My Book

There is a book you might remember called “How Starbuck’s Saved My Life” which I started to read, and quickly got bogged down and never finished it.  My version would read “How UEFA Helped me get through”, a less intense version.  As most people are probably (painfully) aware I finished my last cataract surgery last Monday.  Okay, Jackson, I can see clearly now....

As MFO (and several of my good friends) would (be more than happy to) tell you, I don’t handle these situations well.  I am definitely NOT a “glass half full” guy, I have rather more of a “glass is smashed” outlook.  I think about this a lot.  Why can’t I be an everything will be fine, no worries, and just be happy person.  I’m not. I can’t help it, I worry and fret.  The only rationalization I can think of is that my years of training as an engineer have always revolved around figuring out (say with an aircraft design) what are the failure chances, and where are the weak spots.  A mind set of what can go wrong and if it does, how do we fix it?  Hence that translates into worrying about somebody taking something out of my eyeball.   I did take a lot of comfort from the many people who responded on facebook with good wishes.

So I had my first surgery on the port side eye a couple of weeks ago and of course (half full people) everything went fine.  Spent a lot of time looking at

Once in the operating room, the drugs do their thing, and you wake up with a patch.  I'll spare you an image of that! Then, when home just keep putting in drops (and drops, and drops, and drops, and....0, no lifting, which led to some dead time (bad choice of words) on the couch.  As it turned out the whole week was filled with almost continuous coverage of Soccer games between European teams vying for the: 2016 UEFA European Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2016, is the 15th UEFA European Championship, the quadrennial international men's football championship of Europe organised by UEFA (borrowed from Wiki).

Now I never have been much of a Soccer fan, but by the end of the week, I got kind of hooked.  I have a much better understanding of the game (except for the “off sides” rule despite help from my referee BIL).  At first glance it reminds you of the youth version, kick the ball go get the ball, kick it again, hope for the best.   But after you watch for a while you start to see some form and the talent involved.  A kick from one side of the field to the other that lands neatly at the feet of a team mate who brings it effortlessly to a stop.  Try that at home!  The announcers began to talk about passes that should go to either the right foot or the left foot, how they lead a sprinting team mate who picks it up on the dead run.   Pretty neat stuff.  And I even learned the term “set piece” which is a play resulting from a corner kick.  And then we got treated to see an Iceland “side” that toppled some of the most talented teams (England for instance).  And you gotta love those fans..

And before we leave, after watching those teams play it sure was a letdown to see Argentina carve up the USA…USA… USA! team who couldn’t even manage a shot on goal. Argentina has Messi, who is considered one of the best players in the world (besides Renaldo).  I hope you got to see Messi’s free kick during the (USA) game, and then the humiliation of missing the goal entirely in the game against Chile.. and his “retirement” from international play.  So did Brett Farve.

So the EUFA helped me gain a new appreciated for “Futbol” through some (I suppose) self inflicted hard times, and now things are clearing up in the eyeballs.  Despite a better understanding of the game,  I will however, never understand the propensity of players when barely touched to fall to the ground, writhing in pain, and when it doesn't engender some colored card on an opponent, they either get up for the free kick or trot away.  which means we can apply more attention to

FOOD

Keeping up with this place is difficult to do.  Just today one of the members of the “just right” team sent me this picture of a sign now displayed in the “Jerk” chicken place (where I never saw a single customer) in San Souci, next to China Harbor II

I would think there would be a larger market for Bay Dogz than the Jerk stuff..BEV, I’ll just bet you can get one with Old Bay.  We’ll see.

And I happened to be over in Leonardtown today with MFO who had to pick up some cleaning so I looked into Le Rive Breton (old Café Des Artistes)  it isn’t quite ready for customers

Oh, which reminds me that I talked to what became one of my favorite serves in the Café, and she said her job is still waiting for her.  So i can't wait to

DFD