For the Eating

I hope all had a nicely stuffed turkey day; I certainly did. I'm home in comfortable clothes with my feet up. I haven't had anything to eat for five hours and still feel full.

Amy, Tillman, and I left the house about 1pm and headed for Sabrina & Lance's out in Swannanoa. I dropped them off and went on to Mary-Anne & Joe's, about 4 miles away off Riceville Road. The three sisters (Mary-Anne, Marie, Mayro), Mark, Joe, and Daniel, and me as leavening, sat down about 2:30 and chowed down on a fabulous turkey, green bean casserole, sweet potato/marshmallow casserole, two kinds of stuffing, gravy, cranberry relish, pistachio delight, rolls , etc. A pleasant time was had by all.

About 4:30 I left there and headed back to Sabrina's. About 10 of us sat down to a veritable feast about 7:30. Six of us had played a game of Apples to Apples in the meantime. There was a huge buffet with turkey and about six or so dishes, including mashed potatoes (yum), and three kinds of pie. I didn't eat as much here because it was "seconds," but it was certainly enough to get the stuffed feeling.

Horseshoes were played earlier by Tillman and Sabrina (she won). After dinner, a big bonfire was laid and Tillman played guitar and sang. By that time, however, I was both semi-comatose and peopled out, so I found a comfy couch and a book. Sabrina's mother, Sally, and I enjoyed a special dessert wine she'd brought back from Michigan, cherry wine.

My contribution to each dinner was a bottle of Mouton Cadet white bordeaux. Not too many wine drinkers but we enjoyed it and it went very well with turkey et al.

I was quite happy to get home at 11pm and take off those progressively tighter jeans.

We did have a blowout on the way home, on I-40 before we'd even reached I-240. I was driving and managed to get us stopped neatly and gently on the shoulder. Amy had a doughnut spare that she and Tillman put on. She'd been saying she needed new tires so the time is now.

It's a Peeve

It is = it's [a peeve]

Professional journalists, editors, writers -- they all use "it's" incorrectly more and more often. Not only that, they swap "it's" and "its" around as though they're synonymous. It's (see?) become an epidemic, a plague, a tsumani.

Well, they're not.

Do you mean "it is"? Or possibly, "it has," depending on tense.

Then you can use "it's" (with the apostrophe indicating something left out)

and that's the ONLY time you get to use it.

"Its" is a pronoun, a neutral term (not masc. not fem.). Use it when you want to talk about an entity of some kind

The horse uses its teeth to eat apples.
Its facade makes the building ugly.
The car meets the pavement on its tires.

Why is this so hard to understand????

it's = it is

otherwise, use its

And let's not get me started on "him and I" or "me and her"!

Simple.

In Memoriam

Harland J Harris
Master Sergeant, 82nd Airborne
Joined 1940 (regular Army)
North Africa; Anzio; D-Day (glider pilot)
Bronze Star. Purple Heart
Discharged 1945
b.1921 Galien MI - d.1946 Madison WI

My father.

Relief

Sigh of relief that the pod person wasn't elected. Also glad that the rape idiots lost, too. Sad, though, that the Congressional balance will be about the same so if everybody sticks to their hidebound, anachronistic, patriarchal positions, nothing will get done. I'm most worried about the Supreme Court -- there will probably be two openings soon and I'm afraid that the Congressional reactionaries on the R side will take revenge by refusing to confirm the President''s selections.

On a personal note, there's not much to say. I'm still looking for a job, still applying, still interviewing, still not getting any offers. I occasionally get frustrated but I'm arrogant enough to think it's their loss. Heh.

The tarp I put on the rig is working well, even with the windy conditions we've had lately. Next week will come the big test -- taking it off and putting it back on. Yep, it's going to be dump and flush time.

Looking forward to the next four days of warm and sunny weather.