Houseblogging – Operation Pancakes

Oh, sure.

While it’s true that there’s really nothing that a good pancake can’t fix (ask IHOP), there may be another truth laying somewhere underneath that allows one to pin certain failures on those same flapjacks. An explanation is in order…

Last weekend, there was a little get-together here in my small town called Jazz In The Pines. You may have heard of it. My aunt and uncle have been attending for years, as have my parents’ neighbor. As a rule, they stay for both days, and I had a bit of a plan. As long as they’re in town, why not host a little get-together at my place. “How quaint!” I thought. Their schedules would be consumed with jazzier jazz, but also finding the perfect parking spot and the perfect spot to park while watching the shows. Not too sunny, it gets hot down there on campus. Not too shady, wouldn’t want a damp bum.

All this led me to settle on breakfast on Sunday. The bands start later, they’ll be hungry, and we’d be able to have a nice chat until 9:30 or so. The weather was perfect and I had a plan. Pancakes on the barbeque. Before you start with the highly inappropriate “why don’t Mexicans barbeque” joke, I had a griddle, okay? The smells of breakfast cooking outside, the fresh air, pretty nice.

That plan though was made too early so I had plenty of time to worry about it and crap it up. For instance, it never occurred to me that if people were going to spend most of their time outside in the front of the house I didn’t have to scramble to fix the inside of the back of the house. It also didn’t sink in that people might show up to hang out and chat so I worried if there would be enough food. I panicked and decided that we needed two of every kind of breakfast thing. Was there enough? I can only say this:

Dear starving people of Sudan, I’m so sorry.

As it turned out, each and every one of my fears were for naught (and this is different how? – ed). Everybody had a great time by all accounts. Flapjacks on the grill were a hit. I have so much leftover food that I’m going to have to open an International House of Leftovers. Tomorrow. Before everything goes bad.

So anyway, I’ll make this last part pretty brief… More visitors than I’ve ever had at one time plus lots of food combined with sixty year old plumbing. Wanna guess what I’ve been trying to fix this week?

Once everything is cleared up and cleared out I should have more time for this endeavor. In the meanwhile, at least I don’t have to shower in the backyard.

Your pal,

bob