Thanksgiving Day Cooking Tips While We're Away

My brother is always looking for new ways to cook a Thanksgiving Day turkey. Living in the south it is now “understood” that the holiday bird will be deep fried, not baked like woosie people do. Through trial and error he has discovered the need to fully thaw and remove any and all moisture from the turkey before submerging the carcass into a vat of hot, boiling oil.

He has also discovered that it’s best not to fry a turkey in the carport as the flames can flash in a nanosecond reaching heights of ten feet or more.

Lastly, it has been determined that when frying a turkey, proper footwear is a must.

Hiking Shoes = NO
Steel-toed boots = YES

This year I found a recipe for the Finster to tryout; jars of jalapeno peppers will fill the cavity of the bird instead of plain, old stuffing. Once stuffed the well-thawed and well-dried off turkey will be submerged into the hot vat of boiling oil and cooked to perfection. Unfortunately I will not be here to enjoy this tradition in the making as King and I will be enroute to Ohio to bring back his worldly possessions.

Happy Turkey Day To One And All!

We'll be back next week - stay safe and eat too much.....errr, don't, yea DON'T eat too much.

Does Anyone Have A Dance Hall Girl Outfit I Can Borrow?

The season of big meals and long naps are finally upon us. The King and I are leaving next week to travel north unto the snow and icy encrusted tundra for to bringeth his life’s possessions unto our kingdom. Yeah, we’re driving the gas-guzzling SUV to his former homestead and bringing the rest of his belongs down to Florida. Or should I have said “all” of his belongings considering he arrive with a suitcase, two small duffle bags, and his laptops. He has a house in Ohio out in the country…..no really, it’s in rural farm country…..but we both feel that any “big ticket” items should not be stored out there for numerous reasons. Therefore, we are renting a big trailer to hitch the behemoth “Gawain” (that’s what I named my Expedition) in order to fill it with The King’s bountiful property and transport it back home. Or what he is now calling home until he decides he can’t take the tedious life here in our small southern town and runs kicking and screaming back to Ohio.

So I bet you guys are asking what kind of “big ticket” items does The King have in Ohio that we don’t want to store in an empty house. Well, as almost all of his antique furnishings were lost in a flood, he is left with the following:

An extensive movie collection (to add to my extensive movie collection which I am very excited about)

An extensive music collection

The rest of his clothing

A desk

A chair

A pool table

Two video arcade games

Lots of Christmas decorations

Now I know this doesn’t sound like a lot but here we have The Queen’s dilemma. I have lived in the same house for roughly eighteen years. I have brought with me, added, taken in, adopted, whatever you want to call it……enough shit to fill two houses and a barn. We live in Florida where the houses do not have basements and rarely have an attic. I have neither. Here is my house:

I am not an architect, interior designer, or decorator so the picture above is the best I can do under those futile circumstances. What I wanted you to notice, however, is that I HAVE NO ROOM!!!!! I have no room for “big ticket” items. So here’s the problem: I need assistance in figuring out where the hell to put a game room. You guys have probably guessed that each room has more than enough furniture (ignore the picture it's not perfectly accurate; there’s plenty in each of the rooms.) If I turn the Florida room into a game room where in the house is it quiet enough for an office and a fold-out couch should we have over-night visitors? The back porch is not closed-in so I don’t want furniture or electrical items out in the humidity or I’ll get electrocuted as I drink my morning coffee and I really do like my straight hair. That weird rectangle to the left of what is suppose to be the bed in the master bedroom is actually a closet so that won’t work. UUGH!

I know we’ll figure it out and it’s important that The King have his own personal space so that he feels at home but…….do you understand where I’m coming from? He’s such a wonderful guy and I want him to feel at home but the only thing I can think of is turning the pool table into a dining room table when not in use and I’m just not really cool with that unless I were able to hang a flashing Budweiser sign from the dining room ceiling. DAMN, I should have bought that one I saw at a garage sale a couple of weeks ago.

Yea, the first thing you see when you walk into the house is the pool hall. Who needs a dining room – we eat in the kitchen! I already have a piano in there for musical entertainment and the party ball may be gone but I have a refillable keg in the garage. Whatcha think? Pool room in the middle of the house? Feel free to make a suggestion or two if you want; I will gladly take any and all under consideration at this point.

"Oid" Words Suck

Oh my goiter, I am such a goob. Yesterday morning I awoke to a bit of a pain in my back due to sleeping kinda wacky-wacky all over King Dork (we’re both cuddlers). To escape the blinding, excruciating pain in the “twist and sit up” move it takes each morning to get out of bed, I rolled around and sat up stiff backed to compensate for the back ache.

Oh my goiter, I am such a goob. In performing the breath-taking stiff-backed avoid the back pain body-lift, I wretched a muscle in my neck. An inch or two behind my ear, down the left side of my neck and not stopping until that muscle runs into the clavicle. That mother f***ing muscle called the sternocleidomastoid.

Sternocleidomastoid. Let’s take a look at this word and break it down to see exactly what type of pain I’m talking about.

STERNO = fire
CLEIDOMAST = large horse stomping en “mas” which directly controls the weight bearing down on said muscle.
OID = Do I need to explain that every word I could come up with that ended in “oid” truly, TRULY sucks. i.e. hemorrhoid, humanoid, rhomboid (I hated geometry), android (they’re really spooky, like stuffed clown spooky), factoid – wait, I like that word so scratch it from the list – you get my drift, “oid” words suck.

So here I sit in my ergonomically designed office chair with my keyboard at a 90º angle for maximum comfort and still I suffer in silence.

Okay, so maybe not total and complete silence but I’m trying.

I brought with me today copious provisions in an attempt to keep the “owies” at bay. Here we have Myoflex, Dolgit Crème, IcyHot, a store brand equivalent of extra strength Tylenol, Aleve, and a “heat it in the microwave” lavender rice bag. For all of my suggestions to blogosphere friends, I do not take a lot of prescription drugs. I have no pain killers, no muscle relaxers, no pills, shots, or snake oils of any kind. May I take this moment to let you know this morning, my second morning of dealing with the pulled-muscle-it-really-hurts-neck pain, I would have had no problems whatsoever of turning in to a prescription drug addict? I would have gladly horked back a few Vicodin and chased them with a shot of tequila followed closely by a couple of Percocet, Skelaxin, Darvocet, and for a good night’s sleep a small dose of Amobarbital.

Oh my goiter, I am such a douche bag…if it weren’t for the horrendously frightening side effects and reactions I have had to any and every prescription pain killer I ever allowed past my lips I think I would at this moment be laying prone on the floor of my office, my head resting comfortably upon the hideously ugly carpeting and drooling out of the right side of my mouth.

Let’s hope that damn lavender rice bag works.

UPDATE:

Neck doing MUCH better thanks for your thoughts and well wishes!

A Holly Jolly Good Time

While catching up on my friends I stopped by to see what Bee was doing. I was breathless with excitement when I saw that I was not the only person to get a jump start on decorating for the holidays. Bee does the same thing. Actually that’s not true; Bee got a jump start even on me! As I will be heading up north into the path of snow and ice over the Thanksgiving holiday, I’m dusting off my Christmas decorations a week early. Sunday will be spent taking the thirty-seven boxes out of my mother’s attic that contain my holiday garlands, wall hangings, nativity scenes, ginormous Christmas village, tree ornaments, yard decorations, and a vast array of strings of lights. If there is a space, nook, cranny, spot, corner, niche, or spot there is going to be some kind of goo-ga placed “just so”. It’s a long and tedious process but every year I gear up by popping in a holiday CD (maybe an Ella Fitzgerald or a Harry Connick, Jr.), pouring a beer into a green or red goblet to prepare myself and my family for an entire week of decorating and destruction. Destruction? Yeah, I have so much crap that I have to pack up bookcases and tchotchkes in order to properly display my collection of…well…holiday crap.

I hate taking down my fall decorations because fall is probably my favorite season of the year. I love the colors, the smells, and the turtleneck sweaters I get to unpack from their summer hiding place in the back of my closet.

But by bringing out the sparkles, shimmers, and colors of Christmas my sadness is short lived.

Anyone else a Christmas Decoration Addict that would like to start participating in our weekly CDA Meetings? Free membership!

I Had No Idea

The King and I spent the weekend running errands and just shopping around. He wants to get a grill now that he can cook outside year round so Saturday morning we went to PetSmart, Home Depot, and Lowe's. I know, PetSmart doesn’t have grills but it was right beside Home Depot and I needed a few things for the fish tanks. I was almost a very bad girl at PetSmart but the King helped me refrain from getting a puppy......even though it was a really, really, cute and sweet puppy that was abandoned at a cabin when he was very small and almost died BUT I was a good girl none-the-less because the rescue group is a “no kill” organization so I knew the not-so-little guy was safe from harm. As we left the store we began our excursion "window shopping" for grills.

I had no idea…

Grill shopping for guys is a totally different experience than it is for girls. Don’t get me wrong, I L.O.V.E. cooking on a grill but I can get the same result from this:

as I can with this:



King wanted this:

Not only was his choice a tad expensive and include a mini refrigerator, but it was a bit cumbersome as well. I had no idea how we would have gotten it home in the SUV….even if we had had a trailer to load it on.

As I watch King position himself in front of this behemoth of a monster-grill, I swear I heard angels singing as he stood dead center of the mammoth component, caressing the surface like that of a young, nubile, virgin sacrifice. He struck a Jesus pose and prayed to the grill-gods of Valhalla. It was a beautiful thing to behold. It brought a tear to my eye just imagining him in nothing but a chef's hat and apron cooking one inch thick porterhouse steaks off the back porch.

Yes siree, it was a beautiful thing!

Mr. Interpretation

Driving back to work after a lunch hour spent together, the King and I noticed a car to our right that had this decal in the back window:



The King asked what the decal symbolized and I stated that the driver was a “girl hunter”.

“Oh, she’s a lesbian,” he stated.

I giggled and said “No….she is a Girl. Hunter.”

“That’s what I said.”

“No,” I repeated “she is a girl that hunts; that’s the logo for Browning.”

“Oh.”

Welcome again, to the world of Redneckaucracy…..

A Sad Day For Carnies Everywhere

Wow…..what a let down. After all of my hoopla and excitement about the fair being in town I was sorely disappointed by the lack of photo opportunities. I got....

The carnies were actually fairly well groomed and had obviously received dental insurance upon the legislative requirement that all carnival ride operators become licensed and insured. What’s up with THAT?!?!? How are we to tolerate attending the most feared and hated celebration of redneckaucracy? We all know that nothing outdoes fair food as far as our supercilious palates go but to suffer through the mediocrity of the Ferris wheel operator was just plain unacceptable. Let me give you a couple examples:

Here we have my brother and sister-in-law posing for a photo so that I could hone in on the woman with the neck tattoo.

That’s it, a neck tattoo. No gaping holes in her oral cavity where her central or lateral incisors should have been……nothin’!

Here we have “The Man of Thick Glasses.” Again, no missing teeth but he DID have that “Hi my name is Cletus and I’m a pedophile” look about him.

Take a close look at the picture below; the carnie is nothing special as far as freakishness goes but I’d like to point out the shoulders the man’s face falls between; this is my brother and sister-in-law again posing for the sake of my blog. Are they the bomb or WHAT!!!

This one we’ll call “Checkin’ Out The Underage Girl’s Ass”. Isn’t he just a cheek’s pinch away from Sunday dinner with the family?

There were quite a few fabulous examples of what not to wear in public but after I got caught taking this first picture, I was afraid of getting my ass kicked in an attempt to add additional photographs to my portfolio. The lady in red was not pleased with my attempt at humor; she didn’t think there was anything wrong at all with her fashion ensemble.

I think the best time we had all night was eating the “if it ain’t deep fried, it ain’t good enough” food. Here’s my brother contemplating where to begin.

After a little bit of this and a whole lot of that….

high on the hog (literally) and we headed home.

check out the photo blog for additional pictures of our trip to the fair

Freaks and Geeks

I’m so excited…..guess what’s in town this week! The FAIR! I love the fair. King Dork and I don’t go for the rides; we go for the food, the freaks, and the photo opportunities. This evening’s entertainment will begin with a bit of fair food followed by the freak shows. I. Love. The. Fair.

I, Queen Goob, do solemnly swear to my best in bringing back to you a photo montage of all the food we partake in and all the freaks we come across or….pay to see!

Don’t hate me because I’m petty like that…..

it’s the FAIR!

Some Things Never Change

Many of my blogger friends talk of their kids and I realize that I’m older than I think because most of the kids I read about are in elementary school. Not mine; I have the dreaded beast of terror, destruction, and destitution that we call teenagers. Funny, though, no matter how well we try to train them day after day, week after week, they revert to their toddlerism days and do things that just plain crack me up.

Spawnette was just recently working on a project required of her speech class. They were to “invent” a product, design advertising and marketing materials, and present it to the class. She came up with some kind of walking, talking, breathing, and don’t forget to do the dishes and laundry telephone. The phone would have been a tad large and wouldn’t have fit in my pocket but that’s the price you pay for maid service.

A package of poster board and a box of markers later I present to you her first attempt at marketing.

It says: I ♥ U

Some things never change, do they? At least it was the dog and not the furniture or living room walls.

Help Desk Ticket

I went to the cable company’s home office last Thursday to pick up a modem so that I could hook up high-speed internet at the house. It’s a twenty-three minute drive from work so I figured I could haul butt there and back during my lunch break with a couple of minutes to spare due to the fact my middle name is “Racer X”. No such luck; the DMV here is fabulous, not so much the cable company.

After receiving my modem and all required insert technical terms here for cables and stuff, I raced back to the office prepared to hook up the internet at home over the weekend. Thinking ahead and due to the fact I’m a blonde, I called my brother over to assist and guide in the connection of the box to the computer.

He got nothin’.

We drank a couple of beers, tried again, and still got nothin’. At this point I offered my assistance.

Bro went home, grabbed his modem and came back to the homestead; lo and behold thru his box we had high-speed connectivity and proceeded to surf the web. He left, took his box with him with the understanding that I would go BACK to the home office and trade out boxes because obviously I had a defective modem.

Monday I again took my lunch break to turn in the “defective” modem and traded it in on a “working” modem.

Went home last night, hooked it up and guess what!! You got it…

I got nothin’.

After two modems, three phone calls to tech support, and three IT professionals, I called and made an appointment for a cable technician to come to the house and “hook it up properly”. I have a feeling that Cletus may run into difficulties, too.

Should I have King Dork and Brother there for good measure? Yeah, I think so, too.

Mergers and Acquisitions

The merge is complete. Okay, the merge has begun but the move in is complete. The merge will be the easy part. This is what King Dork brought with him when he arrived in Tallahassee. Think I have room in my 1900+ square foot home?

I don’t know; it looks like the merging of our “stuff” may be a tough one. We’re heading to Ohio over the Thanksgiving holiday to bring back the rest of his stuff. He says it should all fit in my SUV. Sounds like we may have to add onto the house to accommodate everything.

And I spent TWO WEEKS CLEANING CRAP OUT OF MY HOUSE FOR THIS?!?!?!?

Looks like I may rake in at the yard sale next weekend!