November chitchat

[agate]

What a yummy bunch of food, Virginia! Apple dumplings too!

You mentioned not being able to wear shoes with laces because your feet and ankles swell. I recently had the same experience when I tried some shoes with laces for the first time in many years. I had to give up on them right away.

[flatcap]

It sounds like you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, Virginia. You are very lucky to have the family you do.

I went to the Thanksgiving dinner I was invited to and had a pretty good time.

I don't know anything about wine, so I looked it up, and the top selections to go with turkey are apparently chardonnay and pinot noir. I chose to take along a bottle of pinot noir, but we all had apple cider, which was funny because I also got a jug of that last night but decided at the last minute not to bring it with me. I left the wine for the hosts. They were very kind to have me, a stranger, in their house this day.

Dinner was the typical holiday fare, hold the cranberries, thank you very much. We played a game after dinner that was sort of like Thanksgiving Trivia. The #1 most disliked traditional Thanksgiving side dish? That's right, the dreaded cranberry-flavored whatever it is. Nailed that one, I did, lol. Had a lot of fun and got to meet a few people. The kids were a blast.

The dinner particulars were:
• Turkey (of course), roasted
• Gravy (lots of it, so you didn't have to skimp on it)
• Mashed Potatoes (and baked in a casserole)
• Stuffing
• Green Salad
• Green Bean Casserole
• Buns & Butter
• Some other stuff that, unfortunately, wouldn't fit on my plate (lol)
• There were various pies for dessert. I had apple.

Very nice. Very, very nice, and very much appreciated.


ETA: Shoes. These might be worth at least a look. This brand and type of shoe work best for me by far. If I didn't get the feedback I do from my feet wearing these shoes, I would probably be falling daily. I consider them the most comfortable 'safety shoe' of all time.

Unfortunately, selections are limited. Most look like running shoes or are, in fact, boots, some of which are for the mountains.

I pulled this one from the current list of Vivobarefoot shoes for women. It's a slip-on and comes in three colors. It's also on sale.


OPANKA II WOMENS

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[agate]

I think I'd like those shoes, flatcap. They seem to have the right kind of soles--with good traction--and I like the "barefoot experience" idea. For years I wore Isotoners ballet-type slippers at home, and I was almost always at home--and loved the way they felt like being barefoot. I had to stop wearing them when diabetes came along, and I was having back problems, and it was pointed out that I needed more supportive shoes.

Your Thanksgiving dinner sounds very nice. I'd miss the cranberry sauce myself but I must be an oddball because I've always loved it. Not the jellied stuff that comes in a can but the kind I used to make. You take a bunch of cranberries and put them in boiling water until they pop with an interesting sound, and you add a certain amount of sugar and maybe some cloves but you don't mash them up.

Whole cranberries--a great treasure--and they're grown in bogs in places like Minnesota and Massachusetts. You take away some of the Thanksgiving tradition if you take away the cranberries. they're such a beautiful color. Thanksgiving dinner would be mostly brown and orange and dark green otherwise. Some bright red is needed!

And they're loaded with important nutrients.

OK. I'll shut up now about cranberries. I did find this, though:

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Just kidding, flatcap! You and your dining companions are welcome to your opinion of cranberries. I'm glad there was nobody making you sit there until you ate your cranberry sauce. And it must have been nice to be among like-minded people who shared your dislike of it.

[flatcap]

Whole cranberries prepared the way you do sound great. It's the common derivatives that generally put me off. In particular, I think the canned jelly stuff is gross.

As to their unpopularity, those results came from a broader survey. As players, it was our task to guess the most unpopular side dish. I guessed cranberries, which gave me the top score on that question. It was just a game. I didn't win it.

There were no cranberries or derivatives at our Thanksgiving meal, but that might have been sheer coincidence. Since I considered it my good fortune, I didn't ask (LOL).

On a distantly related topic, they are now putting cranberries in beer. I hardly ever have a beer anymore, but it sounds interesting. It would probably be at least fun to try. Certain fruits work well with beer, such as fresh lemon squeezed into a glass of ice-cold, real German hefeweizen. They've been doing that forever over there.


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PS: Thanks for the link. The site looks well worth reading.

[agate]

Cranberry ale? It looks as if the whole cranberries aren't floating around in the beer but have been added as juice. A new taste sensation!

[flatcap]

A Only registered and activated users can see links., Click Here To Register... are used to flavor beer with fruit, and Only registered and activated users can see links., Click Here To Register... are more popular than ever. These new 'craft brewers' have to distinguish themselves somehow among the crowd, so they will try just about anything just to survive in business.

If you google [name of fruit] ale, you will get results. I just tried Only registered and activated users can see links., Click Here To Register..., and bingo, plenty of hits. Same for Only registered and activated users can see links., Click Here To Register... (!). You can choose any fruit you want and, almost without fail, someone is using that fruit to make beer.

Only registered and activated users can see links., Click Here To Register... is added to beer. Only registered and activated users can see links., Click Here To Register... is added to beer. Only registered and activated users can see links., Click Here To Register... is; Only registered and activated users can see links., Click Here To Register... is; and on and on. There are even combos, such as Only registered and activated users can see links., Click Here To Register....

Heck, there are even Only registered and activated users can see links., Click Here To Register....

Interesting, isn't it? I don't think anyone saw any of this coming. I was never an expert or anything, but I sure didn't.

[Virginia]

Flatcap I am so glad your Thanksgiving went well and you enjoyed being with your new friends.

I like the look of the shoes you posted about. I think I will try them, but not this month due to being a little short on cash that I feel I can spend at this time. They look so comfortable and if I can get a good fit it looks like something I could wear. They didn't seem to come in narrow and wide, so I assume they are in just one width which may be fine if they do not stretch too much.

Agate, I love cranberry juice cocktail and have a little each day. The way you made your cranberries sounds delicious. By the way, my SIL had two different kinds, the jellied kind and the kind she makes with whole cranberries and nuts etc.

Last night I missed my shot and will have to take it today. I was sitting at my desk thinking about it last night when my phone rang. It was my SIL from Georgia. We talked until 10:15PM. We hadn't talked in a long time so we had to get caught up on my family and her family and everything else. We had a lot of fun. I could not believe we stayed on the phone so long, but it was really a nice evening. She and I both enjoyed it. After that it took me a long time to get calmed down enough to go to bed. This was my first husband's sister and we talked about all the things we did back in our younger days and how much fun we had. We also got on the topic of how young my husband died and how much he and now others in our family are missed. He had 3 sisters and 3 brothers and now there are only two sisters left. But it was a nice evening and I will take my shot tonight.

[agate]

I believe I added a couple of cinnamon sticks to the boiling cranberries, Virginia. Nuts sound like an interesting addition.

Stuffing with nuts in it can be good too, I think.

[Virginia]

She had pine nuts in her broccoli slaw. Then my other SIL made the pecan pie and put a few too many pecans. I ate it, so I have about had my fill of nuts for a little while.

[agate]

I've always loved pecan pie. Also rhubarb pie, cherry, apple, pumpkin, mince, and one I haven't heard about in years--chocolate pie? Does anyone eat it any more? It was usually served with meringue on top.

[Virginia]

I use to be crazy about chocolate pie. I hadn't thought about it in ages. I don't remember how it was made, but I probably have a recipe for it somewhere. There was another chocolate desert that I made in a Pyrex 11 x 13 dish. I was crazy about it too. I have been trying to stay away from chocolate lately so I haven't had anything like that in a while

I bought some grapes last Monday when I was at the grocery store. They were the green ones and I usually prefer red, but I saw how big and nice looking they were so I got the green. They were the best grapes I have had in a long time. A man who worked in the grocery store told me that the bigger they are the sweeter and better. It was true in this case, but I don't think they last very long. I think it is about November and then this kind is gone. I don't know why.

I got magnificent on Wordle today.

[agate]

I think that the harvest season for grapes ends in mid-October.

Congratulations on the Wordle achievement, Virginia! It's a sad day if I can't get around to the Wordle for that day.

[Virginia]

Agate, you are a busy lady and I can see why you might not be able to always get wordle in every day. With all you do I am amazed that you have time to listen to books and watch movies.

It got down to 23 degrees last night and it is not even Winter yet. Instead of blinds at my windows I have plantation shutters and I closed most of them downstairs to try and help and I turned on my gas logs. I have a heat pump, but when I moved here more than 30 years ago I had gas logs installed in my fireplace and a tank out back for my gas. The gas logs really get it pretty warm and if I would close off my upstairs it would save on my heat bill. I don't use the upstairs but I have never liked a house with rooms closed off. I might need to do it whether I like it or not if this keeps up. They tell me it was bitter yesterday and today. I can believe it was last night. I think it is going to rain after this cold spell is over.

Something has goofed up on my computer. The page is too far to the right and I am unable to scroll with the scroll bar I have to use just half or three quarters of a page. Before y'all tell me to use the arrow and pull it to the left, I'll just tell you that I spent over an hour yesterday doing that and it will not go to the left. I am not sure if it happened when I last pulled up something I had stored on my desk top that I needed or if it was when an update came through recently.

I am making potato soup in the crockpot today.

[agate]

Virginia, I hate computer problems like the one you describe and have no answer for you. Every time something like that happens, I just keep trying first one thing and then another until I find something that works, but I never can remember just what I finally did right if I have the same problem later on.

Sometimes changing the magnification can work wonders, if you want to try pressing CTRL and the + or - button a few times.

I know what you mean about not liking a place with rooms closed off. It's been chilly around here lately too, partly because I set the thermostat down 2 degrees when fall came along because the computer likes it cooler.

But it's also that the windows are leaking some cold air. They were always really tight-sealing but now that the building is older, they're less so.

I thought about shutting off the bathroom or maybe the bedroom and bathroom while I'm in the rest of the place (living room and kitchen during the day) but I just didn't like the idea.

So I'm using my old standby, weatherstripping tape. The kind I use doesn't take the paint off and so I hope not to be in any trouble about this with the building management. I never open the bedroom window in winter, and even in summer I need a large screwdriver just to pry it open--so it isn't used much. That's the window with the leakage, and that is the one that is being attacked with weatherstripping tape. That stuff was a lifesaver in Chicago, the land of leaky windows.

Most buildings in Chicago were probably constructed after 1871 when a fire destroyed the city but quite a few (when I lived there) were built around 1900. After so many years the windows just don't do as good a job of keeping air out.

There are people who just love "those old Victorian-era buildings" but I haven't been one of them.

As for time, I listen to books mainly while I'm on my way to sleep or when getting dressed in the morning. Books don't get finished very fast. I try to carve out at least an hour in the evening for a movie or part of one. I leave jobs undone if I have to just to get that time so as to get on with the crocheting then as well as see the movie.

Lately the library has been shut down for remodeling and so I haven't had any DVDs in the mail but (thanks to flatcap, I think) I remembered Tubi and am currently looking at episodes of a PBS series called "Midsomer Murders." I'm not sure I like it as well as some of the other mysteries I've seen.

I use Kanopy too for free streaming movies but have used up my month's supply there.

[flatcap]

I was craving a treat this morning, so I ran down to the convenience store and picked up a fresh cinnamon roll. They are made locally and really good. I had a cup of coffee with it when I got home. They have free coffee for residents in the community room in our apartment building. It had been some time since I had a cup. One will probably be enough for a while unless I get the craving for another cinnamon roll. I don't drink coffee very much anymore.

In other news, I finally backed up my computer Tuesday night. I had been putting it off for far too long. I don't know why, either. It really isn't that hard to do. One thing I do keep backed up all the time is the database for my password manager. Anytime I make a change to it, I back it up right away. I should probably be doing something similar with my computer on a regular basis instead of sporadically. I don't have much in the way of data on my PC that I can't afford to lose, but I might feel differently about it if something did happen.

We're having Winter here already, too. Last night, it got down into the low 20s. Today's predicted high temperature is just 35°. Saturday, it's supposed to be in the low 50s, then it will continue through next week. That will be welcome relief. It gets harder every year for me to tolerate cold weather. I wish I could live somewhere there is no Winter season at all.