Odds, ends and a holiday.

Today, the holiday, I will make this a loose ends post because why not.

Let’s start with Basset, who asked why the Dodge Charger has a special significance in Detroit. Easy. Because the Charger, and the Challenger, is the street racer of choice at the moment. Most prized is the Hellcat model, which has some stupid-level horsepower, but pretty much anything that’ll spin out and go fast is just fine. Hellcat drivers were the ones who shut down the Lodge freeway summer before last, an event that spawned rap tributes and T-shirts. When I was doing census work last summer, I came across a parked Charger in the driveway of a house I needed to call on, music bumping behind the blacked-out windows. Because I have entered the IDGAF stage of my life, I knocked on the car window. It slid down, revealing two very stoned young men and clouds of weed smoke.

We did the interview right there in the driveway. Sometimes, Karen can be cool.

Moving on: Here’s yet another of Sidney Powell’s super-secret, TOTALLY QUALIFIED election-fraud witnesses:

North Dakota’s assertions about her credentials came in a civil case brought by the state’s attorney general in 2018 over a purported charitable event she tried to organize in Minot, N.D., where she and her family resided. Attorneys for the state said she used money she collected — ostensibly to fund homeless shelters and wreaths for veterans’ graves — on purchases for herself at McDonald’s, QVC and elsewhere.

A judge ultimately found that Maras-Lindeman violated consumer protection laws by, among other things, misspending money she raised and soliciting donations while misrepresenting her experience and education. He ordered her to pay more than $25,000.

Maras-Lindeman has appealed to the state Supreme Court. In court filings and in her interview with The Post, she denied mishandling the funds or misleading donors. She blamed identity theft and bureaucratic failings for a proliferation of variations on her name and social security numbers associated with her.

How’s everyone’s holiday going? I’ve been baking all day, first a sour cream coffee cake for tomorrow and then an apple tart, also for tomorrow. And brother, I am sugared out. I may whack up that coffee cake and distribute it to the poor or the carb-deprived. The broccoli casserole I will keep.

Merry Christmas to all, whether you celebrate it or not. Let’s let Darlene Love take us out with a song we can all enjoy.

I’ll be back next week.

Posted at 10:12 pm in Current events, Same ol' same ol' |
 

70 responses to “Odds, ends and a holiday.”

  1. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on December 24, 2020 at 10:20 pm

    7 inches of snow here by 10 pm east of Columbus, Ohio — a lovely night out there if one is at home and doesn’t have to go out. Lasagna in the morning going in. Blessings of the season to one and all!

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  2. Ann said on December 24, 2020 at 10:44 pm

    I hope that’s not the last of the census stories, because I’ve surely enjoyed them.

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  3. Mark P said on December 24, 2020 at 10:45 pm

    The Christmas lasagna I mentioned in comments to the previous post was delivered this afternoon hot from the oven, so it became our Christmas Eve dinner. Chicken and potato salad for Christmas dinner, along with some muffins. I’m sitting in the living room with a nice, hot fire in our wood-burning stove preparing for a cold night and the coldest Christmas in decades for this part of Georgia. I’m actually feeling pretty good, for some reason. I want to throw open the window and shout Merry Christmas! down to the street.

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  4. Margaret said on December 24, 2020 at 11:23 pm

    I did my traditional cookies and took them to a few people. I played games on House Party with my very distant daughters, and will now watch some TV. A very quiet and rather depressing Christmas Eve. Sour cream coffee cake sounds delicious, especially if it has lots of that crumbly stuff on the top.

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  5. Dexter Friend said on December 25, 2020 at 3:32 am

    For Carla Lee’s immediate weeks in surgical pre-surgery-care rehab, she is moving down south of Grove City to another nursing home. I have been monitoring Saturday’s weather closely and I should be OK by then as the snow should be diminished or done. No visiting this year, just Facetiming, no gatherings at all; I am not even dropping gifts off at Vanessa’s house, just sending them. So close to vaccine time, I am really wanting the shot, but I know protocol, and I must wait. The V.A. told me to just follow the news, the V.A. has no plans to contact vets in any special program for shots. And if you get a chance, don’t wait, just go for whichever shot is available. We must begin to curtail this thing, as the 2 new sub-strains are even worse than what we have been fighting off for so long.

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  6. Dorothy said on December 25, 2020 at 5:28 am

    Good morning and Merry Merry to everyone. We’re having my husband’s award-winning stew for dinner tonight. I made lasagna yesterday. We go home from northern Virginia tomorrow morning after a week here; we came to look after our daughter who had her thyroid removed on Monday. She’s known since July that she likely has thyroid cancer; the biopsy results from Monday’s procedure should be in soon and we’re not expecting any surprises. The doctor did a thorough job and we expect her to be perfectly fine and dandy. It’s been a rough six months of worry and stress, though. Worry that she would not be able to get the surgery if Covid cases meant hospitals could not do these kinds of procedures. Huge sigh of relief that it’s over and done with.

    We don’t know the specific diagnosis of my 5 year old great nephew’s lymphoma yet; he started chemo treatments the other day after having bone marrow samples taken, etc. in a three hour session on Monday. We’re trying to focus on the positivity of ‘it’s been caught early – 90 some percent of kids survivor this kind of cancer’ etc. But I can’t see pictures of him in the hospital hugging the puppy stuffy the staff gave him without crying. He misses his brothers – his twin brother is especially missing his mate. I hope this is the last time I’m thinking so much about cancer at Christmas time.

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  7. James Bowater said on December 25, 2020 at 7:31 am

    Hope you have a nice and peaceful time off . Jim, UK .

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  8. basset said on December 25, 2020 at 7:51 am

    Nineteen degrees in Nashville and maybe half an inch of overnight snow. I’m the only one awake here; gonna make ebelskiver, little fried doughnut balls filled with jelly, lemon curd, whatever when Mrs. B and Jr. get up.

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  9. David C said on December 25, 2020 at 8:03 am

    Mary made cinnamon bread yesterday so this morning we made it into french toast. The ham is finished soaking, is in the oven, and smells great. I’m going to make roasties – English roasted potatoes and roasted asparagus. We don’t usually do deserts because it’s just the two of us and it’s hard to make desert for two. That’s pretty much it. Merry Christmas all.

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  10. nancy said on December 25, 2020 at 8:42 am

    Read this in bed this morning and loved it. Fight past the pop-ups and maybe you will, too.

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  11. Deborah said on December 25, 2020 at 9:22 am

    Did you hear it Basset? https://wpln.org/post/explosion-in-downtown-nashville-on-christmas-morning-nashville-fire-department-evacuating-area/

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  12. alex said on December 25, 2020 at 9:28 am

    Here’s another good read. Turns out the Puritans waged a war on Christmas in colonial America, but Christmas in those days was a whole different animal…

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/12/23/war-on-christmas-trump-puritans-christians/

    What goes unsaid, yet strikes me most, is how the Christmas revelry of yore was pure Trumpism. It was a relief valve for class resentment. The modern corporate Christmas party isn’t a whole lot different. An open bar and a spread of food is supposed to make up for your subjugation the rest of the year. Amazingly, it works.

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  13. David C said on December 25, 2020 at 9:53 am

    I imagine the open bar and food fest works better than this.

    https://coppercourier.com/story/godaddy-employees-holiday-bonus-secruity-test/

    “Though we cannot celebrate together during our annual Holiday Party, we want to show our appreciation and share a $650 one-time Holiday bonus!” the email read. “To ensure that you receive your one-time bonus in time for the Holidays, please select your location and fill in the details by Friday, December 18th.”

    But, two days later, the company sent another email.

    “You’re getting this email because you failed our recent phishing test,” the company’s chief security officer Demetrius Comes wrote. “You will need to retake the Security Awareness Social Engineering training.”

    We have phishing simulations at work too but they’re so transparent that they’re almost in Nigerian prince territory. Things like the CEO wants us to purchase gift cards for him to give as gifts to employees and we’ll be reimbursed double.

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  14. Deborah said on December 25, 2020 at 10:01 am

    I got up early and had some of the French blood orange cake we made yesterday, for breakfast. Everyone else is still in bed. Today I’m going to tackle mounting the IKEA shelves we brought with us from Chicago. I finally figured out the correct hardware to mount them to drywall and got that the other day. I used a stud finder, hope it’s accurate. That’s how I’m spending Christmas Day.

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  15. basset said on December 25, 2020 at 10:09 am

    Didn’t hear the explosion, we’re about 14 miles away… but the police are saying a RV parked on the street blew up & it was deliberately set. Crater in the street, water mains broken, buildings damaged. Live on CNN right now.

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  16. Heather said on December 25, 2020 at 10:49 am

    Merry Christmas and warmest wishes to all, which we need here in Chicago, currently at 14 degrees, but sunny. I just wish there were some snow. Enjoying homemade gingerbread cake with whipped cream for breakfast and my favorite tea. My sister-in-law texted to say my Dungeons & Dragons-loving nephew was thrilled with the gift I got him, a compendium of D&D art. The day is starting out well!

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  17. Peter said on December 25, 2020 at 11:12 am

    A Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday to all! Dorothy and Dexter, I do hope you have better days ahead. It goes without saying that there are so many more people that are so hurt and depressed this year, so I am grateful Our Chief Executive finds time to golf – that way he can’t make it worse.

    Alex, your Christmas Party brought back such happy memories. When I was in college I interned at a large firm, and every year they made sure I could attend their Christmas Party, which was held mid-week after work. It turns out that the interns worked the bar, and also broke up the inevitable fights – I used to flip the pugilists sportcoats over their heads and hug them like I was a hockey linesman. The employee who had the biggest shiner the next day at work won the office pool.

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  18. Julie Robinson said on December 25, 2020 at 11:12 am

    Andre Shields is a national treasure. For those who don’t click on Nance’s link, here’s the last paragraph, which perfectly sums up my feelings this year: “In “Hadestown,” they sing: “It’s true the Earth must die. But then the Earth comes back to life.” And it will, in just a few months. All we have to do is hang on until then, guided by whatever spark we can conjure ahead of ourselves. Merry Christmas.”

    Yeasty cinnamon rolls this morning sparked me!

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  19. alex said on December 25, 2020 at 11:20 am

    The Nashville explosion looks absolutely blood-curdling. It would be totally inappropriate to blame it on right-wing domestic terrorists at this point but I have a strong suspicion that it was Trumpers protesting the election results.

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  20. Dorothy said on December 25, 2020 at 11:44 am

    Deborah I forgot to say we watched The Midnight Sky. We liked it a lot. I’m just starting Bridgerton. So far I’m dazzled by the costumes.

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  21. alex said on December 25, 2020 at 11:51 am

    Peter, our office banned plus-ones, I was told, because of jealous wives getting into drunken confrontations with female staff over alleged affairs with their husbands. Also, the festivities were moved to a country club because the bacchanals left the office in such a shambles.

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  22. LAMary said on December 25, 2020 at 11:53 am

    No grocery delivery at all yesterday or last night, so substitutions will be made. I decided that baked apples with creme anglaise would be a nice change from pie so that’s going to happen. Shallots required for the turkey roulade will be understudied by scallions or maybe a sweet onion. Sour cream for the mashed potatoes will be easily replaced with hot milk and butter. Otherwise we’re all good. All the herbs for the turkey are growing in barrels outside so no issues there. Fijne feestdagen!

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  23. basset said on December 25, 2020 at 11:55 am

    I wouldn’t be surprised to see some group claim responsibility and say “next one will be in a crowd.”

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  24. David C said on December 25, 2020 at 12:02 pm

    I read someone said the Nashville explosion was in front of an AT&T building so there are only tens of millions of suspects.

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  25. Icarus said on December 25, 2020 at 12:09 pm

    Deborah from the last thread, I wanted to ask why you put the butter on after the salt and pepper? wouldn’t the butter help make it stick? either way, I’m tempted to try it with ours today or maybe I won’t deviate from the recipe I posted since I know that one works.

    Watched The Midnight Sky and I have to admit, I was more like your husband wanting to get to the end. POTENTIAL SPOILER ALERT:

    I didn’t like the trek to the second more powerful weather station and the whole snowmobile in the lake scene. The flashbacks to younger Clooney were useless too: somebody took “show don’t tell” to heart and failed to show enough when telling would have been fine. The good thing is while I expected the twist at the end, I didn’t see it coming so there’s that.

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  26. FDChief said on December 25, 2020 at 12:11 pm

    I’m tired of the past four years where everything is transactional, all about the Art of the Deal, contingent on What’s In It For Me. I want us to be better, and kinder, and smarter.

    I want a brighter day.

    I want what Charlie Pierce wants and said sooner and better than I:

    “…may you all have the rest and peace of this mid-winter holiday season. May all your whiskey be mellow and may all your lights shine. And may there always be a candle in the window, calling you home, calling you out of the storm, calling all of us home, together, and home.”

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  27. basset said on December 25, 2020 at 12:37 pm

    The explosion was indeed right up against an AT&T regional switch/transmission building… and speakers on the RV were saying for some time before the explosion that there was a bomb on board and to get away. You can hear it on some of the security cam video that local tv is playing.

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  28. ROGirl said on December 25, 2020 at 1:17 pm

    We have had phishing simulations at work, which we were told about in advance. And some cyber-security training. That didn’t stop a few people from doing some stupid things, like giving a caller their bank account information over the phone, and clicking through a bunch of unsecured links on a website.

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  29. Peter said on December 25, 2020 at 1:53 pm

    I’m interested in finding out how much damage was done to the AT&T building – I worked for a firm that designed a few of those switching stations, and there’s enough redundancy in that structure that a car bomb going off in front of the building would be like you getting stung by a mosquito.

    And Alex – now THAT’S a Christmas party.

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  30. Deborah said on December 25, 2020 at 1:55 pm

    Icarus, no reason I did the salt and pepper first, the hot hot temp melted the butter pretty quickly, you could hear it sizzling throughout.

    Office holiday parties were always something I dreaded, music too loud you can’t talk, lots of spouses standing around awkwardly because they don’t know anyone etc. then I saw the old movie Desk Set with Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy and I realized if you could just have the party in the office, no spouses or dates it could be a blast so I always tried to get them to do that. I was able to convince them when there were recessions around the holidays and they were always the best parties. Just push back the desks and let it roll. Watch the movie if you haven’t seen it, it’s a gem.

    Back to mounting shelves, the good news to report is the studs are where the stud finder indicated.

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  31. nancy said on December 25, 2020 at 2:01 pm

    I know someone will want to know this: The recipe Deborah followed for her prime rib is known in many circles as No-Peeky Roast Beefy. I miss recipes with names like that — Hurry-up Cheese Buns being perhaps my favorite example. Now it’s just a list of ingredients: Prime Rib With Madeira Sauce, Roasted Mushrooms and Oven-Crisped Potatoes, etc.

    I also hope the RV bomb wasn’t set by a lefty, or be pinned on one. Christmas Day in Tennessee doesn’t suggest anyone, unless it was someone mad about their lack of Covid controls.

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  32. basset said on December 25, 2020 at 2:11 pm

    Peter, I was thinking the same thing, that the building would be pretty well hardened. AT&T just released a statement about some minor service outages.
    Warning and explosion from about a block away:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nygTJeu9fU

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  33. jerry said on December 25, 2020 at 3:03 pm

    Almost the end of a quiet Christmas Day. Just Myra and I with a sirloin of beef much too large for just two but ordered long in advance.

    Best wishes to everyone for a peaceful and successful 2021.

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  34. basset said on December 25, 2020 at 3:27 pm

    And, as you’d expect, now more than minor… 911 down in some outlying areas, flights out of the main airport temporarily stopped.

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  35. MarkH said on December 25, 2020 at 4:07 pm

    Merry Christmas to all nn.c’ers everywhere from Jackson Hole. Sunny, lots of snow, -2 this morning, +27 right now. We’re having prime rib tonight as well. Already started so it’s too late for Deborah’s recipe, but smells so good now. Glad you’re safe, basset.

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  36. David C said on December 25, 2020 at 4:14 pm

    Well country ham is pretty darned good. So is city ham but country ham turns it up a notch. Thanks for the soaking tip Basset. It worked great. Now I have ten pounds of leftovers and a bone for split pea soup. Should be some good eating this winter.

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  37. Suzanne said on December 25, 2020 at 4:21 pm

    I used my sirloin steak to make Steak Diane from Joy of Cooking. It was wonderful! The side was a roasted potato & green bean dish with a Dijon glaze that I found on the internet.It was superb. Did a Zoom with the kids, and now having some wine (We Three Kings red wine from First Miracle Winery in S Indiana https://firstmiraclewines.com/) while I read Michael Cohen’s book Disloyal. All in all, a pretty good day.

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  38. LAMary said on December 25, 2020 at 5:00 pm

    Improvising a bit because no groceries arrived but we’ll be well fed. The oven is very full with the turkey roulade, acorn squash and baked apples. Top of the stove will be potatoes, green beans and creme anglaise. And we’ll eat outside. About 70 here with zip humidity and lots of sunshine. If any of you are KCRW listeners online you should listen to the morning music program. About forty minutes in there’s a weather report given by David Lynch. He always ends it with either “blue skies and golden sunshine” or “no blue skies and golden sunshine.”

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  39. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on December 25, 2020 at 5:29 pm

    Since Basset is thankfully well from the disturbing oddity in Nashville, I’ll risk some good humor in a less destructive oddity from the far side of the continent seen on Twitter: a new monolith, made of gingerbread & not stainless steel, in San Francisco. Which was even briefly framed by a rainbow. Lots of pics on Twitter, and this was a good four shot tweet, so . . .

    https://twitter.com/lydialaurenson/status/1342533612600606720

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  40. alex said on December 25, 2020 at 5:56 pm

    Steak Diane! Yay! One of my perpetual faves at Henry’s. I’ve attempted it at home before and went overboard with both the mustard and the brandy, which made it turn out all the more decadent.

    Today we’re just having pedestrian split pea soup made with leftover ham and it’s simply divine.

    No movies or books today. We hung a heavy mirror using a laser level and we’re rearranging and decluttering and freshening things up for the long winter ahead. Might as well make it comfy.

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  41. Deborah said on December 25, 2020 at 10:11 pm

    Suzanne, would you link to a recipe for Steak Diane, sounds delicious.

    I seem to be getting credit for the rib roast recipe when I think it was Icarus who suggested that method. I will definitely do it that way again, maybe it will become a tradition for Christmas Eve dinner every year from now on. LB made broth from the ribs today, and wow did that smell good.

    We had tamales today, apparently it’s a thing to do in NM on Christmas Day. We had some in the freezer, locally made, they’re so good.

    I finished my IKEA wall shelves project, I should say “we” because it turned out I needed a lot of help from LB, she’s the resident IKEA assembly expert and she provided the brute strength required for screwing into studs etc (that sounds a little porno doesn’t it?) This is what we assembled https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/svalnaes-wall-mounted-workspace-combination-bamboo-white-s79320758/ and man does it look good in the bedroom. The desk component was out of stock when we went in November in Chicago but we’re driving back to Chicago through St. Louis and it is in stock there so we’ll pick one up and take it back to Chicago and then I’ll have to figure out a way to get it to Santa Fe. In the meantime we have one of the 9″ deep shelves in place of the desk, it’s a little too narrow for my husband’s laptop but for now it’s something he can make do with. He didn’t help on the assembly because he’s been working on a design project. It’s so nice to have places for things that have been piling up here and there, it’s so much more organized.

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  42. Deborah said on December 25, 2020 at 10:26 pm

    For our Christmas gift to each other my husband and I got a couple of these Alexander Girard wooden sculptural “dolls” https://www.vitra.com/en-us/product/wooden-dolls we decided to start a collection, we’ll get a couple each year. Alexander Girard is one of my favorite designers, he did textiles and furniture, designed interiors etc. there’s a folk art museum in Santa Fe that’s made up of his collection from his world travels, it’s a great place to visit if you’re ever in town.

    I also got my husband the Obama book, A Promised Land for Christmas. It was one of those selfish gifts, I really wanted it, but I get to feel smug that I got it for him and I’ll read it later.

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  43. Dexter Friend said on December 26, 2020 at 12:36 am

    What a mystery down in Music City. I just saw an interview with a bar owner who was sleeping in a high-rise apartment; he said the blast shook so hard it knocked him out of bed.
    Also , on BBC, a story of France shutting borders due to the newest virus mutation, resulting in a massive backup of lorries bound for France at the Channel Tunnel…some drivers trapped, stuck there for 3 days, some 4 days. Some good people were trying to get some food to the drivers, sausage rolls and cakes. I am not sure, but I guess some trucks, some cargo, must be ferried across. That too was in limbo. What a mess.
    Carla Lee is moving to the Grove City area in about 7 hours…I am driving. Travelling mercies. The older I get the less I like iffy winter weather.

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  44. Suzanne said on December 26, 2020 at 7:53 am

    The Steak Diane was from my old style paper copy of The Joy of Cooking but I did find it online to share:
    http://www.mburns.net/recipes/steak_diane.html

    I used sirloin steak, pan seared in butter & olive oil and skipped the chives because I didn’t have any. We liked it!

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  45. alex said on December 26, 2020 at 9:21 am

    Salivating just thinking about steak Diane. If I didn’t have a fridge full of leftover ham I’d go out and buy some beef right now.

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  46. David C said on December 26, 2020 at 9:38 am

    Ten minutes a side for steak? That must be ten minutes total. The thickest I’ve even grilled was about 1-3/4″ thick and was 9 minutes total to medium rare.

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  47. basset said on December 26, 2020 at 10:28 am

    Ten a side is way too much, more like three or four.
    Haven’t heard anything new on the Nashville situation, police said yday that “tissue” which might be human remains had been found nearby.

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  48. LAMary said on December 26, 2020 at 1:07 pm

    Does anyone else remember Sally Quinn? Columnist for the Washington Post, married Ben Bradlee, got job on CBS News (where she was not very good) and during a segment on farm raised buffalo meat suggested buffalo Diane as a recipe. It might have been funny from someone else but she just came off as snarky. I found this in the Wikipedia entry for Sally’s television career:
    Quinn’s ad libs during the show’s first week tended toward the inappropriate—in one episode, following a report on the children of California migrant farm workers, she quipped that child labor “was how I felt when my mother and father made me clean up my room.”

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  49. Icarus said on December 26, 2020 at 2:02 pm

    Deborah @ 41, thanks…yes I suggested that particular method although I got it from a friend who got it from a friend…

    we used 5 lbs of Rib Roast yesterday and it didn’t come out quite as rare as the 6 lbs of Rib-EYE roast we used the week before. Either the smaller amount or the slightly different cut of beef (or both) worked differently. It was sill rare enough for us.

    Next time I might try your butter and garlic option.

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  50. Icarus said on December 26, 2020 at 2:02 pm

    Deborah @ 41, thanks…yes I suggested that particular method although I got it from a friend who got it from a friend…

    we used 5 lbs of Rib Roast yesterday and it didn’t come out quite as rare as the 6 lbs of Rib-EYE roast we used the week before. Either the smaller amount or the slightly different cut of beef (or both) worked differently. It was still rare enough for us.

    Next time I might try your butter and garlic option.

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  51. Suzanne said on December 26, 2020 at 3:51 pm

    Yes, the steak was about 10 minutes total, 4-5 minutes per side as written in the cookbook. Steaks were about 1 1/4 inches thick.

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  52. basset said on December 26, 2020 at 4:09 pm

    Looks like the “person of interest” is a local who had a similar RV. Which could mean anything.

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  53. Dexter Friend said on December 27, 2020 at 3:52 am

    I lucked out…end of year perfect dry, low traffic roadways, clear, easy Waze instruction to the new nursing home. Carla Lee dealing with what I assume are just daily nursing home frustrations, cold industrial food, medication goof-ups, and another 14 day quarantine as a new client. I do not relish the end of 2020 because 2021 looms worse. Well, the car ran fine and Pogo Labbie did not shit-the-floor, so there’s that good news. Some of the Trumpers have reeled in their huge Trump flags and signs, but plenty more of the farmers on the US33 parade still have their Trump 2020 crap up.

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  54. David C said on December 27, 2020 at 8:52 am

    Looks like the Nashville bomber was a 5G nut who probably blew himself up. So he was mad at telecoms and not humanity. Somewhere in that anger was a partially ethical human who didn’t want to hurt anyone but himself.

    https://abc7.com/nashville-explosion-news-downtown-breaking/9109954/

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  55. Suzanne said on December 27, 2020 at 10:09 am

    For any of you that are on Instagram, I encourage you to follow Peter Turnley, a photographer who grew up in Fort Wayne. He has been documenting the pandemic and his photos and commentary are truthful and beautiful. His brother, David Trunely, is also a photographer who lives in Paris and is also posting some wonderful photos from the pandemic there.

    Both are award winning and have been posting some of the best things I have seen anywhere.

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  56. basset said on December 27, 2020 at 11:13 am

    Watching several police officers who helped evacuate the area just before the explosion talking about it live on local tv… speakers on the rv broadcast a warning and a countdown interspersed with music. The song: Petula Clark’s “Downtown.”

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  57. Julie Robinson said on December 27, 2020 at 11:30 am

    The interviews with people who lived around the bomb area are tough to read. One woman got out with her wife and cat, but lost everything, and their business was in the same building. I hope they all will get assistance.

    What I remember about Sally Quinn is that she was a socialite who caught Ben Bradlee’s eye, and he put her on staff without any real writing experience or journalism training. I don’t remember if she was the cause of divorce #2, or if it had already happened when they met. Later they bought and restored Grey Gardens, which must have been daunting.

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  58. beb said on December 27, 2020 at 1:58 pm

    The idea that the Nashville bomber was a 5G nut makes about as much sense as anything.

    My wife bought a 7.5 pound rib roast which was way too big for the three of us. We’re going to warm it up in the oven for a second round of steaks. She cooked it conventionally with rosemary and garlic for about two hours. It was very rare in the center, almost too rare I thought though she was checking the temperature. And with the bones we made beef noodle soup. Can a person be beefed out?

    Trump golfs while the nation burns. Won’t someone impeach that man again.

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  59. Deborah said on December 27, 2020 at 2:39 pm

    LB baked bread this morning and the two of us are having roast beef, leftover from the rib roast, sandwiches for dinner. I wish we had horseradish but I’m not willing to go out and get some, as that’s about the only thing we need and I hate to go out and expose us to Covid for one ingredient. My husband went back out to the cabin yesterday and will be back tomorrow, I stayed back in Santa Fe to finish up some stuff. We’ll go back out Tuesday and come back to SF on the 1st, that will be it for the cabin this trip, as LB’s birthday is on the 2nd and then we head back to Chicago on the 3rd. Not going to be back until May, I will certainly be ready for mountains, sunshine and dry air again by then.

    I never understood Sally Quinn and not that they’re related but I don’t get what the deal is about 5g?

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  60. alex said on December 27, 2020 at 2:51 pm

    I second Suzanne re: The Turnley Twins, as they were known in their golden-boy youth. They had the unique privilege of spending their early childhood in the 1820s-vintage Richardville House, which their family left in impeccable condition. Preservationists have marveled at how no one ever crapped it up with any attempts at modernization.

    https://www.fwhistorycenter.org/richardville-house/

    The Turnley Twins were in high school when I was in grade school, but everyone knew them. They were aspiring journalistic photographers and made quite a splash with a coffee table book in 1972 or so in which they documented life in an impoverished city neighborhood. Both went on to great things.

    Here’s Peter in Paris:

    http://www.peterturnley.com/french-kiss-a-love-letter-to-paris

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  61. alex said on December 27, 2020 at 2:55 pm

    And here’s a bit about David Turnley:

    https://stamps.umich.edu/people/detail/david_turnley

    http://www.davidturnley.com

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  62. Suzanne said on December 27, 2020 at 3:58 pm

    Deborah, the QAnon crowd are convinced that 5G towers will activate the microchips that are embedded in the COVID vaccine. That’s why so many Trump/QAnon people say they won’t get the vaccine. I am not sure what they think the microchip activiation will make them do, but that’s why it is concerning, although not surprising, if the bomber in Nashville was one of these deranged people.
    Also, the QAnon crowd doesn’t want to get the vaccine because they believe it will render them sterile. I am not certain if this is related to the 5G system & microchips or not, but it doesn’t matter. There is no logic in any of it.

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  63. David C said on December 27, 2020 at 4:24 pm

    I think the 5G thing started out with them saying it was a health hazard like the harmful magnetic field conspiracy or cell phone cancer nuts. From there it’s morphed every which way into all sorts of wild imaginings. Probably more things than could be documented in a lifetime. Overlay that with Covid, vaccines, Masons, Bilderbergs, Bill Gates, missing left socks, GMOs, George Soros, P&G’s man in the moon logo, flat earth, moon landing, climate, Comet ping-pong, etc. you have enough to send half the population ’round the bend.

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  64. Sherri said on December 27, 2020 at 5:23 pm

    Yeah, I think the 5g thing is just the latest manifestation of the whole emf thing. Ironically, 5g is being implemented with a lot of small cell antennas, less powerful than earlier technologies.

    Basic competency in the world should include understanding the inverse square law and how it applies.

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  65. basset said on December 27, 2020 at 7:04 pm

    Well put, David C. Meanwhile, police here say the AT&T bomber indeed got blown up in the RV… and earlier today some knucklehead or maybe two of em pulled up to a market in an outlying community blaring audio similar to what the RV was playing, don’t have a better description than that. Police chase, arrest, highway closure, bomb squad, bomb robot, no explosives found though.

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  66. LAMary said on December 27, 2020 at 7:11 pm

    David C you left out the democrat elite pedophiles, blood drinkers, JFK Jr.alive and well and living in Texas. I know I’m missing a lot.

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  67. Deborah said on December 27, 2020 at 7:38 pm

    I only heard this morning that the bomber was a 63 year old white, right wing nut opposed to 5G for some crazy reason. Oh and also his dad had worked for BellSouth which was later enveloped into AT&T. Is there anything new since then?

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  68. LAMary said on December 27, 2020 at 8:20 pm

    And among the pedophiles are Tom Hanks, Bill Gates and George Soros, all of them having something to do with the microchips in the vaccine. This is not the craziest stuff.

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  69. Colleen said on December 27, 2020 at 8:44 pm

    Quiet holiday with the husband, followed by a zoom call with cousins, aunts, and uncles on the 26th. Nice to see everyone, but a far cry from the days if us all gathered at grandma’s house in South Lorain. I miss them all.

    Got my first covid shot Saturday. Does the chip take effect with the first shot or the second? Cuz I didn’t even get a sore arm, and certainly don’t feel possessed.

    Hooked up with my 4th grade teacher on FB. I was taking a gamble that she would even remember me, but she friended me back right away. We had a nice chat and caught up a bit. Facebook is nice for things like that.

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  70. basset said on December 27, 2020 at 8:59 pm

    Couldn’t tell you who my 4th-grade teacher was… don’t remember much from back then in school or out, but I started 4th grade in 1964 so there ya go.

    Deborah, hadn’t heard about the “right wing nut” part but it wouldn’t surprise me. I’ve also been told that the RV didn’t blow up, an explosive rocket hit it.

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