On the road again

A handsome fellow enjoying the breeze on the Appalachian Highway

(written last night, Saturday July 2, 2011)

It was a beautiful day for traveling and overall, it was a nice drive from Indianapolis to Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia, where we have our annual Mayer family reunion at Derek's father's house.  It's a very long, but scenic, trip through the mountains of West Virginia, so it’s nice to be here and the lake looks lovely and serene.  The rest of the gang is out on the boat watching the fireworks, but I decided to take this opportunity to have some quiet time alone to write.  Derek’s dad Bob has a beautiful long-haired gray and white cat named Porter, who’s usually a bit aloof and skittish.  This evening, though, he came up and rubbed against me and let me pet him; maybe he knows how much I’m missing the P.I.G.

There’s not much to say about food today; these days it's nearly impossible to run across anything memorable on the road.   About the best you can hope for is Cracker Barrel, and it takes too long, so we usually bring our lunch with us and hope there will be some food left when we get to the house.  During the drive we did toss around some ideas about what to cook for the family this week.  We take turns cooking at the lake, and I think Derek’s brother Ryan is grilling pork ribs and chicken tomorrow.  I have to say, though, that my honey makes the best ribs I’ve ever had anywhere!  Derek has decided he wants to cook Mexican food one night, but he hasn’t narrowed it down just yet.  His enchiladas were a big hit a couple of years ago, as they should be; he makes his enchilada sauce from scratch!  I think I’m going to make either chicken and sausage gumbo or shrimp etouffée, since the kids like it so much.  They all went to New Orleans over spring break and they joked about how Ryan ordered gumbo everywhere he went.  We brought some green tomatoes from our garden, so I considered making fried green tomatoes with shrimp remoulade as an appetizer, but it really is a lot of work and I’m more inclined to relax and keep it simple this trip.   This will probably be my last vacation for a good while, and I need to make it count. 

We heard a fascinating story on NPR today about a theater program for prison inmates.  This particular group of prisoners was performing Hamlet, and their perspectives were truly thought-provoking.  As the narrator said, these men may not have the acting chops of a Hollywood actor, but they have first-hand experience that no professional actor can claim.  Well, I hope not, anyway.   One comment really made me laugh, though…the prisoner who was playing Horatio was a man who had killed several people and referred to himself as a blue whale in a sea of minnows.  He was sharing his view of the character he was portraying and he said, “He’s a chump, fo' real…”  Somehow that led me down a convoluted path of words and I made up a new word. 

Entreprinertia: the inactivity and sluggishness that occur when a would-be entrepreneur runs out of ideas or motivation.  J