Thanksgiving

Caution! Bridge Freezes Before Roadway

We went for a morning walk along a section of the OC&E Trail that we hadn’t been on yet. I wanted to walk someplace different and we both wanted something paved, so as not to have to remove the very cement-like mud from our shoes that developes this time of year.

Plus there were a couple geocaches to find along this 2 mile section. We found the first, but didn’t find the second. Although the temperature was still in the upper 20s at 10:30 AM, the sunny sky and near zero wind made for a pleasant stroll.

The afternoon was spent watching NFL football. Every time there was a commercial for Black Friday or Cyber Monday I would wonder what they were talking about. Maybe because I found it hard to believe it was still Thanksgiving weekend having had our turkey & fixings meal a whole week ago. And between lunch and dinner today, not counting the white bean turkey chili we still have some of, all the leftovers are gone.

I printed out return address and address labels, then stuck them on the envelopes, for our old school Christmas cards. While Donna, bless her heart, hand wrote a short to medium personal note inside each and everyone of the 46 cards. They go out in the mail tomorrow, so if you don’t get yours in the next 4 or 5 days, you must been added to the naughty list this year.

Happy Early Thanksgiving Day

Yesterday when I posted the photo of newly decorated Christmas tree to Instagram I kiddingly said we might just go ahead and have Thanksgiving dinner today. Well, it turns out I wasn’t kidding.

When we finally found our smaller dream sized 11 pound bird last Friday we didn’t have a room in the freezer for it. We put it in the mini fridge downstairs and cranked the knob to max cold, but by yesterday the bird was pretty much thawed out. This meant waiting until Thursday to cook it might not be that smart of an idea.

Seeing as we had already purchased every thing we needed for T-Day on our previous grocery shopping expedition, we just moved the holiday meal up 4 days.

For this coming Thursday, we’ll snag a couple of slices of pumpkin pie at the downtown market to go with some leftovers.

Happy Thanksgiving

“What kind of Thanksgiving dinner is this? Where’s the turkey, Chuck? Don’t you know anything about Thanksgiving dinners? Where’s the mashed potatoes? Where’s the cranberry sauce? Where’s the pumpkin pie?” – Peppermint Patty

Because we are still firmly ensconced in the AirBnB we decided that instead of trying to find a really small turkey or do a turkey breast we picked up a couple of Cornish game hens. We used to do these as a regular meal a long time ago, but stopped for some reason, and remembered them fondly. We did a couple of baked potatoes along with corn for me and carrots for her.

Either our memories are faulty, possible, our tastes have changed, also possible, or they have started breeding these hens to be more like turkeys because the breasts seemed overly large in comparison to the rest of the bird and it tasted pretty bland. Turns out we really missed the mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing and apple pie flavors. We may have to search out a local restaurant next week that is serving a Thanksgiving-like meal…

59,000 Things I’m Thankful For

1. My morning person wife.
We got up on Turkey Day at 5:30, the same time as on a normal work day to drive up to Hendersonville, NC.

2. My patient wife.
To visit my sister and her husband and have our Thanksgiving meal at their community pot luck.

3. My carefree wife.
But before getting to their house we traveled 25 miles past them to the north into Asheville.

4. My curious wife.
To take a picture of an Inspirational Woman’s Monument she found after hours of internet searching.

5. My lovely wife.
Who posed in the near freezing temperatures by a very Large Flat Iron sculpture in downtown for a Motoring point.

6. My flexible wife.
Then when we were stymied in getting the Woman’s statue photo by thousands of runners participating in a Turkey Trot and Gobble Wobble, Donna shrugged and said, “We’ll come back again early tomorrow.”

7. My generous wife.
At the Black Friday sale at Mast General Store she let me buy a $40 hoodie I wanted, but didn’t really need, while she bought a gift to give away at the upcoming MMC Christmas Party.

8. My understanding wife.
She understands that there is no way I can come up with 58,992 more of these.

The CTBNL passed through the 59,000 mile mark a few miles north of Saluda, SC on the way up to North Carolina.

Turkey Eating Season Began Today

Working at ASCO still has a few perks and one of which is once every quarter they feed us a meal. In essence, at the Valve Store, there is such a thing as a free lunch. The fourth quarter calendar year meal is always in November and is always a traditional Thanksgiving style meal. That meal was today.

For as long as I can remember the meal has been catered by the same folks who fill the vending machines in our “cafeteria.” By some quirk in our vending contract with them, we were stuck with them supplying all the quarterly meals, and it was not always very good. The last couple of years Donna and I discussed maybe just going out to lunch on the day to avoid it, but never did. This year that company ceased its catering business. So, so far this year we’ve had a couple other vendors for the previous meals and this was to be no exception. A local chicken finger mini-chain place was tapped to do it and for the first time in a while the turkey dinner was pretty darn tasty.

This was just the beginning of the season. The real Thanksgiving is 8 days away where I will once more over-stuff myself at my sister’s neighborhood pot luck turkey day meal.

A little over two weeks later is the Miata Club’s Holiday party where we are having it catered in the manner of a full fledged Thanksgiving feast.

Then 6 days later the Fabrication Department holds their holiday meal which is, you guessed it, a turkey and ham led potluck meal with all that entails.

And the company’s salaried group usually has one of these too, so depending on the date, I’ll get one more crack at turkey, taters, stuffing, green beans, mac & cheese, deviled eggs and enough desserts to kill a couple dozen diabetics before never eating turkey again until November 2018.