Turkey To Come

The making of the Thanksgiving feast has overtaken me.

This is the first time I've cooked the whole thing (in my younger days, I was in charge of making the mashed potatoes) and I've gotten immersed in searching for recipes and planning out the whole thing so that, hopefully, everything will hit the table at the same time.



As for the turkey, I'm trying a new technique that's all the rage this year: dry brining. It consists of rubbing the turkey (thawed and dried) with kosher salt and seasonings, then curing it in a large zip-lock bag for three days before cooking. At the end of the first day you rub the turkey through the bag, working the salt and spices into the bird; the end of the second day (shown in video above), you rub the bird again and put it back in the refrigerator breast side down; the end of the third day, you remove the turkey from the bag and let it sit for eight hours (or more) in the refrigerator to dry. Then you cook it normally. I'll tell you how it turns out.

I'm determined to be so organized that I won't forget anything, so I went out today and picked up a platter for the turkey (even at only 9 1/2 pounds, we still don't have a platter large enough), and skewers to hold in the stuffing while cooking (the recipe calls for inverting the turkey for the first 30 minutes in a 425° oven, then turning it breast side up for another 2 hours at 325°, basting, etc.).

One thing I've realized is that I'm really picky about recipes. Looking for a candied yams recipe, I ended up taking three different versions and coming up with my own hybrid. I'll let you know how that turns out, too.

Then there's green bean casserole with crunchy onions, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce and biscuits. I'm cutting corners some, using a packaged mix for the stuffing (but spiffing it up with ingredients of my own), and instant potatoes (I don't have enough pots to boil fresh ones and get everything else cooked), but I'm making the gravy from scratch. Also cutting corners, I purchased a baked pumpkin pie and a can of heavy whipping cream rather than attempting to do them myself.

One more run to the store tomorrow for extra milk (just in case) and egg nog. Also, Rice Krispies, since I have a huge bag of mini-marshmallows and I'm only using a cup of them on the yams, so Rice Krispie treats over the weekend are in order (either that or let them go stale and throw them out in a couple weeks).

So, I've got five pages of recipes, schedules and timelines printed out and sitting in the kitchen. The roasting pan just fits into the oven with enough room left over to squeeze in the yams and casserole. I'm starting at 11:30 a.m. on Thursday, and the meal should hit the table about 3:15 p.m. (hopefully in tastefully presented dinnerware and not hurled in hysterical fistfuls from the kitchen).

I'll let you know how that turns out, too.

But, one thing's for sure: I'm thankful. There's so much to be thankful for, so much bounty in my life. Sure, I got things I like to bitch or whine about (you longtime readers know them by heart), but I look around and all I see are blessings in my life. Here's hoping you have the same experience for your Thanksgiving.

And, if you're lucky, we'll get enough holiday spirit together to put up the Christmas tree this weekend. If such is the case, I'm sure I'll have my annual tree picture posted in the near future.

Here Come the Holidays

Been a week or so since I've dropped in to write a post. Nothing much going on. The weather has finally settled into fall, and we've actually had several storms drop rain every week or so. (This is major news in Southern California: only here does a storm that drops less than an inch of rain get "team coverage" on the nightly news.) The temperatures are in the 60s and 70s, and it gets cool enough at night that we can use the comforter on the bed rather than sleeping under just a sheet or light blanket.

I browsed YouTube for some sort of Thanksgiving cartoon or short to place here for your entertainment, but nothing inspiring was found. And nothing worth picture-taking has occurred since the last entry, so no new photos are available for sharing.

I'm still checking in with Pasadena City College, still waiting for the selection committee to review the applications and select interview candidates for the job over there. The rest of the job market has gone into another dry period: If you don't have three to five years of experience in web design with an ad agency or in-house marketing department, no one wants to speak to you, unless you can translate the Bible into JavaScript; then there's a chance you might get an interview. And all the postings are for positions that are doing the work of two people, designer and developer.

For Thanksgiving this year, we've decided to forgo having it at a restaurant in lieu of cooking it at home, which means me cooking it at home. I've never done this solo before, so it should be an interesting experience. I can't see how it would be much different from any other meal where you have numerous dishes that all have to be ready at the same time; just takes some cyphering and one or two accurate timers, that's all.

The smallest turkey we could find at the store was nine pounds, three ounces. Luckily, it fits into the freezer. I'm adding to that stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, candied yams, green bean casserole and biscuits (and pumpkin pie with whipped cream, of course). So far, it's just the two of us, although there's enough to invite a couple other people over if the occasion arises.

But I refuse to become a pawn in the corporate machinations of Black Friday, which is becoming Gray Thursday Evening/Black Friday this year. Yes, corporate big box stores are opening Thursday evening so that shoppers, still high on their L-tryptophan load, can start spending as soon as electronically possible.

It's odd that we have a nationwide protest in Occupy (your town here), the people protesting corporate power and greed, and yet there is a muddle-headed, malleable middle class willing to abandon their families on the most sacred of secular U.S. holidays to fork over their hard-earned cash (or credit) to feed these soulless, amoral entities whenever marketed to do so. (Well, they're people, too, right? The corporations, I mean, not those faceless consumers-units upon which they feed.) There is protesting and rioting in the streets of most major American cities and those in power don't really seem to understand the import of that. I'm astonished.

In any case, we've decided to move our banking over to a local credit union (it is presently with a monster corporate bank that has frozen our equity line of credit for no other reason than they wanted to. My personal line of credit is still available … at a whopping 17% interest). I have a CD maturing in December, and plan to use that the open the new accounts, then close out everything with the old bank.

Maybe Thanksgiving weekend would be a good time to put up the Christmas decorations at home. I'm hoping that the pre-lighted tree we got last year will make the process a whole lot easier. Getting that holiday chore out of the way would be a good idea, and perhaps leave time in the weeks ahead to add one or two new pieces to the decorations (a garland for the entry stairs would be nice, if the price is right).

As far as the future goes, next month will be the determining point: If I start up a studio of my own instead of getting a job, then I'm going to need to make my major purchases before the 31st in order to get all the tax breaks I can. It's not a whole giant pile of money I'll need to spend, but it's enough to make my income taxes for this last year go away.

So, come on PCC: make with the interview next month so I can know where I stand by Christmas Day. And if I do go into business for myself, there will be one amazing shopping spree the week after Christmas.

Vandalism or Bribery

That's pretty much what this evening boils down to: offer up something of value or suffer the resultant property damage for failing to meet the original demand. Of course, there are the costumes and the parties and community events, but it comes down to the fact that, for this night, we all can be real bastards and raise hell and thoroughly enjoy it. Of course, come Nov. 1, we're all into the saints and holiday cheer and two months of family togetherness and unending joy, warmth and love, whether we want it or not. Viewed in this paradigm, Halloween makes real sense: Kind of like Mardi Gras at the other end of the calendar.

I added this bit of 1929 Disney Silly Symphony nostalgia for those old enough to remember it. This was 83 years ago, before cartoons had gone color and right after they had added sound (much easier to do with animation than with live action, since no really accurate lip syncing was involved).

The biggest Halloween party on the planet is held in West Hollywood, of course. We don't attend because; 1) neither of us is very good with huge crowds; 2) no matter what I might come up with for a costume, there will be someone there who did it bigger and better and; 3) parking, parking, parking: getting in and out is almost as intense as the gathering itself. So we'll be sitting at home this evening, handing out candy. I've got a couple scary movies recorded on the DVR.

I'm Still waiting on the Pasadena City College job search to progress. They're still reviewing applications, so I haven't been eliminated yet. In a few days I will e-mail Karen in the HR department once again and see what's happening. Meanwhile, I peruse the job posting sites, but it seems like everyone's looking for web designers (with two to three years experience, of course, so I never get called on these jobs).

One bright spot: an old friend of mine, whom I've been looking for on and off since I got back to L.A., finally showed up on Facebook. I sent her a friend request and we are now in contact. Talk about patience and perseverance. After nearly 30 years, I wonder what meeting again will be like.

On the home front: More toilet woes. Longtime readers of this blog will recall the saga of the sock in the upstairs toilet. Now the facilities downstairs have decided they need attention, as well.

The downstairs toilet has been slowly leaking — just dribbles — for a couple months. This would not be a bad thing, except the previous owners of this place put berber carpeting in the bathroom. So the carpet and the padding underneath have slowly been soaking up the product of this small leak and, a week or so ago, bloomed into a funky, moldy smell.

We decided to turn the water off in the toilet, and suddenly the carpet was turning all manner of colors (it started ivory-white). We put a fan in the room to try and dry things out, but to no avail. Finally, I pulled up the carpet and padding to discover the original 1980s linoleum flooring.

By no means a showstopper, the flooring will at least keep us from having to lay new flooring immediately. It will be serviceable until we know what my long-term employment plans will be. Since we're planning on removing the existing sink and cabinets and going with a pedestal sink, we'd have to do that demolition before replacing the floor, which would mean doing the whole remodel, since doing one without the other makes no sense.

Good God, this is fascinating stuff.

So I'm still in a holding pattern. I really have to concentrate on not going stir-crazy or champing at the bit. As Fritz Perls said, "Don't push the river; it flows by itself." He also referred to the future as a "fertile void" where all possibilities reside. Gotta be flowing with the river in order to snatch up the good stuff as it flows from the future into the present, because there's only the moment of now to retrieve it.

And we like the good stuff. Yes, we do.

Harmless Halloween

For Christmas this year, Steve and I went to Disneyland to attend their Halloween Time celebration. In other words, the trip to the park is the big present that won't be under the tree this year. There will be other presents, of course (I always require a gift of socks to keep my feet in style), but the blow-out gift was a visit to Anaheim's favorite neighbor.

The tickets cost a little more than regular, but for admission from 4 p.m. to midnight, it was worth it. You get a wristband when you first come into the park, and at 7 p.m., anyone without one is politely told the park is open only to guests of the special event, and asked to leave. By 8 p.m., the crowds had pretty much thinned out.

The evening was actually the suggestion of Chuck and Jeff, a couple we met recently. And it's not a bad deal: by the time they deck out the park for the Christmas season, the crowds are unbearable. This was one of the few times I've been to Disneyland when I wasn't harangued by huge crowds or platoons of baby strollers.

Jeff was very much into going in costume. He went as a spider (as shown here) and Chuck went as an exterminator. Steve went in his orange "This Is My Halloween Costume" T-shirt, wearing a "Welcome to Mooseport" hat with plush stuffed antlers (a remnant from my days at the Reporter). I went as a tropical depression, wearing a Hawaiian print shirt with a pocket full of prescription bottles. (Steve's concept, not mine, but I think it was genius and it shows how much he loves me that he let me use it.)

The park was decked out with the friendliest scary-looking decorations, heavy on the smiling Jack-o-Lantern theme; there were fog machines churning all over the various lands and special spooky lighting. Lots of folks were in costume and there weren't a lot of kids in attendance. Those that were seemed extremely well behaved, and there were lots of security to make sure the Happiest Place on Earth stayed that way.

Best, though, there were trick-or-treat stations throughout the park. When you got your wristband, you were also issued a trick-or-treat bag, and these stations, designated by a Mickey "ghost," had three or four cast members (as Disneyland workers are called) dumping great handfuls of candy into your bag. If one worked at it, I'm sure you could earn back at least half your admission price in candy. It was good stuff, too: Reese's cups, Snickers, Crunch bars and the like.

When we first entered the park and walked up Main Street, there was a parade about to begin. Chuck had suggested having dinner, and I pointed out this was a great time to do it, because everyone was sitting on the street, waiting for the parade. So we stopped in at the Main Street Pavilion and had pot roast and chicken dinners: good cafeteria fare at the usual exorbitant prices.

The best part about the evening, though, was that Jeff and I love going on the fast rides, and Steve and Chuck hate them. So, after dinner Jeff and I went on Space Mountain, while Steve and Chuck rode on Peter Pan. Hitting Space Mountain before 7 p.m. was a big mistake, though, as we spent a good hour and some standing in line there. But we did make friends with a troupe of lady pirates right ahead of us. I got a picture of them posed in front of the spaceship just before we boarded the ride.

After that, we all met up, and decided to go on the new Star Tours ride. (All except Chuck: It seems Steve is not averse to the bumpy-jiggly rides, just the plunging, whipping, twisting, free-fall dropping kinds. Chuck is more loathing of fast, erratic movement and heights.)

Star Tours is really just the same format with a new movie. It is in 3-D now, which improves some of the zip and zap of the experience. The animatronics of the droids in the waiting areas are much smoother, and there are some pretty cool imaging affects added (like a security screening of the folks in line). While we were on the ride, Chuck browsed the gift shop at the exit (something that keeps him occupied for long periods of time).

There was the mandatory Halloween parade and a really great fireworks display, which was actually more of a multimedia display. (Their branding of Halloween is Jack the Pumpkin King from "Nightmare Before Christmas": I really love the movie but hate what Disney has done with it in branding the park).

The other mistake we made was going on the Haunted Mansion ride, which was totally packed, even in the evening. It was dressed out so as to be totally unrecognizable (Christmas in Halloweenland), and not really worth the wait. All was not lost, though, because Jeff spotted not one, not two, not three, but four trick-or-treat stations between the Haunted Mansion exit and the back entrance to Fantasyland. My personal booty nearly doubled, and by the time we reached the Dumbo ride and the carousel, all bags were groaning with goodies. (FYI: Dots are Jeff's favorite.)

And, after the hours we spent in the park on our feet, our dogs were barking, as well. The youthful child within me was considering riding Small World, Alice in Wonderland, the Matterhorn Bobsleds or the Monorail, but the throbbing in the bottoms of my feet were suggesting giving up the ghost (how appropriate) and saving the final foot-wear and tear for getting out of the park and back to the car. My three compatriots, all of whom had stopped for a lavatory break, seemed to concur, so we strolled through Fantasyland and the entrance to Sleeping Beauty's castle, where I got this final shot of evil, the villainess from the film Walt referred to as "a moving painting."

As we walked back down Main Street, we stopped in the China Shop (which is now a Christmas store with a couple china pieces around the edges) and got the annual Christmas ornament: a small, grinning, sparkly Cheshire cat from "Alice in Wonderland."

Downpourette

Southern California is getting its first autumn rains today. Of course, we call it a "storm," which will drop an inch or two of rain in a 12-hour period. It's actually the tail end of a low that brought the northern part of the state much more weather, but down here we have news teams covering it like it was the arrival of Will & Kate.

But the day is cool and I love being inside watching the gentle falling of the rain. For the first time in months, I've been able to put on a long-sleeve knit shirt and not break into a sweat.

Yesterday, I met with a woman Steve knows who does custom chocolates as a sideline. I am going to give her marketing stuff (such as it is) a makeover, with a new logo, brochures, cards, etc. I'm doing the work gratis, since I really need something recent in my general design samples online. I'm also going to put together a website for her and do the photography of her products for it.

I'm still waiting on the job at Pasadena City College. I checked in with the woman in HR with whom I am in communication, and she said the position was still being reviewed by the committee, and that I should check back in a couple more weeks if I haven't heard anything by then.

As I've said before, I'm holding off putting the big bucks down to start my studio until I know whether this job will pan out or not, so the only thing I have left is to redesign my own website with the new logo and all, and wait to upload it until I find out.

Until then, we're being very good about pinching our pennies, except for the one extravagance of spending $100 to replace our Blu-Ray player. We got our first one a couple years ago, and it was not playing some of the discs we get from Netflix, so we decided to upgrade the firmware on the machine. After much research and several calls to the Sony "help line," we had burned a firmware upgrade disc, which we popped into the machine.

It accepted the disc and started whirring and flashing, and whirring and flashing. After about 45 minutes of whirring and flashing, we noticed it had not advanced from the readout "0/9." What's more, there was no way of getting the disc to eject (we had tried Sony's technique and it hadn't worked). The last call to the help line elicited a verbal shrug from the "helper," who said to take it into an authorized repair shop for servicing. Knowing that this would cost far more than the unit was worth, Steve decided to use some of his overtime cash to purchase the new one.

While we were installing the new player, we also broke down and pulled the old VCR from the stack, as we hadn't used it in years. This will also give us a good reason to donate our remaining VHS tapes and get some much-needed room back in the upstairs closet.

Well, we seem to have arrived at a lull in the "storm," as the rain has stopped falling. But the skies are still a close dark gray, and I think we have a few more hours of downpourettes in store before tomorrow morning arrives. By the weekend, it promises to be back up into the 80s and 90s, one last stab at summer, which is usually the case in mid-October here in La-La-Land.

Nothing Doing

I keep on telling myself I'm going to write something on the blog, then when I sit down to compose it, I can't think of anything to say.

Stuff is in a holding pattern right now, and although I try to keep myself busy, I still feel like I'm not doing anything of importance, since there's no real direction to work in right now. So here's a picture of the cat with her big, six-toed, snow-shoe paws: This is a typical pose for her on the couch: She looks like she's ready for a manicure.

I realized the other day that she has never known a time when I haven't been at home all day. It's going to be a big surprise if I get a job and start leaving every day in the morning, just like Steve. Working a business would mean even more comings and goings, which would keep her constantly confused (something I attempt to do on a regular basis in any case).

No real job prospects have popped up, and the few that have I haven't heard from. The one prospect that I really hope pans out, the position at Pasadena City College, is still being reviewed by a committee. The woman in HR told me to e-mail her if I hadn't heard anything by next Wednesday.

So I've been filling up my time with constructive things I can do to get ready for opening the business if this position doesn't come through. It seems to me that it is the perfect job: within two miles from home, working for a worthwhile concern doing things I'm familiar with and getting a good salary for it. After 846 days, hundreds upon hundreds of resumes sent, and a half dozen actual interviews, I'm ready to give up on the job market if this one doesn't pan out.

So the brochure is finished and ready to print. The business cards are finished and ready to print. The type specimen book is finished and ready to print. It seems like pretty much everything I can do without spending money I have already done. Once I know which way the ball drops on the PCC job, I'll have a direction in my life.

But right now it's rather schizophrenic: Work on the business stuff, then spend time with online tutorials boning up on Word and PowerPoint (I know both programs but haven't used them in a while, so I'm checking out the latest versions at lynda.com as a refresher course). Everything else has been pretty much normal, mundane and everyday.

The summer is winding down and keeps making meager two- and three-day attempts at rallying one last heat wave. And, while things have been warm, the last hurrah of summer just hasn't happened. We might get rain this weekend (tropical in nature), and by this time next week, it promises to be in the low 70s with another low front out of the northwest bringing rain. Hopefully, that will mean fall has really arrived.

The one thing I have been dealing with the last two weeks is toe injuries. First I bashed the little toe on my right foot and separated the nail from its bed. It's a small nail (as shown here), so its removal was not painful at all, but there was a day or so when I wasn't sure whether it would reattach itself or give up the ghost and come off.

Several days later I whacked my left big toe and broke the nail, but luckily not down to the quick. Then a few days after that, I drove the little toe on my left foot into a chair leg and broke it (the toe, not the chair). That one has been my major bane in the last week to 10 days: At first it was swollen, then it was sore and stiff, and now I'm getting those itchy-twingey pains that come when a bone knits. I rammed my right big toe into the stair riser this evening, but no lasting damage was done.

The phrase comes to mind: "Put on some shoes, idiot," but at first it was too hot for shoes and socks, especially as I was foregoing turning on the air conditioner on all but the hottest days. Then, even as the days cooled somewhat, my little toes were too sore to push into a shoe. Looks like fall is coming just in time to protect against any more tarsal incursions.

I've been very good with my savings. The trick is not to spend any of the money except on must-haves and gotta-pays. Makes for a boring existence, but hopefully this period will be over soon and I will either have the security of a good job or the tight-rope exhilaration of starting a new business and drumming up customers on my own. Just as soon as I know, you'll know.

Fine Grind

Another two-week lapse between postings here. The weather has been hot, which always brings on the lethargy in me, and I've been focusing more and more on gearing up for a dive headlong into the world of free-lancing.

The Fictitious Business Name statement has been filed and published, so I've been focusing more on setting up the studio. The more I plan and sketch, outline and rough out, I find there's more to be done, more to get done before I can even think of moving forward with a presentation.

The first big thing is all the sample stuff I need. I have to have color sample books (available for a mere $400). Then there's paper samples (units run $5 apiece, and I would need several dozen, at least). Then there's type sample books: serif, sans serif, slab serif, script and cursive, display and novelty fonts.

Now here's something I can do without putting out any money, so I've been spending five or six hours a day setting up templates and filling them with the typefaces I have available for use. It's a Sisyphean chore, even with streamlining the procedure as much as possible. I figure I've got about 2,500 fonts (not all activated, of course), and they all need organizing. One thing I have found, though, is that I'm still good at remembering most of the names and what the fonts look like. They are still probably my most favorite thing about graphic design.

I brought the format down two basic layouts; one for text faces and one for display faces. The first one (above) can handle up to four versions of a typeface per page and is organized by font families. I have about 245 of those pages. Then there is the single-font layout (left). I have about a hundred of these specimen pages so far for script faces, and the display and novelty faces promise to be just as numerous. I'm still on the fence about putting in blackletter fonts (also known as Old English or Fraktur), but they are popular with the kids. I'm up to 1,000 typefaces so far, and could well over 1,200 in the bound type books once I'm done. Each page has my logo on it, which makes it a lot more "mine" than just a generic type page.

The next legal procedure, of course, is getting my city business license. This is pricey, though, so I don't want to make that leap until I'm sure there is no job on the horizon. And there still may be a job on the horizon.

I dropped an e-mail to the woman in the Human Resources Department at Pasadena City College who helped me out with questions about the application. She wrote back and said that the committee had not reviewed the applications yet (the deadline for submission was Aug. 26), so I should give it two or three weeks and get back to her if I hadn't heard anything by that time.

So now I'm back to working on my brochure design. I was designing it as a square, since my logo is a set of concentric squares, but, in checking out mailer requirements, I find that the post office does not like mailers that are square, since the machines don't know which side is up (normally the long side). They're being awfully picky for someone who's going down the tubes because of lack of mail.

I played around with rectangular formats for the brochure but never came up with anything that pleased me. So I've gone back to the square format, which I guess I will just put inside an envelope that's oblong when I have to mail it. This is now putting me onto a whole new tract, which is having a packet to give out rather than just a brochure.

I've also got a potential small business client on the line who I have offered to do a free campaign for, including setting up a website. We have e-mailed and called back and forth and have yet to actually set up a meeting. Wouldn't you know it, she makes chocolates, so I'm sure payment will come in some form. She basically creates the chocolate novelties on a per-order basis, so a boutique-type website would be ideal for her. Working with her might also tie me into wedding planners and event planners in the area, who could also be a lucrative market for my work.

And just this last week, Steve was at work and the sales rep from The Castle Press here in Pasadena (that does all their label printing) dropped by. Steve mentioned my setting up a studio, and Greg (the rep) gave him a card and told him to have me e-mail a resume, which I did. I also mentioned that I wanted to make an appointment to drop by their plant and check out the equipment and what services they offer. I think that will happen sometime next week.

It's been cooler this week (80s and 90s instead of 90s and 100s), and I'm hoping that there will only be one or two more hot spells before autumn comes around and, perhaps, some rain. We've gotten plenty of thunderstorms in the high desert, but that's over the San Gabriel mountains, at the foot of which we live. You can see the giant clouds plume up into the sky behind the mountains and you know there's weather happening over there, but on our side it's just hot and humid.

So here it is, day 832 unemployed. It makes my head reel. Who would have thought? Thankfully, we have no children to feed and clothe, no large debt to service, and though the value of our home took the same hit in loss of value as everyone else's, at least we still have equity. I just wish I could figure out what God wants me to get out of all this.

Does God really want me to join the ranks of small-business people? (Not small business-people). Wouldn't that mean God's a capitalist? If this is the case, shouldn't churches be selling stock?