The Second Law of Thermodynamics, Gingerbread Style

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Doing Some Hybrid Shopping

This morning I successfully did some Christmas shopping. It wasn't so successful in terms of finding exactly what I wanted, but it was more importantly successful in terms of being able to get in and out of the stores before the hoards of people descended upon them. It's one benefit of living near a very nice shopping center - it makes it easier to be there extra early.

It is true that I didn't exactly find what I wanted. I did however get some ideas to help me in my new form of shopping. I call it "hybrid" shopping. It's not 100% brick and mortar, and not 100% online, but somewhere in between. Perhaps we could call it "brick and line". Or..."on-mortar" (which makes me think, "Now, Dasher! Now, Dancer! Now, Prancer, and Vixen! On, Comet! On, Cupid! On, Mortar and Blitzen!") Or...not.

I just like that I can do a lot of the shopping legwork online to find out product details and reviews, and even what store currently has it in stock, if I'm lucky. Or like today, when I wanted a specific item, but a store only had a brand of it that I had never heard of, I could come home and look up whether that's a good product or not. Then I could run back and get it this afternoon...if I could manage to keep my children away from the computer for the time that it takes me to look it up.

Of course, what kind of shopper you are completely depends on how long you wait to do your Christmas shopping. If I did my shopping in a timely fashion, I would probably be a 100% online shopper. But I'm not. So I'm a hybrid shopper...for about 48 more hours. At which time I will be forced to morph into a 100% desperate brick and mortarer.

Let's just hope I can get it done during "hybrid hours". It just sounds like a lot more fun that way.

photo by Brandy Shaul (Creative Commons License: Attribution, Non-Commercial)
Open on Flickr

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A New Turkey Story

In honor of the fast-approaching Thanksgiving holiday, today I bring you a turkey story. Of course, I have already told one turkey story, but it turns out that I have more.

Actually, I have two turkey tales. One is about the time that Jason and I (living in Prague) carried a frozen turkey with us on an overnight train all the way to Bulgaria. We were visiting our friends the Masseys for Thanksgiving. They could not could buy turkeys there for some reason, so we brought one along in a cooler. It turned out to be a very agreeable traveling companion, and a very tasty meal.

My second turkey story is another overseas story. One of our last Thanksgivings in Prague, we decided we would make a traditional holiday meal for our little family. As you might imagine, it is not easy to find your typical Thanksgiving fixings in a central European city. However, I had caught word in the expatriate rumor mill that they were selling fresh turkeys at the local Tesco store. So off I went, boys in tow, to buy us a turkey. When I arrived, I couldn't see any fresh turkeys at all behind the meat counter, so I approached the counter and asked after one. I already knew the Czech word for turkey - or rather the words for turkey. If it's a male bird, it's krocan. If it's female, it's kruta. I didn't really think it mattered, until the butcher asked me which one of those I wanted.

At this, I was completely flummoxed. Ummm, did it matter? And if it did matter, which one did I want? I might at first thought assume that a male bird might be tougher, and a female bird perhaps...plumper, but I wasn't really sure. Some females can be pretty tough, and of course males can be...plump.

Well, in the end it didn't really matter, because he didn't have any fresh ones that day anyway, and wouldn't have any more until after the holiday. He directed me to the frozen fowl section instead.

There I found an assortment of frozen birds, but they all seemed rather small. I'm had my desired kilogram range all figured out ahead of time, but none of those scrawny birds were making the cut. As a result, I decided I would just get two small birds, and then we would surely have enough.

Ahhh, the joys of living where you have to use another language. When I got home, the Official Turkey Preparer (Jason) was aghast to discover what it was that I had actually bought. Yes, it turkey, but I had missed that one little Czech word - pulka. Pulka means "half" in Czech, which means that I had bought two halves of turkeys. Presumably from two different birds, although I'm not sure what that mattered. I can tell you that Official Turkey Preparer was truly all aflutter over this development - something about keeping the bird moist while cooking and all.

Well, I thought about the problem for a bit, and then decided that surely we could make the best of what we had. So I just placed the halves side by side in a big pan and pulled their skin up and together. Then I did my best to "sew" them together using toothpicks. I would stick the toothpick through the two layers of skin and then out again, like you would pin fabric together. Come to think of it, I don't know why I didn't just use safety pins, or even sew them together with some white embroidery floss. I'm not sure it would have made a difference.

Well, the turkey turned out just fine, and after hours of preparation and general turkey angst, the boys finished their fancy holiday meal in about 8.9 minutes. I'm sure, however, that the turkey wasn't as moist and delicious as Jason might have hoped. It just goes to prove that just as two wrongs don't make a right, two turkey halves don't make a full bird.

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The Trash Can Costume

We had a pleasant Halloween experience this weekend. Well, pleasant except for the last-minute costume making, but who can I blame for that but myself?

Jacob decided several weeks ago that he wanted to be a trash can for Halloween. I'm really not sure where this idea originated from, but once he decided, he was set on it. I think part of the motivation was that he wanted to hide in the trash can and then jump out and scare people when they came up to it. Or perhaps he was hoping for a trashcan full of candy, but either way, he was determined that this the only thing he wanted.

Of course, I worked on his costume the way I work on most projects, which means I waited until the day before the event to even start thinking about it. A quick Internet search came up with some ideas, and the day before I sent Jason out for a plastic Rubbermaid can. The morning of I took out my trusty heavy duty scissors, a utility knife, some duct tape, and some odd nuts and bolts. A few hours later we had this finished product:

The person beside Jacob is his friend Josh, and I'm kind of glad that he's incognito here, since I certainly didn't ask his parents if I could put his picture on the blog.

The truth is that Jacob wore the lid/hat for about 10 seconds longer after this picture was taken. For some reason he just didn't like the tight elastic under his chin choking him.

The costume was very well-received and received many comments during the evening, but I think that's because it just stood out from the Walmart costume crowd. A stranger even asked to take his picture as we were trick-or-treating later in the evening. Jacob did say that there were some disadvantages to it, though, as people (that we knew) kept throwing trash at him. Plus one person suggested that he might be dressed as white trash, and others were guessing Oscar the Grouch, which of course was not correct.

In the end, Jacob didn't meet either of his costume goals, or at least the ones I imagine he might have had. We had to cut a hole in the bottom of the can for him be able to wear it, so any candy (or trash) thrown in there fell right through. Plus, he found that he was unable to scrunch down and hide in the trash can without getting his legs stuck, severely inhibited his ability to jump out and scare people. At best he could just topple over and lie on the ground calling for help, body wedged in tight, and feet waving out the bottom. Scary, no. Funny, yes

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