I made it through all of the grading and message sending at probably 3 a.m. this morning. This followed a sensible “Don’t stay up too late” missive, which I dutifully acknowledged and then ignored, because there is copy editing to do!
Which was great because soon after a student helpfully sent me a note explaining that one of the links I shared was busted. Stupid hyphen. (New band name! Called it first!)
Check your work, check your work, I have said at least 64 times a year to students for the last 18 years. And the one time I didn’t check my work, because it was late … I 404ed someone. Just great.
I am mortified.
Anyway, the link got fixed this morning. Other emails will come and go and I will do my best with them all, and hopefully the instructions and advice I offered my classes will be useful and well received and acted upon in a timely fashion.
Here’s a great Christmas tree!
No, there is not an angle you can shoot this from to not get a building of some sort in a background, somewhere. You can make the complete circle, 360 degrees, and no one has figured out a place to put this with a clear backdrop, or at least an iconic one, for the Insta.
The foreground matters more, anyway. Look who’s in that ornament!
I look forard to smiles like that. Ornament smiles are great smiles.
My mother said there was no need to spend all day making a meal that we’d eat for just a few minutes, when we could just visit and enjoy the day together, instead. And this reasonable idea worked for everyone. Since I knew we were taking her to the Malaysian restaurant — now on the short list for a James Beard award, by the way — and I saw that they were offering a Thanksgiving carryout dinner, we thought we’d give it a try. It was a good choice.
Our takeaway Thanksgiving dinner was tasty this evening. The only thing that went wrong were the re-heating directions, which underestimated the amount of time a de-boned, stuffed duck needed to reach the appropriate temperature after sitting overnight at 38 degrees. But we managed. And this version of the classic Chinese Eight Treasure Duck was tasty. The leek and herb stuffing made the whole thing. I would enjoy this again.
We also had a kale with pomegranate tahini dressing, Wagyu fat mashed potatoes with duck gravy, and a surprisingly tasty root vegetable tart.
For dessert, my lovely bride made a peach crumble, from our own peach tree.
Even in our small group of three, we enjoyed a family continuity. We sat at the dining room table that my grandparents bought for my mother, which has since been handed down to me. Above us there was a picture of my great-grandparents’ home, framed from some of the wood salvaged from that old place. Behind me sat some of the other small lived things that have made up the memories of our lives. Not just mine, or even my mother’s, but also some of the items that have come to The Yankee over the years.
This weekend we’ll mark 18 months in our new home, which means, for me, 18 months of introspection about the details of homes and the lives lived in them. This is our second Thanksgiving here. Last year we hosted my in-laws. And so now we’re having our second Thanksgiving guest. Two successful Thanksgivings. And this, repetition and pleasant memories, are how traditions form.
I think about that a lot in this house, which raised a family of five for two decades before the previous owners’ children flew from the nest. They’re everywhere in this house, of course, and they should be. And now, slowly, then suddenly, so are we.
I have no idea, of course, about how that family marks Thanksgiving. Being sentimental, I wish I did know. Incorporation is how traditions grow. But whatever those people do, I hope they’ve had a fine time doing it this week, as well. And I hope you have had a fine time in keeping your traditions, as well.
Even when the menu changes, when the locations move, or the guest list is altered, traditions can continue. Traditions are intentional. Traditions are in the spirit of things.
In last night’s rain there were great rumbles. The rain fell in such volume and for so long that I walked through the basement to be assured there was no seepage. (There was none.) And then there was a great big, deep boom. The walls shook. The windows rattled. You could feel it in your chest.
I dug up a lightning map and found recorded lightning strikes all over the place. One was about 1.16 miles away, off to the left of the house as I type. But there was another one, just a half-mile away, and to my immediate front from where I am sitting. And maybe it seems silly, but it felt the energy and the sound came from that direction.
That lightning struck in the fields just behind one of the farmhouses, and if the people that live there were home last night it probably scared them to death, too. Today, we drove by there and, for the briefest glimpse it looks like you can see a big scorch mark in the earth.
This is not the closest I’ve been to a lightning strike. Once, several years ago, we were in a restaurant where a power pole outside took a hit. I happened to be facing that way. Everything turned green for a moment. On a map, we were probably sitting about 115 feet from that one, which was intimidating enough.
Not all lightning strikes are created the same, of course, and I would hazard a guess that the one last night was more powerful. There’s such a thing as a superbolt, which meteorologists and physicists estimate can transmit 10 billion and 1 trillion watts of electrical power, but they’re rare. So there’s variety. The one last night was a lot more powerful than my restaurant experience.
I read once that one of my great-grandfathers was hit by lightning. Or, at least, a man with his name. (How many Horaces could there be in one newspaper’s coverage area at any given time?) Whoever it was, the man was walking through his field on a Friday evening in the summer of 1959, the community correspondent wrote, and he was knocked down, but was not seriously hurt. We’ll never know, but I’m guessing he was close to a strike. And it probably wasn’t like the one we experienced last night that felt like an earthquake.
That’s a shot from puttering around in the backyard. We’re just about at the end of the season for puttering around in the backyard, I fear.
Because of the drought and the dryness of everything we haven’t used the fire pit the first time this fall. I keep accumulating fuel for the pit. I need to burn some of it. So I’m wondering, what is the precise window for this? Cool enough to enjoy a fire, not so cold to suffer while having to get one started?
It says here, 45 degrees. So maybe in the daytime, then. It may be nighttime temps like that. It got to 40 degrees last night. Who wants to set up tender and kindling when it is five degrees below the ideal temperature to do so? Especially when it’s nice and warm, inside, just 70 feet away.
photo / Thursday — Comments Off on Anyone else need anything assessed? 14 Nov 24
The grading continued throughout the day. And then, finally, at just about dinner time, it was completed. That’s four classes worth of assignments, which I somehow managed to stretch into three solid days of grading.
I really should get more efficient with that.
Anyway, a few photos to mark the passing of the day.
I stepped outside for a few minutes to take a little break and accomplish something other than filling out rubrics and saw that this tree is once again too ambitious by about four months.
Maybe that’s just the way of it. I think I noticed this same thing on the same tree last year, though. I’ll have to pay attention the leaves next year to see what kind of tree it is, so I can look into this. Some mysteries are worth the seasons.
I put a blinky on a cup. We’re putting blinkies on all of the things.
I do not know why, but it could be that I’m getting a little punchy.
I made a Christmas present today. Can’t be talked about. You never know who reads this stuff. And another present arrived. Ssssh, don’t tell anyone.
Christmas? I am in no way prepared for the Christmas season. I never really am. But it doesn’t seem like that time of the year should be sneaking up on us. It never really should. But all of this happens every year.
If I wrote about that today, what would I do in the next six weeks? I should get back to grading, anyway.
I started the week with 148 items to grade, and I’ll finish those up tonight. It’ll be a fury. Or a flurry. It’ll probably be fuzzy.
Let’s return to the Re-Listening project. In the car, I am playing all of my old CDs in the order of their acquisition. And I’m writing about them here, occasionally, to pad out days like today. These aren’t music reviews, because who needs that. But they are sometimes a good excuse to dredge up a memory or two. They’re always an excuse to put some good music here.
And this good music is from Will Hoge. He’s from Nashville, and he fits the overlapping areas of Americana and country these days, but his debut was pure blue bar rock ‘n’ roll. He had a band that almost made it, then toured the South as a solo act with a supporting band. Dan Baird stood there and played guitar next to him, so it was basically a coronation. Carousel came out in 2001, and this song broke speakers all over alt rock stations.
I loved it immediately, it was the frenetic pace, the driving rhythm section, the desperate way he was screaming out the lyrics. Hey, it was 2001, but it was five or six years before I picked up this record.
It’s a debut album, which is great, but also limited. He was still growing into his craft. And I’ve yet to see him live, but it looks like a good time.
Here’s the title track.
Somehow, this was one of those CD mixes, one with a provenance I’ve forgotten. But whoever made this did me a real solid, or maybe I knew what I was doing, because there are five live Will Hoge tracks tacked onto the back, including this phenomenal Bill Withers cover.
He’s got a peppy little version of “Mess Around” that apparently no one has ever uploaded to the web. I’m not saying this version of the song being online would solve the web’s problems, but we can’t disprove it, either.
And there’s a sweaty bar version of one of the other key songs from this record, one I didn’t share earlier because I wanted to put it right here, in a live version worth hearing, in all of its clangy, brassy, Telecaster glory.
Since then Will Hoge has put out 13 more records, and I’m going to introduce his music to a relative soon, because some things just need to be passed down.
One day I’ll even get to see him play. He is doing some touring right now, just not close by. (Update: Turns out he was here about three weeks ago, and I had no idea. Come back, Will!)
The next time we return to the Re-Listening Project, we’ll go all the way back to 1992. This was a CD I picked up to finally replace an old cassette and I guarantee you that every time I’ve listened to it, I’ve wondered why I waited so long to do that. It’s going to be a great listen.
