Fall Semester 2021 is done, except for the inevitable stress of dealing with unhappy students complaining about their grades — I’ve already got two of those, I’m sure more will be coming.
So what next? How should I celebrate? I’m kind of at a loss here, with my poor narrowly strictured brain turning immediately to thoughts of getting started preparing for next term, but there must be something better to do.
I guess I could put up our Xmas tree, but it seems a little bit pointless. We’re not doing anything for the holiday, not getting together with other family, no social events, nothing. I’m tentatively penciling in watching the The Muppet Christmas Carol with my wife on Xmas eve, if she approves. Is that festive enough? Because otherwise, I’m not feeling it.
Well, my holidays just got pushed to end of January because of projects. And the Netherlands is in lockdown again, so visiting friends and family is also a not happening. So yeah, not feeling all that festive either.
I have been trying to get hold of some packets of bread sauce mix,without bread sauce xmas is ruined.
I like a bit of turkey with my bread sauce.
I think I went over board on the turkey this year,in the words of Ebenezer Blackadder I bought a turkey so large you’d think its mother had been rogered by an omnibus.
You can make bread sauce from basic ingredients. Stale bread, milk/cream/butter, onion/garlic, peppercorns, other spices/herbs. Admittedly most of the recipes out there are British so will (a) use metric[1] and (b) weigh stuff where American recipes would use volume measures.
[1] Old recipes will use tablespoons, cups, pints etc but these are somewhat larger than American tablespoons, cups, pints.
@3 Colman’s Bread sauce mix is the real stuff a few minutes in the microwave,and it’s like white napalm.
Erp@3, Yes indeed, one of my grandmothers had a bread stuffing recipe (which was easily tweaked into a bread sauce) very very much along those lines. It was an extended family favourite, albeit sadly I seem to have lost the recipe card, so only nowadays create poorly-rememeded — but usually quite tasty — variants… and No, my latest variant is not named Omicron !
Since my booster won’t be until this time next month (unless I get lucky and a slot opens up before then), I’m deliberately staying in, etc., much like poopyhead. I probably would be anyways, but however…
BTW, the winter solstice is only hours away, so from now on it will only get brighter.
Festivities: Do not neglect to watch “Ivanhoe” for Xmas, that is part of the official Swedish Christmas festivities. With a young Sam Neill as one of the baddies.
davidc@1
Ah, British humor; I’ve missed that. Not all that much fun coming out of old Blighty at the moment.
Well, I’ve had 50-odd xmas-es without it. Are you quite sure that’s not leftover porridge? (with apologies to all Scots & I’ll let myself out now.)
“Not much fun coming out of old Blighty at the moment”
I find joy in the humiliation and undoing of the blond fascist.
New suggested Xmas song
Tomorrow will all be mine
(from Cabaret).
rsmith @7:
I still don’t get it. Was there some polititian named Roger who was a sexual predator? (If so, I probably don’t want to get it.)
Post-2021 entertainment:
The film “Don’t Look Up” has distinct similarities with the one-page SF story “Goliath” that was published in the journal “Nature”.
Suggestion for the post-exam free days: cultivate a sense of black humor .
It will probably be useful.
Happy Winter Solstice, everybody!
Now things will only get brighter.
Last Christmas was just Husband, Housemate, and me. Pretty gloomy. I don’t bother to decorate in a house with enthusiastically destructive cats, I have a lot of bad childhood holiday memories (curse of the uber-anxious mother, may she rest in peace) and so it was grim.
This year, the three of us, vaccinated and boostered, will drive to the other end of the San Francisco Bay Area (California) to have an afternoon/evening and a nice meal with my mother-in-law. Sister- and Brother-in-law, who live in the same town as Mom and take care of her, will be out of town, celebrating with their kids and grandkid, and we all figure they could use a break from caretaking. Mom is seriously getting on in years, pushing 90. Manages okay around the house still, with a weekly housekeeper, but…well, age does a number on humans, and needs help to get groceries, see her docs, and whatnot. I was the point person for my own parents, so I understand how much effort my sibs-in-law put in.
Mom has lots of health issues, some of which are managed with an extremely low-sodium diet. Housemate and I are cooking a simple but festive uber-low-sodium meal, with potassium chloride and Lite Salt (NaCl and KCl mix) for table seasoning for us visitors. Mom hates KCl, sigh. I found a sodium-free baking soda substitute, and I’ve promised uber-low-sodium chocolate chip bars for dessert. Not traditional, but hey, chocolate. All is forgiven in the wake of chocolate, right?
But, Mom! In person! Take that, COVID-19!
That’s such a great movie – we still have it on VHS and it’s on our list this week!
@7 How very dare you,wot with that Bill Bryson marking sarky comments in one of his books about Pork Pies,I have had it with you furriners.
@10 It is another name for bonking.
birgerjohansson@8
From the outside looking in it has been kind of fascinating to see the blatant lies, U-turns, corruption and incompetence.
But I feel kind of sorry for the people who have to live with such a dismal government.
Then again, if the covid-19 epidemic has shown one thing, it is how absolutely facking useless the right-wing/populist/”strong men” governments have been in a proper crisis. It’s easy to give firy speeches and rile up your followers. Organising and delivering a competent response to a pandemic has proven slightly more difficult for these clowns. It warms the cockles of my heart. May the voters long remember it.