We watch tee vee from the U.S. from time to time (when the rain keeps us indoors.) Gonna have to break that habit because we hate the tee vee commercials from the chain restaurants. We prefer the ones advertised on YellowPages.com.

We both are jonesin’ for some Americun foods… I have already told Bulbous that when I visit, I just want to eat junk food and watch the Big Ass TeeVee in High Definition. A combo of vegging out and pigging out. (Watching via the internet really sucks here because there just isn’t the bandwidth yet at Casa de Boondocks.)

Get this: chain restaurants are booming! Check out this infographic:

OK, OK, first you lean a ladder up against an Irwin Mango tree… what I should have said was how to “choose” an Irwin Mango after somebody has already picked them.

I wasn’t a mango fan until I was introduced by Clara to the Irwin Mango. They have a grove of mango trees including a few Irwin Mango trees just down the road from us. When they had us for breakfast, Clara insisted we try their Irwin Mangos.

Oh, Yum. Yum.

They are delish and I am officially hooked on them. They are in season now and four mangos weigh about two kilos which sell for a “mil” (one thousand colones – about $2) at the local feria. Just a little further down the road from Clara’s grove,  near Orotina, we saw them even cheaper. (Orotina calls themselves the “fruit capital” of Costa Rica.)

The original ‘Irwin’ tree was a seedling of the ‘Lippens’ cultivar that was open-cross pollinated with ‘Haden’, planted on the property of F.D. Irwin in Miami, Florida in 1939. The tree first bore fruit in 1945 and was named and described in 1949. The fruit gained commercial acceptance due to its good production, flavor, relative disease resistance, and attractive color. ‘Irwin’ has also been sold as a nursery stock tree for home growing in Florida.

My first venture at picking out mangoes home was a typical gringo move: I asked the street vendor to give me two kilos. He stuck me with a bad mango. The tico increased his profit because of my ignorance.

Wasn’t the first time. Won’t be the last.

Now I know how to pick out good mango and I am flush with bravado as I stroll up to the vendors in the market and start poking and squeezing their mangoes.

(insert your own filthy joke here)

Here’s my method:

• Don’t go large: try to stick to between baseball and softball size.
• Skin should be a little maroonish blending into greenish yellow.
• Just a little soft, not mushy soft but pleasingly firm.
• No bruises or black spots.

Irwin Mangoes have a monster seed, so that one softball mango will yield one normal size serving. I always peel two. Warning: you may notice some juice leakage from the unpeeled mango from the stem. Clara says this will stain clothing. Otherwise the mangoes are a juicy delight. If you are peel and eat fan like I am, be sure you have a place where the drips can fall unrestricted. I like to stand on the pool pump house and let the juice drip off my elbows.

Yum. Yum.

UPDATE:

Nancy was up bright and early this morning (Saturday), but didn’t investigate when Derby charged out of the house at 7 a.m. barking up a storm.

Too bad! Clara had stopped by with a bag full of fresh-picked-from-her-trees Irwin Mangoes.

Clara told me later that the season was about to end, but she was hopeful for a second season this year about August.

It’s nice to have nice neighbors.  (The note inside said Good Morning Neighbors!)

Yum. Yum. Yum.

Bulbous just reported that the Gulf of Mexico temperature at Ft. Myers is 91 degrees.

Put some bratwurst and onions in your pants and wade in.

Wade out and enjoy your feast.

Just be careful, I wouldn’t allow self-serve. In that warm of water, dinkles don’t shrinkle, and balls don’t secede.

Thanks to What the Hell Are Young People Thinking?

Senior citizen discounts are bad for business for a number of reasons:

• everybody does it.

I’m not talking about the Florida eat-at-4-pm deal. I  understand how that make sense. Get the codgers in early and get them out early so the Xers with ankle-biters can move in and destroy the place.  No, I’m referring to the standard, everyday, defacto “real” price for Seniors!. . . 10% Off! Mayhaps when we are more senior, we will start shopping harder and actually seek the restaurant/liquor store/car wash that offers. . . 10% Off! As it stands now, we go to Lonestar, Toot’s, Red Lobster, etc. etc.  order what we order and at some point during the meal remember we are Senior Citizens and tell the waiter to deduct our 10% Off!

• we keep forgetting to ask and nobody volunteers the discount. This happened a lot on vacation in Boston. We would decide to take a tour, pay the price, and at later back at the hotel room, I would read in the tour book or brochure there was a Senior Citizen’s discount.

I guess this is an acquired habit: Just ask wherever we go, whatever we are doing. But would it kill the merchant to offer us a discount when we forget to ask? I have to show I.D. to buy beer at the ballpark. I wouldn’t mine showing an I.D. to get a Senior Citizen’s discount. I would feel good about that 12 year old working at Dairy Queen for having the kindness to give me a discount. I might even forego the sneer when s/he says “there ya go” instead of “thank you.”

• the Senior Citizen’s discount is usually given to people who were going to be there anyway. Kroger. Kroger has Senior Citizen’s Day the first Wednesday of every month. I guess it’s to get those Social Security check shoppers.

Nancy never shops anywhere but Kroger for groceries. Sometimes she shops on the first Wednesday of the month – and HATES it. She says the place is full of old people who don’t know how to park their cars, can’t maneuver a grocery cart, and pay by check.

• anybody can get the Senior Discount. At some places the age break is fifty-five! I have been missing out on some deals for years!

Here’s the deal business owners:

Instead of offering $9.99 entrees and skimping on portions to increase your bottom line, just stop giving away your profits to Senior Citizens. We won’t quit coming to Waffle House or Denny’s or McDonald’s or Francois’s House of Crepes & BBQ just because you stopped your discount. We don’t eat out because it’s cheap. We eat out because we are
1. too lazy to cook,
2. are social, or
3. want to look at other people, rather than the droopy eyed dogs begging at our feet.

Other hard goods merchants? Like gifts and oil changes and liquor and golfballs. . . shopping at your establishment is not a price deal, everybody price matches these days. We shop at your place because it’s a selection or service deal. We like the stuff you sell or the way you treat us. We won’t stop coming back if you keep that 10% Senior Citizen’s discount.

Senior Citizen Discounts are bad for business. But as long as it’s offered, I’m taking. I’m also asking for it every place I go.

The irony? About the only business that doesn’t offer a Senior Citizen’s discount is the medical business. Now there’s a deal worth shopping for: 10% Off!. . . MRI’s! Tuesdays Only!