Hi Saucy...I'm here. I ended up having a lovely Thanksgiving day after thinking it would be a lonesome day with just the 2 of us. I overheard our evangelist saying he and his wife wouldn't be going to Oklahoma,( where the rest of their family was going), because of a doctor's appointment the following day.I asked them if they would be with anyone else that day, and thay said no, so I invited them to come to our house. They didn't know for sure whether they could come, but I went ahead and started the preparations on Wednesday( baking pies and pumpkin bars). I told Nolon I didn't think they would come.But Wednesday night, after we both had gone to bed early, the phone rang and it was John asking what time I wanted them to come! I was so pleased. They arrived at the time I told him ( 1 PM ) as I was putting the final touches on the meal. As one of you said about your meal...it was a real nice dinner even tho I did the preparing of it.:-) Doris brought a pumpkin pie , whipped cream, green beans, and a few other things. After we ate, and ate, and ate..:-), we visited the rest of the afternoon. It was a wonderful time ! Our former DIL decided that she wanted the girls this Thanksgiving, and Tim could have them at Christmas. She has decided they will alternate the years for the 2 holiday get-to-gethers ! (I am wondering how long she thinks Nolon and I will be around???) Since we live so far from them, and the latter part of Dec. can be very treacherous for driving here...it will remain to be seen if they make it this year. Thanksgiving has been our time with them ever since the first one was born, and she knows my stand on Christmas....just another case of her showing her true colors. Thank goodness Tim plans on bringing them this Friday for the weekend. I won't fix another Thanksgiving dinner, but that's okay. I have been reading, and enjoying, all of the posts. I am happy for all the good news, and sad with you that have sad news. Woody, I want you to know that the B 12 shots have very definitely helped. I took one a week for 4 weeks, and will begin one a month this coming tuesday. I presume they will continue the rest of my life.... I took Nolon for a checkup with a differant Doc last Monday. His regular doctor has gone into some sort of rehab, and will not be back until spring. I am thinking he ( Nolon) will be getting more appropriate treatment now. With the new meds that this doc gave him, he has already cut down on the use of the nebulizer. I don't plan on his returning to the 'old' doctor. It is wintry here. We have had a couple of skifts of snow, and had some ice on things this morning. The roads were not icy, so we didn't miss AM services. We did stay home this evening. The weather was too iffy, and it was very foggy. I am sending more hugs to Chelone... Marian

Wow this is an old thread! Well, I do believe it was a fisher cat. We have them here now and several of them too! I had seen one squashed in the road a few weeks back. They are quite mean critters. Since I started this thread years ago there was a woman who was running/ walking her dog in Ct. At black pond. Which is maybe 10 to 15 minutes from my house, anyway she and her dog were attacked my a juvenile mountain lion. I hear she and her dog survived but I do not know the full story. Also since then I had been doing some reading up on mountain lions. And also since then I have had two rescued wimpy but wonderful greyhounds. One night while I was taking them out for their final nightly "run" up in the woods to do their business, they both stopped dead in their tracks. I had an enclosure put together up in the woods with several metal fence in a roll type deal and a gate with latest h that we installed. The dogs stopped dead and was staring up towards the back of the enclosure. I tool my spotlight and started looking around. About 50 feet on the other side of the fence in the back were red and green shining eyes. A tan head and chest. It moved sideways , turning it's body and it was without a doubt a mountain lion! Needless to say I yelled for the dogs to go to the house and we ran and went inside. It didn't seem to follow us. Thankfully. But my town is filled with wildlife , I've seen everything but moose in town. We all have to learn to coexhist. Ciao all! Is there a way to delete this thread?

I went to the employment office today - boy, is that place busy!! I met with a counselor and asked about training for a medical coding & billing career. I am a displaced worker - you need a layoff letter, which I have. I am meeting with another guy on Sept 2nd to see what other jobs I would like. I guess the place has had several architects and designers come in looking for work. I brought my resume into a furniture store today, another straight commission job. I don't think I can do that. They sell furniture from custom homes, nice stuff and good prices. They had several customers while I was there but I saw no purchases, just lookers. I never heard back from my ex-employer when I emailed him asking him for an explanation of why I was no longer there. That lack of response is typical for this guy. I must say that Direct Buy place was very strange. And from what I see they cannot beat every price point, like on some of the cabinets. I think I am supposed to have my colonoscopy test this coming Monday. I have not received the appt letter yet. Oh, I did have my interview on the phone with the health care people to continue my coverage last week. Then the gal sent out a letter requesting copies of my bills, etc. I sent those back right away. Then today I get a letter saying everything will be cancelled because I did not show up for an interview. What? The interview was on the phone. So I called and left a message at the DES and also drove over there to ask what that menat. The worker says the computer spits out an auto response but she saw in the system that the interview had taken place. So I was not cancelled. Talk about giving me a scare. So nowadays I am a radio listener, play solitaire on the computer, read the bible, go to church, and sit at the library computer reading email, applying for jobs or coming here. Once a week or so I work at Dillards. Well, thanks again. I am going to start searching for another place to live. Cheaper. I may have to store a lot of my furniture.

Thanksgiving is the only day we eat turkey. The rest of the time, give me a roast capon or a duck prepared almost any way at all. DH and I are just not turkey lovers. My niece makes a very fine brined and roasted turkey, but once a year is enough for us. We're sauce and gravy people. Stews, braises, casseroles - we love them. I do a fair amount of cooking and a lot of dining out, and we hold that a fine sauce is a work of art. Even though we eat a lot of steaks and roasts, a great sauce is always to be admired. There are too many bad ones around to not acknowledge when something is done correctly. One of our favorite restaurants does a great poached monkfish. This is the fish known as "the poor man's lobster" for both its taste and texture. It's a great little fish, with wonderful flavor. But nap it with Amoricaine sauce, and it rises to a whole 'nother level. This is a Bretonnese classic, and for good reason. Red wine and marrow Bordelaise on a rib-eye? Absolutely! Black truffle cream sauce on a filet? Yum! Mop that goodness up with a well made starch - roasted fingerling potatoes, barley risotto, fresh pasta, freshly baked bread rolls. Gravy and sauce was the way to extend meat to feed a lot of people. Most of the world still loves sauced dishes as treasured childhood memories. Like soup, they are warmth and comfort, soothing and homey. Chicken strips that are velveted and steamed with lop cheong sausage (classic Chinese technique) are stunningly tender, almost as soft as sous vide but we like the flavor and texture better. Perfect with a roasted garlic-oyster sauce gravy over lots of rice! Far better than stir-frying or roasting. As Charles Phan of The Slanted Door restaurant in SF points out in today's WSJournal, steaming is considered the ultimate test of a professional chef in Asia. Getting back to the NY Times' and Pepin's suggestions for steaming, one of the greatest dishes in Chinese cuisine is steamed sliced chicken breast with thin slices of Hunan ham. My mother introduced me to this dish (she took classes from one of the leading Chinese restaurateurs in San Francisco) and it still ranks with DH and me as one of the three finest poultry dishes we've had in our 45 yrs of dining. A glaze should always be light. Heavy-handedness is the mark of a bad cook. Peking Duck would not be the same without the glaze applied, for example.