​Most people, at some point in their life, sleep walk through a day (or many days). We put the needle on automatic pilot and set sail. Snore. Don’t think. Go through the motions.
 
Quite frankly, sometimes you have to live days like that or you’d never survive given the frenetic pace of modern life. Trying to keep up with too much drives most of us occasionally crazy, so sleepwalking is a good thing and necessary.
 
A couple of weeks back, I stopped at the front desk of our fitness facility. The previous night, after making some eggs for dinner for me and my wife, I absentmindedly put the eggs in the freezer. No biggie. I figured it out reasonably quickly and put them back in the frig where they belonged.

As I got to the front desk, the woman behind the counter asked how things were going. I related the story from the previous evening about putting the eggs in the freezer.  She laughed. Then she told a couple of similar tales herself. Things like putting dog food in the cat dish, hanging her clothes in her kid’s closet. Nothing much, nothing bad. But just enough to demonstrate she’d been airmailing it in that day.
 
We laughed.  We came up with multiple examples on how we put stuff away in the wrong place without thinking because our minds are someplace else, preoccupied.
 
My favorite from many years ago was putting the cereal away in the refrigerator when I was done eating breakfast and putting the milk in the pantry. The only reason this doesn’t happen anymore is because I no longer eat cereal. Smart decision. No more sour milk and ice cold Post Raisin Bran.
 
If you think about it, we’re probably fortunate that more dangerous things don’t happen to all of us every day given how distracted we are, and how many stimuli we’re hit with daily. Sometimes I’m amazed we all can drive cars on highways, and pile-ups and accidents don’t occur instantaneously and frequently. It’s incredible given that we navigate these machines at fast speeds with thousands of other vehicles on the roads with each person facing their issues of the day, and most of us get safely to and from work, school or shopping.
 
Though I do imagine when we get home some of us leave the door open to the car after bringing the groceries in, or we forget to put the garage door down. Like I did last week in two separate situations.
 
We forget. We lose focus. Something else grabs our attention and what we’re doing becomes secondary, so we act on instinct without thinking.
 
Breaking the routine can even be dangerous.  I charge both my smart phones nightly when I get home from work. God forbid that I don’t do it right away. When I’ve broken that routine and put away laundry or taken out the recycling instead, both phones sat on our counter, draining their batteries.  Dead in the morning.
 
It’s important to shake up your routine, and also to remain focused on what you’re doing. There’s balance in there somewhere that allows you to keep things interesting without putting the cereal in the refrigerator. If you figure it out, let me know.

​When’s the last time you took a long walk in the rain? Been awhile, right?
 
This past week I woke up and got ready to walk our two dogs. There was a steady rain pounding our roof. It sounded soothing. I put on a hat and rain jacket, then entered the water-logged morning.

Heading up our gravel driveway, the smells of the earth came to me. It made me think about the last time I’d casually strolled outside as rain fell.

For the past 13 years, we lived in Grapevine, part of the north Texas metroplex in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. It’s hot there for four months every year, with very little rain from June through September. When it does rain, it tends to come down in dangerous thunderstorms and in a torrent, then magically and quickly disappears. It is not conducive for a fun walk or safe to be outside during those types of storms.

When we lived there, our family often lamented the fact that we didn’t get slow, steady, rain that came down evenly over a long period of time. The type you could stroll in, and enjoy the surroundings.

Instead, when one of the thunderstorms approached, you wondered whether there would be a hail storm with it that destroyed your car and whether you had brought everything inside that might blow away with accompanying wind blasts. One day, I found my exercise ball, which we kept on our front porch, blown 80 yards across the street. I still have a picture of that somewhere.
 
The point is, it’s probably been 13 years since I went out for a walk in the rain and safely enjoyed it. You forget how good it feels.
 
Last week as I headed up the driveway in Wisconsin, I breathed through my nose, let the chirping birds surround me with their songs. The dogs sniffed the grass, checked the woods for turkey, fox, deer, raccoons and rabbits, all critters hanging in the woods around us. Off they went. I trudged on.
 
The rain increased its pace as I got to the street, headed north, then west, then into a nearby neighborhood with no traffic. The dogs ran. I contemplated.
 
The “pock pock pock” sound of water pellets hitting my jacket provided a meditative state. My hat grew saturated, my running shoes soaked. Puddles deepened. I splashed through them.

Quickly, trying to keep clothes dry became pointless. I embraced the wet. It cleansed. It washed away some of the worries we all carry around.

Somehow, I think water does that through the shear nature of it coming down to earth. It “washes” us, and in the process washes away some of our baggage, in addition to washing the air clean. Everything smells fresh afterwards.

I think that is one of the huge things I missed living in a hot thunderstorm climate for 13 years – the cleansing spirit of steady rain. It is good for the mind, soul and earth. We need it personally, and the planet needs it to rejuvenate.
 
I wish more people got up and took a walk in the rain. I think we’d all feel a better about our days. We’d connect to nature. We’d be a bit more relaxed about some of the stresses of the day. We’d improve our perspective.

Here’s to a good steady day-long rain in your life. May you walk in it.

​Dos Equis beer does a number of commercials with a guy pretending to be the most interesting man in world. This got me and two friends thinking recently, almost always a situation that leads to weird and outlandish ideas. We decided we should come up with a tongue-in-cheek “Most Exciting Man in the World” award. To win it, you have to demonstrate how mundane your life is.
 
Really, we should name it the “Most Boring Man in the World” award. But that would be boring. So we’ll stick with our exciting title and just demonstrate how boring we all really are.

Contestant number one lists his qualifications: 1) He straightened out the garage the previous weekend, sweeping and washing the cement floor so it sparkled. 2) He took the recycling down to the recycling station, then cleaned the buckets out, before taking the 197 golf balls he’s found in his backyard and putting them in the washing machine so they look (but don’t act) new. 3) Returning from recycling, he added to the new pile by cracking open a few beers and slapping mosquitoes while sitting out front watching and commenting on his neighbor painting his house, “Hey Herb, you missed a spot there.”
 
Our second contestant got super excited over the weekend. He power washed the north facing side of his house. Doing more than one side is out of the question, but he got rid of all that dirt, mold and grime and felt like a new man after that. It didn’t even take the entire Saturday afternoon, so he had time left for a nap and a margarita before dinner.
 
The third contestant is a yard guy – cutting, trimming, raking, planting, weeding. His most recent escapades include edging around his garden and deploying new toxic materials to eliminate weeds. Previously, he’d attempted to kill the bad stuff with a vinegar spray, touted by friends, but that failed, so it was back to the poison. He mowed his yard and composted the clippings. He trimmed the hedges. He mulched the front flower area. He grilled a big steak and ate it, too.
 
Some contestants are pleased just to do something simple, like contestant number 4. He was happy to replace the line in his weed eater. Most times, he seeks advice or has his wife take on the task. But to keep his exciting weekend on track, he undertook the massive task of pulling off the weed eater head, cutting some line, wrapping it properly, then sliding enough line out of the cutting end to ensure it would actually chop down weeds, before re-inserting the cap. Then he drank a lot of beer and watched two episodes of “The Blacklist.”
 
Contestant number 5 decided to do something different with his life. He read a book and sat in his backyard. Rather than watch sports on TV, he decided it was such a nice day that he should go outside instead and sit there to enjoy the weather and improve his mind by reading. He felt better afterwards, and cooked a gourmet meal for his wife.
 
There are many other ways the contestants found to be exciting – taking dogs to a new dog park; trying a different restaurant with your spouse and ranking it afterwards; preparing for a mini-triathlon; chopping firewood; riding your bike into town instead of driving your car. If you think about it, anyone can be exciting. Get out there and try something new. And stop being so boring.

​Sometimes it takes a blackout to make the best burritos ever. Last week, my wife and I planned to have burritos for dinner. I grabbed the ingredients on the way home from work.
 
When I got home, I unloaded the groceries, pulled out the frying pan, put the cutting board down for some slicing and dicing, then BINGO, out went the lights. “UH, OH,” I thought. “Can I cook cold burritos somehow?”



Seconds later, the lights flickered back on. WHEW! Seconds later they flicked back off. DAMMIT! I waited and waited. Ten to fifteen minutes went by. Plan B emerged.
 
My mind went to camping and eating outdoors. If you have no electricity, how do you cook? If you’re out in the woods camping, you use the campfire. We have a gas grill. It would have to do.
 
The first step to making the best blackout burritos born out of necessity was to figure out how to cook all the ingredients and make sure it came out on time. Originally, I had planned to have some rice mixed with beans and corn as side dishes. To make this work, instead I had to mix them all together and stuff in the burrito.
 
So here’s how it went. I got out the frying pan and put the ground beef inside, squeezed some lime into it, and poured some hickory liquid smoke. The pan when on our grill, and I closed the lid on top to let this mixture percolate.
 
I wanted the meat to cook thoroughly. When the ground beef was done but still stewing in its juices, I added some frozen corn and the rice mixture to let it simmer together. Waiting, I diced some lettuce, got out grated cheese, fresh cilantro, Newman’s salsa, leftover guacamole and sour cream, and set them aside.
 
It smelled dang good lifting the grill’s lid, and the lights were still out. Motivation to continue executing Blackout Burritos.
 
My biggest concern was getting everything mixed at the end, and toasted. I didn’t want to finish cooking in the pan, so I figured I’d put the rolled up burrito directly on the grill. Fortunately, because someone was looking down on me before I went to the supermarket, I bought extra large tortillas. Go figure. I never do that.
 
The rice/bean mixture and corn went into the meat, and I let that continue to simmer as I diced cilantro. When it seemed the base of the dish had cooked enough, I brought the pan inside to the candlelit dinner table, pulled out the titanic tortillas, layered the meat mixture in, then added: diced cilantro, grated cheese, chopped lettuce, Newman’s salsa and sour cream, guacamole. I rolled those babies back up, then brought them outside, dropped the heat on the grill, then placed them on it to toast.
 
A few minutes later, I used the spatula to flip them and grill a few minutes on the other side.  Mmmmmmmmm! It left those light brown grill marks on the tortilla. I was starting to think, “This could be good.”
 
When my wife loves food, you know what you made was a success. We sat down after I pulled the massive tortillas off the grill and shut the gas heater off. Just one big ‘ol burrito to eat – no side dish, no need to layer on any other spices or ingredients.
 
One bite, and I knew it was a success. I could see her devour the final product. Juices oozed out of the side, the sour cream, beef, cheese, lime juice, cilantro, salsa, rice, beans and corn blended together like they were married long ago. Blackout Burritos. Cooking in the dark. But not without light. Go for it.