Chapter 157: Thanksgiving Weekend

This week went from quiet to busy, busy, busy, in no time at all. 

Monday I trashed the kitchen as I baked treats for my lunch gang at work. Not clear sure if the lunch gang wants me cooking for them, but I do. Bob, who never knew we even owned a kitchen before he was laid off, has taken over a lot of the domestics, he couldn’t stand the mess and had to jump in clean it up. As I was rushing around the kitchen, there he was underfoot again. Oh well, small price to pay for the way that worked out. Since I have a reputation for making unique snacks for the lunch gang, I made a cupcake TV dinner. An odd choice, (ok, a very odd choice), but totally fun to make.  It included turkey drum sticks (coconut caramel frosting with toasted coconut), mashed potatoes (frosting, caramel sauce, with a lemon Starburst), and peas and carrots (jelly beans with orange Starburst carrots).

While I was working on the cupcakes, Kyanne called and invited us to dinner the next night with Ryan’s parents and his sister’s family. Ryan barbequed a pork tenderloin and Kyanne made a cranberry sauce. The combination was AWESOME! I’m always up for a great dinner and great company!

Being out for dinner on Tuesday compressed my Thanksgiving baking schedule so Wednesday required that I make double the mess to get everything done.  I met my goals of a sugarless sweet potato pie, pecan pie, pumpkin pie, another tray of TV dinner cupcakes and at LEAST twice the kitchen mess...

Thursday, we packed up all our pies and Grampa up and went to Kingston to have Thanksgiving dinner with Carissa and Chris. Below is a map from our house (A) to Carissa and Chris' (B). As the crow flies, it's not that far but with the Puget Sound smack in the middle of everything, it's a bit of a drive. If you are a Twilight follower, you can see Forks to the far left of the Olympic Peninsula and a teeny bit of Canada at the top of the map where Victoria, BC is located.

Apparently five-star barbequeing skills are a prerequisite for being my son-in-law.  Chris barbequed a salmon fillet to die for. That’s something coming from a fish hater like myself. Keep up the good work, boys!

Here the guys (including Gatsby the cat and Bear the dog) lounge around the living room doing absolutely nothing while us women slave away in the kitchen. Just kidding.  Reference above paragraph on  Chris’ bbq prowness.

Since the family is all scattered about, there were only five of us, but we had a great time and a great meal. It was good to have Grampa with us. We really missed Kyanne and Ryan a lot but they are very popular folks and must spread themselves about as best they can. 

A very special thank you to my sister-in-law, JoAnn, who gave up Thanksgiving with her own family to make Thanksgiving dinner for a friend’s family that is going through extremely hard times right now. JoAnn’s friend passed away last weekend and JoAnn had promised she’d see the family still had a proper Thanksgiving dinner. That is a hard task to promise. Afterwards, JoAnn was off to see Payton for some restorative soul healing.

After Thanksgiving dinner, Bob and I went to the cabin. The plan was to sheetrock the laundry room ceiling. An integral part of this plan was that the lumber store that is 3 blocks away would deliver the sheetrock…an especially appealing idea since it was pouring (rain) outside. After over paying for the sheetrock and returning to the cabin to await the delivery with baited breath, Omen's called and said they were out of sheetrock. That shot down our plan and our already low opinion of the local lumberyard.

So instead of straining to lift sheetrock to the ceiling and being covered with taping mud, we pointed the car south on Highway 101 to see what we could see. We cruised through Ilwako to see if they had their crab pot Christmas tree built yet. Nothing says Christmas like a Christmas tree made from lighted crab pots. The crab pots were stacked on the sidewalk but the tree was not yet built. Siknce I doubt well get back by Christmas to take a picture, I've included someone else's picture from last year snatched from the internet so you don't miss the thrill of seeing it.

We got back on Highway 101 and crossed the Astoria-Meglar bridge across the Columbia River to Oregon. This is the bridge that had the semi truck blow over on it last week in 101 mph winds.

We ended up in Seaside, Oregon, past home of Keiko the Killer Whale. Although the Seaside is mainly a summer beach town, it was really packed. We went to the Seaside Brewery for lunch and a walk around town. They were brewing while we were at the brewery. Me thinks Bob has a more sophisticated brewing setup than those there Seaside Brewery folks, but whatever. The beer was tasty. The hundred year old building had very interesting architecture and, among other things, it has been the City of Seaside firehouse and later a jailhouse. 

I see they have another town character locked up today. I wonder if his photo is on the wall of the post office?

Since Seaside is on the beach, I was surprised to see a river (actually two) running through town. Even thought the buildings are hotels and condos, it looks kind of European through here.

On the way back from Seaside, the sun was getting low and the ground fog was settling in. Except for the giant green sign that mysteriously showed up in the picture, you can see the ground fog enveloping the poor little cows. I think ground fog is actually kind of creepy.

The mouth of the Columbia River used to be teeming with salmon fisheries and canneries of all kinds. Each of them were built out over the water and after being removed left hundreds of pilings around the area. I love all the old pilings and try to figure out what they used to be.  In the background of these pilings you can see the Coast Guard base in Astoria, OR.

Tonight we watched Madagascar 3. At the end of the movie, they played the credits to a techno version of “I Want to Move It, Move It” while Bob tried to teach Nitro how to do the fist pump to the beat like I was doing. In typical cat fashion, Nitro managed to not cooperate. I don’t know why Bob can’t get it through his thick head that you cannot teach cats anything unless they want to learn it. As Garrison Keillor once said "Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function."

We got up this morning to frost. Frost is kind of rare at the beach and it seems early. I hope that's not a sign it's going to be a harsh winter out there. We have learned our lesson earlier, and now turn the water off each time we leave.

A close up of some of the longer grass with frost on it. It was pretty thick frost too. I had to go stomp around in it to make monster footprints.

We did not have much luck with our Wildlife Trifecta this trip. I saw a huge herd of elk and a giant bird the size of a turkey but on scrawny crane-type legs. I couldn't tell what that was but had intended to count it but we came up sort one animal type. Maybe next time.

Have a good week, everyone!