The 4 most harrowing words in the English Language

"Let the boy live"

Seems innocuous right, no harm there at all. Let the boy live, I mean what harm can come in letting a youngling out in this world full of adventure go out and enjoy himself nothing you say right. Oooohoo you would be so wrong, or maybe life was trying to teach me early on that me and drama were always going to be close friends. As a G+ friend of mine always likes to mention, here comes the back story.

Many years ago on one of our normal trips to some place not New Jersey(I believe I was 11 and my little sister was 6, my brothers weren't born yet), I believe we were heading to Kings Dominion in VA it was a weekend thing KD, Bush Gardens and possibly a Wet n' Wild or something, my parents were

Primaldata Grill Enthusiast

This year I was honored to be asked if I would cook the meat for my family reunion, my eyes being bigger than my grill of course I said yes. After a few words in reminder from my mother and a one of my aunts it was decided I would just do the chicken. Now I must confess me and cooking chicken for my relatives and extended family always comes with a running inside the family joke, as my cousin Mack put it so perfectly "I don't know why you cook something and expect it to be here when you get back". Now I will confess my "famous" chicken is actually a family undertaking, yes I decide how hot the fire is, how many wood chips will be thrown in to each batch, and when I will pull it off but the spices as well as the spice combination is usually decided by my mother. The sauce that is usually added most times is added by Ero Kitsune, yes he has other skills besides just forcing me to sit through bad movies or coming up with catchy derogatory titles for movies, sometimes I will do it(but I will usually be dead tired by the time sauce making commences so usually his sauce is better than mine), this year it was handled by dad since Kitsune was the only brother who decided to work today(I have an excuse I was on the grill, Lank not so much unless you count Infamous 2 as some holy undertaking).

After buying my first batch of supplies my mother started marinating the chicken for me while I cleaned my grill, as not to fight over space I grabbed a large Tupperware bowl, put some soap in it, grabbed my grill brush, and decided to do the cleaning outside. a few passes of the brush to remove any leftover grease and or schmutz off each grate and a quick blast with the hose and 25 minutes later I was done. Now while I don't use all of my father's "Country Boy Grilling techniques"(my father was born and raised in AR), I do subscribe to the cover your grates in foil and pop holes through it technique. It still lets the smoke through, controls some of the flame ups,(some not all not claiming this is some holy grail of flame maintenance), and it cuts down on the amount of cleaning I have to do later. The only caveat is that I don't get the grill marks most people who just touch the food straight to the grate get, there is still minor stickage as well but no where near as bad as straight metal on flesh. This year was also a new medium for me: leg quarters. Usually I make chicken breasts and we pound them out flat so that they cook faster, but since I was cooking all of the chicken and not just trying to win the barbecue contest we decided the leg quarters would allow for more for everyone while maximizing cooking space.

I'm not a complete grinch

As much as I am known to loathe christmas music, I have no problems with holisay decorations. Yes both are just padding for a companies bottom line, but at least the decorations are about personal expression.
I mean look at most christmas albums all USUALLY remakes of some song somebody else made a classic. Maybe you do it right, maybe you commit a travesty to music but rarely is it something new.
Now not with "christmas lights"(I know its more than lights but that's what I call them) that's almost always something personal, people can buy the same lights or decorations but set them up completely differently from each other.

Back in south jersey there used to be a guy who basically created "Christmas Village" man this place it was like all those old moving puppet style christmas specials. He used to have the chasing lights, he'd have singing lights, dancing characters, waterfalls, frosted trees. I mean he used to have this donation box and I would always put my extra change in there. It used to be my special christmas time, pre birthday treat when we lived in jersey. I heard he had to sell that house when I was in my 20's but I thank him for the memories he gave every child that went there.

Even that last year he admitted the expense but I heard he said it was just something he loved to do, that the smalls on our faces brought him so much joy. I had often wished to share that experience with children of my own(except I did not have children before he sold it nor do I have any now, but it was a fond wish). I hope somebody else has blogged about christmas village or posted pictures of it. Because this time of year that's what it should be about simple things you can share with family. The memories of our trips to christmas village has outlasted all the toys I ever got in those years, all the comics, all the clothes, and cards.
I mean every year the subtle changes he would make, the bigger the spectacle. I swear even as a young teen my eyes would grow wide because it would be that 0_0 moment. The I didn't expect that, or I can't believe he was able to pull that off.

Now no RARELY does everyone pull off a christmas village, but even the folks who do the Transiberian Orchestra Dancing lights, or other Musically Choreagraphed offerings it always makes me happy that I share a birthday with this time of year. These type of moments and visuals stay with you for a lifetime

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

Hi ho, hi ho its off to Marianna I go

I'm gonna cut Marianna a break I always talk trash heading out there cause of the lack of cell phone signal with my digital toy addicted tail, but its a nice quiet little town. Off to run a quick little errand, (boss update break before I forget)

Grrr that was a waste of time I feel him wanting to get the stuff we can get done done today but the customer changed the plan and was like hold off. Oh well another one of those "his plans versus the customers schedule" things. Its always fun but back to Marianna:

As a kid I used to traipse my behind from jersey to AR every summer to spend a few weeks up to a month with my "country cousins". I mean I don't know why I quoted that they are from the country I'm talking farms near by(and by near by I mean down the street or next door), open fields, dirt roads, creeks, bunch of ranch houses, and big lawns. And to a young kid used to seeing concrete and grass only around construction sites it was fun. I won't lie I used to run around pretending I was Tom Sawyer(aaah white washing my aunts old barn hmm I guess I could spin that anecdote):

FLASHBACK EFFECT

I remember it was probably like 83-84 the family reunion all us bad behind cousins together. Me(bad grammar be damned I'm telling the story), Vic, Eric, Mark, Herb, Nay nay, Wally, my little sister and a few other little rug rats who's names slip my mind. As was the custom we were all hanging together at one of the aunts houses as we enjoyed some time together. Well it so happens SOMEBODY left a few cans of white paint around, and paint brushes.

Bunch of kids

Paint and paint brushes

A dilapidated building and a warm summers day.

So you know what that means yup "Hey why don't we paint the barn". Now no, we weren't asked, no most of us weren't old enough to be trusted to paint more of the barn that we would ourselves and no it wasn't going to end well.

So?

So we stirred the paint up, found ourselves some stuff to split the paint into and got our resourceful(yeah yeah bad) butts to work. Now half way through our little white washing escapade it was tease the city cousin time. I think it was Vic "Hey Tommy Jr. Tommy Jr.(Yeah yeah I'm a jr. Keep up) you always bragging how you been climbing up there in jersey, you know yall ain got now trees in jersey". Now at the tender age of around 9 or 10 there was not much my little short scrawny tail could do BUT climbing was one of them. "Uh huh" I said(gotta love that young vocabulary) "I could probably climb up to the top of this barn. I could paint the roof"

Now why I say that? Two young kids in a dare contest(basically that boast was throwing down the guantlet I mean how he gone let me make that claim?) and my little 4 foot on my damn tippy toes, MAYBE 40 pounds soakin wet den claimed I could climb all the way up to the top of this here building. So you know him and everybody else got on me to do it. I mean I don't know if we got to the double or triple dog dare but I was dared.

Thing is:skinny, chocolate, bored with a decent wing span for my age and short? You damn right I climbed up the building like a damn chipmunk. Was a few times where I had to crawl out of my way to find a decent beam but I made it to the top. WITH my brush, big old gap tooth smile too as I started painting that ceiling acting like Billy Bad cause for that second I was the man. Whew aaaaaand in about that next breath it all came crashing down. Because who should come into the barn (WITH a SWITCH) but Vic's mom Aunt Francis. Now I know the stop snitching policy wasn't in effect yet but as the switch was flying tappin young thighs and back sides a tear filled eye looked right at me. Yes me safe above the fray because who would think anybodies little bad tail would climb to the top of the barn(hands anybody, anybody, Buehler, Buehler).

Now the dilemna: I could hear the wails and tears of my cousins being punished for painting the barn. I was stuck in the ceiling, with paint on my hands which of course I needed to wash off. And well I didn't want a whoopin, who does come on now let's not even lie. So here we go I wait a few minutes, heart pounding because of course I know Aunt Francis will come back any minute to discover me climbing down. Nope didn't happen, I look around no Aunt Francis I get to the bathroom no Aunt Francis she had this bathroom with that long pipe faucent and basin where we could all wash our hands.

So I sneak in next to Vick(what), I crank up the crocodile tears(don't look at me like that I was trying to protect my poor tender buns okay), and commence to washing my hands. I swear the look in Vicks eyes was bloody murder, Herb and Eric were kinda laughing like hey I took the dare and almost got away with it.

Wait you say right? Almost?

Climbed down: Check

Made it in the bathroom:check

No Aunt in sight: Cheee whoops spoke too soon

In the midst of my Oscar winning ""you whooped me already" performance in comes Vic's mom for one last pass so we know how bad we were. And yes hands full of paint I may not have got as many licks overall as everyone else but I got some. Call it karma, to make matters worse Vick starts laughing now. I mean it wasn't funny to me anymore the ultimate Tom Sawyer experience was just ruined, I would have gone down in city cousin history.

I climbed to the heights

Put some paint on the ceiling

AND got away with it homey you can't beat that with a bat. Its still a fun story though we always get a laugh out of it thinking back. I wonder if I have any old group pictures of us especially from around that time. If I can find one I'll go ahead and post it at the middle of this blog. Yeah fond memories I couldn't tell you where I got my tail whipped at, I used to use car travel time as either sleep or comic book reading time(even if it was too dark and I was straining my eyes yeah yeah mom I know I know).

Aiight I've come, run my errand and we are on our way out. Fields are still here, they've knocked some of the trees down, probably a few less open lots, and few more businesses but I still have the memories. The fun of youth and the misadventures that you come to love. From the suburban kid who was pretty solitary and wasn't able to go too far to hanging with my cousins and running free.

And yes by the muddy Mississippi I did have me some nice little adventures(okay not RIGHT by the Mississippi, but hey does that matter to a kid nope I was living a story book adventure.
Aiight putting this one to bed.(haven't dug up the pic yet so that will come at a later edit

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile