Monday Meanderings 11.28.2011

We enjoyed a peaceful Thanksgiving this year - certainly was not as exciting as the Thanksgiving when we tried out the "cook a turkey in a brown paper bag to retain flavor and juices." This was way before the commercial cooking bags hit the market. We were hosting guests - students from ACU - that year. We got up early to get the cooking started, and after everything was set and the bagged turkey was in the oven, we went back to bed. But not for long. The house filled with smoke when the bag caught fire and burned down to the liquid line. Then we almost dumped the whole thing in the floor getting it out of the ash-filled pan, but finally got it cleaned off and back in the oven. As I recall, Thanksgiving dinner was served late that day.

We did not, however, do as badly as a local restaurant, whose deep-fried turkey operation went up in flames early Thursday morning, depriving 125 customers of the Cajun-fried turkeys they were planning on serving in just a few hours! Fortunately, they had set up the fry stations out back, so at least the restaurant itself didn't go up in smoke.

And while we did not enter into the Black Friday shopping frenzy (except online), we did get out and go shopping on Friday for normal stuff, like groceries. We even braved Wal Mart, but stayed in the grocery section and kept purchases under 20 items so as to be able to use the Express lane. Pretty, daring, if you ask me. We might have encountered the lady who used pepper spray to hold off all the other shoppers while she made her selection.

Enjoyed the historic UT-A&M football game - especially the way it turned out. Someone said, "UT won the first one, won the last one, and won the majority of the ones in the middle." I have to gloat a bit; when A&M made their last touchdown with only a couple of minutes to play, Barb packed it in. I was able, a few minutes later, to stick my head in and say, "Oh ye of little faith."

While preparing breakfast the other morning we began hearing a strange noise - something between a small animal in distress and an alarm of some kind. Could not locate the source. Stuck my head outside - nope, coming from in the house. Strongest in the kitchen, Wait, now strongest in the dining room. Something in the attic? Not in any other part of the house. This is really annoying; the eggs are getting cold but how can we sit down to a peaceful breakfast with Eeep! Eeep! Eeep! going on in the background? Wait! It's...it's...coming from Barb's pocket! It was a game app that somehow got punched up!

It appears that in Austin, the F in F1 stands for Flop, not Formula. Anybody want to buy 500 acres of scraped ground in Southeast Travis County? It's out of character, but at least the City and the State didn't sink any up-front money into this boondoggle. Yet.

And this sort of sums it up for me.

 

Enjoy your week.