In a Half Hour They'll Be Critical Again

Swell. First they took away my buttered movie popcorn, then they attacked my double-cheeseburgers and soft drinks. Now they’re going after my favorite food of all time? Those bastards!

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Chinese restaurant food draws criticism

The typical Chinese restaurant menu is a sea of nutritional no-nos, a consumer group has found. A plate of General Tso's chicken, for example, is loaded with about 40 percent more sodium and more than half the calories an average adult needs for an entire day.

The battered, fried chicken dish with vegetables has 1,300 calories, 3,200 milligrams of sodium and 11 grams of saturated fat.

That's before the rice (200 calories a cup). And after the egg rolls (200 calories and 400 milligrams of sodium).

"Across the board, American restaurants need to cut back on calories and salt, and in the meantime, people should think of each meal as not one, but two, and bring home half for tomorrow," Liebman said.

Also surprising were some appetizers: An order of six steamed pork dumplings has 500 calories, and there's not much difference, about 10 calories per dumpling, if they're pan-fried.

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Anyone who knows me will realize that Chinese food and I go well together. Why, my first “real” post on this blog was a rant about aggressive Chinese food buffets. And in fact, that’s what the Lovely Mrs. G. and I had last night – aggressive Chinese buffet. (It’s unsettling to eat when there are two waiters staring at you, waiting for you to finish so that they can sweep your plate away.)

But c’mon – what’s better in this world than an order of fried won-tons? Or some really good sesame chicken? Or what about Lo Mein? For the LOVE OF GOD, WHAT ABOUT THE LO MEIN?

Wow – maybe I should cut back on the MSG, too...

There Goes The Neighbor...hood

Our next door neighbors put their house up for sale last week.

It seems sort of ironic, in a way – both their house and our house were on the market at the same time way back in 1999, and they moved in a month or so before we did. Now here they are, selling theirs 3 months before we put ours on the market.

Anyway, I wish I could say that I’ll miss them, but that’d be a big fat stinking lie.

It’s not like they’re horrible people or lousy neighbors – all things considered they haven’t been that bad to be around. Their worse habit is parking their cars directly across our driveway, which makes it a real bitch to get out of when it’s snowy/icy. But there’s never really been any loud parties or junk cars parked on their lawn – just a couple of Halloween jack-o’-lanterns that overstayed their welcome (well past Thanksgiving) a couple of years ago.

To say that we barely know our neighbors after living next door to them for all this time would be an understatement. We know their names, mainly because there is a sign with them hanging above their front door. We know they’ve got a little girl, because you can still see the “It’s a Girl!” poster through their kitchen window (no blinds). We know that he enjoys “adult entertainment”, because before he put up a curtain/bed sheet over his living room window we had a perfect view of some mighty flexible people doing all sorts of nasty things on his big screen TV just about every night. But that’s about it.

We’ve never socialized together. We’ve never hung out over the fence, sharing a beer. I’ve never borrowed any of his power tools. The Lovely Mrs. G. has never swapped recipes with his wife.

And now they’re moving away. It’s sad, ain’t it? I guess it really looks like I’m really not a “neighborly” kind of guy. But that’s not true – if we had more in common I’m sure we’d get along swimmingly. But our Sioux City neighbors have never been exactly “friendly” to us, either. So there won’t be a lot of tears shed with their moving, but it’s not like we’re jumping and down with joy, either. Because as Bubba Gump and his wacko family across the street has proven, it can always be WORSE.

Mrs. G. and I of course have a bet on “why” they’re selling - divorce is our #1 pick – (sick, aren’t we?) – but we also know that they’re gone almost every weekend anyway. They’ve got a yard full of “toys” – boats, jet skis, snowmobiles – so we wonder if they’ve got a lake house somewhere to go.

We’re also kind of hoping that their Realtor will hold an open house sometime soon, so we can go tromp through the place and see what the difference is between their house and ours. Our two houses were built at the same time, and both have the same basic shape/floorplan/layout. From what I can tell our kitchen is much nicer, and I know that their basement isn’t finished, so hopefully it’ll give us the leg up when we list our house this summer.

And once we’ve both gone our separate ways perhaps the news owners of both houses will get together and become best buds.

Or maybe not. Heck, it worked for us for 7.5 years.

Trapped.

Help me. I’m stuck.

You see, winter isn’t quite through with us poor bastards in Iowa. She’s still hanging in there, with a vengeance.

Let’s begin my tale of woe last Saturday/Sunday, when a foot of fresh snow fell. This was of course on top of the freezing rain that fell from the sky beforehand, and the several inches of snow that was already gracing the fair lands since early January.

Then yesterday the real fun began.

It started simply enough with a blizzard warning – that ran for 48 HOURS. The snow started falling around 4:30 AM, and stopped for the most part sometime late last night. Officially we got another 8 inches on top of the foot that was from last weekend, plus the pre-existing snow.

But that’s only half of the fun. The winds are also blowing around 50 miles an hour, making it damn near impossible to shovel, drive, walk, or breathe outdoors without sucking in a face full of powdery sin.

The state patrol closed I-29 all the way from Brookings, South Dakota to the Iowa/Missouri state line – about 220 miles all together. I-80 is closed from Omaha to Des Moines. Travel is highly unadvised for anyone with an ounce of sanity.

Fortunately, our employers cut us some slack and closed shop. I got to work yesterday AM, and my new manager Mr. K. immediately sent us all home. The Lovely Mrs. G’s boss sent them home at 9:00 or so, and even Miss Katie, who works at the mall, lucked out when they actually closed the mall. (You know it’s bad out when both the mall and the nearby casinos close.)

So here we are... Friday AM, trapped at home for the second day. Just about everything is shut down – schools, jobs, stores, roads, patience levels. The city has pulled all of the plows off the streets, and the cops are saying that we should all just plan on staying put until tomorrow night at the soonest.

But it’s not all bad. I’ve finally been inspired to start writing that Great American Novel I’ve always wanted to finish. Mrs. G. has barricaded herself in the bathroom with a baseball bat. And Miss Katie? She’s riding a tricycle up and down the halls and is muttering something about “redrum”.

Okay – in all honesty we’re all getting along fine, with maybe the exception of a couple of cats who are going stir crazy. One has cabin fever really badly, and the other keeps eyeing us like she’s just seen the movie “Alive”, and wants to know which one of us looks the juiciest.

Still, I can’t wait for maybe a little bit of Spring to show up, instead of all this blizzard crap. Because as far as I know, I’ve never had to shovel sunshine.

But in the meantime, if any of you out there want to come have some snow to play in, you’re more than welcome to come scoop all you want. It’s free. You-haul-it, you can have it.

Just don’t try taking the freeway to get here; they’re closed.