I still can never understand it.

Look at it. It's almost Christmas. Summer went by like a constipated sloth wearing a body cast. The weather finally turned cool (and not until October 3, for God's sake!) and since then it's moved like the Indy 500, days just tumbling over days in their haste to go by: leaves turning, Hallowe'en, Veteran's Day skidding into Thanksgiving, with Christmas decorations already up everywhere, and suddenly it's less than ten days until the 25th.

Which is why after popping into Publix on Thursday to do the weekly shopping we returned home, I obeyed the spinning clock, pulled the divider out of the oven, prepped the dining room table, and commenced to baking wine biscuits. This took all afternoon and filled the house with a pleasant odor. I managed to finish one bottle of hearty burgundy without having to start another. Then at suppertime James practiced his culinary alchemy and we had turkey wings done in the air fryer basted with maple teriyaki sauce. To say this was divine is wayyyyyyy underpraising it. Oh, goodness, that was delicious, and eating them did not make me ill the way eating baked ones usually do, probably because all the fat leached out into the air fryer, leaving just crispy skin and juicy meat behind.

Thursday evening we also watched the new version of A Christmas Carol with Scrooge played by Guy Pearce, who is only in his fifties. This helped bring to life Dickens' description that Scrooge was aged by his miserliness rather than years. The producer of this is the guy who does the often bloody and violent Peaky Blinders series, and he commented that most versions make A Christmas Carol so cozy that you don't see what genuinely hard times Dickens was railing about. He wanted to make a Carol that more reflected the type of dreadful life the poor had in Victorian London. Well, the cast was excellent, it all looked good, and it did really bring home the horrors of poverty in that era. But in this version Scrooge isn't just a guy who decided money was more important than people (something that must have come from his father sending him to such cheap boarding schools), he's a sociopath made that way by a brutal father who basically traded Scrooge's innocence for free tuition. Scrooge isn't just greedy, he's damaged psychologically, and that shows in his character; what he does in this version of the Carol isn't just unfeeling, it's downright cruel (especially what he inflicts on Mrs. Cratchit). So when he does see the error of his ways at the end, it's not the happy reclamation of a soul. The end is a real downer instead, where it's implied that instead of other Scrooges that can be reclaimed, that there's just more of them and the spirits have more work to do, basically that it's an endless job that will never be finished. We aren't welcoming the one Prodigal Son back to the fold, we're instead emphasizing all the lost souls that will never be reclaimed. It's not hopeful, it's just more pessimistic.

It's also been tarted up to give a couple of female characters more to do. Intriguing idea to make Scrooge's sister one of the ghosts, but she just pops up that she's always "been interested in science" in the dialog like that updates her somehow, but seems to be there for no reason for that choice but to note that women were actually intelligent back then but were not given a chance to show it. It's Mrs. Cratchit's role that's been expanded the most, but the fact that she is played by a woman of color and then has some special connection with the spirit world smacks of stereotypes of Caribbean women and voodoo. It's like the stereotypical convention that Native Americans all have some type of spirit guide who can save them in times of crisis, a clichè that even made it into Star Trek: Voyager. So: looked good, excellent cast, but very grim, no hope, very bloody at times (check out the decapitated pet mouse). Would love one that kept the reality of the time with the story of the book!

Very surprised that I woke up on Friday morning with no nightmares after that one. (The intrusive and badly timed commercial breaks for no movie I would ever want to see except for Rise of Skywalker probably helped.) I had a good Hallmark coupon and wanted to add to a gift that was woefully inadequate. So James and I packed up the truck and headed for Amy's Hallmark at Town Center, where I found something quite nice, and also, with a second coupon, a gift to put away. We then went into the Publix next door (mostly to use the rest room, but also to pick up something we'd forgotten), and then stopped at Barnes & Noble to spend all of James' huge Christmas bonus, a $5 Starbuck's gift card, on a peppermint hot chocolate and a brownie.

Saturday we had a busy but fun day. We went to Lidl for bread, milk, and juice in the morning, then once home did a few other chores. Cut it really close to the time we had to leave (didn't realize it was so late), but got on chat with Verizon and cancelled those stupid Hum devices for the car. They're costing us $30 month and James' has never worked with his truck. In fact, he ended up getting a new one, which they made him pay for, and it still didn't work, and I was incensed when I discovered they wanted to charge us a termination fee for the "new" account. We told them we didn't want a new account when we had to get a new unit; we wanted to put the new unit on the old number, but apparently they didn't do that. Anyway, I got the dude to waive the termination fee, and we got the 55+ Unlimited plan so James doesn't have to worry about using his Surface at work and eating up all the data. (Unfortunately this doesn't seem to make us eligible for the free Disney+. Ah, well, I already pay for three streaming services we almost never use.)

We had supper at Fried Tomato Buffet and tanked up the truck at Costco up the hill, then set out on the freeway for the city of Tucker and specifically the Tucker Recreation Center, where the Atlanta Radio Theatre was putting on this year's version of An Atlanta Christmas. The rec center is an old school, and the show was in the auditorium, and we enjoyed this year's version with all of our old favorites, including "Are You Lonely Tonight," "Davy Crockett Christmas," and "USO Christmas." Stopped to talk to Clair and Daniel and Ron and Lin afterwards.

On the way in I'd noticed there was a tiny little white building set in front of the rec center on brick pilings. As we came out, used the flashlight on my phone to see what it was. In front the rec center people had planted a butterfly garden, with signs letting you know what each thing was. Turned out the "little building," which James thought might be 15 feet by 20, was an old courthouse! The "Browning Courthouse," specifically, from Tucker, original structure built in 1860 (!) and used until 1977! Wow. They must have had to sit on each other's laps!

We managed to beat the rain home and Tucker had his walk that did not turn into "a bath."

And then "click!" and our weekend was over.

Labels: autumn, baking, chores, Christmas, events, food, friends, gifts, holidays, movies, seasons, shopping, summer

----------------------------------------------------------------
. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 9:37:00 PM

(0) COMMENTS

Well, today was a bit of a topsy-turvy semi-disaster.

Plan for today: bake cookies. I really didn't want to bake, but it was the only way I'd get the cookies. So, sleep until eight, then bake, and also wash the towels.

James texted me at 7:30 that he couldn't get the power chair off the lift at work. It worked fine when he left, but the rubber flap that covers the controls has come loose, and there was a dense, dense fog outside. He figured the contacts that run the chair had gotten wet. So he limped in and soldiered on. In the meantime, I'm thinking, oh, no, not again. First the truck, then the computer... (For the record, the fog dissipated, James checked the chair at lunch, and it worked fine. He'll have it looked at next week.)

So I was up at 7:30. Once I'm up, first comes nature's call, and then comes my stomach chiming in claiming it's starving to death. Straightened a few things out, then began to prepare to bake. At one point I went downstairs to see if we had any canola oil. We didn't, but I found a bottle of hearty burgundy in the pantry closet, after having a reminder on my Google calendar all year that I had to buy a fresh bottle of wine this year (which we did last weekend). I felt just like Ruth in "Lassie's Gift of Love" when she finds four potatoes in the oven instead of three. Finally I had all my ducks in a row—and just enough canola oil—when I realized I had one tiny problem: where was the corkscrew for the wine bottle? We use the damn thing once a year, for my cookies, and the rest of the time it's hung up on a hook with the meat thermometer, where it's been since we moved into the house.

Guess where it wasn't today.

I searched all the drawers (there are only three) and even on the baker's rack, then put on a pashmina and went off in a huff to Kroger where I found corkscrews...with the beer. Well...okay. I got one with a red handle so it would be easier to see.

So I didn't start baking the wine biscuits until 11:30. I rotated the trays, and the stove performed flawlessly. This year I didn't burn the bottoms of some of them; it's silly anyway. I took the first batch out after 46 minutes and let the second batch cook about ten minutes longer. The convection cooked them nice and easy; the second batch was more dense, the second still a little soft inside, but they both taste good.

I shoved all the baking things in the dishwasher, cleaned up the kitchen and cleaned off the side of the dining room table where I mixed the dough, and then settled down on the sofa to have some milk. I found an interesting British documentary called Legends of Santa on Amazon Prime, narrated by Richard Attenborough. I really enjoyed it, but lack of sleep caught up with me when it ended, about 4 p.m. and I fell asleep on the sofa, only to be woken by James (again...LOL) telling me he was stopping for gas on the way home.

Thus awakened, I decided to take the newly-washed baking board back into the bedroom (it lives in the master bedroom closet, since there's no room in the kitchen). Now, I run the fans in the bedroom every day to air out the room, and they were going strong when I entered. So was a horrible smell in the room: it reeked of natural gas!

I rushed back into the main part of the house; no smell. Ran down the stairs and opened the front door: it was indeed from outside. Was Miranda and Eddie's gas meter leaking? Or was it ours? I ran back into the bedroom to confirm it was indeed gas I smelled, then called 911. The operator told me that apparently they did some type of "controlled release" of the odor they put in natural gas while doing maintenance on the gas pipeline in Paulding County. The wind blew the scent to Cobb and South Fulton Counties. So everything was okay, and I turned the fans to vent out and closed the door and kept an eye on Snowy. But that was...scary.

The rest of the evening was a bit more normal. James made the little thin steaks I got at Publix with teriyaki rice as a side into a nice dinner. We watched Wheel and Jeopardy, and then I put on Friday's two episodes of Hawaii Five-0. Well, I think Steve has paid Danny back for the loan of half a liver. 😀

One more thing had to happen, though: I'd recorded a Moody Blues concert off PBS a few weeks ago for James. I put it on after we got done with Christmas on Oahu (and Junior officially being part of the team), and it turned out to be the end of a Pavarotti special followed by a Graham Nash special. Well, gee, thanks, GPB. And a Merry Christmas to you, too.

Labels: baking, Christmas, disappointments, emergencies, events, shopping, television

----------------------------------------------------------------
. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:19:00 PM

(0) COMMENTS

Oh, what a day...

We had a surprise yesterday when James' mom called about getting together for Christmas: now that they have a new car they suggested they come here. So we are having company on Christmas Eve. We were going to get some dark meat parts for us and a breast for Mom and Candy, but when I got up this morning and dashed to Kroger (I didn't even eat), all I could find were ginormous turkey breast and no parts. They did have small turkeys, so I got a little, 9-pound one. Also got extra dessert, more milk, and a few other things. Then I could come home, tuck away the groceries, take the dog out and have breakfast.

Next I went to cookie baking. This was not really fun. The wine didn't turn the first batch mix the proper color and it was very dry. I had to keep adding wine and since I was at the bottom of the bottle, I had to strain it through a coffee filter in case the mother came out. Then the temperatures in the oven varied wildly. This is okay for meat, but terrible for baking. The oven usually reads a little higher than the temp actually is, so I set the thermostat 25 degrees higher. When it said it was up to temp I put the cookies in, the oven thermometer read 200. Ten minutes later the oven was smoking because the bottoms of the cookies were smoking and the oven thermometer read over 400! I had to throw open the back door and put on the kitchen ceiling fan. The cookies came out burnt on the bottom and still raw at the center. The second batch came out better, but there was still smoke and the oven temp varied wildly on that set of cookies.

Once that was done, I took Tucker out for his walk, and for the next 2 1/2 hours I wrapped gifts. Some went into paper, others went into gift bags. I had to wrap at least four birthday gifts as well. I finished right before James arrived home, and resolved not to do anything more for the night except watch Christmas specials. Tonight was reserved for The Gathering, the magnificent television movie starring Ed Asner and Maureen Stapleton.

And then I tottered outside with Tucker and it was bedtime.

Labels: baking, Christmas, food, gifts, television

----------------------------------------------------------------
. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:25:00 PM

(0) COMMENTS