Picture Pages - Lil' Mans

Happy Birthday, Gregs!

I love you, little cousin.

You know, she'd be real proud of the man you've become.

... even if she saw this ...
*wink*

I hope you had a great birthday, yesterday!

Kennedy

I was born in February 1977, almost 14 years after John Kennedy was assassinated and 9 years after his brother Bobby met the same fate. I doubt my parents are even old enough to remember where they were when JFK was shot. I wonder then, why I still manage to get choked up at the old news footage of the assassinations, the funerals, and all of it. You'd think, by not having my own personal remembrances of those events, and by the shear amount of times I've seen the footage, that it wouldn't affect me. I should be desensitized to it. Besides the general tragedy of it all, it just shouldn't affect me like it does. But it does. Every time. I always get that lump in my throat and make a little squeak, trying to hold back the emotion.

I guess it must have something to do with the mystique and the legend of it all, right? For all of my life, the fascination with the Kennedy family has been there, and it's made them our Royal family, for lack of a better term. We care about them.

When we all mourned the death of JFK Jr. in 1999, I was 22. I remember it vividly. Saturday morning, sitting in the living room on NW 34th St, by myself. I cried. And of course, when you think of JFK Jr., you think of that image of a little child, saluting his father's casket as it passed, so many years ago. And that's what chokes me up, to this day. That old footage, from a time when change might have really mattered. I wonder where we'd be now, if it had all happened differently.

A few months ago, I watched a documentary on the Kennedy family, on OETA. It was so interesting. There's so much about the family that I didn't know. Before watching this 2 hour show, I knew about the tragedy and a little about the family secrets. Rosemary's story, for example, is very sad. The competition between the siblings was so intense when they were growing up. I read a while ago, that some believe Rosemary was actually a normal child, who basically just broke from the pressure of not being at the high level that her siblings were at, intellectually. The theory is that in a "regular/normal" family, she wouldn't have had any mental issues at all. It's an interesting, though disturbing, thought.

That same documentary also shed a lot of light on who JFK really was. You always think of him as The Good Guy. But he was so shrewd. Of course, in his position, he had to be. But it was shocking to hear just how cunning he was. He seemed so underhanded in a lot of ways. It was unsettling to think about. But why was it unsettling? He's long since dead and has no more influence, good or bad. However, hearing something that makes him seem so much less than perfect, is sort of like hearing that your Grandma spent a night in jail when she was 16. You have to remind yourself that she wasn't always the person you knew. And JFK definitely wasn't always the person that you hear about now. The dead are almost always saints, especially when surrounded by so much tragedy.

Now, with the death of Ted Kennedy on Wednesday, it's sort of the end of it all, isn't it? Do we care about the rest of them? Of course, we care because they are human beings, but do we still care, because they are Kennedys? I don't think so, honestly. I think it's all over. That legend is officially dead and will soon be buried.

Will it matter? Will this nation be any different now that our Royal family is gone? Time will tell.

As a side note, I also wonder how Mary Jo Kopechne's family feels today? I'm sure for them, the mystique a lot of us feel, was dead a long time ago.

Recipe Review - Whole Wheat Biscuits

FLUFFY WHOLE WHEAT BISCUITS

INGREDIENTS
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1 cup milk

DIRECTIONS
In a medium bowl, combine flours, baking powder, sugar, and salt; mix well. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in milk just until moistened. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface; knead gently 8 to 10 times. Roll to 3/4-in. thickness; cut with a 2-1/2-in. biscuit cutter and place on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake at 450 degrees F for 10 to 12 minutes or until lightly browned. Serve warm.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Fluffy-Whole-Wheat-Biscuits/Detail.aspx

These biscuits were not fluffy. They were actually pretty heavy, and didn't really have a biscuit-like texture at all. And as you can see, if you compare my photo to the photo in the link, they didn't look at all like fluffy biscuits either. Instead of eating a biscuit, it was more like chowing down on a big hunk of wheat bread. I'm all for homemade wheat bread, and might actually end up making these again, to have with dinner one night. However, they did not go very well with our breakfast of scrambled eggs and sausage.

Please take into consideration, that it's entirely possible that I did something wrong when making these biscuits. Other than cakes and sweets, I've not done a lot of baking. I don't have a lot of bread making experience, and unfortunately, Keith likes canned biscuits, so I've been lazy about perfecting that particular craft. I'm able to make my Grandma's biscuit recipe turn out a lot better than these though.

The recipe specifies that these biscuits should be baked on an ungreased baking sheet. In my opinion, they might need a little grease to give them the right outer texture - that little bit of a layer of bite that good biscuits need. If I ever were to try them again, I'd brush hot oil on them before baking, and see if that helps.

Also, I baked these biscuits 3 minutes longer than recipe called for. I was trying to get them to "lightly brown" but it didn't seem to help. They didn't brown at all.

As Keith was not at all impressed with these biscuits, I had a lot of leftovers. I decided to bag them up and take them to work with me. They've made for a good breakfast snack, after bring microwaved and slathered in peanut butter. I'll be having the last of them later this morning. Peanut butter makes anything better.

So, in closing, you might want to give them a try if you're a better baker than me. But if you want a sure thing, skip this recipe. If I ever try baking these biscuits again, I'll be sure to update you on the outcome.

Stay tuned for more reviews, and please leave a comment if you have any suggestions for me. Well, actually, you can feel free to leave a comment even if you don't have a suggestion.

Doctor Who?

When I was little, Dr. Yates' office was a comforting place. While most kids don't enjoy going to the doctor, I always did, in a way. I think it's because I knew that shortly after I left there, I'd probably be feeling better. And I knew that because... he gave me medicine when I needed it, he did blood work to try to find out what was wrong, his nurse put a band-aid on my butt after I got a shot, or whatever. Basically, he just did his job. He was old-school. He was kind, but he told it like it was. He smoked a pipe in the exam room and it didn't even seem strange back then. Oh lord, imagine if that was to take place in this day and age. The lawsuits! The newspaper articles! It would be pandemonium.

You see, when I was little, there were two things "wrong" with me. First, I developed what Dr. Yates called "nervous stomach" when I started the first grade. I complained of an upset stomach so many mornings, that eventually I had to go see the doctor. He said it was most likely my nerves, and gave me this horrible tasting green medicine. To this day, I still sometimes wonder if the medicine was real, or made up to make me think it was helping a stomach ache. Don't get me wrong, my stomach really did hurt, but I mostly just didn't want to go to school. Man, that stuff was really awful. I can't even describe it. But if I think about it, I can still taste it. Actually, you know what it tasted like? It tasted the way heartburn feels... all the way down.

The other issue I had, was with my ears. I got a lot of ear infections and my eardrums were apparently inferior in some way, because they burst, twice. That's another thing I can remember vividly; that pain is the worst pain I've ever felt. I can remember laying on the living room couch, just wanting it to go away. My dad had stayed up with me that night, which was strange. I begged to go see Dr. Yates, so he would make it better. Unfortunately it was the middle of the night, so there wasn't much that could be done. Sometime later, after another ear infection, I heard Dr. Yates tell whoever was there with me - I'm sure it was either my mom or my Grandma - that if I got another one, I'd have to get tubes in my ears. I had no idea what that meant, but I knew it didn't sound fun. Thankfully, I either grew out of getting ear infections, or talked myself out of another one. It was about 22 years before I had one again. And let me tell you, the ear infection I had as an adult was just as miserable as all the ones from my childhood.

Anyway, the point is, I lived through it all. I was never afraid to get a shot or have my temperature taken, and I think that means something. I wish I could thank Dr. Yates now, for giving me that sense of security when I was young. I have a feeling he'd just tell me he was doing his job.

Dr. Yates retired when I was a teenager. I didn't go to a doctor again for probably 5 or so years. Since then, I've been through four or five other doctors. Each time I've swtiched, it was beacuse they moved, or retired, or started only doctoring commercial pilots, or something random like that. I didn't stop seeing them because I didn't like them. Well, except the one in The Village. He was just awful. But overall, I've been basically satisfied.

I like the doctor I go to now. He's a nice enough guy, and he seems to care. But I still long for the comfort I felt when I was young. Nowadays I'm not always convinced that I'll really be feeling better soon after I see him. I don't know if it's the health care system, if it's the fault of insurance agencies, or if it's just the fact that we live in a much more fast paced society, but things just aren't the way they used to be. Getting us in and out, as fast as possible, seems to be the policy these days. And that's if you can even get an appointment in the first place.

I have no idea what might work to improve the medical situation in this country, but I know a lot of people have a lot of different ideas. I also know that I'm one of the lucky ones, because I do have really good insurance that I don't have to pay a lot for. However, I guess I still need to go read the newspaper or something, and try to educate myself on the whole situation. I'm 32 now, and Dr. Yates isn't going to start practicing again anytime soon. I might has well learn to live with that.

Picture Pages - My Earliest Memory

Just a few notes of interest for this photo:

1. This photo possibly represents my earliest conscious memory. I remember them shoving cake into each other's mouths. I'm pretty sure that's a true memory.

2. I was 3 in 1980, which is the year this photo was taken. My Aunt Becky (left) was around 19 or 20. I'm not sure how old Brian (right) was, but I'd guess maybe 22 at most.

3. That's my Grandma in the middle. This photo was taken in her kitchen, during Brian and Becky's wedding reception.

4. I remember that wallpaper and those curtains. I even remember the curtains in the enclosed back porch - through the door, behind Grandma. And, I just have to mention it again - that wallpaper!!! - that wallpaper is epic.

5. I still know the number that would make that big black phone on the wall ring. I've called it a few times in the past 12 years. Someone else answers it now.

6. One of the other, most vivid memories of my life, was in that same room. It was a Saturday in the mid 90s, and my parents and I were there for our Saturday visit. The phone rang, and we found out that Brian had died. He was my uncle by marriage, and that marriage had ended a few years before, but he was still a part of our family. He was my cousin Kristen's dad, and we all loved him. RIP Brian.