Ramblings

• There are strange happenings with mother nature in the neighborhood. There is a goose in my neighborhood that thinks she is Chuck Norris. She will start charging you from a good 50' away. This is a problem for everyone because SHE LAID HER EGGS BESIDE THE SIDEWALK. She'll charge cars, people, dogs, gay ducks - anything. Crazy.....

• ALSO, I'm no duck expert, so this is probably not unusual but I will say my concern is growing. About a week ago I noticed a single male duck hanging out in one of our wonderful drainage ponds at the front of the neighborhood. No big deal, but I thought ducks usually hung out in pairs. Well, then I saw two ducks (both male) hanging out there. Now this morning we are up to 4 male ducks in this pond. Did they start a gay male duck commune there? Seems odd.

Request for Female Insight

I'm going to predict that every female family member that reads this will give the same (correct) answer to this question. I guess this is just a sign that guys and girls think very differently. I'll have to give you all some background, because unless you are cheating on your spouse you aren't on eHarmony. Here's the deal: on eHarmony you fill out a profile and answer all the basic stuff you would guess is in there. What's your age? Where do you live? Do you drink? Do you smoke? Do you want to have kids? What are you most passionate about? What are you most thankful for? What are you looking for from a partner? yada yada yada. Then every day they send you some "matches" based on their 4 billion dimensions of compatibility (which is ridiculous, because they send you 5-8 a day from the day you start until the end of time. I can't be that good of a match with these people or the whole gig would be over by now. Here's what I've learned - they send you the ugly matches first. Probably because they've been on the website the longest.)

Also, I have one other sidenote. The question "Do you want kids?" can only be answered "yes", "no", or "maybe" (no write-in answers). Without fail, if someone answers "maybe", this is code for "I already have at least one". Guaranteed. I don't know if these people really want to answer "sometimes", and "maybe" is the closest they can get. Or maybe having kids is that horrible and if you wait too long after your 1st one you'd have to be insane to have more. It looks ominous.....

OK, I'll eventually get to my question. If you get a "match" that you are interested in, you go through this "guided communication". You can't just write them. That's fine. First you do these multiple choice questions, then you send a list of "Must Have's" (intellect, ambition, etc.) and "Can't Stand's" (drug user, lazy, etc.). Then you ask these "short answer" questions where the person responding can actually type in their own words. After that everything is open.
When you ask a question it's for a specific purpose, for both the multiple choice and short answer questions. For instance, during the multiple choice questions (that you pick from a list. You can't write your own) I ask "When going somewhere, are you usually:" "early / on time / late / so late that sometimes I don't show up at all". It's obvious why I ask this question - because if you consistently can't plan ahead in minutes and can't make it to a movie before the 30 minute previews are over, you're going to stress me out and piss me off. So maybe we shouldn't bother dating. Likewise, I'm pretty much ALWAYS on time and plan ahead in weeks, months, and years, so I will probably annoy you, though your life would probably be more successful if I was in it ;-) You would also 'get' more movies because we would see the beginning of them even if your hair is in a ponytail because I was complaining that you weren't going to be ready on time. I digress.....

Here's where my question comes in. There is a 'short answer' question that gets asked A LOT, and I can't figure out what the purpose is. There are 2 variants to this question - here they are:

Tonight you can do anything you want, no penalties, no reprisals, and the cost is unimportant. What are you going to do?

If you had three wishes, what would they be?

So, what is it about how I would deal with magical wishes that can help a girl determine if they would be interested in me? Seriously, I don't get it, but any normal girl can probably shed light on this with some obvious answer that doesn't hypothesize that witchcraft is becoming trendy in the Dayton area. Are they looking for creativity? Are they trying to catch me "cheating"? (a night with Scarlett Johannson could be one potential good use of a wish, but it's not like I would list this....) The truth is, I don't want any wishes. Was I the only person that saw the (horrible) movie BeDazzled? Well, hello there, unintended consequences! (They were probably late to the movie and didn't understand what was going on.) I DON'T GET IT....

(I know, I'm ridiculous)

The Pork Trilogy - Recipe #2
Lime Pork Tenderlooin

This also comes from the Good Housekeeping 'Grill It!' cookbook (though I'm simplifying it here), and is incredibly easy to pull off. The hardest part is remembering to buy a lime at the grocery store. You will need:

1 pork tenderloin
1 lime
1 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tbsp honey
pinch of ground cloves

1. Fire up the grill to medium heat
2. Cut the tenderlooin in half, lengthwise
3. Grate 1 tsp. of peel from the lime and mix with the salt and pepper
4. Rub this mixture on the meat
5. Spray the pork with nonstick cooking spray
6. Grill 12-15 minutes, turning once.
7. Meanwhile, mix honey, cloves, and 2 tbsp of lime juice in a bowl. Serve this with the pork
   

Technically you are also supposed to grill plums and add that to the honey/lime juice mixture. I'm just not a fruit-griller. It's not my style. Don't take the measurements on salt, pepper, or lime peel too seriously. Just salt/pepper however much you want, and then grate the lime peel onto the pork until it looks like you 'have enough'. Everybody likes lemon pepper seasoning, right? This is just lime pepper instead. And then you're basically dipping it in honey - what's not to like about this?