Zucchini disguise and skivvy races

For reasons I no longer remember, I volunteered to get dinner for myself, first-wife Iris and our two sons last Thursday. As the afternoon hours seemed to be rapidly passing by, certain amount of panic set in, and I decided to not roll out a batch of my famous homemade noodles.

Settled instead on a trip to a "kitchen-to-kitchen" type shop where you can buy pre-prepared food, gourmet delights for easy cooking. Got my favorite item, which is big green peppers stuffed with ground beef and all sorts of other goodies ready to gobble down after only a few minutes in the oven. No messy pans and mixing bowls to wash later.

There were two young fellas at that shop, glib smooth-talkin' devils who convinced me my family would go ape over a cheese and vegetable side dish called "cheddar-bake," which was also easy to cook in its own container.

Got home and read the cheddar-bake's main vegetable was zucchini squash. No trouble for me, I love it. But Iris, Shannon and Clark have told me on several occasions that this is the one food they dislike the most. It was not long ago one of those boys said he'd prefer a "cat fur and peanut butter sandwich" ahead of zucchini.

My problem Thursday was that when Iris got home, she might want to read about the ingredients in the meals I'd bought. Figured she'd think I was up to something if all the directions and labels were missing. Making matters worse, the labels were quite large, and the word "zucchini" stuck out like a lighthouse in the fog. In fact, the actual complete name on the dish was Cheddar-Zucchini-Bake.

Went and got a razor blade and carefully removed the Z-word, then cut out "Cheddar," to move it over and paste it with Superglue next to "Bake."

So that no one, especially Iris, could tell the label had been altered, this entire task was done with the intensity and skill of a brain surgeon. Was almost in a sweat when done and had to force a small jigger of brandy down my throat to stave off the shakes.

Eventually Iris and the boys had wandered in, and my good wife said she liked what I'd bought and then told me to go relax with the TV baseball game, and she'd be pleased to finish preparing the meal. (I had already set the table.)

The dinner was delightful, and everyone ate heartily of the "Cheddar (blank) Bake." Now I have spent the last week trying to devise the least embarrassing method possible for letting my love ones know how much they actually like that "tasteless long green squash."

Two rather weird stories out of the 50th state of Hawaii last week. The grueling Ironman World Championship Race was Saturday, involving more than 1,800 athletes from around the world.

Preceding the main event, the eighth Underpants Run took place at Kailua-Kona. In that event, the contestants race in their "skivvies." The short AP story we got didn't say how far the 100 entrants ran, or if it was for both men and women.

Some of us older folks don't even know if female "skivvies" include tops. If any of you readers know someone who went to the Ironman Championships, please have them contact me as soon as they are back.

The second story announced the annual hunting season for feral and trespassing cattle. The Big Island of Hawaii has thousands of cattle, mainly on a few big ranches, and the Herefords and Angus get through the fences and they don't have to come wandering back to the home ranch when winter comes, like here in Montana.

A spokeswoman for the state says, "Cattle pose a major threat to our native forests." She says there are more than a hundred wild cows wandering around in the Halalau National Wildlife Refuge right now.

The hunt starts Nov. 5 in the Hilo watershed and runs on weekends through Nov. 26. "Each licensed hunter will be permitted to kill and remove two cattle per day." That's what it says, "Two cattle per day."

If we Montanans had this same kind of hunt in years gone by, I could have bagged some mighty fat Angus beef up in Glacier Park along Sherbourne Lake.

Maybe we can get it going next year.