Amy Stays and the Chicken’s Embarrassed

A couple of months ago, Tara and I had a tête-à-tête (fancy phrase for “conversation”) about our DVD collection. I wanted to move our DVDs from the built-in shelving unit in the basement and she wanted to ditch them entirely.

Madness.

I talked her out of getting rid of our DVDs. In fact, we ended up buying a new rack on Amazon that holds a whopping 450 DVDs and BluRays. Here’s what we had before…

It wasn’t the best setup anyway. The shelves are molded in place and obviously meant for books. Or, it must be said, wine bottles. Maybe ol’ Doris was getting soused on Chardonnay every night? In any case, we had to stack them sideways to get ’em all to fit, which was sorta janky. And we still didn’t have room for everything.

Yesterday, we assembled the new shelving unit. Now we’re cooking with gas!

We even had room for video games, which had been relegated to another cabinet that we can now get rid of.

We don’t actually play any of those PS2 games, mind you. But we might. Possibly. Someday.

Tara made one last-ditch effort at convincing me to get rid of some of the DVDs.

“Enchanted, babe?” she asked.

“Umm, that’s Amy Adams. In case you don’t remember, I was going to marry her and fill our cozy love nest with red-haired babies.”

Granted, this plan was hatched long before Tara was in the picture. Thank god she saved me from my own delusions. Still, I couldn’t part with a movie starring a woman I almost procreated with. Amy stays. As do all our other movies, with the exception of a handful of duds I agreed to part with in a pseudo-compromise.

Now, we can fill the built-in shelf with vintage barware as I’d envisioned. Fun!

To celebrate the first day of spring, we’re sodomizing a chicken.

What?! Different cultures have their own unique equinox celebrations. Don’t judge ours!

Actually, I should clarify. Because it’s going to be warm—they’re predicting close to 70º—we’re going to do a beer butt chicken on the grill. If you’re unfamiliar with this delicacy, it’s exactly what it sounds like. You shove a can of beer up a chicken’s rear end…err, cavity…and cook it for about 90 minutes. The beer keeps it moist and tender, while the skin is crispy. Here’s one we made last summer.

Kind of an inglorious (and embarrassing TBH) ending for the poor bird, I suppose, but it’s not like he’s in any position to cry fowl.

54 thoughts on “Amy Stays and the Chicken’s Embarrassed”

  2. Sodomizing a chicken is a spring rite of passage. Still a little cool here for us… but soon. As for the dvds, the new shelving a vast improvement but I’m afraid I’m team Tara on this one. I’d ditch them all. While I used to love video rental at Blockbuster… yes, I’m old.. I was never one to purchase and house a collection. Buy the vhs tapes? They come out with dvds. Buy the dvds, they introduce blue ray. It’s like 8 track, cassette and cds all over again.
    🥴

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  3. Tara has been proven to be a very smart woman in the past. While the new shelving is impressive, and you could be the remake of Blockbuster for your entire neighborhood, I think it’s time to let go Mark. When they excavate the ruins of your house after the next ice age and find your archive there will be nothing but raucous laughter and probably a great deal of derision.

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      7. To be fair, I try not to watch more than 2 hours and f tv a day if I can help it…but sometimes I totally binge

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    1. One of them was “Diner.” We started to watch it a few weeks ago and it was so stupid, we quit 20 minutes in. There was also an unopened”Seabiscuit” documentary still in its original shrink wrap (we have the movie starring Tobey Maguire; that one is staying). And “Spiderwick Chronicles.” Must be one of my kids’ from many years ago?

      We might go through our collection and cull a few more still. But not many!

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  9. Are you going to need a step stool to get to some of those DVDs? I’ve always heard of the beer can chicken, but I’ve never quite believed a can could fit in there? The logistics confuse me . . . do you have to prop the chicken up like that in the oven so the beer doesn’t go all over the place?

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    2. Oh, and as for the stepstool…good point! That shelf is pretty tall. But it’s right up against the basement stairs, so I can just reach over the top and grab one if I need to.

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  10. Even my hubby rolled his eyes at the crying fowl comment. Nice how you set it up, though. So does the beer absorb into the meat? That sounds fascinating. Man, if ever a reason to look forward to being empty nesters!

    I look stupidly forward to seeing the shelves with their vintage drinkware! And, I’m sorry to admit, but the minimalist in me is with Tara on the downsizing of DVDs etc. You could start your own lending library down there!

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    1. Hey, I only bring the funny. If you choose to roll your eyes at it, that’s on you, ha! 🙂

      Yes, the beer absorbs into the meat, keeping it nice and juicy. There’s no alcohol taste or anything like that. It just helps to tenderize the bird.

      After reading this post, even my mom said we have way too many DVDs. Haters gonna hate! Even when the haters are parents apparently.

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    1. Oh, I watch them! Or, more to the point, WE watch them (although Tara still tries to find them on streaming first, because apparently that’s easier than walking down to the basement and grabbing a DVD off the shelf).

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  15. I knew there was a post I’d missed. I mean, how could I forget that cry fowl joke? 😀

    I still have DVDs. They’re mostly corralled into one narrow bookcase, but Himself keeps complaining about the number of bookcases I have. He knows he won’t win on books, so he focuses on those DVDs. He – many moons ago – digitised all his films, series, documentaries etc. He has more backup drives that you can shake a fist at to keep them safe, but I have to admit they still take up less space than my narrow bookcase. So… I *could* do the same, but then they’d disappear into his PC, where I couldn’t get them. And none of them are things he’d watch. So, you know, I’m hanging on tight to my Dawsons Creek boxset and my Fried Green Tomatoes DVD (and many even more embarrassing items).

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