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Thursday, November 22, 2018
Monday, November 6, 2017
Two Toms!
Aargh! We found another inflatable turkey in our basement, so we switched it out with the new one I foolishly bought last night.
Sunday, November 5, 2017
Monday, December 3, 2012
Thanksgiving Day 2012
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Thanksgiving 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
The tail end of November 2010
"Put a fish head up your butt" a chant the kids started while marching around the house this morning, after I told Smiley to "get your head outta your butt" and find his shoes.
My column will appear in the Thanksgiving edition of the Journal-Sentinel. Please buy a copy or read it online.My column will appear in the Thanksgiving edition of the Journal-Sentinel. Please buy a copy or read it online.
Nov 25th
If you want to shine, ya gotta polish
I just stayed up way too late to finish "Predators". I'll pay for it in the morning, but the film was a pleasant suprise. Very entertaining for an action sequel, esp one in a franchise I thought had been bled dry. Well worth a rental.
Went out to Thanksgiving lunch, returned to watch NO-DAL, now watching Taylor Swift on NBC. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving too.
Nov 26th
Saw an old Genesis concert video on 4.3. Without ? Phil Collins is the dorkiest, least sexy frontman in history.
Allow a man to keep his pride and you can be less worried about keeping your scalp when he's back on his feet
36.5 WMVT aka MPTV Jazz = one of the few reedeming graces of being limited to broadcast TV.
Gadzooks I'm tired, and I haven't even goneto work yet.
Nov 27th
I expected the worst from 'Robin Hood' but all in all it was impressive. Very little to do w/ the legend at all, tho they try to correct w/ a lame postscript. The streak holds; I've yet to see a bad Russell Crowe movie.
We're watching "Eat, Pray, Love" and it is torture. How can someone make a movie this rambling and dull and not hang their head in shame?
From one extreme to another: The Expendables was fun from start to finish. Ah, maybe w/ another cast it would have been a B movie, but w/ the Justice League of freakin' action heroes involved it was a hoot.
Nov 29th
"From Paris With Love" is a fun but mindless action romp, & John Travolta's character single handedly steals the show. At least he did until the 3rd act, when he stopped being a delightful maniac and got all serious. Boo to that :) Travolta alone was worth the rental fee.
Here's Smiley with many of the Home Depot project badges he's earned.
RIP Leslie Nielsen, age 84.
RIP Irvin Kershner (sp?), director of "Empire Strikes Back"
While I would normally relish this Administration looking the fool, I would never want it @ the expense of our nation. Those connected to the Wikleaks fiasco are willingly putting our standing & safety at risk. The source - Pfc Manning, IIRC - is a treasonous jacka** who deserves whatever we throw @ him.
Here's Lu over the summer at my friend Erv's house in IL
Some pics of YaYa at a bakery we visit while waiting for her dance class to begin
A grumpy Ginger:
YaYa is all pissy because I got angry when she took my phone & made a pic of the kids my wallpaper. Whatever. My kids are important to me, but they aren't my complete universe. I'm allowed to have snippets of a life unrelated to being a parent.
Nov 30th
I'vebeen up since 5:30 running errands. Time to sit down and enjoy Season 4 of Hell's Kitchen. Now F* off you donkeys!
After ~ 2 wks w/out the net, we're back online as of 6:47. I still say AT&T was doing what AT&T does best during the delay - give you half-ass service due to a near monopoly - but they have gone ahead and credited our account w/ 2 free months of service. It doesn't make up for the damage to my farm (crops withered, co-ops lost *sob*) but it's a start.
Today's Family Night: homemade fajitas we shared w/ friends, then Olivia off to skating w/ a buddy while the others watched 'The Sorceror's Apprentice' and I dealt w/ AT&T.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Thanksgiving
We served turkey and ham, mashed potatoes, stuffing, creamed corn, deviled eggs, cranberry sauce, peas and carrots, rolls, pumpkin pie, brownies, and apple pie.
[Lisa had sent me to do the grocery shopping with instructions to bring home fresh cranberry sauce - not the stuff in the can - and misinterpreting this I brought home five pounds of fresh cranberries. Not a terrible loss, as they were on sale for 99 cents a pound, but only YaYa, Queen of Sour Foods, will eat them.]
After that it was on to a division of the sexes worthy of a second rate comedian's bit; the women in the dining room talking for hours, the men in the living room watching the awful NFL games.
[which, btw, goes to show I'm right: the NFL should reserve the right to alter game opponents in season, so as best showcase their product. Who here wanted to watch the lousy Lions that day? Heck, who in Detroit wanted to watch them?]
Longtime readers may note the absence of my mother-in-law and her husband and sister in the photos. No family division there, they simply had other obligations.
While watching the Lions pretend to be professional football players, my father in-law and I got into it a bit. He's a fawing Favre lover. I'm on the other side of the issue, hoping the guy gets run over by a bus, which, yeah, is a little extreme. Maybe just an SUV, ok?
Anyhow, we had a few minutes of enjoyable testosterone and turkey fueled banter that included a few strong words about one another. He started quoting Terry Bradshaw on the subject, and I couldn't hold it in any longer.
'Terry Bradshaw's a f*ing Redneck and he's always been in man-love with that hillbilly. He'd bear him a bleeping lovechild if his neighbors in the trailer park wouldn't object."
Ah, it was fun. Brings a tear to my eye, it does. :)
I'm a big fan of Photobucket, but in my experience the site never seems to properly save your edits. For that reason I've pretty much given up on doing red-eye corrections on pics stored on that site. Sorry :(
Friday, November 23, 2007
Thanksgiving '07
We had the family get-together at our house. My immediate family of 6, my folks, my sisters, my sister's kids, and my mother-in-law. That's 14 people, and that's with three no-shows (my wife's aunt and boyfriend, and my step-father-in-law were ill).
That's a lot of people for one house but we found room for 'em all. Adults in one room, kids in another.
Lisa's not too happy about the following pics of her 22 pound turkey. "It looks burnt from that angle. Why didn't you take the shot from the side instead of right down it's neck?"
Well, okay.. ..
Anywho, it isn't burnt, it's the rub Lisa applied below the skin. She also cooked it breast-down to let the bird cook more evenly and prevent the white meat from drying out. Personally, I grew up on dry white meat and found myself a bit knocked out of whack eating juicy meat, but that's just me. Otherwise, wonderful.
The rest of the menu? Mashed potatoes, an EXCELLENT stuffing, fresh steamed broccoli, cream style corn, biscuits, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, gravy, shrimp, and an assortment of desserts. Oh, and formula and rice cereal for the youngest in attendance.
YaYa said the prayer:
"For food and for the roof above us
and light and warmth and
those who love us,
We give thanks"
-Aileen Fisher
Since it was at our house the event was a bit stressful, and most of the guests showed up between 20-30 minutes late!, but all-in-all a great holiday.
And my Mom, for the first time ever, managed to make it up the stairs to view my remodeled second floor, last seen by her as an unfinished attic 40 years ago.
What can I say? Parker got the holiday confused with Halloween.
Thursday, November 25, 2004
November 25th - The One about my Kid at Thanksgiving
Yesterday I enjoyed an (early) Thanksgiving meal with an Agnostic-leaning Democrat who called my political views a 'sickness' and announced he would not travel to Texas because, as the Reddest of the Red States, it would make him burn 'like the Devil walking into a church.'.
Ahh. Family.
In truth, it was a pleasant evening. My brother-in-law's comments seemed tongue-in-cheek, his new bride was gracious, and the food was good. (although he chose not to serve turkey. I assume it to be a protest against some policy of Dubya's, but I did not have the heart to inquire.)
The only sore point of the evening was my offspring.
And even that's debatable. There are limits to what you can expect of a three-year old, especially a three-year-old coming off a 'visit to Grandma's' hangover. She was tired, she was frazzled, and she was sitting in front of a place setting worth more than my living room set.
So I should feel grateful she didn't break any dishes, start a food fight, belch, or pick her nose at the table. (well, to be honest, she did pick her nose. And ate it. I'd scold her more for that but it just seems so . . . hypocritical)
I should be grateful that all she did was refuse to eat more than the occasional scrap, claim she was tired and rest her head on my shoulder at the table, things of that nature. Once, she got up from the dinner and wandered off. That's pretty much it. Not even the least of the havoc my three-year old is capable of producing.
No, my problem is that she always - and I stress always - chooses to wig out around people without children of their own.
I am not singling out my in-laws here, for in fact they were gracious and seemed amused. But the fact is, somewhere, maybe buried so deep they don’t even know it's there, is a voice that said "hmph. My kids will have better manners. Don’t they know how to discipline?"
Whereas, if my kids proceeded to set fire to the family dog of another parent (preferably a parent with kids the same age), that same inner voice would be saying "Aww, I remember when little Timmy did that. It seems like only yesterday. They grow up so fast . . ."
Now when I was young and naïve I too believed I would rule as a despot. Mychildren would be seen and not heard, save for when I asked them to bring me the remote or grab me another can from the fridge, at which point they would say, "yes Daddy. Would you like your paper too?"
Sadly, this dream proved unrealistic. You cannot logically convince a four-month old to do your errands, even if the lazy little bugger could walk. And when they are old enough to walk and talk and sit and eat their spinach they are far too bourgeois to submit to serfdom.
A bitter pill to swallow, that one. A bitter, bitter pill. And yet I hold out hope.
Not for my children, you understand. I think they'll turn out just fine.
No, I hold out hope for all those future-parents out there. I sincerely hope that they discover the key to raising the Stepford child, and pass the knowledge on to future generations. But I hope it takes awhile.
Say, long enough for my grandchildren to frustrate their parents.