What happened after the dinner

Neither of us is very fond of turkey giblets, so we offered them to the cats.

Apparently neither of our 2 current cats are fond of or even very interested in turkey giblets.

I took the pro-offered and refused giblets, put them into a small recyclable plastic container, and put them out for Stranger; our unofficial barn cat.  They disappeared. So someone likes giblets.


The cobbler, yeah, hmmm

I had covered the cobbler with foil and left it on the counter. Thankfully I had used enough foil to wrap over all sides and crimp down a bit.

It is still fine, just a bit smashed. The filling pushed out of part of it into open section of pan. It will need to be eaten from a bowl, I think.

Seems that overnight some feline decided that it was in a perch spot. Said feline SAT on it.
It was heavy enough foil not to split - saving both the cobbler and the cat's rear end.

Cobbler now resides in oven.

Thanksgiving Dinner

We decided a few years ago that Thanksgiving Dinner, if it was just us two, did not need to be an overblown feast. A regular meal with some special ingredients suffices.

This year's menu was:
Roast turkey (heh, heh, heh, I win) - see previous post for explanation, if you haven't already read it
Green beans
Corn Pudding
Orange-Cranberry preserves
Pecan Pie Cobbler

I did not make the corn pudding this time, we tried Trader Joe's. It is heavier on the onion than mine and due to the cream in it is more souffle-ish. It is good. Next time I will make my own recipe again.

The orange-cranberry was also purchased at TJ's. It is heavier on the orange than we might have preferred. TJ's regular just plain cranberry preserve was too tart for my taste, thus the flavor choice.

A FB friend gave me the recipe for the Pecan Pie Cobbler. Yum!
Start with a box of prepared pie crusts, see it starts out way easy. Roll crust out to 13" x 9" size.
Make a sticky gooey filling, with lots of chopped nuts.
Crust, filling, crust, bake a few minutes.
Add rest of filling and top with pecan halves, bake a few minutes more.

I didn't buy any vanilla ice cream so the cobbler got a smoosh of whipped topping.

Yup, it's tasty. It is definitely sticky. I wonder if there is a way to make a good pecan pie without it having to be sssooo sweet?

Thanksgiving Turkey

Thanksgiving Day was Thursday.  Due to work schedule disruption, Thanksgiving Dinner will be on Friday at our house.

We found the smallest turkey we could, 11.76#, on the Saturday prior.

It was carried home in a double layer of plastic from the store. It was carried into the house and put in the kitchen sink while other groceries were put away. Then I went to move it to its "thawing" position. I picked up the double bagged bird, lifted if from the sink - and BOTH of the plastics split, dropping nearly 12# of frozen turkey onto the toes of my right foot.

Those wine bottle chiller sleeves that you keep in the freezer until needed (?) work perfectly to ice toes.

Later we went to the local ER to check the condition of my foot. It didn't hurt nearly enough to my way of thinking.

The PA told me that due to the restricted size of toes, as soon as they swell they can diminish blood flow and block nerves. She said to have ibuprofen on hand for when the swelling went DOWN.

X-ray showed toes not broken, just bruised.

Round 1 to the turkey, just wait, I have the final victory here.

The color of weather

You might know that I work in an office which has a view of Lake Union.  Over the years that view has changed due to the rise of new building, the moving of a houseboat, the removal of trees.

I know that several times a day I can expect to see a seaplane arrive or depart from the lake as the carrier has several courier and commuter runs.

In season we can see, and occasionally hear, the U.W. sculls out on the lake training.

Sometimes the lake is flat, sometimes it has whitecaps.

On foggy days I judge the fog level as to whether I can see the lake or across the lake.

The other day the sky was clear, the air was crisp, the lake surface was a definite mid-bright blue.

The day before Thanksgiving the sky was overcast, the air was chilly, the lake surface was a steely gray.

One of my small pleasures is watching the weather change the face and color pattern of the lake.

And the WINDS they do blow

This year we had a dry, mild, clear Halloween night. Practically unheard of around here. The standing Halloween joke is about the costumes that are not seen, except as flashing glimpses from under coats, as Trick-or-Treaters brave ice-y rain in order to get their candy. Neighborhood parties are quite common. As are the cars that idle down the street as parents watch their group of kids.

Naturally there is a price to pay for this weather boon.  It arrived last night, November 1st. It started with driving rain that pummeled the house. Loud enough that it woke me. That has been followed by a wind storm. We are on Alert until 8PM tonight (at the moment) because the winds are 25 mph with gusts to 60 mph.

Nope, not letting the cats out.

So far our lights have only gone out for a minute, along with a few flickers.  Just long enough that we had to reset clocks; and the "favorites" preferences on the water dispenser for the refrigerator. We are lucky, PSE is saying that they currently have 95,000 customers who have lost power. I learned this while paying bills. Hope we stay lucky.

Our backyard had a carpet of fallen leaves from the weeping birch tree (luckily trimmed this summer).

The winds picked them up and painted them on the chain link fence by the back driveway.

They are much prettier there.

R-R-R-R-R-R-Rainier

If you didn't grow up in the Pacific NW, the Seattle area in particular, you may not know that one of the most iconic older buildings in the SODO district (South end of Downtown - renamed about the time that Starbucks took over the old Sears building, and fka the industrial district) is the old Rainier Brewery.

Rainier has not brewed any beer there in many years. The old red lighted "R" came off the roof, and was put into the Museum of History and Industry (MOHI). The old brewery was re-developed into lofts and office spaces.

For the past several years it has been the property of Tully Coffee. A new sign went up on the roof, a big green "T". Yup the headquarters of the 2 biggest coffee chains around are a few blocks apart. Or were. For whatever reason, Tully had decided to move out of the building as of the end of October 2013.

They did something for the community before they left.  They commissioned a new lighted sign to go up on the roof.

Those in the "know" knew what it was going to be; others saw a big white sign bearing a ? go up on the building.

This past week a new red "R" appeared on the roof.

Now about the patchwork paint job on the building.....


After I had posted this I learned the D.W.Drang has posted a companion piece on thecluemeter.blogspot.com. The Running of the Rainiers and other of the humorous commercials for Rainier Beer. Go check them out.

A trip, a discovery, and Outstanding! customer support

Some of you know that in February of 2012 I bought myself a Baynes double drive/double treadle spinning wheel. It has done a bit of traveling and has gotten me fairly broken in on its likes and dislikes. Unfortunately it has not had much of a workout lately what with one thing and another. No, please don't ask me to explain; it's complicated and having a cast on one leg for a month is only a small part of that.

I determined to take my Baynes wheel to the Gun Blogger Rendezvous in Reno the 2nd weekend of September. I went to accompany my terrific D.W. on the trip, pretty much knowing that I was not going to be putting in any range time and would need to  entertain myself. Setting up to spin or read in the hotel pool area seemed a fine idea.

2 things stopped me.
First thing was that the Silver Legacy does not have an outside pool, only an exercise pool by the "spa" in the hotel. The only outside in the sun at the hotel is on the sidewalks around it.
Okay, we had a nice view from our 15th floor room, I could watch the hot air balloons floating out and over a neighboring hill.
Then I discovered that, somewhere along the line of moving my wheel about, I had lost the drive cord tensioning knob. OOOPS.

For non-spinners a double drive wheel can be used in double band mode with two separate drive bands and using band tension and treadle action to control speed, or in Scotch tension mode where both drive bands work as one and there is a separate tension control "brake". Not having the drive cord tensioning knob meant that the wheel could only work as Scotch tension. Think Toyota versus Cadillac. Both have their place but each has virtues of its own.

I called the distributor from whom I had purchased the wheel, Susan's Spinning Bunny in West Danby, New York. Did they sell spare parts or could they tell me how to fix it? Susan could give me only a broad idea of doing a homemade fix. She could, however, tell me who to contact at the Baynes factory in Ashburton, New Zealand; she gave me his email address. If you have ever ordered anything from Susan you know that she is a wonderfully knowledgeable and friendly lady.

Emails were exchanged between myself, describing my dilemma and asking direction, and Murray B. at the factory.

Murray told me the particulars of the part I needed including screw width, pitch, and length and the total length of the part. He told me that I could most likely replace the screw at a local hardware store but that I would have a bit more difficulty finding the weighted knob to which the screw was affixed.

And then he said "I think it would be just as easy if I sent you a new knob and threaded rod complete at no cost.", and asked if my postal address was the same as when my wheel was shipped from the factory. This offer was quite unexpected but definitely appreciated, of course I accepted.

These emails were exchanged on September 7th. The replacement part arrived September 19th.
A small replacement part at no cost and half way around the world in less than 2 weeks.
That is what I call amazing customer support. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Can I get snaps and kudos for these 2 marvelous people?
Anyone looking for a new wheel? Fiber? Spindles? Accessories? Yarn? Patterns? Knitting needles?