kochleffel

I don't think I will bake cookies today, but you never know. Twins run in my family but not in my branch of it. The last special day makes me think of former Senator Jeff Flake, who was from Snowflake, Arizona--named partly for his great-great-grandfather. He said that everyone there was a Flake and that he was in college before he learned that it sounded odd to most people. I like the soup but no longer make it, because I'm not sure that it cooks enough after the egg is added to be completely safe. Pass on the drink and also on the dancing. The wine can be a different mix of varieties every year, but there is still no Zinfandel in the Finger Lakes. I'll suggest Hector Wine's Essence. I haven't been to Brest, but I know the poem by Jacques Prévert: Rappelle-toi Barbara Il pleuvait sans cesse sur Brest ce jour-là. The furnace appears to have a burned-out circuit board. They have one in stock so it may be repaired yet today.

Most of the maple syrup in stores is from Canada, but we produce plenty in New York. The lamb would be OK, but dinner will actually be leftover turkey stew. Pass on the cocktail. I lived in the Willamette Valley a few decades ago and Amity was nearest winery in that direction, but they didn't produce white Pinot Noir then. Pinot Noir is the fourth most-planted variety in the Finger Lakes, and some wineries make a rosé from it but very few make a white Pinot Noir. This one from Fox Run is sold out at the winery but available in stores. I haven't been to Ocho Rios. The furnace that should heat the main floor of my house is on the fritz (the one for the bedrooms and bathroom is working). I don't want a Sunday service call and we can manage until tomorrow, especially if the cats use their heated beds. I took it as a sign to roast more vegetables, carrots today. One, and only one, of my shore excursions for January appears to need hiking shoes and a stick. The shoes are comfortable and would be OK to wear for all the excursions.

I'm back from getting an RSV vaccination. This turned out not to be a convenient day for it but I kept the appointment.

There are some things that shouldn't be covered in chocolate. Trust me on this. I'd rather have the leftover turkey some other way--I don't really like stuffed peppers (which, btw, should not be covered in chocolate, either). No on the drink, or anything made with pineapple juice. No Zinfandel/Tribidrag/Whatever blends in the Finger Lakes, but for a Syrah and Merlot blend, maybe Shalestone Cross-Rows, which also contains Lemberger. I haven't been to Sydney, not even the one in Nova Scotia, but I have been to Sidney, New York.

I often herd my cats unintentionally. When we (I and two other cats) lived on the Connecticut shore, our village had a colony of feral cats and a TNR group that looked after them. I might like the meal but wouldn't make it. No on the cocktail. We grow Chardonnay and a large amount of Riesling in the Finger Lakes, but blends of those two grapes aren't common. Dr. Frank's produced one, currently sold out, under the Salmon Run label. Anthony Road also makes one. I think I will be at Fuerte Amador this time next year. My more immediate concern, however, is the January cruise. I believe that I have all the shore excursions arranged, but I need to check their descriptions to see whether I would want hiking shoes or a stick for any of them. As I'm driving to the port, I can take whatever I want, but I don't want to deal with more luggage than necessary. RCI offered me a chance to bid on an upgrade, but I didn't think it was worthwhile to pay anything to upgrade from an obstructed balcony to an unobstructed, when a picture of the actual cabin showed the obstruction to be minimal.

They're starting it up again: the hoopla about a "massive storm" on the East Coast. It is possible, maybe likely, but they don't need to frighten people out where I live. Maybe 1/4 inch of rain here. Weather forecast as entertainment (except where it really should be taken seriously).

This morning I am going to conserve energy by going back to bed. For most of my life I've been a night owl, waking up very slowly and then blundering around half-asleep for a while. Recently I've been waking a a reasonable time without an alarm and feeling alert, but that's misleading. Yesterday I felt wide awake at 7:00 a.m. but did not remember to take my blood-pressure medicine until much, much later. The soup would be OK with me, but I won't be having any today. No on the cocktail; too complicated. I don't think our Finger Lakes wines are liberated; most of them are held prisoner in wine shops, but I'll suggest Barnstormer Winery 2021. I was at Visby in 2019 on the Serenade of the Seas. It happened to be during Almedalen Week, which is a huge political festivity. There was a free walking tour given each day by an expat Scot, Aiden MacFarlane, who started giving tours because he wanted to stay on Gotland but didn't speak Swedish well enough to hold a regular job. He didn't ordinarily give tours during Almedalen Week, because political types had all the hotel rooms and there were few other visitors, but he would by arrangement during cruise calls. He was an excellent guide, except for one thing: he's rather agoraphobic, which is odd for a tour guide. Because of the politicians everywhere, there were also lots of news reporters and lots of demonstrators. Almedalen Week, BTW, originated with Olof Palme when he was prime minister. Reporters tracked him down at his family's summer home on a smaller island off Gotland. He refused to talk with them there but said he would speak (I think) the next day in Visby. He continued to speak there each year, and it grew in a a week-long (or longer) event where each party currently represented in the Swedish parliament is assigned a day. In 2019 there were eight parties represented, so it was longer than a week. Today is the last day of class for the semester.

I'm roasting a head of romanesco. It's so pretty that usually I would want to cook it another way, but it was reaching the point at which all of it needed to be cooked, not just the amount I would steam for one meal. It's harder than cauliflower to separate into florets.

We need to find that Otto and make him stop.

Mona Lisa spent part of the night on my bed, and while she got up before I did, she did not bake cinnamon rolls for the Lucia Fest. I would have liked some cinnamon rolls, although maybe not baked by a cat. Cinnamon rolls are ubiquitous in the Nordic countries, and each one claims to make the best. Oddly, Denmark puts a legal limit on the amount of cinnamon in food, although it's waived for traditional and seasonal foods, and cinnamon rolls are both. A friend of mine started college at a school in the Midwest with a Scandinavian heritage, and had no idea what was going on when, on December 13, the other women in her dorm got up early to bake cinnamon rolls, put candles on their heads, and deliver the rolls to the men's dorm. But I also want waffles, and I don't think I'm going to get any. There is a Dutch Jewish custom of eating waffles on Hanukkah because Hanukkah is described in Hebrew as a celebration of nes va-fele, miracle and wonder, which to a Dutch ear sounds like miracle waffles. It's difficult to make good falafel, because the frying temperature isn't perfect, they turn out either sodden with oil, or burned on the outside and raw on the inside. Don't ask me how I know this. I could skip the cocktail. For Chardonnay, which many Finger Lakes wineries grow even though the region is suboptimal for it, maybe Lakewood Vineyards. I haven't been to Dubai. This morning I finished and handed the last assignment for the course. Class tomorrow is the final one of the semester. I need to go to a grocery store. I'll try to make it the one with the kosher in-store bakery, because only store-baked bread is fresh on Wednesdays.

Substantial decorating for Hanukkah is rare. My mantel decoration with some blue and white lights is more than most people without children in the home would do. But here is Prof. Ron Wolfson's childhood home in Omaha. He says that his mother didn't want her children to suffer "Hanukkah envy."

Present situation: when I removed the bandage this morning, I saw that they had removed the entire lesion (the visible part, that is), so that if the pathology report is negative--which is very unlikely--no further treatment would be needed. However, it's almost certainly a basal cell carcinoma, so Mohs surgery may be in the offing. That may be hard to schedule before my January cruise. I don't want it between Christmas and New Year's, because I'm officiating at the synagogue on New Year's weekend, nor do I want it between New Year's and the cruise.

When I was having surgery for a fracture of the humerus, an OT visited me before the surgery and showed me how, for example, to bathe or put on socks using only one hand. Because she didn't know the surgical plan, she also talked with me about many things that turned out to be unnecessary, including some that were frightening (possibility of permanent disability). She felt that she needed to cover all possible ground because there was going to be no OT available on the morning after the surgery. In that respect, after would have been better.

No gingerbread, ambrosia, or poinsettias here. (My family calls them pointsettas.) I see that we are back to the Squash Festival. No on the cocktail. Aglianico would not thrive in the cloudy, rainy conditions here. The most similar (in overall character) Finger Lakes wine might be Shaw's Cabernet Sauvignon, a completely different grape, if you can obtain any (small production, aged for years before release, available only at the winery and only when they feel like selling any). I had a cruise booking from Venice that was changed to Ravenna before it was cancelled.

I wouldn't be able to make the meal at home, except with vegan sausage. I would be willing to try the pseudotini. Primitivo/Tribidrag/Zinfandel was grown in New York even before it reached California, but I know of no commercial production of it here today, so I'll substitute a fruity, non-tannic red, Crooked Lake from the Keuka Spring Winery. I have been to Portland, Oregon, hundreds of times (I lived for a while in the Willamette Valley), but never by ship. It's not a typical cruise port and AFAIK there is no cruise terminal, but it's a significant port for both the export of grain and the import of automobiles, even though it's about 100 miles inland as ships sail. I'm just back from a biopsy of a lesion on my face. Blood is seeping out around the bandage.

No on the meal: I don't really enjoy turmeric (except in curry), and coconut makes it all worse. Also no on the cocktail. I'd rather have a PB&J sandwich. For the wine, Stoney Lonesome SB from the Three Brothers wineries. I visited Rhodes in 2022 on the Norwegian Jade. Here are pictures from the synagogue: In the Jewish Museum in Athens, a plate commemorating the 1949 armistice between Israel and Egypt and Jordan, signed on Rhodes. It looks as if my neighbor is having a new roof put on. A little while ago, a crew was using leaf blowers to dislodge snow from the roof and now they are draping the house in tarps.

I know how to run a cotton-candy machine, and I hate it--you end up with sugar all over you. It had not occurred to me to put wine in risotto. BTW, in an Italian menu, it might be a first plate, along with pasta and gnocchi, not a main course. No, no, no on the cocktail, because of the coconut and pineapple juice. Pinot Noir: Damiani 2022. I was in Kristiansand last year on the Voyager of the Seas. Some pictures of the Setesdalbanen: Today I'll do my (very small amount of) Hanukkah decorating before class at 4:00 p.m. We have more snow today.

Re pet vaccinations: I'm concerned that Mona Lisa and DaVinci aren't up on their vaccinations; I don't even know when they last received any. They are so unsocialized that I'm not sure that their former humans could even catch them, and I certainly can't, so far. The risk is slightly mitigated by the fact that they never go out. We're making some progress. Earlier this week, Mona Lisa hopped onto the bed beside me and cuddled for a considerable time, and tonight she climbed into my lap while I was watching television. DaVinci is still wary, but he's coming closer to me.

When I was on the Nieuw Amsterdam in 2020, we diverted toward Grand Turk, which had been our first port of call, for a medical evacuation. We didn't dock there again--it was to rendezvous with a USCG helicopter based in the Bahamas that would take the patient to shore. Grand Turk has limited medical resources. The entire medical system of the Turks and Caicos is run by a Canadian company, with mostly Canadian and British doctors, but Grand Turk has only a 10-bed hospital. The "big" hospital at Providenciales is 20 beds. The purpose of taking the patient there was to get a fixed-wing flight to Miami.

Is this a phone with a 9-button telephone keypad? You may be able to get special characters by pressing the * key (possibly more than once). If that won't work, forward the text message to the phone with a full virtual keyboard of someone who knows your email address so that they can forward it to that.

@rafinmd Roy, this may help. The good news is that nearly all carriers still let you send a text message directly to an email address even when you have no cellular data or Wi-Fi connections available. Basically, you just type the email address in the To: field as if it were a phone number. This goes through the phone carrier's MMS, not Internet. https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/how-to-send-texts-to-email/ (scroll down for more on forwarding)

We have a little snow on the ground this morning, which indicates that gazpacho isn't in season. In the spring I will plant a mitten in the garden and see if it grows. The soup would be OK but I would skip the cocktail. I'm already in a haze most of the time. I wouldn't buy a wine named for a pig. Substitute: Hazlitt 1852 Schooner Red. I haven't been to New Zealand.

Evidence for only four ports? I'm booked on the January 7 sailing and the cruise planner still lists excursions for five ports: (1) Puerto Plata, DR; (2) Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas; (3) Philipsburg, St. Maarten; (4) St. Johns, Antigua; and (5) Basseterre, St. Kitts.

I would make the lentil dish, but ordinary brown lentils will not cook in 20 minutes. No on the cocktail. No Albariño in the Finger Lakes, so I'll suggest Field White from the Herman J. Wiemer winery, which is Demeter-certified biodynamic. I haven't been to Mauritius, but I had an MDR waiter on the Serenade of the Seas who was from there. Three major accomplishments this morning: remembering to take my blood-pressure medicine; taking the trash out in time for the pickup; and ordering a pair of ice grips to attach to my shoes when the conditions require. I also started catching up in the other course that I'm taking, which is asynchronous.