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.