It’s Embarrassing Confessions time:

1. I don’t always have good taste in TV shows. I love shows like Modern Marvels and X-Files, and I was gripped by Lost fever just like everyone else I knew. But I also like Gilligan’s Island. As an adult comedy show GI is hopelessly ridiculous. However, if you watch it from the standpoint of “children playing they are lost on a deserted island,” then the show works perfectly. Try it once, you’ll see what I mean.
2. I don’t have a sophisticated palate. When I was a child I would pick and eat white clover blossoms (yes, I washed them first). I would go into the garden and pick a mess of mustard greens and boil them up for a snack, or I would munch raw potato sticks dipped in mayo (mmmm!). In early summer I would shuck the wings off ripe maple seeds and fry the seed heads up in an iron pan with a little salt, like parched corn (double mmmm!). My adult taste isn’t much better. One of my favorite comfort foods is hamburger and chopped onions fried in a pan with lots of salt and black pepper until it turns into little dry crispy bits. High-end food items like balsamic vinegar, sun-dried tomatoes, and feta cheese are wasted on me, sorry!
3. I really like…wait for it…drum roll…watching heavy earth-moving and construction equipment. Not driving it, although I would if I could, but watching them at work. There is something about these machines that hypnotizes me, a sort of nonthinking, meditative activity. If I were wealthy I would buy a backhoe, a front-end loader, or a repaving machine, hire someone to run it, and sit on my comfortable patio for hours watching it do its thing. I often drive out of my way to pass spots where I know construction or pipe laying is taking place, especially during rush hour, because the slower traffic gives me more time to watch. I do searches on YouTube for bucket wheel excavators and walking drag lines. Sometimes I download and save the videos.

Here is a cool YouTube video (not mine). I like that the natural sounds are left in rather than adding a music track, and those demolition shears at the beginning are one of my favorite pieces of equipment:

Before summer ends and the snow starts to fly, seek out some construction or demolition site and watch that wonderful metallic feast of precision movement. As any gourmet chef would say, enjoy!