My Sister's Not-So-Secret Food Joy

One of the surprises of this recent holiday break was learning one of my sister's food crushes. Girl loves herself some White Castle. Needless to say, I was both stunned and proud.

As someone who admittedly ate quite a fair share of those greasy, oniony, grilled burgery delights. Let's be clear, the things are damn delicious. They get you thinking things you wouldn't dream of doing, but you suddenly find yourself talking to yourself not unlike this:



Believe me, this is real. Anyway, I was not only shocked to hear her talk about her trips to White Castle when she's back in Louisville (poor Denver is not blessed with the shining white beacon on a dark, desolate street), but that she likes it so much that someone gives her gift certificates so she can eat them for free. Outstanding.

So before she left on her flight we took 30 minutes to drive down the road and sit at the grimy counter and chow down a four-pack. Being the first time I can remember eating a White Castle burger in probably 10 years, holy crap if they were not spectacular. I was shocked by how "nice" and "clean" the White Castle establishments have tried to become. I appreciated the dirty, nasty floors and the grease-stained window where you stood and watched these ladies cook 40 or so of these burgers at once. It's less depraved in appearance but the clientele are still the same.

We laughed when a guy in front of us in line gave us a well-reasoned pitch on which combo packs to order so that we could best maximize the money on her gift certificate. I even snapped a great picture of her proving her devotion to the White Castle cause.

And when we sat down, I loved every bite, and I even ate mine faster than her.

Friday Funnies

Well, it's Christmas time, so I have to bring up some holiday classics that I love for the Friday Funnies. This time around, we're going with Scrooged. This is not the funniest clip from this movie, but since my mother has so lovingly declared this year to be the Campbell Family Christmas of Coal. Apparently gifts are strictly forbidden and we may well end up eating toast and rotten wine for dinner, I'm going to hold out hope that I get a VHS while my sister gets stuck with a towel. No, scratch that, I'll take the towel. Thanks mom! And happy holidays, everyone.

Friday Funnies

A bonus Friday Funnies for you. Because it's Christmas, and if Clark W. Griswold is who I can aspire to be as a grown-up, life will at least be full of adventure, and that ain't so bad.

Holiday Road: Kentucky Show

So it was our last day in Louisville before the big drive back to DC, and after a surprisingly delicious brunch, my mom thought of a quick activity, which was to go to the Center for the Arts downtown and check out this new display. It's a 30-minute video celebrating Kentucky's history.

At first I was a tad skeptical. I was worried it would be a half-assed film put together by a bunch of high schoolers and have the production value of the Blair Witch Project. Yet imagine my surprise when it was actually a really damn good 30-minute movie.

The project, called Kentucky Show!, is all about giving Kentucky residents a look at the history of the state and also celebrate everything the state has done. Sure, sounds kinda silly, and my friends from Cincinnati would probably interject a hundred Kentucky/barefoot jokes right now, but even they would be stunned by some of the stuff I learned.

It's narrated by Ashley Judd, and it's a mix of slideshows, video clips and tons of interviews with famous Kentuckians. And when they get to the part about the Derby, it got a bit misty. It never gets old and it's always gets me misty, seeing all those horses run, all the people and best of all, hearing 250,000 people singing My Old Kentucky Home. You can't experience that and not get choked up. I won't believe it.

So well done, mom. 30 minutes that made me feel a lot better about being from the Bluegrass State.

Holiday Road: Reading By Listening

Driving from DC to Kentucky and back is not a horrible journey. The trek takes you through lots of different and beautiful scenery. Western Maryland is nice, and once you get into Kentucky you got all those horse farms, and there is nothing prettier than seeing rolling hills with lots of horses hanging out. Just makes you feel like you are back home. West Virginia is not bad to look at, as long as you don't stop to talk to the people or eat anything. Because all they eat is fast food and more fast food.

It's about 13 hours total each way, so my goddess divine and I had to keep ourselves entertained, and playing the license plate game or the alphabet game just isn't getting it done. The lady gets carsick if she reads while in the car, so that wouldn't do either, and we have vastly different tastes in music, meaning, she hates everything I like. So loading up the iPod was out. The result? We gave audiobooks a try.

And I must say, I was pleasantly surprised. I was always worried about not being able to keep up and lose focus while driving, but it wasn't hard at all. Helps that we "read/listened" to some light-hearted fare, no Dickens or anything intense like that. All three, The Broker, The Appeal and The Ghost were all solid reads. The Appeal was a tad too slow at times, but it was decent in the end. The Broker was much more up-tempo, while The Ghost was a short 3 hours long and made the most of it.

I am definitely going to invest in more audiobooks the next time I take a road trip. It certainly helps pass the time, and as long as it's a solid book, you can't go wrong.

Holiday Road: Victory

First off, hope everyone had a good Christmas Day. Whatever gift you were hoping for (be it money, a pony or 100% convincing that Obama is indeed our president) I hope you got it.

Just have to give some much-deserved props to the Campbell kids. Instead of guessing at presents this year, the three of us were much more focused, and tagged the best possible gift for our mother. We got her the Amazon Kindle, which is the new fancy wireless digital book reader. It's pretty darn cool and surprisingly easy to use, so even scary octogenarians can use it without fearing that its going to take over the planet.

Mom dug it immensely from the moment she opened it, which is always a satisfying feeling. Then she spent the next two hours ticking off all its minutiae of features, so we knew she liked it. Campbell Kids 1, Bad Gift Ideas 0.

Holiday Road: Return to the Scene of the Crime

Tonight marks the one-year anniversary of the crime. We return to the scene tonight.

265 days ago, I accompanied my wife for the first time to her family's Christmas Eve dinner. Night before Christmas is the big tradition in her family, and everyone comes. There is some present opening, this odd photo of the grandchildren is taken and all is well. Plus, since my family doesn't have much of a family tradition of any kind for Christmas, it makes breaking up the holiday travel easy.

My first Christmas with the Crawfords would be an eventful one. That being because some jackass decided it would be a good idea to sneak into the front foyer and steal 5 purses. My wife's was one of them. Took us about an hour to realize they were stolen, but once it was realized, the hunt was on. And I'm not fucking kidding. It was a full-on, Tommy Lee Jones-style manhunt.

Her family is not to be trifled with. Within an hour, we had dissected secret surveillance video we got of the moron scoping out of the house. Then we had cops getting full, detailed reports from all 800 members of the family (everyone had an opinion and viewpoint, believe me). Of course, nothing topped me and her uncles canvassing the neighborhood, several of her uncles in trucks (with fully loaded rifles, no less) and me and a few others checking out nearby forests and dumpsters hoping the prick dumped the purses and kept the cash. It's probably better that the armed uncles weren't successful, because I'd feel sorry for that guy if they had found him.

We found a few clues (the idiot stole a Tupperware bowl, but I guess it was not lined in gold so he left it about 5 blocks away), but no perp, although a quick (hilarious) stop a local gas station had me and wife convinced for a few minutes we had him busted. In the end, we all were left shaking our heads and hoping the cops would catch the dude.

They finally did, about 5 months later, and the wife got a nice restitution check. It's been one year and the family gathers again tonight for the first anniversary of the crime. The ladies joked that they were all wearing fannypacks tonight as an homage. The family is installing a security system for the grandparents, and I bet it's not far from this one, knowing them. I just hope I get the code to shut it down.

Holiday Road: Tree Hunting

The Crawford bunch are normally a reserved bunch. This is far from my family, where no matter if it's Campbells or Duffys, chances are strong that you will find some alcohol, loud voices and some occasional picking on each other. You know, because we all love each other.

But my lady's family are the reliable ones, at least in terms of not drinking heavily and generally being goofballs. My side of the family has that covered. So behold my shock when I experienced the insanity of what seemed like a simple task ... getting a Christmas tree.

Go to a church parking lot or yard and buy a tree from Boy Scouts or something? Oh hell no. Her family drives damn near an hour to one of their secluded farms outside Murray and wanders aimlessly around a forest of trees to find the perfect one for her grandparent's house. Let me go ahead and reinforce a few things. There were around 11 of us. In four cars. It was 11 degrees outside. We were wandering around this forest. It was nuts.

Luckily, a tree was found. Or, as her grandfather aptly put, "We can cut this one down, or you all can wander around for another hour trying to find one and we'll end up back here to cut this one down." Thanks grandpa, for summing up everyone's opinions. So we cut the tree down with a saw, luckily not only with our hands. All the while, some of the cousins decided to make like spider monkeys and scale every tree they came across. Not to be taught a lesson, their father joined in. Normally reserved and rational, get them in an open setting and apparently all reason goes out the window. I'm just glad no one was impaled.

This scene from the best Christmas movie ever best sums up the experience, and is more like a documentary, the more I look back.

Holiday Road: Singalong

Now that we have made it to the farm for the first half of our holiday journey, now comes the fun parts. That is, me taking part in the family traditions of my goddess' clan that I was able to avoid during the opening 10 years of courtship. I got a "Get Out of Family Affairs Free" card because I normally had to go to Louisville and hang out with my event-free family. Now, I'm trapped in these activities like a prisoner in a Saw movie.

Last night's activity was a christmas concert at the family's Baptist church. One of the main performers was the wife's nephew, who is 4 years old and a maniac of Dennis the Menace proportions. Kid is great, but focused attention is not his forte, let alone any kid that age.

It was a trip watching him "perform," which basically meant him standing on the alter and repeatedly jamming his hands into his pants. Not sure if he was nervous or searching for gold, but those hands were firm in place. Also firm in place were his lips, which barely uttered a sound. As a nutcracker, he was spot-on. As a singer, not so much.

But it all turned out well, even if the band director got his god on to a level closely approaching spooky, and there was also a dude in the front row who started openly weeping because he couldn't stop coughing. Oh, and the music, while traditional Christmas tunes, were re-arranged by some fancy producer. They all sounded more like showtunes or Celine Dion tracks. Not entirely convinced that is what jesus would want. But what do I know?

Holiday Road: A Moment of Pause

We had to make a stop in Lexington for a night while on our way back to my wife's farm for the holiday. You see, her great uncle Ben died last week, and we absolutely had to pay our respects. Uncle Ben was a famous doctor here in Kentucky, and his death means my dearest's grandfather is the only sibling left. His other brother died two months ago, which means it has been a very un-fun winter thus far in the Crawford household.

I hate funerals. I hate hospitals. I shun just about anything dealing with death. I just don't handle that well. But I would be remiss if I didn't compliment and speak about the lovely service Uncle Ben got. Plus, he deserved the 50-70 people or so who showed up in 15-degree weather to say goodbye. My wife and I were saying farewell to a man who cooked up dinner while we were in college, who let us swim in his pool and do laundry for free. It's the little things, I always say, and Uncle Ben came through while not always getting the proper thanks. He was that kind of good man.

He lost a long, valiant battle with Alzheimer's, but I'm sure he's baking his French bread and making everyone smile. And while I loathe hospitals and funerals, I could not help but recognize the peacefulness of hearing birds chirp in the silence, the wind passing through branches struggling to hold their leaves in winter's grasp. The serene sound of taps being played out through the military color guard. And if nothing else, the beautiful words to a poem I had not heard previously, but will always remember.

Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on rippened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.
Ashley Morris

Well said.

Holiday Road

Yes, it's holiday season, which means it's time for a road trip. The wife and I decided this year to drive back to Kentucky, that way we could deliver presents instead of mailing them, and also because flights were about $9 bagillion dollars just to fly from DC to Louisville or Nashville (which is a whopping 100-minute flight).

No road trip would be complete without the National Lampoon's Vacation theme song, so just enjoy that. It's supposed to rain and be super windy the whole way home, so I doubt we'll have time to stop a visit the world's largest ball of twine or that enormous dinosaur that shows up in movies all the time. Plus, besides the weather, those locales are on the other side of the map from Kentucky, so we'd have to be super effing lost to run into those. Of course, it worked out splendidly for the Griswold's.