Thanksgiving Weekend - November 29, 2021

 

I hope you had a perfect Thanksgiving holiday.  

Ours couldn't have been much better: lots of good food and family, with a little down-time over the weekend.

On Friday, after the cooking/eating/visiting was over, I got my covid booster shot.  My first vaccine was a J&J shot, but I got the Moderna booster after reading that it ramped up the immunity a little better.  After the J&J shot, I had a headache and felt kinda bad for about a day.  I didn't know what to expect with the Moderna shot, so I scheduled it for the long weekend to give me time to recover if it made me feel crappy.  I had a bit of a headache - not bad - and was a little draggy for a couple of hours on Saturday morning.  Overall, it was not bad at all.

Good thing, too, because Saturday afternoon, Granddaughter #1 texted me to ask if she and her sisters could spend the night.  I said, "Sure!"  They got here about suppertime.  We fed them pizza and left-over chicken & dumplings.  We made things in the sewing room.  The next morning, The Nugget woke me up pretty early and helped me make biscuits.  We made round biscuits and star-shaped biscuits and Christmas tree-shaped biscuits.  She wore flour on the end of her nose for the rest of the morning.  ;)

They went home around lunchtime.  

About that time, I put on a pot of white beans to soak.  We had a ham bone and some drippings left over from Thanksgiving; they made the beans tasty.  Nanny showed up for a few minutes about the time the beans got done, and I sent a bowl full of beans home with her to keep us from having to eat beans for the next four days.  Later, I made a pan of cornbread to go with the beans.  Home-made chili sauce on top of the beans rounded out our supper.  (Guess what we're having for supper tonight.)   ;)

Thanksgiving Eve - November 24, 2021

The Best Boss in the World, being female and smart, and understanding that the day before a big food event (such as Thanksgiving dinner) is as busy - if not busier - than the day of the event, has given me the day off to cook.  

My brother woke me up with a phone call about 7 a.m.  We'd talked a few days earlier about visiting over the holiday.  His daughter and her family have come from Texas in a rented camper/van, and I'd hoped to see them before they head home. This morning's call was to let me know that today would be the best day to visit.  I'd planned to see them Friday, but since we'd need to do our visiting on the front porch (due to covid concerns) and it was supposed to be warm today, I changed my plan.  The Niece was taking the kids to the zoo in the morning, but would be home around noon.  

I'd promised to bring candied yams, a pecan cobbler, and a baked ham to Thanksgiving dinner.  Before the visit with my brother's family, I had time to boil the yams and do some other prep work.  A little before noon, I headed to my brother's house.  His visitors weren't home yet, so he and I had some rare uninterrupted time to chat.  After a while, The Niece and her family came back from the zoo.  The kids were tired and hungry.  She fed them and put them to bed, and then we had some time to visit.  

I got home mid-afternoon and commenced the cooking. The cobbler and the yams went into the oven together.  The ham a few hours before the Thanksgiving dinner, so I didn't do anything with it.  And I had time to spare.  I wanted slaw with dinner, so I made some.  

My mother used to make lemon icebox pie for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  All that was in it was lemon juice, egg yolks and sweetened condensed milk.  We didn't even cook it, just mixed it all together and poured it in a pie shell.   The Husband (and most menfolk, it seems) loves this lemon pie.  I'd bought lemons and a graham cracker pie crust earlier in the week, contemplating the pie.  There was supposed to be a can of sweetened condensed milk already in my pantry . . . . 

And there was a can.  It expired in 2020.  

Now, I'm not much of a stickler for expiration dates.  As long as the milk ain't clumpy - even if it reeks just a tad around the rim - I'm drinkin' it.  So I opened the condensed milk.  The color was a little more "golden" than I remembered.  But it was "off-brand" milk; maybe it's normal for it to be that color.  It tasted okay.  

In gathering all the ingredients for the pie, I noticed that the pie shell said, "Two extra servings!"  Upon closer inspection, the pie shell did, indeed, seem larger than normal.  The problem was that the standard lemon ice box pie recipe doesn't make a very big pie.  I needed to either double the recipe or use a smaller pie shell.  There was not another can of condensed milk in the pantry, and if there had been, there's NO TELLING how old it would've been.  So to the store I went.

Got a small pie shell (in case my lemons did not produce double the amount of juice) and two more cans of condensed milk.  Dumped the old one down the sink and started fresh.  Even micro-planed some lemon zest to sprinkle over the meringue.

Although my mother never baked her pie, I baked this one.  I hope that didn't screw up the taste.

The early bird may get the worm, but . . . November 23, 2021

 The Granddaughters and I had a successful shopping trip Sunday afternoon.  We stopped at multiple stores, looking for fancy dresses.  Granddaughter #1 needed a dress for a masquerade party.  Granddaughter #2 needed a dress for her Christmas band concert.  Granddaughter #3 didn't especially need a dress but is old enough to feel left out if her older sisters had fancy new dresses and she didn't get one, so we bought one for her, too.  (The Little Rotten Baby didn't get one.)  Everybody was happy with the choices, and we made it back safely from the city.

* * * * * * * * 

Over the weekend, a mouse ran past my foot on the back porch and scampered behind the cabinet next to where I sit when I'm working at the computer.  I baited a trap with feta cheese and eased it into his path.  Come yesterday morning, I checked the trap.  It was upside-down atop a belly-up mouse.  GOT HIM!  

Since I was about to go to work, I did not want to fool with getting the mouse out of the trap, so I left it where it was.  And promptly forgot about it.

After work, when I went out to the porch, I heard the distinctive sound of the mouse trap rattling.  I thought, "Surely that mouse is not alive."  I peeked into the crack where I'd set the trap just in time to see another mouse run behind the cabinet.  THE SECOND MOUSE HAD GOTTEN THE CHEESE!

Disposing of dead, trapped mice is usually The Husband's job, but he wasn't here, so I steeled myself and freed the mouse carcass from the trap, then I re-baited it with nice, fresh feta.  

The trap hasn't been sprung this morning.  Come get it, little dude.  You know you want it.  ;)

Re-Raspberries - November 21, 2021

The raspberry syrup that I re-cooked yesterday morning turned out more like raspberry butter.  It is delicious.  

I spent most of the day on the back porch yesterday, painting boards that Cousin Roger had brought over here earlier in the week.  I'd said to him, "What do you want painted on them?"

He said, "Maybe some of them knolls."

"Knolls?"

"You know. . . them things like you painted on that other board with their hats down over their eyes."

"Oh.  GNOMES.  On all of the boards?"

"Naw.  Just put something Christmas on all of them."

Now, I never had an original idea in my life, so I hunted on Pinterest for something to paint.  

"Knolls."  Check.  

I found a board on which was painted a cow with a wreath around its neck.  Being a country boy, I figured Roger would like a cow.  So I commenced painting.  But I got my proportions wrong, and the cow turned into a calf.  He'll just have to be happy with a calf.

* * * * * * * * 

Two weeks ago or more, Roger brought over a pair of overalls for me to "fix."  There was nothing wrong with the overalls.  The problem was his belly.  It had grown outward, and his overall galluses wouldn't meet the buttons.  He wanted me to splice in a piece of fabric to lengthen them.  

I had other things to do, so I tossed them aside in the sewing room, and have been tossing them around the sewing room ever since.  This morning, I decided to get it done.  

I've draped them over the couch on the porch.  If he waits more than a day or two to come get them, he'll probably need to shake them for lizards.

* * * * * * * * 

Granddaughter #1 called a few minutes ago.  She needs a dress for a party (and/or her Christmas concert) on December 18.  She wanted me to take her shopping.

I hate shopping.  I hate driving in the city.  But I love The Granddaughters, so I said yes, but we have to go today, for next weekend is Black Friday, and after that there'll be Christmas traffic.

It's raining today.

Wish us luck.

Raspberries - November 20, 2021

Two days ago, Nanny showed up at our back door with two boxes - about 4 cups, altogether - of fresh raspberries that her sister had given her.  The berries were about to get too ripe.  Something had to be done with them soon.

I love raspberries, but I did not want to bake with them.  Raspberry syrup seemed like a good idea.

There are lots of raspberry syrup recipes online.  The general idea seems to be twice as many raspberries as sugar, and twice as much sugar as water.  So I washed the berries, measured out two cups of sugar and a cup of water, and set it to boiling on the stove.  When the sugar dissolved, I added the berries, cooked it for 10 minutes or so, strained out the seeds, and poured it into a jar, thinking I'd have some on a biscuit the next morning.

I had some on a biscuit this morning.  It tasted okay, but it was too thin and could've been a tad sweeter, so I poured it back into a pan, added 1/3 cup sugar, and boiled it another 10 minutes.  It still seemed to need something, so I added about 2 oz. of creme de cacao and cooked it a few minutes longer.  That did the trick.

Until it cools, I won't know if the syrup is the right consistency.  If not, it'll go back on the stove for a bit.

* * * * * * * * 

Yesterday, The Husband bought a kerosene heater for the back porch.  We already had a propane heater, but the fan won't work, and we've had to stand right next to it to keep from freezing.  We ran the new heater for a couple of hours on a low setting, and it warmed up the porch fairly well.  It might not knock off the chill when the outside temps are below freezing, but since we don't have too many of those days in these parts, this heater ought to do the job nicely on most days.  

Gold star for The Husband!

The pickin's in our kitchen pantry have been slim for the past couple of weeks.  Last week, I "made do" by pulling things out of the freezer for meals that could be re-cycled.  Chicken enchiladas held out for three nights.  Pork roast left-overs became vegetable soup that got us through the rest of the week.  This week, The Husband has been on a business trip, and my dinners have been cereal, peanut butter sandwiches, and toast with a side of M&Ms.  But he's coming home tonight, and so yesterday I placed a grocery order to be picked up between 3 and 4 p.m.  

Before 3, the store called and asked me to delay the pickup until 4:45.  I wasn't too thrilled by this - who wants to unload groceries in the dark? - but I showed up at the appointed time.  Most of the pickup parking slots were full, but I found one and called the number on the sign to let them know I'd arrived.  And then I waited.  And waited.  And waited.  The whole time I waited, I did not see one grocery order come out to another customer.  Finally, people started getting out of their cars and going inside for their own groceries.  I was about to do the same when my order came out.

I was driving my old two-door Wrangler since my other car is still in the shop.  In the summer when the top is down, it's not a bad grocery delivery vehicle; the bags can just be pitched in over the side.  But when the top is up, as it is now, loading and unloading a big grocery order is a bit tricky.  I told the attendant, "Pile as much as you can on the passenger floor and seat, then hand me the rest and I will stick them in the back seat." 

Bags, packed too heavy, tore open as the attendant lifted them into the car.  Inexplicably (and they do this ALL THE TIME), many of my items- a 2# can of coffee, a cabbage, eggs, bread - weren't bagged at all.  WTF?  

The attendant said, "I'll go back in the store and get you some bags for those that tore."  To save time (and help the other waiting customers), I followed her into the store and grabbed a handful of bags, myself.

At home (and it's dark by then), I re-bagged the items from the bags that tore and took them inside.  When I went back for the rest of the things, more bags tore, and canned goods rolled all over the driveway.  

Later, after I'd put the groceries away and sat down to check my email, there was an email from Kroger:  "Let us know how we did."  

Boy, did I ever let them know how they did.  Having started my work career as a teenage grocery store sacker back in the days when grocery bags were made of brown paper, I felt entitled to opine that someone had done a half-assed job on my order.

I felt better after venting.

Later, as I ate my peanut butter sandwich, I watched TV for the first time since The Husband has been gone.  Now, I don't even remember what I was watching, for as I sat there munching my extra-crunchy Jif and M&Ms sandwich, the front storm door began to rattle as if someone was trying desperately come in.  It was pushing 9 p.m. by then, and I wasn't expecting any visitors.  Before I could get up to see who was at the door, it felt as though the couch slid to the left and then slid back to the right.

I knew what that was:  EARTHQUAKE!  Magnitude 4.0, according to the web site.

I stopped at the hardware store yesterday after work and bought a big roll of white duct tape to secure the areas on the porch wrap where we overlapped the panels.  When I got home, I changed clothes and hurried outside to get to work.  It took less than 30 minutes to get the job done.

Cousin Roger motored over while I was taping.  He approved of the porch wrap.  He'd come over to talk to me about the wooden panel he'd laid on the porch table while I was at work.  He had pried the panel out of a coat rack that he'd found at a thrift store and intended to refurbish.  It appeared to be some kind of decal applied to a thin sheet of wood.  It was faded.  He wanted me to "spiff it up a little."

I was stumped about what to do with it.  Should I paint it?  The panel is slick and probably wouldn't hold paint.  Wood-burn it?  I'm not sure my wood-burning skills are sufficient.  I told him I might be able to paint a reasonable facsimile if I had some non-slick wood cut to the proper size.  He said, "I'll be right back," and 20 minutes later he came back with a blank panel.  

Since The Husband is out of town and I wasn't going to cook dinner, I went to work on it.  I tried to conjure Bob Ross.  Worked on it for an hour or so. 

It's not looking much like the original.  I think I might have summoned Picasso, instead.  ;)

Porch Wrap - November 14, 2021

Every fall and throughout the winter, The Husband and I have a running battle about "winterizing" the back porch.  The first winter after we built it, we stapled thick plastic around the outside of the porch.  It made the inside of the porch far warmer than the outside temp.  But the plastic was thick, and not very see-through, and every year since then, The Husband has said, "I don't like being unable to see out," and so we have not put up any plastic.

But we are about 5 years older now, and our bones are cold and brittle.  I spend a lot of time working out here, cold or not.  And the cold is misery now.  

This fall, I said, 'WE ARE GOING TO WRAP THE PORCH THIS YEAR."  

A couple of weeks ago, The Husband said he had an idea - a 10' x 30' wedding tent, with clear plastic windows.  We could use the size to wrap the porch, and sell or give away the roof and the tent poles.  He sent me a link to the tent he had seen.  I did a little calculating and determined that 80 feet (two 30' sides, and two 10' ends) would be enough to do the job, and ordered it immediately.  We used the frame and the top at Son #1's wedding reception two weekends ago.  Yesterday, I decided it was time to use the sides to wrap the porch.

The plan was to Velcro the sides to the porch to make it easy to take them off come spring and re-install them next fall.  Yesterday morning, I started applying the Velcro around the bottom of the porch while The Husband was across the road helping Nanny install Zoom on her laptop.  When he came home, he got out the ladder and helped me stick the Velcro around the top.  Piece of cake.

However, when we applied Velcro to the first tent panel and stuck it up, we discovered that the panel was about a foot too short to reach the bottom of the porch.  I wanted to scream.  And throw things.  Etc.

When the fit passed, I started thinking how we could remedy the problem.  My sewing room is full of an assortment of fabric and other craft-related things.  In one corner, there was a big roll of white vinyl.  Perhaps I could cut 12"-wide strips and sew them to the plastic tent sides.  This was a nightmare of a job, and there wasn't enough vinyl to do all the panels.  Thankfully, the two end panels of the tent (which did not have windows in them) provided enough plastic to lengthen the remaining side panels.

We finished putting the last panel in place just as the sun went down.  This plastic is thin - about like a tarp - and I am not sure it's going to hold in the heat like the plastic we first used.  Also, we're going to need to get some white duct tape to tape the panels together where they're overlapped so the wind doesn't whip them.

Admittedly, these panels look better than thick plastic.

Veteran's Day 2021

It's Veterans Day, and I have the day off.   Thank you to all the men and women who suited up and did the job of protecting our country.

My maternal grandfather was a Veteran.  According to family lore, he joined the Navy before he was legally old enough to do so.  In 1920, he was a cook on a Navy coal ship.  About all he ever told me about his service was that he peeled an awful lot of potatoes.  :)

Granddaughter #1 will shortly be suiting up with her high school band to play patriotic music as they march around the town square.  

One Veterans Day a few years ago, The Boss and I both forgot that we did not have to go to work.  Our office is one block off the square.  We were at our desks, doing our jobs, when suddenly we heard a big boom and a big shout.  We ran to the front door and opened it to discover this marching band (Granddaughter wasn't in it then) on the street in front of our office.  When the band is called to attention, the drummers hit their drums, and the whole band yells "COUGARS!" before they move into action.  This was what we had heard.  Until that moment we had not realized that it was Veterans Day, and we didn't have to be at work.  We laughed, and every Veterans Day Eve since then, we remind one another that we'll have the next day off.

The Husband has gone to work today, despite his office being closed for the holiday.  I was hoping that we could spend the day winterizing the porch with the wedding-tent panels we bought for the project, but it's drizzling rain and I don't want to tackle the job by myself.  The plan is to use Velcro to attach the tent panels to the outside of the screened porch.  There's about a mile of self-adhesive Velcro strips in a box on the porch, ready to be stuck onto the wood and the panels.  The panels are in a box in the shed.  If I had a little more get-up-and-go, I'd go get them and attach one side of the Velcro to the panels so that we can slap them up once we get the other side of the Velcro attached to the porch.  

Maybe another cup of coffee would help.

 This is how my work day started yesterday:

Three miles took about 20 minutes.  

Things kind of went downhill from there.

I spent TWO HOURS on the telephone with my insurance company and the other guy's insurance company.  Both companies blew up my phone with text messages the instant I gave them my telephone number.  They played the same freakin' "hold music."  The tune is permanently burned into my brain.

The other guy's insurance "accepted liability" for the wreck, thank goodness.  I made them send a wrecker for my car since the right rear wheel was wearing a donut tire, and the right from wheel had a substantial gash in it that might blow any minute.  This involved another blasts of texts, more automated phone calls, and 20 more minutes on hold.

Meanwhile, The Boss was pacing back and forth between my office and hers.  She is working on a class reunion scheduled to happen this weekend.  One of her jobs was to find a helium tank to inflate balloons for the party.  The local WalMart didn't have a helium tank.  She needed to go to the next town to find one, and wanted me to drive her.  Just as we were preparing to leave, I got another call from the wrecker company.  They were coming within the hour and needed the car key.  Of course, it was in my purse.  We made a 15-mile detour to my house so that I could leave the key in the seat.

The Boss scored a helium tank in the next town.  We stopped for lunch, then went back to the office until quittin' time.

Over the weekend, I had promised The Grandson that I would take him to have his phone and i-pad repaired.  Both screens were cracked and had been cracked for months.  I don't know why his parents had not taken care of this.  In any case, I went to pick him up.  He came out of the house empty-handed and came around to the driver's side of my car. 

"Can I drive?"  

He is 14.

I said, "No.  Where's your stuff?"

"Oh."  He went back in the house and got his phone and i-pad.  He is his grandmother's child.  <sigh>

We went to the repair store.  On the way home, I let him drive the last few miles.

O.M.G.

"Slow down."

"Get on your side of the road."

"Use your blinker."

"SLOW DOWN!"

The Husband was already home by the time I made it home.

I said, "After the harrowing ride I just had, I need to smoke a bunch of dope AND drink a bunch of liquor!"

I didn't do either.  But I wanted to.

Crazy Day - November 9, 2021

Yesterday was a frustrating day.  

Since my everyday car is not drive-able after Saturday's wreck, my plan was to drive the old Wrangler to work.  Before The Husband left for work, he said, "The Wrangler's tags are expired."  I could hardly believe it, for I had driven the Wrangler earlier in the summer while my everyday car was in the shop after the tree limb rear-ended me; if the tags had been expired then, I would have renewed them.  But I checked the license plate before I left for work and, sure enough, the latest tag was September '21.  I drove the Wrangler to work, anyway, intending to go straight to the Clerk's office to renew the tags, figuring that I could sweet-talk my way out of a ticket in the unlikely event a law-enforcement official stopped me.  

At the Clerk's office, the clerk at the drive-thru window said that the tags had already been renewed.  (Hah!  I knew it!)  Figuring that I'd bought the tags but forgot to put them on, I pulled out of the line and parked, and rummaged through the junk in the glove compartment.  No tags.  No renewal slip.  Curious. 

While I was rummaging through the glove compartment, my cell phone rang.  It was an HVAC repairmen whom I'd called last Friday after discovering that the heat was not working in our office.  He was already in our parking lot and needed to be let inside the office.  "I'll be there in 5 minutes," I said.  I bought went back to the drive-thru window and bought a $3 replacement tag, then went to let in HVAC guy in the office.  Since The Boss was holding court, I called to let them know I'd be late.

It didn't take the HVAC guy long to discover the problem - a burned-out thingy inside the unit on the roof.  He'd have to go look for a replacement part, he said, but he wouldn't need back in the building. 

I headed for the courthouse.  When I got there, before I could even take my coat off, The Boss said, "I need you to follow me to the oil-change place."  We dropped off her car and went back to the courthouse.  

While she went back to the courtroom, I sat down to answer e-mails.  One e-mail was from Amazon.  They'd tried to deliver a case of formula for the Little Rotten Baby, but said it was "undeliverable."  WTF?  UPS has been leaving the formula on the porch ever since the LRB has been in the world.  Come to find out, it was not UPS, but USPS that had been the delivery agent.  Dear God.  Considering the state of the US mail delivery service since DeJoy's 2020 shenanigans, there was no telling where the formula was.

But I didn't have time to follow up on it right then, for I had a doctor's appointment (yearly physical) after lunch and had other stuff to do.

Yesterday's court docket was a short one, and before I left for my doctor's appointment, I took The Boss back to the oil-change place to pick up her car.  

While I was at the doctor's office, the LRB's mother called to ask about the formula.  Her stash was low.  I said I'd work on it.  I sat in the doc's parking lot and tried to locate the package electronically with my #(@! out-of-date cell phone.  Finally, I drove to the local post office.  They didn't have the package, they said.  I'd have to go online and . . . .   Yeah, yeah, yeah.  

Between the auto-insurance company, AAA, and the USPS, I've about had enough of this online sh*t.

From the post office, I went to the LRB's house, both to deliver some jackets her sisters had left at my house over the weekend and to see if the formula had arrived during the afternoon.  It had not.

I started for home.  When I passed the drug store, I remembered that The Husband had been fighting with the store and the insurance company about some of his prescriptions.  I called him to see if he'd won the battle.  He had.  I turned around and went back to the drug store, waited in line for about 30 minutes, got the prescriptions, headed home.

It was almost dinnertime.  Thankfully, there were left-over chicken enchiladas in the refrigerator, so I didn't have to cook.  I took my laptop out to the porch to work on the formula problem, but before I could get anywhere, the LRB's mom called to say the formula had arrived.  Whew.  One thing off my list.

Today's chore is to work on the car-wreck problem.  The adjustor has not called.  Looks like I'm going to have to nudge somebody.

Saturday when The Husband inspected the damage to my car, he noticed that the front passenger tire had a big slit in it from a gouge from the truck dude's front bumper.  Looks like I was lucky to make it home after the wreck without a second flat tire.  If that had happened, as mad as I was that Roadside Assistance had not come to the wreck, I'd probably be in jail by now.

   

I was driving on the highway about 8 o'clock yesterday morning, in the left lane, contemplating getting some breakfast at a drive-thru window, when suddenly - BOOM!  It sounded like a cannon went off.  

I looked in my rear-view mirror and saw an 18-wheeler behind me, smoke rolling from under his wheels.  The traffic in the right-hand lane was slowing, too.  My first thought was that the 18-wheeler had had a blow-out.

Then I noticed that my car was steering crazily, and that a small pickup truck was scraping its left front fender down the entire passenger side of my car.

All of this happened in about a nano-second.

The little pickup truck pulled into a parking lot on the right, and I followed him.  I don't know how the on-coming traffic behind us managed not to hit one of us.

When we came to a stop, I hopped out of my car and hollered, "Are you hurt?"  He was climbing out of his truck.  He shook his head.  "No.' 

"What happened?" I asked.

He explained that he had been working since 2:30 p.m. the previous day and fell asleep at the wheel.  

Thus began a three-hour ordeal of trying to get home.

Not only was the passenger side of my car jacked up, my tire was flat, and the rim was bent.  

I called 911, then called my insurance company.  While I was on the phone with the insurance company, my cell phone went dead.  I had a phone charger with me, but the "cigar lighter" wasn't working.  I'd known this for a month, but had not looked into why it was not working since I seldom had a need to use it. 

The policeman who came to work the accident let me use his phone charger long enough to finish calling the insurance company for roadside assistance.  Instead of getting a live person on the phone, the call sent a text that directed me to a web site.  My hands were so cold I could barely press the keys.  The policeman stayed long enough to let me finish the job of summoning roadside assistance, then he went on his way (after ticketing the young man in the truck).  

An hour passed, and then my phone rang.  It was some guy with a wrecker service, letting me know that he wasn't coming.  

My phone went dead again before I could make another call.

The young man in the truck let me use his phone charger.  I called AAA, which also tried to direct me to a web site.  I finally got a live person on the phone, who said help was on the way.

Another hour passed.

Meanwhile, the young man had summoned some friends.  They offered to change my tire, but by this time I was feeling sorry for the young man (who said he had a baby on the way in two weeks).  I told the young men to take their friend home and put him to bed, but they would not leave me until help arrived. 

Finally, they insisted on changing my tire.  They pulled my spare tire out of the car, but there was no jack.  None of them had a jack that would work with my car, so they summoned another friend. When he arrived with a jack, they changed my tire and got me back on the road.  "Don't drive over 50," one of them cautioned.  

I waved as I drove away, grateful that nobody was hurt, and grateful that the person who hit me had not been an a-hole.

But I was pissed for the rest of the day.

It's a little nippy on the back porch this morning.  I don't like it.  This porch is my work space and my refuge, and I don't want to give it up for the winter.  Fortunately, we have a plan.

The first year we built this porch, we wrapped it with thick clear(-ish) plastic come winter.  The plastic kept the porch far warmer than the outdoor temperature.  But The Husband didn't like it because he couldn't "see out."  So we didn't wrap it for the next several years.  A couple of weeks ago, The Husband came up with a plan.  We bought a 10' x 30' wedding tent.  It has windows in it.  We are going to staple the side panels to the porch.  He can "see out," and I can stay warm.  Win-win.

Since we're supposed to get a frost in the next few days, I went down to the garden yesterday to salvage the last of the tomatoes.  Had to fight my way through the  spider webs between the rows.  Most of the tomatoes were spotty, and many had seen their best days a long time ago, but a few were usable.  

There was also one serrano pepper plant so full of ripe peppers that it looked like a Christmas tree. I should have pulled up the whole plant and brought it home to make pepper jelly.  This year, I planted a lot of pepper plants, and most of them performed well.  However, something ate the leaves off of the six jalapeno pepper plants, which I planted especially for pepper jelly, and they never did recover.  We won't have jalapeno pepper jelly this year, unless I use grocery store peppers.

I got some hopeful news last week.  I believe I've told you that The Boss is retiring next year, and I will be out of a job.  Ever since she made her coming retirement public, I've been bugging lawyers' ears - "If you need a legal assistant, I'm your girl!"  Last week, one of the attorneys, a Public Defender, slid into a chair beside me and said, "Send me your resume.  I think we've got something for you."  One of their assistants is retiring next year about the same time as The Boss plans to wind down her work.  The timing would be perfect.  I sent him my resume the next day, and also sent it to the D.A.  The D.A. and P.D. assistants make a LOT more money than I make.  If I can get a job with one of their offices, it should significantly boost my retirement pay.  My fingers are crossed!  

The down-side is that I might actually have to work.  ;)