Tag: food

XMas Theme Music

Mood: Xmaschilled

I’m dreaming of a gray Christmas. Where raindrops glisten, and fog and mist close us in, and the temperatures are neither too warm nor too-oo cold.

And I got my wish! Yes, it’s a dreary day outside my windows. 43 F now, up from 36 F before. Cloudy as cloudy can be. Late posting this because I scoffed off to have breakfast brunch with friends. Yes, I was invited and didn’t crash it. Wonderful time with them, culminating in working on a five hundred piece Christmas-ornament themed jigsaw puzzle. Which didn’t get finished but was about 25 % when we walked after about 90 minutes of effort. Besides that, we compared stories of how we met our sig others, what holiday traditions were observed, and related tales of holiday craziness. Fun time all around.

We got home — I’d worn a dark gray sweater and charcoal pants to honor the gray holiday — ditched our clothes and served up leftovers.

You can guess that we’re not over-the-top Christmas celebrants. We’re not even up to our belly buttons in Christmas. Friends gifted us interesting X-mas theme stuff. Like an Amaryllis. And a pine tree centerpiece decorated in red ornaments and ribbons. Shortbread cookies dolled up with minced dill. Other kinds of cookies and baked goods. But that’s it. We put a couple items up and sent off a few cards and put a few gifts online and the end.

Meanwhile, my little sister sent me food photos of her Christmas setup. She had her nephews, children, grandchildren, sister, and Mom, along with her family. About fifteen people Ham. Mashed potatoes and cheesy hash brown potatoes, corn, green bean casserole, meatballs and stuffed shells, tossed salad, Stouffer’s mac & cheese for the kids. Apple pie, banana cream pie, pumpkin pie. Cookies. Cheesy pineapple casserole. Rolls from Oakmont Bakery along with carrot cake.

Today’s song is brought to you be Der Neurons. They’re always up for a song. In this case, someone said something about being human at brunch. The Ns took that as an brainvite to start “Human” by the Human League in the morning mental music stream (Trademark roasting). Not at all a Christmas song, this is a pop offering of a guy trying to explain away his cheating to his sig other by when they’re away by explaining, “Hey, I’m only human. Flesh and blood. A man.”

Hope your holidays met your needs. Time to start counting down to the new year yet? Here’s the music. Cheers

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Thursday’s Wandering Thoughts

Jingle Jangle.

It’s a Trader Joe’s offering for the holidays. Basically, dark and milk chocolate is poured over pretzels, nuts, popcorn, caramel corn, etc. Some tiny pseudo milk-chocolate and dark-chocolate Reece’s Peanut Butter cups and faux M&Ms are thrown in.

Reading about it — a man bought fifty of the tins to give as gifts because he found it so good! — my wife thought that she would buy some for friends. But first, you know, being a good gifter, she thought we needed to try it out. We did that last night.

At first, yum. That’s good dark chocolate but what is it that it’s covering? We thoroughly tested and tasted, sampling everything. “Really sweet,” she said.

“It is really sweet,” I agreed. “I’m feeling a little sick.”

She nodded. “Me, too.”

I cut the sweetness with water and urge myself, stop eating. But the damn stuff was addicting. Finally, stomach in full rebellion against more, I ceased.

“I don’t think we’ll give that to anyone,” my wife announced. “It’s just too sweet for everyone we know.”

I agreed. Then I wondered, what are we going to do with the rest of a tin of Jingle Jangle?

I bet it goes good with coffee.

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Friday’s Wandering Thoughts

We made Christmas crock pot candy today. I’m employing the marital we. I put Christmas confection on them and found containers to house them until they’re bagged up. My wife did the actual work. She blames me in part for them. She said, “I have to make something to exchange with Lori. She’s going to make that biscotti that you like and bring it over. I need something to give to her.”

Yes, I have a bad habit of effusively thanking people for whatever baked goods they share with me. Folks take that to heart. Thereafter, I’m delivered biscotti, banana-nut bread, zuchinni loaves, peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, grape pie, fudge, and brownies. I know, it’s an American tragedy.

We’re also going to a Swedish smorgasboard, so something was needed as a hostess gift. My wife decided the Christmas crock pot candy would work because we gave them out before, and the husband and wife told my wife how much they liked it.

It’s all a vicious holiday circle, isn’t it?

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Thursday’s Wandering Thoughts

Went grocery shopping yesterday. A light shop, a stop-gap function done because we were in Medford for a medical appointment, so let’s shop since we’re here. Combining tasks is the ‘Merican way.

Watching folks with their shopping carts in stores, I thought, we really need to codify some basic shopping cart etiquette. I mean, most of spend an impressive chunk of existence in the U.S. in stores, guiding a shopping cart. Some rules and expectations could be helpful. Like, “Do not block the aisle with your cart and body. Be mindful of other shoppers.” Yes, that’s a toughie for some: mobility issues, size of the aisle, and size of the individual all contribute to the difficulty levels. But at least make an effort, won’t you?

While we’re at it, could you pay attention when you’re wheeling your cart down an aisle? Nothing like being forced to stop and watch as some yo-yo pushes their cart blindl forward while looking behind them. I was going to say to treat your cart like you’re driving a car but numerous lobotomized drivers seem to be steering motorized vehicles these day.

BTW, we’re all tired and impatient. You shoving your cart around, cutting others off, doesn’t help the sit. But we witness the same thing in road rage incidents, don’t we, as people impatiently cut corners and run red lights and stop signs.

Anway, to socialize these new shopping cart norms, we can involve shopping carts and celebrities. Imagine synchronized shopping cart activities in Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, and other holiday parades. Shopping cart manuveuring and rules can be taught in elementary school. Remedial courses can be offered in high school and college. Perhaps there will be Olympic shopping cart events. Maybe we can change the hundred meter dash. Adding carts and staging it in grocery stores would make events like that more relatable to norms like me. We’d call it “The Shopping Cart Dash”. Makes more sense than high hurdles. How many times do you really do hurdles in real life?

Rev up your imaginaiton to the possibilities. James Croden could go shopping with celebrities. We can have a public service campaigns featuring Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift and other stars pushing shopping carts in stores while complying with the new etiquette. Which sports superstar, Hollywood uber star, or pop megastar would you like to see pushing a shopping cart to inspire you? With examples like Joey Logana, Selena Gomez, Jelly Roll, Tina Fey, Ellen, Aaron Judge, and Patrick Mahomes leading the way, we could become a nation known as polite and civilized shopping carters.

I mean, what else do we have going for us at this point?

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The Dream Collection

First, I dreamed that my ankle was completely healed. Such a real dream that when I awoke, I asked myself, did I dream that? Checking the ankle, I confirmed, nope, not healed. Yet.

Next dream had me dealing with space. A father was in space, apparently as an astronaut. It wasn’t clear if he was a private citizen, military, government effort, etc., but the news was full of his attempt. Then, boom, we were all looking up at a starry explosion on the edge of Earth’s atmosphere. Then the newspaper, electronic, and digital media is full of his disaster and death.

I wasn’t involved in any of this, just a spectator. Talking about the matter in a fractured dream process under a blue sky, my friends and I went off to get lunch. But while this progressed, I put forward the man’s daughter, a four-year-old, had been with him, and he was launching her separately back to Earth. I kept insisting that she was out there, coming back. All others were doubtful. We hunted down a tracking monitor. As we watched it, another object was being traced across the sky. There was a target arc and vector it was supposed to be following. As it veered off that, reports of a crash came in. Everyone agreed it was her and that her vehicle crashed and she was deceased. But I remained optimistic that she’d come down, and that what we’d seen was just a ruse to throw everyone off. Certainty remained in me that she’d made it back. Then I stated my belief that her father had also made it back, using the distraction of his spectacular destruction as a diversion.

That’s where the dream ended. Who this man and his daughter were supposed to be and why we cared is a complete unknown.

The night’s final dream found me with a power to make toys come to life. I could also make them grow larger. Once I learned of my ability, I tested it on a yellow toy dump truck and a green army tank. Finding my wife sitting on top of a tiny green hill, I demonstrated my new skills to her as my black and white cat, Tucker, watched.

In true dream strangeness, I then went to a cafeteria to find something to eat. Although the dining room was full, they were preparing to close. I got in line. Only a young couple were ahead of me. Cloying and loving, they were annoying and silly as they flirted and teased one another over their food selections. Seeing me waiting behind me, they apologized and offered to let me go ahead. I declined and they finished a few minutes later. Stepping up, I found that only pasta with a brown meat sauce and hot dogs were available. I piled some pasta on the plate and then loaded up two hotdogs. Eating one of the dogs, I thought, wow, that really tastes good. I was pleased with having it to eat and scarf the rest down.

My wife rushed in, interrupting my meal to warn me that something was happening to one of my toys. Her explanation was inchoherent so I just ran to where she indicated. As she said, my largest toy, a stuffed bull which was now a dozen yards tall, had fallen into a deep water. I ran over, trying to think instructions for getting out to the bull. But I was still assimilating the situation and didn’t have a clear idea yet.

The bull was running in a circle under the water. I thought he would drown. Then I saw that my black and white cat, Tucker, was riding the bull. As I gaped, I realized that Tucker was guiding the bull. Encouraged by that, I thought instructions to Tucker to help him, telling him to turn toward the shallows. Apparently receiving the guidance and applying it, Tucker guided the racing bull left and left again, and up and out of the water.

Dream end

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Thanksgiving’s Theme Music

Mood: Thanksthinking

Football and parades are on television. Dawn cracked open a blue sky this morning. Sunshine spilled out across 28 degrees F. It’s 43 and feels like 53, with a high of 48 projected. It gets windy, driving Papi to floofishly beat on the front door window for immediate entrance. His tail highpoints in salute as I let him in. Tucker (pronounced Tuck-ah) gives the ginger blade an askance look of pity as Papi passes him.

Thanksgiving memories erupt. Going to my paternal grandparents on cold and gray Pittsburgh days. Greeting cousins, aunts, and uncles seen only four times a year. Sitting at one of several children tables. Warm house, laughter, cigarette smoke, beer, and whiskey sodas. The children are herded into the cellar to contain noise. The problem: there’s nothing to do in that cellar except mill around. One by one, we quietly sneak back upstairs.

Mom and Dad separate and divorce. Mom remarries and becomes host and cook, but man, she can cook. Thanksgiving meals are always delicious feasts around traditional offerings. We play card games after the meal and gorge on leftovers for days.

Basic training saw me in San Antonio. Luckily, I had Uncle Paul and his family there to host me for Thanksgiving. Danny White led the Dallas Cowboys to victory. Later, I’m stationed in the San Antonio area. Uncle Paul’s family still lives there and my wife and I visit them for Thanksgiving.

A Thanksgiving follows in the Philippines, where my crew invites me into their house for an American-Filipino Thanksgiving. We play a new electronic game called Pong on television.

Our tour in Okinawa is broken into two phases: pre- and post-base housing. In the pre-phase, food prep is shared between several houses. We barely fit into one of the small apartments to eat. Once we’re in base housing, we’re in a large, comfortable space where my wife plays cook and hostess in Germany. As we return to America, Thanksgiving gets more complicated. We’re alone sometimes, or I’m on shift working. Later as I become more senior in rank, we become host for young co-workers and friends. We do the same after being assigned to California.

Out of the military and tired of hosting, we go out for dinner on Thanksgiving for a year or two in Sunnyvale, Mountain View, and Palo Alto, California. My wife has become a vegetarian. An awful attempt with tofurkey is made. Stuffed acorn squash. We end up buying turkey breasts and having much smaller meals. Thanksgiving transitions to Friendsgiving. Friends host others like us and we collect at their homes. The meals feel like the ones I enjoyed as a child. I’ve gone full circle.

I’m going with “Alice’s Restaurant” by Arlo Guthrie for today’s theme music. It’s a staple of my existence, and The Neurons are okay with it. Alice Brock, the Alice in the song, passed away earlier this month. RIP. It plays in the background of my morning mental music stream (Trademark roasted) as I go about preparing to go to Friendsgiving at our friends’ farm. We prepared our food contributions yesterday. Corn souffle, prepared with my wife carefully watching me, is my contribution.

Coffee and I continue renewing our daily relationship. The house weather system says its 50 F out. Plentiful sunshine baths the street. Hope you have a memorable Thanksgiving if you’re participating, and a great day no matter where you are.

Cheers

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Monday’s Wandering Thoughts

Sitting here reading a food review. It’s a food gift basket for Mom. Reviewer says that the food in their gift basket was “delicious and tasty”.

My Neurons sat up straight. Aren’t those the same?

No. I always thought of them as being closely related but displaying a difference of degrees. Tasty is a less enthusiastic embrace of something.

“How was the chicken?”

“It was tasty.”

That’s a thin endorsement to me. I’m hedging. Something was wrong with it but I’m trying to put a positive tag on it.

Delicious, however, is an unreserved endorsement.

“How was the chicken?”

“It was delicious.”

To me, if it’s delicious, I’m unabashedly pleased.

So they’re not literally the same to me but in this world, they probably could be said to be literally the same. But in no way I would ever describe something as tasty and delicious. It’s one or the other.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Mood: Chillified

Gray clouds have returned to win the sky. Really, it seems like one big light-gray cloud. Low relative to the upper elevations, it cuts off the view after two hundred yards, giving an impression that the world ends there.

The wind is sedated to an infrequent breeze. Chillier air has shifted back in. We navigate 39 F with a high of 50 proferred, and more rain sometime.

This is Saturday, November 23, 2024.

My song today is “Good Life” by OneRepublic. I’d been reading news and opinions online late last night. One thing after another led me to new insights and angles. I ended up reflecting on the MAGA GOP’s narrow minded views. Their hypocrisy and lack of principles always flavor my opinion, as well. I’m sure they rationalize everything as the ends justify the means. Such cliches allow them to declare they’re for freedom, equality, and ‘protecting women’ even as they curtail equality and people’s freedom. They’re all about conforming. Two sexes and genders, traditional missionary position, trad wife, that’s them, at least in public. We suspect many dark things happening in private, based on what periodically crawls into the light. See, for example, Donald Trump’s “grab ’em by the pussy” philosophy and his affairs, Matt Gaetz, Jeffrey Epstein, et al.

And, it’s their religion and their God to which we must all bow. That’s how they interpret religious freedom in their ‘Merica. Their pasteurized, homogenized history that must be taught. Anything bad that happened is pushed aside so they can pretend it didn’t happen. Mass shootings are all because of people with mental health problems who are troubled by the liberals’ DEI and woke agenda. All is good in the MAGA world, as long as the wealthy can avoid being taxed, the stock market is going up, and everyone is working, even if it’s at menial jobs for slave wages, even if it’s children working, even if the skies and waters are polluted. That’s their version of a ‘good life’.

As for Democrats, liberals, and progressives, they must be ignored, expunged, or re-educated to accept the MAGA way.

It’s so far from my idea of a good life that I’m nauseated when I contemplate the gulf.

Anyway, after I shifted through these strands of thoughts, The Neurons inserted “Good Life” into the morning mental music stream (Trademark rising) where it shared some time with “It’s My Life” by the Animals and “It’s My Life” by No Doubt. “Good Life”, released in 2010, feels like another of those songs people know mostly through movies and television shows. It’s been used in a few of them.

When songs are in my head, my mind often focuses on specific sections. In this case, the specific section is a set of lines:

Listen, to my friends in New York, I say hello
My friends in L.A., they don’t know
Where I’ve been for the past few years or so
Paris to China to Colorado
Sometimes there’s airplanes you can’t jump out
Sometimes bullshit that don’t work now
We all got our stories, but please tell me
What’s there to complain about?

h/t to Genius.com

Well, excuse me, but I have a lot to complain about. Some of it is about aging. Much of my gripping is first world blues, but there’s also a substantial political section to my complaints.

Coffee and I have been re-introduced. We plan to make green chili stew in a little while. The rain has begun dripping down again, clouds have dramatically darkened the day, and the temperature has leveled off at 42 F. Feels like something lower. That stew will go well with this day.

Here’s the music. Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

Mood: Stormrelief

Friday morning, November 22, 2024, and my first thought comes: it’s quiet.

Different around 11:30 last night. Sounded like B-52 formations taking off on full throttle out of Guam over our house as relentless wind bore down on us. Rain shattered the night with a Buddy Rich drum solo for a while afterward. Flash memories of being with Dad when tornadoes were roaring around us came up. Then came recall of being in typhoons with my wife in Japan.

Morning recon showed only the water barrell out of place. Glances up and down the street were given; trees and utility poles are intact and upright. Telephone and utility lines looped as expected. Cars remain parked, and roofs still grace houses. Looks like disaster was dodged. I hope other places are faring well but suspect tales of power outages, injuries, and death will come. Typically do when a bomb cyclone drops.

With the storm came warm temps. 49 F now, gray clouds and blue sky approach and retreat. Sunshine gives an uneven performance. We expect a 52 F high today.

This weather experience cajoled The Neurons into thinking of weather songs. “Oh, stormy, bring back the sunny days.” And, “It’s flooding down in Texas. All of the telephone lines are down.” And, “Here I am. Rock me like a hurricane.” Or, “Dust in the wind. All we are is dust in the wind.”

The Neurons eschew all that. The Pixies instead enter the morning mental music stream (Trademark buffeted) with “Stormy Weather”.

Having decided that my foot and ankle swelling was due in major part to my edema issues, I went on a green smoothie fast yesterday. Sodium intolerance and veinous insufficiency seem to be the bad actors behind my edema so I wanted to knock the sodium down a bit. I’m also wearing open-toe compression socks on both legs. Overall, the one-day treatment seems helpful. I was swollen by the day’s end but it didn’t seem like it was as bad as previous days. Slept with my legs up. The swelling dissipated, as it always does. It’s fluid moving from one place to another for me. Back on my normal diet today, although I’ll eat less and minimize my sodium intake. Sodium is everywhere, though, and difficult to escape.

As far as the actual surgery location and affected tendons, they seem to be doing well. Tenderness and sensitivity around the suture site is reduced. I hope to put a shoe on within a few more days.

Hope all of you out there are doing well. Coffee is being swallowed, working its magic through my cells. Here is the music. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Political Thoughts

If I were religious or ascribed to a diety, I’d say that they might be pissed after Trump’s Micky D Sunday stunt. First there was an E. Coli Outbreak, forcing them to pull quarter pounders. Next came some crashing stock.

All started with Trump’s appearance there. Just sayin’. Also, as others noted, while Trump wore an apron, he didn’t have the rest of the required gear, like hairnets. Just sayin’.

Of course, under the Trump administration and Project 2025’s goal to reduce regulations, this sort of things might happen more often. Just sayin’.

Vote blue.

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