Time together

My granddaughter came over the other day.  She loves to get her picture taken.  She bounces around ... "Let me show you another picture! she says, then poses.  As soon as I take it, she runs to me - "Let me see!" she laughs.  "Here's another picture!" posing again. {Click} {Soft thumping of a little girl's socked feet}

I have two dinners to make - tonight (Christmas Eve) and tomorrow.  Am making cookies with Brit this morning.  Gotta go to Giant for some ingredients ... was too focused on last-minute-present shopping until now.  I'll stop by the office around noon or so to get the mail.  A slow couple of days, then I need to launch into trial prep.  At least three trials with jury selection on January 8.  Also have a discovery motion to custom prep this week.  Will be a good dry run for a motion I'll need in February or March.

Stuck with the TV on ... some med informed me that a possible side effect was death.  I think it was a med for making walking less painful.  Seems like an odd trade off.  I can't imagine myself thinking I'd rather die than continue to walk slowly.  And a common side effect of Tamiflu is vomiting.  Hunh.  A common side effect.  Isn't that what's trying to be avoided?  They may as well say, "Does the uncertainty keep you up at night?  Take this to ensure that you'll yammy in your jammies!"

This is odd ... some show telling us the history of various prepared foods is on.  Campbell's soup now.  They showed a historical pic of Campbell's food laboratory.  Several guys standing around a table which had a dozen or so serving containers on it.  In context, the containers held soup.  The odd thing is that the guys surrounding the table all wore hardhats.  What were the expecting the soup to do?  Best to be prepared, I get it, but is soup an inherently dangerous product suggesting a hardhat for safety?  I'd think goggles would be ok (which weren't present).  And since the recipes were all experiments, perhaps vomit bags - but I didn't see those either.  Candy canes date to 1670 - just white, meant to resemble a Sheppard's crook.  Good info.  Americans added peppermint and the red stripe.  You got 3,200 canes out of a hundred-pound batch. That fact will be useful someday in some context.  Probably.  "Hi!  I'm bored to tears talking to you.  I'd rather bang my head off that wall over there.  Did you know that a hundred-pound batch of source material yields 3,200 candy canes?  That's a half-ounce product.  Gimme a sec ... be right back."  {Bang}, {bang}, {bang}.  Ah, here's some symmetry of life - fruit cakes were found in pharaohs' tombs.  Probably still edible.  Ah, channel change!  Oh.  British show making things from Play-dough.  Circa 1897 some guy substituted oil for water in clay, and an industry was born.  Plasticine.  Shoot. Me. Now. Head. Shot.  Ready?  3 - 2 - 1 ... 

I do love seeing the English countryside, however.  I hope to go there next year.  I started the research.  Need to see Kent County.  Maternal side lived there for several generation after the French kicked them out for being Huguenots.  Passed through Prussia on the way.  Ozce Jourdiane, Nantes; last one there.  Mark Jordan, Clearfield, PA; first one here.  I've heard that Marie Antoinette had a sizable donkey, if you know what I mean ...

I'm starting to stress over the menus.  I have no idea beyond the broad stuff.  Tonight, I got five pounds of King Crab.  Tomorrow, a homemade version of Tofurky (which mine is way better and a lot bigger, btw), a real turkey (gag me!).  Should I get clams for tonight?  Need a complete vegan meal beyond the seafood.  What to do ...

I was here over the weekend ...

It's leaving the upstairs of Independence Hall.  Ben Franklin walked that hallway.  Downstairs was the room where Washington presided over the meetings; upstairs was a long room probably used to get hammered as the likelihood of war set in.  Mark Jordan (op cit.) was 13-years old when the war started.  He was a drummer boy.  He died an elder of a Presbyterian church.  I've often wondered how the folks that lived through the Revolution felt about the War of 1812.  There must be some writings.  I'll check it out.  I'm reading a book now on the backstory to C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity.  Very interesting.

Alright, I'd better think about these meals.  Need to do all the shopping soon.

Be good.  Bye for now.