how about drinking?
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Neck starting flairing up again this morning. Hubby thought we had brought the box that we packed our heating/massage pad in, he went upstairs where we had put some stuff and he found it in the box. Brought it down to me, and I used it and it made everything go back to normal.
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Your dh takes good care of you, mommyof3.
As expected, dh's surgery was cancelled again with no new date assigned.
The snowfall is quite heavy and pretty. We will be "hunkered down" all day and probably tomorrow, too.
Happy cold Tuesday.
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Good Morning, Loungettes! Happy Twofer Tuesday! Well, the Polar Vortex has arrived. It's a grand total of 5 degrees (feels like 1 degree) outside. The puppers are chasing the shaft of sun that comes in the living room window across the floor and jockeying to see who gets more of with each repositioning. Their trips outside have been very efficient, no hanging around sniffing, no checking out the activity in the neighborhood until they were back inside. Fortunately, it looks like it's only going to last a few days before going back to usual temps.
Carole—around here I can tell when the weather forecast includes snow just by looking at the grocery store parking lots. Full lots on a week night mean people are stocking up on milk, bread, and beer, the 3 things a snowstorm cannot be survived without! It amuses me to no end, since I know the roads will be cleared and driving will be fine within hours of the end of the snowfall. But places that don't get multiple inches of snow multiple times a winter probably don't have the equipment and staffing it takes to clear roads quickly. I'm sorry your DH's surgery has been rescheduled, and I hope it doesn't end up being pushed back yet again.
MOmmy—sorry to hear about your neck. Glad you found the heating/massaging pad!
Carole—oh dear, my prayers for your DH's schedule were too late, I see. Praying now you will get a date soon and it will be soon. Happy hunkering down!
Hunker Down
This bright cocktail melds together the unmistakable warming spices of fall and vibrant winter fruits to create a harmonious cold-weather collins.
- 1 oz New Deal Old Tom Gin
- ½ oz New Deal Pear Brandy
- ½ oz Amontillado Sherry
- ½ oz fresh lemon juice
- ¼ oz maple syrup
- soda water
- apple slices for garnish
Add all ingredients except the soda water to a shaker tin and whip shake with a few pieces of ice. Add the soda water to the tin and strain into a tall glass. Top with fresh ice and garnish with apple slices.
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Carole, what a bummer that you have no new date for hubby’s surgery.
The polar vortex finally left here!
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DH was assured by the doctor's office that he will keep his place at the front of the line.
The sun is shining brightly on snow scenes out every window that isn't covered by a hurricane shutter. We're helping the furnace by covering some windows, especially in rooms where we aren't spending much time. Today is another Hunker Down day but I expect people to be getting antsy and venturing out to get themselves in situations where they require rescue.
Happy Wednesday to everybody in the lounge.
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Good Morning, Loungettes! Happy Hump Day! Another cold one here, the puppers are chasing the shaft of sunlight again and keep trying to climb into my lap. Apparently I am warmer than the shaft of sunlight this ayem! Nice ot be wanted and needed! Today should be the last of the brutally cold days, then back to the 20s and 30s that are typical for January in Maine.
MOmmy—glad the polar vortex has exited your area! We've got it on the run back north, now!
Carole—glad to hear DH is staying at the head of the line for a new surgery date. I bet you are right about people going out and getting into rescue-requiring situations after hunkering down. That always seems to be what happens. I'm expecting to hear about a lot of snowmobiles, cars, trucks, people through the ice in the coming days. The ice around hear wasn't thick enough in most places and a few days of this kind of temp doesn't usually make the ice that much thicker.
Ingredients:
40ml Vanilla Vodka
40ml Pineapple Juice
40ml Cranberry Juice
10ml Passionfruit Pulp
10ml Lemon Juice
Ice Cubes
Method:
In a cocktail shaker fill with ice and all the ingredients, shake well and pour.
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Native, it can stay gone!
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Good morning. The white stuff is still out there but I'm hoping higher temperatures today, in the 40's, will melt it. DH is now scheduled for surgery tomorrow, thanks to a cancellation. We don't know the time yet. I hope it isn't dark-thirty. He will drive us to the surgery center, about 20 minutes normally, and should be staying overnight. I will need to pick him up on Saturday when Week One of Nurse Carole begins. At least I have some experience now, since we survived the first TKR surgery.
I am so ready to return to winter normal.
Happy Thursday.
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Carole, did you see video of people playing ice hockey on Canal St.? WOW. Best of luck to your husband on his surgery, and to you for your upcoming nurse duty.
Last night we went to Francesca's for dinner. DOTD was Tre Dita, a Tuscan red blend of sangiovese, nebbiolo & merlot.
Tonight was the Rombauer Winery dinner at McCormick & Schmick's. A Napa/Sonoma (mostly Sonoma) Sauv. Blanc (very lightly oaked after tank fermentation), classic oaky Carneros Chardonnay, Carneros Merlot (better than it had a right to be) and a luscious Amador County (Sierra Foothills) Zin. It was my birthday but I didn't say anything because I didn't need any hoopla stealing the spotlight from the elaborately planned and executed dinner.
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Good Morning, Loungettes! Happy TGIF Day! I went to visit Mom yesterday, picked up the loaf of bread that we forgot twice before and helped her get her new toaster plugged in. I've noticed that electrical appliances are coming with zip ties around the plug prongs that have to be cut to remove. Not sure what the reason for that is, but apparently Mom didn't see the zip tie on the prongs and couldn’t figure out why she couldn't plug in the toaster. Got that taken care of. She's got a fancy toaster oven that she's having trouble remembering how to run (the reason for getting the old-fashioned toaster, so she can make toast as she can't make that work in the toaster oven any more) that I put in dibs for when she's ready to get rid of it. That thing has a rotisserie attachment/feature and about a dozen other things. Between that and my Instapot knockoff I don't think I'd have to use a regular oven, which would do wonders for the electric bill.
The puppers say Woof to everyone.
MOmmy—I’m with you, may it stay away!
Carole—good to see DH is getting his knee done today. Praying for a good outcome and rapid recovery.
Chi—HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Glad the dinner was so nice. It sounds like it was quite a treat.
Promises in Vortex
Ingredients:
2-oz.-blend of cilantro-infused El Jimador Blanco Tequila and Banhez Ensemble Mezcal
1/2 oz. mint syrup* or 1/2 oz. Thai chili simple syrup*
3/4 oz. lime acid*
1 1/2 oz. filtered water
Super Salt rim*
Directions:
Draught > Add all ingredients to a soda stream or Isi Soda Siphon and carbonate. For the classic presentation, salt a rocks glass with Super Salt, add a 2-by-2 Kold-Draft ice cube (or use an ice mold that renders the equivalent size), and fill the glass with your carbonated cocktail. Large cubes will control dilution rates better than smaller cubes, so if you plan to sip your drink slowly, this is the way to go — but good luck trying to keep this drink around for more than five minutes.
Shaken > If you enjoy drinking your cocktails still instead of carbonated, replace the lime acid with fresh lime juice, add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker — minus the filtered water — shake with ice, and strain into a Collins glass over pellet ice. Garnish the Promises in Vortex with a Super Salt rim, lime wheel, and mint sprig.
Super Salt Rim*
Super Salt is a balanced combination of kosher salt, citric acid, and dried chili powder. Dry and grind guajillos, ancho, New Mexico red, or cascabel chilis and mix with the salt and citric acid.
Mint Syrup*
(Yields roughly 32 oz.)
3 to 4 cups fresh mint leaves (leaves should be firm and deep green in color)
Granulated sugar
3 cups filtered boiling water
> Bring water to boil. Add mint and boil for an additional 1 minute. Immediately remove mint leaves and place them in an ice bath. Turn off burner, measure the amount of water in the pot, add equal parts sugar, and dissolve until mixture becomes syrupy in texture. Cool the syrup until room temperature. Then, add syrup and mint to a blender — you’ll have to do this in two different batches — and blend each batch for 2 minutes. Use cheesecloth and mesh strain.
Thai Chili Simple Syrup*
(Yields roughly 36 oz.)
1 oz. Thai chilis, diced
Granulated sugar
3 cups water
> Dice chilis into pieces, but do not mince. Bring water and chilis to boil, then remove from heat. Combine equal parts chili mixture with sugar and let dissolve, stirring as needed. Let settle until syrup reaches room temperature. Strain with a cheesecloth through a mesh strainer to fill large ball jars.
Lime Acid*
Peel of 3 limes
1 1/2 oz. citric acid
1 oz. malic acid
4 cups water
> Let peels settle in the acids for 2 hours. You can find citric and malic acids at most grocery stores. If you don’t have malic acid available, add a little more citric acid and adjust to taste until you arrive at a solution that strikes a similarity to lime juice. Strain with a fine mesh and cheesecloth strainer.
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It was a great birthday! The Lyft ride downtown was a pleasant surprise: our driver was a Jewish Ethiopian (aka "Beta Israel") who'd just come home from visiting his kids in Beersheba (they'd "made aliya," emigrating to Israel under the Law of Return). I immediately thought of our Karen and her daughter.
Today's paella demo & class included a multi-course lunch with wine pairings. So my DsOTD were a brut cava, a "txakolina" (dry slightly fizzy white from Basque country), a soft red "fraga do corvo" from Portugal, a Marques de Caceres Rioja reserva, and a "Jorge Ordóñez #1 Selección Especial," a Muscat of Alexandria as sweet as an oloroso sherry, but pale, unoxidized and just a tad acidic enough to cut through the sweetness of the flan and its sauce. That grape is one of the world's oldest vinifera varietals (dating back 2500 years to Egypt), and has never been genetically modified or grafted. Like last night, I limited myself to one oz. or less of each.
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Long day yesterday. We arrived at the surgery center at 9 am as instructed. DH was taken back for preparation for surgery. There was a long delay and he finally went to surgery about 1 pm. I waited in his room and had updates. Everything went well and he was brought to his room about 4 pm. I stayed with him a while and then went home. I had an Old-Fashioned and snack crackers for dinner.
Later I will drive to the surgery center and bring him home. Here's hoping for a good recovery. We both know the first week will be rough for him and busy for me as I take care of his needs as best I can.
It's in the 20's this morning but will warm up. Everybody is over the "snow fun" and ready for ice and snow to disappear.
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DH and I caught a fun movie on Amazon streaming last night. "Role-Play" is about a couple with two kids whose lives get disrupted when it comes to light that the mom is a top-tier assassin with a bounty on her head. The acting and writing were excellent and truly sincere, even if the ending was kind of trite. Some of the husband-wife exchanges reminded me of Bob and Helen in "The Incredibles" - very relatable.
DotD last night was a glass of a malbec that definitely needed some breathing time. After a bit of oxygen, it was quite nice.
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Day 3 of recovery is starting out well. DH and I both slept well last night. He also slept quite a bit in his recliner but still got in his walks every hour and a half as instructed by the physical therapist. The pain meds seem to be helping more with pain. There are differences between the 1st surgery experience and this 2nd surgery. I guess that's normal.
Happy Monday to everyone.
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YAY for your DH, Carole.
My chicken quarters are in the oven. I microwaved tiny potatoes, then smashed them, and put them on the sheet pan with the chicken. Not sure what green veg I have yet….
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Quiet in the lounge. Hello to those not yet posting or those reading.
Wally your sheet pan dinner sounds delicious. I am trying that method tomorrow and will report back.
Carole I am glad DH is coming along, albeit slowly.
Had a delicious Lumina pinot grigio with dinner (actually 1/2 for 2 WW points). Dh heroically drank the rest for me.
NM I hope you are not "too busy" with Mama and possibly just relaxing with the doggos.
To a good rest of the week. 🍻.
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Carole, glad to hear your DH is coping well with recovery from TKR#2. Things are so different these days: only a dozen years ago it was an in-patient procedure with 2-3 nights in hospital before being released to home or rehab. Tring to wrap my head around something that major being done in a surgicenter. Times have changed.
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Reader - I need your DH to heroically save me from drinking "the rest" of the wine!!! I've been drinking a Spanish Garnacha that I really like, but sometimes it's hard to stop at one glass when the bottle is just sitting there on the cupboard,
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Last night I had a vodka martini instead of the winter Old Fashioned thanks to the weather change. It has warmed up considerably.
The caregiver role is taking its toll. I told dh that I'm glad he doesn't have any more knees. To make matters worse, we didn't have water in the house yesterday and last night. My wonderful BIL came and did some troubleshooting and shovel work, exposing an outdoor pipe in the ground that was the problem. Our neighbor Rodney came over early this morning and did more shovel work and glued the pipe joint that had separated. So far so good. Water in the house again. Yay. We have a well and a pump. Rural plumbing.
I would gladly have hired a plumber. I made calls and left messages but the plumbers are all busy repairing broken pipes from the arctic freeze.
Happy Thursday to all. I'm lucky to know what day it is. LOL.
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Our refrigerator decided to die on Saturday. We called an appliance repair place knowing that we would have to wait until Monday at the earliest. Fortunately, it's been cold outside, so we were able to move the dairy and meats into coolers to keep outside. We also have a second freezer, so the frozen stuff went in there.
Monday we got a call from their dispatcher who got us a slot for their Samsung guy on Wednesday sometime between 10-3. Wednesday comes along and no repair guy. I checked my phone, and saw a message from him saying he was on his way - over an hour ago. I texted and called him back saying we were still at the house and still waiting for him. I then got a call back from his dispatcher saying that since we didn't call him back immediately after he called us, he skipped us over for his next call and wouldn't be able to get back to our side of town. Could they reschedule us for Thursday?
Dude's voice mail gave no indication that he was waiting on us to reply, just that he was on his way. I get that they have to deal with a lot of no-shows, and understand that frustration. But we were at the house, and he never drove by to check at all. But what's done is done, so we got rescheduled for 10-1 today. At 1:00 we hadn't seen our tech, so I texted him saying we were still here and still waiting. At 2:00, I called his dispatcher to see if she had any word from their guy. She tried calling him, but didn't hear back, which she said was worrying. She said they didn't have any other Samsung guys, but would be willing to send our ticket to a few of their former employees who they could recommend. We said, "Yes, please."
So now we're waiting on another tech, assuming that the first one doesn't resurface. DH is really disgusted at the repair people's attitude when they know you are totally dependent on them, so they can use up as much of your day as they want and you have little recourse other than calling someone else with the same issues.
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Minus, I enjoy Grenache varietals too….yeah, red wine in general. I just finished a Monastrell that I really enjoyed. I may have to order wine again since our Costco seems to sell the same stuff and I enjoy trying new things. Even our local grocery store has the same stuff.
Carole, how lovely to have nice neighbors. My idiot next door started screaming at us at 10:30pm the other night— because he "doesn't like" that my motion detector camera goes off when he flashes his flashlight into our driveway. What a narcissistic a@#
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Wally - if you have access to a Total Wine, their selection is gigantic - every wine you can imagine from every country. They also have house wines & spirits that are really good too. And good prices. When they finally opened a Total Wine in the SF Bay area, my son was astounded how much better it was than anything that was existing. I have also had lots of fun taking their various tasting classes - wine flights (or bourbons or gins) with lectures about the wine (or spirits) and the vintners and the terrior. Served delicious nibbles from cheese to fruit to finger sandwiches. You won't need dinner.
Mirlandra - sorry about your fridge. Nothing is easy any more.
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We have a total wine, 2 hours or so round trip, over the bridge but at least no ferry. Their selection seemed nice but the prices, not so much. Spirits are 30% tax here, so if I can't order from out of state, I just do without. I don't drink much in the spirit world so not a great loss. I'll have to go through their website to see what the Silverdale store has; no deliveries out here for anything except amazon, LOL.
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NM - hope you are OK. Miss you!!!
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Pretty much vin ordinaire the past couple of days—not drinking at home, and the wines at tonight's Crystal Heart Ball were "CK Mondavi" cab & sauv blanc. Meh. (When Robert Mondavi bought out Charles Krug 45 years or so ago, they put that stuff out as their secondary "fighting varietals" label).
Years ago in one of his books, Dave Barry commented that contractors & repairmen live in an alternate universe where they laugh at us unsuspecting mere mortals. I can confirm that many times over, starting with a disastrous fall 1987 roof repair, continuing with our current restoration project, and now with your fridge experience, Miriandra. Lately, I've been fantasizing about teleporting the entire "This Old House" crew (especially that cute contractor Zach Dettmore) to Chicago and putting them to work on our reconstruction.
BTW, further complicating matters chez nous is that our neighborhood—Edgewater Glen—was just declared a National Historic District, with our block cited as its epicenter due to all the 1890-1920 versions of "American Foursquare" style homes (aka LSB's: Large Stucco Boxes). So on top of everything else, anything visible from the street must conform to the colors, styles & materials extant on the day of the declaration (1/15/25). At least we can get a composite rear deck (city insists the whole deck be replaced) instead of pressure-treated lumber that needs staining.
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Echoing minus. Hope you are ok, NM.
When I have time and opportunity, I plan to buy a bottle of Costco vodka. One summer in MN, we had a blind vodka tasting with the Costco, Stoli, and Grey Goose. The Costco won or tied with the Grey Goose.
We're starting out at 49 degrees this morning with sunshine. It will warm up, probably enough for me to take a walk in the neighborhood.
Happy Sunday to everyone.
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Please check in, Kim (NM)—hope all is well and you're just busy.
Carole, Kirkland is Bob's favorite vodka (has unseated Tito's on his shopping list). At restaurants, for his martinis he specifies Tito's or Belvedere. He is very persnickety (though not James Bond-level, no preference for shanken vs stirred). Must be vodka, with a lemon twist instead of an olive (though an olive on the side is fine), with "more than the usual amount of vermouth" to distinguish it from a mere fancy glass of garnished vodka. If I have an aperitif, it's usually a good brut bubbly (must be naturally-bottle-fermented regardless of origin), whatever I'll be drinking with the rest of my meal, or an Aperol spritz or variation thereon.
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At dinner tonight I had Piper Heidseck brut and Argyle (OR) Pinot Noir—but I was too full to finish more than half a glass of each.
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Sandy, I have been drinking Tito's.
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I opened a bottle of Mondavi Bourbon barrel aged cab (the 20% off sale at Grocery Outlet during their wine sale 2xyear) and it is quite delightful.
If I have martinis, they must be gin. Plymouth or Bombay (red/original). Beefeater has changed their proof. And I rarely buy spirits in WA state unless I can have them delivered from another state to avoid the 30% tax. Even with shipping, it is worth it. More and more states are charging that tax so I am glad wine is my drug of choice.
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