Month: November 2023

Happy it’s just a cold

I came down with a cold – tested for Covid twice 24 hours apart like a good girl – and both tests came back negative. One presumes it’s a garden variety cold. I don’t feel horrible, but I don’t feel great. Still, I’m happy it’s just a cold.

My sister got Covid for the first time last week, and she is doing well now, but she was quite ill, and I wouldn’t trade places with her for anything.

Oh, for the days when E. coli was the worst thing you brought home from the grocery store!

So much has changed since this virus came into our lives. I always had an aversion to large groups, and I felt bad about being somewhat anti-social, but now I just roll with it. So-called experts will say that’s well and good now, but you’ll die of loneliness. I don’t know. I’ve read about a lot of people who lead solitary lives, and they seem pretty happy to me.

For in-person social connections, I have the women’s golf club, but that’s the extent of it. Against my better judgment, I agreed to be secretary for two years, so there’s no turning back. One of the women started calling me Madam Secretary, and I must say, I rather like it.  

We’re a week out from Thanksgiving. Dale ordered a fresh Diestel turkey – 14 pounds – and we eventually eat every bit of it. I’m known in these parts as Side Dish Mama … which means I will be making green beans, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce. I’m also making apple pie and homemade vanilla ice cream.

They sure are proud of those Madagascar vanilla beans. We ought to banish the term plain vanilla since there’s nothing plain about vanilla these days. I needed two beans, which is what came in a jar, and I think it was $15. But I made the same ice cream last year, and it’s worth every penny. I suppose I will make it a few days ahead in case something horrible happens and I have to get some from the store. Nothing like a positive attitude.

Apple pie used to give me fits, but I think I’ve got it now. For apples, I use half Granny Smith and half Honeycrisp. For crust, half butter and half lard. Plus, my beloved Emile Henry ceramic pie pan.

After reading the book about ultra-processed foods, I avoid Crisco. Good quality lard is your friend! We like lard from the farmer’s market, or we buy US Dreams leaf lard on Amazon. Most of the stuff you see at the grocery store is hydrogenated.

Dale and I usually drink Pinot Noir with our Thanksgiving dinner, and we have a nice one from Navarro in the queue. We visited the winery in Mendocino County a year or so ago and loved their wines. They have good deals for 1 cent shipping if you live in a place where they can ship wine. We especially like their Gewurztraminer and other whites.

Oh, and for art, I’m happy to present Number 41. It might be one of my favorites. See if any of you New Mexico art fans can identify a little inspiration on the right side of the board. My rendition is pretty pitiful, but it’s the thought that counts, right?

A reader recently said she was considering art as a retirement hobby but couldn’t draw much more than stick figures. Just so you know, I’m still terrible at drawing freehand, although I do like my quirky cats. I traced and transferred most of the images on this piece. Once I have a penciled outline, I burn them in with my pyrography tool and eventually paint.

If you are inexperienced at art, I think the trick is to say, ok, I’m going to try art, and I will show up with whatever I have. It’s your art, so it doesn’t have to be anything other than what you are able to create.

Election anxiety

As I said in my last post, I’m struggling with election anxiety and am preparing myself for the worst so I don’t go into shock. I’ve rehearsed in my head how I will stay calm if it all goes to hell. Then I woke up to the news Sunday morning.

The New York Times reported on a poll showing Biden trailing Trump in five critical swing states. I can’t imagine how that’s possible, and it is simply overwhelming. I was in a funk before I even got out of bed, and that was when I realized I have to get serious about detaching.

The U.S. presidential election is a year away, polls are notoriously unreliable and I refuse to be miserable for the duration. I do love The New York Times and will continue to enjoy my subscription, but I don’t need the headlines delivered to my inbox.

My bad. I signed up for all these newsletters – one in the morning, one at night … plus a few others that seemed intriguing at the time. I went into my account and canceled about six newsletter feeds, and it was like doing quick release on the Instant Pot … a big burst of steam exiting my body.

I don’t miss any of them. The news is still there if I want it. Sometimes I just bypass the headlines and go straight to games. There’s a new one called Connections. I think you have to be a subscriber to play. The game shows a grid of 16 words. You get four tries to put the words into four groups that share a common thread. Here’s the official description:

The game is fun, but it’s tricksy. There might be five words that would seem to share a thread, and you have to figure out which one doesn’t belong. Makes you think in different ways … which is usually a good thing.

It has been a bit chilly playing golf early, and my winter wardrobe sucks. I remember being cold a lot last year, so I headed over to REI and threw some money at it. I bought some good thermal underwear (as opposed to the cheap stuff I bought last year), wool socks and a fleece neck gaiter.

We started the round yesterday with the temperature in the high 40s. And I was super toasty! I had multiple layers, so it was easy to peel them off as it warmed up. I was surprised by what a difference the socks made. If you spend a lot of time outside, I believe good quality layers are key.

I watched Nyad on Netflix with Annette Benning playing the long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad and Jodie Foster playing her friend and trainer Bonnie Stoll … both actors are in their 60s. As a recreational swimmer, I was naturally interested in the movie, but I was surprised by how good it was. I especially loved how the movie depicted older women.

As for reading, I splurged and bought the new Lincoln Lawyer book. Resurrection Walk by Michael Connelly. It’s all ready to go on my Kindle, but I haven’t started it yet. I’m excited. Oh, and I think Harry Bosch is in the book!

Dale did roast chicken last night, so today I’m making mini-pot pies for the freezer. I used to love the Marie Callender pies from the supermarket, but these homemade pies are so much better. There’s still some chicken left, so Dale is making quesadillas tonight. Yum.

So, tips for election anxiety. Less news. More food. More games. More books. More movies. More walks. More of anything that makes you happy.

The purpose of hobbies

I had a beautiful run of good golf, so I’ve been playing a lot, trying to savor the last of the good weather, and as it turns out, my good golf. What a game. It must be there are just a few people who can play consistently well. For the rest of us, it’s mostly bitter disappointment mitigated by tiny spurts of proficiency and eternal hope.

But that’s why I have lots of hobbies. So disappointment is a moving target.

I’m thinking the key is diversity of interests. When you get pissed off at one, move on to the next until you can come back and play nice with the others.

And so, with golf turning out to be such treacherous jerk, I turned to my friend Art and completed Number 40!

For some strange reason, I went with a Christmas theme. You may recall I don’t like Christmas all that much, although I’m into the food part and regularly make decorated cookies and other holiday treats. I think I wanted to see if I could capture some of the iconic images of the season.

As it happens, I actually like Number 40! Maybe it will make a believer out of me. Probably not, but I still like it.

I haven’t decided whether I should hang it on the wall with all the others or box it up with almost nonexistent holiday decorations and trot it out sometime in December. We have a big nutcracker from Germany, and that’s about it for seasonal décor, so I’m leaning toward another brick on the wall.

That reminds me last year I convinced Dale not to get a tree, so I suppose I will have to go along with that mess this year. I’d better start preparing myself now. By the way, I’m doing that with politics, too. Preparing myself for the worst so whatever happens won’t be such a shock. I’ve already rehearsed in my head how I will stay calm if it all goes to hell.

Anyway, I do like the tree in the end, particularly the part where Dale decorates and I drink Single Malt Scotch. But overall, I see Christmas trees as a long run for the short slide.

Aside from bad golf and visions of sugar-plums, I was feeling sad that I finished the Easy Rawlins series by Walter Mosley. I prowled around the internet to see if there was a new one on the horizon. There isn’t, but I found a six-book series by Mosley featuring Leonid McGill. I’m in the library queue for the first one, so I should get that next week.

Current reading is the Longmire series by Craig Johnson. As for the books, I like them but don’t love them. I used to say that about men. With a few exceptions, it mostly still applies.

Free from Amazon Prime was a twister called Twenty Years Later by Charlie Donlea. It’s about a woman accused of murder and headed for a trial when she is killed on 9/11. An investigative reporter starts unraveling the story 20 years later, and there are surprises everywhere. I enjoyed it.

Have you seen Killers of the Flower Moon? I haven’t read the book, and I was thinking about doing that first, but this might be one time when the movie wins. However, I haven’t been to a theater in years, and I’m not sure I can sit for 3.5 hours. Still, I actually think I might rather sit in a theater for that duration as opposed to my living room …

Fewer distractions and the popcorn is better!