Important Instructions for Appreciative Gourmets

Today’s conversations about my girlfriend—Little Debbie—brought to mind a memory of what I believe is the proper way to consume a Swiss Cake Roll. For the record, it is not the egg roll of snack foods. The Swiss Cake Roll is to be experienced. In order to appreciate it to the fullest degree of sweet goodness… it must be dismantled.

This might not be a “how to” course for everyone. It is probably more of a refresher. For some it will simply put to prose what they accomplish daily (even bi- or tri-daily?).

There is some debate among the pros about what should be Step One. Perhaps some healthy discussion will yield a strong opinion one way or the other.

Step One. Eat the chocolate coating off of the outside of the roll. This must be done without damaging the chocolate cake beneath the coating. Should the cake be damaged, eat that one and start over with Roll #2. More points are given relative to how much chocolate you can get to come off in a single sheet.

Step One. Find the “seam” at the bottom of the roll. This is where a thick caulking of chocolate holds the whole she-bang together. Uncaulking the seam seems to be where some folks start and then move on the thinner chocolate sheet removal (see Step One).

Step Two. Unroll the roll. Should this result in damage to the cake, eat the damaged roll and begin again with Roll #2.

Step Three. Cremesumption. Eat the filling without doing damage to the cake, of course. Should damage occur—well, you oughta know the process by now.

Step Four. Return what remains to roll shape avoiding damage to the delicacy. Keep in mind what you should do if damage occurs. Eat the re-rolled roll.

Step Five. Repeat steps One, One, Two, Three and Four with Roll #2.

Step Six. What do I mean Step Six? Haven’t I already eaten both cakes in the package? Well, that is true, but there is still work to be done. There is the matter of scraping clean that white cardboard square found below your rolls. There. You will find chocolate coating, cake and perhaps stray filling that have anchored your Swiss Cake Rolls in the packaging. Hasting unwrapping can also result in a coating stick to the cellophane. All of this can be extricated with a few quick scrapes across the bottom teeth.

Lunchroom attendees take heed! The white square from beneath Swiss Cake Rolls is almost as valuable a piece of currency as the top off a chocolate Snack Pack. Some kid will always “trade ya” for it.

P.S. I rolled the dice taking a great risk the littledebbie.com was the right URL. Whew!

Earth-Shakin' Stuff
First, I do need to apologize for not updating the blog for a while. Been in kind of a funk, but good friends have helped me see things more clearly/dearly etc. Sing that song to yourself now, and I promise [sic] it'll never happen again. It probably is redundant for me to ever use "[sic]", since you already know I'm going to be sarcastic. I simply feel like my bracket keys are very underused. But now I'm rambling.

OK, on to the most devastating news you may ever hear from me. Last week I discovered something about me, that I myself would not have believed only moments before it happened. This would be a good time to say, "Okey dokey, pards, see ya next time!" and leave you hanging for 8 more weeks when I decide to blog again. That would be wrong. Many of you are too good to me, you need to hear this now.

Here's the disclaimer. What you are about to read could prove so shocking that it could harm our friendships. If you read it that way, know that I am alread begging for your forgiveness, but I will understand if you want to drop me. Prepare youself, this is a doozie.

Monday evening, while I was on the way back from hospital visits in Augusta, I spotted the neon glow of the Krispy Kreme sign. It beckoned me, "Hot doughnuts now." Folks, Jason and the Argonauts had an easier time with temptation--and they're a rock band!! Well, for some strange reason my car turned into Krispy Kreme. I got a cup of coffee and a dozen "hot ones".

While I ate the first one, I caught my self commenting, "I don't see what the big deal is." What the heck was that?? I ate two more to test my earlier hypothesis rendering very similar results. What you are about to read may hurt your feelings, but I do not particularly care for hot Krispy Kreme dougnnuts.

It sounds. . . um . . . it sounds . . . unAmerican! Don't get me wrong, I love Krispy Kreme dougnuts, but a chocolte cream filled or a sour cream or the doughnut of the month sounds more fun to me. Why not hot? I guess it goes back to my first exposure to the treats via school fundraisers. I think I'd prefer that variety to one just picked off the line. I know some of y'all are screaming right now. All I can say is, "It's not you. It's me." Maybe I just got hold of a bad batch. We can try it again some time.

Ahh… Good ‘ol NPR
I woke up this morning learning of Major League Baseball’s awarding of American League Manager of the Year to Joe Maddon. This was not unexpected since he led the Tampa Bay Rays to the World Series.
I was hearing this report on NPR. This always makes me laugh a little. I don’t know if they are trying to prove that they are “with it” at NPR with their slight tips of the cap to the world of sports, but it comes across rather comical . . . “In Major League Baseball last night, the Atlanta Braves won a contest against the Metropolitans of New York, 3 runs to 2.”
This morning’s laugh was not from the Joe Maddon announcement. The voice on the radio also informed me of the new National League Manager of the Year with that public radio flair of one who knew noting about sports: “Lou Piniella (pronounced PEEN-yay-la) of the Chicago Cubs.”
I wonder if they asked Ken Burns how to pronounce it and he’s the one laughing more this morning. I also hope Lou heard it, because I would like to flashback to 1991 and again hear, “Get off me, Lou!” but this time it’s in that monotone, lullaby voice that tries to wake me up each morning.

Two Painting Projects

First, I've gotta lay in a little interior latex around the new door (I want to thank my neighbor James for painting the door and frame). Then I have to go upstairs to the "studio" to do some watercolor work. Of course, I am delaying getting started on both. I haven't had enough coffee yet--yeah, that's a good excuse.

The new door in the parsonage has to do with our adoption process. The old door was great, but buried under a few decades of paint was a layer of lead paint. To remove the lead paint the "legal way" would have been more involved and more expensive than replacing the door. Besides it always looks cooler when you're rolling out of Lowes with the big cart and a helper.

Last Saturday, I started taking a water color--wait, what? You're not interested in that right now? Well, what do you want me to talk about? The A-word in the above paragraph? Ohhh...

Way back in December, Trisha and I decided, after talking about it for years, that we would adopt some children. Yes, that's right, I said "some"! We felt like we are able to take on more than one and catch up with our brothers and sisters in one fell swoop. We contacted the Department of Social Services, and got the ball rolling on adopting children. We have filled out tons of paper work. We have been to classes. Our home has been inspected by DHEC, the fire marshal, and the lead risk assessment inspector (hence the new door). Now our file is complete and we are waiting to hear that we are approved. Then we'll start the process of having children placed in our home.

Why "some"? There are several children in foster care and other situations who are siblings. Many times the processes do not work out in favor of keeping them together as brothers and sisters. We want to help at least one bunch stay together. Did I just say "bunch"? It's getting scary now.

Pray for us. We'll always need that. We are looking forward to being parents. We want to rush the process, but we know it might move at a glacier's pace.

Maybe by the time the children do get here, I'll have a few masterpieces from my watercolor class that I can hang in their rooms. There might even be a mixed media work of off-white interior latex and cat hair. First, I need some more coffee.

Home Cookin?
Poor CC Sabathia. He came "this close" to throwing a no-hitter yesterday against the Pirates. The media outcry this morning is that Pittsburgh's official scorer should have given CC an error in the bottom of the 5th inning. The Brewers' pitcher failed to cleanly field an Andy LaRoche dribbler off of the third base side of the mound. LaRoche was safe and Pirates' official scorer Bob Webb gave him an infield hit.

Here's Webb's explanation of the moment:

"It was a spinning ball," official scorer Bob Webb said immediately after
the conclusion of the game. "It's to the right of a left-handed pitcher. In my
view from the beginning of the play, it's not an ordinary play to make.

"It is difficult both because of the spin and because he has to make the
play and turn completely around, and the runner was well down the line. It would
have been a very difficult play to make. In my view, it was a hit as a result of
those factors."

When the game was over, there was some crying from Brewers payers and their manager that CC got robbed of a no-hitter. There is even talk this morning that Major League Baseball might try to convince Webb to change his ruling.

Change the scoring? This should not happen. If you want to throw a no hitter, it really has a lot to do with every batter, so apparently this was not on CC's mind in the FIFTH INNING! Had it been, perhaps he should have booted the ball into the duggout, though you would never, ever convince me that a Major League player would commit an error on purpose.

But what if Bob Webb is convinced to change what he put down on his score card? What would happen?

First, I imagine Nolan Ryan would have some "lovely" things to say about this. I think I would prefer to see CC have to fight Nolan Ryan to get his no hitter. As proven by Robin Ventura, though, to charge a mound occupied by Nolan Ryan is indeed an error in itself--so Webb would have to change the score and give CC 2 errors.

Maybe the Brewers would have CC throw out the first pitch tonight against the Mets and then have the entire team dogpile him to celebrate the rarity. Well, every player but Ben Sheets, who starts tonight and needs to stay healthy enough to no-hit the Mets--how hard could that be?

I hope the score doesn't change. I have to say something righteous here. The integrity of the game is at stake! Ooohh, yeah, that oughta do it. Of course the present regime, pardon me, commissioner's office is well known for looking after the integrity of the game.

Radiant Cross
Last week at Prayer Meetin', I handed out a copy of a piece of Mexican folk art that was in Christian Century last month. The drawing was based on the radiant cross. I am thankful that in seminary I had a professor who liked to show us lots of pictures. We learned that in a lot of Christian art work depicting the cross that it can be a source of light in the painting. That is, people in the painting are not illuminated by the sun or a lamp. The "light" in the painting would come from the cross or Jesus' body.

In other traditions, the radiant cross is used for a symbol in first communion celebrations. You can even buy a lot of party supplies for your after-church shindigs.
Here's what I gave my folks.

Suggestion: open this in another window.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27726669@N05/2775965605/

At first glance it does look a little ordinary. If you focus on the cross in the center, though, those concentric circles and the dots have something of a pulse to it. This flat, black and white drawing becomes what I like to call optical theology.

Give it a try. You might want to enlarge and print out this picture for yourself (jury's still out on what staring at a computer screen too long will do to you). See what I mean? This drawing has a lot of movement.

OK, now pray with that. Lend you imagination to the movement a little. The artist probably did not have only one right answer in mind. My general explanation is this: the cross is often seen as a rather flat symbol, you know, death, resurrection, yadda, yadda. In this picture, though, there are a lot of things that are bouncing around with the cross at the center. Remember what was given to give us life--no yadda about it!

Someting else happened to me while I stared at this picture. I got a little too close to it, a theological statement in itself. I ended up unable to focus both eyes to make one target and saw two pictures. I was then staring at two crosses. I had to remember something else important that came right to me. One cross was Jesus' and the other my own.

So long, Skip.

Tonight, the Braves will play their first home game since the death of Skip Caray last week. I am certain there will be a good tribute to him at Turner Field. Here is mine:

The most recent Skip-ism caught me about a little over a month ago. The Braves game was coming on the radio. Skip welcomed the listners to the broadcast with words he'd spoken for a number of years, "Hello again, everybody." I gasped. It finally hit me that Skip used the very same greeting his father employed as he began Chicago Cubs games. It was a subtle tribute every time he was on the air.

Skip very often said "we" when referring to the Braves. He did it win or lose. It makes me a little self-conscious when I catch myself saying "you" in sermons.

Of course, I remember the call in 1995 which concluded the World Series . . .

Skip: There's a drive! Deep left-center! Grissom on the runnnn--yes!

Don Sutton: Yes!

Skip: Yes!

Don: Yes!

Skip: The Atlanta Braves have given you a championship!

Don: Yes!

Being in a line of work where I often struggle to come up with the right things to say, sometimes the best thing to do is let a moment speak for itself.