Garnet and the Rise of Easy Cheese

Garnet places a high premium on good nutrition. (Please don't get her started on the evils of hydrogenated fats.)

Me, I think that eatin' doesn't get any better than a hot dog with chili, mustard and slaw from the Dairy-O in King.

Recently, I went to a fund-raiser brunch for AIDS Care Service at Bill and Sylvia's house. For fun, they decided to serve classic American food - with classic, in this instance, meaning corn dogs, sliced tomotoes, corn bread, chili, Jello, RC colas and Moon Pies.

At the end of the brunch, piles of food remained, and Bill and Sylvia sent me out the door carrying a box filled with corn dogs, corn muffins, RC's, Moon Pies, Jello - for Sparkle Girl, I refuse to eat the stuff - and a can of Easy Cheese.

I seldom buy Easy Cheese. But I have been a fan ever since a friend introduced me to the wonders of Cheese Waffies topped with rosettes of Easy Cheese. Plus, like whipped cream in a can, it's fun to dispense.

Now, if you have not read the label on a can of Easy Cheese, I can see how you might jump to the conclusion that cheese in a can that never needs refrigeration would have all sorts of troublesome ingredients. (See hydrogenated fats above.) But, as long as you stop reading soon enough to avoid getting bogged down in the food colorings and preservatives at the end of the list, you will discover that it's really pretty straightforward.

It's real cheese in a real can.

Nonetheless, I fully expected Garnet to leave the Easy Cheese to me. The only question in my mind was whether she would make any snide comments as I enjoyed my bonus.

As it turned out, the only question was whether she was going to pass the can when I would ask for it. The can did not last the afternoon.

The next day when I called to say that I was coming over and to ask whether I needed to pick up anything along the way - another gallon of milk for Mr. Doobins is a common request - she asked me to pick up a can of Easy Cheese.

A couple of days later, when we were making out a shopping list for supplies for a picnic for Sparkle Girl and Mr. Doobins, her eyes lit up when I asked whether she wanted me to pick up some more Easy Cheese and a box of cheese crackers.

As much as Garnet enjoys it, cheese in a can that does not need refrigeration doesn't rest comfortably in her self-image.

As she was getting in her car to take the kids home while I went to the grocery store, I ran through the list of things I needed to pick up. When I got to Easy Cheese, she shushed me. When I asked what that was about, she said that she was afraid one of the neighbors might overhear her advocating the purchse of cheese in a can.

In the days since, she has taken to comparing the relative strengths and weaknesses of the various brands and flavors - American, cheddar, sharp cheddar - as well as the best sizes and brands of cheese crackers to put it on.

Garnet told me that, if I took her secret public, she was going to tell everyone how funny I looked chasing that croquet ball down the street in hopes of getting to it before it disappeared down the storm drain at the corner. (Doobins had given it a mighty whack that sent it shooting out of the yard.)

If she had a camera phone, that threat might have given me pause. She doesn't. So I'm going to take my chances.

Mr. Whitfield and the Steel Bolts

"There was a time when I could have held my own in most any fight. I had the staying power. The staying power is what wins most fights." R.L. Whitfield talking about his days in the U.S. Navy


Mr. Whitfield turned 79 earlier this month. I had the date written on my calendar but managed to forget about it until he showed up at my front door with a slice of his birthday cake for me.

For a while now, R.L. has been in a lot of pain in his back and legs. That hasn't kept him from getting out and walking the dog. But it's been getting harder and harder. There was a time when he resisted when I offered to take Fluke out. Lately, he just hands to leash over to me and thanks me.

A few months back, the spine doctors started talking about an operation, and R.L. began making the rounds of heart doctors and other specialists to determine whether they thought that his heart and the rest of him were up to it.

They decided that he was a good candidate and scheduled the operation for this past Thursday. As the day approached, depending on what sort of mood R.L. was in, he would tell me that he planned to come home five hours after they were done and get on with his life or he would say something along the lines of "All good things must come to an end."

When I dropped by the night before the operation, his wife, Pearl, told me that he had announced that, if he didn't make it, he just wanted her to call up Vogler's, tell them to pick up and cremate the body, and call it quits at that. No obituary in the paper. No memorial service.

"After you're gone, she can do whatever the hell she wants," I said.

Exactly, she said.

Mr. Whitfield hopped up off the couch and said he was throwing me out of the house. I said I would see him later.

Between Buster's sleeping troubles and my sleeping troubles, the two of us might be outside at any given time. So I thought we might see them off in the morning. But we were too early one time and too late the next.

That night Pearl's niece Bambi filled me in. All had gone well. Doctors had moved some nerves out from between L-4 and L-5, where they were not supposed to be, put a piece of bone from his hip in between there and bolted a couple of steel rods on the side to fuse everything.

By the time, I saw R.L., he was sitting in a chair in his room and complaining about what a miserable thing a catheter is. I have heard this from more than one place and wonder whether male doctors have to have one put in during med school just so they know what the experience is like. My guess would be, no.

I was sorry that he was in misery but glad to see that he was in good enough shape to be cranky.

This morning, I drove Pearl over to the hospital so that she wouldn't have to worry with a car. When I called over later to find out whether she wanted me to pick her up so that she could come home and take a break, Bambi reported that Pearl was seriously contemplating murdering R.L. but that she wanted to stick around a while longer.

Glad to hear that everything was going well, I promised to call back later.

Sparkle Girl and the Treasure Chest

Although tradition demands that people dig up buried treasure with shovels, Doobins likes heavy equipment. So when Sparkle Girl and Doobins dug up a treasure chest in one of the bedtime stories that I make up as I go along, I had them use a backhoe.

Audience participation is an integral part of these stories. Partly that's because both of them are regularly inspired to offer suggestions about what should happen next - some of which I take and some of which I ignore - and partly because, when you're making up a story as you go along, asking the audience what should come next can be a big help when you hit a mental snag.

And so it was when they threw open the top of the treasure chest in this story.

Sure, I could have stuck with tradition and said that, when they looked inside, they saw gold doubloons and emeralds and rubies and other jewels. And I was fully prepared to do that if I couldn't think of anything snappier. But, in order to buy myself a moment to see whether I could come up with something, I said, "And what do you think they saw inside?"

Without missing a beat, Sparkle Girl said, "Car parts."

She paused for a moment, looking as if she were examining the contents in her mind (and she may have been) and added, "I think there was a steering wheel in there."

No way I could top that. So that's what we went with.

OK. That's the end of that anecdote. Now on to one starring Mr. Doobins.

He and I are over at my house. I'm working on the computer in my bedroom. He is the dining room playing with toys. He comes into the room where I'm working looking like a man who is up to something.

"What's up?" I said.

"Oh, I'm just thinking," he said.

"What are you thinking about?"

"Pez."

"Are you thinking you need one?"

"Yeah," he said.

Subtle approaches like that should be rewarded. I went into the kitchen and got a pack.