Mutton and John Prine

When I was back home in Kentucky, several people told me that they like reading my blog and that I should update it more often. Of course, they could just be saying that, stroking my writer’s ego. But I’ll err on the idea that they were telling the truth.
Yet, because not much has struck me as blog-worthy, this is what you get:

I’ve been cooking with garlic a lot more lately. Right now, carrots and onions and rice, along with a hefty amount of chopped garlic simmer in a pot. It’s just starting to boil. Like my blood pressure. I recently found out – through several self-administered tests in my grandmother’s kitchen – that I have high blood pressure. Or at least I do currently. I did once before, too, when I was working on a spicy article about a state legislator. That story could have ruined the dude’s career. My manic mind thought he’d send some of his henchmen after me once the story hit the streets. Break my kneecaps or something. The story was cut by the publisher, probably fearing a lawsuit, and another liar’s career was saved. He’ll probably get re-elected. I still sometimes wish that story would have made the papers. Of course, only if my kneecaps were spared. Anyway, I thought my blood pressure would have gone down after that, but if Grammy T’s blood pressure-checker is accurate, it hasn’t. Someone told me that garlic helps to lower blood pressure. So I cook more with garlic. Probably some study will come out tomorrow saying garlic raises blood pressure. Then my last few days of garlic cooking will be for naught and I’ll have to intensify my efforts to try the next thing that is said to lower blood pressure: quitting drinking. Grammy T, in her wisdom, told me, “You can’t have five or six drinks. That’s too much. Maybe one or two when you go out with those people you go out with.” Something like that. This town that I currently find myself in, small as it may be, can be a party waiting to happen. I say ‘can.’ Not always. But the threat is there on any night because those people I go out with enjoy what this place offers.
Drinking report card-- Friday night: Three light beers and one micro-brew and when the server – a friend of mine – came by to ask if I wanted another, I declined and asked for a club soda with lime. She smirked me. “It’s this blood pressure thing,” I said. B-
Saturday night: Two bourbons and three beers. (But Grammy, this was over a few hours and a healthy, large salmon and stir fry dinner.) C+
The main problem I have with quitting drinking, or at least just having one or two, is that beer, bourbon, and wine tastes good. I like it.

I’ve been listening to John Prine today. I wouldn’t call my state of mind homesickness. Though, I just got back from Kentucky, and the tug for my birthplace – sort of like the tug for the first girl you ever fell for (where are you now Mary Anders?) – will always be a part of me, I feel, no matter where I end up. And, sure, maybe that’s just me. I’m a sentimental turd. John Prine, though, has Kentucky roots, and I think about Kentucky sometimes when I listen to him. Also, corn bread, the view from my grandmother’s house on the Ohio River, Murray State U., finding the golden egg on Easter, tomato sandwiches (now without salt), and mutton.
I ate some mutton a couple days before I left. Probably not a blood pressure lowering food. Good for the soul, though. Certainly good for the soul.