Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives---Phoenix

Wondered if any of you living in the Valley of the Sun have tried any of these establishments featured on the Food Network Show listed in the title of this post?

MOMENTOUS DAY

Well, it only took a few seconds to figure out why Mother wasn't in the picture and that Catherine must have been the photographer, outside the CMH on 3/1/64! Glad to hear that some of you ate turkey yesterday for Thanksgiving and we ate turkey soup ala Luscious last night. Today a friend brought by their left over ham which was enough for about 6 meals for us and then can use the bone, etc for some great vegetable soup in a couple weeks...And then the dog will be the last to enjoy it. What is everyone up to this weekend? We will be at Lothair at noon tomorrow to watch the Georgia/Georgia Tech game, which should be closer than usual (most times Georgia stomps all over GT).

Hamburgers for Thanksgiving!

This weekend I was thinking about the Thanksgiving we had hamburgers for lunch. As I recall it was the year the kitchen was remodeled (early 1970s???) and Mother had gotten the new stove, cabinets, etc. It was when time bake ovens had just come out and she had set the oven to come on at like 4AM so that the turkey would be ready in plenty of time for lunch. When she woke up, the oven (and turkey) were still COLD which meant plan B since we were expecting several for lunch. Mother went to the ever-ready freezer and pulled out hamburgers and we had a small lunch and ate turkey late afternoon. I think those who came for lunch just stayed all afternoon for both meals.

Thanksgiving Guests

In attempting a new topic that might be of interest to most in the family, how about guests we remember from Thanksgivings past, or might I say Thanksgiving in New Vienna in years past? Standards were GHU and Blanche Matthews that I recall; Mrs. Matthews was usually retrieved from "Americare" as we called it in Wilmington. Eloise Simpkins, after the passing of her mother was another. The other stand-out in my mind would be Jackie Phelon who came home with RUK from UC but I'm not sure she was actually there on Thanksgiving. I remember her visits, though, because Grandma was "old school" and not used to associating with people of "color", although to my recollection people of color were generally more interesting in the Uible house because they had a different background or even nationality. I did not realize how little prejudice I grew up with until I moved to South Georgia....that can be interpreted any way one wishes!
Other guests you might remember would be?????

Last night we had two kinds of tomato bread, hummus, squash soup and squash soup. We had no Soy Delicious or Blue Bell.

Mom really seemed to enjoy looking through the iPod Touch's photos. She caught on to how to flip through the photos pretty quickly - once she got on to it doesn't like it if you have more than one finger on the screen at a time.

They did mention that they had excellent limo service up to the airport.

KC was, of course, a big hit. He is much more "grown-up" than he was even when the Arizonans last saw him. He is speaking English more now - and attempting to saying aunts' names - although he leaves out a few letters. So now Roberta is attempting to help him fix that to perfection - yes the aunt who didn't learn to speak until she was three years old and then was in speech therapy for years. We haven't started work on his pronunciation of "Mary Virginia" - that is a mouthful. "John" should be easy enough.

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Now playing: Leo Laporte, Scott Bourne, Andy Ihnatko, Alex Lindsay, Chris Breen, and Ryan Shrout - MacBreak Weekly 110: Payin' The Apple Tax
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OVERLOADED

In honor of National Diabetics Month, I just enjoyed a bowl of:

Chocolate Extreme is a rich chocolate ice cream surrounded by a thick chocolate fudge swirl, loaded with chocolate coated peanut butter cups, chopped pecans, almonds and walnuts.
"I don't know if the half gallon could hold any more ingredients," said Paul Kruse, Blue Bell CEO and president. "If you enjoy an ice cream with lots of mix-ins this is a flavor you have to try. You get a tasty combination of peanut butter cups and nuts in just about every bite. Of course a big spoonful of just the creamy chocolate ice cream and fudge sauce wouldn't be all that bad either."
Additional chocolate and mix-in indulgent flavors from Blue Bell include Fudge Brownie Nut, Rocky Road and Chocolate Brownie Overload. "Chocolate is consistently one of the top selling ice cream flavors," Kruse added. "You can enjoy a simple Milk Chocolate Ice Cream or a flavor filled with nuts and other sweet treats. With Chocolate Extreme, I think we've created an ice cream that can fill the craving of any chocolate lover."
Chocolate Extreme [new flavor] Ice Cream is now available in stores.
I don't think I have ever had an ice cream with so much stuff in it and so CHOCOLATE. Remember stopping at UDF in Wilmington and picking a scoop of whatever flavor we wanted? There is a new ice cream/candy store here in Dublin but it is like over $3/scoop so one visit was PLENTY.

Note: the other favorite flavor we have is also from Blue Bell, called Moolinium Crunch. Interestingly enough, Blue Bell covers 99% of New Mexico, 90% of KY and 100% of GA and several other states between here and there.

Weather

It is supposed to be up to about 75 degrees today, but right now it is about 49 degrees. I've been thinking about turning on the heat - really only to make sure it still works before Mother gets here. I still haven't done it, maybe tonight.

Has everyone else turned on the heat already?

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Now playing: Leo Laporte - Leo Laporte - The Tech Guy 505
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Johnny Marzetti

Back to the food theme -- anybody remember Johnny Marzetti on the school lunch menu? When I first met Gerry he introduced me to a very similar dish which in Maine was called American Chop Suey. Ingredients included pasta, hamburger, and tomato sauce, baked in a casserole. Don't remember eating it at home, seems like we hardly ever (never?) had pasta, but do remember eating it elsewhere. And I learned today on the Ohio History Central Blog that the Ohio version was introduced at an Italian Restaurant in Columbus in the 1920s. Click here for more details or to go to the Ohio History Blog.

Old Ohio Map

Here's a map I copied from a blog called Cartophilia: Maps and Map Memorabilia by Cartophiliac showing the original land grants that made up the state. The map was part of a discussion about a new book called How the States got their Shape by Mark Stein which I currently have on reserve at the library. Hope to have it by next weekend to share with Dad!

New Arrival

Bed has arrived!

 

Top mattress had a note saying that it is designed to be used with or without box springs. The photo above is with the box springs. It is lower than the old bed. I put one of the folding chairs beside it to show the relative height - but not sure that shows it very clearly.

Picasa Web Albums

You might want to check out Picasa albums - I've gone through and done some face identification on both mine and Roberta's. I marked a number of people as "unknown" or labelled just "Uible" "Ballantyne" "Crowson", etc. if I recognized family, but not specific first name. There is still a lot of cleaning up to do, though. Click here for my photos or here for Roberta's.

Borrowing a Ladder

When Catherine and Gerry were here last week, I briefly borrowed a ladder from the neighbors. When I took it back he commented that I was welcome to keep it longer (than the about 10 minutes I had borrowed it for). And that I was welcome to borrow it to put up Christmas decorations. I told him I was planning on doing less this year than last year. He seemed unsure that was possible.

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Now playing: podcast@wsj.com - Wall Street Journal Tech Briefing - 11/07/08
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Alligators

(from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/Two_american_alligators.jpg) (not a photo of Aunt Mary's alligator, nor Adams')

One of the podcasts I listened to this morning talked about White House pets - dogs, a turkey (thus began the Thanksgiving tradition of pardoning a turkey every year, not because of militant vegans), etc. They mentioned that there was a president who had a pet alligator.

Remember when Aunt Mary (Mary Hiestand in Hillsboro, wife of Harry) who had a pet alligator? She used to take it once in a while to Hillsboro elementary school for her class (5th grade maybe?). She had a great backyard with all kinds of bushes and stuff for the alligator to roam around and of course another favorite alligator place was the bathtub. I don't remember them having two bathrooms, so I assume that they all shared the bathtub - not at the same time, of course.

KC the cow

A week ago today KC dressed up in his cow Halloween costume. He wasn't all that thrilled, especially with the hood since he is not yet a hat/hood kind of guy. And getting him to pose is impossible. Also, he doesn't have a sweet tooth so the candy part didn't appeal to him either.

Photo identification

From All

Does anybody recognize the person and place in this photo? Roberta barely recognized the person and didn't recognize the place . . . even afer I told her what the place was.

I'm pretty sure the dress was a bright green with white polka dots.

News and Sid's Blog

Anybody else seen the news lately?

Sid and I worked a bit on his blog last night. For those of you who have not yet commented/seen his blog - click on "his blog" in the previous sentence.

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Now playing: ABC News - Obama on the Trail: History and Heartache
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New Neighbors+Excitement

Mom and Dad may remember that about a month ago our neighbor's house was for sale when they were here....they have leased it now to a mother and her teenage daughter who moved in (from Tampa, FL) Saturday. Tonight when I came home at nearly 9PM, there were 2 firetrucks and a police car blocking the street! The mother had not been feeling well and so they came to check for CO (carbon monoxide) but did not find any. After a thorough health check (better than I've had done in many Drs. offices!!), they pretty much came to the conclusion that it might have been a reaction to the exterminator's spray this afternoon or possibly an inner ear infection/vertigo....

Plans for the Day

Another exciting day in my life - have a couple of computer appointments today plus have plans to stop at Kings around lunch time to work a bit on the front deck area, help Sid a bit on his blog, drop a couple shortcuts on Kings' computers so that Roberta can find the blog - and, perhaps, she will stop calling to complain to me about that. Then this evening, I'm going to tackle the window screens here, and maybe clean a couple of windows.

I do remember the production it was in New Vienna. I thought the fun part was lining up the screens on the sidewalk by the driveway and spraying them clean - probably some water fighting was also involved. Washing the windows themselves . . . not so fun.

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Now playing: NPR - NPR: 10-28-2008 Day to Day -- Midday Magazine
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Comments

Is it just me that can't post comments anymore? Maybe I need to check the blog out on a different computer.... Congratulations to Sid on his blog. I'll stop by and visit (the blog) soon.

Weather

Weather high for today is supposed to be only 87 degrees and no 90s or 100s in the forecast for the rest of this week.

Kings and I are off to Coco's this morning for breakfast with Sharon. Then on to Changing Hands bookstore. I mentioned by email that maybe since we'll be in the neighborhood (Tempe) - we could stop in at Ikea and or Whole Foods.

Anyway, I've got things to do before we leave . . .

Oh, one more thing, Sid now has a blog: Sid's Blog. Feel free to comment. We're off to a somewhat slow start. Sara, Cynthia and Judy seem to get their techie skills from their current step-mother, not their father.