Bring it on, Winter

Your days are numbered, Winter. Even though I’m sure you’re feeling rather smug right now, you should keep in mind that this is the beginning of the end.I know you’ve got some big things planned for us over the next few days. The meteorologists say that we might not get out of the single digits on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. Tom Skilling, Chicago’s weather guru, warns that seventy-nine-year-old weather records may fall.Good job, Winter. I hope you enjoy it.Here’s the situation, Winter. This is Rocky IV. We’re Rocky Balboa and you’re Ivan Drago. You’ve been beating the crap out of us round after round. You’re bigger, you’re intimidating, you’ve given us a couple of black eyes and our lip’s cut open.Those cold days in January were like thunderous body blows from the powerful Russian, and the Super Bowl snowstorm felt like a right hook to the jaw. And to make matters worse, we’ve had “trainers” in our corner who say annoying shit like “Cold enough for ya?” and “I’d rather be cold than hot,” and “Isn’t the snow pretty?”They’re trying to help. They’re trying to motivate us. Sometimes it works. But most of the time I just want to punch them.We’re tough though. The early rounds are over, and we’re battered. In mid-November, when we felt those first twenty-degree days, I swear that I heard the cold wind utter Drago’s famous pre-fight words, “I must break you.”Bad news, Winter. We’re still here. And like Rocky Balboa, we’re still on our feet.For the next couple of days you’re taking big swings at us. Go ahead. Because we’re at that moment in the fight where Rocky lands the first big punch against Drago. It’s a solid right to the eye, followed by shouts of “He’s cut, he’s cut!”You’re cut, Winter. And your half-hot, half-scary wife just stood up in the crowd, and she’s worried. You’re not invincible. In fact, maybe we’ve got your number. You know it. Your harsh wife knows it. But more importantly, we know it.You’re on the run, and we’re just getting started.The next two days, when you try to bring down some cold Arctic air to freeze certain parts off of our body, this is your last chance. It’s the cheap shot that Drago takes on Rocky after the bell rings, when he grabs him by throat and punches him in the face.But like Rocky, we’re not going to take it. We’re going to pick you up and throw you to the ground like a wrestler. “It’s a gutter war! No holds barred!”When I’m walking from the parking lot to my building at work, and the cold wind comes off the lake, and hard pellets of snow and ice batter my cheeks, and half-ass shoveled sidewalks only add to the treacherousness of walking, I’m going to think of Rocky Balboa and Ivan Drago.And I’m going to imagine that you’re punching me in the face, but that I know that I’m going to win. I’ll feed off of your cold punches. I might even say “It’s not cold enough for me,” just to make you mad.You might have a few more good rounds left in you, Winter. Maybe you’ll land a body blow or two, and I’m expecting more roundhouses. At some point, you might even think that you’re going to win.But we’re near the end now. Like the Soviet crowd who started cheering for Rocky, the snowmen are beginning to cheer for us. You’re looking at us and wondering just how much more we can take. How are we even standing? And maybe you’ve given up any hopes of victory. As we enter the final round, all you’ve got is the hope that you can keep going. “To the end!”And when the end comes, you’ll be defeated, like Drago. And we’ll be victorious, like Rocky. Then maybe we’ll give some unintelligible speech about changing the world while draping ourselves in the American flag.That’s where I draw the line though. I’m not doing Rocky V next year. That movie sucked. So when you return I’ll have to come up with a different analogy.For right now though, I’m content with just kicking your cold Soviet ass!PREVIOUS POST: Juicy Presidential AffairsIF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: Why Winter Sucks+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Hey, did you like reading this? If so, you should Share it on Facebook so you can bring joy to others. You can also find tons of other posts by me here. And you can like my Facebook page, Brett Baker Writes. Please.

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Juicy Presidential Affairs

I try not to be enticed by scandal. There are usually more interesting non-scandalous things happening than whatever the scandal of the day entails. And this is doubly true when in comes to presidential scandals.However, with the passage of time, some scandals become more interesting. It’s easy to forget that even though we always think the past was more innocent, human hypocrisy knows no bounds. So it’s surprising when we hear that people who lived two hundred years ago were just as flawed and sinful as we are today, despite claims of purity, modesty and humility.And perhaps discussing the flaws of these leaders will make us more interested in them, and push us to learn more them and the times in which they live.But, let’s be honest, who doesn’t love a good sex scandal?So, in (dis)honor of Presidents’ Day, here are some presidential sex scandals you might not know about.Warren Harding. It’s hard to imagine anyone going gaga over Warren Harding, but he appears to have been quite the ladies man. He married a dowdy, masculine woman whom he never really loved. However, he kept up a fifteen-year affair with Carrie Phillips, the wife of his longtime friend.Harding, Carrie, and their spouses frequently hung out and traveled together. All was swell until Carrie wanted Warren to leave his wife. “No go,” Warren said. Carrie left her husband anyway, and moved to Germany. Then the First World War began and Carrie—who’d become a German sympathizer—tried to force Warren—who was a U.S. Senator—to vote against U.S. involvement against Germany or else she’d go public about their affair.Harding stuck to his guns though, and voted for the war. Carrie did nothing. However, a couple of years later Harding won the Republican presidential nomination. Carrie threatened to derail the whole thing so the Republican National Committee sent Carrie and her husband on a long, slow trip to Japan, gave them $20,000, and paid them a monthly sum until Harding’s death.Presidential mistress hush money. Scandalous!However, that’s not even the most scandalous situation Harding found himself involved in.In 1910, Nan Britton was a freshman in high school. She was so enamored with the forty-five-year-old Harding that she had his Ohio governor campaign poster hanging in her room. Fast forward seven years. She’s in New York at secretarial school. He’s a U.S. Senator. She writes to him asking his help in finding a job. He obliges and secures a job for her as a stenographer.On July 30, 1917 she "thanks" him in a hotel room overlooking Broadway. Minutes later, the NYC vice squad breaks down the door, but he provides some hush money to the police and all is well.Then in early 1919, on a couch in his Senate office, Warren and Nan conceive a child. Warren’s an upstanding gentleman, of course, so he provides healthy support payments to Nan until his death. And their affair continues while Warren’s president, sometimes in a small closet just off the Oval Office.(Just remember that little tidbit the next time you hear someone mentioned how Bill Clinton “disgraced the presidency!”)All this action eventually took its toll on Harding. He died in office in 1923, when he was 58 years old. Surprisingly, syphilis was not the cause of death.Grover Cleveland. While many presidents have had meaty affairs while married, Grover Cleveland had perhaps the best premarital scandal. And actually, if it’s premarital, is it really a scandal? Who makes the rules for scandals anyway?In September 1874, a woman named Maria Halpin gave birth to a son. Although she was quite popular (if you know what I mean) among businessmen in Buffalo, she named Cleveland as the baby’s father. Since her other men were all married, and he was not, Cleveland accepted the responsibility. Sounds upstanding, right?Well…maybe not.Despite providing child support, Cleveland also arranged for Maria to be admitted to an asylum, and the child was adopted to an unrelated couple. When the asylum discovered Maria had no reason to be there, they let her go. Cleveland gave her a sum of money, and told her to leave town, which she did.This all came out as Cleveland ran for President in 1884. It wasn’t enough to keep him from office though, and at forty-nine years old, Cleveland finally married Frances Folsom, who was just twenty-one.And just to add a little bit more flavor to the scandal, Maria had named her child Oscar Folsom Cleveland, after Oscar Folsom, who was Cleveland’s best friend, and one of the men in Buffalo with whom she had relations. Frances Folsom, Cleveland’s new bride, was Oscar Folsom’s daughter.Franklin Roosevelt. The Roosevelts were rich. Not just a little bit rich. Super duper rich. So rich that part of Eleanor Roosevelt’s personal staff was a social secretary. I have no idea what a social secretary does, but I do know that Eleanor’s social secretary was named Lucy Mercer.She was twenty-two in 1913 when she went to work for Eleanor. Franklin really liked Lucy, and she liked him in return. In 1918, Eleanor found out about their affair, and threatened to divorce him if he didn’t stop seeing her. FDR said he’d stop seeing her.However, the affair resumed years later. When FDR became president, Lucy kept him company at the White House while Eleanor was out of town. Eventually, FDR enlisted the help of his daughter, Anna, in arranging Lucy’s meetings.FDR was at his vacation home in Warm Springs, Georgia when he died in 1945. Lucy was with him. Upon her arrival from Washington, DC, Eleanor learned that FDR’s affair with Lucy had continued for many years, that Lucy was with him when he died, and that Anna had not only known about the affair, but had helped arranged it.I hate to end on a downer, so let’s take a look at John Tyler. There’s no information about him having marital affairs, but that’s probably just because he didn’t have time!And he was also happy, apparently. A love letter written to his wife just before they married contained this awesome line, “Whether I float or sink in the stream of fortune, you may be assured of this, that I shall never cease to love you.”He married for the first time when he was twenty-three years old. His wife was twenty-two. They had seven children live to maturity. She suffered a stroke though, and died when she was fifty-one.Two years later, when Tyler was fifty-four, he married for a second time. His bride was twenty-four. They had seven more children, the last of whom was born when Tyler was seventy!One of Tyler’s children, Lyon Tyler, who was born when John Tyler was sixty-three, had children late in life as well. Lyon’s last son was born when Lyon was seventy-five years old. (These Tylers are a virile bunch!) And that son—John Tyler’s grandson, the same John Tyler who was born in 1790 while George Washington was president—is still alive today!PREVIOUS POST: An SNL Sketch: Cooking with Paula and MarthaIF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: Interesting Elections from American History+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Hey, did you like reading this? If so, you should Share it on Facebook so you can bring joy to others. You can also find tons of other posts by me here. And you can like my Facebook page, Brett Baker Writes. Please.

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An SNL Sketch: Cooking with Paula and Martha

In honor of Saturday Night Live's 40th Anniversary this Sunday, I wanted to create a sketch of my own. What follows is a never-aired (because I'm not an SNL writer), never-before-seen (because I just wrote it) sketch called "Cooking with Paula and Martha" starring Paula Deen and Martha StewartPD: Welcome to Cooking with Paula and Martha, I’m Paula Deen.MS: Don’t you mean Cooking with Martha and Paula?PD: Cooking with Paula and Martha. That’s what I said.MS: No, that’s not quite right. We agreed that my name would go first.PD: First, second, who cares? We’re both here and we’re happier than a pig in slop.Martha looks at the camera, shakes her head, then reaches for a bowl of flour.MS: Today we’re going to show you how to make my delicious, tender buttermilk biscuits. We begin with a cup and three quarters of flour…PD, stepping in front of Martha, to the camera: We’re gonna make my famous milk gravy, too. It’s so rich and tasty, it’ll go perfect with those dry biscuits. Just you wait and see.MS: My biscuits are not dry! (Paula puts her hand up as if to hide her face, looks around and nods.) Would you stop that? (Martha swats at Paula’s hand.) You haven’t even tasted my biscuits, how do you know they’re dry?PD: Martha…they’re dry. We can tell just by looking at you that they’re dry. I mean come on, everything about you is dry. And cold.MS, shocked: It is not! I can be wet and warm.PD: Martha Stewart, what are you saying? This is a family show! Are you trying to get us kicked off the TV?MS: I, well, uh, you said…PD: While Martha collects herself, let me show you how to make my world famous milk gravy. I’ll tell you what, I learned this recipe from my Grandma Paul when I was a little girl and I haven’t changed it one little bit. It’ll be as delicious in your kitchen as it was in Grandma Paul’s kitchen. Now, we start with a quarter cup of bacon grease…MS: Bacon grease? You can’t be serious.PD, turning towards Martha and waving her hands like Vanna White: Look ladies and gentlemen, she speaks! So glad you could join us again, Martha. Now, as I was saying, a quarter cup of bacon grease…MS: You know, if you keep cooking like this you’re going to have a heart attack. Who puts a quarter cup of bacon grease in anything?PD: People who want flavor in their food. (She opens her arms toward the audience, looking for applause.) Am I right folks? (Enthusiastic applause.)MS: Don’t encourage her. This food is going to kill you if you eat it.PD: She’s right, folks. But don’t worry, we’re going to have Martha eat this! (Paula looks up into the distance, and uses her hands to read words on a marquee) Cooking with Paula. Doesn’t that sound so much better, folks? (Applause.)MS: There’s something with Paula, but I’m not sure it’s cooking. Did Grandma Paul live a long life eating dishes built on bacon grease?PD: She did. She absolutely did. And she always said the key to a long life was good food, strong whiskey, and a loving family.MS: And staying away from horrible people?PD: Not all of us can run away to the Hamptons every weekend, so sometimes we just have to be near horrible people. (Paula pushes Martha off to the side with her hip.)MS, using her shoulder to push Paula in the opposite direction, completely off camera: That’s so true. We should avoid doing cooking shows with them though. That’s where some of the most horrible people are.PD, offscreen: Even more than in the clink?MS, removing her apron: Okay, that’s it. I cannot work with this back-country culinary hack. She’s completely impossible.PD, coming back on camera: Martha, this is not the way to welcome these guests. Why don’t you go pout in your dressing room and I’ll entertain our guests. They want something better than dry biscuits anyway.MS: My biscuits are not dry! (She grabs a handful of flower from the bowl and throws it in Paula’s face.) Look at her, ladies and gentlemen! She’s got so much makeup on that you can’t even tell she’s covered in flour. Keep caking it on, Paula. You’re not fooling anyone. They know you’re an old hag.PD: Folks, I want to apologize for my co-host’s temper. Prison has that affect on people. It must have ruined her memory, too, because she’s actually older than me. (Paula picks up the measuring cup with bacon grease and tries to pour it over Martha’s head.)MS, grabbing Paula’s arm and pushing it out of the way as she leans to the side: Get that shit away from me. You’re crazy.A struggle ensues as Paula tries to pour the bacon grease over Martha’s head, and Martha tries to avoid it. They veer off camera to one side, across the set, then off camera to the other side. We hear things falling off the counter while they’re off screen. We hear Paula grunt, footsteps, and then Paula yelling: Get back here!Martha reappears, running across the set. Paula is right behind her, reaches out, and grabs her by the shirt, while pouring the bacon grease over her head.PD: What’s your secret for getting bacon grease out of your hair, Fancy Pants?MS: You bitch! (Martha turns around, takes a swing at Paula with her right hand, but misses. She slips on the bacon grease on the floor and falls down, behind the counter, off screen.)PD: Martha, how can you let your kitchen get so filthy? (She steps on Martha, smiles at the camera, and grabs another measuring cup from off camera.) This is why we must always be prepared. I’ve got a little more bacon grease here. So we just dump that into the bowl.We see Martha getting to her feet behind Paula. She’s pulling herself up, hanging on to the counter for leverage. When we see Martha’s face, she’s visibly angry. Paula is oblivious and keeps cooking.Martha staggers a few feet to the stovetop. She grabs a large cast iron skillet, holds it with both hands and lifts it above her head. She swings the skillet toward Paula’s head, and a split second before impact we cut to a screen with colored bars and the words, “Please stand by.”PREVIOUS POST: A Sybaris Experience ConfessionIF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: Acorn Shortage Leads to Squirrel on Squirrel Violence+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Hey, did you like reading this? If so, you should Share it on Facebook so you can bring joy to others. You can also find tons of other posts by me here. And you can like my Facebook page, Brett Baker Writes. Please.

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A Sybaris Experience Confession

I have a theory that I’ve been working on for a couple of years whose basic premise is that people shouldn’t be held responsible for the poor decisions they make between the ages of, say, sixteen and twenty-three. Maybe thirty, depending on the person.This theory came to mind again recently after writing my post about Sybaris, the “romantic” retreat known for its rooms containing abundant mirrors, swimming pools, waterfalls, and carpet from the 1980s.(Before I go any further, I should point out that Sybaris has outstanding reviews from TripAdvisor, and Yelp, and that they've got some fabulous gift certificate deals on their website!)A couple of days after my post, I received the following message:

Hi, Brett. My name's Christine and I'm a fellow CN blogger. I saw your post about the Sybaris and couldn't help laughing to myself about an escapade I had in high school there.

Now, I’ve never been to Sybaris (by the way, Sybaris is like Ukraine and Netherlands to me, I never know if there should be a “the” before it), but I’ve been in high school. So I think I’m rather well-qualified to say that Sybaris and high school are words that probably shouldn’t be used together.But if a comrade from ChicagoNow (Christine Wolf by name, Riding the Waves by blog name) was willing to tell her story, then I couldn’t wait to hear it. So we setup a time to talk.In my conversation with Christine, and as I’ve read the good work she does on her blog, she didn’t strike me as a miscreant. However, I can’t think of anything much more miscreantish (or maybe more fairly, mischievous) than a high schooler going to Sybaris.And then Christine upped the ante!Although she was eighteen, Christine also casually mentioned, "I can't speak for my boyfriend at the time. Or my girlfriend and her boyfriend. The four of us went together."Hold the phone! Four high schoolers went to Sybaris together? You’ll know from my previous post that Sybaris has a strict two-people-only policy. So how’d they pull that off?"The creepy guy behind the counter actually let us book a room for 2 hours. We paid cash." Of course. The answer—as it usually does—revolves around a creepy guy behind the counter! (Although it could be that people like Christine and her friends ruined it for the rest of us by stuffing four people into a room!)I expressed my alarm to Christine during our conversation, and she assured me that she was coming forward simply out of concerns for others.

Listen, I'm the mother of teenagers now. That's why I'm writing to you. Teenagers do the sneakiest things, and I'm pulling the mildewy shower curtain back on how The Sybaris used to operate. I'm glad to hear they've added even more chlorine to their best practices. Though I have to say, the twirly slide was pretty fun.

Yes, they sprang for a room with a twirly slide, which only makes sense. I mean if you’re going to have a room with a pool, you might as well have a slide, right? What else was in the room, Christine?

There was just a pool and our own little jacuzzi, all surrounded by carpet. Oh, and there was also a bathroom, though I remember we all wondered how many people actually used it.

You’ll notice that she didn’t mention a particular piece of furniture that most people associate with Sybaris…a bed! Their room didn’t have a bed or a fireplace. What kind of romantic rendezvous spot doesn’t have a bed? Although Christine says that she and her friends were “immature jerks” and the only thing they “talked about beforehand was the slide,” most people probably go to the Sybaris with the reasonable expectation of a bed in the room.With no bed, the question remains: Where does the main “business” of the Sybaris take place in that room? On carpet so gross that Christine gagged while just thinking about it nineteen years after she saw it? My wife correctly pointed out that not even hookers would conduct business on that carpet!So if the main reason Christine and her friends wanted to go to Sybaris was because they were “midwestern kids from the northwest suburbs” who just got tired of “hanging out at the local movie theater” and had “already maxed out on the roller-rinks, the bowling alleys, the movie theaters, the church lock-ins,” then how’d their boyfriends talk them into making the leap to the Sybaris?Oh wait, they didn’t.

“Um....it was my idea. My parents were divorced and my biological father lived in Downers Grove. Whenever we visited him on weekends, we'd pass this place called The Sybaris. It was across the street from a Portillo's. I loved that Portillo's.”

A Sybaris near a Portillo’s. Two places that make money off of sausage!Never mind. Back to the story.Christine and her friend “were very into surprising our guys back then,” and she remembers the evening engagement as “an end-of-season, post-football game surprise or a Valentine's Day weekend surprise or a Sweetest Day surprise.”Speaking as a former eighteen-year-old guy, I’m sure that the football player boyfriends were quite psyched for such a surprise! I’d love to hear the version of events they’ve been telling all these years.Hopefully they appreciate the work that Christine and her friend had to put into planning such shenanigans.

“My friend and I were waitresses at our local Baker's Square (loved the cauliflower soup, btw) and we used about 3 weeks' worth of tips to cover our expenses. Our earnings only allowed a two-hour surprise.”

So if you ate at Baker’s Square back in the mid-eighties, now you know that your tip money went to fund a bunch of high school high jinks. I hope you’re happy.You should know by now that Christine turned out just fine. I don’t know it for a fact, but I assume that this incident wasn’t part of a larger pattern of delinquent behavior in her teen years. I mean, she was president of the National Honor Society at her school!Since she satisfied my curiosity about what a trip to Sybaris is like, without me having to actually go there and risk getting some sort of fungus, illness or VD, I’ll let her have the last words.

Glad to share my special memory with you and anyone else (hi, Mom, hey, Dad! This wasn't your fault! I totally lied to you about where we were going and now I'll be a better parent with my own teenagers because of it) reading this post. Look, I just hope kids make wise choices these days: If they choose to go to the Sybaris, they NEED to wear flip flops and it's essential to bring some Lysol wipes. There's always a Costco around somewhere. They've got good deals on goggles, too. Wish I'd thought of those...

Read Christine's latest post with the full text of our conversation here!PREVIOUS POST: Winning in Youth Sports Shouldn't MatterIF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: In Online Dating, Beware of Ax Murders+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Hey, did you like reading this? If so, you should Share it on Facebook so you can bring joy to others. You can also find tons of other posts by me here. And you can like my Facebook page, Brett Baker Writes. Please.

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Winning in Youth Sports Shouldn't Matter

So Jackie Robinson West was stripped of the U.S. Little League Championship they won this past summer. That’s a bummer.First of all, let’s remember what we’re discussing here: a kid’s game played by kids for fun. Many people like to act like youth sports is a matter of life or death, but it’s not. It’s youth sports. It’s kids playing a game, just like kids have been doing forever. It’s the same as the kids in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s book Little House in the Big Woods playing with an inflated pig’s bladder.Kids playing a game.Following this kids-playing-a-game way of thinking, I’m left to ponder why we make such a fuss over kids who win in youth sports in the first place. Jackie Robinson West hit, caught, and threw a baseball better than some other kids. That’s great. It’s exciting for those kids to play teams from different areas, and travel a bit, maybe see some places they wouldn’t have otherwise seen.But what does any youth sports championship actually accomplish?The team learns to play together. They learn the importance of sportsmanship. They learn to persevere. They learn that hard work is rewarded. They learn discipline. They learn they feel better after getting some exercise.All of those same lessons can be learned when a team loses, too. Millions of kids play Little League baseball across the country every summer. Are we to believe that only the kids on Jackie Robinson West learned these lessons because they won more than any other team?Ridiculous.Now, before you think that I’m just some stuffy anti-sports guy who never played or watched baseball in my life, let me stop you. I’ve loved the Cubs and Wrigley Field for as long as I can remember. My parents were involved with my local little league for fifteen years, some of those after I stopped playing. Dinners most nights every summer consisted of hot dogs or pizza from the little league concession stand.And I played the game for twelve years when I was a kid. I was good. Not great, good. In the past five years I’ve managed six little league teams. As a math expert you’ll notice that means that I managed two teams at the same time a couple of years ago.The best record of any team I played on when I was a kid was 8-8. My sons are young enough that they have not yet begun to keep score during games. Did I learn nothing because my teams were always mediocre? Have my sons played six seasons of baseball and not learned a thing because they haven’t won a game?Every coach and manager in youth sports will eventually say something like “I do it for the kids,” or “I just want the kids to have fun,” or “It’s nice to win, but it’s more important to play hard and do your best.”Some of them even mean it when they say it.But some choose to live vicariously through their children, or make up for some other deficiency in their life, by pursuing a meaningless victory.Most of the time that pursuit of victory is exhibited by coaches who act like they’re coaching in the NFL or Major League Baseball, or try to turn kids into one-dimensional sports machines, or parents who pay ungodly amounts of money for one-on-one lessons or special equipment.However, when that doesn’t work, some are willing to break the rules.Jackie Robinson West isn’t the first case of Little League cheating.In 1992, the Philippines won the world championship with a team almost entirely of players too old or not local by using false birth certificates and assuming names of other players. In 2001, a team from the Bronx had a fourteen-year-old pitching for them. In 2008, a team from Miami entered Florida’s Little League tournament, despite being a travel ball team that didn’t even play Little League that year.The problem with Jackie Robinson West is the same problem that countless youth sports programs around the country have. The adults in charge of the program chose victory over fairness and good sportsmanship. They chose the trophy over the experience.Some people are quick to mock the attitude that everyone should get a trophy. I hope those same people mock the adults who are willing to do anything to get a trophy.Because after all, it’s just kids playing a game.PREVIOUS POST: Sybaris is Nice, but Not for MeIF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: The Years I Played Baseball+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Hey, did you like reading this? If so, you should Share it on Facebook so you can bring joy to others. You can also find tons of other posts by me here. And you can like my Facebook page, Brett Baker Writes. Please.

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Sybaris is Nice, but Not for Me

In case you forgot, Valentine’s Day is just four days from now. There’s still plenty of time to find the perfect gift for your amour. However, I have some bad news. Unless you already have reservations, you won’t be spending your Valentine’s Day evening at the Sybaris. They’re all booked up for Saturday night.I checked.Now before you get all uncomfortable and suffer from the heebie jeebies because you think I’m about to provide too much information, let me say that I didn’t really plan to stay at the Sybaris. I just wanted to know if people actually went to such a prototypical “romantic” hot spot on Valentine’s Day.Of course they do. All five Sybaris locations are fully booked not only for an overnight stay, but for the 12:30-4:30 Afternoon Getaway option. So no nooners for you!I saw a Sybaris billboard on my way in to work yesterday. I hadn’t noticed the billboard before, but I don’t know if they just kick their advertising up a notch around Valentine’s Day or if I’m just not observant. Either way it got me thinking about Sybaris.When I was a kid I thought Sybaris was the coolest place on earth. They had swimming pools in the rooms! And pool slides, and some rooms even had waterfalls. Holy cow, why are we staying at Knights Inn on vacation when we could be staying at Sybaris?Keep in mind that the Sybaris commercials in the 1980s were much less risqué than they are now. I tried to find an old commercial on YouTube, but had no luck. All I could find were a couple of present-day commercials like this.Had the commercials from my youth shown two half-naked people practically eating each other’s faces while holding a glass of champagne, perhaps I would have known that Sybaris wasn’t a place for kids. But those old commercials didn’t show such lurid, risqué footage, they just made it look like an indoor waterpark, and what kid doesn’t love an indoor waterpark?Since I had the great misfortune of growing up with two responsible parents, they made the decision to shield me and my sisters from all that Sybaris had to offer, much to my chagrin.It’s a good thing, too, because it says right on the Sybaris website that children aren’t allowed. And neither are pets. I guess some people need everything spelled out for them.However, the site also explicitly states that each room is for two people only. No guests! That sounds like a rule created to combat a recurring problem. Now we’ll never know just how many people can fit into one of those cozy rooms.The irony of my feelings about Sybaris is now that I’m married and no longer think of Sybaris as an indoor waterpark, I don’t want to stay there.Can you imagine what those rooms must be like? The reviews on TripAdvisor and this article by a writer in Milwaukee both rave about the cleanliness of the place, but some places are so dirty that they’ll never truly be clean. The article states that the pool was “a touch over-chlorinated,” but clean.A touch over-chlorinated doesn’t seem enough to me. That pool could be a vat of Clorox and I still don’t think I’d go in it. I’ve heard stories of women getting pregnant just by looking at a Sybaris pool. (Okay, I haven’t really, and that’s obviously not possible, but it expresses my feelings!)And the beds! Unless there’s a well-stocked mattress store right next to every Sybaris location so that the mattress can be replaced after every stay, I’m not lying on those beds dressed in anything less than a hazmat suit. I don’t care how high the thread count is on the sheets. I’m sure the bacteria count is even higher!Don’t forget about the carpet. Yes, carpet! In a room with a pool! I don’t even want to think about the things that might be growing in the carpet of that warm, steamy room. It’s like a petri dish for whatever microscopic pleasure debris might have been left behind by the previous guests.Luckily, my wife agrees with me on all of this, so I’m not going to catch any flak from her for not allowing her to live the life of a Sybarite, as suggested by the website. But if it sounds good to you, please make reservations as soon as possible. I’m sure you’ll be fine and have a good time!Tell us about your stay in the comments below, and remember, no pets allowed!PREVIOUS POST: The Beer Mile is Foolish FunIF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: Warning: It's Wife Appreciation Day+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Hey, did you like reading this? If so, you should Share it on Facebook so you can bring joy to others. You can also find tons of other posts by me here. And you can like my Facebook page, Brett Baker Writes. Please.

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The Beer Mile is Foolish Fun

The thing about growing up is that even though you might have more responsibilities, you’ll still have opportunities to do something foolish. And as long as your foolishness doesn’t hurt someone else, then I’m all for it. Long live fools and foolishness!I recently enjoyed a bout of foolishness during which it seemed like a good idea to combine two interests of mine: beer and running. This is particularly interesting because if you were to ask me to name my hobbies or interests I’d probably spew a list that included writing, reading, music, movies, running, food, and beer.If you asked me to combine two of those hobbies into one activity, the worst possible combination would probably be beer and running.Yet there’s an event called the Beer Mile. The bedrock rules are simple. Drink a beer, run a quarter mile. Drink a beer, run a quarter mile. Drink a beer, run a quarter mile. Drink a beer, run a quarter mile.In case you lost count that’s four beers, four quarter miles. Or four beers in a mile.Last weekend I decided to run the beer mile with a friend of mine, Mike. We’re two reasonably smart fellows. He’s an eye doctor. I sometimes know the answers on Jeopardy. We’re both married. We have families. Yet we decided to spend an otherwise non-pukey Saturday afternoon combining beer and running.That reminds me, if you vomit during the beer mile you’re penalized a quarter mile.There are actually organized beer mile events around the country, and a website that tracks the madness. Mike and I decided to go rogue though, and do the event on our own. So he plotted a quarter-mile course near his house, and grabbed four Coors Light for each of us, and we began, with our wives there to cheer us on.(A side note on foolishness: It’s tremendously helpful if you have an understanding spouse. We’re lucky in that not only are our wives understanding and tolerant, but they frequently encourage our foolishness. Many times they’re participants with us. Not so for the beer mile though. They provided much-needed moral support.)Turns out that we broke the rules from the very beginning.Someone suggested that we shotgun the beer. This involves puncturing the bottom of the can with a sharp object so that when the top of the can is opened the beer flows quickly and freely. We did this with the first beer, and I immediately wished that I had chosen to sip! If you think running is hard, imagine doing it with lungs full of beer. That’s what I imagined as I tried to swallow the beer tsunami.We didn’t find out until later that altering the can in any way is against the rules. I like to make my own rules though, so I’m not disqualifying us from the race.After some difficulty I finished the beer and threw the empty, crushed can away and started running. Much to my surprise, I didn’t feel any liquid sloshing around in my stomach. One of the reasons I’ve never run farther than six miles at a time is because that’s about my limit before I need a drink, and the one time I tried to drink water while running I could hear and feel every ounce whirlpooling in my stomach.Not this time though. I ran the quarter mile without a problem, and as I turned the corner to return to Mike’s house, our wives cheered us on. I drank beer number two like a civilized, non-shotgunning adult, and went on my way.Still no stomach problems.My wife has a theory that people can endure anything for a period of time as long as they know how long it’s going to last. I doubted the theory at first, but I’ve used it over a number of years and it holds up.I thought about her theory as I finished the second lap. I’d made it halfway. After this next beer I’d only have one more to go, and I could run half a mile in my sleep. So I opened that beer and started drinking. This was the toughest beer of the race because I was breathing hard.I made it through though, finished the third lap without incident, and came back to cheers of my wife saying, “One more lap. You’ve got this. You’re almost done.” I drank the last beer, hustled off, tried to listen to my stomach and everything was calm.During the entire race I’d paid close attention to my surroundings so I could avoid getting sick in some poor neighbor’s yard. There’s an empty lot there. A sewer grate there. Forested area up ahead. Only a couple of hundred feet to Mike’s house.I needn’t worry though. I finished the race without ever feeling like I needed to lose any of the beer. I’d been shooting for a time under twelve minutes, but when my wife told me I’d finished in 12:20, I was still happy about it. Mike finished a few seconds later and we both proclaimed the race a success since we’d finished, didn’t feel horrible, and didn’t anger any of his neighbors.Before the race I worried that I might be drunk by the end and stumble my way through the last lap. However, twelve minutes isn’t enough time for that first beer to enter the bloodstream. The effects are delayed for half an hour or so.Later I used mapmyrun.com to discover that Mike’s one mile course actually measured 1.16 miles, which means that I actually finished one mile in about 10:37 and met my goal. In running, as in beer, every little bit counts!We had so much fun with it that we’re planning to do it again this spring, but this time on a track so the distance is accurate, and we don’t have to worry about a vomit zone.Mike’s dad will join us, and we’re recruiting other friends to join the “fun.” And if they decide not to participate again, you can be sure that our wives will be there to cheer us on, encourage our foolishness, and hopefully not wonder what they ever saw in us!PREVIOUS POST: When to Eat Food That Fell on the FloorIF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: What I'm Thinking About When I'm Running+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Hey, did you like reading this? If so, you should Share it on Facebook so you can bring joy to others. You can also find tons of other posts by me here. And you can like my Facebook page, Brett Baker Writes. Please.

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When to Eat Food That Fell on the Floor

A few days ago some friends and I discussed whether we would eat food if it fell on the floor. As someone who loves food, hates wasting things, and is sometimes messy, this is an important question. Not life or death, but important.Since I have a long history of eating food off the floor and I haven’t died yet, I’ve decided to produce a set of standards. Maybe guidelines is actually a better word, although standards implies that we’re not going to eat just anything off the floor, which is important to remember.After all, if you die from eating something off of the floor, then I have one fewer reader. And no one wants that, do they?I don’t want to get us started on the wrong foot, so let’s think positive. What can we eat if it falls on the floor?Most dry things. Nuts, breakfast cereal, pretzels, chips, popcorn, candy, anything with a peel, if the peel is still on (apples, pears, etc). A warning about the breakfast cereal, if it’s sugary then there’s a chance it might collect some dust on the floor. Use caution.You might be able to eat some dry things if your floor has recently been cleaned. Bread, for example. If you’ve just cleaned your floor, then it’s probably okay to eat a slice of bread if you drop it while making a PB&J. (As long as there’s no PB or J on it. We’ll cover this in a minute.)However, if it’s been a while since Mr. Clean’s been around, then there’s a good chance some dust, dead skin, or hair from God knows where will attach itself to the bread. You might not even see it, but it’s there, probably hiding in the crevices. Don’t do it!Some produce is okay, too. Blueberries, grapes, raspberries, tomatoes, and anything that grows in the ground are safe. All bets are off if the produce is cut though. That exposes the wet, sugary portion of the food, which is like a magnet for all sorts of things you want nowhere near your mouth. Whole strawberry, fine. Sliced strawberry, not fine.Those simple rules cover a lot of food, and you can thank me later for saving you from wasting so much.Now, the serious business. The no-way-in-hell foods. After these foods fall on the floor the only place to put them is the garbage.Meat. Clean floor or dirty floor, there’s plenty of gross stuff that likes to attach itself to dead animal flesh. Unless you’re training your gut to survive on a diet of uncooked urban street animals, don’t eat meat off the floor.Lunchmeat. Same as above, only wetter.Anything wet or sticky. Pickles, bananas, cheese, cooked pasta, yogurt, ice cream, rice. You get the picture. Believe me, nothing’s more disgusting than a hairy banana.Bread that has a spread on it. You can bet the farm that if you drop a piece of bread and one side has peanut butter, jelly, mayonnaise, mustard, ketchup, butter, or any other spread on it, while there’s nothing on the other side, it’s going to fall with the spread side down. It’s infuriating, but don’t let your temper get the best of you.Those are the ins and outs of actual food. There are other things to consider though.All of these standards only apply at your house. If you drop anything anywhere else, it goes in the garbage. I don’t care how clean you think your friends are, or how regularly Sally’s housekeeper washes the kitchen floor, throw that food in the garbage.However, if you’re even thinking about eating food off the floor at a public place, go ahead. You deserve whatever’s coming to you.If you have pets, all bets are off. I wouldn’t personally eat off my own floor if I had a pet that walked on that floor, but then again I wouldn’t feed my dog peanut butter off of a spoon and then lick the spoon, so maybe I just don’t understand.Keep in mind, also, that you can be a little looser with the standards if you take your shoes off when you enter your house than if you walk around with shoes on. Think about what's on the floor in that hallway at work. Do you want your food touching that?And before you ask, all of these standards are independent of the Five-Second Rule because the Five-Second rule does not exist.Happy eating!PREVIOUS POST: Vegan for a Month: Lessons LearnedIF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: PB&J The Right Way+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Hey, did you like reading this? If so, you should Share it on Facebook so you can bring joy to others. You can also find tons of other posts by me here. And you can like my Facebook page, Brett Baker Writes. Please.

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