The Time Sink

If you were able to decode last night's meandering missive, you'll be happy to hear that the plants are finally watered (1800 in the dark, by flashlight), and the tree is up, but illuminatally challenged: one string is out. The bad news is that it's a pre-wired tree; the good news is that it's the top chuck and to slide another string in there may be the best way to go.

Did I mention the kids are off this week? Yep, Shelley's locked out of teaching and locked up with the kids. ...but so far she's managed to get out enough with one or the other that her nerves seem to be at least somewhat intact.

...and this weather pattern is raising havoc with some Winter eating habits! Sure, the fog is in so we can't see to drive much of the time, but that keeps the bitter cold away. ...and how are you supposed to get into a decent bowl of chili with temps in the sixties? Last night Brad had it right with croissants and cold cuts for dinner; even a pizza didn't sound all that good.

...and even thinking of going as far as my "Italian Death" recipe just doesn't work. You can't put that level of carbs and protein into a body when the temps are anywhere about 40!

...and lamb. No, I'd never tried it before (none of us had); but that Brazilian Steakhouse was serving up 'skewers-o-stuff' and lamb was one of the selections that was offered. Shelley and Daniel both declined, but Brad and I went for it. Man, that was some good meat. So maybe when I'm smoking some tri-tip this weekend I'll add in a leg of lamb?

It's a day off here...

Today is lighting day... Yep, the annual 'festival of lights' wherein the front of the house (and portions of the back) are transformed into a Christmas-themed display (remind me to tell you about the Great Inflatable Search). This year Daniel is the ringmaster and I am merely the roadie stringing power cords for the staging. ...which also means I'm not dealing with trying to put lights fifteen feet high in trees (although I suspect I'm the one on the ladder under the eaves once again).

Is it Saturday? Evening? I lost a day somewhere. Oh, yeah, the lights. The lights. The lights. Just think "jungle drums" and you'll be close...

Yes, we got the lights up. Daniel was the project manager and only had to call for "more lights; I need more lights!" once during the event. Me? Even the 'roadie' work was a load and I've spent much of the day in a coma. Well, not during the time Brad and I were barbecuing, but during the runs to the store and to storage to dump of empty boxes and during the games...

Oh, yes, the barbequing... We fired up the smoker this morning and headed over to a local store for tri-tip and some lamb. Brad and I had been wanting to try our luck at that since dinner out last Sunday. We found a 'leg of lamb' (it looked like a smallish 'turkey breast roll' in the string mesh) and hit it with some lemon pepper rub mixed with some salt rub. I put it in the cooler section of the cooking chamber as I had no idea how it would cook against the tri-tip...

It turns out it cooks well with medium tri-tips and out 'best guess' on seasonings turned out very well. After about six hours smoking with the tri-tips using only mesquite we pulled it and let it 'sit' while we ran a couple of the tri-tips over to someone's house for a 'non-turkey' dinnner. By the time we got back the lamb had balanced very nicely and quite frankly was as good as the tri-tip. Daniel and Shelley are still both deferring on that meat, but I think we've found something else to serve when Grandpa drops by next Spring...

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"Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic."
Arthur C. Clarke, "Technology and the Future"

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