Thanks to Kathleen Geier over at Political Animal for reminding me of this one. And may your days (may your days, may your days) be merry and bright.
Category: Holidays
Happy solstice
Psychotic interludes from the NRA aside (can you imagine how much fun “Saturday Night Live” is gonna have with Wayne LaPendejo’s dreams of transforming every grade-schooler into a grenadier?), it was a pleasant solstice here in Bibleburg.
Herself’s mom is in town for the holidays, staying at The House Back East, and while they visited a local spa for expensive and superfluous purposes of beautification I took a break from chores to squeeze in a short ride.
I’m been running more lately, so a bit of load-bearing exercise made for a nice change of pace. It was chilly, so long sleeves and leg warmers were the uniform of the day. And fenders were a must, as there is some water on the deck; also caution, thanks to a bit of ice in shady spots.
The weaponry I left at home, even though my route took me past two schools, which thanks to LaPendejo have been exposed as exemplars of the Pussification of America and thus low-hanging fruit for the zombie slaves of Hollywood who would perforate us all in a nanosecond were it not for the eternal vigilance of the NRA (bonus Internet joke: Q. How many NRA members does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A. More guns).
But I kept the rubber side down, and nobody drew down on me, so it was all good.
Now I’m enjoying a glass of wine, getting set to feed the Pigeons (har har) and thinking about how early I have to get up the next two days. Just shoot me.
Barking dogs, fat flies and spider webs
Whew. We appear to have survived another Thanksgiving-Black Friday combo. But it was a near thing. I don’t know how professional cooks survive all those hours on their feet — ’bout dark-thirty yesterday my dogs commenced to bark and they haven’t stopped yet.
A couple of friends popped round last night to split a bottle of sparking rosé and eat some leftovers, which I swear to God took nearly as long to reheat as the original meal did to cook. They also brought some killer green-chile-and-jack wontons with a guacamole garnish that put our heat-it-and-eat-it to shame.
Anyway, we stayed up too late and drank too much and today we all felt a tad listless for some reason, even the four-legged crowd, which does not imbibe (see Turkish, at right).
After a few hours of puttering around the ranch Herself toddled off for a short run and I took a break from work to ride the Jamis Supernova around Monument Valley Park, which proved a bad idea. I felt like a fat fly negotiating a spider web constructed of retractable dog leashes and feckin’ eejits.
Now I’m wrapping up the day’s paying chores, sipping a 5 Barrel Pale Ale and contemplating the evening meal. Whaddaya think? Turkey, turkey or … turkey?
Pass the Indian, please*
Good God. Seventy-one degrees on the day before Thanksgiving. We didn’t even have to roast the bird; just set the sumbitch out on the deck and let it tan.
When I wasn’t paying attention I found myself committed to three consecutive days of pretending to be (a) a cook, and (2) human. Yesterday Herself’s gal pal Lester popped round for a snack ‘n’ snooze en route from Function Junction to Little Pittsburgh; today, it was the sis and bro’-in-law motoring down from Fort Fun; and on Friday, it’ll be leftovers and whatnot with a couple friends and neighbors.
And leftovers there will be aplenty. Yesterday I whipped up a basic posole with a side of pico de gallo and chips while Herself performed a delicious raspberry cobbler. Today we tag-teamed a 13.6-pound organic turkey, cornbread stuffing, giblet gravy, mashed potatoes, an Asian-style stir-fried succotash with edamame from Martha Rose Shulman, a cranberry salsa from Mother Jones and some tortilla roll-ups from The Santa Fe School of Cooking Cookbook.
And tomorrow … we ain’t cookin’ shit.
The roll-ups, salsas and chips were intended to be appetizers, but the kinfolk got caught behind a six-car pileup en route and were delayed quite some, so once they finally got here we more or less ignored the light work and dove straight into the heavy lifting. I should’ve taken a few snaps, but by the time the vittles hit the table I was famished and clicking away with knife and fork instead of shutter.
Instead, here’s a shot of what we’ll spend the next few days gnawing on. Here’s hoping that you and yours had plenty to eat yesterday, today and tomorrow, and a warm, cozy place to eat it in. And thanks for hanging around the joint while we dish up bits of this, that and the other, despite the occasionally sloppy service. You can’t get everything you want, but then this ain’t exactly Alice’s Restaurant.
* It’s a Firesign Theatre reference. “Temporarily Humboldt County” and “Alice’s Restaurant” always come to mind around Thanksgiving. Remember, if you want to end war and stuff, you gotta sing loud.
Boo
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