THE FEISTY BLOG

 Matt had another surgery today.  The purpose was to refine the tilt of his left foot.  It is very hard to explain but the position of his left foot has been a producer of pain for many years and he is working to overcome the problem.  

  Matt is about to have surgery and we spent the weekend getting things ready.  Running errands, cleaning, and at some point, getting pizza.  Pizza is extremely important for the mind.

            Matt always knows what I want before I know.  One year he bought me a mushroom box for Valentine’s Day instead of flowers.  Well, of course, I loved it.  So now I grow mushrooms when I find the kits. 

            Matt is an over-the-top kind of guy.  I casually mentioned that I wanted a Ganesha statue.  I was thinking along the lines of a cute little guy I could stand near the fireplace.  Matt bought me a Ganesha for Christmas (once again mixing those religions).   Here it is.  See?  Over the top.  But hey, I love it!            Don’t know Ganesha?  He is a Hindu God with the Head of an elephant.  He has a very complicated back story but he is probably the most beloved of all Hindu Gods.  He is the remover of obstacles and has his own wikipage. 

 Let’s be honest, dealing with the pharmacy at CVS is torture.  It is what I imagine hell will be–eternity spent waiting for your prescription to be ready.  Our CVS is always busy, busy, busy.  There is usually a line for the pharmacy counter while the four or five women behind the counter run around like mad processing prescriptions.  A constant voice hovers over them repeating, “Pharmacy call on line 1,” … “Pharmacy call on line 1,”which they are very astute at ignoring.  I know to never, ever call because I will be on the other end of that line waiting for someone to pick up.  It is easier to just drive over and stand in line. At least they can’t ignore me (much). 

            Today the waiting customers looked defeated.  But one guy is unwilling to accept the attitude and keeps going up to the counter asking about his prescription.  The overworked and stressed-out pharmacy clerk who looks like she just needs a break tries to explain to him that they are working on it.  But you said it would be ready in half an hour and it is almost an hour, he argues.  She did not flinch.  I really feel for the clerks.  I think if I was in their position, I’d be the same way.  After a while, it would be really hard to care as someone vents.  It becomes a cycle of angry customer to clerk I-don’t-care, to an angrier customer to clerk I-really, really-do-not-care.  The employee numbness syndrome sets in and forget it. 

             In our store waiting in line means staring at the baby product aisle.  Aside from shampoos and eczema cream, I study the whole industry devoted to breast feeding, from pumps to storage to nipple balm.  I finally get to the counter and, of course, my prescription is not ready despite my having called it in three days ago.  As I wait, I wander around trying to bide my time.  The place looks like a Soviet-era shop with empty shelves and jumbles of unwanted products.  It’s a mess.  They lock up stuff to prevent shoplifting.  I am fascinated by what gets the protection—Tylenol, electric sinus rinse devices, and razors seem to be popular with the petty theft crowd.  Then I spend some time browsing through women’s magazines.   It’s January—diet season has arrived  Lose three dress sizes in thirty days!  Finally, almost an hour wasted and they call my name and I hurry out  of the store wishing I never have to go back. But alas….

Companies wonder why on-line shopping is so popular.  Because I never have to wait.  I never worry about the vagaries of inventory.  I can always find what I want and I don’t have to waste a trip.  It may be more expensive, but it saves me a lot of time and frustration. Think about that CVS.  Customers who are not frustrated are happy customers.  

 It took some time for a plow to come by.  They are saying that COVID absences are leaving the County short staffed.  Well, when the plow came, unfortunately, he took my mailbox with him.  I have security cameras now and I have a lovely video of him zooming by, snow flying and there goes the mail box up in the air, post and all.  Thanks. Just what I needed. Another home project.

            Yesterday I was raking leaves in warm weather.  Today I shoveled seven inches of wet heavy snow in the cold.  We have not had significant snow since 2019.  Ooof that wind was whipping.  My cheeks were wind burned by the time I was done two hours later.  I had a pretty good workout.  

 

            I don’t like to leave up the Christmas lights after the holiday is over.  I always take down everything on the New Year’s weekend.  This year was weird because the weather was so warm that we were outside with no coats.  While Matt took down the lights, I raked leaves.  In January.

            To explain, I have a sweet gum tree that does not even turn orange until well into November or early December.  It just stays green.  So I wait and wait for it to drop its leaves.  Once it goes, then I rake everything. Sometimes if the leaves fall too late in the year, I just let it go and I don’t rake.  This year the leaves fell in December. I had written it off but we had a rainstorm, and the rushing water washed the leaves into the culvert in front of our house, threatening to clog up the drains. I did not want that to backup so I went to work raking.  In January.  

            

It was a miserable day weatherwise—overcast, sprinkles and unseasonably warm, almost humid.  We were walking around on a January day in t-shirts with no coats.  We decided to blow off whatever chores we had and went to the Hirshhorn to see the Laurie Anderson exhibit.  It was more of a retrospective of her life’s work. Anderson uses mixed-media and she includes a lot of video and writing.  This was going to take time and we just ran out of attention span.  Words.  Lots of words, spoken or written. Did I mention words?  It was a lot to take in.  We needed at least two or three hours, we had a little over an hour.  Each room had five or six different pieces all needing study.  It was just too much.  I needed a chair to contemplate.  Matt needed a chair just to rest his feet.  There were none to be had.  We gave up on the other exhibit we wanted to take in and went home.    

    We ventured out to the Kennedy Center to see John Oliver do stand up and we will never see John Oliver do stand up again.  We have seen him three times in say the last five years or so.  He told the same jokes from years ago when we saw him the first time.  He actually told a joke about Superstorm Sandy.  When was that?  2012?  It was really disappointing.   We came home watched a Jim Jeffries special on Netflix while we munched on caviar and drank champagne.  Unlike John Oliver, he was hilarious.  

p.s., get lost 2021!  I don’t ever want to see you again!

            Our plan was to sleep in and sit around in our pajamas all day while we watched movies. (Believe me when I say, we LOVE spending Christmas this way.)  But it was so warm outside that it kind of took the glamour out of the pajamas. Matt donned shorts.  I did not go that far but I did end up in sweats.  Oh well.  Dinner was voodoo lime chicken—a chicken stuffed with bread, bananas, chorizo and lime.  Not a traditional stuffing but delish.  

           

            Since Christmas is really based on a pagan holiday, I like to celebrate the winter solstice with a fire.  Unfortunately, the weather often disagrees and this year it rained on the Solstice.  So we fired up the bonfire on Christmas Eve.  We used the dead parts of the hemlock I cut down and it made a pretty good fire.  For dinner we had stuffed cabbage, pierogies and beer.  

When it is Christmas, I want a nutroll just like we had when I was a kid.  I am not sure what these are called in Polish.  But we made them every year.  They are tasty treats made with a walnut paste, hand-made of course, with lots and lots of sugar, rolled in a yeasted dough. 

For the nuts I hand grind them in my mother’s old meat grinder.  

I have tried using a food processor to chop them.  The consistency is just not right.  So I crank away turning a few pounds of nuts into a fine meal.  Then I add lots of sugars—regular, brown, honey.  The dough is sweet too.  I make about a dozen rolls, and then freeze them so I don’t get fat eating them.  I could eat a single roll in one sitting without blinking.  The freezer restrains me.  They go perfectly with coffee or tea.  Delish. 

           Another event we rarely see at Christmas time is the model train display at the Botanical Garden. Usually it is packed with people, kids running everywhere as we try to get into the limited space inside the building. It can get pretty annoying pretty fast. But this year they held it outside.  Again, great idea folks.  Do this every year.  There was plenty of room and we did not have to stand in line to wait for the crowds.

The theme was agriculture around the world.  Here are some more pics.

            Every year the Kennedy Center hosts the Tuba Christmas.  Tuba players from the area get together to form an orchestra and play Christmas songs.  It is so much fun to hear Joy to the World played by tubas and sousaphones and other exotic tube-like instruments.  We don’t make it every year because it is usually held at 6 p.m. on a weeknight which is not really easy for us to get to.  Last year it was cancelled.  This year, they held it outside in a tent and that worked perfectly.