Americans smoke at a far lower rate than in other countries, but in addition to its level of obesity, the U.S. rate for diabetes is among the developed world’s highest. And though Americans are living an average nine years longer than 50 years ago, 26 other countries outpace the U.S. in life expectancy.
Under America’s lavish subsidy system, farmers collected $260 billion in taxpayer money between 1995 and 2010. In theory, this money is supposed to help small farmers survive in a volatile and risky sector. In reality, most of this money goes to the biggest agrarian operations. Since 1995, the top 10 percent of farmers collected 75 percent of all farm-bill subsidies, according to analysis by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group.
On Oct. 28, published photos from the firm’s annual Halloween party showed employees wearing costumes mocking people who had lost their homes.Following the revelation of the crass photos, the national mortgage servicing giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae blacklisted the Baum firm and forbade servicers of their mortgages from using Baum and his colleagues, a move which essentially sounded the death knell for the firm.
That’s because 250 members of Congress — or 47 percent — have a net worth of more than $1 million, according to a new study by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. The study, which analyzed data from legislators’ financial disclosure forms, found the average senator had a net worth of about $2.63 million last year. That’s up 11 percent from $2.38 million in 2009 and 16 percent from $2.27 million in 2008.
One of the way congresscritters get rich is by being able to legally trade on inside information, something no one except elected congresspersons can legally do. However, the STOCK Act looks to put a stop to that.
Such trades have proven remarkably lucrative. A newly released study by the Center for Responsive Politics found that members of Congress saw their net worth rise by over 25 percent since the financial crisis of 2008, while average Americans have seen their net worth plummet. “It should be illegal for them to trade off of this kind of information,” Alan Ziobrowski, an associate professor of business at Georgia State University, told The Daily. “There’s no reason that Congress should be able to do what corporate executives can’t.”
Markets are rallying this morning without any major catalyst. Reporters are searching for reasons for the rally, and have offered a rumor of an 800 billion euro rescue package by the IMF (subsequently denied) and a better than expected Black Friday. If you got in your car this morning and wondered why the S&Ps are up 32 handles, well, there isn’t an earth shattering reason. Sometimes there just isn’t an obvious catalyst. Volatility begets volatility. The National Retail Federation put out its report on Black Friday Weekend sales last night. The average consumer spent $398.62 over the weekend vs $365.34 last year, a 9.1% increase. Total spending was over $54 billion. Strong promotional activity brought out shoppers, so some caution is in order – we may have only been pulling December sales forward. That said, it is more evidence that consumers are spending, even if the sentiment indicators suggest they are not.
The WSJ has a piece on unemployment this morning that discusses how the US employment market is beginning to resemble Europe’s. While the US labor market doesn’t have nearly the amount of rigidity that characterizes Europe’s labor market, one of the big symptoms of sclerosis – a lack of mobility – has begun to flash warning signs here in the US. The US has always had a very flexible labor force, where the unemployed could easily move to areas of the country where employment was rising. We have seen the Rust Belt lose population to the Sun Belt for decades. However, Americans have been changing jobs and moving locations less frequently than in prior decades. The housing bust of the last 5 years explains some of this, but not all. Demographics and health care may explain some of it. But it doesn’t bode well for a rapid decrease in unemployment.
Austin’s two lowest cost sources of energy are natural gas and wind, followed by coal. The City is trying to replace all its coal based use. Wind produces about 17% of Austin’s energy, I think. Austin also has built a large solar facility but it can supply only about 1% of capacity and costs four times as much as gas or wind.
The City’s insistence on solar projects is controversial because they will produce energy over a twenty year period projected to drop in cost comparison from four times wind to twice wind, but never be as cheap as wind. The City justifies solar projects on a few grounds – diversity of clean sources, a boost to tech companies in and coming to Austin, and the fact that the sunniest days are the least windy. Further, Austin does not have local wind generation capacity and buys from wind farms either in the west or on the Gulf. Austin does have enough sunshine, and the local City owned sun powered 30MW generation plant opens in a few weeks.
Austin owns land in west TX that I thought was going to get dotted with wind generators. I now read in this morning’s paper that the city utility wants to build 3 huge solar arrays that will potentially provide 10% of capacity. I assume that would be instead of wind generators.
The city utility subsidizes rooftop solar panels but is leery of them in the long term.
I am not an opponent of experimenting with solar on a small scale, albeit large enough to sustain slow development, until it becomes cheap. The local solar plant made sense to me in that regard. But wind is so cheap that for coal replacement nothing else makes current $$$ and sense [except NG]. Like Boone Pickens, I think NG is the mobile fuel of choice in the near future, so I would go for more wind in the stationary source market.
What are the down sides of wind farms? The prop blades are tough on birds that do not adapt by flying higher. The ground vibrates. The props make some noise. The high plains from Sweetwater, TX to N.Dak. are wind central but the transmission lines are not in place and must generally be routed hundreds of miles to population centers. Wind speeds are high enough over the Great Lakes and the coastal waters for generators, and can be placed close to coastal or lakeside population centers.
A political note: our Land Commissioner is the daddy of windpower in America. A staunch conservative R, I vote for him every time. He saw that it would be cheap, a boon for underutilized mesas in TX, and that it could help sustain the economy many years ago, and subsidized its development until TX now has far and away the most wind generated power in America. I think we will have enough to support one third of the homes in TX within two years.
This morning I’m avoiding mycarefully constructed to-do list by reading TheEconomist, or at least parts of it.
There’s a bad joke abouteconomists in which one of their lot is theorizing how to open a can of tunafish in the middle of nowhere that ends with the line, “Assume we have a canopener.” And although the joke isdecades old, economists still fall into the trap of assuming stuff that’s nearimpossible to manifest as they attempt to share the ‘wisdom’ of theirprofession.
(Full confession: I was apsychology and economics major in college and worked in an economics think tankfor two years as I pondered whether my graduate degree would be in business oreconomics. I went with the MBA, largelyon the basis of a larger expected income flow, but also because I found my workenvironment just too dizzyingly surreal.)
Anyway,back to The Economist. Here’s Exhibit A, a piece about fracking.
“It doesappear that fracking can cause earthquakes. But so can geothermal energyproduction and other parts of the oil and gas production process. Whereverfluids are injected into deep wells, that is a risk. It warrants strict regulation and further study. It is not,however, a reason to shut down a promising industry.”
…
“[T]he industry’s promiseshould not obscure its dangers, especially when it comes to the fuel itprovides…The only way of ensuring thatdoes not happen is to price fossil fuels to cover the cost of the environmentaldamage they do.” [emphasisadded]
Huh?
Strictregulation? Environmental-damage basedenergy pricing? On what planet does TheEconomist assume these will occur?
Exhibit B, in myview, is this article on the euro.
“If the ECB is tofulfil its mandate of price stability, it must prevent prices falling.”
Except that sovereigndebt prices are already falling and there’s little the European Central Bankcan do about it. And no amount of ECB actionis going to rid Europe of that load of debt.
The articlesort of acknowledges this a bit later and then proposes:
“It also meanscreating a [euro] debt instrument that investors can believe in. And thatrequires a political bargain” that would essentially require stronger Eurozonecountries to support weaker ones for the next 20-30 years.
And the strongerEurozone countries will sell this to their people how, exactly? Despite the common currency, the Eurozone isstill a collection of sovereign nations, each with its unique internal makeupand external position in the ‘zone. I’msure The Economist knows this, but itseems to have been forgotten here.
(As a final aside, Isee the world pointing fingers at the US in general and the supercommittee inparticular for failing to address the country’s debt problems. But the ‘zone reportedly on the brink ofdisaster and it hasn’t figured a way out, either.)
And on that note, Imust leave the world of economics where anything can be assumed and get back tothe less nuanced reality of my to-do list.
These are all just rough estimates as it’s one of those “created from thin air” recipes
3 Cups cubed cooked turkey 12 oz. of spaghetti noodles, cooked 1 1/2 TBS butter or margarine 1 Can cream of mushroom soup 1 Can cream of celery soup 1/3 diced onion 1 tsp. garlic powder 2 1/4 cups milk 1 1/2 tsp A1 steak sauce (crazy, I know) 3 cups grated cheddar cheese
In a large sauce pan saute onions in butter until soft, add garlic powder and stir into onions, add turkey, soup, milk and 1 cup of cheese. Heat through and then add steak sauce (trust me). Pour over noodles in a large baking dish and cover with remaining cheese. Bake at 350 until bubbly.
By the way, I don’t use Campbells cream soups unless I need a cheddar. Pacific makes terrific cream soups if you can find them. They also make the best vegetable broth I’ve ever had when I don’t have time to make my own. We buy them here at Sprouts, which used to be Henry’s, which used to be Wild Oats. Oh, and they’re actually in boxes not cans if you go looking for them.
Leftover Cold Turkey Sandwich by Scott (not-a-chef) C
2 slices of White Bread (the whiter the better – no wheat or whole grain allowed) Mayonnaise Cold Turkey (preferably white meat) Salt
Take the two slices of white bread, and cover one side of each with mayonnaise. Place generous portions of turkey on one slice of bread, mayonnaised side up. Add a touch a salt. Place other slice of bread on top, mayonnaised side down. Cut in half, always diagonally. Be sure not to slice horizontally or vertically. Eat.
______________________________________________________________________________ Black Friday Fajitafest by MsJS
This recipe contains no leftovers from the Thanksgiving Day meal. It’s for folks who want something else the next day.
Serves 8-10
Marinade: Juice of two limes 4 Tbsp. olive oil 1 tsp. ground cumin 1/2 jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced 1/4 cup cilantro, chopped 2 Tbsp. mesquite liquid smoke or soy sauce 4 cloves garlic crushed and chopped
Other ingredients: 1 lb. skirt steak or flank steak, pounded to uniform thickness 1 lb. skinless, boneless chicken breast, pounded to uniform thickness 5-6 Tbsp. olive oil 2 yellow onions, peeled and sliced with the grain in 1/2-inch strips 4 bell peppers of various colors, cored, seeded, and sliced into strips 2 tsp. cayenne pepper
Served with: 10 flour tortillas Optional add-ons: Salsa, sour cream, shredded cheese, sliced avocado or your fave guacamole
Mix all the marinade ingredients together and split into two portions. Marinade the steak and the chicken separately for at least two hours in the fridge, preferably overnight. Before cooking the meat, wipe off the marinade and discard.
Split olive oil into two frying pans and heat up a bit. Saute chicken and steak separately until just cooked. Cooking time will depend on thickness of meat, but start with 3 minutes a side and then check. When just done, remove from pans and let rest on a cutting board.
Add more oil if needed to pans. Saute half of the onions and peppers in each pan until just turning soft, about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, slice the chicken and steak into thin strips. Put the sliced meats back into their respective pans for a minute to blend with the onion/pepper combo, mixing in a teaspoon of cayenne pepper into each.
Warm the tortillas in the microwave by covering in a paper towel and heating for 30 seconds. Serve immediately with the optional add-ons and football.
I missed my chance at the main thread and was too busy to comment, so am posting separately.
I remember my first Thanksgiving away from home. I was a student at a college in St. Paul, Minnesota and my family lived in Pocatello, Idaho. I was NOT going to be going home for Thanksgiving. The food service had a special Thanksgiving meal planned for students who weren’t going home. Unfortunately, I hadn’t paid attention and didn’t realize it was an early meal. So, when I showed up for my meal, the place was dark and closed. Sigh… I wandered northwards and eventually found a bowling alley that was open. My first Thanksgiving away from home consisted of a polish sausage.
The next memorable Thanksgiving for me was in 2005. Keen was pregnant with twins and I mean PREGNANT. They were at 38 weeks and we would be going to the hospital the following Monday for a scheduled Caesarian. They missed sharing their grandfather’s birthday by one day (which was a Sunday). Friends of ours were gathering at a place near Georgetown. As someone who was beginning to develop a reputation for cooking, I was tasked with roasting the turkey.
I’d never roasted a turkey before. I bought the bird the day before and consulted my trusty collection of Cooks Illustrated. I’m supposed to brine the bird? Holy shit, I didn’t know that! A few years later, I realize that most supermarket birds are prebrined and so it’s not a good idea. Good thing that I didn’t have enough time to do much brining. So, I cook the roast beast and make decent gravy. Then we head out into the night. It was a cold night with wind that was howling. Also, my wife has not one, but two butterballs in her belly. We manage to get up to our friends’ place (even finding parking within a block!) and have a grand time with friends. Keen even had a glass of wine (take that, pregnazis!)
After that experience, I decided that I enjoyed the experience, but was not traveling with the bird. We’ve hosted a Thanksgiving meal every year since but one. I’ve done a lot more cooking since then and am a much better cook. Much of it is scheduling. Sweet potatoes can be done in the slow cooker. Mashed potatoes can be finished early and tossed into our rice cooker that has a warming function.
So, what is Thanksgiving to me? It’s a meal to celebrate family and friendship. I spend the entire day cooking and love it. I also have noticed an interest in cooking of one of my sons and hope to do a Blade & Son affair in the future. Here’s our Thanksgiving menu:
Turkey
Lobster in Makhani Sauce (NB: leftover turkey in the sauce is amazing)
Stuffing I: Stuffing with caramelized onion and apples (vegetarian option)
Stuffing II: Made with turkey stock
Mashed potatoes
Sweet potatoes braised in coconut milk
Green beans with almonds (brought by a friend)
Gravy I: Traditional
Gravy II: Roasted garlic, coconut milk, and curry spices
Roasted beets
Sweet potato pie (made by Keen)
Apple pie (brought by a friend)
I’ll wish a retrospective Happy Thanksgiving to all ATiMmers!
Following our Giblets and Necks thread the other day, I got to thinking: Is there a more reliable non-political indicator of one’s politics than vegetarianism? I have never known a conservative vegetarian, and all of the vegetarians I have known are not just liberally inclined, but steadfast, politically active liberals. I’ve simply added to the list following our discussion. I would venture a guess that vegetarians vote Democrat in higher percentages than even African Americans.
ashot amusingly noted that he was easily convinced to drop his vegetarianism by his wife-to-be because he “wasn’t very committed to the cause.” And it is a “cause”, a politically liberal one at that, isn’t it? What is it about vegetarianism that attracts liberals?
And is there an equivalent, ostensibly non-political, lifestyle choice that is equally indicative of conservatism?
I LOVE Thanksgiving, and not just because I love to overeat. I don’t know what I would do if I couldn’t spend Thanksgiving with my family. We (my siblings and their descendants and their descendants . . . and now their descendants) are spread around the country — OK, TX, LA, GA, NY, NJ. Thanksgiving has become THE holiday for us. Following my mother’s death 20 years ago, it became a tradition that no matter where we all live, we all show up and spend most of the week together. It is a very special time for us.
We all show up not because it is obligatory. It’s just darned fun. We draw for partners and have marathon spades and canasta tournaments lasting all night. We always have an intricate jigsaw puzzle going. We have an obscene amount of good food (we have some trained chefs). We talk and catch up. We get to play with our little ones, who live in Atlanta so some of us (that would be me) don’t see them any other time. Some watch football downstairs while some watch movies in the media room upstairs while some read. We usually plan an outing (this year we’re taking a train ride in honor of our 4 y/o train enthusiast). We inevitably have a couple of arguments about current events, and trust me we run the gamut on political views every bit as much as those on this board.
We don’t all like each other, but we all value the family and the anchor it offers. We all value the memories we are making just by living and playing together for a while. And I am thankful for it.
SO . . . What does Thanksgiving mean to you and yours? Got an anecdote, or joke, or thoughts on its significance, or . . . ? Let’s celebrate!
Happy Thanksgiving to all, — okie
For me, Thanksgiving is very simply being grateful for family, but as the matriarch of the family now, it is tradition which really gives us comfort and even strength as a family. Most families have their own peculiar traditions and believe me, because I’ve tried, you can always add a new one but whatever you do don’t try to change an old one or dispose of it like an old shoe, the kids will scream bloody murder. One year I made a lemon meringue pie instead of my usual dutch apple, and even though it was about 8 years ago, the kids still tease me about it as if I’d committed a crime against humanity. Apparently, lemon meringue on Thanksgiving is comparable to wearing white after Labor Day, who knew?
The one tradition we have though that means the most to me now, just as it did as a child, is sitting around the table during and after dinner, before the card games begin, and sharing memories of times gone by or of people we’ve lost. As a child I learned so much history, both family and otherwise, listening to my grandparents and great aunts and uncles reminisce about settling in Los Angeles in the early 1900’s. My father’s WWII escapades and mother’s family migration from OK to CA during the depression were fascinating to me as both a child and an adult. Now I am the keeper of family history and so I’m looking forward again this year to sharing those old family stories, which for our kids includes all of our stories from the 60’s, their fascination with their own “birth days”, their father’s family’s migration from Poland, etc. etc. I can’t wait. And the dutch apple pie recipe is from my grandmother’s cookbook, the one I remember looking through as a kid about 50 years ago, which sits on our bookshelf today..
I’d also like to mention how grateful I am for my wonderful husband of over 33 years. We’ve made a great team through thick and thin and I can’t imagine living a life without him, or the kids of course, but he came first.
Happy Thanksgiving all,
— lmsinca (lulu)
Thanksgivings for me have always been a mixed bag of family and friends. Growing up, my memories are of family around the table and pretty much your Norman Rockwell painting. . . but now that I’m an adult I know that there was a lot more going on behind the scenes that I didn’t know about. My Uncle Ted–my Dad’s older brother–was an alcoholic. I was always afraid of Ted growing up, but I didn’t know why until I was a freshman in college and he ended up in the ICU because he almost died from an esophogeal bleed due to his drinking; he and I became pen pals, and I like to think that I may have been part of his road to sobriety at that point. . . he struggled with his alcoholism to the very end (he died of cancer on July 2, 2010), but his last years were his best and he re-connected with my cousins, my Aunt, and his friends in ways he was profoundly grateful for–and he was a rock of stability to me when I found out that my (now ex) husband had become an alcoholic.
As adults, Brian’s and my Thanksgivings were mostly about connecting with friends. His family lives in CA and mine in MI; we met in NC, married while I was in AL and he was in CA, lived our early married life in WA and then ended up in UT. . . nomadic, to say the least. Over the years we’ve stayed friends with a few people from our pre-marriage days, made more friends here and there as we navigated the waters between dating and marriage, and then settled down here. I love cooking the Thanksgiving feast, from turkey to side dishes to Julia Child’s delectable pumpkin pie recipe, so we usually had a mixture of family who could travel to see us and in-town friends over for the Big Day. Our last Thanksgiving like that was in 2007.
Since then, I haven’t been able to plan a Thanksgiving like we used to have, because I never knew if he’d be able to pull it off or not. But, you know what? I’m so grateful this Thanksgiving that it has erased any bad thoughts that I have about the holiday.
Many of you are part of that–many of you have followed my travails this year both on PL and here with support, comfort, and understanding that transcends what I would have expected. I never, never imagined that I would count on people like you–that I’ve never even seen in person–to provide support and love in such a way as you have. I’ve also found out that Ted’s side of the family–my Aunt Nan and cousins Linda, Laurie and Sarah (or, as they prefer, Marcia, Jan and Cindy) along with their close friends Keddy and Carlee–love and care for me beyond belief, and I’m profoundly grateful for the sisterhood that we’ve formed. And, finally, I’ve found out that my co-workers, who have watched this whole thing unfold while I’ve been working with them, are more than co-workers and are, actually, deeply cherished friends.
So this Thanksgiving is going to be one of the best ever. I’m spending it with Nan and my cousin Linda (and her four daughters, who are planning to do a major makeover on me to get me ready for the dating market–I don’t know whether to be excited or scared silly!) in CA, then the week between Christmas and New Year’s I’m going to MI to get together with the rest of the family. I thank you all for your patience and understanding as this year has unfolded. This is a wonderful holiday and a wonderful time. I hope that you all have a Thanksgiving that will go down in your memories as the best ever.
Cheers! — Michigoose
Holidays are often spotty. Birthdays, Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc., can come with expectations that often make the holidays a little disappointing.
So, I try to keep my expectations managed, and if it turns out all right . . . then, great! If it doesn’t, I’m not overly disappointed. I frequently see the effects of expecting too much magic over the holidays, and it’s rarely pretty, so I try to keep very level expectations.
If nobody gets shot and nothing gets burned to the ground, then it’s a good Thanksgiving. The best Thanksgivings I’ve ever had have been away from family (once, just my wife an I in Gatlinburg, well before The Children™, and then a few years ago, again in Gatlinburg, and with very modest expectations, many serendipitous events led to it being an awesome Thanksgiving . . . and remembering not to expect that every year has kept subsequent Thanksgivings from being major disappointments, by comparison.
That having been said, here’s Christina Ricci in Addam’s Family Values” sharing Wednesday Addam’s take on Thanksgiving:
As far as being thankful, that’s a daily event for me. I was born in a wonderful country, at a wonderful time, and live a life where, in a population of seven billion people, I’m in the 1%. And a great deal of that (for me personally) is an accident of birth, and I am grateful. My parents are still alive, my children are healthy and as well-adjusted as I could ever hope any children of mine to be, my wife an I are a little old and rickety for 42, but we enjoy much more robust health than we could. I can think of a thousand events in my life that I am grateful for, and my prayers at night are mostly thanking God for that. Thanksgiving will be no difference, except with more tTurkey.
It’s a good practice. When work is hard, when things break, when I’m stuck with unexpected expenses and get cheated by a contractor and have to spend time I’d rather spend relaxing laboring in the yard just to keep the backyard from turning into a sink-hole . . . I remember how lucky I am to live a life full of first world problems. I’ll do it tonight, I’ll do it tomorrow night, and so on and so forth, to Thanksgiving and beyond.
— Kevin
Thanksgiving has always been one of the two great annual holidays in my family. The other is Passover. TG has usually been #1, however. Passover is often mid-week and now is often during tax season and I am married to a tax specialist CPA. I am often a tax widower at Passover.
TG is now marked by a pilgrimage of family and friends to my home, or to my sis in NC, or to my daughter in Santa Fe. But for the first ten years of my life, the extended family came to our farm for TG. It was always about picking wild asparagus. It was always about sifting cranberries from my grandfather’s bog. It was always about the adults having stories to tell that had waited a whole year to be told. I remember Korea when two uncles and my eldest cousin came in uniform, and the thankfulness was about them.
That last TG on the farm my Uncle Lou asked my little sis if she wanted another breast and she answered “two’s enough for any girl”. She was five, then, and we used to act out Ernie Kovacs scripts for the adults. She thought EK was funny when she was three. She introduces us today as brother and sister by reminding anyone who will listen that she is the smart one and I am the pretty one. But we knew she was the smart, pretty, funny, musical, athletic one even then. I tell that story about her in 1953 every single year. I will tell it Thursday in Santa Fe.
— Mark
Thanksgiving has become for me the quintessential American holiday. More than any other, it reminds me that I am an American. This is because from 1992 thru 2005 I celebrated 14 straight Thanksgivings overseas, in places where few others were celebrating along. It took a real and conscious effort to maintain some semblance of the traditions that we took for granted back home, not least because more often than not, the families that were a part of those traditions were seldom present. We, my wife and I, had to do it all ourselves. And we had to instill in our kids, each of whom was born outside the US, some sense of what Thanksgiving means without any of the trappings of the wider culture. No school plays about pilgrims, no day off from school or work, no decorations at the stores, no parades on TV. In England it was difficult to even get a turkey, because there turkey is the traditional meal of Christmas, so the stores wouldn’t be stocked for another month. And no football games. No football games! I don’t know how I survived. Thanksgiving was the one day of the year, more than any other, that made me miss America.
When I was growing up, Thanksgiving celebrations alternated every other year at our house and my uncle’s house. Both houses had a pool table, and every year before dinner all the kids would gather in the basement with my dad, my uncle, and my grandfather to play pool for nickels and dimes. So when I was living in Hong Kong, in a tiny 2 bedroom flat (in HK you have to say “flat”), my wife went out and bought me one of those miniature sized pool tables, the size of a card table, so that I could have my game of pool on Thanksgiving. When I moved to England, I bought a house that had a snooker table in it, so for 7 years snooker became the game of choice on Thanksgiving day. (Pool is much, much better, believe me.)
And of course football. You can’t have Thanksgiving without football. So each year while dinner was being prepared I would put in a video tape of an old football game, the famous Doug Flutie Hail Mary game when Boston College beat Miami on a last second 60 yard touchdown pass. Granted, it was college not pro, and I already knew the (glorious) outcome, but certain concessions had to be made to the harsh realities of Hong Kong life. By the time I moved to England, Sky TV had been created by Rupert Murdoch, and midway through my time there Sky Sports actually started showing American football. Live. I don’t care what nasty things Bernie L. has to say about him, no man who brought me live football on Thanksgiving in the UK can be all bad.
Over those years away we celebrated Thanksgiving with lots of different people. We introduced this wonderful holiday to Brits, Kiwis, Australians, and even a Thai one year. I remember one year in the UK doing Thanksgiving with another American family that briefly moved into our neighborhood. Today I couldn’t even tell you their names, but that day they were our family. This week will mark my 6th Thanksgiving back on American soil. I finally have a real pool table in the basement, where we will spend much of the afternoon playing pool and watching football. After dinner we will all go for the traditional walk around the neighborhood to prepare our stomachs for dessert. And I will say a silent thank you for the one thing I am most thankful for on Thanksgiving day…being an American.
My immediate family is not prone to gatherings and togetherness, at least in regards to each other. And the last time I invited others over to share our Thanksgiving table, MrJS growled. So today it’s just the two of us and the caregiver du jour.
Tomorrow, however, is the 3rd annual Black Friday Fajitafest. Various friends and relations will roll by, enjoy the fajita buffet, share their Thanksgiving experiences, and maybe partake in a craftsy project to make small gifts for hospice patients. One of my nieces has a mid-November b-day, so we’ll celebrate that. too.
It’s a sort of open house arrangement, so I never know how many will show. It seems to be directly related to how much guacamole is available, so this year I have lots of avocados.
For some reason, when I think of Thanksgiving, I don’t think of meals with my parents or mother-in-law or with my own family, but of the Thanksgivings my husband’s family had when he was growing up. It was his mother’s favorite holiday. She had no family of her own, and she would drive with her husband and children from Chicago to central Indiana and her husband’s family. When they crossed the Wabash, the returning driver would always sing “Back Home in Indiana” and everyone wanted to be the first person to spot the sign that said, “Eat here and get gas.” Sometimes it snowed. One year, my mother-in-law forgot her suitcase and arrived for the long weekend with only the clothes on her back. All the cousins played basketball for hours on end–it was Indiana afterall–and the adults played poker long into the night. There was lots of food. Everybody laughed.
This year my husband and I are having a quiet Thanksgiving. My daughter and her family are at her in-laws, my son and his wife sticking close to home and eating with friends since son #3 is due on the 5th. Yesterday, the sixth and last of the Sky Spinner books arrived from the printer, which means I actually made it through that whole mountain range. Earlier, when we stuffed the turkey it was with the same sherry bread dressing I made for the first time the Thanksgiving before we were married. The house smells like Thanksgiving. I am grateful. I am happy.
So this is a mostly non-political “Bits and Pieces” post…something that is not too controversial or taxing as I prepare for my Thanksgiving Day Drive to Pittsburgh. Below are several items that i came across today – some of which made me laugh and some of which made me just shake my head.
Item 1) You will need to wish me well on my travels to Pittsburgh as I will be riding the PA Turnpike. In good times it’s God’s gift to horrible roads…during high travel days it’s the stuff of legend…But I guess just to try something new, it has been blessed with a 40 mile coating of a Sticky Goo that disabled about 150 cars.
Item 2) A typo has led to the election of the wrong man to a finance board in Derby, Conn. James J. Butler was elected over his father, James R. Butler, who was the person actually runninng. The son would not comment on whether he wants the job. But he calls city officials incompetent for confusing him with his father. So did the father and son both vote for the son? Inquiring minds want to know…
Item 3) Just in time for the Christmas shopping season, Sharp has an 80 inch affordable HDTV, assuming that $5,500 is your idea of affordable. This, a Blu Ray and a big enough room means you never have to visit a movie theater again. I think the government should subsidize this – it would be like paying you to stay at home and save gas…
Item 4) I realize there are actually victims but I could not help but chuckle when I read the story about 7 Charged With Hate Crimes In Amish Hair Attacks. Several members of the group carried out the attacks in September and October by forcefully cutting the beards and hair of Amish men and women, authorities said. Cutting the hair is a highly offensive act to the Amish, who believe the Bible instructs women to let their hair grow long and men to grow beards and stop shaving once they marry. The perpetrators were a breakaway Amish group that was lead by one Sam Mullet..that’s right – Mullet. In any case, the Sheriff said “We’ve received hundreds and hundreds of calls from people living in fear,” he said. “They are buying Mace, some are sitting with shotguns, getting locks on their doors because of Sam Mullet.” Amish with Mace, shotguns and telephones…who da thunk it?
Item 5) And finally, Rolling Stone put forth their 100 greatest Guitarist of all time. Which has naturally sparked the debate on its merits. He bemoans the fact that Frank Zappa and Springsteen are not higher and that Clapton is too high. Although his argument for that is “We’ve never met anyone who picked up a guitar because they loved “I Shot the Sheriff.” No but there are people who have because of Layla… George Harrison comes in at 11 – that would make my overrated list. List is missing Nancy Wilson…
For the record, here are the top 10: 1. Jimi Hendrix 2. Eric Clapton 3. Jimmy Page 4. Keith Richards 5. Jeff Beck 6. B.B. King 7. Chuck Berry 8. Eddie Van Halen 9. Duane Allman 10. Pete Townshend
Posted on November 23, 2011 by Let the mutherfuker burn!
Looks like we’re in for another round of hide the decline, as a new batch of hacked emails from our favorite climate scientists are released.
I predict that the same institution that thoroughly investigated the molestation charges around Sandusky and the football program will do an equally thorough job in investigating Michael “hockey stick” Mann. Look for the the discussion to be focused on who hacked the emails versus what the emails actually say. I also suspect we’ll hear about “context” and nuance. Finally, “The Cause” will, of course, be defined as the cause of science. I, like Ace, don’t beleive it of course, but it’ll be shouted from the rooftops.
Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojkt
All Things in Moderation 