Friday Food - Easter Style

Christopher and I now have a ham in the fridge. Not exactly a whole ham, but a ham nonetheless. We're planning to have it for dinner on Easter Sunday. We actually put in an order for this ham quite a while ago, as it's from a farm* which also produces the absolutely amazing Peppered Bacon we love so much. We've never tried any of their other pork products, so we're excited to try the ham.

I was thinking about the ham on the way home from work today. This is not strange for me. I think about food - and, more precisely, meals - a lot. In the morning when I get up, I'm already thinking about lunch and dinner. When I'm sitting down to dinner on a Monday, I'm contemplating dinner on Tuesday. It's not an obsession or anything, it's just one of those things I do. But, anyway, back to the ham.

I was thinking about the ham on the way home from work today and thought of something odd. You know how Easter already has the colored eggs and the chocolate bunnies and the jelly beans. I know that there are stories for why those things exist (the whole idea that Easter kind of co-opted a Pagan rite of spring, with eggs and bunnies representing fertility, and jelly beans representing really sweet chewy... beans), but why is Easter a day for the eating of ham?

Truth be told, Christopher would prefer to have good ham for any major holiday. Well, maybe not a grilling-out holiday like the Fourth of July, but definitely for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Me, I'm a turkey guy - I love having turkey on those two days, although ham has always been the New Year's Day centerpiece for my parents' open house.

I know that in a lot of places, the Easter dish is lamb. Which, frankly, has always kind of freaked me out. What with the whole "lamb of God" reference to Christ. I mean... really? He's put to death, he rises to eternal life, and then - after the hunt for the eggs left behind by the bunny - we eat his representation? That's just a bit weird - even for me.

Which brings us back to the ham. And my drive home, today.

It dawned on me that while we're eating ham at Easter, those people celebrating Passover are... well... at least most of them... are NOT eating ham. Not sure if it's a marketing ploy ("Hey, we're not selling any ham for Passover, let's push it for Easter.") or maybe a really passive-aggressive way for early the Easter-celebrants to thumb their collective noses at the Passover-partakers. Or maybe someone mis-heard the orders for lamb and sent out a bunch of ham. Or maybe, just maybe, hogs are the thing most likely to have been slaughtered in time for a nice cured ham for Easter each spring.

I bet it has something to do with the bunnies.

*The bacon we love, and the ham we're hoping to love, come from Fischer Farms in Waseca, MN. We buy it at The Golden Fig in St. Paul, which prides itself in finding really good mostly-local foods.

Sarah Jane Smith Sighting

I realize that in most of my postings which have "Sighting" in their titles I'm referring to John Barrowman. Tonight, however, I'm referring to Elisabeth Sladen, who embodied Sarah Jane Smith in the universe that is "Doctor Who."

My first recollections of "Doctor Who" are from the late 1970s and early 1980s. At that point, the South Dakota Public Broadcasting folks were showing "Doctor Who" (a few years late) on Saturday afternoons and - sometimes - Friday or Saturday nights.

I honestly don't remember much about those episodes. I remember Tom Baker (Doctor Who #4 - the one with the huge long scarf) and I remember Peter Davison (Doctor Who # 5 - who had previously been Tristan in "All Creatures Great and Small"). I also remember Tegan (whom I met when I volunteered at a "Doctor Who" event in Sioux Falls), and I remember Sarah Jane Smith.

I had almost completely forgotten about Sarah Jane when she re-appeared a few years ago in the newly-revamped Doctor Who universe. Sure, she had gotten older, but she was still just as spunky and direct and clever and full of gumption as I had remembered. As one of the very few people from "Doctor Who" who have ever resurfaced in it's decades-long history, she held her own with the new casts. She was wiser and more worldly, but no less powerful or worthy than any of her counterparts.

She even did well enough in the ratings to get her own spin-off - "The Sarah Jane Adventures" - and was a player in one of the few episodes that meshed "Doctor Who" and "Torchwood" (there's our John Barrowman moment!) and "The Sarah Jane Adventures" all in one.

When the Doctor said good-bye to her in her final appearance, there was a finality about it which made me tear up almost as much as Sarah Jane did. Only she held it in better.

The same thing happened to me, today, while I was sitting at work and saw a message from a friend of mine marking the death of Elisabeth Sladen. Having never met her, and having not even really remembered her for a good 25 or 30 years, the news of her death surprised me, and I found myself kind of welling-up at my desk at work.

There had been something so refreshing in seeing her back on TV with the Doctor and everyone. There was a feeling of continuity that kind of grounded me back into the promise of youth. Back to a time when everything was possible in time and space. And seeing her again showed me the promise that growing older and growing up can both be done gracefully and with as much wit as wisdom.

Elisabeth Sladen (and Sarah Jane Smith) will be missed.

Mall-ing

I went to not one, but two, malls this past weekend. I had hoped to finish the little bit of shopping I was doing on Saturday, but the jeans I wanted weren't available in both my size AND the color I wanted at the mall I went to on Saturday. I was told, however, that they were available in three other malls, if I was interested.

I wasn't.

But then I got home and thought about it and realized that I kind of was. So, on Sunday, I left the comfort of the nice comfortable house and headed out to THE mall. Yes. That's right. The Mall of America.

Aside from the random special events (like last week when I took my folks out there to see the SDSU jazz band perform on Sunday afternoon), I try to avoid The Mall on weekends. I also try to avoid it on weekdays, but that's another matter.

You see, on weekends, it's filled with all these... people... who somehow survive driving like idiots in the parking lot only to prove to the world at large that they aren't just acting like idiots.

But, well, The Mall is kind of massive. And overwhelming. And it apparently brings out the idiot in a lot of people. People who stand in the middle of a store's entryway, with a stroller facing sideways blocking the entry, texting on their phones and not noticing that they're blocking the entryway. Completely.

And the people who walk through the corridors as if The Mall is a fabulous work of ancient architecture, slowly strolling along to make sure they take in every detail, taking pictures of the storefronts, backing up into the flow of pedestrian traffic while staring at their cameras.

And people who... well... let's just say that way too many of them have offspring. I can understand that adults can do whatever they want with their hairstyles. But when I saw the one kid (maybe 7 years old?) with the mohawk that was about a foot long, standing next to his younger brother whose hair was shaved on one side of his head, and kind of... well... "chunky" on the other, I had to wonder what the parents looked like. Then I saw them. I knew they were all together because they all go to the same barber/weedwhacker for their haircuts.

I have never bought jeans and left a shopping area with such alacrity in my life.

Tiz List #8 - The Spring Edition

(Don't know what a Tiz List is? Check out the earlier postings by clicking on "Tiz List" in the left-hand column, down toward the bottom.)

1) As a general rule, I love spring. I love the promise it holds, the optimism in the air, the bursting forth of the greenery from the earth.

2) I don't really like mud. Or wet sand. Or anything that has to be cleaned off of your shoes before you walk into a house.

3) I really don't like having to wipe down the dog's feet on the way into the house.

4) I think someone should invent a doggie foot cleaner for that.

5) It would have to be something dogs enjoy. No way in the world am I going to try to make a dog stand around - when wet - to do something she doesn't want to do.

6) Really. That's the problem with #3 in the first place.

7) I like having the doors and windows open.

8) We have only been able to have the doors and/or windows open 3 days so far this year without freezing.

9) When going out to sit in our breezeway/former screen porch/whatever we're calling it, it's always safest to not only unlock the kitchen door, but also to take your keys along in case it blows shut and you've forgotten to unlock it.

10) Climbing through the kitchen window (which only works if the security pegs aren't in place, anyway) is really painful.

11) I think I still have marks around my waist from the screen window structure from last spring.

12) Yes. That brunch was worth it.

13) Spring makes me want a new wardrobe.

14) Spring also makes me want a new body.

15) I'd prefer to have both of those without having to spend money or energy.

16) Or dieting.

17) I know that #14 is impossible without #15 and/or #16, but it doesn't make me stop wanting it/them.

18) To celebrate spring (and, okay, because the ear piece in my old cellphone died), I got a new phone last week.

19) It took almost 48 hours for the new phone to activate.

20) It might have been done sooner, but I was following the instructions given to me by customer service. Christopher's suggestion on the phone on the second night had the phone active in about 30 seconds.

21) I prefer my old phone. Especially since there are a bunch of text messages on it that I don't want to lose. And 3 photos Christopher sent me from his travels - one from the top of Mount Pilatus in Switzerland.

22) The inability to store things like those messages makes me sad for technology.

23) Sometimes I fear I'm too sentimental for spring.

24) Sentimentality seems to be a trait for people who like winter, or at least fall.

25) My goal for this weekend while Christopher is travelling was to do a good spring cleaning (aka a solid purging) of both paperwork and clothing from the basement where my stuff is stored.

26) I spent much of my weekend trying to get caught up on shows I had stored on the TiVo, and not dealing with the paperwork and clothing in need of purging.

27) I rationalized not doing that purge by reminding myself that I've been pretty busy the last few weekends and needed some time to just hang out and do nothing.

28) And that cleaning out the TiVo was both a kind of purging and a thumbing of my nose toward technology.

29) I'm apparently very persuasive.

30) And have more of an anti-technology grudge than I knew.

31) I also figure that if the weather isn't going to act like it's spring then neither am I.

32) In honor of Passover coming this week, I went online to figure out what is an appropriate greeting. (You know, like is it okay to say "Happy Passover" when the story of it is kind of somber, really.)

33) I've been assured by a friend that the correct celebratory greeting, in Hebrew, is "Chag Sameach."

34) Still not sure if I should say "Happy" or not.

35) I am, however, happy that it is spring and that the tulips are up and the crocuses are blooming and the grass is turning green and that Christopher comes home this week and that optimism - regardless of how properly or improperly placed - is in the air.

Cycling Through

After a few months of steadily-declining battery life on my laptop, I finally got a new one, yesterday.

Yes, that's great.

But it also means that I have to "cycle the battery" a few times in the first few days. So...

I'm down to almost no battery power, after doing some work this evening.

I promise a more interesting posting as soon as we're done with this...

Thought-filled Thursday, Puppy-style

(Taken last fall when we were all "Up Nort',"

when she was not thoroughly pissed off at me.)

As I've been talking to the pup each morning and evening for the past two and a half days while Christopher has been gone (has it really only been two and a half days?), I've been feeling like it might be nice if she could answer back.

In fact, I realized that I've been putting words into her mouth, too. Or, maybe not her mouth, so much as her soulful eyes, which seem to have so much to say. Here are some thoughts:

We started on Tuesday night, while I was putting eardrops into her ears, with a look of "You're not doing that right. Dad does it better."

Yesterday morning, as I was also wishing I didn't have to get out of bed, I got "But you're supposed to be up already, so that I can have my breakfast before my 7 o'clock nap."

Last night, it was another full evening of her watching the door, waiting for Christopher to come home. She stopped looking at me, for the most part. I think she blames me for sending him away.

In fact, I realized this morning that I think she blames me for sending not only Christopher away, but also sending away my parents who had come to visit last weekend. You see, they left when we went out for a walk on Monday morning. And then, Tuesday, I drove Christopher to the airport on my way to work. I suspect she's sensed a pattern in that.

Tonight after I got home, she was much more active - "two hours of playing fetch and getting scratched before settling down" - active. I thought we were moving in the right direction until I tried to pick her up, roll her over, and scratch her tummy. She rolled her eyes as I tried to execute one of Christopher's standard maneuvers. Obviously I had done it wrong.

Maybe it's not such a bad thing that she doesn't speak, after all.

Weary Wednesday

I had every intention of writing a good post tonight.

I was going to talk about Christopher being off to New York for a week.

I was going to mention how the pup keeps looking at me as if she's trying to tell me that I don't know what I'm doing and she'd prefer to have Christopher back.

And I was going to be witty and exciting and possibly even pithy.

But then the speaker in the ear-area of my pay-as-you-go cellphone started to crap out a few days ago, and yesterday actually had problems multiple times. So after coming home and taking the pup for a walk after work tonight I headed out to Radio Shack to see about a new phone.

Somewhere about 20 minutes into the phonecall it took to transfer over my phone number and all of my already-paid-for minutes, it all suddenly started to take hold. And then, just as my old phone flashed up saying that the minutes were gone, the person helping me out said "Okay, now this could take up to 72 hours for the new phone to be active."

So I spent some time tonight trying to figure out how the ringer will sound, how to add phone numbers to the new phone, and - because it's driving me crazy at the moment - how to set the time and date. And I meant to send out a few emails letting people who call me on that cellphone (a very very very small group) that it might be a few days before I can actually answer it.

But now I'm pooped, and I'm off to bed. Hopefully a good sleep will mean a good posting tomorrow.

And, also hopefully, the new phone will be newly active by then, too.