Turkey Day is done and dusted, and Black Friday is upon us like Nosferatu with the munchies.
We harmed no turkeys. But three chickens are missing thighs and I don’t think prosthetics or wheelchairs will help them cross the road anytime soon.
I cooked Melissa Clark’s sheet-pan chicken with sweet taters and bell peppers, plus a side of Martha Rose Shulman’s stir-fried succotash with edamame. Herself kicked in a delicious raspberry cobbler for dessert.
Miss Mia Sopaipilla got a yummy StinkCube® with her kibble. When I make tuna salad for sandwiches I squeeze the water from the tuna and we thin it with drinking water before freezing it in ice-cube trays to give Her Majesty a couple weeks’ worth of tasty treats.
I should’ve taken some pix, but after a four-mile trail run and all that cookery we just sat down and chowed down. The grub was gone before I even considered preserving the moment in pixels. If I remember I’ll take some snaps when we wipe out the leftovers this evening.
Herself texted with her sisters, I did likewise with my bros (not blood kin, the chosen variety), and we rang up my sis and her husband to exchange holiday greetings and gnaw our livers over the Pestilence-Erect. Good times, etc.
Today I hope to buy a big bag of nuttin’. Either that or I may hit Page 1 Books for some fresh brain food because I find myself rereading old books again.
There’s nothing wrong with revisiting “Nobody’s Fool” by Richard Russo or “Essays of E.B. White.” But there are roads out there not yet taken.
Mad Blog Media 
The folks, Jon and Cathy, that own and run the local music shop have six chickens in their back yard. When Jon goes out to get the eggs, the chickens get this greeting, “Howdy. What’s your choice today, hard boiled or stir fried?”
Do you folks have a used book store where all proceeds go to the public library? We are lucky to have two of them; that’s where we get all our books and movies.
The Strunk and White book I need to read every day is “The Elements of Style.”
I’ve been sloppy about patronizing the local libraries. We have a couple within spittin’ distance, and I rotated among them for Internet when we first moved to town. Occasionally I used the Satellite Coffee branch down on Montgomery and Wyoming. Private sector, don’t you know.
Herself gets audiobooks from the library, tho. As to whether there are any bookstores supporting them, I have no idee. I’ll have to consult The Boss, Who Knows All.
I have that book, anytime anybody talks about grammar, I hold it up.
I have two copies in case I misplace one. You can’t beat advice like “Omit needless words” and “Use the active voice.”
I don’t always follow the rules, but I like knowing them and why I’m breaking them.
We do. Op.Cit. Books in DeVargas Mall. Although shopping there is a little like trying to rake leaves in a windstorm. Got something in mind, or you actually looking for The Elements of Style?
DeVargas, hey? That’s where Herself ran the B. Dalton Bookseller in the Before-Time®, when I was still an ink-stained wretch at The New Mexican. Long time ago, galaxy far, far away, etc.
B. Dalton has been gone for practically forever. I thought one of the big chains was going to open a brick and ordure store in town here. So far, just a bunch of little independents, which is fine by me. I really like Garcia Street Books. Try to route stuff through there when I buy online via Bookshop.org
Yeh, Barnes & Noble grabbed ’em in 1987 and the usual comedy commenced. As a brand B. Dalton went tits up in 2010.
I’d forgotten they had their roots in Dayton Hudson, better known today as Target.
How’s Collected Works doing? New management, yeah?
Rereading “Silent Spring,” damn, things don’t change much in 60+ years. I am still slogging my way through. “American Prometheus” is a good book, but long. I get tired of infighting. Times were different, Dressing is being put in 16 oz containers to be recycled as stuffing for a future butterflied pork loin.
Whoo, you go for the light reading, hey?
I gotta admit, I lean strongly toward fiction for my reading. Lately I’m less impressed with novels than with short stories. The Irish, of course, are masters of this particular form. Not me, though. The very idea of trying to write fiction gives me the willies.
We did the tofu turkey recipe with stuffing and the gram flour based gravy I make every year. String beans, brussels sprouts, mashed spuds, home made cranberry compote, too much wine, a pumpkin pie from Chocolate Maven up in Fanta Se. Had a sit down dinner with our old buddy Tore, a Vietnam war combat veteran. We have to pry him away from Fox News, but all went well, even when we bickered about politics. Which proves it can be done.
Damn. No running for me unless my toe can figure out how to survive it. I guess I need to check with my podiatrist. Until then, long hikes and bike rides.
We have American Prometheus in the home library. My better half read it. I guess I should, given my career was certifying the chemistry of those weapons of mass destruction. I prefer Dr. Strangelove, though. Gotta mix in a little comedy with killing off half the human race and leaving the survivors to envy the dead.
“A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down,” as Mary Poppins taught us.
Or, if you prefer, we can go with Nino “The Mind-Boggler” Savant — “Next time I’ll think to you about gravity and its opposite, comedy” — from “The Firesign Theatre’s “Everything You Know Is Wrong.”
The pleasant bird I mentioned previously from the food processing industrial complex was quite good. I cook for myself and my Mother with the troubled mind. I’m not sure why I go through the trouble but I like to brine and smoke the bird in a broken down old charcoal smoker. I’ve become quite good at producing an edible product and the carefully packaged leftovers are worth the effort. But I think the real purpose I do it is because it allows me a little sanity and memory of the way things used to be before dementia kicked in. Trying to retain the good memories helps me with trying to make a few good memories now.
As for reading, I just finished up Liz Cheney’s “Oath and Honor”. I felt it was important to read a more comprehensive account of her viewpoint regarding the January 6 proceedings and aftermath. I don’t believe she thought the orange turd would gain enough votes for another political maelstrom. Afterward I thought I needed something more positive to read so I picked up a copy of Patrick Keefe’s “Say Nothing”. Why not a good story of tragedy and sadness in Ireland to follow that of the previous one in DC. I pick up most of my books at my local library. I pay for it so I’m going to use it. They also offer discard books for cheap so I periodically buy a couple. I picked up a copy of a book that I checked out previously that I enjoyed and didn’t have it in my heart to pass up. It was Max Leonard’s “Higher Calling” about riding in the hills. I also purchased a couple of books from a local scholar that generously donated his estate library to the local library for their benefit. Fortunately I read slow so unless I inherited an immortality gene, I should be able to always find another book to lose my mind in.
Here’s hoping that everyone in this here saloon finds time to spin their legs or trundle down a trail this weekend.
It’s heavy lifting, caring for a family member or friend in the clutches of dementia. Good on you for taking on the task.
I was not good at it; happily, Herself kept me from losing my mind as we struggled with caring for my mom while we tried to start new careers. We were lucky in that before the Alzheimer’s kicked in she was a wizard about savings and investments and had the assets to pay her own way through the medical-industrial maze. And my sister was a great help, managing the old gal’s finances while we handled the day-to-day.
The hardest thing is retaining (or reclaiming) some memory of how your person used to be before disease came calling. For a long while I could only think of my dad as he was a few days before he died, all wired and tubed in the ICU. Same with mom. Took quite some time before I could remember both my parents them as younger, happier versions of themselves.