S and T are useful in such phrases as Shark Teeth:

Strangely Tinted:

Sunken Tubes:

Sea Lion Twirl:

Strange Things:

Sea Turtle:

Seal Tired:

Sweet Treats:

And, finally, Swinging TechyDad:

There are some things that just seem to go together and things that don’t go together at all. Once in awhile, you might be lucky to discover two things which, by all rights, shouldn’t go together, but do. It was in this hope that I opened the Peanut Butter and Company cookbook to the Peanut Butter Grilled Cheese (aka the PBGC) recipe. I’m always game for food experimentation, though, especially when using my family as dinner-guinea-pigs, so I plunged ahead.

The first step was to gather the ingredients: Bread, cheese, and butter.

Of course, I needed the star ingredient: Crunch Time, chunky peanut butter.

This sandwich is a cousin of the Veggie Elvis and so shares some similarities. First, you spread the butter on one side of the bread.

Then, you spread the peanut butter on the other side.

At this point, the Veggie Elvis and PBGC part company. Where the Veggie Elvis added banana and veggie bacon, the PBGC adds sliced American cheese.

Now, just close the sandwich and cook on each side for a few minutes so the cheese can melt.

Finally, put the sandwich on a plate, cut in half (to see the melty PB-Cheesy goodness inside) and enjoy.

This was better than I thought it would be, but perhaps not as good as it could be. The peanut butter flavor overpowered the cheese flavor a tad too much for my taste. Perhaps next time, I’ll try a cheese with a stronger flavor. Maybe a sharp chedder would give the peanut butter a run for its money.

On the day before Father’s Day, we went to the Great Escape. It was a hot day and, though we weren’t going to the water park section, I was looking forward to getting a little drenched at the Raging River ride. While B took JSL to Wiggles World, NHL and I got on line for the Raging River ride. (She took the camera as I obviously couldn’t bring it on this ride… thus the lack of photos.) The line was long, but moved pretty fast. During the ride, I spoke with a woman in front of me (who was there with her three sons) and we eventually got on the ride together.

Now, the basic layout of this ride is a whitewater rapids with a few small waterfalls. There are also water sprayers that can soak you at various intervals. A recent change seems to be that these sprayers are now operated by people who deposit quarters for the honor of soaking riders. Quite the ingenious money making scheme there!

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By my parents’ house, there is a Greek restaurant. I used to order from them all the time. They would even recognize me, not by my voice, but by my phoned in order of “Spanikopita, side of rice pilaf and side of chickpeas to go” as I drove home from work. I’ve tried (and failed) to find spanikopita as good by me. Of course, any trip to my parents comes with two conditions, the first of which is that we eat at the Greek restaurant. (The second is stopping by Trader Joe’s.)

Despite my love of their spanikopita (aka spinach pie), there’s another dish that I’d love the recipe for more. Their chickpeas. When you sit down for dinner, they’ll place a bowl of these in front of you with some pita bread. My taste buds are watering just thinking of them. The chickpeas are marinated with chopped up onions in oil. My best guess is that it is olive oil with some mystery mixture of spices. (And now my nose just kicked in as I remembered their scent.) I would eat these chickpeas every day if I had the chance.

Every time I go, I tell myself that I should ask for the recipe so I can try to duplicate this dish. Every time, I either chicken out or ask so meekly that it is all too easy for them to decline.

My Aloha Friday question for today is: Have you ever asked a restaurant for the recipe to a dish that you loved? Were you ever successful if obtaining it?

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the MckLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha #44

I still remember the first time I met B. It was just after Yom Kippur ended and I signed into the Yahoo chat rooms. I had planned on simply killing time until going to sleep. I was soon contacted by “The Angel Forever”, though. A message in my profile (one that I only added a few weeks prior), had gotten her attention and we began to talk. The more I talked with her, the more I knew there was something special about her.

We talked well into the night and many nights later. Soon we decided to swap photos of each other. I nervously opened the photo she sent and was greeted by this gorgeous woman.

I didn’t know if I was falling in love with B at that point, but I certainly did want to get to know her better. Over the next few months, we would meet in person and visit each other as often as possible. The more I knew B, the more I fell in love with her. Before long, it became apparent to me that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.

I came up to visit B one hot weekend early July. Her parents’ AC had broken and B had passed out on the floor. I snuck away and asked her parents for her hand in marriage. The next day, I had planned to take B out to a nice dinner and then for a walk around her block where I would propose. Unfortunately, the restaurant I wanted to take B to was closed. We searched for an alternative and settled on Friendly’s. Not the romantic dinner I envisioned, but we made it do. Then we went back to her house where she plopped down onto the couch because of the heat.

I told her I wanted to go for a walk with her and she declined. I all but dragged her outside. As we rounded the block, I imagined what I would say to her. I tried to work up the nerve to ask her to marry me. I saw her parents’ house getting closer and knew that I was running out of time. I walked in front of her, started to go down on one knee… and saw a swarm of ants right underneath us! I shifted over a foot or two and then dropped to one knee.

B started to tear up and she realized what I was doing. I told her how I wanted to spend every day of the rest of my life making her as happy as she has made me and asked her to marry me. She couldn’t speak but nodded yes. As we walked in, she said that this didn’t get me off the hook of asking her parents for permission. I told her about my little sneak off the night before and, as we walked in the house, she told her parents they were DEAD! (Apparently, they had already informed the rest of the family of the upcoming proposal. Good thing I didn’t lose my nerve!)

On our wedding day, I was truly greeted by an angel and had the great pleasure to call her my wife for the first time.

It always amazes me how, just when I think I can’t be more in love with B or find her more attractive, I’m proven wrong (in a very good way). Over the years, we have become parents, home owners, parents again. We’ve had high points and low points. Moments of great joy and moments of great sadness. We’ve argued and made up. We’ve had special moments and mundane moments. B is my wife, best friend, lover and mother of our two great kids. She’s also – despite her protests – incredibly sexy. (Yes you are, B!)

B, I love you with all of my heart. Thank you for 9 wonderful years of marriage and here’s to the many, many wonderful years ahead of us.

At work today, I felt pretty stressed out. A deadline was looming and a server was just not cooperating. As I walked out of my office, at around 1:15 PM, I suddenly felt a sharp stabbing pain in my upper back and neck. I could feel all of my muscles in there spasming.

Now, I’ve had muscle spasms before. I get them from time to time, mostly due to stress and mostly limited to the muscles under my right shoulder blade. (Don’t ask why it is that specific, but it is.) This was different, though. Instead of moderate pain, this was extreme pain and instead of being limited, it was much wider in scope.

I stayed still for a few minutes, hoping it would pass, but no such luck. So I slowly made my way to my bag where I was sure I had some advil. More bad luck. No advil. I searched through all of my desk drawers and bag pockets but couldn’t find a single pain reliever. I asked around and no coworkers had any. Finally, one of my coworkers had some and I took it hoping for some relief. By now, the spasms had lasted almost an hour.

I spent the rest of the day feeling like an old man. I shuffled back and forth slowly. I thought ahead before opening any door to plan out the least painful way of doing it. I winced upon getting up and sitting down. I even felt hunched over as my tightened, still slightly spasming muscles refused to let me stand up straight.

Later that night, JSL demanded to see Up on Roku / Netflix. We watched (well, I watched while JSL ran around playing) as Carl Fredicksen fought hard to get his house to Paradise Falls. I’ve often found that I’ll get so engrossed in a movie and identify so much with a character that I feel like that character after the movie is over.

Can you see where I’m going with this? Yes, I found that I had identified with Carl. I even found myself reaching for my cane once or twice before my arm realized that I don’t use one. I’m only in my mid thirties. I shouldn’t be feeling like this.

I tried consulting a medical expert… and by that I mean JSL, who upon hearing of my pain, grabbed his stethoscope and said “Dada, me gonna be doctor!” That didn’t help. So here I sit with JSL typing up this post and trying to ignore the pain in my neck and back. After JSL goes to sleep, I’ll try a nice, hot shower to see if that’ll relax the muscles. If not, maybe a good night’s sleep will do it. Worst case scenario, I’ll find a cane with some tennis balls on it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to yell at some kids to get off my lawn. Annoying whippersnappers!

I’m the kind of guy who likes having things planned out. I’m not very good at “just winging it.” Still, if fatherhood has taught me anything it’s that you always need to be flexible and plans are never set in stone. You never know when a little one will get a cold and shatter your perfectly formed plan.

Take this weekend, for example. I had a great Father’s Day in mind as the weekend approached. We would wake up early and go strawberry picking. For dinner, we would go a great, local Chinese restaurant. On Saturday, we went to the Great Escape (more on that later). Coming home, it was late and JSL fell asleep. Then we stopped by Dunkin’ Donuts for a very late dinner and he woke up… and stayed up until midnight! Then, he woke us up at 4:40am to come into our bed just as a huge thunderstorm erupted. There, he hogged bed space until 6am when his big brother woke up.

I set NHL up on the couch with the Roku remote to be entertained by Rugrats on Netflix until we were all more rested. Then, I fell back to an uneven sleep-wake up cycle until B left the bed. I laid in bed with my eyes closed knowing what was coming up and yet savoring my last moments of lying down before beginning the day.

B and the boys came in and all wished me a happy Father’s Day, gave me some cards and presents. I got a Star Wars “book” (it’s a series of cards connected at one point so they can swivel around). I’ll use these while watching Star Wars with NHL. I also got some pajama bottoms and a coupon book from NHL (good for vacuuming, doing the dishes, and learning about computers with me).

After getting up, getting dressed, eating breakfast and checking our house for damage/leaks from the previous night’s storm (nothing, thank goodness), we talked about our Father’s Day plans. I really wanted to go strawberry picking, but my trip outside showed me two things. First of all, it was hot and humid. Secondly, it was muddy out. Having the boys walk through hot, muddy fields to get a ton of berries was probably not the best idea. (Especially when I would be the one tubbing them that night!)

NHL was actually the one to suggest an alternative plan. He said we could go bowling. Most lanes seemed to be closed on Sundays, but we found one that wasn’t. Before bowling, though, we needed to eat lunch. The place I had wanted to go to was completely out of the way, so we did what we’ve learned to do since becomming parents, adapted our plans to the situation. We went out to a local chinese buffet and had a pretty good lunch. NHL even tried two new things (black bean buns and edamame) and loved them.

We went bowling and, while I’ll post details later, we all had a great time. After bowling, we stopped by BJ’s to pick up some things and went to B’s parents’ house for dinner.

Father’s Day turned out to be a lot of fun even if none of my planned activities got accomplished. That’s life and parenting, though. You can either learn to roll with the punches and have fun with the new plans or you gripe about your messed up plans and miss all the fun that it happening right in front of you.

P.S. Even this blog post was a “roll with the punches” thing. I originally intended to post about Six Flags or bowling with photos, but realized I had uploaded the wrong set of photos. So I needed to post about something else until I get to the photos on my computer at home.

Thanks to winning a contest over at Dad of Divas, I was able to check out the new book Geek Dad: Awesomely Geeky Projects and Activities for Dads and Kids to Share by Ken Denmead. I was instantly overwhelmed, but in a very good way.

The book recognizes that not every dad is your stereotypical sports-loving, beer-drinking man. Some of us like Star Wars, role playing games, and other things of a geeky inclination. Since dads love sharing their favorite activities with their kids, the question becomes: How do we share our love of science, technology and other geeky subjects with our kids? Sharing some items might be easy. You can sit down with your kid and have a Star Wars marathon, but others might not be as easy to share. Chances are, a 7 year old won’t quite understand or have the patience for an adult-level role playing game.

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I had a great Aloha Friday question all lined up, but it’s going to have to wait. As I was headed home, I got a call from B. She searched Twitter for #DisneySMMoms and found a tweet from a user named EsterlDode titled "#DisneySMMoms 2010 – A Not-So-Impossible" followed by a URL. Now, she recognized this as the beginning of my latest DisneySMMoms post so she clicked the link wondering what she would get. She was greeted by my webpage. Except it wasn’t my webpage.

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