Slice of Heaven

Hello my dears. I hope you had a wonderful Square Root Day. Remember, there won’t be another one until 4/4/16, but that will be here before you know it, at the rate things are going.

Last night at the Swing Barn, your second-cousin Darnell tried to act responsibly in Sue Ten’s absence and showed Murder by the Numbers as this week’s movie on the wall. He did better with the “root” part of the celebration, and made a really fantastic stew of potatoes, turnips, and parsnips, the sort of meal that only someone from a northern clime could really appreciate. Fortunately, a lot of our regulars are refugees from the land of ice and snow, so they dug right in.

At the pie shop, Prentiss and I were a bit more snobby. After all, anyone can figure out square roots. We deal with pi. Get it? Still, Prentiss ran a little high-stakes bingo game, allowing people to pay extra for cards with 1, 4, 9, 16, and 25 pre-stamped. Can’t wait to see what she will do for Pi Day.

I gave out free golf balls to anyone who agreed to play with only their 9 clubs. In other words, “Welcome to my world.” I know those other clubs are perfectly fine, but I only wax poetic about my nines, especialy my new nine wood which still gleams under the lights when my insomnia pushes me out the door to hit a few balls around 3:00 a.m.

I don’t really know why anyone would want to buy a whole set of clubs all at one time. For me, that would be sensory overload. One at a time, I say. Get to know the very tool that will later on break your heart. At least, the putter will. Then, after the break up, go though an appropriate period of mourning, and start again with a whole new relationship. Forget the past! It’s time to move on.

Yes, it’s true. I have once again fallen in love with a new golf club, and I’d like to say “It’s only a hobby,” but it isn’t. I think you know what I mean.

All in all, this latest Square Root Day was a good one. I don’t really remember too much of note for the one that fell on 2/2/4, do you?

Meanwhile, you might as well start getting ready for 4/4/16. Here’s some help from the www.mentalfloss.com website. See you then!

The holiday is the brainchild of Sequoia High (Redwood City, California) driver education teacher Ron Gordon, who enjoys calendar quirks. He’s tried to get schools to celebrate Square Root Day since 1981. Gordon also inspired a celebration of Odd Day on March 5, 2007 (3-5-7). He is giving away a prize of $339 to the person who has the best Square Root Day celebratory event. What can you do to celebrate Square Root Day? Math teachers expect students to calculate square roots. We should do something fun in addition.

Robert X. Cringely at Infoworld has a plan for celebrating Square Root Day.

I don’t know about you, but I’m planning to celebrate by watching a “SpongeBob SquarePants” marathon while playing with my slide rule.

That’s only the beginning of the many ways you can celebrate Square Root Day.

The established custom is to cut root vegetables (carrots, turnips, radishes) into squares. Actually eating them may be asking too much. But potatoes are roots, aren’t they? Square (or cubic) potatoes can mean only one thing -home fries.

For dessert you need to make a carrot cake. Square, of course. There are plenty of different recipes, all you have to do is find one that fits the ingredients you have. Enjoy it with some root beer. Oh yes, I’ll have a slice, thank you very much!

Buy yourself a square root puzzle. You won’t receive it in time to play today, but you’ll be ready for the next holiday in 2016.

You can play Square Root Clock online. There are plenty of online games that challenge your math skills using square roots, but this is the most photogenic.

After all the food and math, grab seven of your friends and have a square dance. Some basic instructions are at Square Dancing 101. Allemande left, 2 by 2! Image by Wikimedia user Deirdre.

If you are so inclined, you might go looking for a real square root in the world around you. They are kind of rare. Image by Flickr user arsheffield.

And if that’s not enough fun for you, we’re only a couple of weeks away from Pi Day! But celebrate Square Root Day wisely. The next such holiday will be on April 4, 2016.

Tags: Cake, Eternal Happiness, Prentiss the Apprentice, pie, science by Bjean
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I was a little startled lately to read that “key limes are the pink flamingos of Florida food, and they are a celebrated part of local color.” I don’t know what startled me more, the confusion of the color of the limes with pink or the realization that I have, apparently, missed the local key lime festival again this year.

I presume that the author was referring to the rarity of both flamingos and key limes, at least in Florida. There are flamingos in other parts of the world, and the same is true for “key limes” which are actually from Malaysia. How interesting, I think, that two items that say “Florida” to so many people are, in fact, phantoms from a not too distance past before plume hunters, hurricanes, and civilization tore through SoFLA.

Meanwhile, Prentiss and I are starting our search for the perfect Key lime pie. The challenge begins with some basic questions: Graham-cracker or pastry crust? Meringue or whipped cream? Cooked or uncooked filling? Fresh limes or lime juice? And, of course, can a Key lime pie be made with regular, old, every day, produce department limes?

We’ll let you know how our studies progress. I’m all for trying out a gingersnap crust, and I’m totally opposed to making the pie with any time of lime but a true “key,” but on the other hand, I’d rather use bottled juice from real Key limes than use fresh limes that aren’t Key at all.

Prentiss and I do agree, however, with the no green food coloring rule, and we’ll immediately rule out any recipe that even hints at artificial color.

I’ve been studying up a little on the history of the Key lime, and I’m not surprised to learn that no one knows who made the first Key lime pie. After all, who made the first apple pie, chocolate silk pie, or Alan Shepard pie. Oh, wait, that last one would be me.

It is possible, however, that the first Key lime pie of not was made by one “Aunt Sally,” the cook for one William Curry, who laid the foundation of his fortune as a “ship salvager” in the mid-1800s. Today, the staff at the Curry Mansion Inn in Key West still crank out the pies. Perhaps a field trip is in order to investigate the current incarnation of Aunt Sally’s pie.

There is, supposedly, no record of a written Key lime pie recipe written down before the 1930s. The supposition that “everyone just knew how to make the pie” puzzles me, because now I want to know how “everyone” forgot to make the pie. Was there a plague of amnesia, as there was in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s masterpiece One Hundred Years of Solitude? Was there perhaps a cataclysm or sorts, wiping out the knowing bakers? Or did the Key lime pie bakers decide en masse to take their knowledge with them to the grave? Or elsewhere?

Here’s another aspect of Key lime pie history. A crucial ingredient in Key lime pie is sweetened condensed milk, which was invented by Gail Borden in 1856. No sweetened condensed milk, no Key lime pie. At least nothing that resembled our current dessert. As for the limes, they probably started growing as soon as the Spanish explorers arrived in the 1500s, bringing yellow-green golf-ball size limes from Malaysia. And they continued to grow until the hurricane of 1926 which wiped them out. Most limes in Florida now are Persian, not Key.

The lime trees that remain are said to be “ferocious” in nature, and I’m not really sure what that means at all. Prentiss and I will try our hand at growing a few around the edge of the driving range, maybe start a little grove down the lane by my turquoise conch cottage.

Floridians are quite passionate about their Key limes, and their Key lime pie.  In 1965, Florida State Representative Bernie Papy, Jr., introduced a bill that would have levied a $100 fine against anyone who advertised a Key lime pie not made with Key limes. Alas, the bill did not pass.  But, in 1994, the legislature did decree Key lime pie as the OFFICIAL Florida state pie.

Florida State Pie:

Prentiss and I will be more than pleased to hear from you. Seriously, if you have a treasured Key lime pie recipe, we’ll be glad to try it out, and we’ll let know how all of us at the Slice of Heaven 24-Hour Pie Shop and Driving Range rate it. And you are always welcome to drop by and rate our Key lime pies, too.

Tags: Prentiss the Apprentice, pie by Bjean
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The weather here for New Year’s Eve in SoFLA was close to perfect, with clear skies and a waxing crescent moon. Sue Ten decided it was a good time to show another movie on the side of The Swing Barn and advertised Casino Royale accordingly.

A lot of us were happy to see that since we wanted to be prepared for the new James Bond flick Quantum of Solace which picks up exactly where the previous Daniel-Craig-as-James-Bond movie left off, but Sue surprised us by showing the Peter Sellers / Woody Allen version of Casino Royale, and that one ends in a wild night of cowboys on horseback, Indians with flaming arrows, Navy seals in scuba gear, and US Marines, not unlike many regular nights at The Swing Barn.

The festivities at the Slice of Heaven 24-Hour Pie Shop and Driving Range were a little more restrained, and aimed at the non-drinking crowd. Prentiss, my pie-shop apprentice, did come up with a fabulous new corn-dog pie with an onion-ring crust, and she also served one of the possibilities in our search for “The Best Key Lime Pie Ever”. Sadly, she garnished it with a slice of lime that was definitely not of the key-lime variety, but more on that later.

Out on the driving range, we offered free balls from nine to midnight, and that always brings in a crowd. One new player was a guy with long gray hair and a handlebar moustache, who told me, “I was a caddy 50 years ago, and just now I am starting to play myself.”I told him that it’s a game for optimists, since you can always believe that the next hit will be better. He said, “I was an optimist when I got here tonight, but I think I am a pessimist now.”  I hope he cames back. His accent smacked of New England, and I’m always a sucker for that.

As the evening progressed, I noticed several people from my physical therapist’s office, but I think they were just trolling for business. Also, there were any number of fem-bots in short black dresses and high-high heels, trolling for business of another sort entirely. Granted, there aren’t too many night spots out on the edge of the ‘Glades where we live, and with the economy slumping as it is, we aren’t in a position to turn anyone away.

Your second-cousin Darnell, by the way, did a great job of keeping the kids busy by having them create an “art car” which they covered with spray paint.  I’m fairly sure my ex-husband Pretty Boy Boyd will like the new look of his formerly orange Toyota Celica. He’ll let us know when he gets back from New Orleans, if that is, in fact, where he really is. I hope so. He used to tell me that he had been a river boat gambler in a former life, and died in Louisiana. Perhaps history will repeat itself, not that I wish him ill. Of course not.

Nurse Crotchett brought along a truck load of fireworks, which she set about firing from the driving range, setting them off wherever she found an open slot.  I tell you, it made for a great visual impact: golf balls flying into the air, fireworks lighting up the sky, the movie on the side of the Swing Barn, and the waxing crescent moon overhead.

I worried a little about some of the folks stumbling out of The Swing Barn into harm’s way, but your second-cousin Darnell had the good sense to tether his goat Jonathan on a long line near the edge of the driving range, and for once, Jonathan earned his keep, and we resisted the urge to turn him into goat pie for yet another day.

I headed down to my turquoise conch cottage around 3:00 a.m., which was a nice change from my usual insomniac stroll TO the pie shop at about that time, and fell into a few hours of troubling dreams.

One of the dreams, that I can still see pretty clearly, involved a wild car ride down a mountain road with Nurse Crotchett at my side and distressingly ineffective brakes.  I probably don’t need much help analyzing that one. I also dreamt that I had found an Asian baby, and gotten quite attached to it. The child grew to toddler size and was able to speak quite eloquently in no time, which is when she said, “I think I’m ready to go home now.”

The final dream was that my orange hair color had gone strangely spotty, and was showing peculiar patches of mousy brown and gray. I can’t understand that one at all. Tonight, the girls & I are dressing up to go to the ballet, leaving Darnell; Joe Sparkle, Junior; and The Morning Guy in charge. I’m sure they will do just fine, don’t you agree?

Tags: Dreams, Eternal Happiness, Events, Joe Sparkle Jr., Nurse Crotchett, Prentiss the Apprentice, Pretty Boy Boyd, Sue Ten, The Driving Range, The Morning Guy, The Swing Barn, Your Second-Cousin Darnell by Bjean
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Yesterday, to my surprise, there was no Post-It note from The Morning Guy on my computer screen. Instead, his Stepford Girlfriend was bustling around tidying-up my stacks of file folders, catalogs, and return-reply envelopes.

Once I pointed out that all that clutter was solely my concern, and a very small concern at that, she smiled sweetly, grabbed a piece of raspberry cream pie, and settled down to read her copy of the Cosmo Compendium of 812,683 Ways To Please Your Man.

I resisted the urge to point out that the book was actually a spoof, put out by The Onion, but I figured, “It’s working for her. Why mess with it?”

In fact, after thinking it over, I decided to order my own copy for the pie shop bookshelves. It might be a nice read, and I’m sure my new apprentice Prentiss will get a kick out of it.

Prentiss, by the way, had already given me the link to this Onion video on the same topic:

‘Cosmopolitan’ Institute Completes Decades-Long Study On How To Please Your Man

If there’s any one thing I’ve learned from The Morning Guy, I’d have to say that it is that “I have been doing it wrong” in general. And yet, I always hoped that meant that he had plenty of new stuff to teach me. Apparently wrong. He’s way too happy with a woman who not only anticipates his every need, such as sleeping in late this very morning, and she even has the ability to create — and satisfy — needs he never knew he had.

Me, I would just have keep right on making him pie and asking for more golf tips. At least he still shows up to stock the soda machine. Sometimes.

So this brings to mind the Cosmo Quiz. I know you’ve taken at least one of them. We all have.  How did you score? Did it help your relationship? Tell all.

By the way, what do YOU think I’ve been doing wrong?

As you know, the more often I fill out a personality profile, the more likely I am to be stunned by the results, so I’m not gonna do that no more. You can always tell me how I’m driving, how I’m baking, and how well you do or don’t like my talent for karaoke.

After all, what are friends for?

Tags: Prentiss the Apprentice, The Morning Guy, Video by Bjean
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Last night, I fell just a little bit in love with a couple of guys who came in late and stayed later. It was about 2:00 a.m., and my new apprentice Prentiss seemed to have everything in the pie shop under control. She’s already mastered the fine art of making a light flaky vodka pie crust, and I’m sure her key lime filling with be the tops after a few more practice sessions. At any rate, I’m glad to have her here, especially now that The Morning Guy is spending so much time with his Stepford Girlfriend. She doesn’t have them wearing matching outfits, yet, but I’m sure it’s just a matter of time.

I’ve been away, visiting the twins and touring museums, getting a lot of great new ideas for our own pie museum, which we’ll start working on as soon as Sparkle Junior makes a bit more progress with the putting green. At some point, he will need to stop studying the blue prints and get to work with the bobcat. We are all looking forward to that.

I enjoyed my travels immensely, but missed having the time and opportunity to practice my swing, so I was happy to be outside under the lights, greeting the range iguanas and raccoons once again. As usual, it took me about 20 swings to have any sense of timing or balance at all, but then I hit a few good ones, and felt some semblance of confidence in my stoke.

I hadn’t noticed the new guys on the range, but then I started hearing a soft voice behind me, giving a running commentary, and punctuated with the occasional “whoo hoo” and “that’ll play!”

I looked to see who was there, and saw that my new companion was a 6′5″ African American man with a big smile, a diamond earring, and a 46-inch titanium driver.

“What do you think?” he said, pointing at an equally tall but considerably more slender guy a few spots down to my right. “This is my brother’s club.”

I told him it looked like a pretty good club to me.

“Oh it is,” he said. “He spends a lot of money on his golf clubs, and this is certainly a fine one, but you know what. It’s not my club.” He nodded and went back to hitting balls, and talking to himself.

For the next hour, I felt privileged to be included in the banter between the two brothers, tuned in to the sound of their swings, and I enjoyed watching their golf balls fly to the far boundary of the range. Most of all, I liked the sheer joy that i felt around them, their openness with each other, and with anyone else who wanted to chat for a while.

“I came to golf late, but my son plays now,” he said with pride, “and this game will put him through school just like football did for me.”

My friend The Caddy came by to offer me his usual litany of tips, and the brothers just told him I was doing fine. “Are you trying to teach her to play?” marveled the brother on my left. “You should know better than that.”

I liked that observation, just as I liked the guy’s understanding that his brother might have “better” clubs, but the best ones for him were his own. They say that true wealth comes from having “enough,” and it was a treat to meet someone who made that real for me.

I hope you, too, will always have enough, but be sure to save some room for dessert.

Tags: Eternal Happiness, Golf Clubs, Golf Tips, Prentiss the Apprentice, The Driving Range by Bjean
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