved and spoiled them for almost 10 years. Mack is the big brown one, Jenny is on the left and Pogo is in the middle.

The weather forecast was for rain starting around midnight. I knew I was going to have to dig a goat sized grave, and I didn’t relish the thought of doing it in the mud. So around 9 PM I went outside in my farming clothes with my farming shovel and a flashlight and started digging in the dark. Poor Diane was sitting next to Macavity and holding him and crying her eyes out. I’m digging away and it started to rain.

Finally I finished the grave. It was about 6’x6’x6′. It took me over an hour. I went back into the house and made the steak. I know I ate some but I don’t think Diane did. She was in and out of the house for the rest on the night.

On New Year’s Day, in the afternoon, the vet arrives and does the necessary humane thing. Diane is crying and my eyes are watering a bit but I am trying to keep myself together. Macavity was a huge goat, well over 200 lbs. That is why I had to dig such a big grave. There was no way to carry him out of our goat pen and into the grave, but I have a garden cart and I asked (begged?) the vet to help me load Mack onto the goat hearse. He did, then left the interment to us.

I wheeled the cart to the grave site, then told Diane that there was no gentle way of doing this; I was going to have to slide the corpse off of the cart and let it fall into the grave. I can’t remember if she watched or not. I do know we were lucky, Macavity kind of folded into what looked like a fairly comfortable position on his side. I got into the grave to adjust his legs a bit, and Diane was satisfied. She dropped some hay and granola bars into the grave. Those goats loved granola bars; I told you they were spoiled. I think she covered him with a blanket. She said goodbye and I back filled the hole. A memorable start to a year.

And 2023 started with 29 hours of power outage and with stitches and a pedicle flap on my face. Things can only improve.

Today, per nurse’s instructions, I removed the bandages she put on yesterday. Carefully, using a clever technique she taught me: Take a cotton ball soaked in alcohol (the rubbing kind, not Stolichnaya) and dab the adhering part of the bandage. The alcohol loosens the adhesion so the bandage can be easily removed.

For the first time I got an actual 3 dimensional look at what I’m going to be dealing with for the next several weeks. I knew it was going to look bad, but it looks absolutely terrifying. The flap really is a flap, it just kind of hangs there loose. It is fused or stitched into my forehead and into the Mohs nose hole, but the rest of it is free to move. It feels like the slightest tug would detach it, which would be ‘a consummation devoutly to be unwished’.

I took a picture, but I’m not going to post it here. I’m my own biggest fan and I reread my blogs occasionally, chuckling at that clever fellow’s wit and wisdom. And I don’t want to be reminded of this. I don’t mind remembering this however: May in Malaucène 2019.

Besides wound care, there are some practical problems. I need to shave, but I don’t know if I can put the shaving cream on and wash it off without disturbing the flap. I might need to buy an electric razor.

Another complication: wearing glasses. I have bifocals, reading glasses and computer glasses. Because of the flap I have to put them in uncomfortable locations, and I can’t see the screen or the TV or a book too well. The eyestrain would give me a headache, except the stitches are already doing that.

Also my nose is running from the Mohs nostril for no apparent reason. Blowing or wiping are out of the question so I just dab with a Kleenex.

No exercise for a week, no road riding for 6 weeks, no 40th anniversary trip. Even the most basic anniversary celebratory ritual, if not exactly impossible, would require extensive modification and extreme caution. Of course I’m speaking about opening a bottle of Veuve Clicquot. You were imagining something else?