hey jud

Nearly every day of our Irish trip, that was my breakfast request. The first time I ordered the porridge, it came in a smallish bowl but with cream and sugar already added. At our next B&B, a bit fancier place, the porridge came unadorned, though the requisite cream, and honey or sugar, was on the table ready for self-serving. South Beacher that I try to be, self-serve left me with a not very exciting bowl. However moving on to Waterville, a small local place where all the workmen hung out provided the penultimate porridge. There I was served a steaming hot, large but not too large, bowl of porridge already drizzled with extra-thick Irish cream, honey for sweetening and a gratuitous, but gratifying, pat of butter to top it off. It filled my belly with a warmth and goodness that might have lasted the entire day, though being the vacation it was, we never considered missing lunch.

In the Irish spirit and to keep our visit alive, I've taken a solemn vow of porridge making to equal that of an Corcán restaurant in Waterville, Co. Kerry. The recipe I've found is deceptively simple, so I'm a bit concerned that it's only part of the answer, the rest being the addition of honey and butter and more importantly, the quality of the cream. Still I'll devote myself to achieving that same smooth, creamy consistency and perfect marriage of porridge to condiments, through as many trials as necessary. Surely the breakfast bowl scientists won't mind when I slightly change their words to say:

Porridge eaters are much happier and healthier than people who go without. Skipping porridge can also affect both mood and memory, and encourage unhealthy snacking.

I look forward to avoiding the snacking scourge and joining the Queen, a famous porridge eater herself, with elevated mood and memory.

Finally, from the long-awaited trip come the long-awaited photos. As you'll see I'm a flickr novice, and quite frustrated with adding and saving photo titles. Actually adding titles was no problem but, after all that work, most of them mysteriously did not get saved. Perhaps tomorrow I'll make a third attempt at those still known only by number.

Ooh that doesn't even come close to describing how I felt at the end of my day yesterday. After posting about my losing flickr attempts, I did battle with my car security system. The problem was, I didn't know it thought I was trying to steal the car. I own the car for Pete's sake (and I mean that in more ways than one). So why, when I'm parked and sitting inside to make a phone call, does it start madly blinking and beeping when I turn the key? We've had problems like this before with our car, when the only thing to do was dig the owner's manual out of the glove compartment and explore its pages for a likely answer. In fact, we especially like to take long trips in it while we use the time to research additional automotive options.

Perhaps all this mystery was the result of our precipitous jump from a '93 Jeep to an almost new Audi. We were still cranking the windows up and down, adjusting mirrors by hand and sitting on cold seats. Now I can open and close the back window several times while wondering why the heck the front window button isn't doing anything. However I do admire the ease of pushing a button to bring back my personal seat and mirror settings after switching drivers, and oh, the luxury of heated seats on those cold winter days. Except when it fingers me as a thief, I do love the car.

So back to yesterday when it's blinking and beeping. My first look in the manual made me think that somehow I had pushed the panic button on the side of the car key, but pushing it again - and again - and again, didn't stop the lights and noise. I got out of the car, took a look around, stared at some passers by right in the eye so they'd know I wasn't really stealing the car, and got back in. At which point the beeping stopped. I drove off to pick up Peter still madly blinking but silent. When he got into the car, off went the horn again, honking its warning that I now had an accomplice. And thank goodness I did because I needed someone far less frustrated to read the manual and figure out what was going on. Of course he did. We just had to get out, lock the car and then unlock it again. No more lights, no more noise, just normal calm driving.

How foolish it seems now, but there's nothing like a good bout of frustration to get all sorts of things out of your system and to get dinner made by someone else.

Out of the coldest spring in years, the day of the Rodham Reunion turned out to be one boiling hot day. The tents were no match for the scorching sun, so some of us needed personal paper plate fans to stir up a little breeze. Any people missing from the photos were likely with Grandpa Hourihan, cooly ensconced in the air-conditioned living room watching the Red Sox on TV.