Bachelorhood Day #3/Cheesecake, Ivy, and Baseball

Bachelorhood Day #2 went off without too many hitches. It rained all day, except a few hours in the mid afternoon. I spent a couple of hours in the early afternoon cutting and cleaning the Ivy on the front porch....one Hell of a job, especially when it's humid, and yesterday, despite not getting much above 70 degrees, was one miserable, uncomfortable day seemed you could barley breath when outside. But I was determined to clean the Ivy up...it had been looking poor in recent months, and the usually lush green of summer had been retarded by a choke of dead leaves and dying vines. So it was out to Wally World(Wal-Mart) to buy a new pair of cutting tools for the vines, the old set was not going to work on this mess. A couple hours and much sweat later, the results are shown in the above photo. I should have done a before and after, the disaster it was would be easier to understand...while not looking great now, it(Ivy) at least has a chance to breath, and the porch is at least sit able.

The Cheesecake____

Since I first met Patricia back in late 1973 she has always been a great cook, and knew how to make desserts well....that's not the reason I find myself on the battle of the bulge however, I can pretty much contain myself from eating lots of sweets...Beer and red meat are more my issues. On occasion she makes a Cheesecake, usually taking it over to Cherry Street for Mom and Mike...on occasion though I do request one. Yesterday after finishing up the porch, knowing my game was rained out, and popping the top on a Miller Lite Longneck, I spied a couple of boxes of Cheesecake Box mix...I had tried to make one before{can't really remember when}...so I figured, "What the Hell?".

These are simple box cakes, and sometime even somebody like me can handle them....well at least I hoped. So I pulled out the blender, and a pie plate and went at it....20 minutes later I tossed my prize in the refrigerator, and would wait the hour until it firmed up and was ready. About 60 minutes later before Sam knew the cake/pie was ready, I sliced off a large piece and downed it....about and hour later he asked.."Dad, is your cheesecake ready"....Already done and tried some I say. So oldest son proceeds to dig himself out a large piece, leaving just about 1/2 of the cake to go. I am thinking, well tomorrow, I can take a photo of what's left, since it still looked nice sitting in the glass "pan"...and use that photo as part of the blog post for today.

'WRONG........."

I headed to bed about 11, and left Sam to watch whatever he was on the tube...I awake at 7:30 this morning, head down the stairs, into the kitchen to make coffee...and Lo and Behold, what do I see in the sink? My cheesecake pan, was empty except for a few crumbs...Sam had finished off the rest of my prize possession...."No Cheesecake for me, for Breakfast". Which I guess is all the better, it came out pretty good, but Sam saved me a few calories...so I'm stuck with a banana to go with my muffin and coffee.

Today and the weekend____
The rest of my bachelorhood days{until Monday Night} will be spent mostly on the baseball fields or mowing the lawn.

I plan on mowing our yard today, since it appears we will get 24 hours of dry weather...Sam will take care of Mom's over on Cherry Street....I'm at Fort Jennings for ACME baseball tonight, he will be at Lima Shawnee. Saturday will be a challenge. The Ottawa Run American Legion Baseball Tournament begins tonight. Tomorrow I'm scheduled to be at the Columbus Grove site for a double header beginning at 10am. Then dodging the predicted rain, I scoot back to Celina to do another double header with Sam at Montgomery Field...a round robin double header starting at 5:15{4 games in total in about 12 hours}. If the rains dodge us, or we it, that should be a real test for this 60 year old body, especially the back and legs. If I survive, Sunday morning will see a triple header back at Columbus Grove for the AL finals...3 of us will share that, so hopefully not as much stress on the old bones.

Patricia and Anissa are scheduled to fly back in to Dayton Monday evening, youngest son Hal will pick them up, and we will meet somewhere in the middle on I-75, after I finish up my game at Delphos......So.....

It sounds like I won't be around the Internet or house for much of the next 3 or 4 days...I'll check back when I can, in the meantime, enjoy the weekend.

back later>>>>>

Photos-{top} The front porch after the clean up, you can see by the bright areas of the outdoor carpet where the Ivy had covered before being cut back somewhat. {next} The remnants of my once complete cheesecake...and Baseball is the theme of the weekend, if we can dodge the rain....