Thursday, 12/9

There. Now we're in the spirit of the season.

I know it's only two weeks and a day or so before Christmas Eve, but much like last year it really doesn't feel like the holidaze are on the way. So in order to try and get in the mood just a little more, I decided to get festive at the station with the most fitting decoration I could find--

That's apt for a second Covid Christmas, right?

8-)

I was given the tree (from, obviously, “A Charlie Brown Christmas”) as a gift a long time ago, but I never actually put it up anywhere. There were several years when I was tempted to do it, but things just hadn't descended quite so far down that it seemed appropriate.

Then 2021 decided to say “hold my beer”.

All of us who work at the station on a regular basis got together, took a vote, and decided this was the year to deploy the tree. There wasn't much debate; I voted “yes” and, uhm, since I'm the only one who works at the station on a regular basis that vote stood. Not only that, but all of us who work at the station on a regular basis decided that the tree will be the extent of the decorations this year.

With as apt of a symbol as that particular tree is, who needs more?

Now that the station is decorated, I supposed I should get around to decorating our apartment, as well. When I went into the basement to get the Charlie Brown tree I also brought up our “regular” tree, and one of these days I might even take it out of the box and plug it in. But there are still two weeks left to go.

Why rush things, right? The important thing is the station is now decorated, in the most 2021 way possible. Now that that's taken care of, I can start to think about making our apartment a little more holiday'd up, even perhaps in a little more traditional and cheery way.

That would show our second Covid Christmas season in a row, wouldn't it?

(jim@wmqt.com)

Wednesday, 12/8

Yup. We're finally going to give the Detroit Lions their due.

As you may recall, we faced a little good-natured push-back when we used Upper Michigan's Favorite Friday to figure out Upper Michigan's favorite song about losing, if for no other reason to “honor” the long-running addiction to losing that the state's professional football team can't seem to shake. We said at the time that if they ever won a game this season we'd figure out Upper Michigan's favorite song about being a winner, and guess what the Lions did a few days ago?

We're keeping our word. After all, it's not every day a genuine miracle occurs!

I mean, sure—the Lions may end up 1-15-1 for the season, but we said that if we won—even if it was on a last-second, last-ditch pass against a weaker opponent—we'd do this. And we are. But I've discovered something rather interesting while putting this all together.

Did you know there are a lot more songs about losing than there are about winning?

I think I know why. People love to write songs about heartbreak and tragedy and loss, and those are the three words through which the Lions live. But songs about being a winner? Well, there's Santana's “Winning”. There's Queen's “We Are the Champions”. And there's the theme from “Rocky”. But other than that?

Songs about winning seem to be almost as rare as the Lions actually having a winning season.

Don't worry; there are a few other songs we can sneak in in order to give listeners a fair choice. It's just kind of interesting. Winning at something can be one of the most amazing feelings in the world. Yet hardly anyone writes about it. So if you want a million dollar idea, there you go. Write a hit song about winning, and you should be all set.

And, if the past is any indication, you'll be more successful at that than the Lions are at their chosen profession. So good luck!

(jim@wmqt.com) 

Tuesday, 12/7

I have to go do a TV show in a bit. Before that, I have to go clean six inches of snow off of Loraine's car, and make sure it can get out of the driveway okay. So with both those in mind I'm gonna take the easy way out and leave you with something from five or six years ago, but something that seems to be more and more in need by people on the Internet each and every day.

Back with something new tomorrow!

(jim@wmqt.com)

*****

(as originally posted 11/7/16)

They're on their way there. See? It isn't that hard.

I know I've probably railed about the misuse of the different forms of “there” in the past, so forgive me if I'm babbling babbles that I've already babbled. But there was a meme going around on Facebook this morning in which someone posted that people join an organization because “there to stupid to do anything else”.

Ladies and gentlemen, I believe we have the very latest definition of the word “irony” right there.

I'm starting to wonder if this whole “there/their/they're” problem is the latest version of the “chicken & the egg” quandary. Are people just grammatically lacking overall, and we notice it more these days because they post everything they write on the internet? Or has technology—the internet and spell-check—made people less carefree about being correct and accurate, so much so that they don't actually know which “their” to use here and there?

Some days, I just don't know.

Now, I make a lot of grammatical & spelling errors when I write, as those of you who read this are no doubt aware. I rely too much on spell-check, and each and every one of these could probably use an extra round of proofreading, the time for which is, unfortunately, limited. So I'm not claiming to live in a glass house. I'm not claiming to be a perfect writer myself. But if I were to post something accusing someone else of being stupid?

I'd make sure I wasn't an idiot myself. But then, that's just me.

I'll shut up about this now, if for no other reason than I have to go hang out with people who, I'm guessing, actually DO know which “there” to use, four teams of some of the brightest young people on the planet, who will be taking part in another action packed edition of “High School Bowl”. It starts shooting in about an hour, in fact, assuming the weather allows them to make it there.

Just not their. Or they're.

Monday, 12/6

I know I'm a bad boy for doing it. But it wouldn't surprise me if some of you do it as well.

I spent part of my birthday weekend making the dough for some of the cookies I'll be baking for the holidays. I threw it all the finished dough in the freezer, and I'll thaw it out and bake it all before Christmas. I've done it this way for a couple of years now. I found that spending two or three hours making the dough in advance really does make the VERY long day(s) of baking I usually have just a bit shorter. So I think it's a good idea.

That's not why I was a bad boy, though. When making the dough I, of course, wanna make sure it's okay. I wanna make sure it's turning out the way I want it to turn out, and I wanna make sure that there's nothing untoward about it. After all, I'm giving most (if not all) of these cookies away, and like any good baker I need to make sure they're gonna be edible. So when the dough's done, I grab a spoonful and taste it, to make sure that it's good to go.

That's right. Despite all the warnings, despite all the advice of experts, I eat raw cookie dough. Oh, the horror!!!

8-)

Yes, I know you're not supposed to eat raw cookie dough, especially raw cookie dough that has raw eggs mixed into it. I know that you can theoretically get all kinds of food-borne illnesses from consuming even one microgram of raw cookie dough. Heck, even the bag of flour I was using yesterday told me not to eat the flour raw, whether it was in cookie dough or not. But apparently I like being a rebel. Apparently I like living on the edge. And that was quite apparent yesterday when I made four kinds of cookie dough and ate four bites of the raw stuff.

And yet, I'm still alive.

Now, I know that it's probably a bad thing to do. I'm aware of what kind of organisms can lurk in uncooked foods. And I wouldn't eat a piece of raw chicken or even, like Sylvester Stallone in “Rocky”, quaff an entire raw egg. But I've been eating small samples of raw cookie dough since I started baking cookies as a kid. And not once in those 40+ years have I gotten sick from it. Sure, the possibility of barfing all over the kitchen exists, but the amount of “dangerous” material in a tiny bite of raw cookie dough is probably so small that I don't have to worry. Either that, or I can apparently ingest all kinds of toxic material and not be affected by it.

Unless, of course, I turn into a nuclear-powered super hero (or evil villain). Then I'll know I WAS affected by it.

But I understand why experts (and even flour bags) warn you NOT to eat raw cookie dough. I'm sure some fool out there once made cookie dough using 14 eggs and four-year old flour, ate it all in one sitting, blew their stomach out, and sued the food manufacturers for not telling them not to do it. After all, that's the American way. But having one small bite, just to make sure it tastes up to standards? I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing to do. Like I said, call me a contrarian, but I've been doing it since I started baking cookies, and I'm guessing I won't be stopping any time soon.

(jim@wmqt.com), bad boy of baking. 

Friday, 12/3

I don’t mind birthdays. It’s the part about getting older that I don’t like.

Some of you may know that it’s my birthday tomorrow, and I guess I’m okay with that. I don’t expect people to make a big deal out of it; it’s nothing more than the anniversary of me finally relieving my mother of the burden of carrying me around for ten months. If anything, she’s the one who deserves the honors tomorrow, since I wasn’t born until a month after my due date, and this was the day she was finally relieved of that misery.

So thanks for the extra 30 days, Mom!!

But whenever you have a birthday you’re forced to confront the fact that you’re getting older, and if there’s one thing you might have learned by reading this ramblings over the past how ever many years it’s that members of the Koski family don’t like to confront the fact that there’s nothing you can do about getting older. It just happens, whether you want it to or not.

Who do we see about changing that, by the way?

As I’ve gotten older I’ve noticed, despite my best efforts, more and more signs popping up reminding me of that fact that I am indeed getting on in years. Of course, the latest had to popped up yesterday morning. I finished working out and was about to go through a few pages of a magazine (yes, another one of those signs that I’m “old”) and I noticed that I couldn’t quite make out the print on the page, which I found odd, because I usually have no trouble making out the print. It was then I realized that I wasn’t wearing my glasses, which, as for most “old” people, are bifocals. I slipped them on, and then had no trouble reading the print.

Aside from the heavy sigh the incident provoked, a bit of curiosity bubbled to the surface, as well. Even without glasses, I’ve always been able to read things with no problem. In fact, when I read magazines or newspapers after working out in the morning or when I read in bed every night it’s usually without eyewear. Yet for some reason yesterday I couldn't read the print in the magazine until I put my glasses on I don’t know if it’s because the print was smaller than usual or because the room was rather dark or if (gasp) my eyes are just getting a little worse as time (gasp) marches on, but for the first time, I couldn’t focus on the type well enough to read what was on the page. It didn’t matter how close I got to the page, or how far away I held it, something just didn’t work out until I used my glasses.

Oh, woe is me.

Since then, I’ve read a few other things—including the same magazine —without wearing my glasses, and I’ve been able to see them just fine. But that fact that I had this particular problem for the first time just a few days before turning another year “older” affected me in the way that all incidents related to aging affect me—with me not handling it like an ”adult” would.

So at least I’ve got that going for me.

Don’t worry; I’m sure that as these incidents keep popping up, I’ll (hopefully) get a better grip on them. After all, as I’m always told, these incidents DO pop up more and more as you age more and more, and, as I’ve found, there’s nothing you can (yet) do to stop that. So like I said, while I don’t mind birthdays, this whole getting “older” thing is just not my cup of tea.

Sigh. . .and make it a heavy one, if you’d like.

Have a great weekend!

(jim@wmqt.com)

Thursday, 12/2

I'm thinking Greek for Christmas. And yes, I'm talking about food for the fourth day in a row now. You have a problem with that?

8-)

Covid has wrecked many holiday traditions for a lot of us, and for Loraine and me it's put the kibosh on two very important ones. The first is that my parents have escaped to Florida and we won't be having Christmas dinner with them (at least in person). The second is that the Greek Orthodox Church in Marquette is once again not having their holiday bake sale, something that would normally be occurring this weekend. This happened to us last year, as well, so on Christmas Day 2020 I tried my hand at making Greek food for the first time.

And since it didn't suck I guess I'll be trying it again this year, as well.

In all total honesty I would MUCH rather be eating Greek food baked by people who know how to do it, by people who've been doing it all of their lives. But I certainly do understand why the bake sale isn't happening again this year. Maybe next year, right?

Even if that's what we wished for last year.

I think I'm going to try Pastitsio again. It's kind of a Greek lasagna with all kinds of spices (including cinnamon) and a bechamel sauce on top. When I made it last year it tasted like it was supposed to, although it didn't look like the Pastitsio made by Greek ladies who know what they're doing. I think I know where I zigged instead of zagged (including the type of pasta I used for the base) so I'm confident it'll look better this year. I have no illusions that it'll actually look like I know what I'm doing, but I'm confident that it'll look better than it did last year.

And yes, I realize I'm the only one who cares about that. But I still do care about it.

I'm also pondering whether or not to try baking some of the amazing Greek desserts you can usually get at the bake sale. I didn't last year; making the Pastitsio was daunting enough as it was. But this year I might try something simple. I mean, I won't be making Baklava or anything (especially anything with Phyllo dough). But melomakarona (Greek spice cookies) or a Greek orange spice cake?

We'll have to see how ambitious I get. I still have a couple of weeks in which to figure it out. Wish me luck!

****

And on that note, I'm done writing about food for the week. Honest, I am. Something non-food tomorrow!

(jim@wmqt.com)

Wednesday, 12/1

I've been talking about food and/or grocery stores every day so far this week, so why stop now?

Right?

Actually, it's just something I observed while eating dinner last night, something so...strange that it made a piece of spinach shoot out of my mouth because I was laughing so hard at the absurdity of it all.

Sorry about that, Loraine.

Okay...what made me laugh so hard that a piece of spinach went shooting out of my mouth? Well, it was in a flier for a local grocery store. One of the deals they have coming up is this—if you buy four of one item, you get a fifth, separate item for free. It's something grocery stores do all the time and, usually, the items are grouped together by some common thread. You know, buy four boxes of cake mixes and get a container of frosting for free; something along those lines. So just what was this particular grouping, the one that made me laugh so hard spinach went shooting out of my mouth?

Buy four Healthy Choice frozen dinners, and get a container of ice cream free.

No, I'm not making that up. I couldn't make it up if I tried. I wasn't seeing things, either. After I apologized to Loraine for shooting spinach out of my mouth I showed her, and she saw it too. There is a currently a deal at a local grocery store—buy four things that are supposed to be healthy (heck, “Healthy” is even in the name!) and get a tub of fat absolutely free.

Now do you see why I laughed so hard that spinach flew out of my mouth?

I don't know why the store stuck those items together. I don't know if the store just got a great deal on a bulk buy of ice cream and needs to get rid of it, or if someone actually sat down and said “you know, we should pair a low calorie dinner with a high calorie dessert. That makes sense, right?” I mean, sure it makes sense, or at least as much sense as going into a restaurant and ordering four pieces of cheesecake and a Diet Coke. But there it is, in the flier in black and white (or red, black, & white, if you wanna be technical). Buy four “healthy” dinners, and get a tub of ice cream for free.

America. What a country.

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com)