Staying cool defeats my weight loss program

I get a kick out of articles detailing supposedly new and innovative ways to “beat the heat.” They’ve been popping up on my social media feeds and in newspapers for a month now, ever since Earth slipped its orbit and began its headlong plunge into the sun. (That’s what I assume has happened.)

It’s 93 degrees outside as I write this. And a few degrees cooler inside, thanks to The Lovely Mrs. Taylor’s new air conditioner and several strategically-placed fans. Still, miserable for anyone who isn’t from the planet Mercury.

Those articles offer all sorts of advice for keeping cool as you go about your day. Splashing water on your face, running cool water over your wrists, fanning yourself in a shady spot beneath a willow tree while a Polynesian girl feeds you peeled grapes. All sound great in print, yet somehow seem too much bother when you’re trying to conduct your work routine.

Also, Polynesian girls are hard to come by in these parts.

As a rule, my own “work” consists of sitting on my expansive backside in front of one of those aforementioned fans with a laptop open in front of me. But every so often, I’m forced (by Mrs. Taylor) to work beneath the open skies.

And by work, I don’t mean typing away while thinking deep thoughts. I mean real work. Man work. The kind of work that ruins your hands and gets your khakis dirty, that leaves you with cuts, bruises, slivers and an aching back.

Yesterday was such a day. It was “only” 90, so it could have been worse. Not much worse – not without the atmosphere bursting into a ball of flame – but still, worse.

Mrs. T wanted another raised planting bed. I’ve built her two already this spring, but she’s decided we’re going to be farmers and real farmers, apparently, have at least three. So hi-ho, hi-ho, it was off to work I go. (Not grammatically correct, but so what, it’s hot. Leave me alone.)

I’ve been trying to use up an enormous stack of scrap lumber left behind the garage by our home’s previous owner. It consists of the remnants of old porch swings, picket fences, a couple doors and other miscellaneous boards and planks. To go through it all, I’d have to build a full scale scrap wood model of the Coliseum, but I figured the garden beds was a start.

I started in the early morning (which for me, in my semi-retirement, means 10 o’clock). I was wearing my already ruined garden pants and an old, button-down shirt over a t-shirt. My lucky fishing hat – which smells like a pail of week-old trout – was perched jauntily on my head.

By noon the button-down was hanging on my band saw, dripping sweat and sawdust onto the lawn. As the temps climbed to 88, then 89, I soaked my hat with the garden hose and returned it to my head, hoping the evaporative process would keep me from melting. It didn’t work, despite what I’d read in a Facebook post.

By 3 p.m., I broke one of my cardinal rules and stripped off the t-shirt. Outside. Something I’ve promised my neighbors I would never do again, not since the case of Mrs. Labowski’s hysterical blindness last summer. I swear it wasn’t my fault; I hadn’t realized things had progressed that far during the winter.

At any rate, I finally broke down and went back inside to change into shorts. After an hour’s more work, even the shorts felt uncomfortable.

I considered just going the full Monty, but was worried I might snag some untoward appendage on a splintery board. Also, I’m pretty sure that, even out here in the sticks, there are rules against nude home improvement projects.

Just before sunset I finished the planting bed. I put my tools away, or rather, dragged them into semi-sheltered areas in case of rain, turned on the sprinkler and lay there in its cooling spray.

I tried to imagine we have an Olympic-sized pool with a cool, crystal fountain at one end. Because of my semi-delirious, heat induced brain warp, this actually worked. At least until the ants started biting me.

This morning when I stepped onto the scale, I discovered I’d lost five pounds. Five pounds, man!

I figure if I do a project like that every day for the next month and the temps stay in the 90s, there may come a time I can take my shirt off in public without blinding the neighbor lady.

Mtaylor325@gmail.com

(616) 730-1414

Sometimes it’s just too hot to be chili

I know my way around a kitchen. My old man owned a string of restaurants while I was growing up.

My mornings consisted of rising before the sun and doing prep work in the kitchen before taking off for school. After school, I’d work a couple hours doing whatever needed doing, then come back again after close to clean the floors.

Sounds like a Cinderella-esque existence, but it wasn’t. My dad paid me waaaay more than I was worth and for the most part, the quality of my work was lousy. On top of that, I almost always dragged a few friends along to do the cleaning at night; a teenager will work hard for unfettered access to a commercial deep fryer and freezer full of bad-for-you food to toss into it.

My point is, cooking has been a part of my life since I can remember. Nobody’s going to mistake me for a Cordon Bleu chef, but I can put together a meal without much trouble, regardless of the ingredients available.

This has come in handy over the years. My last two wives (both of whom had many good qualities) couldn’t boil water without setting the house afire. So most cooking tasks were relegated to me. I didn’t mind. I like to cook.

However, my new wife, Ms. Taylor (formerly Lori Frankforter), is something of a prodigy when it comes to preparing food. She doesn’t make simple fare, like me, but fancy-schmancy “artistic” grub best suited to a garden party at The White House.

Everything she cooks looks like it was painted by Monet. Her food should be framed and hung in the Guggenheim. Seriously. It’s too pretty to eat.

Even her midnight snack fare is breathtaking. She can take a bag of taco chips and month-old salsa and turn it into a repast fit for Henry the Eighth. (I am I am. Sorry. Try getting that song out of your head now.)

At any rate, her talent has prompted me to work a little harder, to be a bit more creative with my own cooking. That includes simple stuff like chili.

Now that the temperature has dropped into the double digits after a summer of Sahara-like abuse, chili, stew and other stovetop-type chow again seems like a good idea.

So last Saturday I made a trip to the market and purchased some nice, fresh vegetables: peppers, jalapenos, onions, tomatoes, some steak. Everything I need to put together my signature chili.

I say “signature chili,” but I don’t really believe in recipes. I subscribe to the “a little o’ this, a little o’ that” school of cooking. Nine times out of ten this works out just fine.

But after working all day cutting veggies, dicing meat, adding seasonings and simmering ceaselessly, what I wound up with in that chili pot … well, it wasn’t good.

Oh, it might be good for getting the rust off an old Buick or melting holes in steel plates, but for eating? Not so much.

I got a little over enthusiastic with the peppers, particularly the habaneros. As you may already know, habanero is Spanish for “Go ahead Gringo, if you dare!”

The best thing you could say about my chili is it could, in a pinch, double as rocket fuel. I managed to choke back a couple bites anyway, because I’m a man and I have to pretend spicy food doesn’t scare me. Ms. T (fLF) was under no such constraints and wouldn’t even go into the kitchen while the chili was sitting out uncovered. She was afraid it might rise from the pot and attack her.

Since I was raised in a large, Catholic family, I’m psychologically incapable of wasting food, even bad food, so I divided the chili into several Tupperware bowls and buried them in the freezer out in the garage, behind some earlier failed experiments. The chili will sit there for a year or two, after which time I’ll be able to toss it out guilt-free. Not logical, but it’s a system that works for me.

Problem is, I’m still in the mood for chili. Guess I’ll do a little shopping this afternoon. But this time I’ll present all those ingredients to Ms. T (fLF). She’ll transform them into chili that’s not only delicious, but pretty to look at.

mtaylor@staffordgroup.com

(616) 730-1414

Enjoying the wonders of another Michigan winter—not

If there are t-t-t-typos in this column, it’s only because I’m writing this in my home office and the t-t-t-temperature is hovering somewhere around absolute zero.

Outside my window, the thermometer reads minus-five. From the way the fine-grained snow is pelting the frosted-over pane, I’d put the wind-chill factor at about two degrees colder than a gas company executive’s heart.

I feel like Bob Crachit, scratching away in the frigid offices of Scrooge & Marley. The only difference here is—I’m married to my Ebenezer Scrooge!

The Lovely Mrs. Taylor watches the thermostat like a teenage boy watches late-night commercials for 900 numbers. If the indoor temp reaches a point where I begin to regain feeling my fingers and toes, she turns it down.

In theory, she and I think alike on this topic. We’re both paying the heating bill, after all, and heaven knows there are things I would rather spend my money on than the extravagant depletion of fossil fuels. Keeping that boiler in the basement fed is no different—in my mind—from just burning cash!

But like I said, we only agree on this in theory. In real life, on a day like this, I would merrily toss one-hundred-dollar bills into the fireplace one after the other if that were the only way I had to keep warm.

Mrs. Taylor on the other hand, is stalwart and steadfast. When she makes a vow to keep the thermostat turned down, she follows through. She is WWII England—she will never surrender. I am WWII France—run up the white flag and give me a bottle of Chateau Lafite, already! Preferably in a warm café with a just-baked baguette and some fresh-churned butter.

A big part of the problem is that the indoor temperature of our lovely, 100-year-old home differs only slightly from the outdoor temperature. It was built when heat meant coal, and coal was cheap. The house’s original furnace also burned wood, available everywhere to anyone willing to wield a saw.

Likewise, storm windows were not a priority to the home’s builder. Nor insulation.

Don’t get me wrong, I love this house. But it has more holes in it than Blackburn, Lancashire (according to John Lennon, 4,000). I don’t know if there are enough holes in this place to fill the Albert Hall, but it’s got to be close.

And cold air is, at this moment, blowing in through every single one of them.

When Mrs. T left for the office this morning, I promised her I wouldn’t turn up the heat. I know our last utility bill had more digits than Bobo the Three-Armed Piano Player, but I can see my breath, man!

Call me a quitter, I don’t care. I’m heading downstairs to that thermostat. Vive la F-F-France!

To contact Mike Taylor with your questions, comments, or offers for ten-day vacation packages to Tahiti, e-mail mtaylor325@gmail.com or write via snail mail to: Mike Taylor, c/o Valley Media, Inc., PO Box 9, Jenison, MI 49429. Miss a week? More Reality Check online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.mlive.com/advancenewspapers.