Christmas

Food update: only one food was almost left behind. The salad. We don't really have a rule established to deem when one is "almost forgotten" versus "forgotten" so I'm just making one up now: if it's more than halfway through the meal, then we forgot it.

The weird event or discussion of the year: it had to be the pam®. Listen now, I told Brooke she should blog on this, and she deferred. I can't do it justice becausSe I was laughing too hard (complete with tears streaming down my face) to hear parts of it. So here are snippets.

--sorry for all the ® but I don't want to get sued for patent infringement--

JR (my bro): A friend had "Spam®Fest '98" at a house in Manzanita, and JR happened to be in town with his in-laws. JR located Spam® at the local market. Not just regular Spam®, thank you, but Special Edition Hickory Spam®. Knock, knock, "I have Spam®, can I come in?"

JR: "You know Monthy Python invented Spam®."

Mom: "He did not."

JR: "Yes, in my mind, he did because of the xxx episode..."

www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8huXkSaL7o

JR: "And there was the time Joan made a whole dinner of Spam®."

Joan: "Well we had to do something with it. Bill keeps buying all these cans of Spam®."

JR: "She made Spam®, Spam®, Spam®, and sausage Spam®."

Another thread: Mom, "There's some place in the midwest that has a Spam® festival." So out comes the smart phone. Lo and behold, there is more than one Spam festival®. One is on the delta (Mississippi? unclear) and “Women dominated the Spam® Festival. The sculpting winner presented a small bear, while another woman defeated a group of men by eating a can of Spam® in under four minutes,” said Joe. “A group of girls also won the Spam® toss.”

JR: "I ordered a special-edition Spam® from Hawaii."

Mom/Julie/Brooke in unison: "But why?"

More than one person pointed out that Hawaii is the top per-capita Spam® consumer, and not just by a little bit.

If you want to know more about Spam® (but: why?), here's a link: www.spam.com/games/Museum/default.aspx
Oh hey! Spam® is the same age as my mom!

note the "aura" shining around the Spam® museum picture.

Group tours of the museum are a popular activity. Seriously?

Update on forgetting food.

Long ago I wrote about forgetting Thanksgiving food. See: http://juliebike.blogspot.com/2009/11/thanksgiving-and-forgettin-stuff.html

Update: this year it was the cranberry sauce! Yes, near the end of dinner Mike asked, "Honey, didn't we have cranberry sauce?"

Oh, yes. Usually he makes it, but I did it this year. Two batches, one regular and one sugar-free. I put it in the "outside fridge" which means on the table on the patio.

Don't you just love traditions?

Wheelchair

Mike might be headed for the wheelchair again. In fact, we used it for shopping today. Tomorrow 8:00 am the orthopedic doc's phone is gonna be a'ringin'.

He's using the walker around the house. Taking oxycodone for the pain.

We just talked about whether we'll be able to go to the Civil War this weekend. Plan A, if he can't walk, might be to make it a day trip (camping in the trailer would be out of the question) and we would switch to wheelchair seating like we did last year. Plan B would be to get the tickets to Dianne/Joe.

More later, stay tuned. Oh, and think happy thoughts.

Post-election recap

Supposedly Clark County has a high percentage of educated citizens. My measure is a demographic that shows 22% with bachelor's degree or higher.

So WHY did the majority (barely) vote in a candidate for County Clerk (Clerk of the Courts) who has NO experience, training, or clue of what the position requires? And he will get paid over $90,000 a year. Of course he says he wants to eliminate the position to save money, but he doesn't have the authority to do that.

(Technical explanation: counties are required to elect a clerk of the courts, unless they have adopted a "home rule charter" which sets out different offices or appointments.)

The liquor store answer

Yes, Mom gets the prize (XOXOXO). Brooke and I were at the liquor store to buy

...drum roll...

Apple brandy for a recipe, not for general consumption. I've done a lot of different things with apples this fall, so the next natural step was apple butter. Yummy, although it does have a lot of natural sugars in it from the apples, apple brandy, apple cider, and apple juice concentrate. And then we add brown sugar! Although I only used half of what the recipe called for.

Fun "kid" stuff

Fun couple of days. Last night for Bill's birthday (early) at Tony Starlight's -- a Neil Diamond tribute. Bill, Ayn, me, Mom, Brooke, Nate, Dianne (and other friends of Bill's). He got geeky things for his birthday of course, including one of Leonard Nimoy's books of poetry from Brett aka Tony.

Glad I didn't drink. Had a headache most of today, possibly from MSG in the dinner and/or just plain old being up too late. Or maybe because Mike woke all of us up in the morning with a VERY loud fall in the utility room.

Breakfast was pancakes, fruit. We gave Nate part of his birthday present early, a certificate for tickets to a Ducks basketball game at the new Matt Knight Court. He had to get that one right away, because the arrangements have to be made in less than two weeks.

Dianne and I went to Freddie's in the morning, then later Brooke, Dianne, and I shopped: Target, Ikea, Columbia Sportswear. Oh, yes, then Brooke and I stopped in the liquor store real quick. Hmm, maybe I won't explain that one! Okay it's a deal: I will give my four readers a chance to comment/guess, then I will tell you later the real deal.

We came back and "the boys" were watching the Ducks game of course. The Salem group headed home. Mike and I watched a disappointing loss for the Beavers, literally lost in THE last second.

Okay, almost nine o'clock. It's time to catch up on some sleep. zzzzzzzz

Tooth, sleep, or not

Mike had a tooth extracted yesterday, 14 hours ago. The clot isn't forming, and of course we're not going to call the oral surgeon at 3:00 in the morning now. So he's sort of sleeping in his recliner, still trying to maintain gauze on the socket. And I've slept off and on in the other chair. I don't think there have been any REM cycles

The morning paper gets delivered in an hour +/-, so then I can do the crossword and sudoku if I'm awake.

Gonna try for some more sleep. We'll call the surgeon's office at 8:00 and see if I should take him back in.

C'est la vie. My translation: Life Happens.