Last Day of the Year Breakfast Concoction

Wife ran out early this morning for groceries before the kids got up. She went wild with the baked goods, bringing doughnuts, bagels and croissants.

I didn't really feel like making a whole bagel and while wife and one daughter planned on fried eggs, I was not in the mood for that either: I had ordered steak and eggs on the way home from brother-in-law's on Long Island at the place we often go to--Shoreline Diner & Vegetarian Enclave. It is a great place for us to go to since we often travel with my parents in law, one of which is vegetarian. He is cool though, doesn't mind if I eat steak in his presence.

We had a bit of left-over grilled salmon and so I decided on a split and toasted croissant, with the salmon, egg-white omelette and Hollandaise sauce. I don't normally go for the egg white omelette but the Hollandaise takes three egg yolks and I didn't want to waste the whites. (Just watch, if I ever become a politician "waste the whites" will be quoted out of context and will be used to ruin my chances.)

Anyway, it was very good: Wife had some of the sauce on her fried egg and one daughter had some of the egg white omelette with sauce. Hollendaise sauce is great and can be whipped-up any time since any decent kitchen should always have eggs, butter and fresh lemons.*

*It can not be overemphasized how important it is to use fresh lemon juice. It really is better to just do without than to make Hollendaise sauce with lemon juice from the plastic lemon.

I could have spent all day

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, we saw some amazing and rare pieces.

Three Levels

I am not an anthropologist but supposedly, the counting systems of primitive people often consists of only One, Two, Three and Many. This makes sense in a culture where figuring does not really come up.

Yesterday I had to get a generator out of the back of our truck. A worker at Costco had helped me get the thing in at the store. With a gravity assist, I got the machine out of the Yukon. This set me to thinking though about whether or not I could have gotten it into the truck without assistance. My wife, who is really very strong was with me at the store, so I would have had help, but still I was wondering. I am curious but not so much that I will put the generator back into the truck just to find out if I can. Anyway, it would not be a good test because at this point, it doesn't really matter if I can lift the box three feet into the back of an SUV. It is not like I have paid a bunch of money for this machine and I am in a parking lot with it and the car.

So I got to thinking that there are three categories of things, in terms of my ability to handle them:

1. I can easily pick it up and put it wherever it needs to go.

2. I could lift it, but I will almost certainly injure myself in the process.

3. It is beyond my strength to do.

The generator is probably somewhere between #2 and #3. Though in the past I have attempted a 2-3 task and been happily surprised at it actually being a #1.