I’m a fan of prunes. Not gonna apologize. I’ve eaten them since I was a kid, although less in adulthood — their famous fiber-richness makes me fart, which becomes less cute in a woman as she ages. But for a quick sweet that doesn’t cost much, calorie-wise, you can’t beat a prune, and I buy a box from time to time.

I’ve watched the contortions of the California Prune Board over the years as they try to overcome their image as producers of something old people gum in a vain effort to get their bowels moving. Some of these have been more successful than others. You see prunes now offered in individual wrappers; I guess you’re supposed to toss a few in your gym bag or purse for when you feel your energy flagging. Then there was the rebranding as “dried plums,” which didn’t do any good, I gather. They’re back to prunes, but it appears this year’s marketing strategy is snob appeal:

You can see a package of the individually wrapped ones peeking out there.

Who knows if this will work in boosting American per-capita prune consumption. I have a booklet somewhere of prune recipes, and once tried to tempt my family into eating some prune bran muffins. (It didn’t work.) They weren’t very good — the heat from the oven made the prunes kind of leathery, and the batch turned out tasting a little like commune cuisine, c. 1970. No, your best bet with prunes is just to eat a couple at a time right out of the box. And then spend the next couple of hours in a private place with good cross ventilation.

Let’s have a linkfest today, shall we? I’m tired and I’d like to get some Christmas shopping done this afternoon. So…

Whoever came up with this gimmick — destress the law students at exam time with an order of puppies to go — certainly earned their paycheck. How do I get one? I’m under stress, too. Maybe with a side of kittens.

Whenever Newt Gingrich considers the world outside the Tiffany’s showroom, he steps in it. I can’t believe this guy was ever a teacher. I’d love to see what Rate My Profs would do to his doughy ass.

Guns N Roses — what’s left of them — played the Palace last night. One of my Facebook friends just posted that her husband left at 11 p.m., and they still hadn’t taken the stage yet. Axl must have had some doughnuts to clean off the backstage buffet yet. Anyway, sounds like no one missed much; an “inescapably generic experience,” the DetNews critic said (without mentioning the delay, oddly). Show still went three hours, with Axl leaving the stage during the many extended guitar solos. Doughnuts…mmmmm….

A short video that’s basically an audio clip, filed under Strange Bedfellows.

OK, I must flee. A good weekend to all.

Roe vs. Wade became the law of the land my sophomore year in high school, and for a few years before that, abortion was legal in New York. In my young adulthood, I knew lots of women who got abortions, a few who elected to become single mothers, but none who bore children and gave them up for adoption. It’s possible there were some who spent extended vacations with Aunt Jane in Kansas and came home with stretch marks, but if so, they never talked about it.

For women of my generation, giving up a baby for adoption was something that mainly happened in weepy movies of the week or, later, in nightmare scenarios like the Baby M surrogacy case or — dare we mention it? — the Baby Richard case in Chicago. (A moment of silence, please. OK, that’s enough.)

Around the same time the adoptees’ rights movement began to gather steam. I recall reading many, many an internet posting by people who’d been adopted under the old systems of Secrecy Unto Death, advocating and sometimes suing for access to their files, demanding information about their birth parents. And I read an equal number of personal stories by all involved, most of which worked out but a few that didn’t. There was one about a woman who’d conceived as a result of rape, and opened her door one day to find a young man there, informing her he was her son. The happy endings were bolstered by a changing cultural environment that had stripped the shame from unwed pregnancies, and the coverage was almost always on the mother-and-child reunion, the adoptive parents relegated to paragraph five, sometimes with an indirect quote: “Samantha said her adoptive parents have been ‘totally supportive’ through the process.”

All of which I mention only because I’d forgotten how rife with drama the whole process was — is — until I read this fascinating story about the secret love child of Loretta Young and Clark Gable. Judy Lewis died last week at 76. I’d never heard of her, and the story of how she came to be — borne in secrecy, shuttled around to foster homes and institutions until she was a year and a half old, at which point Young “adopted” her publicly. She was kept in the dark, despite volumes of Hollywood gossip, until she was 31, when she confronted her mother and heard the truth.

The photo is arresting; Lewis is the spitting image of Gable, and even had his protruding ears — until they were surgically altered at age 7, probably to tamp down the snickering about their resemblance to you-know-who’s.

I’m not much for genetics, even as accumulating science tells me I’m wrong. It treats people like show dogs, and, medical issues aside, implicitly disparages the extraordinary bonds forged between non-genetically related people. But I have come to understand people’s deep need to know who they are and where they came from. And I feel for Lewis, who was apparently the last person in Hollywood to know who her real parents were.

So, it’s an office-hours day, and time for bloggage:

The Publishers Weekly blog has named the latest winner of Worst Book Ever — “Microwave for One,” a 144-page cookbook by Sonia Allison. Whatever harm has been done by the book is entirely redeemed by that burgeoning new art form, Amazon customer reviews:

It used to be that I got home from work and the only thing I’d want to put in my mouth was the cold barrel of my grandfather’s shotgun. Then I discovered Sonia Allison’s Chicken Tetrazzini, and now there are two things.

I don’t watch much local TV news, so those of you who do have to school me on this. Is this sort of thing, a report by former Detroit News reporter Charlie LeDuff, the way it’s done nowadays?

This is the second piece I’ve seen by LeDuff, and he actively cultivates this NewzKlown act. The hip waders, the smirks and asides, all of it. Is this TV news now? If so, I’m glad I don’t watch.

My, but time is fleeting. Must run. Thursday already! You lose a day to electricity failure, and the week gets shorter.

Just to show that the day could still deteriorate, yesterday’s driving rain continued all damn day, although the wind picked up late morning, and sometime around noon, I got the screechy chirp from the CO detector that announces: Power failure.

And that went on all day.

Tuesday is Kate’s heavy-homework day, so the remainder of it was spent as a Flying Dutchman of wi-fi, cruising from the library (slow) to the coffee shop (slower), all in the slashing rain, until 10 p.m., at which point I threw in the towel, thanked my colleagues for covering for me (via instant message, the way we all communicate) and went home. At least I’d get a good night’s rest. Alan had a fire going and even though the house was 60 degrees by then, all was right with the world. I went to sleep at 11:30, unimaginable luxury for a weeknight.

The power came back on at 12:15 a.m., with the CO alarm shrieking. It was just the device resetting itself, but try going back to sleep after that.

At some point, the rain changed to snow, and we got our first dusting of the season. It’s all very picturesque. Just looking at it makes me want to hibernate. Pass the mashed potatoes.

No, not this year! I just took delivery on a pair of water-resistant workout pants, and I intend to layer them up with some high-tech longjohns and take on winter. Embrace it, even. Five months is too damn long to spend on the couch eating root vegetables in elastic waistbands.

And with that, Wednesday commences. Snow on the ground, massive puddles everywhere, the solstice still three weeks away. I hope it doesn’t kill us.

I have a couple questions for you deer-hunters out there: Do you age your meat at all? I ask because it’s the season, and I’m starting to see references to venison meals here and there, and all of them sound — how to put this? — repulsive. Here’s one from my Twitter feed today:

Paleo-bachelor Breakfast: ground venison and mustard.

May I just say? Ew. That’s from the guy I interviewed last year, the “cave man” who was featured first in the New York Times and later on the Colbert Report, which led to a book contract and a big advance and, as far as I can tell, an awful lot of tweeting and not much book-writin’. He amuses me as I watch from afar, because like so many people who’ve discovered a Thing, he spends a lot of time retrofitting everything he likes into his new lifestyle, and declaring it Good. When I interviewed him, I teased him because he called himself a hunter-gatherer, but had never been hunting (he had taken a class about it, though) and did all of his gathering at farmer’s markets and various high-end delis in Manhattan. How can you grow up in Michigan and know nothing about deer-hunting? I asked. Quite easily, evidently.

Well, he must have finally gotten serious about it, because he went out during gun season and bagged what looked from the photos to have been a yearling at best, but no worries — we have many more deer than we need here, and that’s one less for me to hit with the car next spring. And now I’m hearing about every meal via social media, and it’s reminding me why I can count the decent venison meals I’ve eaten in my life on one or two fingers. To be good eatin’, an animal has to be either fat or the meat well-aged, in my experience. Aging requires a constant low-but-not-too-cold temperature, and while most garages would probably suffice, the time it would take to properly age a deer carcass might make the “constant” part tricky. A duck hunter I know hangs the birds in his breezeway/mud room, but ducks are pretty small and ripen quickly.

So, just wondering. Basset?

I should get a little work done before I hit the shower. For you among my constituency who ever toiled at newspapers in the region known as Michiana, you lost one of your best readers last week. Ron Reason writes about his mother:

As early as I can recall, Carolyn had the Michigan City News Dispatch and/or the La Porte Herald-Argus (or weekly Town-Crier) in her lap, was awaiting their arrival or remarking on their contents. It was just a household habit – to get the paper, devour it, fight over the sections, talk about it. Even if it became a lament at times of “there’s nothing in this damn thing,” my parents have regularly received two or more regional papers for decades. It wasn’t unusual to see one or two other papers bought from the newsstand, lying on the family room floor or waiting to go into recycle, when I’d return home to visit. The South Bend Tribune was always added to the mix on Sundays.

…Her devotion to typo-hunting, I think, made us kids try harder on spelling tests or when taking our turn at a spelling bee. Her laughter at the latest Erma Bombeck column (I know I’m taking some readers way back here, anyone else who doesn’t know Erma, just Google her) made us appreciate the wacky side of life, and made me try my hand at column writing. I tested the waters in my high school paper, then in the teen pages of the Westville Indicator and Herald-Argus, and later at the Indiana Daily Student, my college paper at IU-Bloomington. I got hooked.

It’s a wonderful remembrance, but I have to say that if my daughter were to follow her parents into newspaper journalism? (Shudder.) My BFF held a variety of positions at the Michigan City News-Dispatch. I trust Mrs. Reason wasn’t the lady who called one day to chide her for printing all those front-page photos of black children playing at the beach in summer, “because people will see that, and think we’re as bad as Gary.”

I’m glad the cool weather is here, and Coozledad has more time to update his blog. He got a new solar-powered farm vehicle. Looks like it’d be great for deer-hunting.

Dexter mentioned the death of Patrice O’Neal yesterday. He was a funny guy.

Have a good Wednesday. Let’s hope everything stays turned on, dry and out of the ditch today.

We’ll know we live in a just society if someone goes to jail for this:

During MF Global’s last chaotic days, the brokerage firm overdrew an account at JPMorgan, according to another person who is close to the matter. Some investigators now believe the firm used customer funds to patch at least some of the hole, which would have been a significant breach of federal law.

This is a story on the discovery of one-third of the missing customer funds at MF Global, which you might recall amounted to $600 million. So this is $200 million, “found” at JPMorgan.

Who should go to jail? Let’s start at the top, with Jon Corzine, and yes, pals of mine, he is a Democrat. Noted. Democrat Democrat Democrat. Then let’s work our way down. When five or six of these clowns are wearing jumpsuits, including at least one member of the board of directors, I’ll be happy. However, I believe true justice in this matter will be like finding a film violent enough to warrant an NC-17 rating. It can’t be done.

You know what kills me about these stories? How these alleged financial geniuses essentially run their firm’s finances the way your average paycheck-to-paycheck working slob does — moves a little here to there, borrows from mom, has markers out throughout the network. It’ll all be OK in a few more days, when that check arrives.

Who woke up with the grumps this morning? I guess that would be me. Last night the second of our three laptop power cords fell into the sure-go-ahead-and-use-this-BURN-YOUR-HOUSE-DOWN range, so there’s another $77 expense in December. In the interest of noting that this development represents a serious shortcoming in my own constituency, I will acknowledge that power cords are the Achilles heel of Apple products — at least the laptops — and even veer into the realm of serious suckage. I’ve never had one last the life of the computer. They all break at the end that connects to the unit.

And it rained all damn night, hard, continues to rain, and will likely do so for another couple of hours. It’s a perfect day to stay in bed, but it’s a Tuesday, and so: Extra coffee.

What other free-floating irritants are there on my radar today? How about Ohio State’s new football coach, the $4 million man? Four million. A year. Please, the next time one of these entitled douchingtons is caught covering up for a boy-buggerer, let’s spare the world our shock and dismay. Of course it won’t be Urban Meyer, because he is a “devout Catholic,” I learn via the always authoritative Wikipedia. But it’ll be someone else, and at least we’ll know why it happened. Money talks. It just doesn’t always say what you want it to.

Anything else? I can only laugh about Herman Cain, which is what I’ve been doing from the beginning. Ginger White has a moll’s name, doesn’t she, although “Roxy” or “Tootie” might be even more fitting. She said Herman made her feel special and took her out of her “humdrum life” by flying her around to conferences to meet him as his paramour. Will this affect his stock on the Fox News exchange? Doubtful. Might even bump it a little. Shows he can play with the big boys.

Oh, and you journos won’t want to miss this from Craig Newmark, of the eponymous list, complaining that he can’t trust the news anymore. I am reminded of a line from Brian Krakow, my favorite character from “My So-Called Life,” who once observed, “How much more ironic can you get without, like, puking?” That’s unfair, of course — newspapers were felled by their own stupid management, which Newmark only nudged along. But if I can just say this: The link within this note, about how to improve “fact checking” in the media, promises coverage of an event held by Jeff Jarvis (red flag!) on the topic, featuring “a bunch of players in this arena (playing) well together.” The link leads to something on Storify, which is another 21st-century new-media nightmare, a startup that creates “stories” out of social-media postings, i.e. tweets and Facebook status updates, I gather. Just looking at it made me summon my inner Hank, and bellow I AM STICKING TO MY WAYS, and if you want me to read a story about your fooking event, take the fooking time to craft a coherent narrative of the fooking thing, because otherwise, I’m gone.

But that’s just me. YMMV, as we say on the internet.

OK, it’s getting late and it continues to rain. The coffee is fully engaged and I’m actually feeling pretty good, for a Tuesday. Don’t mind the bitching. I’m off to grade papers!

Note to self and all others: The turkey brining was definitely worth it. With so few people to feed (four), I haven’t done a whole turkey at Thanksgiving in a while, and even this year’s eight-pound breast was more-more-more than enough. But breasts love to dry out, and all the solutions I’ve tried so far — cooking in a bag, basting like a madwoman — have been only mildly successful in keeping the thing juicy through roasting, resting and through to the table. But the brine did the trick, and was only slightly more work. I put it in the solution at 2 p.m. Wednesday (in a heavy-duty plastic bag, in an ice-filled cooler, in the garage overnight), took it out at 8:30 a.m. Thursday, soaked it in plain water for a bit, tossed it in the oven with the usual preparations minus the salt, and noticed a huge difference. Even the leftovers are still moist. So. Brining: Gonna do that one again.

The birthday was nice, too. I did more or less nothing, which felt like a huge gift from the universe. Went for a walk, bought a nice piece of fish, read a little, wrote a little, napped a bit. Made my own birthday dinner — trout almondine and sauteed spinach, perfect after all the starch and gluten of the previous day, and opened my present. A pressure cooker! Just what I asked for! I intend to spend the rest of the grim weather making a lot of beans and soups and dals and other stuff in it.

Examining the packaging, it occurred to me I could never be a salesman, or perhaps even a marketer. Pressure cookers have been around since your grandmother was capable of climbing a stepladder to clean soup off the ceiling, although they’re much improved; the only reason I wanted one now is that I’ve been assured they no longer spew soup on the ceiling. But guess what the manual touted? They’re “green.” The company is committed to low-impact cookery. And so on. And why would that be? Because pressure cookers consume less energy. You can do in 10, 20 or 30 minutes what would have taken four hours at a simmer on a stove. Oh. Of all the ways I use energy and resources, cooking is one I’ve given approximately 0.0 minutes of thought or concern to. I feel worse about the brining bag than I do whatever energy it took to roast the turkey. But it’s what sells today. Eco-friendliness is to our decade what oat bran was to the ’80s.

The rest of the weekend was a cruise. We tried to see “Take Shelter,” and couldn’t work it into the schedule (far west side, only two screenings a day). “Hugo” was sold out in all but the 2D theaters, and if I’m going to see Marty’s first and probably only 3D feature in the theater, I’m going to see it how Marty intended. So “The Descendants” it was, yet more torture inflicted upon my daughter, who always notes, when we’re choosing our seats for “The King’s Speech” or “True Grit” or whatever, “Everyone here is old.” “That’s because there aren’t any explosions or vampires,” I told her. The film was rated R for language, which I thought would be for two or three F-bombs, but it turned out there were many moments when the air nearly turned blue from the potty-talk, mostly from the young actors. Although, I will grant you, it was done well. There’s a scene where the older sister warns her younger sister away from a bad classmate, and does it with an escalating tirade ending with “SHE’S A TWAT!” that I enjoyed very much. I thought, leaving, that the film was overpraised, but the further I get from it, the more I find myself thinking about it, so it might just be that my critical muscles are underdeveloped. It was certainly a worthy holiday movie. Many closeups of the Cloonester. He was wearing eyeliner.

I’m teaching a colleague’s feature-writing class today, so I have to make haste this morning. Some bloggage:

Caliban’s right: Sitcoms are officially over, so sayeth the New York Times.

I don’t know about you, but I could watch these turkey-attack videos all day. Hilarious. Why doesn’t anyone open an umbrella or wave their arms or just stop running?

For all you writers, a long Q-and-A with Hank, with a lot of smart insights about newspapers and working for them and the internet and everything else:

…we’re going through a big renaissance now. And it just destroys everything I love. Newspapers, for one. Magazines. The notion of paying a writer for her work. The notion of paying editors. Book releases, book signings, book parties, and worst of all, the loss of bookstores. No longer being able to see what someone on the subway is reading, because even book covers are gone now. It took the music industry, too — our record stores, our record collections and the idea that everyone makes out and/or gets laid to one hit song in the same summer. It’s taking away shopping malls, so it’s taking away something I consider key to the American adolescent experience.

…I’m entering a cranky cuss phase. I’m entitled to that, because I have rolled with a lot of change. But for now, I’M STICKING TO MY WAYS. I’m sticking with my dumbphone. I’m not joining Google+. I will tweet if I want and I will Facebook if I want but I’m not going to meld them into some social reader account that synchs me up to instantaneousness and lets the world know what 10 articles I just clicked on and what bar I just walked into. I’m still without an e-book reader or a tablet. I like books; I like they way they smell and the way they feel and how I feel when I buy one and have it with me. I still read my newspaper in the morning. I refuse to check my phone for texts while having dinner with a friend. I’m sticking to my ways as they currently are in 2011. I will be exactly where we agreed to meet at the time we agreed to meet, and if you start sending me last-minute texts with amendments to the plan and GPS coordinates of the new location and a change to the cast of who is joining us, I will probably just bag it and go home, because I still believe that a plan is a plan, and that plans are worth sticking to.

But such a fun cranky cuss!

Welcome back to the working week. Let’s get to it.

The season begins.

Around this time of year, my night-shift job becomes rather tedious, as the holidays ramp up and health journalism turns to two tired topics: how to avoid overeating (before the new year) and how to lose those holiday pounds (after).

I have already seen a dozen iterations of this story — 15 tips, er, “useful suggestions” on how not to gain weight at Thanksgiving — and will see dozens more by New Year’s Eve. I’ve always despised this sort of filler copy; as my husband likes to say, “Where would we be without newspapers to remind us to wear sunscreen?” What’s more, so much of it simply pure, unadulterated bullshit:

Turkey skin has considerably more calories than the breast. Turkey skin is very high in fat. …Supposedly healthy low fat foods, such as some vegetables, carrots, soups, or mashed potatoes may have been prepared with lots of butter and are laden with fat. If you are cooking, try putting a little less than you did last year. If you were not involved in their preparation, try to find out (discreetly) how they were prepared. …If you are trying to watch your calories, don’t have a second helping. You should not be hungry if you have chewed carefully, consumed plenty of water, and selected a good quantity of low calorie foods.

That last passage? There really are earlier tips advising people to chew thoroughly and drink lots of “calorie-free water” during their meal.

How many Atkins dieters have to lose how many millions of pounds on a diet of fat and protein before we acknowledge that perhaps we’ve been led down the primrose path when it comes to dietary fat? Atkins isn’t for me, or for anyone who really cares about food, but there’s no question that it works as a weight-loss strategy with those with the will to endure it. And yet, concerns over minor amounts of fat in turkey skin and the traditional sides is the basis for much of the alleged journalism perpetrated around this time of year.

Fie on it all. And if anyone discreetly asks me how I make my mashed potatoes, they’re getting a face full of ’em.

Because this is the holiday for gratitude, however, let’s show a little. A short list of the year’s blessings:

** Family, friends, related human beings, without whom life would be grim indeed;
** Animals to remind me how strange all of the above really are;
** Having the basics covered — food, shelter, indoor climate control;
** All my NN.c peeps. I continue to be amazed and amused by how our community here grows, changes, supports and enhances what I do in this space every day. Someday, this all will pass. But for now, it makes my life so much richer and more interesting.

So with that, a jump to bloggage:

From Eric Zorn, the state of Illinois awaits its Fort Sumter moment.

One of the things I love about this holiday is how deliciously it demonstrates the diversity of the United States while still honoring its commonalities; I love to read stories about how different ethnic groups do Thanksgiving, with antipasti starters, pierogi and kimchi side dishes. Of course, some people will never, ever be happy about that. New York magazine catches up with crazy Pamela Geller and her Butterball j’accuse: Halal turkeys! Is nothing sacred?

Tom & Lorenzo give J-Lo a WERQ, and I have to say, she does look spectacular here. How does she still look so great at a time when her peers are starting to overdue it with facial fillers and Botox? I’m going with “because she hasn’t dieted herself down to a skeleton.” What do you think?

OK, I’m off to make my brine. Happy holiday, safe travels and remember: Only discreetly ask how the sides were prepared. It’ll save you a black eye, unless it doesn’t. Back here on Monday.

So I’ve started reading the HuffPo Detroit, or rather, I’m reading the things my Facebook and Twitter contacts believe worthy of posting. One was this restaurant review, which I clicked as part of my never-ending quest to find a decent meal outside my own kitchen.

Nora Ephron once said all restaurant criticism can be boiled down to, “The (noun) was (complimentary adjective) but the (noun) was (uncomplimentary adjective),” e.g., “The beef was succulent but the sauce was bland,” or “The appetizers wowed but the desserts were disappointing,” etc. But that was many years ago, before citizen journalism.

This particular piece is about a Mexican/Italian place in southwest Detroit. Fusion? Never gets around to saying, although a glance at the website reveals it’s simply two menus. There’s also no address offered. As for the review itself, it’s a symphony of solely complimentary adjectives and adverbs, with notes of unintentional humor — a “hand selected” wine list, etc. I enjoyed this sentence, too:

All smelling deliciously fragrant and looking excellent upon presentation, the four of us decided to share our dishes with one another.

You know, I’ve never been one of those people who describes my job as a profession. It’s a craft at best, and anyone can do it. But we have standards, generally agreed-upon rules, which aren’t hard to learn. You could print who-what-where-when-why on a matchbook or cocktail napkin, for cryin’ out loud. And yet, every day the new wave in journalism demonstrates the public doesn’t give a fat rat’s ass about rules, standards or subject-verb agreement. If you want Free, well, this is what free is.

Li’l Miss Grumpy Pants, getting off on the right foot today.

A couple of minor housekeeping notes: I think after tomorrow, that’ll be it for the week. I’ll try to get some photo posts up for the weekend, just to give y’all something to hang your discussions about the holiday and whatever on. And Friday is my (mumble) birthday, and I think I’ll renew an old tradition of full, gainful employment and take a personal day, maybe take a walk downtown or see a movie or somethin’. Has anyone seen “Take Shelter”? I’m thinking Michael Shannon is my new movie boyfriend.

Actually, I’m already feeling a little tapped, idea-wise. We could always go with the On This Date in History space-filler:

I gotta tell you, I don’t have a story associated with this one. It was days before my sixth birthday. I don’t recall a teacher telling us anything, and even my in-home memories are murky. At some point I must have watched it — my parents weren’t the sort of people to ignore news like that — but the standard where-were-you-when-it-happened discussion always leaves me cold. I was in Columbus, Ohio, in first grade. Done.

Now, I look at that clip and think: Now there was a broadcaster. And a journalist. Back when you could be both.

Ten-thirty, and it’s not going to get any easier from here on out. Why don’t you guys take the helm, while I send nine million emails and write a story?

We sure do spend a lot of time worrying about things like this:

Especially when a far more effective odor neutralizer is available as close as your nearest matchbook. But it probably doesn’t smell like rainbows and unicorns, either.

And that’s why I’m glad my cell phone has a camera in it. Because you never know what you’ll find at the hardware store.

I hope it’s not too abrupt — or distasteful — to change the subject to food now. I have to apologize for not including a Saturday Morning Market photo last weekend, because I was certainly there, but conditions in the scrum in front of the poultry sellers weren’t conducive to photography. I got my turkey — a breast, anyway. And I got most of the other elements of the traditional meal. After years of trying to make Thanksgiving mine, I’m giving up and letting it be everyone else’s. Menu: Turkey, dressing, mashed you-know-whats, green beans with roasted onions, Waldorf salad, pie. No more sweet potatoes (I’m the only one who eats them). No more trying to nudge the feast to a later hour; Alan’s sister can never spend the night, so a late lunch is the best I can do. I will not give up the wine, and anyone who tries to make me, I will cut. It makes the afternoon snooze that much easier.

New this year: Brining. Never done that one. I’m using the Pioneer Woman’s recipe. Any advice would be appreciated.

Detroit is a great Thanksgiving town, maybe the best. Natives do the parade (usually as the guest of someone with an office or condo overlooking the route), maybe the Turkey Trot run, followed by the Lions game, followed by dinner. One of these days.

Monday, Monday, how I hate thou thee. Let’s blog it up and get on the road.

From David Frum, the cri de coeur of the moderate Republican:

We don’t usually delude others until after we have first deluded ourselves. Some of the smartest and most sophisticated people I know—canny investors, erudite authors—sincerely and passionately believe that President Barack Obama has gone far beyond conventional American liberalism and is willfully and relentlessly driving the United States down the road to socialism. No counterevidence will dissuade them from this belief: not record-high corporate profits, not almost 500,000 job losses in the public sector, not the lowest tax rates since the Truman administration. It is not easy to fit this belief alongside the equally strongly held belief that the president is a pitiful, bumbling amateur, dazed and overwhelmed by a job too big for him—and yet that is done too.

Come the revolution, I look forward to escorting these people to the gallows personally:

Carriers on international flights are offering private suites for first-class passengers, three-star meals and personal service once found only on corporate jets. They provide massages before takeoff, whisk passengers through special customs lanes and drive them in a private limousine right to the plane. Some have bars. One airline has installed showers onboard.

For those who haven’t heard, Jim Romenesko is back. First post: His side of the Poynter story.

And with that, I’m off. A short week, and after today, it will improve markedly. Hope yours does, too.

Poor Kristen Stewart. Such a promising start in showbiz — Jodie Foster’s diabetic daughter in “Panic Room,” respectable appearances in “Into the Wild” and “Adventureland” — and all it takes is one franchise to turn her into a joke. Kate and I saw the first “Twilight” movie three years ago, when she would have been, what? Twelve? And even she couldn’t abide all that moony-eyed crap. Stewart looked constipated throughout that one, and from the looks of the publicity stills, she doesn’t look much better in the “Breaking Dawn” thing that opens today. I guess Stephenie Meyer’s teen-sex-tease fantasy is a pretty big thing to have stuck in your gut. I hope the paychecks made it all worth it.

The details I’m reading today sound laughable. They reduce the honeymoon bed to splinters? The Detroit News critic wondered where the clothes go when the werewolf clan shape-shifts, and why they’re always dressed a minute or two after they switch back. These are quibbles, however, compared to the big money scene. Hello:

Meyer’s Breaking Dawn is infamous for its centerpiece birthing scene, where Edward literally gnaws into Bella’s pregnant belly to give her the sparkly vampire equivalent of a C-section. Fans have wondered for years how they’d transfer that to the big screen, and though we don’t want to spoil the climax of the movie, you should set your expectations in check: There will be blood, but there won’t be a lot of gore (or even clarity). In fact, if you’re totally unfamiliar with the book, you may not be able to tell what’s going on by the way it’s been shot. We feel for you, because when it appears that Edward is indulging in some particularly bloody cunnilingus with Bella at the inopportune time of her delivery, you’re going to be really confused.

Mercy.

What movies will our little family be able to see this holiday season? I guess “Shame” is out, but I am looking forward to taking Kate to “The Other F Word,” a documentary about legendary punk rockers as parents, if it ever gets here.

Oy, what a week. The good news is, the next one will be markedly better, Thanksgiving and all.

I have to get moving early today, so let’s get to the bloggage, eh?

From the Department of Stories Whose End You Saw Coming a Million Miles Away, But Still Find Satisfying: It would appear James O’Keefe is having difficulty setting up Stings R Us.

There’s now a Huffington Post Detroit. I can’t wait to not read it.

Finally, the news from Moe’s part of the world isn’t good. Moe, I hope you know that however this disease progresses, you have our virtual community pulling for you, in every way.