Turkey Day 2010

It was a wet Thanksgiving Day as all the rain we did not get during the summer and early fall comes down on us in one go. After all that rain came down, flooding my yard for the first time in months, the air dropped below freezing during the night. On Friday morning, I found the pond in the corner of my yard frozen in a thin sheet of ice that remained throughout the day.

On Thanksgiving morning this year, Madre got help from the sisters in preparing the turkey, mashed potatoes, sage dressing, corn and cranberry sauce. I set the table, and got ribbed for how I placed the silverware. I have since checked my copy of The Quintessential Gentleman, and confirmed that the fork is put on the left side of the plate and the knife and spoon on the right — the opposite of what I did. I do not know why I keep doing that. Madre also heated up precooked mashed yams with pecan topping for my sister the editor. Evidently when so prepared, it does not taste like yams, which is good for my sister, who does not normally like yams.

Well, the cooking spirits looked kindly upon Madre and the sisters, because the meal was delicious. I took home a good portion of the meal as leftovers.

On Friday I went to two stores to gather materials to frame, and to hang on my wall, my Apple Certified Support Professional 10.6 certificate. I hanged the certificate to the right of the foyer entrance, opposite a framed postcard my niece Erin sent me from Japan years ago. (More on Erin later.) Then I nailed a larger hook on my kitchen wall near the utility room to hang the bulletin board, that has been lying around for years.

Finally I got out my small plastic XMas tree, decorated it, and put it on the table in front of my living room window. The image is on the left, for those of you who can see it. The star on top is Madre's contribution. The round ornament has my brother's image; I made it originally for the Hero's Tree in the local library a couple of years ago.

I hope my niece Erin is okay. She has been teaching English in Seoul since last April. South Korea is on military alert after the northern whackos bombed out a South Korean island to celebrate the ascension of the Chief Whacko's son. Even the South Korean state must be worried in some way; why else would they relocate several units of itself farther away from the DMZ, to Sejong City?