Adventures in the Kitchen, Part 2

I am now ready to negotiate Peace in the Middle East. After negotiating and mediating the Thanksgiving preferences of four different people, the Middle East should be a piece of cake. Or maybe a piece of pie. Wait, is that pumpkin, or lemon meringue pie? And what kind of crust does it have, if any?


Once the revolts were over, we finally had a happy Thanksgiving dinner. Ham glazed with honey and mustard and garnished with pineapple, apricots, and mandarin slices; some very substantial mashed potatoes; various forms of cranberry sauce; olives; peach chardonnay; the list goes on. We saved the pies until that evening, when we had more room.

Fiona demonstrates the proper technique for eating olives — on one's fingers.

Adventures in the Kitchen

How do you clean your kitchen for a big feast? Well, here's one method that guarantees you'll both a) do it, and b) do it thoroughly.

1. Make sure you have a glass table.
2. Make sure you have two sets of pans with heavy lids, which almost fit each other, but not quite.
3. Take the largest of said mismatched pots and lids, and hold the combination about a foot above the table.
4. Tip slightly.
5. The pot lid should slide off the pot suddenly and go through the glass table top.
6. Presto! You now have several hundred sharp, pointy reasons to deep-clean your kitchen!

Oops.

Deborah and Paul, looking sad. Even the beach ball (in the high chair) looks a little deflated.

Thanksgiving Day

It's Thanksgiving here in the U.S. It's also, possibly, the quietest day I can remember around here. No wind. The lake was like glass, except for a ripple behind a few ducks. I couldn't hear cars on US 30, or anywhere else, for that matter; the foundry wasn't chugging away, nor were there any trains. One of those days that makes you realize how much noise there normally is.

We won't be having our feast until Saturday (May works today and Friday; I ostensibly work tomorrow, although I very well may be the only one there) but one can Give Thanks without those things...

What am I thankful for?

• A wife who's completely insane (she has to be, to love me!)
  
• Two incredibly smart, cute, charming, healthy, moderately-well-behaved kids (see, I can be objective!)
  
• A job that lets me see plenty of the first two things I'm thankful for (and still feed them) that I actually enjoy
  
• My cozy, leak-free little cottage (with room for all we need, although not necessarily for all that we have); the boundary lines have, indeed, fallen in pleasant places, and with neighbors I get along with
  
• Fun family and friends to spend time with
  
• Functional transportation (and, in the case of the motorcycle, fun transportation)
  
• Internet access (it's so much easier to keep up with people around the world; I remember life before email!)
  
• Taffy, the World's Neatest Cat. (Joel's description. I agree.)

More later...

Oh, that's cold

The bright side of riding a motorcycle in winter: you never have to scrape ice off the windshield. The downside? Sometimes you have to scrape the seat...

All Along the Clocktower

Don, on a much warmer day than today
I made a sad discovery this morning: the Clocktower Bakery (turn three/pitstop on my morning commute) is going out of business. The couple that run it, Don Berger (and his wife, whom I've never met — she's always in the back, baking) are retiring at the end of the second week in December. Plans seem to include a lot of local traveling: "We have a small family. Five kids. Eleven grandchildren."

Now, this is a place where I walk in and say, "The usual!" and they know what that is. For a while, I could even say, "Put it on my tab!" (The exclamation points are necessary. Don's a little hard of hearing) and they'd give me a wink and scribble it down. It's also the place I learned, from the small array of clocks across the back wall, that Calcutta is half an hour off from everyone else — seems they didn't want to share a time zone with Pakistan.

So now what? I don't begrudge the Bergers their retirement (quite the opposite!) but I would like to see the bakery continue. So: the place is for sale. If you...

1. Always wanted to move to Winona Lake
2. Want to buy a bakery
3. Don't mind seeing me a few days a week
4. Promise to make really good blueberry muffins

... your opportunity awaits!

Photos from AAR/SBL

James Spinti (also known as tMD) has a series of posts on his blog about AAR/SBL. I don't get to go (have to go?) so it's always fun for me to see pictures of what it looks like when it's all together.

...and eight cents

I came in to work this morning to find that they'd taken up a collection to help with my veterinary bill. Thanks, guys! I think that covers the mysterious eight cents.

Now, I wonder — do I spend that 5 cent Euro piece as a penny? It might pass for one. Will anyone around here recognize it's near-nickle value? What would the bank charge in exchange fees...?

Or, do I instead pocket it for my coin collection that I started way back when, in a California laundromat, when I spilled my change and discovered that one of the pennies had a portrait of someone other than Lincoln? And will I be able to feed my family if I do that?

Decisions, decisions, decisions...

$115

One hundred fifteen dollars. (And eight cents. The receptionist said she didn't know where the eight cents came from. Encouraging, eh?)

What did they do? They shaved his face, put some ointment on it, gave me some pills and some cream, and said the cat was good to go. Same thing I would have done at home for a tenth of the cost! Pooh. It's back to DIY veterinary care for me!