Aaron Ewer
Aaron Ewers thoughts about everything

One of the best things about summer is that the cantalopes and watermelons are ripe and fresh. I never really knew how to pick a good one from the bins until a buddy showed me how to smell the butt of the melon. If you can smell something just a little sweet or fragrant, then it’s a good one.

Last night we went Krogering and they had a bin of cantalopes that looked pretty good. They are from somewhere in the U.S. but I don’t know where. I’m guessing Texas. I picked one that smelled good and when the wife cut into this morning I was proven right again. This was a great melon - perfectly ripe - not too hard and not yet mushie, and sweet as you could ever want.

Last weekend was a holiday for most people but I had to work all three days, so it wasn’t much of a holiday for me. I did donate to the veterans group selling poppies at the Kroger and I watched fireworks Sunday night courtesy of the lake’s water park, so I had a little bit of celebration. Didn’t get to take advantage of any of the Memorial Day sales at the stores - actually didn’t even get to read the newspaper to see what was on sale until yesterday.

So this weekend we’re going to go shopping and do all the honey-do list items that we can cram into two days. I’ve already checked the internet for discount coupons and my favorite site had some great deals. With the price of gas at $3.85 a gallon, we’re looking harder for ways to save money on other purchases and coupons are an easy way to save with just a little forethought.

We have to buy a baby gift for the new little nephew. Right off I found discount code promotions from Fisher Price, TikeTech, Safety 1st, Kiddopotamus, Evenflo and Kidsline and we’ll be giving that top priority on Saturday morning. The hospitals send new mothers home so quickly now that it is hardly worth ordering flowers for the mother, but I wanted to send something to my sister-in-law on the good chance that they will deliver the flowers this afternoon or at the latest tomorrow morning before she heads home with the baby.

We have to do a lot of yard work on Sunday - there’s little chance of rain and the weeds have taken over parts of the lawn. I’ll get some gardening and lawn care supplies and tackle those chores Sunday morning. If all goes well, I can be finished in time to throw some steaks on the grill and settle down for the NASCAR race in Dover with a couple of cold ones. Or, if the yard work takes too long, we’ll still have the steaks but we’ll cozy up on the couch to watch some movies to wind down.

I love Chicago. It’s my favorite “big city” to go for business or for pleasure. I’m booking our flight and getting tickets from a ticket broker so we can go watch the Cubs vs the Cardinals this summer.

There’s so much to do and see in the Windy City - and hundreds of good places to eat all kinds of food, especially steaks and chops. One of my favorite restaurants in Chicago is the Chicago Chop House. It is a classic Chicago bar and restaurant and a must do for anyone who loves steak with lots of atmosphere. Anything on the menu is guaranteed to be great, and the wine list is spectacular.

In the summer you can charter a sail on one of the tall ships out on the Lake. Put that on your “bucket list.” And if you can’t fit that in on your first trip, at least take a river and lake boat tour - it’s great fun and you learn a few things about the city, too.

I read the Chicago Tribune for news you can’t get in the other daily papers. If nothing else, read the great weekly column by Garrison Keillor, humorist, author, and perhaps best known as the radio host of “A Prairie Home Companion.”

Since the wife has to lay off caffeine for a few days while she battles a bladder infection, we’ve been trying to find something for her to drink besides water. We got the brainstorm this morning to head over to the local Sonic Drive In and she ordered a watermelon slush. That really hits the spot when the temperatures outside hit into the 80′2 or 90’s, and today we with 84, last I looked.

I love the Sonic Drive In for the basic hamburger and chili cheese dog kind of quick meal, and the types of beverages and multitude of flavors is awesome. It can be hard to make up your mind just which one you want to order!

I wish we had Sonics when I was a kid, but I never saw one until we moved to Tennessee back in the 90’s. Witht he Sonic version of a drive in, you pull into a stall and stay in you car, then order through a car-side menu and speaker system, then a carhop brings your food out to the car. Some of them still have carhops bring the food to your car while skating on roller skates. That’s a lot of fun - reminds me of American Graffiti.

My secretary was late to work this morning - again. This girl has a high drama life and the excuses she offers for being late or not showing up are spellbinding. It’s worth keeping her just for hearing the next chapter of her life’s soap opera. This morning the reason she was late was that her husband admitted to the hospital last night. It seems he had decided over the weekend that he wasn’t getting enough fiber in his diet, so he ate an entire box of All Bran Flakes on Saturday and then again on Sunday morning he ate another entire box of All Bran Flakes. Well, by Sunday afternoon he was feeling pretty rough and by Sunday night he was swollen up and in agony, so they took him to the hospital.

Turns out that overdosing on bran flakes without drinking huge amounts of water can cause severe gastric distress and could actually kill you. His intestines were so impacted they are considering surgery tonight if he doesn’t have a bowel movement on his own today after they administer a colon cleansing product - in a last ditch effort to avoid surgery. This guy is an extreme case, because I know several people who have had a Colon Cleansing and it was not in a hospital setting. Some people use colon cleanser products to maintain a healthy digestive system and promote a healthy immune system. But let’s hope that my secretary’s husband gets immediate relief from one.