The Tease of Things I Don't Need

Bird Eve
(updated)

This finds me on the first of five days off. I automatically woke up just before 6am only to go back to sleep until just past 10. A muddle of dreams merging some ongoing personal anxieties with movie, novel and comics elements finally drove me back to the waking world.

Since then the Thanksgiving prep's been under way, including cubing and toasting some more bread, cutting onions and celery and starting them on a slow saute' - all for the stuffing. Getting all the dishes done and the kitchen re-cleaned for the main prep tonight, too. I still have to go through the refrigerator and clear out some items so we have plenty of room for items that'll be in overnight, and then for short-term leftovers tomorrow.

Crypt Leak and Abbygal are likely going full tilt over at their place today, as they're hosting Thanksgiving for their extended family on both sides. After surviving that the planned December 2nd get-together for four or five of us (still not sure if Eric's going to be clear for it) should seem easy.

I caught the annual story about the president "pardoning" a turkey, which always leaves me wondering about the one (or whatever else) the First Family ends up eating. Flash imaginings of PETA-financed lawyers petitioning for clemency for hundreds or thousands of wattled clients comes to mind. I'd like to suggest the turkey pardoned each year be named "Barabbus" just for the hell of it.

I always take Black Friday off, and this year it was backed up as EEI officially moved the Christmas Eve holiday, that fell on a Sunday this year, to this Friday. I took today as a vacation day as I needed to knock that tally down a little. (I can only carry 40 hours over from one year to the next.)

Monday was the day the juice failed, as something catastrophic happened to the Windstar (most likely the alternator going) just after I dropped the kids off at school. I barely made it home, went to switch to the other van only to have that one (my fault entirely) fail to start because I hadn't switched it on once in at least 4 months. A jump from AAA later I was finally off to work, letting it run a little longer to recharge. When I turned it off I tried to restart it.

k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k!

Strong panel lights, but not enough to kick it over.

After another jump and a longer run & idle failed to hold the charge, I took a closer look at the battery, popping the cell covers. I could see water in each, but one bank of 3 looked a little lower than the other, so I took a measuring cup of water from the lab and proceeded to fill the cells up. The sucker ended up taking almost 700 ml of water. A third jump and letting it run -- gunning the gas a few times along the way - over the course of 40 minutes or so did the trick. I idled it some more to be sure, trying out the headlights and looking for any signs of dimming of them or the panel lights when I stepped on the brakes, but all seemed well.

Unfortunately, the time I lost taking care of all this and my not being completely sure if it would behave after being off for several hours saw me withdrawing from Monday night's Supernova marquee. So, I went from grandiose plans of getting to perhaps as many as three marquees to a single one, tonight.

All in all I'm feeling fairly good today. I haven't decided when I want to take care of the Windstar -- I don't want to leave it sitting completely useless for long, but the next step will be replacing that battery and then seeing how it behaves so I can better determine if the alternator or some control system has completely failed (which is what I expect) or if the battery (which I hadn't replaced in the three years we've owned it) failed completely and created a huge load/resistance on the circuit. The latter's definitely a long shot. Still, either way I need to replace the battery. Even if the alternator's shot on a fresh battery I'll be able to make a daytime drive with it to a mechanic and let him make the final diagnosis and make the necessary replacements.

The bird is thawing, the stuffing prep is as mentioned above. I'll be bringing the elements fully together and getting the bird into the oven tonight after I return from the marquee.

For now, though, I have to tackle the refrigerator and then head out for some other items. We had a speckleware pot we've owned for years develop a hole as one of Ari's highly acidic Vietnamese fish & vinegar soups finally managed to eat its way through it, so I need to get a new pot (or two) to help tackle the rest of the night's cooking tasks. I also need to get more drinks.

So... off with me for all that.

Most likely more from me very late in the day.

Very Late In the Day:

Okay... the marquee didn't net me much -- I pulled not terribly well and played worse. Some strongly skilled players showed up -- something that surprised me for this late point in the marquee run, but the lure of prize-only LEs will do that. A vet Silver Surfer there, Hyperion there, Thanos over there... the combination of player levels, them being motivated players and their pulls, well...

I did get another map, the Thor, Frog of Thunder pog, a couple more Kree for that force, another Korvac (one of the pieces I fielded) and a little more practice. I don't play often enough and I lack the killer instinct, though. Deciding whether or not I want to change that is the question for me, but not one I'll be answering tonight. I don't approve of the approved play system and prize-only LEs as I've often said, and I don't know that I want to become a win-driven player. It's like that truism about the rat race -- no matter who wins you're still a rat.

I've cut and boiled 10 pounds (they'll be eaten, no worries) of red potatoes, whipped them with butter, milk and some pepper (the butter's salted and no one here will be eating them without gravy -- and people can always salt to taste), so that's done save for transferring them to an interim container that fits better in the refrigerator. I'll shift that in sections into a casserole tomorrow for a reheat.

The onions and celery were sauteed this afternoon, as mentioned earlier, with the last of the bread cubed and toasted then, too. Stuffing's now made, and I'll work some of it into the bird and get that started on its overnight roast once the pies come out of the oven.

Asparagus, gravy, black olives, wholeberry cranberry sauce, rolls... I'm still debating on a blend of white and yellow corn, though that might be too much starch given everything else.

Not necessarily online for much of it, but I'll likely be up for a few hours yet -- I'm on vacation, so the clock's only good for cooking times.

Tags: Bird Eve, Thanksgiving preparations