For Eric and Val, who live in the 6th District

This is the last post for today, I promise.

Bachmann McCarthy Overdrive

Season 2 is over already?!

Is there anyone else out there who is addicted to watches Mad Men on AMC?

This is gonna be a long wait for Season 3.

Nicely said, sir

[Powell] told Tom Brokaw that he was troubled by what other Republicans, not McCain, had said: “ ‘Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.’ Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim. He’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no. That’s not America. Is something wrong with some 7-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president?”

Word.

Random post

The "Watch me!" command is amazingly effective when one is holding a treat.

(It's a shame that Bailey's not quite in focus -- how cute would that have been?! -- but then again, I was holding the treat in one hand, the camera in the other, had Murray's leash looped around my wrist, and was maintaining both dogs' attention. Not too shabby, really.)

No pictures later

We had a minor crisis last night (Jim might appreciate this)...A day or two ago, Morgan was told asked to bring up something from the basement freezer, and didn't quite close the freezer door all the way on her way back upstairs. Ack. 

Fortunately, it truly was a minor crisis, as 1) because it'd only been a day or two, and the door was only open a crack, only the first layer of things were impacted, 2) I'd been meaning to defrost and clean out that freezer for the last, oh, two years or so (this does not say much about my housekeeping skills, does it) and this got that task off the "I'll get to it one of these days" list and into the "I'm going to do do that right now!" category, and  3) while some things were a loss (mystery doughs, pie crusts, bananas, realllllllllly old bags of veggies, popsicles, a few pre-packaged lean cuisine type meals I'd bought back when I was still working full-time for That Place [which means they've been in there for at least 18 months and probably longer; and now I'm using parentheses within parentheses, uh oh]), most of the meats and my soups, stews, and other leftovers meals were so buried that they were still frozen solid, and so nothing important had to be thrown out.  Wow, did I really get all that into one sentence?

I did have to whip up a quick batch of strawberry jam last night -- which wasn't a big deal; I'd go to far greater lengths than that to save strawberries. We had to have a thawed small cheese pizza last night as an appetizer, which no one seemed to mind too much. The girls will be having chicken nuggets this morning as part of their breakfast (when and why did I buy chicken nuggets???). And there will be a few other odd meals over the next few days. But really, it could have been worse. And hey, now that freezer's defrosted and cleaned out, Morgan has learned the importance of making sure the freezer door's closed all the way, and I'm eating fresh strawberry jam with my toast. Life is good. 

Teaser post

Tonight is one of our no-meat dinners: Lentil soup (although it's so thick it's more like a stew) with cheese and fresh-baked bread, and an apple crisp for dessert. Very autumn-like, no?

Pictures later.

Oh, and also

We got a new puppy last week. Husky lab mix, now 11 weeks old and 24 lbs. Yup, he's gonna be big.

Meet Murray. 

Not the best shot (just a quick  point and shoot) but the RAW images are still on the camera.

If you think his right eye has a tinge of blue, you're right. 

Off to eat Thanksgiving dinner now. More later. 

In which my kitchen is a disaster

So we're having Thanksgiving tonight (long story; I'll tell you about it later). I volunteered to make a pie, dinner rolls, and cranberry sauce. Well, the pie turned into two pies. I wanted to make something new -- the apple cranberry pie featured on the cover of the current issue of Cook's Illustrated -- but then got worried that people might not like it. So I made a plain ol' apple pie too. Just in case. And then I decided to make two cranberry sauces for basically the same reason: I wanted to try a cranberry pear ginger sauce -- but what if people don't like cranberry pear ginger sauce? What if they want just plain cranberry? Best have some on hand. Just in case.  

It's been grand fun. Messy, but fun. I tried a new pie crust recipe that I think is now my absolute favorite pie crust recipe: the secret ingredient is vodka. Yes, vodka. Crazy!

Everything's looking good and smelling even better. Nom. 

In descending order: dinner rolls, apple-cranberry pie, cranberry pear ginger sauce, cranberry sauce, and the apple pie (still in the oven baking).

Happy Thanksgiving!