This morning we ate at Hall’s Chop House for Brunch.  We always pass by this place when we are up that way.  Greenberg’s.   I invariably wonder how Mexican, or Spanish, Juanita Greenberg is.   It doesn’t sound Mexican.  Maybe Juanita married Saul Greenberg, or something.  One of these days, I’m going to pop in and have a taco.  I’ll try to strike up a conversation with ol’ Juanita, and ask her….  unless she doesn’t look like the “asking” type.  I mean…… she might just tell me where to stick my jalepeno pepper.

But what I really speculate about is the “claim to fame” on the front door.  “World Famous for Margaritas”

Hmmmm.  Now here’s a little dive on King Street in Charleston, SC, named Juanita Greenberg’s.  I’m wondering just how “World Famous” those Margaritas can be.  What constitutes “world famous”?  If I go…… let’s say….   to Madrid, and stop Carlos Garcia Ramirez on the street…. do you think he’ll know this place?   Or, is it, that someone from a cruise ship… maybe someone from Tokyo, drank a Margy at this establishment?  Then they went back to Japan.  So, now is it world famous?   This gives me hope of hopes, actually.

I mean,   someone from England once wrote me about this “Project”…. this Blog-Deal I do…. ( hate to call it a blog… but it is…. )  Any way, is my Project 368 World Famous because someone in England reads it?  I think there is one in Italy too.   If this is how it works… I can barely contain myself.

Polly Kronenberger’s Project Royale.  World Famous for Goofiness.

Snap. That is good.  Chicken Enchilada Good.  Matzo Ball Soup Good!

This is what I’ve been hearing for a fair amount of time….. from some of the people who are very much in tune with the Bible.  I read the whole Bible (New & Old), cover to cover, when I was in college.  As with many things I read, I didn’t retain it all.  So I had to look this up on the internet today…..

2011 AD—On May 21st, Judgment Day will begin and the rapture (the taking up into heaven of God’s elect people) will occur at the end of the 23-year great tribulation. On October 21st, the world will be destroyed by fire (7000 years from the flood; 13,023 years from creation).

I’ve been keeping my eye on the sky all day long.  So far, and we still have an hour to go…. but so far…. nothing here in Charleston, SC.  The people on the news said that Jesus would be coming down, and then the good people will be heading back upstairs with him.  I haven’t seen anyone moving up that way yet.  Which tells me one of two things…

1. The people citing this date as  “Rapture Day”  … might be off a little in their calculations.

2. There are no “elect people” here in Charleston, SC.

I can’t say, for sure, which it might be.  I’ve always heard that God was the only one privy to when all of this would come about.  Soooooo…… I am leaning toward #1.  I don’t think it could be #2….. as I know a whole big bunch of kind-hearted, loving, generous people in this neck of the woods….  At any rate, I’m heading out to the roof for the next hour or so, to keep my eye on the sky.  Swing by and sit with me tonight.  We’ll talk… especially if you have high apple pie, in the sky hopes……

…..most likely, I’ll just see you around tomorrow.

Sometimes, life feels very busy.  It seems like there just isn’t a minute to slow down and smell the grits….

But today, I snagged a little time on my way to a meeting, for photography.  So there I was, for a good 30 minutes or so, shooting under this scaffolding.  I found the shadows and angles quite interesting.  I could have spent another hour or so… out and about.. but had to get moving for my appointment.

So while exiting the scaffold area, I see this tag laying on the ground.  Yowza.  Say it isn’t so Clem!

What the heck?  “DO NOT REMOVE THIS TAG….. scaffold will go thru changes….”

Holy crap-a-moly.  I have some serous, serious issues with this ENTIRE scenario.

1.  If you are going to hang a warning tag, concerning the magnitude of something such as this… put the dang thing where it CAN NOT be removed!
2.  Again, for something of great importance…. such as this 5 story high scaffolding….please don’t use wording that is quite so ambiguous.  Exactly WHAT KIND of changes, I ask you?  Specifics would be optimal here.
3.  Finally, I use these marching periods when I write…… for effect……. or pause……  or to indicate vagueness, or obscurity………..HELLLLLOOOOOO??????    IF YOU ARE WRITING a dang warning tag for the lattice of death, please don’t use the multiple dot method of expression.  It indicates doubt.  Doubt!

Well, I am just snap-happy it didn’t undergo any big changes while I was lingering on the sidewalk underneath it….I need to find this T. Byerly person and share some strongly worded suggestions concerning writing practices in warning tags.  Yes. Not that I’m an expert on the subject.  But I think, “Run like hell.” would be much more appropriate.

Tonight I was going to write about the land of milk and honey… but I am so dang tired right now,  I have to get some shut eye……

I know the Land of Milk and Honey translates into a place of abundance……

I hope to go to sleep soon and get a bountiful amount of rest.

And dream of cows and bees, cranking out their bodily by-product in excess… Yep, that’s it….

Nighty.

The really good thing about sharing dinner with friends is…. well…. the obvious…. eating the great food.  But yes…..tonight we had a wonderful night out with a couple of pals.  Splendid cuisine, great company, but probably the best part is the engaging and entertaining conversation.

Tonight we had lots of it.  Loads of fun.  Our topics went from A to Z and back again.  From drunken ghosts to angry pregnant spiders to bungee cord jumping in Africa.

But wouldn’t you know, chicken feet came up… AGAIN.  Yes, again.   That is one topic we just can’t get away from with this couple…. Chicken Feet.  They are forever talking about it. “Say, Ted… can you pass the bread?  And while we’re on the subject, I found the BEST recipe for Chicken Feet Tacos.”

Tonight, we talked about the huge bags of chicken feet you can find at any Piggly Wiggly.  Right next to the humidor with all the cigars on Aisle 14.   How do you fix them?  How do you eat them?  How many feet can one person eat?

The last time we were with these friends, they went on and on about “Dancing with the Chickens” and the crazy chicken feet dance that so many of the chickens perform.

I’m telling you… these two know their chicken feet.  They said you can never have just one foot.  Finger licking good, they said.

How do you fix chicken feet?  I say you should go buy some Dr. Scholl’s Chicken Feet Inserts, for their little Chicken Shoes… but what do I know?

I said I would come up with a recipe tonight…. and here it is.  Five Spoon Rating at Chef2Chef….  YUM!  Can’t hardly wait to give THIS one a try…. not only does it have chicken feet… it also includes that OH SO GOOD fermented bean curd….. Bon Apetit!

=======================

Title: Chicken Feet
Yield: 1 Servings

Ingredients

1    chicken feet
1    oil for frying
1    (pickled) black beans
1    red fermented bean curd
1    garlic
1    hot pepper

Instructions

Put the chicken feet in a pot of boiling water for about 5 min. Then
deep-fry the chicken feet first (it’s called Jau (running) Yau (oil))
a little bit (how long? I haven’t tried that, but I think it should
be until the skin begins to swell). Then heat up the wok, add oil,
(pickled) black beans, red fermented bean curd, garlic, stir fry a
little bit, then put the chicken feet in, add hot pepper and some
water, and put the cover over the wok and just cook. For how long, I
imagine should be around 5-10 min. You can experiment on that.

leung@loc3.tandem.com soc.culture.singapore soc.culture.hongkong

========================

(Photo Illustration by Polly Kronenberger Photography; original stock image from Alibaba Chicken Manufacturing)

You know, I smell pretty good.  I don’t mean that my personal aroma is superb…. although most of the time…. it’s not bad.

I mean, I smell good with my nose.  I think it is true……. because my nose is uncommonly big.  I pick up on scents way before others, and I’m highly sensitive to smells, especially the foul variety.

Boy oh boy, can I ever smell a rat coming.  Yes indeedy….  I can smell a rat.  Most of the times, I can smell trouble too.

I’m a little high strung though.  My good friends always say that I should stop and smell the roses.  But a rose, by any other name, would still smell as sweet….

Other folks say that you should stop and smell the flour. I don’t really understand this one….and really….. it isn’t such a great idea…..I’ve come to find out.  I think the unbleached smells a lot better than the whole wheat flour, but both varieties make you sneeze like crazy.

What I really like to do is wake up and smell the coffee.  Like to smell it before I go to sleep too.  Which may explain  A LOT when it comes to being so high strung.

I used to think my nose was way too big.  Well.  Truth be told, I still do.  But it works…  and I’ve won a heck of a lot of races in my day.  Not by the skin of my teeth….. but by a nose….

It’s all common scents, really.

On many occasions, you can just look at certain things in life, and know that something has gone terribly wrong.   Oh, you know it right away.  You say to yourself…. “Something really bad went on here.  Yes, something went terribly wrong.”  A big, big mistake.

Take a look at the wall in this photo….  when I walked by this spot today, I  immediately sensed something wasn’t quite right.  I’m not entirely sure what happened here.  Apparently, there was an object affixed to this wall, something square-ish, I’d say.  And all at once, someone, or something, yanked the living daylights out of it, only to leave its spinal cord behind.  The action my have been on purpose… but it was an unacceptable mistake for the “thing on the wall”…. whatever it was.

This happens in history too.  The Hindenburg.  The Titanic.  Geraldo Rivera opening Al Capone’s Vault.  Whoopsy.

Other things aren’t so tragic, but still, horribly wrong.  The 63 year old woman, with the bleach blonde hair, tight mini skirt, striped tights, and really bad boots. Uggs, even.  Say it isn’t so.  Severe miscalculation.

Donald Trump’s hair.  Tragic.  However, unlike the Hindenburg, the “comb over” keeps happening over and over again.

Yes, bad mistakes seem to have been on a lot of people’s minds over time….

Napoleon said “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” If you have enemies, this is probably good advice.

Then we have Churchill….“All men make mistakes, but only wise men learn from their mistakes.” Question is… did he?

Finally, my dude, Big Al Einstein.  “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” Yep, good ol’ Al.  Leave it to him… to make some sense of mistakes.

Around this town, the sidewalks are like obstacle courses.  The surface is ragged, rough, jaggy, and filled with bumps in the bricks, I’ll tell you.  We’ve had several friends bite the dust while visiting.  Face Plants 101.

Yep, you gotta’ be careful when you walk around this town.  So I look down quite frequently when I walk… which is just about everywhere.

You see a lot when you keep your head down.  It keeps you out of trouble too.

But one thing I’ve noticed here.  We have a great deal of plain ol’ water meters on the walks.  And every now and again, you will see a “Heavy Water Meter”….  Is it really for heavy water, or something else?  By definition, heavy water is water highly enriched in the hydrogen isotope deuterium.  It has something to do with nuclear energy production…. and has quite a complicated history.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_water

I can’t sort it all out really… but I’ve gathered that people have been killed over heavy water production.  Yes, knocked off by foreign hit men, and such.  I think I spotted such an individual today… near one of these meters.  He had a super soaker under his coat.

I just kept my head down…..

I’m not entirely sure about the “cat” thing.

In the United States, 39% of the households own a dog.  Not far behind are cats, with 33% of residences owning a cat.  ( Stats on this. )    I know a lot of people really love their feline companions.  I had an stupendously amazing cat once.  Once.  His name was Bud. Smart.  Sweet.  I just liked to be around him.  That was a long time ago.  Maybe I’m remembering things with my rose colored glasses on…..

Now I have a cat who eats and poops.  I feed her, and then I clean her poop.  That’s about where the relationship ends.  I don’t think she likes me, or anyone else for that matter.   As she has gotten older…. she let’s people touch her every now and again… but not very often.

I’m not sure what the point is really.  I think I’ve seen her twice today.  When I fed her in the morning, and when I fed her in the evening.  This morning, I scooped up a lot of her poop and pee from the catbox.  Every day…. second verse….. same as the first.

She has neat paws.  I guess that’s something.

There’s an old saying… “Don’t let the cat out of the bag.”  Good advice.  But first, you have to get her IN to the bag……

I love the Beatles.  Not all their songs, but a lot.    They wrote a song for me when I was a baby… entitled “I am the Walrus.”  As you can see.  I WAS the walrus.

I know a smidge of Beatle Trivia, here and there…. and I can tell you this:
As a band…they ROCKED!  However, they were a very unsettled group of men.  They didn’t always get along…. as often runs true with highly creative and talented types.

…..and one of their biggest arguments was about vegetables.  Quite frequently, they had to dine together, especially while on the road, and at social engagements.  They were split right down the middle about veggies.  Most folks didn’t know that Paul and George had a real liking for corn.  They insisted on “something” corn-laden at every meal.  John loathed corn…  Ringo didn’t actually give a Strawberry Field, one way or the other.

The argument went on for years.  Finally, John was literally, fed up… he’d had quite enough… Sooooooo…… he wrote a song about it.

“….. all we are saying…. is give Peas a chance…..”

It went on to be a very successful hit, although often mistaken for an anti-war anthem.

St. Francis…. same deal.  “Let there be Peas on Earth….”

John didn’t like Salt either… so we got Sargent Pepper…..  I think Sargent Salt’s Lonely Heart Club Band would have been better… but then again… I am a pretty big fan of corn….  Coo  Coo Ca Choo…..Ca Coo Coo Ca-Choo.