Thanksgiving Weekend 2016

Sunday November 27, 2016

Happy post-Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you all enjoyed your weekend whether you spent it with family or friends or out shopping or just at home catching up on things (like we did).

Wednesday I got out of work early so I treated myself to a late afternoon matinee of “Bridget Jones & Baby.” As I was in the middle of reading the book I was concerned there might be several spoilers in the movie, but I need not have worried as the two took slightly different paths (and I quite honestly enjoyed the film version more). I won’t give away the sex of the baby, but there’s not much else I can say without spoiling either the book or the movie. Suffice it to say I got my money’s worth ($2.25) and it cheered me up a bit (after having yet another bad day at work).

Thanksgiving Day 2016

Since my family had already gathered the weekend before, Andrew and I spent the day at home alone. I decided it would be a good time to catch up on some projects. Some things took longer than I anticipated as I literally spent the entire afternoon scanning a roll of APS film. Yes, I know that dates me as a nostalgic Generation X. The reason for scanning the roll (on the ancient scanner Andrew bought me at least 15 years ago in the UK) was the company I paid to develop it and make prints apparently no longer prints panoramic photos full size. Instead they squeezed them onto 4x6 photo paper. For most of the photos it was okay, but there were at least 10 that had some of the detail cut out of them because of this. Hence, I have decided to have proper reprints of these done (not sure if I will print them myself or have them done elsewhere).

While I was waiting on the scanner I decided to finish a photo album/scrapbook I had started last summer in an art class at the Upper Arlington Senior Center. Not wishing to try and interpret the written instructions and drag out the project any longer, I decided to just do my own thing, which was to glue on a set of metal rings/spine and punch holes in the pages and attach them that way. I also selected some photos I can insert into each page (the pages are designed as envelopes to hold photos or whatever other ephemera one would like to store). I am quite pleased with it even if I did leave out all the flourishes (I have ribbon and other bits and pieces). I can still add more to it later, but at least it’s more or less functional as a photo album.

Since we had already had turkey, we decided to do something a little different and made a Japanese themed dinner of Gohei-Mochi (rice on a stick) and meatballs with a side of vegetables and sweet Saki to drink. Andrew decided to take up that challenge and did a pretty good job with it. The hardest part was getting the rice to brown under the grill. A kitchen blow torch would have sped things up a bit, but we don’t happen to have one. Either way, they tasted great and I discovered I quite like Saki (but couldn’t drink too much since I had to go shopping after dinner). For dessert we had Green Tea Kit Kats purchased on sale at World Market. I still couldn’t taste the green tea, but they certainly are green.

My first fail of the weekend (other than grossly underestimating the amount of time my various projects would take) was not studying my Goat Cheese Pumpkin Pie recipe more closely. If I had, I would have seen that it needs to sit and chill for 6-8 hours. Also, I didn’t have enough powdered sugar. Thus it was that I nipped out after dinner for my first ever Black Friday (on Thursday) shopping trip to Target. I was worried that the lines would be horrendous, but management had a plan and executed it expertly. Having all hands on deck and using taped off areas, shoppers were herded through and distributed to the first available cashier (much like lining up for rides at Disney) where purchases were rang up in record time. Hence, from the time I left my house to the time I got back home I think only about a half an hour or so had lapsed, so I was quite pleased. It was at least another hour and a bit before I had the pie made and the kitchen cleaned up, so I very much enjoyed putting my feet up afterwards.

Friday November 25, 2016

In the morning I sorted through my candle collection and decided to thin it out a bit. I then spent best part of the afternoon putting all sorts of ads on Craigslist and Nextdoor Ridgewood figuring people would be in a spending mood being Black Friday and all. Sadly, not a single response, so it ended up being a colossal waste of time.

I was cheered up when I saw that I had received an unexpected package which turned out to be a dvd mailed to me by Larry Auman, owner of the Auman Museum of Radio and TV. The dvd contained three 8mm/Super 8 movies I had donated to the museum earlier this year (since we don’t own an 8mm or Super 8 projector). The movies were a Tom & Jerry flick, The Rescuers and Captain America. Two out of three I had seen previously, but the Captain America film was new to me. I didn’t realize Iron Man was a vintage comic book super hero having only seen him in films over the past 10 years or so. I must remember to send Mr. Auman a nice thank you note. Although it would have been nice to see them in their original format, the film wobbles and sound irregularities were recorded, so it was the next best thing.

In the evening we headed to the Lennox AMC where we had reserved tickets to see “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.” Anticipating that it might be quite busy we thought it would be prudent to reserve tickets in advance. We need not have worried as there were only about 7 or 8 of us in the theatre. Apparently everyone else was still out shopping or had already seen it last weekend when it first came out. I wanted to demand a refund of my $3 service fee, but knew that it would be more trouble than it was worth. At least the movie was good and didn’t feel like a two and a quarter hour film. Andrew and I are both curious where this franchise is going next since we read that there are seven films planned in this series.

Saturday and Sunday were spent running errands, decorating the church for Advent, and raking leaves, so nothing too exciting to report. It has certainly felt like a long weekend, and although I certainly didn’t get everything done, I at least accomplished something, and Andrew felt it was a pretty productive four days too (he made his Christmas cake and Christmas pudding).

Have a great week everyone!