The blue looks like sky but it represents oxygen emissions

The NASA picture of the day is cool!

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....,,but you take it. We'll be all right.

Tonight was a leap of faith night, especially for me. We've been so blessed with resources lately our freezer capacity has been stretched thin. We've been able to freeze a lot of food that has been given to us. The downside of that is we really were maxed out in our freezer space. So we had to use it or lose it and I hate to lose it.

So we decided to have a "clean out the freezer night" and try to free up some space. I went down about 4 p.m. and pulled out every aluminum foil wrapped pan of food and every white tub of leftovers in the both freezers and started thawing them.

Only thing was, I wasn't really sure what was in some of them. (I don't always have a Sharpie close by when I put things into the freezer.)
So here I was getting ready to commit to serving all these pans without a real clear idea what we'd be serving.

So, as soon as the 7th graders showed up, I grabbed them and headed to our storage closet under the jail and spent the next hour or so cleaning up and let Twig deal with the food.

When I got finished down there, they were taking the food up to serve. I asked if we had enough and he assured me we had plenty, so I said good enough.

And he was right. They were serving huge portions all night, even for seconds. And we saw a large number tonight. We had 13 in line 10 minutes before Mercy House let their guys out.

Gotta share this.
From the start, from when it was me and Skyler, Jonathan, Drew, and Mason, way back outside the St. James shelter, we have always had Texas Pete on table. Always. We'll forget forks and spoons, we'll forget to grab the trash can, but there'll be a squirt bottle of Texas Pete on the table. Count on it. I wish we could get some kind of cool swag from them, like tables with a big bottle of Texas Pete on them or aprons ...something like that.
Anyway...
Everybody knows I love it and most of the guys coming through like it on just about everything, too. But tonight we had some guys who made us look like rookies.

There were about 10 Hispanic guys that came through tonight at the 2nd stop. They were some of the first ones through and they stood around and ate off to the side of the drink table. Very friendly although limited in their English.
Now, usually one of us stands at the end of everything and offers some Texas Pete, and if they say yeah, we squirt it on because their hands are usually full. We use a squirt bottle because it's faster.
Tonight for some reason, someone had put the Texas Pete in two of those glass bottles that you see in barbecue restaurants. The ones that the good vinegar sauce is in? Those
So it took a little shaking but is still came out faster than a regular Texas Pete bottle.
Well, I shook some on the Hispanic guys food and actually shook extra, you know because ....they're Hispanic. They like that stuff, right?

Before I knew it, they all came back asking for more. And they kept coming back. Finally I had to refill the bottles, so I just started handing it to them and letting them do it themselves. I looked at Tom Varno one time and he had the same look of disbelief I did. After filling it for the 3rd time(!) I took the top off and let them start pouring it on their food.
In-freaking-credible.
We've got to buy a new gallon bottle for next week.

I was down under the LEC cleaning so I didn't really know who all had showed up until we started serving.
ALAN BRIEN JOHN TATUM ELLEN J. BOGGS MICHAEL COWAN DALLAS CAMERON SHANE PEYSON HAMPTON MITCH DANIELLE SAM ELLIOT LAURA TOM VARNO GENE MCINTIRE SUE MCINTIRE MICHAEL CANDACE ERIC TWIG me
....are the ones who did. Thanks to everybody.

One of the really amazing things tonight was how good a bunch of frozen leftovers turned out and how much they enjoyed it. Every bit of that credit goes to God.

Sunday is the SUPER BOWL PARTY! Can't wait, can't wait, can't wait!
Planning it is as much fun as doing it! Lining up food, deciding what to do, getting things ready,......fun!
As far as the food goes we're still in a state of deciding.
Don't worry......the Turducken is going to happen. trust me.
But that's gonna a special event, like the pregame show or the halftime wardrobe malfunction. We still gotta decide what we're really going to eat.
We had a cake leftover tonight that someone had forgotten to set out and so we told Brien to take it to the folks at he Literacy Council meeting.
She suggested we keep it and serve it at the SUPER BOWL PARTY. She said that because she is kind, generous, and thoughtful. She also said it because she is a woman.
All the guys looked at her like, "CAKE? CAKE? SUPER BOWL PARTY-ies aren't about cake, or any other sweets for that matter. It's about meat, and cheese, and chips, and dips and combinations of those things. If it doesn't immediately slow the rush of blood through the heart to a rush hour crawl, or clog your arteries like a checkout lane at the grocery store when some ol' grandma whips out the checkbook, then you don't serve it at a SUPER BOWL PARTY."
We told her thanks, ........

.......HOMELESS SUPER BOWL PARTY TURDUCKEN!

Look at this list:

Twig Rollins Jane Dodd-Rollins Laura Johnson Michael Cowan Chris Armstrong Dan Armstrong Anna Tolar Tammy Pruden Bob Lee Ryan Carr Thomas Varno Teresa Bland

This is a list of extraordinary people. People who come out on a night of freezing weather to help cook and serve a meal, not knowing if anyone would even show up to eat.
On a night where nobody would begrudge them for staying home, they came out.
If you know or see these people, tell them I said great things about them. They did a great job tonight.

Special thanks to Don Vigus who came out at a last minute's notice to take pictures of everybody doing there jobs tonight, so I can have some new photos for the blog. I appreciate it.

If you look up "Great Dad" in the dictionary, what you'll find is this: "Someone who doesn't want their son to be out driving on slick roads at night, but realizes how much their son wants to come and feed on Tuesday Nights, so they come with them, then stay and help all night so they can make sure their son is safe on the drive home".
And it has a picture of Dan Armstrong.


It was very cold tonight. We served the first stop inside. If you think people are grateful when you feed them, try telling them you're going to feed them inside on a night like this. Everyone was very thankful to be inside while we ate tonight. We only had about 10 at the first stop because of the weather, but that's okay. Cooking a lot and only feeding 10 is better than cooking nothing and not feeding anybody.

We got to the next stop early and got ready so we could do it as fast as possible and get them back inside where it was warm. They came out early and we started serving. Philip Sutton's brother-in-law gave us a large amount of new, white, crew socks and Chris and I passed them out. I take socks for granted and don't even wear them most of the time, but these guys were excited about some new socks!

We had MEAT LOAF
MASHED POTATOES/GRAVY
GREEN BEANS
DESSERT
HOT CHOCOLATE
I will give Twig his props on this - the man makes a killer meat loaf. One - no bell pepper. I hate picking 'em out. Two - the glaze on top is dyno-mite! The guys love when we do meat loaf and tonight's was made available due to the farsighted generosity of Wayne and Katie Hill. They provided all the ingredients for us. All we had to do was make it. Thanks again to them

When we got done tonight and wiped off the tables, any liquid on the table was already turned to ice. Cold, cold, cold.

We talked up the SUPER BOWL party tonight. Got approval from everyone involved, so we're a "GO"!
I'm excited.
Gonna be huge!

Okay.

I've watched Alton Brown do it on TV
I saw it done on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.

I've got a Turkey.
I'll get a Chicken .
If I can get me a Duck somewhere, it's on.
That's right.
You know what's coming......wait for it......wait for it.........now........

NASA pic of the Day

I know it says "Moon Rover" but I swear it looks like like Wrightsville Beach to me.

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......filling those little voids in your life and meeting your needs!

I've got a new toy and it's called iLike. It lets me create playlists and put them up on the blog for you to listen to. At least the first 25 to click on the song anyway. It's run by Rhapsody and you get 25 free listens on each song. It's pretty cool and extremely easy, which are two of my favorite things.
The songs on there now I found on McCall Dudeck's iPod during last year's Bimini trip. I listened to them every time she wasn't using it. I've gotten all of The Weepies stuff since then. Colin Hay was the lead singer for Men At Work. Don't know where's he's been or what he's been doing since the 80's, but I love the songs on the playlist.
Anyway, check 'em out and let me know what you think.

Now, what I really got on here about........

It's Tuesday about 4:00 and it's snowing! They called for snow today, but I always take that with a grain of salt and a "we'll see" attitude. Doggone if it didn't start snowing about 10 a.m., snow hard for an hour, then just kinda off and on the rest of the afternoon. Now it's snowing again.
That's neat, I guess.
I've never had much use for snow here. I like it in the mountains and when I'm skiing or traveling, but down here, day to day, it's just a hassle. Things close, you can't find a loaf of bread anywhere, people freak at the first snowflake,...it's just not as fun here as it is in the mountains. It is pretty though, and little kids get a kick out of it so...let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

We're going to serve tonight regardless of the weather. Jon Hill's parents, Wayne and Katie asked if they could supply the things needed for meatloaf this week. What do you think I said to that?

We saw over 90 folks last week. We had to have had at least 75 come through at the 2nd stop. It was like the clown car at the circus. They just kept coming and coming. The line just stayed long and it didn't seem to get any shorter. We had enough food though. It's pretty amazing how God works that. There have been times when it looked like we were going to run out of something and I'd just tell whoever was serving to quit looking down and just keep sticking the spoon in there and puling stuff out.
And somehow we get to everybody and a have a little left over.

It's supposed to be really. really, really cold tonight.
How cold is it supposed to be? Glad you asked.
It's gonna be so cold....... Hitchhikers are advised to just hold up pictures of their thumbs.
It's gonna be so cold........Flashers are just gonna walk up and describe themselves.

THAT"S how cold it's gonna be!

New Hanover County kids were out of school today and might be delayed tomorrow if we get a freeze tonight and roads get icy. Don't know how many will be here tonight. My phone went dead about an hour ago and my car charger's broke, so I might be getting all kinds of people calling with questions and not know it. Oh well. I really do need to get a new phone.

Hope you're warm wherever you are. I'll post later tonight and let you know how it went.

And as far as the playlist goes, no thanks are needed. That's what I'm here for, y'all......


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....At the same time? I'll pass. Thanks anyway.

First off, Jason and Jade were back tonight. They are the 2 kids I mentioned last week that came and ate with us. They weren't there at first but once we set up and I went about halfway down the line to say grace, I saw Jade poke her head out from behind a lady. I said "Jade! Jason! Hey!"

And Jade came up and hugged me.

Second time she'd ever seen me in her life and she hugs me. Amazing.

She had on a coat too big for her but she was warm and that's good.

I sent them on to the front of the line and nobody minded...... or was dumb enough to show that they minded.

I found out a little more about them this week. The woman they were with said she was a friend of their mom's and that they'd wanted to come back this week to see us and because they were hungry. She said they lived about 3 1/2 blocks away. Jade said she went to Snipes Elementary and Jason went to Virgo Middle. They both came back for seconds and we gave them some more dessert to take home.

They seem like such good kids. I hope they are and that everything I was told is on the up and up. Still not sure about the mom/dad/house thing but we'll see. The best thing is to just keep inviting them back and doing what we can for them on Tuesday nights.

Told you about the turkeys we got last week. Well, they take up a lot of space in the freezer and we have been filling up the freezers so I decided we'd go ahead and use some of the turkeys and try to make a little room. I thawed out six of them for tonight.I had left school a little early because I was going to try and get them on the grill by three and give ourselves plenty of time to get them cooked and carved. We were going to get the pig cooker fired up and put them on that but that didn't happen so .....

between 2 and 3 I got all six turkeys out, pulled the innards, patted them dry, rubbed 1 with lemon pepper, 3 with Cajun spice, and 2 with nothing but Texas Pete. I cut the ovens on and put all 6 in about 3:30.

My man Alton Brown (check out Good Eats on Food Network - great show!)

says most people cook turkeys too long- that's why they're dry.He recommends 400 degrees for about 30-45 minutes then cut it back to 350 and go 'til they're ready. so I did.

They popped up about 5:45. I pulled them and let them sit until 6:15, then we started cutting and pulling.

The plan was to serve it as an open faced sandwich, sorta.

We'd put 4 points of toast on the plate, cover it with turkey, then have mashed potatoes and gravy on the side and they could get gravy on the turkey and toast, too. We also had peaches.

I remembered we had just gotten a lot of shredded cheese and a big chunk of Velveeta, so me and Tom Varno started making a cheese sauce, armed with nothing more than a vague idea of how to do it. Turned out vague was being optimistic. We totally overestimated the amount of milk needed and had to improvise, which in this case meant adding about 50 slices of cheese and a decent amount of flour to thicken it up. Tasted great, though.

I had Cameron and Dallas running the 4-slice toaster full bore all night. We made about 300 pieces.

So it turned out as :

Open faced turkey sandwiches on Toast

Mashed Potatoes and Gravy

Peaches

Dessert

Sweet tea

And in case you're wondering where I stand on this, let me set the record straight: Turkey skin, for about the 45 minutes after it comes out of the oven or grill, is just about the best thing IN THE WORLD!

Give me all the skin, you can have the meat, and I won't fell like I've been cheated at all. Man it's good!

Brien Teresa Ryan Michael J.Boggs Cameron Dallas Jane Twig TomVarno Laura me were the ones making it go tonight.

Small crowd but that's all right. Didn't seem like it when we working

Did I mention it was cold and wet tonight. Oh yeah. Cold and wet.Just the way I don't like it.

Cold is fine.

Wet is fine.......

...we'd be eating 11 Turduckens during the SUPER BOWL!

A little color never hurt nobody.......

Last night was:
Lemon Pepper Chicken
Green Beans
Corn
Dessert
Sweet Tea

John Ellen Twig Jane Christian Kyle Michael Cameron Dallas Tom Alan Mary Rebecca Chris Laura Candace Eric Mike me

We had 3 pans of chicken and put Lemon Pepper on all of them, but on two of the pans me and Johnny Liverman put some Cajun seasoning on top, then a little Wesson oil (makes it crispier) and topped it off with some Texas Pete. They turned out the best.

Big turnout tonight. Sometimes the first of the month brings a smaller number of people but not always. We had about 30 at the first stop and there were about 15 people waiting for us when we got to the Mercy House, before those guys had come out. Altogether, maybe 80+.

We had lots of chicken but still ran out. We did, however have some spaghetti that Renee and Annie gave us when their BabyFast dinner was over and we passed that out until it was gone. Nobody went without, though. Everybody got a plate of something.

I wasn't here last week, so of course I missed stuff.
Anna passed out. She'd given blood earlier and just kind of keeled over. She's fine.
Twig tried to speed the thawing process of a bucket of chili. When the hot-water-in-the-sink method wasn't fast enough for him, he tried to slice it with the big meat slicer we have (think Jersey Mike's). Ask him how that went.

We have some folks with some very serious prayer needs.
Brien's father's health has gotten worse and they've called Hospice in. No timetable but we need to pray for him, her and the family.

Alan Dyer told us last night that His 82 yr. old mother had been diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus and because of her age there was nothing they could or would do. He and Mary will be with her in Pennsylvania next week.

My brother was in a motorcycle accident over the holidays. Scraped him up pretty good and broke his arm. Had to have surgery on it. One plate and 4 screws later he's okay. He looks like he lost a fight to someone with a cheese grater, though.

Started talking up the SUPER BOWL party last night with the guys.
The SUPER BOWL party is fun.
The Mercy House has a TV but it's small and everybody can't get around it to watch something. So we pick them up in the small bus and bring them back to church (a whopping 4 blocks!) and watch the SUPER BOWL on the big screen TV in the Youth room. 1st year we about 20. Last year about 30. This year? We'll see.

Last year we cooked chili and had some other hors d'oeuvres. (Didn't even have to spellcheck it! Don't act like you're not impressed.)
We'll do something similar again this year. Last year me and the McKnights made cocktail weiners wrapped in bacon and tossed with brown sugar, then put in the oven at 350 for about 15 minutes. The lasted about 5 minutes. Gotta double the amount this year. They're so good.

It's funny because the first year they were so quiet. We didn't know if it was because we were in the church or they were just nervous or being polite. I kept telling them to cheer and yell and talk junk, but had very little results. The only guy who really responded and got into it was Rodney and he stutters!

But last year they got into it more, cheering and whooping and hollering. Plus we had a great game. So I think this year it'll be the best one yet.

Clay Collier rolled up last night with 11 frozen turkeys for us. One of the girls who works at Pine Valley Country Club remembered that Clay and his girls help us on Tuesday nights and gave them to him to give to us. We appreciate that very much.

I think we'll thaw about 6 of them for next week and put them on the grill about 4:00. They'll come off about 7:30 and be good. A little mashed potatoes and some rolls.....all kinds of good.

We didn't do Turkeys for Thanksgiving this year, so it'll be cool having it in January.

Man, if somebody would donate 11 ducks, I'd go buy 11 chickens and.....

Jason and Jade

There are some things you get used to, even though they're tough. Realities that you come to grips with because you have to. Things that you are able to see and deal with. That's something you learn when you do this every week. You help people to the best of your ability in the thing that you're doing or providing and that's what helps you handle and process the things you see and come up against.

But some things never get easier. Some things always kick you in the gut and twist your insides, then stay in your mind's eye long after every thing is put away. Physically you move on, but your thoughts and concerns stay behind.

I know adults are going to come through the line. That's why we do it, because they're there and we can help.

But seeing kids come through the line for food breaks my heart.
Absolutely kills me.

Saw 2 tonight.
Boy and a girl. Boy probably 13, girl maybe 9 or 10.
Jason and Jade.
They were the first thing I noticed tonight, waiting outside the Mercy House with about 12 other folks as we pulled up. In a crowd like that, the sight of children is jarring. They stand out even as they try to hang back. Jade's clothes were small on her, even for a 10 yr. old. She had jet black hair that stopped at her shoulders and she looked like she hadn't had a chance to wash lately.

They weren't with anyone who looked like a parent. They came on bikes and were with a young guy who looked to be about 20 -23.
The young guy was the first one in line for a plate, while Jason and Jade were in the back. We took them to the front of the line and let them eat first. I told them if they needed anything else to come find me. Jade came a little later and asked if she could cover her plate with another and carry it with her. I told her she could just have another plate and take them both. Same for Jason. We also gave them a whole blueberry coffeecake to take with them.

They didn't stay long, so we didn't get to find out much about them or their situation. Both of them thanked me for their plates as they were leaving.

Leaving to where, who knows? I hope and pray they're off the street, hopefully in a house somewhere.
It's not going to help my sleep tonight to think of the situations they could have left and gone to.
And the questions......
Where are the parents?
Why aren't they with them?
Who's the guy with them?
Are they in school?
Are they getting the basics they need?
Where are they sleeping?

I keep thinking I should have been more inquisitive and pushed a little bit to see what their deal was. I regret not doing that. Next time I will.
I should have this time.

I hope this was just a random thing and that things are actually okay for them and they won't need to come back. But I keep thinking that this was 9:00 at night in the parking lot of a men's shelter in a rough part of town.

I hope I get to see them again.
I'll see them in my mind all week.


I'll post tomorrow about all the other stuff.

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