He’s a great kid, well liked by his peers, and adults get a kick out of his good manners and respect for his elders. My wife and I get compliments all the time. I guess I should just hold on to these memories because if he ever makes it in the vicious cesspool that is “Hollywood” all I’ll have are memories.

I try not to listen to all the hype when the “media” pounces on a celebrity’s misstep/missfortune, but it’s difficult to ignore when it’s blared on all channels/stations all the time. The most recent victim of media-rhea is Tiger Woods.

Don’t misunderstand me. I know he screwed up, and it was all his fault, but couldn’t he have fallen from grace without the dirt diggers throwing away their trowels and replacing them with diesel powered backhoes to find #13, or #17, or whatever number he is up to? His disgrace should be a very private matter between a married couple and really, no one elses business. Now with all the press, and humiliation this has caused his wife and her family there will be less chance for this family to heal. Again, I am not condoning his actions, but forgiveness and repentance might have stood a fighting chance without the limelight.

If Mr. Woods worked at Walmart stocking shelves and golfed only on the weekends for fun I don’t think he would be married to his current wife (I doubt she would have given him a second look), and I doubt the media would care, or even have known, if he was promiscuous. Sometimes it’s good to be a “nobody”.

Looks like I went somewhat off tangent there. I guess I just want my son to know that all that glitters isn’t gold, and if you rub the luster off of celebrity it is the most tarnished piece of faux jewelry that carries a hefty price tag. I love him too much to see his potential future failings, whose fires will be stoked by celebrity to begin with, broadcast throughout a media hungry world.

Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and soon the month long feasting and imbibing (Thanksgiving until New Years Day) will begin.

I want to share a turkey brine recipe, and some tips, with those of you that will bravely try to fry turkey for the first time this year. I guarantee, after you taste fried turkey it will be the last time you’ll want to cook a turkey in the oven.

I found this brine recipe on the internet a few years ago, and have been tweaking it every Thanksgiving.

Ingredients:
6 quarts hot water
2 Bulbs of crushed garlic
1 pound kosher salt
1 pound dark brown sugar
5 pounds ice
1 (13 to 14-pound) turkey, with giblets removed
Approximately 4 to 4 1/2 gallons peanut oil*

Other necessary items:
FIRE EXTINGUISHER!!!
Turkey Fryer Kit (pot, stand, propane, tools, etc.) 
Meat Thermometer
Candy Thermometer
Old long sleeved shirt
Thick Leather gloves/Cooking Mits
Several gallon sized zip-lock bags
Aluminum Foil

***** TAKE HEED! – THIS STEP COULD SAVE YOUR LIFE, OR YOUR HOUSE! *****
In order to determine the correct amount of oil, place the turkey into the pot that you will be frying it in, add tap water just until it barely covers the top of the turkey and is at least 4 to 5 inches below the top of the pot. Pull the turkey out, and take note of the water level in the pot without the bird. This will be the amount of oil you use for frying the turkey. Pour the tap water out.

MAKING THE BRINE (the evening before frying):
Place the hot water, garlic, kosher salt and brown sugar into the cold fryer pot and stir until the salt and sugar dissolve completely. Add the ice and stir until the mixture is cool. Gently lower the turkey into the container. If necessary, weigh down the bird to ensure that it is fully immersed in the brine.  Fill 1 or 2 gallon sized zip-lock bags with ice, or water and close the bags. Use these bags to weigh down the buoyant bird. The reason we do this is to keep the water/ice in the bag from diluting the carefully measured brine. Cover and set in a cool dry place for 8 to 16 hours.

FRYING THE BIRD:
After 8-16 hours remove the turkey from the brine, rinse and pat dry. Allow to sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes prior to cooking. Dump the brine (do not save, or reuse).

WARNING: Regardless of how cold it is outside, DO NOT fry turkey indoors, or in the garage. If an accident happens it is better to set your grass on fire, than your carpet. Be safe. Do it outdoors, and do it a good distance away from any flammable structure.

Place the oil into the turkey fryer, and set over high heat on an outside propane burner with a sturdy structure. While checking with a candy thermometer, bring the temperature of the oil to 250 degrees F. Once the temperature has reached 250, slowly lower the bird into the oil and bring the temperature to 350 degrees F. Once it has reached 350, lower the heat in order to maintain 350 degrees F. After 35 minutes, check the temperature of the turkey using a probe thermometer (Make sure to insert the probe in the thickest part of the breast, and not contacting the rib cage. This will provide a false high reading). Once the breast reaches 151 degrees F gently remove from the oil, cover with a loose tent of Aluminum foil, and allow to rest for a minimum of 30 minutes prior to carving. Once the bird reaches an internal temperature of 161 degrees F, due to carry over cooking, carve as desired and serve.

Note: On cold windy days I set up a wind break around the fryer. I use 2 pieces of ductwork that almost completely surrounds the pot. This keeps the outside surface of the pot warm as the rising heat from the propane burner warms the space in between the ductwork and the outer pot wall. I don’t enclose it completely as that would suffocate the flame from lack of oxygen, and be unsafe.

Happy Thanksgiving to all! ENJOY!!!

After church last Sunday I took the family to a local Chinese Buffet establishment. At the front door there is a little waterfall vignette with a moat around it. My daughter marched right up to the moat, dipped her right hand in the water, started making the sign of the cross, recited “paw, san, hoy spit, emen”, which in grown up speak stands for: In the name of the Father, and of the Son and The Holy Spirit, Amen. We all had a big giggle over her zeal.

After lunch we went to the grocery store do some shopping. As we walked in the store my wife asked me to change the baby’s diaper as she started shopping and we’d meet up in store later.

I took the baby in the Men’s Room and plopped her on the changing table. After I changed her diaper, I put her back down on Terra Firma and started putting away assorted diaper changing paraphernalia. I heard a little voice say “paw, san, hoy……..”, and I turned around to see what she was doing.

She had walked over to the little boy’s urinals and had dipped her hand in the unholy liquid.

I let out a blood curdling shriek that scared her stiff. I grabbed her wrist before she could put any of the pee water on her person, ran to the sink, and washed our hands, and her forehead(just in case), in the hottest water we could stand, with loads and loads of soap.

After I dried her hands we rushed out of the Men’s Room, I dumped her in a shopping cart and we hurried to a portion of the store that I knew had complimentary anti-bacterial gel in a convenient wall mounted pump dispenser. I continued to pump alcohol laced gel on our hands and scrubbed, and scrubbed, and scrubbed until I felt reasonably certain that all the germs, and a few layers of skin, were completely gone.

*DEEP BREATHLY!*

Maybe we need to convert. Buddhism perhaps? Ommmmmm……

According to the Roman Zodiac I am a Libra. It’s the Scales which symbolize Libra, and just like that balancing mechanism wants to stay even, Librans want to be on an even keel.

I want to confess I have a sickness. I don’t know what it is called (probably OCD), but I do know it exists. I feel the need to have sets, pairs, or kits of things. Nothing makes me happier than a complete tool kit, with every single socket in its intended spot. On the flipside, nothing makes me feel despair (yes, it’s that bad) like an empty spot in the tool kit from a socket, or when a 12 piece flatware set has a missing teaspoon. I have been known to spend 4 hours tearing apart the garage looking for a missing 3mm socket (a useless socket size that comes in the kits) that I didn’t need for the 10 minute job I needed the 7mm socket to do.

Recently I needed to start getting allergy shots 2 times a week for 4 months. I hated the thought of getting shots and was going to ask them to stagger the shots, left arm on Mondays, right arm on Thursdays, just so I could get the balance of both arms hurting. When I arrived at the Doctors office for my first shot I was “pleasantly” surprised to find out that I was allergic to so many things that they had to give me 2 shots per day, one in each arm. Oh joy – true balance. See, a sickness. I told you.

My two youngest children are Libras just like me. I noticed my 9 year old son’s penchant for sets and kits a long time ago and chalked it up to just having a similar personality as mine. The recent occurrences regarding my 2 year old daughter, however, took us completely by surprise.

Last weekend, on her second birthday, I sat and played with my little girl and I marveled at the changes she had gone through just in the last year. There were the visible physical changes, but what struck me most was her burgeoning personality. I play rough with all my kids. No one gets treated differently because they are girls. I might hold back on the baby a bit, but that is just because she’s still small, but that too will change as she gets older. I made her voice sound funny as I playfully batted at her cheeks with my right hand. She was giggling and laughing until I stopped. “NO, NO DADDY!” she shrieked. “OTHER HAND!” she demanded. So I continued the cheek patting with my left hand as she continued to enjoy herself.  I thought about it for a bit and, after a few pensive minutes, came to the conclusion that the odd behavior was due to being a Libra, just like me. She wanted the balance of equal cheek smacking time from both hands. We all had a chuckle at her silliness.

Another instance: We have two mirrors in the bathroom upstairs and after she gets her ponytails done in the morning she has to look at herself in both mirrors before giving them the “stamp of approval”. When we don’t have enough time we do the “Fountain”. We collect all the hair on the top of her head and tie it up with one rubber band. She dislikes the mono-pigtail, but will tolerate it if she gets to see it in both mirrors.

I cited her other odd behaviors to my wife, ones that we’ve had difficulty understanding until now, which served no other purpose than to solidify the Libra stigma.  My wife rolled her eyes and said, “you and all your kids are freaks”. Having no evidence for a rebuttal, I concurred.

My Roman Zodiac Sign = Libra

My Chinese Zodiac Sign = Monkey

It started out like any normal day at a major attraction. The lines into the building snaked around the facility’s grounds, the sun was beating down on us. Children complained, parents grumbled. Finally getting into the building was a treat. We paid our admission fee and blended into the crowd of stroller pushing shlubs.

We meandered through the aquarium’s many vignettes, alcoves and rooms that peppered the facility until we came to a large enclosure that housed animals of the Pacific Northwest coast. Because it was supposed to emulate the Northwest I looked forward to it being nice and cool. Instead it was hot, crowded and noisy. A very large group of people dressed in bright yellow T-Shirts had taken over the facility and were climbing all over the chairs, handrails and static exhibits, shouting, laughing and yelling as they cavorted around the furniture. There were other people with the same yellow shirts with the words "STAFF", or some other similar word, emblazoned across their shirts scurrying about trying to keep the peace, but because of a combination of the staffers ages, inexperience, and general "outnumbered-ness" they were doing a pretty inefficient job of it.

I took a quick assessment of the situation and realized that the group was made up of individuals of varying ages and mental disabilities. I loosened my jaw and calmed down a bit. I have a difficult time with unruly behavior. I don’t allow my kids to act like wild animals, specially in public, and I expect other parents to do the same. This situation was different however, so I went from rolling boil down to tolerant simmer.

My baby sister belongs to a "Type C" group and they go on field trips all the time. She is considered "High Functioning", similar to some of the aforementioned yellow clad individuals, and is extremely affectionate – sometimes to the chagrin of family members. I am pretty familiar with individuals, and groups, of this nature.

I scanned the main room and found a small observation area tucked away behind a submarine display where we could view the Beluga Whales under water . I navigated my family through the melee and hustled them into the cavern like doorway. I breathed a sigh of relief as we ducked in and I started looking at all the informational plaques and doodads on the wall

Only a couple of minutes went by before I heard exited female voices shouting a boy’s name and "NO! STRANGER, STRANGER!" repeatedly. My parent radar snapped on as I whipped around and looked towards the source of the commotion. I fully expected to see a little boy running towards a group of people he didn’t know as his smother-mother ran after him, instead all I could see was a large, towering, big boned man on the other side of the little room as he lumbered quickly towards me. Two 5′ 2"/ 100 lb. women were wrapped around his waist and arms, trying desperately to keep him from walking in my direction. We locked eyes as he barreled towards me, as oblivious of these two small women as he would have been had he had dryer sheets stuck to his shirt. I reluctantly readied myself for a physical confrontation.

In the few seconds after bracing myself I realized that although he was much larger than I was, and his unblinking gaze looked very determined, he meant me no harm. He wore a yellow shirt, just like the rest of the group, and an inordinately small child’s backpack was strapped to his back. The "dryer sheet’s" shirts helped clue me in also.

He finally reached me and grasped my shoulders as I put my hands on his shoulders to hold him at bay. This finally gained the girls some leverage. He struggled to pull me towards him as one of them caught her composure and sternly said his name along with "He’s a stranger! We don’t hug strangers!" to no avail.

I realized that developmentally he was probably the equivalent of a five year old and only wanted some affection, so I told the girls that it was OK (like there was any difference at this point). I loosened my grip on his shoulder and he gave me a big bear hug (something my sister likes to do to me). I hugged him back and patted his back. After a few seconds he gave me a gentle kiss on the cheek, released his hug, and allowed the girls to easily lead him away from the small crowd that had developed behind us. One girl gently, but firmly, tried to reinforce the "STRANGER!" rule to him as the other, in damage control mode, apologized to me profusely, and thanked me for understanding. I waved off her apology telling her there was nothing to apologize for.

As they walked away I unclenched every joint, and muscle and tried to shrug off the adrenaline. I knew that I had just broken a cardinal rule that the staffers try to reinforce to all their "kids" time and time again, but just saw no other way around the situation. I hoped they understood my position, and I hoped I didn’t just undermine everything they worked so hard to instill in their wards.

I replayed the incident in my mind several times over the course of the day and tried to figure out why he was so focused on hugging me specifically. There were other people in that room, and I am not particularly cuddly or huggable, just ask anybody who knows me (If I were a zoo animal I’d be more of a porcupine, skunk, or possibly even that dung flinging monkey). Of all the people that it could have happened to that day I’m glad, and thankful, it happened to me! Can you imagine how bad it could have been for him had he chosen to hug a jumpy homophobe, jacked up on testosterone, as he tried to impress his cadre of similarly minded, intolerant friends (I saw a few of those in the facility that day). The outcome could have been very, very different.