Reviewed: Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy

The Midwest is experiencing a debilitating heat wave, which means I haven’t left the house in the past three days. Alright, so Mad Men season 1 is the reason I haven’t left in three days; but it is over now, and I’m still not going to leave the house.

But, if I were to leave the house, it would be to buy some refreshing lemonade to quench the thirst a heat wave like this brings . . . or some beer. Introducing Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy! (That is Shandy with a “d” not shanty with a “t.”) Shandy is a harmonious blend of beer and lemonade, popular with the British. Okay, not real lemonade, but real lemon flavor. When pulled from a draft, it is so cold and refreshing it tastes just like lemonade. Only, after a couple, you’re light-headed and telling stories a little too loudly. After even a few more, you need to make sure you know where the deck ends on your friend’s half finished summer project in order to not fall off the side.

So far it may seem as though I have simply described Mike’s Hard Lemonade or a vodka lemonade. That’s where you are wrong. Ordering a vodka lemonade says to the world, “I’m fancy and don’t know how to relax and knock back a few.” Whereas ordering a Mike’s Hard Lemonade says, “I’m super lame and boring.” However, ordering a beer always says “I’m carefree and here to have a good time. I know how to let my hair down and shake out the curls.”

I do have one complaint though. The shandy doesn't seem to get cold enough in the bottles. However, it is still better than the rest. Just don't ever turn down the draft if it is available.

Oh, and for those adventurous enough to try, the Leinenkugel’s web-site says to mix it with their Berry Weiss for a raspberry lemonade taste.

This seasonal has been around for three summers now, but will be off shelves and out of bars in about a month. Until next year that is.

93 stars: As the evening rolls on, it becomes harder and harder to say: Line-En-Coo-Gulls.

Reviewed: Talking On The Phone To Someone Who Is Kayaking

It's time for me to make an announcement that we're actually getting serious. Blogging, that is. The partnership of randomly reviewing is back on. I pick up the phone and it is my fellow reviewer. She informs me that she's kayaking.

Now? I say. Yes, she says. Right this minute I'm hanging out in this little cove. Cool, I say.

I try to picture her, in her little orange kayak on the lake, paddling and holding her phone. Apparently, it's wedged between her shoulder and neck. She's not wearing her life vest because it would screw up her tan.

We start to talk blog stuff. She can't hear what I am saying. The wind has picked up. It is blowing her further into the cove. She keeps saying, What? What are you saying?

91 Stars. Nature.

Twilight Remix

I'm not one of the Buffy people (though all you Buffy fans recommend it to me all the time), but I can't help but heart the Twilight movie, and this is so incredibly well done and hilarious that I couldn't resist posting. Seriously, it's funny.

Reviewed: Smart Start Original Antioxidants

I am a cereal person. I eat cereal pretty much every morning, even on weekends when we sleep late and much later slide into the kitchen to begin the happy work of pancakes and eggs and, maybe, sometimes, bacon. And this is true because secretly I've gotten up much earlier and already eaten a bowl of cereal.

For a long time, cereal was the first thing I thought about when I woke up. Sometimes I even thought about it while still sleeping, so that cereal popped up in my dreams. I'm kind of....obsessed.

But I'm that way with a lot of things involving breakfast, because writing is all about mornings that stretch way past their end. I have dozens of pajamas, different combinations to satisfy all types of temperatures, seating arrangements (working at the desk this morning? couch? a pile of pillows on the floor?), and holidays. I eat yogurt and fruit, cereal and cereal and cereal. By six o'clock, I haven't been outside all day. I go to water my plants and see that they're dying of thirst. The mail is lonely and waiting in the mailbox. I've missed a package from my mother. My legs are stiff from sitting cross-legged in a chair for hours on end.

Smart Start is one of those double duty cereals. Yummy in milk (and it's gotta be skim in cereal, whole milk in coffee) but almost better by the handful as a snack. I admit, in the morning I usually reach for Honey Bunches of Oats first. Second choice, Smart Start. Third choice, Cheerios. And when I'm sick of sugar, Basic 4.

Listen to me, people. I know about cereal. If I know anything, it's cereal! I am the sister of one girl who ate Cinnamon Toast Crunch every morning as long as I lived with her, the other who couldn't decide if she liked Captain Crunch Original with Crunchberries, or Peanut Butter Crunch better. I am the daugher of a man who mixed Grape Nuts and Cracklin' Oat Bran in a big cup with milk, who later ate tomato soup mixed with chicken soup for lunch. And my mother gave no pause when buying her kids Cookie Crisp, a cereal that is literally a bowl of cookies for breakfast.

My taste has somewhat refined since then.

(I love cookies.)

92 Stars.