Every time a bell rings....

Even though it was just the two of us for Christmas dinner, I insisted that we have a turkey this year. Is there any substitute for the smell of roasting turkey on Christmas Day? I think not.
I found an 11 pound bird, facebooked and googled to find the best way to cook it (10 years ago that sentence would have made no sense at all) and it turned out nearly perfect. My turkeys have never turned out golden, but they are usually mighty tasty.

I popped it in the oven at 2 and then felt like having a nap so asked Spouseman to wake me at 5 and I would check the progress. Have I mentioned that he's awesome? When I woke up the gravy was ready to go (we use packet gravy, don't judge us), the potatoes were ready to boil, the brussel sprouts & carrots were sitting in the electric steamer (awesome appliance, everyone should have one) and all that was left to do was to throw the boxed stuffing (don't judge us) in the pot.
So, I check the turkey, it's done, I take it out to rest and it's go time. We turn on the burners for the gravy, spuds and stuffing and plug in the steamer.
The steamer does nothing. Uh oh. We try a different plug and still nothing. The timer is set but the little light doesn't come on. It's never good when a little light doesn't come on, is it?

So, we are mildly peeved but we realize right away that it's minor. The veggies are tossed in a pot and cooked on the stove, no big deal. That steamer has served us well for the last few years and it's paid for itself many times over. Have I mentioned everyone should have one? Get the one with the double steam baskets and the little door that lets you add more water while it's working.

Crisis diverted, every burner is cranking out something on the stove, and we realized then that the reason the steamer didn't work was because it can't work without any water in it! Oops....hahahaha! No worries, it gets put back in the cupboard for next time.

In a bit, everything is heated up, drained, fluffed or mashed as the case may be and we proclaim that dinner is ready. Just as we start to dish up we hear a happy little muffled "DING!" of a timer going off.
Our little steamer....it still managed to be part of Christmas dinner in it's own way.

In retrospect this is probably one of those 'You had to be there." stories...ah well...what's done is done.

It's the little things...

It's 3 little things, actually.
Every day I ride the same route to work and see the same old things. I follow the side road out to the main road and then continue on to downtown. Sometimes I see the lady with the little black dog and there's a guy on another scooter who I might see ahead or trailing behind me. Same old same old.
Last summer though, at the bus stop on the side road, I couldn't help but notice a woman with 3 little boys. I'm guessing they are all ages 4 and under, with the smallest in a stroller. What made them stand out is that they were all wearing little tan bucket hats. When I went by, all three little bucket-hatted heads turned and watched me. SO cute!
I don't see them out there every day but at least once a week, there they are. It's progressed from the head turn, to them pointing , to me waving at them and now when I come up the road, they wave at me. 3 little hands, waving like crazy.
It's awesome....I'm a rock-star!
Next time I see them I think I'm going to give them a little toot of the horn...that ought to rock their little worlds, hey?
I wonder if they'll grow up and remember all this?

Oh, and since it's winter, they are all wearing red toques.

It's the little things that will drive you crazy, but in this case, it's the little things that help keep you sane.

Short people got no reason to clean

It's important to have tall friends for many reasons.
You can find them easier in a crowd. They can find someone else for you when you are in a crowd. They can reach things for you. Pictures of your short self with your tall friends make for some good laughs (some of you might remember the picture of myself and Mark that I called "The Giant and the Midget")

Probably, though, the most important benefit in having tall friends is that when they're coming over for a party you're forced to clean things that you normally don't worry about.
Like the dining room light fixture, the hood of the stove and the top of the fridge.
When you're five feet tall it's kind of an 'out of sight, out of mind' thing.
A person has to pay attention to this sort of detail if they want these people to come back again, so the cleaning frenzy was on tonight.
*(giving credit where credit is due, I didn't do any of this cleaning this time around. Big thankyou goes out to Spouseman. Good job!)
So if you're tall, and you want to visit, you've got about a 2 week window before the dust starts settling again.

Just say no to crack.

Really, is there any way a person can truly describe the feeling they get when they round the corner in the grocery store and come face to face, as it were, with a big winter-white expanse of bare skin complete with a cheeky (pun intended, obviously) inch and a half of butt crack?
I was caught between being a little grossed out and wanting to giggle like a five year old.
Where is the etiquette in that? Is it like when someone's fly is open and you tactfully let them know? I always tell people if their tag is sticking out of their shirt whether it is a friend or a stranger, but the butt crack thing....that's kind of unknown territory. It's hard to know what the right thing to do is.
There's probably a website somewhere about it....I'll do a Google.

You spin me right round baby right round

Well, that was a ridiculous week!
Woke up last Monday morning, rolled over and watched the room spin around me. Sat up and rode a crazy carnival ride to nowhere. Kind of would have been fun if it wasn't so freaky. And nauseating. Mostly nauseating.
Went to my doctor and found I did have a minor ear infection but the dizziness was being caused by vertigo: little crystals repositioning themselves in my ear. Holy crap....five days of a whirling world...staggering down the hallway, clinging to the wall of the shower so I didn't fly away...all the benefits of drinking without the alcohol, when you come to think of it.
I realized in the doctor's office that I had the same thing our Moochie had many years ago. She was staggering around, sick to her stomach and her eyes were doing this jiggling back and forth thing. Mine did that too, a few times, when it seemed that what I was looking at was caught on a video loop.
It seems that it's pretty common and its benign, which is a huge relief. I had a good day today, day 6, and I hope tomorrow is the same so I can get back to work on Monday. I'm lucky to have a job that I really like, and I honestly missed being there. (I hate hate HATE calling in sick because I know what a scramble it can be to fill shifts, especially this time of year.)

I had an idea though. I think we should all have a spot on our forehead that turned colour when we were unwell with something that isn't obvious.
I've had so many things happen to me that weren't visible...like that awful pulled hip flexor (worst. pain. EVER.), a broken bone in the foot that was uncastable, this vertigo and other various things. You feel like crap, but you look absolutely fine. So along with feeling like crap you have to deal with feelings of paranoia that nobody is going to believe you feel like crap. A simple little spot would fix all that.
I wonder who you'd have to email to get the ball rolling on this?

Anyway, I'm on the mend and, at the very least, bit by bit, I got the Christmas decorations up this week and it looks very cheery around here. :-)
Sure, I'm a week behind on Christmas shopping and we are hosting a party here next weekend and God knows what tomorrow is going to bring. At least I'm getting my sense of humour back.

WHERE'S MY...oh..there it is...

I get really messed up at work if I'm not wearing my watch. Up is down, down is up....I don't know where I'm at.
Yesterday I'm just about to go in to work and I think "Aw crap...I forgot my watch!" as I'm checking my wrist. But. There it is. I have absolutely no recollection of putting it on.
That's a weird feeling, suddenly realizing you did something but can't remember doing it. Is this the sign of early dementia or just normal forgetfullness? A person worries.
There should be a name for that feeling. The German language has lots of cool words for different things. Farfegnugen for when you're enjoying a nice drive, gemutlichkeit for when you're enjoying a good time and schadenfreude for when you're enjoying someone else's misfortunes. Oh come on now, we've all enjoyed YouTubes full of people's bad judgment and we've all had our chuckles...admit it.
Maybe I'll email the Germans and see if they know of such a word. It would come in handy...
"Whoa...dude....major watchenfinden today!" (with my apologies to everyone of German descent)

Hang on to yer hat!

Wild blustery gusty winds going on outside!
I had never imagined such wind before I moved here and the first winter storms I experience kind of freaked me out. Wind whacking against the building (not branches or anything, just the wind itself!) and rain pounding down so hard that it was bouncing back up. I couldn't quite believe my eyes.
We live on the harbour and depending on which direction the wind is blowing the seaplanes will sometimes need to taxi from downtown to right in front of our place for take-off. I can't believe that they still go on these stormy days....it's crazy gut-wrenching to watch them. We see them bobble their way towards us with their wings dipping left and right. You can almost hear the passengers praying.
We watched a take-off and a landing this afternoon that had both of us just cringing. I would hope they hand out new underwear along with the barf bags. I wonder how the pilots can function with all that screaming going on.
I remember one winter hearing that the planes were grounded due to a wind storm because the passengers couldn't handle it. The pilots were willing to go but it was too rough for regular folks.
I should ask if you get a special t-shirt when you fly on windy days like today.....they might be able to really cash in on that...I should give them a call.

On the internet nobody can see your eyes glaze over.

My good friend suggested I start a blog. I think she felt pity on my Significant Other and thought that maybe this would spare him from listening about that dream I had last night or that hilarious thing that I heard/saw/did that day. He's pretty tolerant but I guess I've had my share of seeing his eyes glaze over...the poor guy.
I'm pretty much expecting to have instant writer's block now that the pressure is on but who knows...maybe I'll have a good dream tonight.