There are few things in life worth describing with multiple exclamation points.

The art of dipping things into delectable melted cheeses and chocolates is most certainly one of them…

I mean, seriously … melted cheese – who knew?!

And more importantly, for those of you who did have previous knowledge of this delectable phenomenon, what’d the rest of us ever do to you to have you holding out on us?!  When you discover an incredible, new way of eating, much like when you watch a hilarious movie or find a new way to drive someplace that’ll get you there really fast, it’s your responsibility to share those findings with the ones that you love!

But let’s just put all of that aside, as now is a time for celebration of the newfound culinary brilliance that is the world of fondue.  I mean, seriously – show me something more enjoyable than sticking stuff in cheese and I’ll show you a guy who didn’t consider the sexual innuendo of that last statement prior to putting it down on paper!  It seems so simple, so obvious – like taking the concept of nachos and kicking it up a notch, but in a sophisticated sort of way that makes people want to dress up and make a night out of it as opposed to something that one might enjoy in a ragged, old t-shirt on the couch in front of the TV.  Then again, if you’re anything like me, you have no qualms about doing either – really, cheese is cheese…

For me, I first found myself plunged into this magnificent melted world while my wife and I were planning our wedding.  In fact, I would dare say that it was one of the best things to come out of said nuptials … except for that whole “love you forever, ‘til death do us part” thing, of course!  Anyways, our very first taste was, in fact, during one of those same night out-ish scenarios – a bit of bread and cheese, a savoring selection of meats, and culminating with a wide array of succulent sweets all just begging to be dunked in that warm bubbly chocolate – and all of that was only the beginning!  Since then, we also enjoyed the rehearsal dinner for our actual wedding at a local fondue establishment and even managed to scoop up a fondue pot of our very own as a wedding gift of epic proportions.  From that point on, we’ve just never looked back … both with our undying affections and this crazy, little thing called fondue, mind you!

These days, I still certainly wouldn’t call myself anything even close to a fondue expert, however I am making an effort to put plenty of hours into that pot of ours to help build on my own knowledge like a smooth bullion stock.  And as with most do-it-yourself-after-watching-a-trained-professional-type projects, some attempts have certainly left me more encouraged than others, but hey, as they say, cheddar isn’t aged in a day, am I right?!

That said, if I could pass along just six tips based on my own personal fondue-ing experiences thus far, they’d probably look a little something like this…

• The more unpronounceable the names of cheeses that recipes call for, the more delicious the final fondue will be … despite the sad truth that many will seem damn near impossible to find at your local grocery store.
• Cheese fondues with a beer or wine base make it all the more easier to get drunk during dinner with a minimal number of mixed drinks on the side.
• Eating an entire meal that consists of melted everything leaves many an opportunity to scald the inside of one’s mouth.
• The responsibility of cooking your own meat right there at the table will likely result in overcooking just about everything … at least if you fear salmonella half as much as I do.
• The human body is ill-equipped for digesting mass quantities of cheese in a single sitting – plan accordingly.
• It’s simply not possible to name a dessert that can’t be improved by submersing it in chocolate fondue.

Of course, at the end of the day, the best way to enjoy a good fondue is to just dive right in – pun intended – and don’t stop sampling until you run out of cheese or chocolate.  Yes, seriously, dunk anything and everything that will fit into the pot – dinner rolls, those starlight mints they bring you at the end of the meal, scraps from other dinners that you happen to still have in your purse for reasons I don’t even want to know why.  In the wonderful world of fondue, you’re really only limited by your own imagination and the greediness of the other people you’re dining with, so just stick it in and see what happens!

Again with the unintentional sexual innuendo?!  I really need to get that looked at before next week’s column…

Yep, the rumors you’ve heard are correct – the birthday of yours truly is, in fact, coming up just next week, but before you break out the party poppers and strike up the band, I think it’s important that we get something out in the open.  Simply put, “Now is the perfect time for me to buy a new life insurance policy.”

I mean, really – what better way to celebrate my living another year on this green earth, getting a little older and a little wiser in the process, than by cementing my own mortality with a cash incentive to my loved ones to offer me up that extra slice of cake or finally get me that dangerous set of power tools that I’ve always wanted?  Maybe after dessert we can go shopping for tombstones with the birthday money that Grandma sent, then catch a late night skydiving expedition – now that’s what I call a birthday to remember…

…it’s just too bad its memory has to be in the obituaries.  Seriously, folks – a guy like me gets two days a year, and that’s only because I’m taking liberties for Christmas … you know, with it being the most awesomest holiday ever and all.  But even in a couple of years when we add Father’s Day to the list, that still only gives me three – is it really too much to ask that we refrain from talking about my eventual demise on those days?!  Any other day of the year – Tax Day, Boxing Day, even National Sheepherders Appreciation Day – and I’ll be happy to make myself available for discussions of wills, power of attorneys, whatever.  On my special days, though?  Let’s try to show just a little respect, eh?!

I mean, it’s bad enough that birthdays are the time that the state has chosen to harass us about renewing the registration on our personal motor vehicles – I think aside from said taxation, birthdays should be a day of fun and merriment, free and void of all other bothersome worries, both foreign and domestic.  And call me selfish, but on my birthday, I don’t want to have to think about making my own lunch or arguably even putting on pants (that was a good birthday!), much less death via steamroller or…more likely…death via overindulgence of delicious, yet high-calorie birthday cake. The only death that I want to be thinking about is all of the killing that I plan to do on the mini-golf course … metaphorically speaking, mind you…

…because I’m very, very good at miniature golf, you see.

So let’s make a deal, all of you bargain-laden reapers out there, you – you give me this one day to relax and just enjoy the day of my birth, in all of its wonderful gift-wrapped and sugar-coated glory, and then first thing in the morning come tomorrow, we can sit down over a pot of poorly-made tea and awkwardly talk all about whatever amazing, once-in-a-lifetime rates you have to offer me.  You can pretend to be excited about selling insurance, I’ll pretend to actually have money to pay you – it’ll be great.  Just please don’t bother me on my birthday because I plan to be very busy celebrating.

Pants may or may not be involved – feel free to follow up with me on that in the morning…

…I’d like to congratulate you for celebrating another 4^th of July here in the USA without singeing off your own eyebrows, along with the left side of your face, the neighbor’s cat, and those three bushes that line the front walkway!  By following the safety instructions that were included with your completely legal, professionally distributed fireworks, you’ve made yourself a fine example to younger, more impressionable generations who will in years to come exhibit a similar display of precaution and common sense when observing the independence of their nation with their own friends and family.

As for the rest of you … well, what can I say?!  While I’d like to think that this is the first time your behind has gotten up close and personal with the business end of a bottle rocket, something tells me that at this point you’re on a first name basis with the fine men and women of your local emergency room, perhaps already having paid a visit or two this year for insisting on that overly-aggressive donkey for the kid’s birthday party or even simply mistaking Easter grass for another kind of grass while the good little boys and girls were out hunting for the eggs that you forgot to hide.  But never fear, for although your midnight ER runs may be mildly inconvenient because they always seem to tear you away at the height of the party, I’ve got a feeling that a guy by the name of Darwin will be catching up with you sooner or later…

Boy, this is the time of year when we really see society’s premiere idiots come out of the woodwork, now isn’t it, folks?  I guess there must be something about the prospect of not only lighting things on fire, but lighting things on fire that fly that sparks the idiot gene into action.  I mean, don’t get me wrong – I like fireworks just as much as the next guy, however my enjoyment comes more from the glorious spectacle when they burst overhead, as opposed to the drunken panic when you see one screaming towards your car.

Of course, here in the state of Florida we really like our fireworks, to the point where it’s not unexpected to see folks celebrating the 4^th of July, in all of its fiery glory, not only a week or so early, but well into August, as well!  And even then, it’s not that the nightly neighborhood fire hazard actually stops in August – they just switch over to celebrating Christmas instead of the 4^th at that point.  It’s kind of like a flammable version of how Wal-Mart swaps out its seasonal merchandise – there’s never not a reason to celebrate the savings, or in this case, celebrate one’s inevitable next trip to the emergency room!

It’s definitely something that’s taken a bit of getting used to … rockets bursting outside your window on any random Tuesday night during the spring, summer, or fall – I guess it’s just a fanaticism that I never saw nearly that much growing up in Northern Michigan.  Back in my day, we never had the massive bursts that shoot 30-feet up in the air in our neighborhood displays.  Maybe at the big, “official” town show over the lake, but the best our neighborhoods had were sparklers, those lousy tanks that shot a couple of stray sparks before catching on fire themselves, and maybe your classic smoky snake or two that just left a pile of snake-like ashes that were a pain in the ass to scrub off the sidewalk the next day.  We were limited to whatever was in that bundle you could pick up at the grocery store – nothing that cleared trees and struck terror into the hearts of family pets, that’s for sure – but for the most part, we were fine with it!  We left the big guns to the “professionals” who always seemed to have the fire department standing by, and at the end of the night I think there was something to be said for the evening passing without an ambulance whipping down the street or someone threatening to take their neighbor to small claims court over the burnt patch in their lawn the size of what used to be their golf cart…

But if you’ll excuse me, I think I just heard a bottle rocket land dangerously close to my front door, so as much as I’d like to stay and reminisce about a place in time with a little less to offer in the fire hazards department, I think for the sake of explosions I’d better get my guard up.  At least they have to sleep sometime, though … right?!

If last week was the awesomest that wedding planning had to offer, then I think I might go so far as to say that flower planning is just about the antithesis of cake planning, at least in my book. And it’s not that I didn’t have a good time, I guess it’s just that if I never have to spend another minute of my life shopping for flowers, I think I’ll still be ok. And my bride-to-be shant not even worry – I don’t mind the occasional bouquet either in celebration or because I did something stupid, but as far as planning floral arrangements on an event level, just pick whatever you think looks best because I’m done…

For all of you florists out there in the audience, it probably hurts a little to hear this, but I’m sure it’s something that you kind of already know – you’re job just really isn’t all that interesting! I mean, I guess it works ok for you, but are you the kind of person who rushes home after work to watch the Oprah that you recorded that afternoon over a Lean Cuisine microwave dinner and a glass of iced tea? I thought so, but there’s really no need to feel ashamed or anything – at least not about the iced tea – for without you, there’d be nobody to remind the rest of us how interesting our lives are! It’s just the circle of life, or the circle of boredom, so to speak. Nothing personal.

Anyways, we dedicated a good bit of time last week to searching out floral arrangements to be worn or carried or made into hats or something for our wedding. I don’t know – I honestly wasn’t really paying attention after the first seven hours of rosy fun, but from what I understand, the crown of sunflowers and daffodils that I’m to wear during the ceremony is going to look very nice! I didn’t ask if they’re also going to get me the matching corncob scepter to go along with the crown, but knowing how color-coordinated everything else has to be with this thing, it certainly wouldn’t surprise me to be waving my sceptre of corn into the air, fending off seagulls as my beautiful bride walks down that aisle with her buckwheat bouquet! You know what they say – you only get to look like a complete fool at your own wedding once…

Any instances after that are just sad.

Maybe if they just weren’t so expensive, I wouldn’t mind the fact that I couldn’t really care less about them, but like everything else that we’ve signed official contract-y things for throughout the planning process, apparently it just doesn’t truly depict our undying love for one another unless we limp away from the table wondering, “How many more kidneys are we going to have to sell to pay for all of this?!” Which, at least as far as the flowers were concerned, is kind of a shame because in between the actual flower shops that we visited, we also passed some very nice cemeteries that even from the road looked rather promising! They were all pretty large, so they should have a great variety and really no problems coordinating with the rest of our theme, and they were even right on the way from our house to the hotel, so it would be no trouble at all to simply stop off on our way over and grab bouquets for the bride and her bridesmaids, a few single flowers to turn into boutonnières for the guys – who knows, maybe even my royal scepter!

But alas, just like my idea to hire a one-man-band didn’t fly for the evening’s entertainment, my great, cost-saving cemetery floral plan got overruled in favor of one of those “actual” (read “boring”) florists. So we’ll see how it goes – Tales from the Crypt bouquets or not, they’re still just boring flowers, so if anybody needs me, I’ll be pouting over by the cake…

I’m sure you’re probably thinking the exact same thing that I’m thinking – it’s just not fair! I mean, sure, Christmas is right around the corner and it won’t be long before Santa Claus is coming to town, but really, is this the only thing on people’s minds?! Here we are in the 21^st century, where multitasking is the name of the game and those who can’t juggle 28 things at the same time are thrown to the proverbial curb, yet when it comes to holidays, it seems that we’re still pretty much a one-track society…and that’s sad! Don’t get me wrong – I know that Christmas always has and probably always will have a lock on the winter months and honestly, I’m OK with that – I love Christmas just as much as the next guy, and judging by the luminescence of this year’s lighting display, probably even a tad more, all in the same, it’s become painfully obvious to me that this gargantuan of a celebration seems to be overshadowing a whole slew of perfectly good lesser holidays, so rather than ramble on and on about how I’d like to find one of those new hydroponic toasters under the tree this year, I thought I’d instead use this week’s column to clue you all in on some of the other days worth hooting about this season…

Now I’ll tell you, the thing that really impressed me the most when I was “researching” for this column was just how many food-related celebrations we have scheduled for this time of year, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s reason enough to take the month off work and party until it’s 2004! If, much like myself, desserts are your source of passion, then it seems only logical that National Pie Day (December 2^nd), Ice Cream Day (December 13^th), and of course, National Chocolate Day (December 28^th) would be marked prominently on your calendar. There’s also Eat a Red Apple Day (December 2^nd) and Oatmeal Muffin Day (December 19^th) for you health-conscientious folks, and even a very special day that I’m sure Moms around the world look forward to for months and months – National Clean Your Refrigerator Day (November 15^th)! My personal favorite? December 16^th – National Chocolate-Covered Anything Day – just imagine the possibilities!

But wait – that’s not all! We’ve got plenty of holidays for the environmentally concerned, such as Air Day (November 11^th) and America Recycles Day (November 15^th), and even one for the manliest (or most ignorant) of tree huggers – Have a Party with Your Bear Day (November 16^th). Those pessimists in your life will certainly feel in their element as Have a Bad Day Day rolls around on November 19^th, although this could really be just another smack-in-the-face come morning with Beautiful Day to follow. Although it’s officially slated for January 3^rd, Sleep Day is certainly one that I could handle a little more often, but with National Kazoo Day to look forward to at the end of the month on January 28^th, at least we have something to keep us going!

And if that’s not enough, well, there are even a few others that I came across that are, frankly, downright creepy! If Male Watcher’s Day (January 8^th) isn’t enough to make you concerned, then you might also consider Fabulous Wild Men Day (January 12^th) and the morning-after cure on January 13^th, Blame Someone Else Day. Apparently the entire month of January itself has more than enough to keep us alarmed with Dress Up Your Pet Day on the 14^th and of course, Penguin Awareness Day on the 19^th. I felt that same shiver down my spine that generations upon generations have been unable to shake as I read about School Nurse Day on January 24^th. That having been said, not even National Inane Answering Machine Message Day on January 30^th stands up to the most frighteningly bizarre holiday of the winter season – Take It in the Ear Day, December 8^th!

Folks, I wish that I could make stuff like this up…

Granted, I didn’t say that they’d all be gems and I certainly couldn’t expect you to devote your entire day to most of these celebrations, but I still think that at least a bit of recognition might be nice! Why stand around the water cooler talking about the weather or Friends or that hot, new secretary on the 11^th floor when you could be swapping stories about how you each spent Put On Your Own Shoes Day on December 6^th? I know, some of them sound silly, while others are all-out disturbing, but somebody took the time to come up with them, so the least that we can do is take a minute or two out of our busy schedules to honor them!

Now if you’ll excuse me, today is National Maple Syrup Day and what kind of a citizen would I be if I didn’t fulfill my civic duty?! A hungry one, that’s what, and besides, with National Roast Suckling Pig Day coming up tomorrow, I’ve got some cross-training to do!

Folks, it’s that time again – you know what time I’m talking about! We’ve all been looking forward to it since springtime, the months seemed to pass by ever so slowly and it seemed like we’d never get there, but now that very moment is right around the corner and boy, I’ll tell you – you could cut the anticipation with a knife around here. Floats are being prepared, the Grand Marshall has put together one hell of an afternoon jubilee, and the Daylight Savings Queen certainly isn’t looking too shabby, either, I might add! Yes, this is one city that’s geared up and ready for the celebration, but it’s with my deepest regrets that I’m forced to bring this unsettling fact to light – not everyone feels the same as we do about Daylight Savings Time…

That’s right, as hard as it is to believe, there are some people out there who not only aren’t nearly as festive as the rest of us here are, but in fact, get this – they refuse to even acknowledge the occurrence altogether! I’ll give you a minute to absorb that – even though pretty much the entire civilized world observes Daylight Savings Time…Western Europe (yes, even the French), Iran & Iraq, and even some countries in Africa that have yet to import any technologies that you might keep track of it on, all are firm believers in the concept of Daylight Savings Time. Granted, there are a few others in Africa, Asia, and South America that aren’t in on our little game – half of Australia is still out of the loop, but we’re just impressed that the others made it to the table – and just to level with you, I wouldn’t honestly even expect them to be, but right here in our own backyard, I’m setting the bar a little higher, my friends! Indiana? Arizona? I’m calling you out!

(Note: Hawaii is kinda in a world all by itself, anyways, so I’m just gonna let this one slide…)

Now I’m sure that you’ve both got your reasons, as crazy as they might be, but frankly, I think it’s just time to drop the act and get with the program! Although my own personal knowledge of the agricultural industry is just about as limited as President Bush’s chances of winning the Nobel Prize anytime this century, I’m pretty sure that your crops really don’t give a good golly gosh darn what time it actually is! You people work yourselves such crazy hours anyways that as long as the roosters are able to keep up on the time, does it really matter what the grandfather clock says?

And as for you Arizona residents and your 110-degree “dry heat,” I honestly don’t know what to tell ya! You obviously don’t have the crop excuse that Indiana has been falling on because, well, you live in the middle of the freaking desert, so the only other excuse that I can really manage to think of at this time is long-term heat strokes – the prolonged exposure to such extreme heats (the kind that sterilizes surfaces and brings water buffalos to their knees) has just melted your minds to a point where instead of taking the theories of time and space into what most would otherwise consider logical consideration, the state’s primary thought consensus pretty much consists of “Is tonight Bingo night?” or “…sand hot, very hot…” One could hardly blame you – I myself try to avoid even looking out the window when it gets above about ninety-five degrees around here, so why not just simplify things and take a flying leap into the 21^st century?!

I don’t mean to be confrontational, it’s just that Daylight Savings Time is an event that should be celebrated, not desecrated. There are plenty of things worth arguing about in this world – taxes, the democratic national campaign, the point behind college women’s basketball, but let’s not clump such an otherwise glorious spectacle in with that whole mess! This is a time for parades and parties, not stubbornness and non-compliance, so turn those clocks back an hour with pride! Closing time is suddenly another hour away and you’ve got another hour of sleep to look forward to – who in their right mind would cause a stink about that?!

That’s right – not even the French…