I’m frustrated.
I was on my way to the store to get breakfast things for the boys so I asked Beth if she wanted anything. She thought for a moment and said “Hash browns?” I told her that sounded yummy and I’d get some shredded potatoes along with the eggs, butter and milk for the small humans.
Of course I forgot the shredded potatoes.
When she reminded me of this, I was stunned and shamed. She protested when I told her I’d go back to the store and insisted that I wasn’t to do that.
No problem.
Once the kids were fed, I peeled three small potatoes, shredded them using the low-mileage Cuisinart, chopped up a fresh jalapeno, and threw it all on the griddle. They came out just fine. 🙂 Beth added some gravy, which I think should become a tradition everywhere.
So all this discussion has two goals: One: to show that when it comes to breakfasts, I keep my promises and Two: to ask the assembled masses how the hell do you get hash browns to crisp up like the do at the Waffle House? I can’t get ’em to crisp up no matter whose potatoes I use! The griddle’s nice and hot. I can’t figger it.
Anyone with any knowledge of how to do this, please discuss.
Thank you.
Dan Wolfe
Today I deserve Kudos
I’m going to kill Nate.
(And before you NSA guys and Child Services get involved, no, I don’t really mean it. Of course I don’t mean I’d actually take his life. He’s a great kid. But If you’re a parent, you know exactly what I mean. What I mean is that I’m really mad at him, but I love him dearly and I’d never do anything to hurt him. So by “kill” I mean I’m just mad at him. Ok? Fair enough? Did I make that clear enough? Thanks! Enjoy the day, NSA dudes!)
I’m going to kill the little shit five year old.
We have a snack bucket, as I call it. It’s a large canvas container stored at ground level in which are all sorts of snack foods that they can munch on in between meals. (Nate especially since he’s a bit underweight.) Most of the time, they’ll ask “Dan, can I have something from the snack bucket?” If it’s not too close to meal time, then sure, no sweat. Sometimes if they’re really hungry, they can have their choice of two items as long as they eat it at the table.
Since they often wake up and get out of bed early, there’s usually no problem with them picking out something for themselves as a mini-breakfast to hold ’em over until a proper breakfast can be prepared for them. Anyway, they are usually pretty judicious about snacking from it and they don’t abuse the privilege.
Until today.
First thing this morning. No caffeine. No breakfast. I hadn’t even stretched and scratched my nuts before I opened the garbage can to toss out something I picked up coming down the stairs. Mixed in with the banana peels and coffee grounds, I found about 10-12 open, uneaten Kudos snack bars. Opened. Uneaten. Untouched by human hands. Not even licked. All of them in with the garbage. May as well have just thrown a five dollar bill in the trash.
One by one, I sorted through the wrappers both empty and full, trying not to get any of last night’s pork chop fat and baked potato with butter, bacon bits and sour cream on my fingers. The smell was enough to knock a buzzard off a manure wagon at fifty paces, but the more I counted, the less I could believe it. And the madder I got.
“Who opened all these snacks and didn’t eat them?” turning to ask sternly, the first words out of my mouth after the customary greeting of the day. “Nate? Did you do this?”
I suspected Nate because this is just his style. Nate’s misbehaviors are usually more creative than older brother Garrett’s. When something happens, Nate is the go-to guy for the guilt.
“Nate, Did you open all these and just throw them away?”
“Now Dan,” Nate starts to explain tilting his head slightly as if I’m too stupid to immediately understand. “Yes, because I was trying to find one of the M&M ones and it took me awhile to find it.”
At least he had a reason.
My blood pressure shot up past normal to patent pending. (If you’re not a nurse, next time you get your BP checked at the doc, look at the sphygmomanometer scale and this line will become instantly funny. And, hey, I just got to use the word “sphygmomanometer” casually in a sentence!)
I sat him firmly in his chair — I didn’t lose my temper, though I was VERY close. I put on my best Dad face and said “Nate, that’s about five bucks worth of food you threw in the trash. Do you understand that you’re not supposed to do that?”
“But Dan…”
“NO BUT’S!” I shouted, livid. “That’s unacceptable! You just lost free access to the snack bucket!”
So as of today, the snack bucket gets put out of reach.
Afterwards, I made both the perpetrator and the innocent bystander, i.e.: Nate and Garrett respectively, a breakfast of cheese omelets.
What a great guy, huh?
I’m such a good guy, I deserve a reward. I’d go have a tasty Kudos bar as a well-deserved reward for not killing Nate, but I can’t ’cause the little shit opened ’em all and put ’em in the garbage can!
Now I’m mad, hungry AND unrewarded.
Moore, Oklahoma
I’m still glued to the TV looking at the awful photos from Oklahoma. I’ve lived through, earthquakes, fires, more earthquakes, other tornadoes and always come out relatively unscathed. To see the level of destruction that nature has imposed across such a wide area is absolutely heartbreaking. I can’t imagine facing that sort of disaster.
I experienced the Northridge Earthquake in Los Angeles in 1994, and saw a lot of isolated destruction not unlike what’s happened in Moore, OK. But it was just that — isolated. The devastation in Moore is so wide-spread it is truly unimaginable. I really can’t wrap my head around what I’m seeing on TV.
I see the pictures of entire neighborhoods wiped out and try to imagine myself in the middle of all that. Who would you call? Who COULD you call? I’m a guy and we’re typically problem solvers and I can’t imagine how overwhelming it must be. I mean, I know I’d have to be seeking immediate shelter for me and my loved ones, but after that? Where do you start? I can’t imagine. Unbelievable.
It does put my own little troubles in perspective. And it’s not about the stuff. Stuff can be replaced, of course. I really have no words. I can’t imagine what these people are facing not just today but for the longer term.
2:55 am
Woke up a bit ago cause I was hungry. Got a small snack and I’m listening to the nearby freight trains doing their switching or whatever it is they do. Fostoria is still a big railroad town as I think I mentioned before. Even after all the years living elsewhere, hearing the trains at night is like a comfort to me. It’s how I know I’m home.
Even in Virginia. On those nights when the humidity seems oppressive, I can sometimes hear the trains there too. It doesn’t happen often but when it does, it brings me right back here to this town and this house.
Mom and Dad moved here in 1970 and lived here ever since. It saddens me to think about someone else living here someday and that I won’t have access to the comfort of moments like these anymore. But I guess I’ve been fortunate enough to have this available to me for the last forty plus years. I’ve always appreciated it when I’m here. I just know I’ll miss it someday. But not tonight.
Senior Leadership
In 2004, I was selected to attend the U.S. Army War College through their distance learning option. Right about the same time, I discovered that I had enough active duty time to retire from the Army about nine or ten years early, so a War College diploma became unnecessary from the professional and fiscal perspectives. So I withdrew from the course.
However, before I withdrew, I completed a little bit of the course material. The first sub course after I completed and passed the initial writing assignment was about senior leadership. While I’m a lousy student for the most part, I do occasionally pay attention and this time I paid attention.
The biggest thing I came away with was that senior leadership is more about building consensus and negotiating solutions than it is about the more familiar vision of military officers leading troops around the motor pool or into battle. During my six years assigned to the Pentagon, I found this to be accurate. As a colonel, I observed that organizations needed me to be a consensus builder and needed far less of the stereotypical motivational leadership than the units to which I’d been assigned in the past. The War College course material said that this is as it should be. And I agree.
Fast forward to today. If, as I believe, senior leadership is about consensus building and assuming we consider that those running the legislative and executive branches of government are to be considered the senior leaders of our Nation, then I contend that Washington is suffering a severe leadership deficit.
Severe.
This is not about Republican versus Democrat. This is not about left or right. If one examines the actions of the President and the leaders in both houses of Congress, it is clear to me that no one – not one individual is publicly engaging in any sort of leadership whatsoever nor is anyone in DC attempting to bill themselves as a true senior leader.
I could list quote after quote from either side of the aisle in Congress and from the White House supporting the observation that the blame game is well underway. But since you’re all my friends, I know that you’re well aware of current events and can draw your own conclusions from news reports. I believe that we can all agree that little if any consensus building is happening publicly. If it’s happening behind closed doors in smoke-filled halls of Congress, no one knows about it and frankly I’d be surprised if it were.
But back to the point: Our Nation needs leaders – real leaders who possess the necessary senior leadership skills and experience and the will to exercise them to the benefit of the Nation. We elect our President to LEAD the business of government not to observe the business of government. We elect our President to LEAD not to cajole and belittle legislators into specific behavior. We elect our Congressmen to represent our interests, negotiate among themselves and the Executive branch and come to consensus on viable solutions to fulfill our interests while maintaining the best interests of the entire Nation.
At this, they are all failing miserably.
There is no leadership in Washington because there exists no attempt to build consensus among those in the government who disagree.
I believe that the President, the single most visible face of the Nation and by definition the most senior leader in government has the DUTY to lead and build consensus in the National interest in spite of the political climate. I believe the President should be leading the Nation in the context of the United States as his top priority. The President isn’t the President of the Democratic Party, but the President of the United States.
I observe none of this and therefore conclude that in the context of senior leadership, the White House is leaderless.
As for Congress, I recognize and embrace that it is by nature a more partisan organization. I expect there to be discourse, disagreement and politics played among its members. But in the end, I expect the senior leaders in Congress to lead their respective parties while building consensus in the context of the Nations best interests.
Sadly, I observe none of that either. Therefore, I also conclude that in the context of senior leadership, Congress is leaderless.
Its been said by hundreds of other journalists, commentators and other observers that our government is the most divided, most partisan and least productive body in generations. I agree.
I do not believe, however, that this is a problem resulting from a clash of ideas that has no resolution. I do not believe that the Legislative and Executive branches of government are hopelessly deadlocked because there’s a great ideological gulf between them. I believe that it’s the lack of leadership skills and experience that makes resolution unlikely. I believe that no one has the will to find consensus and in fact, I believe that the senior leaders of our Nation think that consensus is a dirty word.
Our senior leaders aren’t leading. It’s that simple.