#13 - backyard yumfun.

i spent this past weekend up in n.h. at the parents' house, celebrating my father's retirement from the the u.s.p.s. after 38+ years of service. government jobs are strange animals that breed interesting people. these jobs & people have things like pensions & grievances & overtime rules & seniority & pay scales & a union. whereas my father had all these things, i, at the one job at which i even had the chance to join a union (when i worked for b.u. after college), chose not to join, half because i felt unions pressured people into joining & half because i couldn't afford it. oh to be a naive 23-year-old again.

the retirement gathering was on saturday at the house of one of my 6'0" tall almost-16-year-old brother's friends, whose father my father has become friends with. they live in a house with a yard that slopes down from the road past the house & some landscaping into the backyard, where the grass continues downward around the pool & pool house and rolls for a while before hitting the sand area, featuring a horseshoe pit & bocce court. off to the side, there is a shed & behind it all, there are two tall trees, from which they have hung a 30' x 50' screen that they pull out at will to project movies onto in front of the forest. one phrase i overheard from one of the more-grownup-than-me grown ups was "he must have at least an acre here." i am not the one to verify acreage, but i was duly impressed with the environs.

it was a perfect day weather wise & a 4pm start time gave the heat a chance to partially subside. after three hours of yummy catered food & homemade salads of both the fruit & vegetable variety, the sun began to go down & our hosts capped off the meal with a table full of cookies & treats, of which i chose...

#13 - backyard yumfun.
snack: many dainty canollis
drink: iced cappuccino

...& we waited quite a while for the sun to go down so we could watch the slideshow my brother & his friend had thrown together in the hours before the party. the husband host offered up coffee beverages. i was away at the restroom & missed when he initially took orders, but when i returned & saw people with cups that featured a straw sticking out of them & a whipped cream topping, that changed faster than you can say "gimme." turned out they were iced cappuccinos & turns out it was the best iced cappuccino i have ever had...ever...in the history of me.

coming into the gathering, i had expected that, given the flagpole that jutted out of the sand area & held both a large italian flag & a large american flag, that the evening's dessert would feature either tiramisu or cannoli...either way, i knew victory would be mine, yumwise & when they brought out the boxes of dainty cannolis, my tastebuds flashed the ol' V sign.

as we waited for it to be dark enough for the slide show, i passed the time with my tasty treats & a conversation with my dad's friend/our childhood dentist, a man who, when i was a kid i thought of as "preachy." now that i'm an "adult," he is "opinionated." during our chat, his wife brought up this youtube clip, which captures him at his dental office on this january's nh primary day working on a patient whilst talking politics. he commented that it had over 1000 hits already.

finally, the sun went down & my brother put on the slide show. we got to see my father graduating, in various poses with the four children and in a series of photoshopped photos that placed him in canada, paris & italy (where he also had a photoshopped afro & sunglasses). among the photos were photos of me, my oldest brother & my sister as "adults." as my teenage brother had put the whole thing together that afternoon, he pulled this photo of me off myspace & it became the adult photo representation of my dad's eldest son:

i would have gone with one where i wasn't half blinking & at a party, but that's just me...& in a time that lasted in the area of two minutes, the slideshow looped back around & was over. soon after, the guests started to head for home. i hung around for a while & left with my mom for home, with approx. fifty pounds of food in my belly, all topped with dainty cannolis & iced cappuccino.

#3 - XTREME PROMOTION!!!

back in nh for the evening, i went for a quick drive with my mother down the street to the windham shaw's supermarket. growing up & until less than ten years ago, the area where the shaw's is was forest next to the commuter parking lot. now it is another version of the most well known new england grocery store with its organic/health food section & great deals & fresh produce tips & whatnot.

after perusing a number of aisles for snacks, we eventually ended up at the organic food section, where i picked up a bag of eden organic spicy pumpkin dry roasted seeds. each serving of these organic bad boys contains 16g of fat, but amongst that fat, there are oodles of omegas & poly & mono fats & junk of that nature..."good fats."

on top of this most spicy & healthy purchase, an end cap display caught my attention near the back of the store, a display that featured a snack that paired a certain swashbuckling doctor with a certain candy mainstay...

#3 - EXTREME PROMOTION!!!
snack: adventures of indiana jones mint crisp m&ms
drink: mountain dew voltage

over the years, i've really become more of a nuts man when it comes to m&ms, with almond emerging as my clear favorite amongst the flavors. even in the basic setup, where the candy display features only plain & peanut, peanut wins 99 out of 100 times.

there have been a number of m&m incarnations through the years & there have been a number of mint editions amongst these. these indiana jones mint ones bring a little crunch bar action into the mix & some of them are branded with cute little indiana jones symbols, like ones where the "m's" printed on the candy shell are wearing an indy hat or the evil ones, where the "m" is inside of a CRYSTAL SKULL! these ones are slightly spooky & probably haunted. as told by the legend on their website (which i highly recommend going to so that m&m/mars can claim higher click-thru rates & charge more $ for their online promotions)...

many centuries ago, mayan rulers discovered a minty snack so deliciously crispy that it was hidden in a secret room deep in an underground maze, never to be tasted again...until now.

SPOO. KEY. anyhow, i was always more of a star wars man, so i'm not going to see the movie anyhow...but i will listen to the theme song on constant loop as i type this post.

to wash down my m&ms, i went to the fridge, which my mother had stocked with two twelve packs of mountain dew for my soon-to-be-driving younger brother. the two flavors--voltage & revolution--are part of a promotion that plays off of the current presidential campaign by creating what is cleverly known as a DEWmocracy. get it? i went with voltage, since it seemed more amp'd & i like that in a soft drink.

the story behind the DEWmocracy is that fans of this pepsi beverage get to vote on their favorite of three brand new flavors (all of which contain ginseng, absolutely beloved by the kids these days). at the completion of the campaign (which comes in only 46 days as of today), the most voted-on flavor joins the mountain dew canon. this is all explained quite clearly on the website, which you should go to so that pepsi co can claim higher click-thru rates & charge more $ for their online promotions, etc...

another fun fact...more people will likely vote in this campaign than in the general election. right now, voltage is the clear front-runner in the race. it makes me feel good to have picked a beverage that, if this trend continues, will stand tall as the clear winner on august 1st...voting is totally EXTREME TO THE MAX!!!