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We went over to have Thanksgiving with the Bee-clan yesterday. I brought green bean casserole, scalloped potatoes, and cauliflower. Also I made gravy. The green beans and the potatoes I was able to make in advance so they just needed to be heated through, but the gravy and the cauliflower I made on location. The result of this was that I spent 3 hours standing over a hot stove defending the hot cooking surfaces from the questing toddler fingers, dodging other cooks, and chit-chatting with J. You'd think that standing around in a hot room doing Toddler Ninja and cooking for an extended period of time would have been stressful, but when I sat down to dinner, I found that I was relaxed enough for all of the joints in my body to crackle and pop for the first time in months. Hmm, maybe I should have known that from how after driving for 5 hours, we got to Matt and Erika's house and I said, "I'd really like to relax, so would it be okay if I cooked you dinner instead of going out to eat?" Clearly this means that I need a kitchen that lends itself to having people over and cooking for them more often :-) What's odd is that even with the kitchen the way it is, we regularly used to end up with 10 or 15 people crammed around the cedar trunk in the microscopic breakfast nook every month when we were still doing Last Saturdays. The kitchen, whatever the configuration, is still the heart of the house. |
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The couple who have been the janitors at the Arbor for 6 years were in an horrible car accident. The husband died, the wife is in critical condition. They have no insurance, and 3 small children. To ice the cake, they have no relatives in the area, so the children are staying with their pastor. If you are in the area of the Arbor, and have a couple of bucks you don't particularly need, we've got some collection tins going. |
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I found out a couple of things recently (during a conversation with my half-sister) that I did not know. The two of us are in the process (many years after his death) of choosing a marker for our Dad's grave. It's a long story, but suffice it to say that a marker is in the works and it'll be small and granite and beautiful and have a Masonic emblem on it and it's been a long time coming. Got an excellent deal on it and both of us (and, hopefully, Dad!) are very pleased. While talking about the gravestone, my sister mentioned that our Dad lived in Corpus Christi at one time and was the manager of a movie theatre there. I knew that--knew that he had arranged to have an ambulance parked outside for the opening of the Boris Karloff movie (Frankenstein) in order to promote the idea that the flick was scary enough to stop someone's heart! Knew that he had come up with several such promotions which made him a very successful employee. Knew that he evidently loved that kind of work and was very good at it. What I did not know is that Sis said that she used to own a silent, 35mm print of my Dad emceeing a stage show at this same theatre. She said he was doing a bang-up job and that he was wearing a white suit! A white suit. During the last twenty years of his life (the twenty that included me), Dad drank and had a great sense of humor and drank and was the projectionist at the Tower Theatre in Seminole and drank and owned his own print shop and drank and was a superb graphic artist and drank. Never once did I suspect that perhaps one of the reasons he drank was that he missed being onstage. Missed the attention. Missed the spotlight. Missed the excitement. I wish I had known. Maybe I would have insisted on burying him in a white suit. |
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My fridge hasn't been working 100% for quite some time. Sometime last night if finally decided to give up. Of course, at that time, it was stuffed to the gills with Thanksgiving leftovers. ::sigh:: As it was still cool, and everything was cool to the touch, I moved all the food to a neighbor's fridge, and will be very careful before I eat any of it. I called the dealer that sold me the fridge, got their recommendation for a repair shop (one that's actually factory trained for dealing with my brand of fridge.) Of course, the repair shop is closed until Monday. I just--ack. Didn't need this. I keep thinking that in February I'm going to go into debt and tear out everything in my kitchen and redo it. Again. I want a fridge that consistently works and an oven that has an even temperature. Besides, I need to fix all these things before I sublease my place anyway. . . I had other ramblings but I'm going to just go with this for now. |
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I imagine some of my American friends may find themselves feeling a little stressed today. Here are some videos which I guarantee will put a smile back on your face: SOME SUPER-TALENTED MONKEYS </div> WHERE THE HELL IS MATT? Courtesy of IT’S VADERTIME courtesy of
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Happy 50th anniversary, Mom & Dad!! |
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Patrick Rothfuss' Worldbuilders, a charity fundraiser, will start on Monday Last year I thought I'd try to raise a couple thousand dollars for my favorite charity. However I underestimated the awesomeness of my fans and the geek community at large. Things quickly spiraled out of control, and in the end we raised over $110,000 for Heifer International. That's a lot of money. This year there will be fabulous prizes, auctions, and tons of stuff to buy. *** We had a great Thanksgiving, with a trip to the zoo, plus a day of much eating. Today we're probably going to an Indian restaurant for lunch and hit Murder by the Book. |
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I'd like to thank everyone who gave feedback about how you'd like me to format these weekly link selections. The general consensus was to keep doing them the same way, so here’s my selection of interesting (and sometimes amusing) posts about writing from the last week: Connecting with fans Idea-Man Using Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc. to expand your author brand 7 Reasons Agents Stop Reading Your First Chapter (litagentguide) The Real Magic When Can You Query Agents? How Do You Know if Your Project is Ready? (litagentguide) Are titles really THAT important? In a word, YES! Why My Books are Not My Babies The Top 10 Myths About E-books (Nathan Bransford) Writing as Performance 2001: A Who Odyssey courtesy of Building A World You Can Live In What all synopses should have If you have a particular favorite among these, please let the author know (and me too, if you have time). Also, if you've a link to a great post that isn't here, feel free to share.
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This is something that I think my mom trimmed out of a newspaper 25 years ago, but I've never been able to find it online. I finally found the spiral notebook where I scrawled my transcription when I cooked my first Thanksgiving dinner, so I'm putting it down here for posterity. BTW, I have no idea why it's called "a la Playboy". 2 lbs FRESH cauliflower. (this, as I found out today, means a 2 lb head of cauliflower, not 2 lb of florets. I doubled the recipe, and it was fine. Also, I tried this once with frozen cauliflower, and the florets were bitter and awful. Buyer beware.)
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I based this onPaula Deen's green bean casserole, but I've made enough modifications that I'm re-writing it up for myself. Ingredients
DirectionsFrench Fried Onions:
Store in airtight container.
House Seasoning:1 teaspoon
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The Aether Age anthology Hadley Rille Books will publish The Aether Age, edited by m-brane sf's Chris Fletcher, and author Brandon Bell, to be released in 2010. Suppose that the course of human history had been different. Suppose that over five thousand years ago, something happened in the Mediterranean basin, and perhaps all over the planet, that took all of human progress on a radically different path. Suppose, also, that something was different with nature itself and the Earth moved through space, shrouded in a vast life-sustaining cloud of unknown origin. This is a world where the printing press was used to propagate the philosophies of ancient Greece, where Pharaohs sailed in airships as Egyptian imperial grandeur reached its height, where mechanized armies clashed on the battlefields of Mesopotamia, and where interplanetary space itself came within the reach of brilliant, struggling humans all those centuries ago. |
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The Girl Genius comic for Friday, November 27, 2009 has been posted. |
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4300 words into the day. 7 scenes left to go to call this novel done. Dinner in 30 minutes. Must finish this novel before the proofs for book 1 arrive. |
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