Happy (Belated) Thanksgiving

Did you all know that the original London Bridge is in Havasu City, AZ? Isn't that the weirest thing ever? It's even wierder in person. The bridge is actually part of the town (which is right on the edge of the Mohave, near the California border), and residents use it as part of their commute. There's something very strange about standing on that bridge, looking at the missing chunks blown away by Nazi bombs, and watching locals who work at the fake cabannas driving home. The context is just all wrong.

To further confuse things, they've put a carbon copy of the Dixie Belle (that red and white paddle boat on the Mississippi) at the base of the bridge. I suppose that when there are more tourists they offer rides down Lake Havasu.

So, that's where I spent Thanksgiving since tickets home were far too expensive. I stopped in Kingman for Thanksgiving lunch at a diner, and was sent home with an entire homemade pumpkin pie with no charge. It was all quite charming. I may not care for the great state of Arizona, but I have to give it and its people credit for embracing the campy and strange, thus making the mundane more colorful.

Here are the birds outside the diner: they were being given Thanksgiving treats as well:

Pecan Pie

No matter where you stand on the pronunciation of "pecan" (peekan, pecahn, pecaan), you gotta admit, pecan pie is one of the great treats of autumn.

Here's one I made recently:

It's not perfectly pretty, but it tasted good.

Below is my version of the family's pecan pie recipe:
3 eggs
1 cup white Caro syrup (Light works well, too)
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 stick butter
1 rounded tbsp. flour
sprinkle of salt
1 cup pecans

Mix all together, dump in your favorite uncooked pie crust, and stick in a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes.

This filling gets very, very hot. Be careful not to get it on your fingers when pulling out of the oven. Also, you might want to put some tin foil under the pie plate, as it may boil over a wee bit. Nothing is stickier and more difficult to scrub out than pecan pie filling.

Some Pretty Things

I've returned from Kentucky. It was beautiful: lovely gray clouds filtered the light and the trees still had some of their colorful leaves. We drove out to Pikeville to poke around. Did you know that former president Coolidge was made a Colonal in Pikeville during the Civil War? Bet you didn't. I sure didn't, anyway. That's one of the charming things about the South: there are historical markers everywhere you go.

I also got to see Miss Manners speak at a book fair in Frankfort, and saw a drunk nutter drive his car down the railroad tracks, ruining his tires, thus causing him to smack into a parked car. Very exciting.

When I returned I found that it was finally cold enough in Flagstaff to put a real, bona fide quilt on the bed. I had to air it out, as it had been in a cedar trunk for six months or so. Chimallo, HRC (Her Royal Cuteness), decided to take advantage of this, as any sensible cat might.


These are some handmade earrings I bought in Midway, Ky. I know they're quite strange, but I just love them.


The wind-up bird below is named Lucy and her tiny cat magnet friend is named Jacques. My fella got them for me on a day I was feeling down. What a nice guy, huh?


And finally, some skeins of my newly acquired Noro Kureyon (colorway 165, I think) bought from Little Knits for 60% off. It's going to be knit into the Sunrise Circle Jacket. That won't be for a bit, though, as I still have too much Christmas knitting left. All those bright colors are a big step for me, too. I'm more of a grey/brown/black/red kind of gal. I don't think I wore bright pink before ever; not even in the eighties.


Stay tuned for tomorrow's post which will have a pecan pie recipe!

I'm Heading Out

Tomorrow I leave for Kentucky. This is an extravagant trip, as I'm treating myself to a flight out of Flagstaff rather than a flight out of Phoenix. Flagstaff's airport utilizes these tiny prop planes, and the tickets for one of the flights to Phoenix or Denver, the only two cities the airport serves, are astronomical. Personally, I think they should give a discount for the terror that comes from being in such an old, tiny plane at a very low altitude. That, and sometimes these giant gusts of wind come from the mountains at the top of town and slam into the plane. It goes beyond turbulence; it's like a giant trying to bat you out of the sky.

Thing #172 I will not miss about living here is being 150 miles from a "real" airport. In Chicago, where we're moving in Spring, not only will the airport be "real", it will be international. I may never have to fly out of LAX to go abroad again, hallelujah. And there will be oodles of ways to get to the airport, none of this driving three hours to get there crap. It may not sound like much, but if you add it all up you'll see what I mean. Say you have a 6:30 AM flight, because the red-eyes are cheaper. You need to be there by 5:00 AM at least in order to check in, etc. Since the drive takes about two hours and thirty minutes, and you want to add a half hour to accommodate traffic mishaps, you have to leave the house at 2:00 AM. At that point there's no reason to sleep, so the entire event ends up resulting in an all-nighter. Throw in the cost of gas for the drive down and the way up and you've got yourself a major inconvenience.

But back to the reason for this extravagant trip. It's been sunny here with no clouds for over three weeks. I woke up yesterday, saw that blue sky, and had myself a good meltdown. I added up the last three weeks, the month I spent over the summer in a very sunny Tibet, the long, hot summer with almost no monsoon rains, and came to the conclusion that I deserve some clouds. That, and it will be nice to see the family.

I'm debating what to bring on the trip. I'm currently working on the Counterpane Pullover from the Fall 2007 Interweave Knits.

I'm leaning towards that, as it's a Christmas present for my momma and I want to finish it up so I can get on to other handmade presents. The only problem is that if I bring it she might see it, as I'll be visiting with her on this trip.

So I might bring these:

Nice, little fiddly knitting for the plane. And they won't ruin any surprises.

What a Week! and Halloween Fun pt. 2

I'm so glad this week is finally over! I had to take the kiddos at the shelter trick-or-treating on the 31, which was fun and rewarding, but stressful. My assistant's baby got sick, so she had to leave early, it was quite cold, and we ended up having to wait over an hour for a city bus to take us back to the shelter. Bah!

Then I got the worst haircut ever. I won't even talk about it except to say that it will literally take years to recover.

Still, we managed to have some fun. Here are our Halloween decorations. We took the cut out pieces of the Jack-O-Lanterns and made a pumpkin pie. Very economical and environmentally sound. Those jakes are going on the compost heap when their time on the mantle is spent. I got these little saw things to carve pumpkins at the shelter (you know, kids and knives are a bad combo) and they looked so flimsy that I thought they couldn't possibly even puncture the skin. Well, that wasn't the case, clearly. I think these are my most sophisticated Jack-O-Lanterns ever.



I also made some buttermilk corn soup. Sounds gross, but tastes good. Recipe here, thank you Martha. And yes, my soup does have ears and a tail. There's a cat in that bowl.