MIZMARILYN'S MISSIVES

MIZMARILYN'S MISSIVES... THE MANIACAL MUSINGS ON THE MEANDERINGS, MISADVENTURES, AND MISHAPS OF A MISGUIDED MISCREANT...

Thursday, November 27, 2008

My Most Memorable Thanksgiving...


I was going to say my favorite Thanksgiving, but that might hurt feelings, and I'm already engendering enough bad Karma by not going to my sister's house today.

Just a note. I loved Thanksgiving as a kid, although as I grew older, I saw faults with the day with my family that started this... well... withdrawal that I now enjoy. Then ,for several years, as my family was not as kind to Joe as they could (should?) have been, I withdrew and even traveled on that day. I have had some wonderful Thanksgivings with strangers.

After my sister's children were born, I appeared again on the scene. Family had changed, and now included children who were my own little niece and nephew. I did, however, volunteer to do the dishes (as I don't cook or bring food). I liked that.

Anyways, one of my main 'complaints' about dinners in my family is the timing. I'm going to go out on a limb here and let you all know that Thanksgiving dinner should never be served after 3 PM. There. I've said it. My reasons are simple. The longer you wait the more you drink and eat before the EVENT. If it's served later, people tend to be both hungry and full of snacks and booze. You sit down to dinner at 5:30 or 6 (or later), shovel a boatload of food in your mouth, have a cup of coffee, talk for 10 minutes and go home, usually leaving behind a mess worthy of Chernobyl. It's cold. It's dark. You're full of tryptophans and sleepy and uncomfortable. What fun..

Now... since I've just scratched the surface of my feelings about this, let me switch to one of the memorable ones.

One of Joe's sisters lived about 60 miles from us, so we went to her house once for Thanksgiving. They were Italian, and had a traditional Italian dinner (that's what they told me!). This included even more food than usual, but the memorable part was the timing.

The first course started around 11 AM. The antipasto was first. Lots of meats and cheeses and stuff and some great bread. Then there came a break. Watch football games, take a walk around the neighborhood (remember, this is California and it's always nice), whatever.

The next course was meat. I think it was ham and some great side dishes. Eat, talk, watch TV, walk, nap... whatever..

Next course was either the lasagna or turkey. Either way, they comprised the next two courses, served over a 5 to 6 hour time span. In between there were conversations about the great food, the great company, the great game, the great neighborhood, the lousy eucalyptus trees (which were 'in heat' and smelled HORRIBLE) or whatever.

The entire day was relaxed, fun and when we went home we were sober, NOT stuffed, and loaded with leftovers!

My kind of day..

So... if I ever get to Oregon, y'all are all invited to my only Thanksgiving dinner... You'll have to come for a few days, as it might just be an overnight dinner..

or longer..

!

Friday, November 21, 2008

Feed The Kitties...




FreeKibbleKat.com



This is a website that feeds kitties for free if you answer a trivia question. 10 pieces of kibble for each answer . It was started by this 12 year old girl who just loves animals.

Kind of cool when you think of it...

So check in...

and here's the one for puppies!!!




FreeKibble.com




Just click and answer...

Thursday, November 20, 2008

OH... MY.... GAWD!



Russell just sent this...

It's the first piece of a new type of work. To quote Russell, " I've been searching for this type of piece for some time now and it finally came out.". He goes on to say "I am quite excited about this movement, I have been flailing around for too long, now maybe things can start happening, its only been 20 years. What is it they say, better late than never. "

I am blown away by the intricacy of this piece. Look closely at the different movements of color... This can only be encouraged in hand blown art... he never knows what he's going to get!

I just had to share it with y'all...

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

I Just Had To...



I couldn't resist this. Although I have a slideshow of much of Russell's work on my new computer, I just set this as my desktop on my laptop. I think it is such a beautiful work of glass... So I'm putting it here just for the pretty...

Oh! and check Chris's new article about Brussel Sprouts! (over there... to the right... no... a little lower.... THAT'S IT!

I love Brussel Sprouts!

Friday, November 14, 2008

Kitty Demanding Equal Time...

Big Kitty was quite jealous of Baby Kitty's debut...

She really does like it when I rub back and forth starting at opposite ends on her back and meeting in the middle.. .

All contact is good...

Small kitty bites to remind me that she is VERY important are also good....

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Here We Go Again...



Remember the wind video?

This is the other side of that well worn coin.

Fires near Santa Barbara...

So far, more than 100 homes have burned, all of them huge hillside ocean view mansions...

Fire is just so ugly.

It's interesting. They have had some severe 'cut trees back from your house' rules lately, so now when you see the fires, you see just the homes burning, but nothing else around them... like little circles of hell...

The winds become their own little fire tornadoes, super heated towers of flames.




and it's supposed to be in the 90's tomorrow. The only time it gets like this at this time of year is when it's windy.

and we know what wind can do.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Link to L.A. Chef About Town...

I've added a link (over there...... on the right) to my Nephlaw's cooking blog.

Check it out, it changes more often now!

The one about the lobster salad sounds great!

Oh... and I am going to get to the slide pictures, but the little slide thingy broke and had to be sent back.

just my luck...

More neat fambly stuff when I get it back.

Sunday, November 09, 2008

Weird Weather... and Surf

It was an extremely windy day.. with sunshine, cold winds, and snow in the nearby mountains.

and it's supposed to be like... oh... 94 on Friday...

sigh..

I'm beginning to feel as if I live in South Dakota or something...

Notice the oil ships that are very close to shore. That's because the water is worse out beyond the bay. This way, when they break apart, we have a better chance of being inundated with goo...

because, right around that last corner??

Chevron...


Thursday, November 06, 2008

Sleeping Baby Kitty

Not so much a baby anymore, except in her actions.

She's so sweet!

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

I Stole This Idea From bonho... and I'm Not Giving it Back...

This is just beyond awesome...

The Sun - The Big Picture - Boston.com

Posted using ShareThis

Sunday, November 02, 2008

Rushing the Season...



Fall.. it DOESN'T look like this around here... neat picture taken from the NOAA website. They have some incredible cloud/storm/whatever pictures...

Ok... I have a fire in the fireplace tonight. It's been set to burn since last year, not that I'm waiting or anything...

or eager..

or rushing.

It's still not cold enough, technically, for my fireplace, but it seems so MUCH cooler than the 90 degrees last week that I couldn't wait. It's 60 or so, and may actually drop into the 50's tonight.

Now, for all those people who are laughing hysterically (those of you on the east coast or the North anything) you must understand that I WANT WINTER! .. Hell, I'll even settle for Fall... I know you get tired of cold weather, but It's been a dreary, sticky summer and the nastiest October on record and I'm more than ready..

Hence the fire...

Maybe I'll trick the gods into thinking they need to make it colder.

Any help will be appreciated.

Greatly.



ahh... now THAT'S better...

Maybe I need a cup of hot chocolate...

ya think?




Crater Lake in Winter...

Too pretty. I actually like the other winter picture better, it makes me want to get warm..

and have hot chocolate!