Moment in California
11:26 a.m. - 2006-11-25


We picked Abby up from the airport on Wednesday night, and though we were supposed to go have pizza in that fabulous joint in Burlingame, it was, alas too late to go there, so we had stopped at In-And-Out Burger instead. This was a success except that he did not order his own fries and proceeded to eat half of mine, so a little re-education is in order, because fries that are mine, are MINE.

I have not made Thanksgiving dinner in many a moon, but it was pretty good. Melissa had attended a dinner somewhere in Texas where Julie used a bag to cook the turkey in, and she suggested that I try it. I am the champion of the dry turkey, which does not matter to me because I am only going to slather it with mayo on the day after, so I decided to try the bag. It really does make a moister turkey and cuts the mess down to about 5%. Abby was in charge of the sweet potatoes, which she smooshed and topped with candied pecans, Melissa made the green bean casserole, I did the rolls and brussels sprouts, and Abby finished up with the mashed potatoes. Oh, somewhere in there I did the stuffing. The spouse also helped out by cleaning the kitchen at intervals and peeling the potatoes. For dessert, we had visited Cold Stone Creamery to buy pumpkin ice cream with the addition of nuts and heath bars, because we will be having the whole pie deal at Jason's for the late,late Thanksgiving. It was all very good, and we managed to stuff the leftovers into the fridge, which was not easy, since I have a smallish refrigerator. Now I do not have to cook for a week. The obligatory Day-After Sandwich has been made and eaten, with mucho mayo.

The next day, we went on a family drive. We are really having a lovely fall this year, so the drive to Healdsburg was really pretty. The central park square in Healdsburg is nearing completion. The big fence is gone, and only little fences around the new grass remain. We parked next to the law firm of his old law school buddies and walked to the shops. We visited the quilt shop and then went to the ethnic goods shop where we got some lovely new Christmas ornaments to add to our eclectic tree. We used to get a few ornaments every year but haven't done it for awhile so it was nice to catch up a little. One I especially like is a carved red gourd with an inset nativity scene. After walking around the square for awhile, we drove on to Windsor to visit the yarn shop and the bead shop. After this, it was back to Santa Rosa for lunch at the Cantina and visits to the bookstore and another ethnic store, resulting in more ornaments.

I have gotten hooked on another novela on TV, this time a Chinese series called 'Moment in Peking'. Being China, it is hard to figure out the time frame, since there are no Westerners to see the costumes (I can tell time periods by the clothes usually), but I think the revolution is coming shortly. Mostly it is about an extended family and their hijinks.

Right now we are going to go have the usual Chinese lunch, since Abby finds it hard to find good Chinese food in the far far South.