Chicken overload and other things from the weekend

There comes a time in every man’s life when enough is enough. I reached my tipping point with chicken this weekend. Let me explain before you start telling me about “how good chicken is” for me.

My lovely wife, (I know, many a husband’s sad stories begins this way) has a heart for kids. She enjoys cooking for people too. Plus, the position she holds in the school right now, on every early-out Monday they provide a meal in a café-type setting. You may have read about that on these very pages not long ago. So this Monday, chicken soup was on the menu. Sounds easy enough, right? Well, the weekend prep work consisted of a lot of chicken smells, cleaning up of chicken and cooking.

To be honest, I have never really been a fan of chicken. So sue me. No, don’t. I am a beef guy, venison man … OK, truth be told, I am a dessert addict, but let’s not go the wrong direction here. I have distaste for fowl and my wife is on the opposite end of the spectrum. She loves it. I deboned what felt like 500 (but was only five or six) of these greasy little chicks and had to smell that smell that is still stuck in my nasal cavity and probably will be until Easter. (That is when that other horrible smell fills the house: eggs, which of course come from chickens.) Let’s put it this way. I was on the verge of heaving up whatever I had eaten that day if I had to touch one more bird, smell one more chicken crisping, see one more bowl of broth. That’s it. I am boycotting chicken for six months. (Oh yeah, did I mention we have soup leftovers?) Sheesh, it never ends, a cackle berry nightmare from the likes of Stephen King.

…

Congrats to the champ, Jake “The Predator” Smith on adding one more state wrestling championship to the Lake Roosevelt Halls. He joins the likes of Orrin Gross, Kody Horn, Octavio Alejandra, Shane Innes and Shane Proctor. The other wrestlers are all young and will get their shot in the next few years. A lot of hardware will be coming from LR wrestling for the next few years.

…

I am getting old. I chased a couple of youngsters for about an hour Sunday night, and it wore me out. When did this happen? It was not long ago that I was the one getting chased, and now I have to take a breather after about 15 minutes of “Monster Chase.” Hmmm, just had an idea for a new diet. Forget shakes and fasts. Who needs a home gym anyway? Just go play with a couple of kids for an hour a day. Sweat away all that chicken fat and addiction to bread and desserts. Kids, the new Zumba Class.

…

A herd of deer can be seen almost every morning by the Eagles Lodge. Guess they couldn’t make it home either. What is this neighborhood coming to? Someone should at least offer to give them a ride home so they are not there for the fawns to see on the way to school.

…

Sign of the times. It used to be that parents would keep their kids in the car while they went into the bar to have “just one more.” But over the weekend I witnessed a stroller and two toddlers waiting patiently outside B Street Bud (still not on B Street) for their mother or babysitter or whoever it was that just had to make that purchase. Hmmm, just saying.