September 4, 2011: Macadamia Nuts Day
Food of the Day for a One-Year Goal
Day: #60

Please have one of Emily’s homemade macadamia nut muffins while we muse. Yummy!

Who knew macadamia nuts originally came from Australia? I had no idea. I thought they were as Hawaiian as ferrets, pineapples, and leis.

Sunday was a beautiful day, and like much of the country, we had a drop in temperature and a nip in the air, so my teenager driver and I took our can of macadamia nuts

to snack on as we and headed out to a Kane County flea market in St Charles, Illinois.

Cole has been driving with his learners permit for six months, and I can honestly say, I now enjoy driving with him most of the time. He has benefited from driving with a lot of different adults and has driven everything from Jags to Smart cars. If I were asked for one piece of advice about driving with a teen, this is what I would offer: Let your kid drive everywhere, all the time, under as many different circumstances possible. The more you drive with your kid, the better driver he or she will become, and just as importantly, you become a better passenger. On an average trip, I rarely yell “we are going to die” anymore, and even on our mini road trips, I might only yell it once. This is a big improvement from the days when our lives passed before my eyes every time we passed a bus, made a left turn, or merged onto the expressway.

The Kane Country Flea Market is filled with everything, from corning ware to yard art, and it was fun walking around munching on sweet corn, and looking at the trash and treasures that the different vendors had brought to the market. I was intrigued by the colorful water beads that water your flowers, and Cole loved an egg scale and was astonished at the $40 price tag. Flea markets are not a haven for good deals, even in these difficult economic times.

My dad would have called us “Lookie Lou’s” since we did not come with the intention or desire to buy anything — we were just lookers — and we almost left without buying anything, and then we saw them . . .

Wild Woman

Wild Man

Wild Women and Wild Man

The vendor offered me a very good price on the pair, but it was more cash than I had with me, so he pointed me towards a cash machine within eye sight of his booth. Before Cole and I left to get cash, the vendor strongly suggested I leave a $10 deposit with him, explaining that Wild Man and Woman might sell before we returned in 15 minutes. Really? I handed him $10 just because it amused me to think that we might return to a crowd of people surrounding Wild Man and Wild Woman, all wishing they had seen them first.

Cole carried wild man, and I carried wild women out of the flea market.

One man looked at us and turned to his wife and said, “Its true people will buy anything.” My mother says they are awful and wonders what we will find to spend our money on next.

I love our ugly, wild, tribal, voodoo couple. Cole loves them too; in fact, he insisted we buy the pair. They seem happy in their new home and have not made any unreasonable demands or started chanting in the middle of the night. They don’t have names. We will consider all suggestions, but for now they are just Wild Man and Wild Woman.

Have you ever bought something that made absolutely no sense, was ugly, and completely out of place in your home because you just had to have it?

Some days, do you just feel like a nut?

Odd loves company, so I hope you will leave a comment!!