Bacon!

Do you like FireFly Sweet Tea Vodka?

June is National Iced Tea Month, so I'm writing an article on FireFly Sweet Tea Vodka for the Weekly Surge.

If you're in the restaurant business and like FireFly Sweet Tea Vodka, let me know! Click the "comments" link below.

Hysterical: Jeremiah Weed So. Style Sweet Tea Vodka to sponsor tire air in racing cars

Must see:

Growing hops in the Carolinas

Recently I had dinner with some Myrtle Beach-area homebrewing enthusiasts who said they grow their own hops.

Dave Epstein of New South Brewing in Myrtle Beach recently purchased some hop rhizomes, but didn't sound too optimistic about their prospects. He said they don't tend to grow well in the Carolinas.

Have you tried to grow hops in the Carolinas? Any luck? Tips?

Audrey's surgical adventure

Our family doctor recommended that we have a dermatologist look at a little brown mole on the side of Audrey's nose, so we went to the skin doc today.

Audrey, 7, hadn't been looking forward to this examination of the little mole she had had since age three or four -- all day had not been looking forward to it.

The doc took a look at the mole and thought he should take it off.

This, Kristi and I knew, involved syringes and knives.

The doc and nurse put a topical anesthetic on Audrey's nose. The nurse, who has a boy just seven days older than Audrey, suggested that we come back prepared to hold her down, because she would see the needle, and then the blade, moving toward her nose. This didn't sound good to us.

We went to McDonald's for an hour while the topical cream started to work.

When we arrived back at the doc's office, we waited in the little surgical room for a few minutes, and told Audrey that she might need to close her eyes while the doc was working, because he was going to be so close to her eyes.

This was our strategy to help her avoid visual contact with the needle and the knife.

Audrey asked us how the doc was going to take off her mole.

We carefully avoided words like "needle," "shot," "knife," "blade," "razor," "Mommy is a bit squeemish about skin surgery," and "Mommy will be squinting her eyes shut while she holds your hand."

I told Audrey the doc has special doctor tools, and Kristi added that we didn't know exactly what type of tools the doc would use.

Finally, the doc and nurse arrived.

The only trick was getting Audrey to turn her head to her left and close her eyes.

She had to endure the injection into her nose. The injected fluid stung a bit, and that brought some tears and anxiety, but soon we were all telling her the worst part was over.

The doc gave a minute for the numbing agent to work, and then we had Audrey shut her eyes again. The doc just took a little razor blade and zip zip zip, the mole was off and dropped into a little specimen jar where it could be precocious and dress in pink by itself.

Audrey was very brave. We told Audrey we were very proud of her. She didn't, at the time, want to know what happened. I told her she was like Reepicheep and Lucy in The Chronicles of Narnia, and Kristi filled her in on the surgical details later.