It’s been a strange week in the world of work for me. Resignations, heated e-mail exchanges, accusations, etc. Thankfully, none of this directly involved me. I am but a bystander to the action and I have to admit that it’s good to be the (confused) onlooker. When I’m directly involved in exchanges of this nature, I don’t sleep for days. As I was heading in to the building this morning to see what new, indignant e-mails had cropped up overnight (four new ones!), the piped in music in the hallway was “Kokomo” by the Beach Boys. There is something hilarious about this song set in direct contrast to extreme disharmony.

Imagine a video of a vicious cat fight with this tune playing and you get the idea; two (or three or four) cats locked together in a death roll while this plays in the background:

Aruba, Jamaica ooh I wanna take ya
To Bermuda, Bahama come on pretty mama
Key Largo, Montego baby why don’t we go
Jamaica
off the Florida Keys
There’s a place called Kokomo
That’s where you wanna go to get away from it all

Bodies in the sand
Tropical drink melting in your hand
We’ll be falling in love
To the rhythm of a steel drum band
Down in Kokomo

There are some foods I love but don’t admit to loving because they seem uncool. Cottage cheese is one, mayonnaise is another. If someone doesn’t like mayo and finds out that you enjoy it, they look at you as if you just expressed a taste for smoked baby song birds. On more than one occasion, a mayo hater has given me a sour look and asked, “What is mayo, anyway?” I don’t know. But I don’t go around saying, “What is mustard? What is vinegar, anyway?” I’m not sure if this food falls into the uncool category, but I love baked beans.

You don’t often hear people rhapsodizing over baked beans but when I was little and still ate meat I even loved the little cube of pork fat that came out of the can. I loved the taste of baked beans when eaten with hot dogs and potato chips. What can I say, I grew up in Wisconsin. Sometimes my mom would make homemade baked beans. OK, maybe like three times she made homemade baked beans because I believe it was the kind of recipe where you start out soaking the beans for like 2 days or something. I remember thinking that I preferred the canned version. But now that my tastes have become more “adult,” I’m excited to try out a recipe for baked beans (they’re vegetarian) that I found via Orangette although it’s actually on The Wednesday Chef site (how appropriate for this post!).

If you watched the Kentucky Derby, you saw the amazing “come from behind” blow-out by Mine That Bird. This Saturday, May 16, is the second race in the Triple Crown – the Preakness Stakes. I don’t know what it is about horse racing but suddenly I’m really intrigued by it. I’m rooting for Mine That Bird, although I wish the jockey Calvin Borel was riding him again. I liked Calvin’s style and I think they made a good team, although there is debate about whether or not the jockey matters when it comes to a horse’s race performance.

Mark your calendar now for the Belmont Stakes on Saturday, June 6th.

“Since 1919, only 11 Thoroughbreds have swept the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes, the last of which was Affirmed in 1978.”

I think one thing I find so beautiful about racing is the motion and the speed. You have to be in the moment, both as a participant and a spectator. You’re in the moment but time also feels suspended. That’s a cool place to be:

This photo of Mine That Bird is from Horsephotos.com

Here is footage of one of the greatest race wins of all time: Secretariat in 1973 Belmont Stakes. Watch how he pulls ahead and pours it on – he finished 31 lengths ahead of all the other horses.