doodledee

I was going to write a list of things I was thankful for but all I could come up with was Leah McLean and Swiss Cake Rolls. So how about we talk about the Black Friday instead? Is it too late? I mean it's Sunday, sure, but I took the weekend off to enjoy the holiday and barfing kids and yes, eat an entire can of jellied cranberry sauce in two days. Seriously that stuff is good. Tonight I was rocking up big wok full of fried rice for dinner and I just had the last little bit of it sitting next to the stove in a bowl and I couldn't stop eating. I expect a handmade thank-you note from my kidneys before morning.

So the Black Friday stuff. I got up and went out. Like I always do. Because I can't resist the sociological angle of the whole thing. It's everything that's wrong with our society wrapped up and stuffed into a 6-hour doorbuster extravaganza. And I'm totally not going to miss that. Also: the deals. Sometimes hot, sometimes not, but I got a nice little set of drill bits at Sears for like $9.99 so that was cool. That was at the Sears down in Eden Prairidise. Where 20,000 rubes stormed the mall when they opened the doors at 1am. (For the record, this is the most accurate use of 'rube' in the history of this blog.) Every year you people make me laugh with your stampeding and your jumping up and down as the cameras roll and the deals are handed out. I hope you got your discount GPS thing or whatever it was you were busting down doors for.

And can we talk about that for a second? Because who decided we all need stupid GPS mapping gadgets now? My throat is sore from having them crammed down it and it's only been 4 days. I read in the Times how somebody was declaring this year "the Christmas of GPS". And all I could think was "huh?" You know what I declared this Christmas? "The Christmas where HD-DVD and BlueRay are still confusing and broken and instead of figuring it out the electronics companies are going to convince us we need GPS's instead." Well played, giant multinationals, well played. Full Disclosure: this morning I caught myself wondering if I maybe needed one. Then I punched myself in the mouth.

I didn't make it out until like 9:30 or so and the doors were long since busted, which was fine because all I was after - beside the people watching - was a set of drill bits and maybe the closet organizer kit thing at Menards (sold out). I talked with the manager guy at Sears for maybe 10 minutes. You can tell he really gets up for the day. I've talked to him other years, too. He always points out how long Midge or whatever has been standing at the registers. "Hasn't had a break since 5:30 this morning!" and I say "Is that even legal?" and he laughs and says "No!" and then he directs the next person in line to the next available register. Good stuff.

Overall I lasted about 90 minutes. After that the lines and the crowds and the rubes get to me. Which is weird, because crowds at other places don't. Like the Fair or whatever. So I'm guessing it's mostly the rubes. And the GPS's. It's a deadly combo.

Also: this was the first year I've noticed so much coverage of the coverage of black friday. NPR did a whole story about it. Metata, anyone?

Can't wait 'til next year.

Think you know good banana bread? Yeah, so did I. She'd bake it up, I'd wolf it down. It was Grandma's recipe. It was good. Not great. But good. Other adjectives I'd use would include: ordinary, predictable, and consistent. Also maybe 'lacking', but I'd never say that in front of the um, bread.

Then I tried this one. It's Aunt Amy's. It's pure gold. And yeah yeah, it's basically banana cake with delicious crusty streusel topping. Maybe that's not your thing. In which case, seriously, what's wrong with you. Get help. The rest of you: get your bake on.

Aunt Amy's Killer Good Banana Bread

For the bread
1 stick softened butter
2 eggs
1/3 c sour cream
2 c flour
1 c sugar
3-4 large bananas
1/2 t salt
1 t soda

For the delicious topping
1/4 c brown sugar
1/4 c sugar
1/4 t cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 325.


2. Line large loaf pan with wax paper.


3. Cream together butter, sugar, and eggs.


4. Mash up the bananas.


5. Mix the bananas with the sour cream.


6. Mix up the flour, salt, and soda.


7. Add dry stuff to wet stuff.


8. Stir.


9. Mix up topping.


10. Dump batter in pan.


11. Sprinkle on delicious topping.


12. Bake for 1 - 1:15.


13. Rest for 5 minutes in pan, then remove and cool on wire rack.

You're welcome.

A neighborhood chili cook-off, a rip roarin' nordeast birthday pub crawl, a lazy cold Sunday and so very much more… let's do the numbers.

Former North Star Brian Lawton sightings: 1, Jerry's
Chocolate glazed donuts Brian Lawton was buying: 6
Apple fritters I was buying: 1
Crock pots full of chili made before 11am: 1
Crock pots full of chili made by others: 14
Chili eaters at the cook off: about 50
Times the cops came to the cook off: 1
Times I used the "maybe he can put some pepper spray on my chili" joke: about 30
Girls available to give chair massages during cook-off: 2 (Hi Abby!)
Trays of baked goods available to eat: about 15
Cookies eaten by me: about 35
Chilis eaten by me: about 14, though I may have lost count
Trophies won by me: about 0
Curses: many
Naps taken: 1, but by Juniorette, not me… foiled again
Tator tots eaten @ Bulldog: about 175
Times I wished my basement was big enough for shufflepuck: about 175
Fee to bring birthday cake into bulldog: $20
Cakes eaten on sidewalk: 1
Max number of dudes in one booth at Grumpy's: 6, though I may have lost count
Deuces: 2
AC/DC albums on jukebox at said deuces: 6 (!!)
Minutes spent further than arm's length from deuces jukebox: .25
Times I was called sir (evening total): 3
Lanes available at Elsie's at 12:30am: 0
Hours waited before calling it: .5
Kids who woke me at normal time: 2
Crock pots of chili left on back stoop overnight: 1
Chili colored raccoon prints on back stoop next morning: about a million
Raccoons who ate my leftover chili: I'm gonna guess 40
Goals scored at soccer: 0
Blinding pain and/or exhaustion episodes at soccer: 4
Haircuts: 0
Meatballs made: 16
Times I thought it was snowing: 3
Times it was actually snowing: 3
Total minutes actually snowing: 1

I also squeezed a trip to Menard's and the computer store. One each. And wouldn't everything here have been better as a tweet? Totally it would have, I know.

You ever notice how people who have cats sometimes say "purrfect"? I have. I'm thinking they think it's cute or clever or genius or something. Which I'm not exactly sure it is, but whatever. Or maybe they just do it to upset dog people? Because dog people don't have "rufferiffic" or "barktastic" or something cool like that, in which case maybe purrfect it is a little cute and clever and genius.

But I'll fess up, I used purrfect today - in an ironic "don't really like cats" kind of way, but still. And when I did it struck me that I wasn't sure if it was 2 r's or 3. Or maybe it was 4? More? I bet these cat freaks really run with it when they get the chance.

Wanna bet how many r's you have to include in your purrfect before Google reports fewer than 100 hits? Here we go:

1. purfect - 73,000
2. purrfect - 638,000
3. purrrfect - 760,000
4. purrrrfect - 46,000
5. purrrrrrfect - 19,000
6. purrrrrrrfect - 1,000
7. purrrrrrrrfect - 5,500
8. purrrrrrrrrfect - 12,000
9. purrrrrrrrrrfect - 800
10. purrrrrrrrrrrfect - 1,500
11. purrrrrrrrrrrrfect - 800
12. purrrrrrrrrrrrrfect - 600
13. purrrrrrrrrrrrrrfect - 500
14. purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrfect - 300
15. purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrfect - 200
16. purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrfect - 45
17. purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrfect - 200
18. purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrfect - 100
19. purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrfect - 60

Here's a visual of from 9 on:

So yeah, you gotta go out 16 r's before it really gets freakishly rare. Seems fair. I mean at 10 doesn't really make the point, right? And once you've gone 13, you may as well take it to 15.

For the record, I lost $2 on the r-count over/under. I took under 7. Huge mistake. Won't happen again.

Yeah, pretty much what you'd expect from your local shy midtempo boygirl harmonizing 4 piece. Lots of awkward stage shuffling, lots of awkward eye contact, lots of songs about the sun or the moon or whatever, and lots and lots of vintage clothing. But for sure there were also some real moments of goodness, and maybe even a few that came close to great. But not a lot. Just sayin'. So nutshell: good, not great. Also: who knew the Owls had a 4000 song catalog. Seriously. They must have played 30 songs. All under 3 minutes, but still, more than I expected.

Non-musical highlight was the 14 pair of antlers decorating the stage (!!). Musical highlight was the 'Even Now', which is both a) off the old EP and b) one of the more uptempo numbers, but still, it was the highlight. The fact that it was the highlight is indicative of what happens when you play 30 midtempo boygirl harmonized sad songs in a row - they all kinda bleed together into one long midtempo boygirl harmonized sad song and then when you play one slightly uptempo number with a guitar solo people go nuts. Genius.

Now can we talk about the operner? ELK. (Caps theirs.) So best. Seriously. How great is it to go to a show and have some random local act open it up and blow you away. I'm not saying I'm gonna quit my job and follow them around the country, but I am saying that they're even more proof that our scene is better than yours. You know I'm right.

You ever have one of those moments where one of your buddies says something about a sign and you start singing that "Sign Sign Everywhere a Sign" song and you just kinda keep going with it and after like 2 minutes you realize you totally know every word to the entire song even though a) you haven't heard it in 10 years and b) you never really liked Tesla even back when their 5 man acoustical jam was sweeping the nation like a denim-clad big-haired acoustical broom.

And then a minute later you break into 'More Than Words'. Just because.

Yeah, me neither.

It's been a big day for one of my top five favorite senses - the sense of smell. Check it out:

• The smell of the new top on the Jeep, which is now 5 days old and still crystal clear and awesome. I still have to do the doors, but the top and sides went on like a dream.
• The smell of everything at Penzey's, where junior and I walked around burying our faces in the sample jars, breathing deeply, then going "whoa!" and making crazy faces. It's way more fun than it sounds.
• The smell of the fishmonger and the BBQ counter at Shuang Hur. I went in for a few pantry items and I came out with 3 feet of BBQ pork and half a crispy duck, the latter of which I nibbled all the way home, greasy fingers be damned. I'm curious to find out tomorrow if my Jeep still smells like 'new top' or if that's been overtaken by 'crispy duck'. I'm thinking I'm gonna classify that as a win/win.
• An afternoon outside rocking the scents of fall chores: that perfect mix of dried leaves and lawn mower exhaust, the earthy mustiness from turning over dirt to plant bulbs, somebody in the neighborhood having a fire. I'm never going back inside.
• Vietnamese coffee break? Don't mind if I do. Thanks for the excuse, MNMO. Smells great. Nice and toasty.
• The smell of dinner. Pea tip and pork stir-fry. Yes, that'd be me trying to use up the stuff I overbought from this morning. "Oops". Still, smelled delicious.

Now I feel like I should bake bread or something, just to keep it going. Or maybe just light a scented candle. Probably easier at this point. I wonder if we have one that smells like bread? Is that cheating?

And yes, I know it's too late to be planting bulbs. I figure it's worth a shot, though. We'll see come spring. Fingers crossed.

Tonight on the way home I stopped at the grocery store to pick up some dinner. It's been another blistering week in the cube farm. I'm maybe a bit more jaded than usual. Almost out of answers. Almost. Ok, no, not even close to out of answers, but still, one of those weeks.

So I go in, pick up some sundries - and the fixins for a huge weekend pot of chili hell yes - and on my way back to the Jeep I notice this lady sitting in her car talking on her phone. At first it looked like she was crying, but then I realized she was laughing. And she kept laughing. And I got to the Jeep and climbed in and started the engine and she's still laughing. Like eyes closed totally genuine laughing. Not even really saying anything into her phone, just laughing. I listened to the radio for a minute while the engine got warm. She kept it up. A minute later I started laughing, too. And totally with her, not at her. And I'm not even sure what was funny. But man I laughed.

I thought it was pretty kick ass. A neat ending to one of those weeks.