3402 Pork chops

Thursday, November 24, 2011

"Dry clean only" means it will make it through the washer and dryer,
or it won't,
and I'll soon find out which.
-- Silk --

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The kids decided not to make a big deal of Thanksgiving this year, which suits me just fine. Hercules gets a gift turkey from the office every year, and last year he and Daughter hosted a bunch of friends. This year, with the baby, it seemed like too much trouble, so the turkey went into the freezer, and they hosted me for a lunch of stuffed pork chops.

Finger food! Well, food they're letting me eat with my fingers...Makes good finger paint, too.

Here, Gramma, have some avacado:
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A few of the MeetUp groups I joined have more than 200 members. I haven't gone to anything with those groups (mostly singles' groups) because they have like 50-60 people at everything, and that's just too many people for me.

Well, I had hoped nobody would start it, but some idiot did, last night. I cringed when the first "Happy Thanksgiving!" email dropped into my inbox. Sure enough, in short order I'd received about 300 of the damn things.

I hope that someone has gratefully noticed that I am among the silent.

[Muttering, "...buncha grinning sheeple..." Bah, humbug.]
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3171 Snow!

Thursday, November 25, 2010

M R teachers.
M R not.
S A R! C M MT pockets?

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Daughter and Hercules left this morning to visit H's grandmother in south-eastern Pennsylvania. (Yes, I was invited. No, it's not my thing. In case you haven't noticed, I don't "do" holidays.) They called from the road to tell me they were driving through a "winter mix" mess. Two hours later I looked out the door and it was snowing here. Not much, but any, so soon, is unwelcome.

Jasper met the downstairs Roomba this morning, and even though I was holding him in my arms the whole time it was on, he completely freaked. Even after I turned it off, he hid upstairs for more than an hour. Wait 'til he finds out there's a Roomba upstairs, too.

I did some further research on cable TV. Turns out I can get FIOS, which is Verizon. They have a better selection of basic channels, for less than Cablevision/Optimum. I think I'll go with them, since I already have Verizon broadband internet and cell phone, and I'll consider bundling them IF I can retain my grandfathered unlimited access. I saw a bunch of Verizon stores all along the highway, so I think I'll stop in at one of them in the next few days and see what we can do.
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1566 Thanksgiving

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Daughter and SIL are hosting Thanksgiving dinner this year, first one in their new home, but for a variety of reasons they're doing it tomorrow, not today. So today, it's me, Jasper, and Miss Thunderfoot. Tomorrow morning I head to central NJ.

When I got up this morning, I opened the refrigerator for my usual yogurt breakfast, and discovered I'm out of yogurt. Hmmmm. What to eat? I've got all kinds of cold cereals, eggs, grits, several types of oatmeal, bread and jelly, scones, hash browns, and even some frozen breakfast "dinners". But I still felt deprived because I didn't have my yogurt. Pout pout.

Then I realized how spoiled I am.

Today, people all over this overfed, over-commercialized, self-satisfied country will be consuming individually enough food to feed an entire family throughout most of the rest of the world, and giving thanks for the ability to do so. Even in this country, there will be people who will go hungry today.

I was in my twenties through the hippie era, Woodstock, Viet Nam anti-war marches, sit-ins, all the turmoil, and I was not a part of any of it. I was busy learning how to be a corporate clone. Now, as I get older, I'm getting more stubborn and rebellious. (Little symbolic rebellions - don't want to draw attention....) I decided that in solidarity with those less fortunate, I'll fast today.

Big deal. I often don't eat for a day or so, but I do it by choice (well, not actually choice - I forget to eat, but the fact that I don't feel hungry says something). Others feel hunger but have no choice.

So, I'm thankful that it is a choice. I'm thankful for my friends, for the fact that my Daughter counts me among her friends, for my long-distance lover, for having two guys on the back burner who would like to be lovers (pretty damn good for a little old lady!), for an economy that allows me a life of leisure, and a slew of other harder-to-pin-down advantages.

But at the moment, I'm thankful that the grocery store will be open tomorrow, and I can buy yogurt.
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996 Early Snow?

Thursday, November 30, 2006

I've been trying to remember when the first snow came when I was young. These days I'm always surprised by the first snow. I never expect it.

In the 1800s snow came very early. The world was going through a "mini-ice age" then. People wore wool in high summer. That's why "Over the River and Through the Wood", a Thanksgiving poem/song written in 1844, talks about the horse pulling a sleigh.

I'm pretty sure snow at Thanksgiving was rare when I was a child, because I always wondered why the song mentioned enough snow for a sleigh (not just snow, but "deep and drifting" snow!) But whether snow was usual for Christmas in my life is harder to remember.

I have many memories of getting sleds or "flying saucers" for Christmas and being disappointed because there was no snow. On the other hand, I have memories of getting bicycles from Santa and being unable to use them because there was too much snow. Which doesn't sound right, because I got my first bicycle when I was 11, a big heavy no-gears Columbia, and never got another. Maybe I'm actually remembering the disappointment of siblings or Daughter. Hey, it's the short-term memory that's supposed to go, not the long-term!

My middle school years were spent in Ottawa, Canada, so even if I were sure what I remember from then , it wouldn't apply. Most of my high school years were on the mountain, and nothing from there applies to here. (We got our first snow on the mountain in October.)

It bothers me that I can't remember whether there was usually snow for my childhood Christmases. (Yes, I lived all over the US then, but Christmas was always at Gramma's, in Pennsylvania.)

I hate snow. Maybe I'll buy myself a sled - that might work to hold it off for a while.

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#464 Nana's Burning Bears?

I should have mentioned this when I wrote about Thanksgiving, but I forgot.

Hercules' grandmother, Nana, has a fireplace in the living room. I walked past it at one point, and behind the screen, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of something brightly colored. I looked in.

In the fireplace, in the fire basket (you know, that cast iron arrangement that you put the logs on to hold them off the bottom?), Hercules' sweet little old lady Nana had heaps of stuffed animals. Teddy bears, fuzzy stuffed bunnies, kittens and puppies. Pleading for no one to light a match.

Just about the most macabre thing I've ever seen.

Would you believe nobody had a camera? Hercules took a photo for me with his cell phone, and emailed it to my id, but when I got home I found that it didn't come out. Too dark.

Then again, too dark fits.


Interesting Thought for the day:

Got this from a friend a long time ago. It's going around again. I suspect that the numbers could use some updating, but the ratios have probably stayed about the same.

If you consider that there have been an average of 160,000 troops in the Iraq Theater of operations during the last 22 months, and a total of 2112 deaths, that gives a firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000. The rate in Washington D.C. is 80.6 per 100,000. That means that you are about 25% more likely to be shot and killed in our Nation's Capitol (which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation) than you are in Iraq.

Conclusion: We should immediately pull out of Washington D.C.

~~Silk

#451 Pennsylvania

I'm back from Pennsylvania, the land of scrapple and suicide lanes. Nice Thanksgiving dinner at Daughter's fiance Hercules' grandmother Nana's house, where I finally found out the difference between stuffing and dressing.

Daughter and Hercules came up from New Jersey. They're taking a few days to explore areas in Pennsylvania they might consider moving to. Hercules' mother is on an extended visit from California.

Hmmm, lots of things in the first paragraph to explain to non-Pennsylvanians!

Scrapple IS what most people think Spam is but isn't. When Hormel makes a canned ham, they cut the big hunk of meat off the shoulder, and can it. But there's a lot of meat left on, in, and around the shoulder bones. So they trim all the bits of meat off the bones (getting a bit of the soft gristle, too, pure protein), grind it and put it in the Spam can, seal the can, then cook it. Cooking in the can is what causes all the nice jelly around the Spam. Spam is pure ground-up pork shoulder. Nothing else, nothing yucky. I like Spam.

Scrapple, on the other hand, is made from all kinds of scraps. I had a very bad experience more than 50 years ago when I accidentally saw scrapple being made. It involved huge a boiling vat topped with gray foam that parted to reveal an entire pig head, that rolled up like the "NO!" in a Magic Eightball. It had eye holes. Its tongue was hanging out. It looked at me. To this day, the mere smell of scrapple nauseates me. I was offered scrapple for breakfast this morning, and the severed pig head looked at me again.

Suicide lanes seem to be unique to Pennsylvania. I thought they had gotten rid of them, because they do deserve the name. It's a third center lane on a rural two lane highway, to be used only for left turns from either direction (or, unofficially, for passing a slow farm vehicle or Amish carriage). It runs for miles, down the middle of the road. Naturally, some idiots think it's a "go faster" lane created especially for them. So some innocent will pull into the suicide lane to make a left turn, and be clobbered at 60 mph by an idiot who can't get back into the regular lane quick enough. Unless the idiot has already been clobbered by another idiot doing the same thing from the other direction. Oh well. A lot of Pennsylvania is still nearly virgin forest. Maybe this is how the state keeps population growth down.

AOL Journal Land has been full of arguments and discussions the past week or so about stuffing versus dressing. I never knew there was a difference. Nana served both yesterday. The stuffing was the usual bread etc. mixture stuffed into the turkey. The dressing was mashed potatoes with sauteed onions and celery, and a couple slices of white toast cut into small cubes and then sauteed with the veggies, and veggies and bread were then mixed into the potatoes. I liked both. Yummy.

I'm blathering. I'm kind of avoiding a topic I want to note here. For myself.

This past summer I told Daughter one of my biggest secrets, because it affects her, and because she finally came right out and asked. It was finally unavoidably time. I had hoped she would just sit on the information, because it could potentially adversely affect another, who is deeply involved but didn't know it. Or suspected, because of some questions I had to ask about ten years ago, but didn't know for sure. And probably didn't want to know. And really didn't need to know anyway. Maybe.

Yeah. I should have known better. This is, after all, Daughter. She is what she is and has always been. If she were a dog, she'd be a terrier.

Daughter made contact, an anonymous card last June (which she didn't tell me about until now), and a phone call this past week. They discussed the topic. They're exchanging photos. I can't believe it. My past is coming back to haunt me.

She's handling it well. So's he, apparently. I'm a mess.

I don't know how to feel about it. It's been in the back of my head for 30 years, and now here it is right in front. She played a stored cell phone message for me to hear, and the voice on the phone shook me badly. I asked Hercules' aunt for a cigarette, and I took it down to the basement and smoked it. I don't know why, but when my mind is going six directions at once, the only thing that will stop it and put me back on track is nicotine.

She has given me an email address.

She has pointed him to this journal.

Ack!

I wanted to do an entry on "I want to go home". It's all written up - I wrote it last week, when I noticed that I say "I am content" a lot in these journals, even when things are tearing me up. It's such a difference, and I wanted to explore it. I figured I'd put it in sometime when I have no time to write or nothing to say.

But now I hesitate.

And I'm not sure why.

~~Silk