Two down, two to go...
A recounting of Thanksgiving and the day after.
This year, because Leif was coming home for Thanksgiving, we delayed having our
feast until Friday, so our Thanksgiving was the Last Friday in November. We
also continued a tradition which began with our first Thanksgiving here in
Seattle, that of inviting international exchange or foreign student friends of
Adam to share the meal and company with us. We also, because we were having our
Thanksgiving on Friday rather than Thursday, observed BuyNothingDay. In
retrospect, I think we've always observed BuyNothingDay even when we didn't
realize the Friday after Thanksgiving (called Black Friday by the evil
merchants) was this alternative-culture, underground day. Does seem fitting
that I would be part of an underground culture even if I was unaware of it,
though. On the other hand, we did an amazing four-hour tour de force among most
of the local outfitting shops here in Seattle on Saturday. But we WERE buying
local goods so that isn't the same as besieging Wal-Mart.
Well, here we are already, halfway to Christmas.
Halloween is done for even though I've not yet removed the plastic pumpkin head
which is adorning our front gate light. Thanksgiving was its usual great
blast.
We've apparently begun a new Thanksgiving tradition here in Seattle - having foreign exchange student friends of Adam's join us. Last Thanksgiving, our first in Seattle, Adam invited his English (Bath) roommate Jeremy to spend Thanksgiving with us. That proved to be fun all around as he was quite curious about this purely American holiday and we were curious about the history of Bath.
This year Adam invited his Korean friend from Seattle South Community College, Hyung-sik, to spend Thanksgiving with us and invited Hyung-sik's Japanese friend Ayumy as well. Originally we were all set to have the dinner at our somewhat usual time of between 4:00 and 6:00 - depending on when the turkey actually got done. However, because Katherine's brother, Doug, couldn't get here till around 7:00 pm, we changed our plans. That caused Hyung-sik and Ayumy to have to cancel because they'd made plans for later that day. I should state here that our Thanksgiving was not on Thursday, because Leif, another surprise visitor (last year he did his own Thanksgiving in DC with his housemates), didn't arrive until about 8:30 pm on Thursday night. We'd agreed previously that we'd do our Thanksgiving on the Last Friday In November rather than the Last Thursday In November to accommodate everyone - and besides which, who really cares WHAT day Thanksgiving is on anyway - it's all about family and friends and food.
We hadn't yet moved any furniture around when we heard back from Hyung-sik that he and Ayumy changed their other plans and would be joining us after all. Great. We can seat eight comfortably in our somewhat smallish dining/breakfast room if we use the dining table and the card table and put them together, covering them cleverly with fancy tablecloths. I rearranged the dining nook and set the table. On Thursday I'd prepared the yams and squash so the candied-yams would be easier to do. We'd defrosted the turkey so that on Thursday evening it was ready to be cooked the next day. I'd bought all the appropriate vegetables, either fresh or canned (special peas), and had already picked up the two dozen yeast rolls and pumpkin and Dutch apple pies from our local Great Harvest bakery. Thursday evening I prepared the yams, having steamed them and the winter squashes so they'd be easy to slice. I layered yam, squash, sprinkled fresh pomegranate seeds on that layer, continued with yam and squash for two more layers, with pomegranate seeds liberally sprinkled throughout each layer and then dotted the top with butter and covered that with a thin layer of dark brown sugar and put it in the fridge. That, along with the rolls, would be the last things to go into the oven, once the turkey was done. We would heat the pies with the residual heat from the oven once everyone was eating.
Friday we split our duties, Katherine and me. I peel the potatoes getting them ready for the cooking and mashing. Katherine gets everything ready for the oven which means making the stuffing (dressing if you're like me from the South), she boils the giblets to create the stock for the gravy, stuffs the turkey and puts it in the oven. Then she begins to prepare the creamed onions, puts the canned peas (usually it's the Le Sueur brand, but since they didn't have these it was "petits pois" from SFW) in a pot ready to heat, and makes the two cranberry sauces. One is just ground plain cranberry with orange, the other is cranberry with sugar water which gets cooked on the stove. I make a celery-carrot tray with some fabulous artichoke and water chestnut dip I found at a local grocery store (Metropolitan Markets, half-way between a Sutten Place Gourmet and a Fresh Fields) and put that out. Place a bottle of white wine in the fridge, make sure the Snow Cap ale from a local brewery is stocked in the fridge and leave the kitchen to Katherine. As has been the case for the past several dozen years, everything turns out perfect and the two of us work well in the kitchen on Thanksgiving (and Christmas, too) and everything gets to the table right on time and hot. As an aside, I'd placed the giblets on a tray outside for the local crow murder to feast on and by the time it got dark, the crows, which we could see from inside, had finished devouring their own Thanksgiving feast. The next, in particular, was a local favorite with first one crow and then another taking a peck and a piece and then hopping away to make room for others.
Doug arrived about an hour before dinner and Hyung-sik and Ayumy arrived about ten minutes 'til. They also brought a vase with a dozen roses which we used as a centerpiece. I was in the last stages of carving the turkey, placing just enough dark meat and lots of white meat on the serving tray. We all sat down and for the next ninety minutes had a great, thankful and wonderfully entertaining meal and fellowship. After dinner we toured Hyung-sik and Ayumy through the house and I left those two along with Adam in the tower and returned downstairs to continue the evening's discourse with Katherine, Leif and Doug. Along about 9:00 Hyung-sik, Ayumy, and Doug took their leave and I used that as a cue to clean up the table and do the dishes. We had all agreed earlier that it was still way too early to actually eat any of the pie, but I did package up a couple of slices of each for Doug to take back home for he and Kirstin, who, alas, had to work the night shift at Harborview hospital where she is now a cardiac patient monitor.
We stowed everything in appropriately-sized containers and stashed it in the fridge, with the turkey still as a whole carcass ready to be carved up later, once it got cold and the fats and meat were a little easier to remove.
We made a huge dint in the provisions and though we each had plenty to eat, I think this year we abstained from overeating so didn't have that usual post-Thanksgiving "stuffed" feeling. Good for us, actually, because that meant that we had roughly three days of substantial leftovers to go through - enough to see us completely through Leif's visit and to be able to send him back east aloft with a homemade turkey sandwich.
Our menu was pretty much the usual for us:
√12-pound turkey stuffed with Pepperidge Farm herb stuffing made with stock, celery and onions, extra stuffing in additional pan;
√Homemade sweet potato and squash casserole with pomegranate seeds, lightly sugared and buttered;
√Homemade mashed potatoes with half-and-half and butter and then whipped;
√Baby canned peas (they go so much better with mashed potatoes than frozen or fresh, who would've thought?);
√Homemade cranberry-orange and candied cranberry relish;
√Homemade creamed corn using Pennsylvania Dutch dried corn kernels and half-and-half and butter;
√Homemade creamed onions (whole simmered onions in a homemade bechamel sauce)
√Yeast rolls (this time from a local bakery)
√Pumpkin pie (also from local bakery)
√Apple pie (also from local bakery this time it was Dutch apple rather than the usual old-fashioned, next time it will be old-fashioned apple or cherry as we didn't like the Dutch apple nearly as much as we do regular, chunky, apple pie)
√Drinks - in this case it was Pyramid Snow Cap ale, a white California semillon wine, Washington state apple cider
That's it, the Wilber-Redmond family Thanksgiving menu. Previous years we've tried fresh broccoli, frozen peas, fresh string beans, and a few other "greens," but have concluded that the combination of canned "petits pois" and mashed potatoes is really hard to beat. For the fresh vegies we do the carrot-celery tray instead.
As expected, the left-overs lasted just about three days. It's Monday and we've got just about one serving each for the three of us (Katherine, Adam, and me) except mashed potatoes, which are gone. Ah, sweet Thanksgiving. Truly my favorite meal of the entire year, although Halloween candy is a close second. I put gravy on top of everything, including the candied cranberry sauce (my particular favorite, which is why we make two of them). There's about one slice of pumpkin and maybe two of the apple pie left and about 5 rolls, which we froze immediately after the Thanksgiving dinner so they'd last the next couple of days. Also, all this stuff can be easily re-heated in a microwave oven if you do it cleverly - and that means not zapping anything with full power but rather using a 40 to 60 percent power rating and zapping the various items you place in the microwave for no more than three minutes at a time and then stirring them and checking to see if they need more zapping. Yes, it takes longer, but it heats them up nearly as evenly as does heating them in a conventional oven without scorching or overcooking them and you can keep them in their plastic refrigerator containers. Everything, that is, except the rolls. Bread should NEVER be placed in a microwave - it destroys everything which is good about bread.
The day after our Thanksgiving, which for us would have been Saturday, Adam, Leif and I set out to a variety of outdoor stores to either buy or check out things which Adam and Leif had indicated they wanted for Christmas. It's been long past the time when both kids knew in advance what they would get for their birthdays and for Christmas. With Adam's birthday being on December 14, Christmas being on December 25, and Leif's birthday being on January 9, we long ago decided that we had to conspire together for what they each wanted for their birthday and for Christmas since "papa" only has a finite amount of money and spending it all in that short a period of time would literally break the bank if not done cleverly.
This year both sons decided they wanted outdoor gear so that's why we set out for, first, Outdoor Research, and then Filson, and then REI. We hopped the local bus and got off on First Avenue in SODO right near OR's factory and outlet. Outdoor Research is known to hikers and campers as an outstanding garment and tent-sleeping bag manufacturer. We're lucky enough to live in their hometown and their factory store not only has stuff they make, but stuff made by other local outdoor outfitters. They also happened to be having a 70-percent-off sale on a goodly amount of the stuff Leif wanted so I made out like a bandit on that one. From OR, we walked the few blocks to Filson, an outdoor clothier in a league of their own, literally. It turned out that as much as we liked the clothes Filson makes, they were not really in the same category as what we were looking for. Filson makes pants, shirts, jackets, carrying gear, and accessories for what I'd describe as the "hunter" or "trapper" or "outdoor guide." Pretty much along the same lines as the original L.L. Bean. These are clothes made of cotton denim so thick that you'd be hard-pressed to not believe it was Kevlar. Their belts, leather all of them, were three-eighth's of an inch thick and so large that one could easily imagine a 300-pound lumberjack wearing one. Their wool shirts would make Pendleton blush with envy - but then so would the prices. We spent about thirty minutes inside their showroom, which is also on the first floor of their factory, and decided that as much as we were really impressed with the goods, we couldn't find anything in the showroom which fit the specifications Adam and Leif had laid out. On to REI. Using our four-hour bus transfer, we caught a bus on 4th Avenue (Filson's home) and then transferred downtown to a University District local which would take us to within three blocks of REI.
At REI we spent over an hour going from various departments to another and loaded up on Christmas and birthday goodies and then headed back to catch a bus downtown to get something to eat at Pike Place Market, still using the same bus transfer. Leif had held off getting one of the presents he wanted until he had tried a variety of others at both Filson (if they would have had the right thing) and later REI. Having decided he liked the OR item the best, we had to make sure that we could get back to OR before 5:00 pm since that's when they closed on Saturday and they weren't open on Sunday and Leif was leaving early Monday to return to DC. We got hotdogs at a vendor on Pike Place (the actual street is called Pike Place and it runs perpendicular to Pike Street, the Market area actually covers about nine acres around those two streets and First and Western Avenues).
We finished our food and hopped another bus, still using the same transfer, and made it to OR in plenty of time. They were having such a great sale that we all got something. When we were finished we stepped outside and waited a short time for the bus home - this time we had to use another bus ticket because the time on our transfers had finally run out - we'd spent four hours schlepping from one outfitter to the next along a route which pretty much looked like a loop between SODO and the Lake Union area and back. By the time we were on our way home the sun was creating another one of those glorious tangerine, orange, pink, red, gold Western sunsets and we all three remarked that it was a shame the sun would be down by the time we actually made it home because it would have looked a little more grand from our tower. But, it looked plenty grand from inside the bus nevertheless and these days the sun is setting somewhat earlier than 4:30 pm anyway.
I've still got more Christmas shopping to accomplish - Santa, of course, still visits the household and not everything the two sons get for their birthday or for Christmas is something they know about. Katherine has her own wish list which I'll fulfill along with a few items from Santa. Me, the things I really want for Christmas are always accomplished by having everyone under the same roof at the same time so there's never a list from me. The toys I want these days can be picked up anytime so I'm pretty much always happy with whatever Santa leaves me in my stocking. That's another tradition we've had for decades - stocking stuffers. I've still got a real tin filled with real coal from Newcastle which was left in Leif's stocking one year.
As already mentioned, the days here in Seattle have been getting desperately short. And, the classic Seattle weather has been more classic this year than last and by that I mean overcast gray skies with a preponderance of moisture - not quite rain, not quite fog, not quite low-lying Sound clouds, but a tangible "mist" nonetheless. The temperatures have hovered between the low forties and the low fifties. On the other hand, I seem to have totally acclimated to this environment and now have an instinctive "feel" for how many layers of what to wear to be comfortable outside. This place reminds me so much of the west coast of Norway during the same months - or of Montreal, also during the same months. Because I have such great and fond memories of both Norway (Stavanger) and Montreal , this weather seems to actually have a "brightening" effect on me, rather than the expected "depressing" or "dulling" effect. Though, I now totally understand the reason and necessity for so many coffee houses.
The Merry Month of December is up next - have a great December, shop early, mail early, and remember to be of good cheer.
Chas
We've apparently begun a new Thanksgiving tradition here in Seattle - having foreign exchange student friends of Adam's join us. Last Thanksgiving, our first in Seattle, Adam invited his English (Bath) roommate Jeremy to spend Thanksgiving with us. That proved to be fun all around as he was quite curious about this purely American holiday and we were curious about the history of Bath.
This year Adam invited his Korean friend from Seattle South Community College, Hyung-sik, to spend Thanksgiving with us and invited Hyung-sik's Japanese friend Ayumy as well. Originally we were all set to have the dinner at our somewhat usual time of between 4:00 and 6:00 - depending on when the turkey actually got done. However, because Katherine's brother, Doug, couldn't get here till around 7:00 pm, we changed our plans. That caused Hyung-sik and Ayumy to have to cancel because they'd made plans for later that day. I should state here that our Thanksgiving was not on Thursday, because Leif, another surprise visitor (last year he did his own Thanksgiving in DC with his housemates), didn't arrive until about 8:30 pm on Thursday night. We'd agreed previously that we'd do our Thanksgiving on the Last Friday In November rather than the Last Thursday In November to accommodate everyone - and besides which, who really cares WHAT day Thanksgiving is on anyway - it's all about family and friends and food.
We hadn't yet moved any furniture around when we heard back from Hyung-sik that he and Ayumy changed their other plans and would be joining us after all. Great. We can seat eight comfortably in our somewhat smallish dining/breakfast room if we use the dining table and the card table and put them together, covering them cleverly with fancy tablecloths. I rearranged the dining nook and set the table. On Thursday I'd prepared the yams and squash so the candied-yams would be easier to do. We'd defrosted the turkey so that on Thursday evening it was ready to be cooked the next day. I'd bought all the appropriate vegetables, either fresh or canned (special peas), and had already picked up the two dozen yeast rolls and pumpkin and Dutch apple pies from our local Great Harvest bakery. Thursday evening I prepared the yams, having steamed them and the winter squashes so they'd be easy to slice. I layered yam, squash, sprinkled fresh pomegranate seeds on that layer, continued with yam and squash for two more layers, with pomegranate seeds liberally sprinkled throughout each layer and then dotted the top with butter and covered that with a thin layer of dark brown sugar and put it in the fridge. That, along with the rolls, would be the last things to go into the oven, once the turkey was done. We would heat the pies with the residual heat from the oven once everyone was eating.
Friday we split our duties, Katherine and me. I peel the potatoes getting them ready for the cooking and mashing. Katherine gets everything ready for the oven which means making the stuffing (dressing if you're like me from the South), she boils the giblets to create the stock for the gravy, stuffs the turkey and puts it in the oven. Then she begins to prepare the creamed onions, puts the canned peas (usually it's the Le Sueur brand, but since they didn't have these it was "petits pois" from SFW) in a pot ready to heat, and makes the two cranberry sauces. One is just ground plain cranberry with orange, the other is cranberry with sugar water which gets cooked on the stove. I make a celery-carrot tray with some fabulous artichoke and water chestnut dip I found at a local grocery store (Metropolitan Markets, half-way between a Sutten Place Gourmet and a Fresh Fields) and put that out. Place a bottle of white wine in the fridge, make sure the Snow Cap ale from a local brewery is stocked in the fridge and leave the kitchen to Katherine. As has been the case for the past several dozen years, everything turns out perfect and the two of us work well in the kitchen on Thanksgiving (and Christmas, too) and everything gets to the table right on time and hot. As an aside, I'd placed the giblets on a tray outside for the local crow murder to feast on and by the time it got dark, the crows, which we could see from inside, had finished devouring their own Thanksgiving feast. The next, in particular, was a local favorite with first one crow and then another taking a peck and a piece and then hopping away to make room for others.
Doug arrived about an hour before dinner and Hyung-sik and Ayumy arrived about ten minutes 'til. They also brought a vase with a dozen roses which we used as a centerpiece. I was in the last stages of carving the turkey, placing just enough dark meat and lots of white meat on the serving tray. We all sat down and for the next ninety minutes had a great, thankful and wonderfully entertaining meal and fellowship. After dinner we toured Hyung-sik and Ayumy through the house and I left those two along with Adam in the tower and returned downstairs to continue the evening's discourse with Katherine, Leif and Doug. Along about 9:00 Hyung-sik, Ayumy, and Doug took their leave and I used that as a cue to clean up the table and do the dishes. We had all agreed earlier that it was still way too early to actually eat any of the pie, but I did package up a couple of slices of each for Doug to take back home for he and Kirstin, who, alas, had to work the night shift at Harborview hospital where she is now a cardiac patient monitor.
We stowed everything in appropriately-sized containers and stashed it in the fridge, with the turkey still as a whole carcass ready to be carved up later, once it got cold and the fats and meat were a little easier to remove.
We made a huge dint in the provisions and though we each had plenty to eat, I think this year we abstained from overeating so didn't have that usual post-Thanksgiving "stuffed" feeling. Good for us, actually, because that meant that we had roughly three days of substantial leftovers to go through - enough to see us completely through Leif's visit and to be able to send him back east aloft with a homemade turkey sandwich.
Our menu was pretty much the usual for us:
√12-pound turkey stuffed with Pepperidge Farm herb stuffing made with stock, celery and onions, extra stuffing in additional pan;
√Homemade sweet potato and squash casserole with pomegranate seeds, lightly sugared and buttered;
√Homemade mashed potatoes with half-and-half and butter and then whipped;
√Baby canned peas (they go so much better with mashed potatoes than frozen or fresh, who would've thought?);
√Homemade cranberry-orange and candied cranberry relish;
√Homemade creamed corn using Pennsylvania Dutch dried corn kernels and half-and-half and butter;
√Homemade creamed onions (whole simmered onions in a homemade bechamel sauce)
√Yeast rolls (this time from a local bakery)
√Pumpkin pie (also from local bakery)
√Apple pie (also from local bakery this time it was Dutch apple rather than the usual old-fashioned, next time it will be old-fashioned apple or cherry as we didn't like the Dutch apple nearly as much as we do regular, chunky, apple pie)
√Drinks - in this case it was Pyramid Snow Cap ale, a white California semillon wine, Washington state apple cider
That's it, the Wilber-Redmond family Thanksgiving menu. Previous years we've tried fresh broccoli, frozen peas, fresh string beans, and a few other "greens," but have concluded that the combination of canned "petits pois" and mashed potatoes is really hard to beat. For the fresh vegies we do the carrot-celery tray instead.
As expected, the left-overs lasted just about three days. It's Monday and we've got just about one serving each for the three of us (Katherine, Adam, and me) except mashed potatoes, which are gone. Ah, sweet Thanksgiving. Truly my favorite meal of the entire year, although Halloween candy is a close second. I put gravy on top of everything, including the candied cranberry sauce (my particular favorite, which is why we make two of them). There's about one slice of pumpkin and maybe two of the apple pie left and about 5 rolls, which we froze immediately after the Thanksgiving dinner so they'd last the next couple of days. Also, all this stuff can be easily re-heated in a microwave oven if you do it cleverly - and that means not zapping anything with full power but rather using a 40 to 60 percent power rating and zapping the various items you place in the microwave for no more than three minutes at a time and then stirring them and checking to see if they need more zapping. Yes, it takes longer, but it heats them up nearly as evenly as does heating them in a conventional oven without scorching or overcooking them and you can keep them in their plastic refrigerator containers. Everything, that is, except the rolls. Bread should NEVER be placed in a microwave - it destroys everything which is good about bread.
The day after our Thanksgiving, which for us would have been Saturday, Adam, Leif and I set out to a variety of outdoor stores to either buy or check out things which Adam and Leif had indicated they wanted for Christmas. It's been long past the time when both kids knew in advance what they would get for their birthdays and for Christmas. With Adam's birthday being on December 14, Christmas being on December 25, and Leif's birthday being on January 9, we long ago decided that we had to conspire together for what they each wanted for their birthday and for Christmas since "papa" only has a finite amount of money and spending it all in that short a period of time would literally break the bank if not done cleverly.
This year both sons decided they wanted outdoor gear so that's why we set out for, first, Outdoor Research, and then Filson, and then REI. We hopped the local bus and got off on First Avenue in SODO right near OR's factory and outlet. Outdoor Research is known to hikers and campers as an outstanding garment and tent-sleeping bag manufacturer. We're lucky enough to live in their hometown and their factory store not only has stuff they make, but stuff made by other local outdoor outfitters. They also happened to be having a 70-percent-off sale on a goodly amount of the stuff Leif wanted so I made out like a bandit on that one. From OR, we walked the few blocks to Filson, an outdoor clothier in a league of their own, literally. It turned out that as much as we liked the clothes Filson makes, they were not really in the same category as what we were looking for. Filson makes pants, shirts, jackets, carrying gear, and accessories for what I'd describe as the "hunter" or "trapper" or "outdoor guide." Pretty much along the same lines as the original L.L. Bean. These are clothes made of cotton denim so thick that you'd be hard-pressed to not believe it was Kevlar. Their belts, leather all of them, were three-eighth's of an inch thick and so large that one could easily imagine a 300-pound lumberjack wearing one. Their wool shirts would make Pendleton blush with envy - but then so would the prices. We spent about thirty minutes inside their showroom, which is also on the first floor of their factory, and decided that as much as we were really impressed with the goods, we couldn't find anything in the showroom which fit the specifications Adam and Leif had laid out. On to REI. Using our four-hour bus transfer, we caught a bus on 4th Avenue (Filson's home) and then transferred downtown to a University District local which would take us to within three blocks of REI.
At REI we spent over an hour going from various departments to another and loaded up on Christmas and birthday goodies and then headed back to catch a bus downtown to get something to eat at Pike Place Market, still using the same bus transfer. Leif had held off getting one of the presents he wanted until he had tried a variety of others at both Filson (if they would have had the right thing) and later REI. Having decided he liked the OR item the best, we had to make sure that we could get back to OR before 5:00 pm since that's when they closed on Saturday and they weren't open on Sunday and Leif was leaving early Monday to return to DC. We got hotdogs at a vendor on Pike Place (the actual street is called Pike Place and it runs perpendicular to Pike Street, the Market area actually covers about nine acres around those two streets and First and Western Avenues).
We finished our food and hopped another bus, still using the same transfer, and made it to OR in plenty of time. They were having such a great sale that we all got something. When we were finished we stepped outside and waited a short time for the bus home - this time we had to use another bus ticket because the time on our transfers had finally run out - we'd spent four hours schlepping from one outfitter to the next along a route which pretty much looked like a loop between SODO and the Lake Union area and back. By the time we were on our way home the sun was creating another one of those glorious tangerine, orange, pink, red, gold Western sunsets and we all three remarked that it was a shame the sun would be down by the time we actually made it home because it would have looked a little more grand from our tower. But, it looked plenty grand from inside the bus nevertheless and these days the sun is setting somewhat earlier than 4:30 pm anyway.
I've still got more Christmas shopping to accomplish - Santa, of course, still visits the household and not everything the two sons get for their birthday or for Christmas is something they know about. Katherine has her own wish list which I'll fulfill along with a few items from Santa. Me, the things I really want for Christmas are always accomplished by having everyone under the same roof at the same time so there's never a list from me. The toys I want these days can be picked up anytime so I'm pretty much always happy with whatever Santa leaves me in my stocking. That's another tradition we've had for decades - stocking stuffers. I've still got a real tin filled with real coal from Newcastle which was left in Leif's stocking one year.
As already mentioned, the days here in Seattle have been getting desperately short. And, the classic Seattle weather has been more classic this year than last and by that I mean overcast gray skies with a preponderance of moisture - not quite rain, not quite fog, not quite low-lying Sound clouds, but a tangible "mist" nonetheless. The temperatures have hovered between the low forties and the low fifties. On the other hand, I seem to have totally acclimated to this environment and now have an instinctive "feel" for how many layers of what to wear to be comfortable outside. This place reminds me so much of the west coast of Norway during the same months - or of Montreal, also during the same months. Because I have such great and fond memories of both Norway (Stavanger) and Montreal , this weather seems to actually have a "brightening" effect on me, rather than the expected "depressing" or "dulling" effect. Though, I now totally understand the reason and necessity for so many coffee houses.
The Merry Month of December is up next - have a great December, shop early, mail early, and remember to be of good cheer.
Chas
Posted: Tue - November 30, 2004 at 07:49 PM
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Published On: Jul 04, 2005 05:41 PM
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Published On: Jul 04, 2005 05:41 PM