Miniburgers

In this age of supersized
Of overlarge with megafries
Your cheeks they bulge
With wads of food
With greasy chunks
Of meaty crude
You stop and cry
“This is enough!
“I can’t have more
I’m full, I’m stuffed!”
When comes as if
From heav’n above
The burger small!
It’s made of love!
The size of it
It’s manageable
Barely an ounce
It’s palatable
An order has
From three to five
Small burger bombs
Sometimes with fries
I’m glad I’ve lived
This long to see
A burger sized
Just right for me

The Dentist

He had the kindest, bluest eyes. As a child in the 60's, going to the dentist was a minefield. The best tooth protection we had was fluoridated water and Crest. I remember one time having five cavities. It would've been awful, except for Dr. Dale, my next-best-thing-to-having-your-dad-be-your-dentist, dentist. It somehow wasn't quite so bad with his sparkling, friendly, winter blue sky eyes there showing his care for my dental health, and somehow for my general happiness.

Dr. Dale was my dentist from the time I had teeth until he retired in 2005. I don't know how many people have the same dentist for 40 plus years, but I learned that with Dr. Dale, it wasn't that uncommon. It was a unique relationship, mine and my dentist's - someone who knew me almost my whole life, who I saw only once a year, and who caught up with me on the whole last 12 months in the time it took to examine my mouth. He always asked about mom and dad and my brother, and when I started to travel, he always asked where I'd gone that year. As a lover of travel himself, he had his own stories to tell during the time my mouth was gaped open as the exam was going on.

Yesterday I went to Dr. Dale's funeral. I sat in the pew and cried. The large church was almost full. There were a lot of healthy white teeth, artfully created bridges and crowns, and amalgam fillings: all the work of one of the nicest dentists in the whole wide world.

Balmy Sunday

We lounged this morning: read the Sunday paper, fell asleep sitting up on the couch, woke up and decided to run around Calhoun and Harriet to redeem the day and soak up the few atoms of vitamin D produced by the wan January sun. People around the lakes had a look of contentment - little half smiles sometimes blooming into a full grin on eye contact. This is a common expression - people are so happy to be out, even in pale sunshine, after two weeks of subzero death cold.

On TV this afternoon is a story about a group of guys replicating the Peking to Paris auto race of some time in the early 1900's. They alternate between great adventure, great fun, and being really ticked off with each other. They're driving the cars of the era, dressed in the clothes of the era, but they have a sag wag tagging along with them that I'm not sure the original auto racers had. Hey, a guy's gotta be comfortable, I guess. They're in Siberia, which looks a little like Minnesota, and should help explain why much of this blog has so far focused on the weather.

Heat wave in Minnesota

It got up to 30 today. As a measure of just how freaking cold it's been the last couple weeks, 30 degrees made me feel like running in shorts. But I stuck with my good ol' Minnehaha Marathoner greenies. The club ran in our centipede costume in the St. Paul Winter Carnival 5K this morning. We had a full contingent of 13 heads and 26 feet, and completed in a blistering 42 minutes. We burn up a fair amount of time surrounding police officers stationed on the course and giving high-fives to the runners coming back in the opposite direction. Steve stayed in bed. He woke up to his own personal morning pukefest, triggered by, a) the scallops we had for dinner, or b) the copious amount of wine we had at dinner, or c) some kind of evil-but-brief stomach flu. He seems to be better this afternoon. At least he's talking about what we'll have for dinner tonight.