WTF-Beta

He did a few humorous things for TikTok

NYTimes, WSJ, Atlantic, New Yorker, Harpers, New York Review of Books - dropped Washington Post.

HOAs frequently have rules about the number and placement of Dougs within the community.

My spouse likes it cool... Thermostat is set at 60, but our living room not infrequently gets into the upper 50s. I want to knit sweaters for our birds. One gets used to it. I do wear fleeces - have a flotilla of them from lightly warm to the point where a couple of them are as warm as a medium weight coat. Winter is easy.

What's challenging are the summer months when my spouse wants to think of our home as a very large refrigerator.

@DougG said in The end of an era:

wow, you must be really old.

But congratulations. I have really enjoyed retirement the two or three times I’ve done it.

You're just afraid of having too much time alone with a banjo.

Up at 3:15... Of course, that's not the whole story as prep has been going on for a while. Mrs. Kluurs took off yesterday to do prep as well. House organizing, prepping has gone on for a while.

We have written a quite detailed SOP for Thanksgiving. This has helped limited arguments discussions of how much soda, food, wine, etc. are needed the SOP documents what was used last year, amount left over, suggestions for improvement for the following year, etc. It is now at 3 pages of detail.

The reason for the 3:15 rise was to make sure the bird was fully prepped and ready for the roaster. In days of yore, we'd used our convection oven - but the last couple of years we've used an electric roaster as that frees up the oven for all kinds of things.

We'd had the roaster on the back porch in past years - but given outdoor the predicted outdoor temp and the hurricane level of wind predicted for today, we opted to place the roaster in the basement. Spouse doesn't like cooking bird smells in the house - but hopefully the hurricane winds oozing through the house - along with the basement location will limit the aroma from being noticeable.

We have a 19 lb bird in the roaster - slightly smaller than past years but the main bird is supplemented by 3 lb turkey breast which will go in the air fryer - to ensure turkey supremacy. In some years my spouse, in her zest for friendliness has given away ALL of the turkey to her relatives for leftovers. As a result, I've ended up cooking a turkey the day AFTER Thanksgiving.

Our dining room can comfortably sit 10 - so it was ordained that we have 13 people attending. Thus, there is the infamous "kids" table - and propitiously, there are kids.

I've conveniently positioned chairs in front of the stereo monitor speakers - hoping to protect them from destruction. Horror stories on internet abound with children and adults tearing the tweeter off the speaker, assuming it is meant to be abused - a $1,500-$2,000 mistake we hope to avoid. A substantial amount of art and art-like objects have been removed from key rooms so as to minimize insurance liabilities.

Festivities reach their apex at about 2:00 this afternoon - and hopefully, we chase the last of the attendees out the door about 6:00. We then have the rest of the night to restore some of the order to the house - and sleep the sleep of the damned.

Yup - we changed our cartridge last week. Congrats on the success.

Yeah, I work out more than most people - at any age - and yet...I know I have to be much more careful. A good friend who works out 2-3 hours a day - missed a step and broke both legs when he stumbled down a single step.

dang...so sorry...this all sounds painful and frustrating as hell. Yeah, we're mostly at that point in life where a combination of fragility and coordination make us more prone to injury. Eventually, we get good at dealing with it - but still frustrating.

@DougG said in Will you be able to get a COVID vaccine?:

@kluurs

Ken- always with a snappy comebacks. how did he come up with that in only two months?

Some things are worth waiting for. Not saying, my witty retorts qualify - but just noting that some things are worth waiting for.

@DougG said in Will you be able to get a COVID vaccine?:

I hope the fact that I still look 28 years old doesn’t prevent me from being eligible.

That's the benefit of a February 29 birthday.

I've posted this pianist before - here playing her transcription of Paint it Black by the Rolling Stones. I've never seen anyone sit like this - and how she doesn't fall is a good question.

One of the sins of my old age?? Ok, many sins - but one I enjoy is putting on headphones connected to my iPhone and I play a piece that I'm working on with an artist I admire. For example, I learned the first contrapunctus from Bach's Art of Fugue - and played it with Glenn Gould and Charles Rosen. With the music in front of me, and listening/seeing what they're doing as I'm playing the keys, I find interpretive ideas that I missed when just listening to the music - or even things that are on the page that I may have missed or in some cases, the artist himself ignores - to a very positive result. Another piece I play - the Brahms Op 117 #2 was recorded by Brahms's favorite student - Carl Friedberg. Playing the piece with him - is playing it probably as close to what Brahms intended as is feasible - very helpful.

I didn't do this when I was studying with a teacher - but recordings did inform my playing. I remember working on Scarlatti sonata. As I played one of the ornaments a certain way, my teacher asked me why I did it that way. He said he had Juilliard student also playing the same work and she did the inverse of what I was playing. He noted that she'd researched performance practices at the library and found this to be the preferred way. I said, " I listened to Kenneth Gilbert's performance - as he had edited all of the Scarlatti sonatas - as well to Gustav Leonhardt and Vladamir Horowitz who all played it this way..." He smiled and said - "good enough for me."

@DougG said in Breakfast Cereals:

I’ve been skipping breakfast for a bit more than 10 years now and it suits me pretty well. (I dislike when people call it. Intermittent fasting. I am not fasting, I just eat at different times.)

The only exception is when I’m traveling for work and the hotel has a free breakfast buffet. all bets are off then….

Reminds me of an Amish group that experienced a similar tragedy and did a similar act.

@DougG said in She looks pretty damned good for 116:

So, she’s single?

Robbing the cradle...

Phooey! I hope you feel better soon. I would have thought that you aren't exposed to the crowds that city folks are - and thus, would be less likely to encounter a bad bug. I guess it goes to show, don't take anything for granted. I will schedule my shot.

Sad to hear - hope you're feeling better soon - and see if any doc in the boxes are available.