Reminder: have a seat. I say "reminder" because it's at the end of the Bleat as well, and this alerts you to its existence.

“So, eight people,” my wife said.

“Eight. Right.”

She was having her tennis group over for burgers on Saturday. It’s a floating party that alights at different houses, and it was finally our turn. Well, simple fare - burgers with bacon and cheese, as I usually make, with my special bacon-fat infused nectar making them as juicy and flavorful as is humanly possible. This recipe has spoiled me for any burgers made elsewhere by anyone, and I looked forward to impressing everyone.

Friday I got the meat. It’s not lean, let’s say. It’s not even lean-adjacent. Got the buns, the onion, the big ripe bomb of a tomato, made sure we had laid in a sufficient supply of pickles. The guests were due to bring the usual nibbly-dippy things. Saturday I rose, fortified myself with a grand meal of hash browns and eggs and a half an English Muffin, waited for the sun to boil off the dew, and set to the lawn.

It now take me only an hour and a half to mow. But it is still a job. The cruelest part is shaving the boulevard on the first portion, the north hill, because it’s four passes and it feels like you’ve just done 1.7%. After making a few passes at the bottom of the hill I drive the mower up up up to the top, where there is disputed land between myself and my neighbor. We don’t really dispute, but it’s obviously his, maybe, but I’m not going to quibble.

North hill done in 20 minutes. Then the long boulevard. Then the south boulevard. Then the Great Expanse, which has such complicated segments I come up with a new way to do it every time. Halfway through, stop. Drink. Protein. Regird, return. By now Wife is back from tennis, and she helps me get the mower up on the house level so I can do the back yard. Meanwhile she cleans and sweeps to ensure maximum home perfection for the party. I use the edger to tidy up, resetting the damned wire in the spool every 2 minutes.

At three, I take a nap. At 3:10, the dog barks. At 3:12, I fall back asleep. At 3:21, the dog barks. I’d had some REM, though, and that’s like a shot of B-2 in the buttocks. Phase two.

While wife is at Tennis again, I vacuum the house while air-frying all the bacon, so I get the golden ichor. Then I arrange the meat into patties, eight, and join the pink glob in a bowl for seasoning. At the end of this I have a plate with two layers of burgers. Seven.

Wait - didn’t she say eight?

Yes! But one wanted a veggie burger. This I have.

Onions, pickles, cheese, everything’s chopped. Grill has been tested and found wanting - never got above 300. Vacuum lock. Open the stopcocks, let to breath, fire it up again, hope and pray. Everyone arrives, great cheer, dog delighted to meet new people. Wife says her sister will probably come.

Wait - what? I already made the burgers. They are pre-formed. That will make nine.

“Nine? No. There’s eight guests. And us, and my sister.”

I AM THREE BURGERS SHORT

There is a distinct possibility that I will not have a burger, at all.

Well. I had prepared for this. I had bought a fourth tray of ground meat, and hadn’t used it. This I get out and season and prepare. When the time for grilling arrives, I put some in the air-fryer and some on the grill. I set a timer, because two minutes after I flip all the burgers I will have to start the veggie burgers.

The smoke pouring out of the Weber is astonishing, because the drippings are igniting and it’s a firestorm in there. I move them around, which causes more conflagrations, park them on the upper shelf, flip the air-fryer burgers, zap the bacon, warm the buns, and somehow, my friends, somehow everything is ready at the same time.

And somehow there are two burgers left over.

There were eight guests plus one and my wife and I, and the veggie divot, and somehow there are two left over. I don’t know what happened and am not willing to ascribe it as a loaves-and-fishes thing, particularly regarding my sinful nature. I mean, we’re all sinful, I don’t think I’m setting records for quantity or novelty, but you know what I mean.

Everyone loved the burgers, and wanted to know my secret. Aw shucks, toe the ground and look bashful, mutter something, they ask what, and then you say “MSG and Ketamine” and now you’re Tony Bourdain. Never thought of that.

Our new Monday feature! The Gazettes provide a look at the commercial vernacular from 90 years ago. Sometimes they look forward, and just as often as not they reach back decades for a familiar look.

Are any of these brands still around? We'll find out.

They're not making a claim on their slogan. Hey, you could've tried.

To quote a beer-can collection site:

The brewery went out of business around 1954 - another of the 175 breweries that stopped operating during a seven year interval after 1948, when the domestic brewing industry was sharply contracting.

One hundred and seventy five. That's such a loss.

And this is a sign we paid a grip to the titles:

Cheap, cheap - a Twilight Zone without a twist. A cop working nights gets an order to go a certain place, where there’s a truck, and more people show up, and the radio says nuclear war is imminent. HOW WILL EVERYONE REACT?

Good action hero name:

One of the screenwriters is Betty:

There’s a woman with that name with another page that does not include this one. The imdb page for this movie calls her "Laskey." Same person? Maybe no one put it together. If it’s the same person, that’s quite interesting, because her dad would have been THE Lasky, as in “Famous Players.”

The cop is an absolute hard case, imposing his will to ensure that everyone survives.

Not likable, but supremely capable. Until he kills a dog because it’ll use up too much O2 in their truck shelter.

From his imdb page:

He was a long term sub at Grand View Elementary School in Mar Vista (L.A.) Cal. in 1962.

Hope some of the kids didn’t see this until they were older. Also:

He was also a counselor at Fairfax High, at the time Demi Moore and Tim Hutton were attending that school.

Oh, fly on the wall, and all that.

The movie doesn’t list any actors at the start, because they were all unknowns. We meet them at the end.

One more thing: the score is surprisingly large and effective.

His first score. He would go on to a career as an orchestrator, and you’ve certainly heard his work. And damned good work it was!

That will do for today, Bleat wise; Matchbooks and a Diner await. See you around.

Annnd, once again, the Diner.