On Spaghetti Sauce

I had the most amazing plate of spaghetti today.


Sharing the plate with my spaghetti was a rather large salad, and they intermingled some as I ate. I love it when my spaghetti and salad intermingle. Occurring at first only along the border betwixt the spaghetti and salad, their association grows as I eat until they have fully intermixed. And something wonderful happens in those moments of commingling: a synergy produces bites that are more savory than the sum of their respective scrumptiousness, more divine than their combined delectability. And sometimes, if the stars align just right, a bite will be supremely succulent. It will be “The Bite”. You can't predict when this will happen, but when you taste The Bite, you know it. When I taste The Bite, I feel as though in heaven. Spaghetti and salad heaven that is. You could offer me your finest foreign cuisine, or a trip to a world-famous five-star restaurant, and at that moment I would decline. Not because I don't like foreign cuisine. On the contrary, I'm a big fan. But because right then there's nothing I would rather eat. And because when The Bite happens, it can't be topped. In that instant it's all I want. It's all anyone would want.....food-wise. They might want other things, like rewarding relationships or a comfortable house. If they're into that. 
 

You may have noticed I'm talking about spaghetti. (Not to mention salad—but we'll save that for another day.)

Oh yes, spaghetti.
I'm keyed up about spaghetti.
Let's talk about it.

Does spaghetti sound like a dish to get excited about? Most of you would say no. It sounds like something you'd cook when you don't have a lot of time or ideas, but something you rarely expect to fully satisfy. When I was younger I felt the same way. Spaghetti was ok. But just ok. It was an enjoyable meal, but nothing to write home about—I don't recall ever doing so. I thought the same of salad.

Nowadays things are different. Now spaghetti can be very appetizing, even tantalizing. I'm sure you're wondering why. At least I suspect it. And I want to tell you about it. More especially, about the sauce. Yet first, I have a question or two you may be able to help me with.  

Why is spaghetti sauce called spaghetti sauce?

Noodle dishes certainly create a terminology quandary. It never feels right calling red tomato-based pasta sauce spaghetti sauce, because sometimes I eat it with linguine. Is it then linguine sauce? If I eat it with rotini is it rotini sauce? Can it be penne sauce? Conchiglioni sauce? Stringozzi sauce? Not only is it confusing and potentially inaccurate to call it spaghetti sauce, the other sundry noodles likely feel left out.

Other terms are in use, but each has its flaws. To wit:

Tomato sauce? Sounds alright, but in many countries (both English- and Spanish-speaking) it means ketchup. And in the U.S. it usually refers to a plain, unseasoned sauce.

Marinara sauce? Fairly useful, but it's inaccurate because it means “of the sea”, suggesting it contains seafood. So unless you put fish in your sauce, it really shouldn't be called marinara.

Pasta sauce? Not specific enough, obviously.

Red sauce? Even less specific.

Red pasta sauce? Still not specific enough.

Tomato-based pasta sauce? Pretty good, you may be on to something....

Gourmet tomato-based pasta sauce? There's an accurate one! But clearly too long.

It's a sticky situation, and there may not be a ready solution. If you find one let me know.

In the meantime I will make do with what meager terminology is available to me.

I'll call it spaghetti sauce. (*cringe*)

Back to Spaghetti Sauce

As it happens, a few years ago I was introduced to a method of making spaghetti sauce far superior to what I had previously known. My roommate Ray taught me how to make it. He had learned some tricks from a friend of his who lived in Italy, after which he experimented with one or two other ingredients and created a magnificent sauce before passing it along to me. Ever since then I've prepared the sauce regularly, and always enjoyed it. Some batches turn out better than others, and it's never quite the same twice, though I follow the same basic recipe. But it's always good. And it's so much better than “regular” spaghetti sauce, I feel like it's worth sharing with the world. Or the three people who read my blog. Whichever.

My spaghetti timeline is as follows:

In 2006, spaghetti was ordinary.

In 2007, Ray taught me about the mysteries of spaghetti sauce.

In 2008, spaghetti and salad played integral roles in my massive diet overhaul (when I instituted a version of the DASH diet and lost 25 pounds within six months).

In 2009, I developed theories about how spaghetti and salad can work together to abolish world hunger.

In 2010 I decided to write a blog about spaghetti sauce.

Before I give you the recipe for this spaghetti sauce, I feel a few other salient points should be made about the proper enjoyment of said sauce. What are these points? I'm glad you asked.

First, the spaghetti sauce in question is meant to be used generously. Put plenty of it on your noodles, don't hold back. If you're a sauce-scrimper, start by putting twice as much sauce as you normally would, and go from there.

Second, for some reason this spaghetti sauce is almost always better the day after. I don't understand why, but it tastes better if it's been in the fridge overnight and then gets reheated. It's mysterious, yet consistent. Don't get me wrong, it's still enjoyable on Day One. But it may be helpful to understand this, perhaps to avoid any hasty judgments about the sauce.  On Day One, your spaghetti experience will have only just begun.

Third, the spaghetti sauce is best enjoyed with salad, most especially when the spaghetti and salad intermingle as described above.

Note on salad:  Whatever vegetables you have are fine. I usually use tomatoes and broccoli on my salad, but I don't think it's possible to have too many vegetables. Lately I've been using a lot of others, like bell peppers, cucumbers, olives, onion, mushrooms, pea pods, and avocado, as well as non-vegetable things like croutons, bacon bits, and cheese. And dressing. (If you're trying to cut calories or reduce saturated fat intake, Spritzers® are an excellent alternative to regular dressing.) 

When you get all this together on a plate, that's when miracles start happening.

And finally, The Recipe*:

What you'll need:

• 1 pound ground turkey
• ~1/3 cup olive oil
• 2 onions
• 1 Serrano pepper
• 5-10 cloves of garlic (most of a bulb)
• 1 bell pepper
• 5 medium tomatoes (or 1 28oz can diced tomatoes, see substitutions below)
  
• 2 29oz cans of tomato sauce (or 2 26.5 oz cans of spaghetti sauce, or one of each)
• 1 teaspoon basil leaves
• 1 teaspoon oregano flakes
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon sugar

Instructions: Cook meat and drain. Dice all vegetables. Heat olive oil in a separate, large pan (wok, large sauce pan, or deep frying pan) and add onions, Serrano pepper (finely chopped), and bell pepper. Stir. Mince garlic and add. Add tomatoes after onions and bell pepper cook a little bit.  Stir regularly throughout.  Once the vegetables are tender, add tomato sauce and stir. Add basil, oregano, sugar, and cinnamon, and stir. Add cooked meat and stir. Simmer for 5-30 minutes, stirring regularly. Serve w/ noodles** of your choice.

Lazy-Man's substitutions:

• Replace garlic cloves with about 1-2 teaspoons of garlic powder. (I do this when I don't have garlic or a good press on hand.)
• Replace fresh tomatoes with a 28oz can of diced tomatoes (I usually do this).

Really-Lazy-Man's substitution: 

• Pay someone to prepare this meal for you.  
  

*Please note: This is how I usually make it, and it feeds 6-10 people for one meal. You can increase or decrease the quantity very easily, and experimental changes are encouraged. Try almost any vegetable, replace turkey with chicken or beef, and use other spices in place of or in addition to those on the list. Start with the basics, and then see what you can come up with.  And I actually don't measure the spices or oil but I tried to make a reasonable guess about the quantities. 

**Whole wheat noodles recommended.

 

 And may they intermingle 'til the very end.

Take a Tour, Win a Prize

I'm renting a room in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, part of the greater Boston area, on the South side.  I posted an ad on craiglist a few weeks ago saying I was looking for a place, and I got an email from this guy Bill.  He described the room and house to me, it sounded ok, but when I requested to see a picture he said he had lost his camera cord or something like that.   

So I went with it, and saw it for the first time right as I was moving in.  It was close to work, and appeared to have all the necessities, so I figured what the heck.  And it hasn't been bad.

But it has been....special.  It's probably the oldest house I've ever lived in, and there are lots of things I find comical about it.  I was gonna post some pictures, but when my camera kept switching back to video mode on its own last night, I got the idea to make a video of the place instead.  I guess it was fate.  And that's why you're getting a tour, if you can handle it.  It's a little longer than I expected (you get a six-minute tour of my home), so to make it more interesting I've also added a twist:

TWIST: There are clips from ten different songs used as background music, and I challenge you to name all the songs and artists from the soundtrack.  Whoever names the most wins a PRIZE!  That's right, I said it, you get a prize.  And I will send it to you, if I don't hand deliver it.  It could be something good.  Let your imagination run wild. 

RULES:  One point for each correct artist, one point for each correct song title.  If fewer than three people enter, you have to get at least half of the possible points to win a prize.  If three or more try, whoever gets the most wins.  Post your answers as comments or send them to me, and the only thing that's cheating is looking at other people's answers beforehand.  Good luck! :)  Oh, and if anyone successfully names all of the artists and song names, I will give you $100 (Seriously, but I seriously don't think you can do it). 

Contest ends a month from today, if not sooner. :-)

Petrified Orange

I had no idea what it was. Then I thought it was rotten. Then I noticed it was hard, and odorless. That's when I realized...it was petrified.

It's an orange, and it's petrified.

I found it in my car, under the seat, when I cleaned it out after my recent cross-country drive. I don't have any memory of placing it in the car, so I have no idea how long it had been there. Possibly millennia. Yes, it's a '94 Camry, but the manufacturers may have made an error when they recorded the year.

Should I have notified the local curator? Probably. Should I be contacting national archaeology organizations? Possibly. Maybe I'll send them a link to my blog.

At least one question remains: Has this ever happened before? I've heard of petrified wood. I've heard of petrified manure. But I've never heard of petrified oranges, much less seen one with my own eyes. Some people say this happens all the time. In their back yard. I say they're making it up. So what if google got 320,000 hits for petrified orange (only 721 when in quotes)?  They could all be typos, right? I demand proof, like a 40-pound box of petrified oranges delivered to my front door.

Or a picture, whatever.

And if you'd rather just bring cookies to my front door, that's fine too.

Preferably snickerdoodles.

Thanks in advance.   

Coast to Coast Update

I'm probably hard to keep track of, so I'll give an update of my recent activities for anyone who wants to know:

Arizona

I spent the whole Summer in Tucson, AZ.



Washington

At the end of August I drove up to Tacoma, WA. The drive was a measly 24 hours or so, and I basically did it in two days, not counting the first night when I just drove from Tucson to Glendale. I took the Utah route and stopped for the night in Sandy, at my brother Hyrum's house. I got to Tacoma on August 31st.

While in Tacoma I rotated at a hospital called Multicare, one of several places I might end up for residency. I was also able to visit a few friends from college that live in the Seattle area (Bryan Cook, Amanda and Adam Walsh, Trent and Sarah Cunningham). I didn't sight-see very much while I was there, but I did:

• Wander around downtown Seattle and drive past the space needle a few times.
• Experience the revelry of being in a sports bar/grill when Washington beat Southern Cal. in football. People were going crazy!
• Listen to a lot of grunge music while driving around (Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Silver Chair, Weird Al...).
• Discover pianos used/owned by Rachmoninoff and Debussy in a local antique shop where I went to find quarters for laundry.
• Get a free membership at a gym, where I went climbing and accidentally took a short boxing class.
• Stroll down a part of Pike St other than the part that's famous for fish-throwing. 
  

The Drive

Around the end of the month, I packed up my things and set off on a cross-country drive to my current rotation, in Binghamton, NY. I decided to take it slow and break up the drive into reasonable distances. I also tried to plan the drive around people I wanted to visit, even if it took me a little out of my way. By the time I was done I'd taken it even slower than planned, and visited a few more people than planned, but it all worked out fine in the end. Here's how it shook out, in ten easy steps:

• Day 1: Drove from Tacoma to near Coeur d'Alene, ID. Since I got a late start, I got really tired and had to stop and sleep in a parking lot, even though I was only about a half hour from my destination. My butt was sore the next day from sitting on my wallet while I slept.
• Day 2: Drove the rest of the way to my friend Jalyn's house, just north of Coeur d'Alene. I took a nap there, and then she gave me a tour of the area, which is beautiful, just like I'd read in my grandpa's autobiography. That evening, after stopping to watch a little college football, I drove to somewhere in Montana.
  
• Day 3: After sleeping at a motel in Superior, Montana, I vowed not to frequent any more motels the rest of the trip. I drove to Rexburg (just missed seeing Allen and Rachel Camp near Missoula, they were in church), and checked out some of my old stomping grounds, including Crestwood and Biddulph Hall. I had dinner with my old roommate Jared Cook, his wife Kristen, and Kristen's sister Angie McKeen. Like a lot of the people I visited on this trip, they were old friends from my ward at BYU-Idaho. I felt really nostalgic being in Rexburg, and it was great to see a few old friends. The new food court at BYUI blew my mind, and it was the first time I'd seen the finished temple. Afterwards I drove to Pocatello for the night and stayed with my friend Amy Snelders.
• Day 4: Hung with Amy, checked out poky for a bit, then drove down to Utah in the afternoon. I visited my sister Amy's family in West Jordan, and stopped for the night with my brother Hyrum's family in Sandy.
• Day 5: Spent part of the morning on an assignment for school. Started driving to Wyoming in the early afternoon, then changed my mind and decided to stay in Utah one more day. So I went to visit my Grandma in Provo, my Grandpa in Springville, and had dinner with my friend Aubrey Stribling at a Peruvian restaurant. I drove back to Salt Lake to visit my friend Serena Roundy (and incidentally Melanie Ward, another friend who coincidentally lives with her), and then stayed the night in Ogden with my former Arizona roommate, Steve Austad.
  
• Day 6: Took off early for Wyoming. In Cheyenne I stopped to ponder whether I wanted to go to Denver, or just keep going East. After writing the pros and cons on a napkin, I drove down to Denver. I stayed the night with a classmate of mine, Dave Goforth, at his older brother Doug's temporary abode. We both slept on the floor in a room full of guitars and microphones, plus cardboard cutouts of Elvis and Marilyn Monroe.
• Day 7: Worked in the Denver VA Hospital podiatry clinic (another place I can apply to do residency) with Doug, which I enjoyed. Afterwards I drove up to visit Joe and Mary Ann Ledosquet, who live a little further North in the Denver area. I had dinner with them, and then they let me use their office for a two-hour conference call I had to participate in for school. Stayed with Doug and Dave again that night (one more night with Elvis).
• Day 8: Drove from Denver to Des Moines, IA, my longest drive of the trip so far. I stopped to visit and stay the night with my friends Matt and Erin Pitcher, and got to meet their new baby Skylie! Erin served tamale pie for dinner. The only other time I'd had tamale pie, a few months earlier, was on a crazy trip (like this one), in the midwest (like this time), with old friends from college (like these ones), who'd just had a new baby (as Erin and Matt had). Tamale pie...it's magical.
• Day 9: Drove from Des Moines to North Chicago, where I stopped to see my friend Caroline and stay the night. To give me a proper Chicago experience, she bought deep dish pizza. Dave Goforth (the classmate I saw in Denver two days earlier) was on his way to Pittsburgh, and after talking with me decided to stop over in North Chicago as well. We had both met Caroline on a medical mission last February, so it was like a mini mission reunion! We celebrated with cookies and milk.
  
• Day10: Drove from Chicago to Binghamton, New York. At about 12 hours, it was the longest single drive I made on the trip. It was also the only day I got especially tired on the drive, but I found fun ways to stay energized, like doing jumping jacks in the car....not really. More like fountain drinks, peanut M&M's, loud music, and frequent stops. When I got to Binghamton I immediately moved into my apartment, where I am this very moment.
  

During this rather long drive (normally 42 hours, I took closer to 52), I decided that I'm in favor of the nomadic lifestyle. I had a ton of fun seeing all the different places and visiting all my friends and family on the trip. It was thrilling to, on a daily basis, visit people I hadn't seen in years. I also got to listen to a lot of sweet music, and had ample time to ponder mysterious subjects. The trip as a whole took about twice as long as I originally planned, but I have no regrets, I'd do it again tomorrow....actually I just might. Well not tomorrow, but I'll have a few more fun drives before this school year's over.

New York (not city)

I'm in New York! Binghamton is a cool town. It's small (maybe 150K), and I don't have any friends. But I like the program: the residents and attendings are cool (two of the residents are from my school), and the balance between surgery, clinic, and didactics is excellent. It's busier than my last rotation, but that's because my last rotation had about two weekends per week, on average. Additionally, the autumn colors are amazing here (seriously), and to top it all off I've been told I'm only about 20 minutes from where the Priesthood was restored to Joseph Smith and where he translated a portion of the Book of Mormon. I may go scout it out this weekend.

So things are good. The biggest problem I have now is that every time I say I'm in New York, everyone assumes I mean New York City. Well I don't. I'm about three hours Northwest of NYC. This ambiguity and synonymity creates much confusion, but I hope to some day eradicate it.

Stuck in St Louis

This is part three of a four-part feature about Ben's trip back for his high school reunion, here are part one and part two if you missed them.

Monday (8/3):

I awoke at noon on a couch in St Louis.

I didn't even bother going to the airport on Monday; having called the US Airways help line the night before to check flight statuses, I knew my chances of getting on a flight were slimmer than an anorexic fashion model wearing the world's smallest corset.

Instead, Erik and I went to Pei Wei and ate breakfast and lunch simultaneously, or in rapid succession, whichever you prefer. We also chatted about philosophy, cuz that's what we usually do if you leave us together for more than five minutes.

Like icing on top of the Being-Stuck-in-St Louis cake, Monday also happened to be my day to submit a presentation for school, due by 6pm Arizona time. To write this presentation on surgical fixation of bones, I normally would have referenced podiatric surgery textbooks, but unfortunately I didn't see any of those lying around Erik's and Sachin's apartment. My saving grace was that Sachin, though oblivious to my plight, had left his laptop at home; plus he somehow already had the internet hooked up even though they had just moved in. Resorting to Wikipedia and a few random websites, I managed to pound out a mediocre presentation in a little over three hours. To make matters more interesting, I was scheduled to deliver said presentation the following evening at a time when, for all I knew, I would be in a plane somewhere over Oklahoma.

Monday night I slept on the couch again at Erik's and Sachin's place. Wondering if I needed more padding due to some bars in the couch (it has built-in recliners), Erik produced the world's largest comforter. I placed it on the couch and folded it over again and again until there were at least five layers. I felt like the princess in “The Princess and the Pea” would have felt if there had been bars instead of a pea and she had used the not-yet-produced world's largest comforter for additional padding.

Tuesday:

All flights were full, but the one on Tuesday at 2:45pm was a little less full than the rest, so I got a ride from Erik and stood by for that one. At the gate however, I heard a familiar phrase: "It looks very bad." It was deja vu all over again. As bloated with passengers as all the rest, the flight had no space for me.

Left languishing in the main terminal of the St Louis airport, my life had secretly just gotten five times more complicated; and that's why your head might explode if you read the next few paragraphs: The next flight which left at 5:50pm didn't arrive in Arizona until just after 7pm, and I had to be in a conference call at 6pm AZ time to give the mediocre presentation I had written the day before. If I could make it on the 5:50 flight, I could ask someone else to call in for me when they took role and say “here”, in hopes that I could still join the call before it was my turn to present; but what if I didn't make it in time? Alternatively, I could stay in St Louis for another night and do the conference call from there, though there was the question of who would pick me up from the airport this time, and finding a computer I could take over for two hours to give the presentation.

It took a few calls to get ahold of the doctor who was to host the conference call; when I did, and once I'd halfway-explained the situation, he told me I could just join another call he was doing the next night if I didn't make it. That made things easier than expected. I preferred not to wait for the next day's conference call, because someone else would basically be giving a better version of the same presentation during that call, which would be a great way to highlight how much mine sucked. But thanks to Dr Jafe, I now at least had options.

Around the same time I called the help line again to check on flights. Now this may surprise you, but all the upcoming flights to Phoenix were hopelessly overflowing with passengers. And that's not even counting the amorphous blob of standby passengers rolling along from one flight to the next, much the way The Blob himself would look if he were on a treadmill running two mph.

Searching for alternatives I asked the help-line rep if any "nearby" airports had flights to Phoenix that weren't so full. It was then that I was told something that would have helped me immeasurably had I but known it three days earlier: Flights out of St Louis going to Phoenix on US Airways are always full with no exceptions under any circumstances, while flights out of Kansas City on the same airline going to the same destination always have open seats. The reason for this is not clear to me, but if I were forced at gunpoint to say whether this bit of information would be useful to someone in my situation, I would most likely say yes.

Thus illuminated, I wasted no time in asking the rep to switch my listing to a flight out of Kansas City, and said, “Screw St Louis, I'm going to KC baby!" Any way I can.

I still needed a ride out of the airport and a place to stay. Since I couldn't get ahold of Erik or Sachin, I texted my old college roommate Jake Erickson, whom you may know better as the other member of Cows Never Die. I hadn't wanted to call Jake at first because I knew his wife Amanda had just had a baby about 10 days earlier, and when I had talked to him the week before they were inundated with out-of-town visitors. But Jake called me right back, told me all the visitors were gone now, and offered to come get me.

Jake and Amanda live in a community called New Town, a rather picturesque planned city that kind of looks like a movie set...which could be because it was designed by the people who made the set for The Truman Show.

Since Amanda was busy caring for the new baby, families from church had been taking turns bringing them dinner. (Jake thinks this is funny, because he's perfectly capable of making dinner. “What, the wife's down? Life cannot go on! Everyone will starve!”) But that day the people who brought dinner had unwittingly cooked for me as well. The main course was tamale pie (which it turns out I like better than actual tamales), followed by blueberry crisp for dessert.

Chatting with Jake and Amanda was fun, but it was cut short by that blasted conference call. I was glad I hadn't tried joining the call late after flying to Arizona, because for the first time ever the moderator asked me to go first. My presentation sucked. I knew it would. I gave a little disclaimer at the beginning, and then everyone else joined in the fun and gave their own disclaimers, saying something like, “Well, since everyone else is giving a disclaimer today, here's mine...”

After the conference call I was left to ponder how I would get to Kansas City the following day. I looked at craigslist, Amtrak's website, and info for a Columbia shuttle that goes to and from both airports. There was nothing convenient on craigslist; I would have shelled out the cash for a train or shuttle, except they were much slower than I expected. They couldn't have gotten me to KC any earlier than 3pm, and my goal was to be there for a 3pm departure.

With dreams of convenient transportation dancing in my head, I drifted off to sleep in the as-yet unoccupied baby room.

See how the story ends in part four, coming soon.

High School Reunion, Part II

This is part two of a four-part feature about Ben's trip back for his high school reunion, here's part one if you missed it.

Saturday (8/1) :

The second reunion event was a picnic at Brashear Park, only it was rainy so it got moved to the HS cafeteria. My food for the picnic: pudding snacks. Mmm.

There was a different crowd at the picnic than the previous night. Families came out, and they brought their children with them. There were even games for the kids to keep them busy. At one point all the kids gathered together for a picture—I knew several of my classmates had children, but seeing a big bunch of them together was shocking nonetheless. There were big and small, ranging in age from zero to about ten. These kids will probably graduate high school sometime between 2017 and 2027. I wonder when my kids will graduate...

We took advantage of being in the high school by having a little tour; there's been some remodeling. You've still got the endless orange lockers, but the trim is different in some places, the science rooms are torn to shreds, the hall by the locker rooms looks newer, and the library expanded like an amoeba to consume the once-proud computer lab where my Computer Club friends and I played countless hours of Descent (a first-person shooter spaceship game). I felt a little nostalgic seeing my old lockers and classrooms, and the halls I'd walked in as a wee freshman when I was socially awkward and didn't know how to woo women. Wait, I still don’t know how? Crap.

Quick tangent: The girls that organized the reunion are awesome—they did it with no reward and no complaint. Most people would never take the time, but they gave countless hours unselfishly putting it all together. Lindsey Fraser, Tara Duck-Hoffman, and Jennifer Moore deserve some serious credit. Sorry if I forgot anyone. Thanks to them everything went smoothly.

After the tour dissipated I sneaked off and took a look at the copy machine in the teachers lounge that I had once broken making flyers for the “Ed for President” campaign. I just wish Mrs Nothdurf had been there to revoke my voting privileges a second time. Good memories all around, though possibly unconstitutional.

Caroline went with me to both reunion events on Saturday, and for the most part we didn’t confirm or deny any relationship between us. I introduced her as my friend and let people draw their own conclusions. At least one person asked her, when I had stepped away, if she was my wife or girlfriend. Others didn't ask but you know they were thinking it.

After the reunion picnic and tour, Caroline and I went home and made sweet, sweet sandwiches at the top of the hill. Actually we made them in the kitchen. Annie was in charge of tomatoes and photo-documentation. You may recall my blog about sandwiches—these sandwiches followed the same basic formula, but with the addition of thicker, redder onions and plenty of avocado, as well as a huge fresh tomato from the garden.

The reunion finale was held Saturday evening in Too Tall's Two eatery and spirits. A storied venue, Too Tall’s was a bar and local hangout for years until the owner and then mayor of Kirkville set it ablaze in an attempt to collect insurance money. I didn't know this until I was in the building and David Morley told me the story. It was later reinvented as an event hall with bar-like qualities.

Saturday night had the best turnout, plus dinner was catered. I got to talk to several more classmates I hadn’t seen yet, and a couple former teachers. Chatting with Mrs Coy brought back memories of the time I gave a speech about WWII using Warcraft 2 terminology. I don't know if she had any idea what I was talking about but I still got an A.

Sometimes I play scrabble and Saturday night was no exception as Annie, Caroline, and I faced off in a not-really-that-epic battle. Annie seized control, perhaps due to her literary prowess, and she would have won had I not in dramatic fashion gotten a bingo to take the lead for good. I love bingos, but I don't love bingo.

Sunday:

The reunion was over, and it was time to go home. Ed Kohler picked me up around 11am to give me a ride to the St Louis airport, even though it was about two hours out of his way. I was really tired and slept almost the whole way there, waking up just long enough to eat a rather tasty sandwich from Jimmy Johns, and for Ed to play me some songs by Richard Cheese. Richard Cheese, whom Ed described as “the greatest thing to ever happen in music” (or something like that) is a comedian who performs covers of heavy metal, rap, rock, and pop songs in a lounge style reminiscent of Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett. Some of them are hilarious, such as his version of Welcome to the Jungle by Guns 'N' Roses.

So Ed dropped me off at the airport and headed back to Columbia where he lives. The good news was I had plenty of time before my 5:50 flight to Phoenix. The bad news came a short time later when the lady at the gate said, "It's lookin' really bad." Despite her sour prediction, I waited for the flight anyway just to see if I'd get lucky. Alas there were no open seats, not to mention several other people who were standing-by and didn't get on either. Gold is scarce in St Louis and I got none.

Once the plane was gone, I did a little research at customer service and got the skinny on upcoming flights to Phoenix (there are three daily) and even got a fancy 800 number to call for up-to-date flight info or to switch my listing. That number is the best-kept secret in stand-by travel.

Stuck in St. Louis I did what any sane person would do-I called Erik Olsen, a good friend from high school whom I hadn’t seen in about six years and who hadn't made it up to the reunion. He picked me up with roughly no notice, and we chilled at his new apartment where he's living with Sachin Bansal, another high school friend I hadn't seen in forever. Basically I had another mini high school reunion in St Louis. Erik and I shared music and life stories until Sachin got home from the hospital a couple hours later. Sachin recently started a new residency at WashU after spending three years in general surgery and then having a change of heart. I wouldn't want to be a general surgeon either, the hours are miserable.

Erik and Sachin had just moved in and the living room was still crowded with boxes. I made it a little more crowded with my luggage, and a few hours later I was passed out on a couch, somewhere in St Louis.

Find out what happens next in part three of the extended reunion tour.

The Reunion, Part I

Editor's Note: This is part one of a four-part feature about Ben's trip to Missouri for his high school reunion. We would have run it all together, but when he exceeded the 10,000 word mark we thought it would be better to split it up. Part two coming soon.

I recently went back for my 10-year high school reunion. It was a last-week decision. Two months before the reunion I got a surprise phone call from one of the organizers, after which I gradually warmed to the idea of going, but I didn't schedule a flight until five days before. The reunion was on the weekend, and I left a day early so I'd be more relaxed, and in case of delays since I was flying standby. One week later, after one high school reunion, nine passes through various airports, one trans-state hitchhike, five unanticipated sleeping locations, and one killer game of ultimate frisbee, I returned home at last. After such a wild trip I did what any rational person would do: I created a running diary of the experience. Here it is for your reading pleasure.

Thursday (7/30):

Arose at 8:55am after about two hours of sleep. I had an hour-and-a-half until my 10:25 flight, I hadn't packed, I didn't know how to get to the airport, I didn't have a ride, and I should have left five minutes ago. But like I always say, “If you fail to plan, you plan to....improvise.”

When I reached the ticket counter at 9:56 there were 29 minutes before my flight. The lady at the counter said, "I won't be able to get you on this flight." I knew my day was screwed if I didn't make the flight, but I didn't think arguing would help. Turns out she was lying because three minutes later she had re-entered all my info (she couldn't find my listing), printed off my tickets, and told me to run like the wind. I'm not as fast as the wind, but I made it to the gate with 15 minutes to spare, and easily got a seat (remember I was flying standby, where seats are like gold).

At the Phoenix airport with just under an hour 'til my next departure, the lady at the St Louis gate said, "It's not lookin' good." I wasn't sure if she meant the flight or her face, but I didn't wait to find out. Instead I went to customer service and had a chat. Finding out the flight to St Louis was oversold with lots of people waiting, while a flight to Kansas City that left at the same time was merely "full", I opted for “full”, and ran back across the airport (kind of like the wind) to wait for the KC flight. I was the second-to-last person to board it. Gold is precious.

Waiting for the flight to take off I texted feverishly, telling my St Louis contacts I wouldn't make it, and contacting my high school buddy Frank Fleschner who lives in KC to see if he could help me out when I got there. He said he could, and the plane was off. Frank was pretty amazing—how many friends when called with two hours notice will pick you up, put you up for the night, and drive you three hours to a small town in the middle of nowhere the following day? That's what Frank did.

For dinner we went to "Gates" for some authentic KC barbecue. Frank warned me, “you'll probably get yelled at.” Sure enough, even before I neared the counter a worker screamed, "Can I help you?!" They may not be civil, but they can make some killer BBQ, which is really all that matters in the end.

The balance of the evening was spent watching various youtube videos on Franks rather large tv (Apparently when you have TiVo you can do that sort of thing). First we watched a video of opera tenors singing higher and higher notes until their heads explode , one cool enough that Frank shows it to all his visitors. Ok so their heads don't really explode.

We then proceded to watch a few matches from the professional Korean Starcraft league. Starcraft in South Korea is a 50+ million dollar industry, sponsored by Samsung, Microsoft, and some big Korean bank. You could call it the Great Korean Pastime. Plus they have some pretty sweet commentators, such as this guy, who's like the Gus Johnson of professional Starcraft.

Friday:

I woke up at 5:17am and couldn't go back to sleep for a while, so I wandered around outside Frank's house. I finally went back to sleep around 8 and didn't wake again 'til noon, after which I was really groggy the rest of the day. It may have something to do with my yanking around my circadian rhythms like the Chain Chomp in MarioKart—you know Baby Mario's special item, the one that barks like a dog while it yanks you down the track and makes you pray it won't let go on the turns cuz you might end up going backwards? That's how my rhythms felt. I also felt a little like like I'd overdosed on benadryl, the way I did the night before I took the MCAT...but that's another story.

Frank and I took off for Kirksville in the afternoon, hitting up a sandwich joint called Mr Goodcents for lunch on our way. The worker got really animated when I asked him to make my Italian sub w/ marinara sauce the way I always do at Subway. He must not get that a lot. On the drive to Kirksville Frank listened to choral music while I slept, and at the end we threw in some Rage Against the Machine for a little pre-reunion adrenaline rush, much like we always used to do before choir concerts....What, we never did that before choir concerts? Well we should have.

We had a few hours before the reunion so Frank left me at my house. My parents were on vacation, so the house was empty, and I hadn't seen it that way or been home in the summertime in about a decade. Hoping to finally kick the grogginess, I took a long cold shower. Then I was cold, but still a little groggy. My sister Annie came over after a bit and we hit up Il Spazio, a decent restaurant that may or may not be Italian, for dinner with Frank, Ed Kohler, and Brian Woehlk, other high school buddies of mine. Just as we were leaving we saw two other high school friends, David Morley and Josh Lobert, coming into Il Spazio. After a little chat it was time for part one of the reunion: a social evening at the Dukum Inn (a bar).

Seeing all the old classmates was strange and cool all at once—a little like going back in time, which I've only done twice previously. Some people I recognized easily; for others it took several glances before their identity dawned on me. I was a little surprised at how many names I remembered--Facebook helped some there, but other names I hadn't been reminded of by any social networking sites seemed to pop back into my head out of nowhere. The turnout was decent, plus I figured more people would come on Saturday. I talked to several people (actually yelled mostly cuz it was so loud in the bar) and found out what they'd been up to for ten years. One thing about our class is, it's small enough that we basically all remember each other, so even people I didn't talk to much in high school were still fun to catch up with, see what has become of them and all. That kept me busy for about two hours and then I went home.

On the way home I called my friend Caroline who was driving down from Chicago to visit for the weekend. I didn't know what time she'd be arriving, but she told me she'd just gotten into town and was waiting outside my house. I remembered our back door was unlocked, so I told her to go in and make herself at home. To make sure she had the right house I described it to her, “White siding, light tan brick, white pillars, a big oak tree...”

When I got home I didn't see anyone in the house, so I called her to see what was up. Caroline reported she had tried the front door which was locked, and the back door which was also locked, so she was waiting on the deck behind the house. Well we don't have a deck. Confusing the neighbor's house for ours, Caroline had tried to break into their house and was now enjoying the view from their deck. Luckily they didn't see her and call the police or she might still be in jail. More importantly, that would have thrown a wrench into my plan to have her pose as my girlfriend (sort of) at the reunion on Saturday...

The story continues in Part two.