Livingthedreamwithdiana.com

Merriest of Christmases to all of you.

I know this has been a hard year for some, not for all. For us, here in dream land, it has been wonderful. Thank God.

The politics of the US has been right up there with the CoVid19 pandemic, in terms of the worse things happening in the US this year past. May both get better in the coming year. It could happen.

I have had news, recently, about a few of the folks I used to work with, staff, surgeons, anesthesiologists, that have all had terrible health issues. I am keeping all of you folks in my prayers; families too.

As I said, this year, for us, is the year of famine, as far as “things” go. We only bought one gift for Gabi, and nothing for anyone else. I am going to give my pashmina scarves, 5 of them, to the Garcia women, one for Liz, and Liz’s mom, Alicia, and one for Abelina, Jesús’ aunt, who did a special favor for us. It will be a joy to see their faces when they open them. They are, each, more beautiful than the last one.

We will be here for Christmas, but in Veracruz for the New Year. I’ll post photos as I can, but know that we will be enjoying the heck out of each second we’re there. Can’t wait to move.

Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

Those of you that are working today, thank you so much for what you do, no matter what your job is.

It’s Christmas Eve; such a special time.

We hope all of you are enjoying this time with your families, friends, and loved ones.

Unfortunately for us, the Garcias are all sick with terrible coughs, colds, and the flu. Now that Gabi is in Kinder(garten), he is bringing home all kinds of yuck. They think it’s a change in the weather, but we explained to them the truth; kids spread millions of germs, just by being kids.

I will surmise that the kids don’t wash their hands after sneezing, (a bacterias keen, evolutionary way of spreading itself everywhere), as the staff have not quite the education levels to insist on such things. Nor do they have the time, I suspect.

We’ve not put up any decorations this year, nor have we wrapped any invisible presents we may, or may not have. This is our famine year.

When our kids were growing up, every other year was feast, then famine; it’s the way it was for years. We almost never had two consecutive years of feast. Personally, it made the kids appreciate the things they got all that much more.

As we are so thankful for all of the abundance we have, we routinely give most of it away; especially food. We always seem to have too much food, usually fresh, which becomes, quickly bad. So, before it goes bad, we give it to whomever needs it. Relieves my conscience.

Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

We are virtually mask free down here; in the stores, on the streets, anywhere, and everywhere one looks. How about the states?

There was butter.

Beautiful, soft, almost white homemade butter; half a liter of buttermilk, as well. Buttermilk is nearly impossible to find here in Mexico. All I have to do now is remember all of the things I wanted to do with said buttermilk.

I think I will freeze it for now, and defrost it later, when I remember what I would use it for.

Now that I know how easy it is to make homemade butter, plus, the advantage of making buttermilk as well, I will probably remember what I wanted to make, and be able to make it whenever I want.

As soon as I remember what it was.

Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

Pronounced bah-cah-LAH-oh, it’s a cod dish that originated in the Mediterranean part of the world. It is absolutely delicious.

It’s a dish that is usually prepared at Christmas time, as a special treat, as it takes several days to prepare. Making it is quite an undertaking that’s worth every minute.

Bacalao, the cod, comes salted, and in 2 liter containers, needing to be rinsed, and soaked over a 48 hour period, changing the water at least 3 times a day. By the end of all of the that, the water is no longer salty, and it’s ready to shred.

There are a lot of ingredients needed for this stew, and we are making enough to take with us to Los Altos for the New Year. We have, coming today, 2 liters of small white potatoes, 2 liters of Roma tomatoes, and 2 bunches of parsley. We already have the chiles, (chile güero, or Santa Fe chile), onion, garlic, red, and yellow bell peppers, olives, capers, (alcaparras), and the cod. We (I) just have to shred the desalinated cod, remove all of the bones, and we’ll be ready to go. Sounds like a lot of work to me.

It ended up looking like this.

Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

The state of Guerrero, to the Southwest of us, just got hit with at least a 7, maybe stonger, earthquake.

Fortunately for me, at least, I was notified by an app I have on my phone, and iPad Pro called SASSLA. Obviously, it is an alerting app that warns us of seismic activity in the entire country. So far, though, only the state of Guerrero has experienced quake, after quake.

Probably doesn’t mean a lot to any of you folks, but down here, well, you can see, it’s less than an hour Northwest of Acapulco. They are getting hammered by all of the activity.

This was the first earthquake I have actually experienced, start to finish, sitting down. I was sitting on my glider, in the bedroom, when my alarms went off. I silenced both the phone, then the computer, (YKW was sleeping. Didn’t want to wake him unless needed.), and started counting; the alarms told me we had 41 seconds before we would feel it. They were spot on.

The dogs in the area all started barking, at about 30 seconds; that’s when I knew it was going to happen. The dogs are never wrong.

As I got to the final 5 seconds, my glider started moving backwards, and forwards, gently, at first. The chimes in the laundry area started clanging; I could hear them from the bedroom. As the quake intensified, so did the motion of the glider. Strange, though, that the alarm outside, in the park, never went off. Hmmm.

If you’ve never experienced an earthquake, I have to tell you, it is the strangest sensation I have ever felt. It feels as if you are drunk, trying to stagger from one place to another, looking for safety. The entire floor, where you are standing, starts to move out from underneath you.

While standing, your first inclination is to remain standing, but your entire frame of reference is gone. The step you want to take forward, ends up being sideways. Your orientation is completely confused. While you wait for the world to right itself, all you can do is

Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

The wind chimes, and the dogs, are still, and silent. As well, most of the residents here must have slept through it as there is no shouting, or talking in the garage below us. Me? I’m sending word to all of you that we are fine.

Post script: it has been registered as a 6. Another one was just declared, and is in progress, in Guerrero. Probably the aftershock.

Season 8 of The Blacklist!!

Available now on Netflix. Here. Without interruption.

Yee haw.

Of course, I need to watch most of season 7,again, in order to remember what the heck is going on, but, such a sacrifice is worth my time.

Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

This is what a culling looks like from my closet.

I am giving away about a dozen, at least, tops that no longer fit, as well as about 7 pairs of slacks. Ugh.

So depressing, if I cared the least about how heavy I’ve gotten. My husband likes the feel of me now, at my age, now that I have “grown into my body”, as he likes to say. We laugh because when we were young, I always thought of myself as fat. Now that I am fat, I don’t see it, until I go to the shower. Then, a naked me has to walk in front of the bathroom mirror.

It’s a lying bastard, that’s all I can think. I’m sure I haven’t gotten that big. Ok, I have, but, as long as he still loves me, that’s all I care about.

He is helping me dress appropriately to my size, and, more importantly, to my age. In my mind I’m still in my 50’s; chronologically, however, I’m 67 1/2. I am slowly coming to accept that fact. Slowly.

While I come to grips, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves. Please.

Finally.

We brined said Tomás in a mixture of apple cider, (obtained with a bit of difficulty), lemons, limes, mandarins, onions, garlic, rosemary, thyme, black peppercorns, brown sugar, and, of course, salt. Here’s a photo.

He swam in the brine, in a lovely, controlled 35ºF refrigerator, for 36 hours, then went into a lovelier hot, 375ºF oven, for about 2 hours. Half of the breast made it upstairs, to Liz, and Jesús, and the other half is in a foil wrapped blanket in our fridge, anxiously awaiting our enjoyment.

Nothing much else to tell you. We ate a box of Stove Top stuffing, forgot the cranberry sauce, and the sweet potatoes, but will put everything together, one of these days.

We also made a beautiful stock with all of the vegetables, and turkey neck, giblets, etc.. The breast was moist, tender, and the skin was a rich, deep brown. Can’t wait.

We will make some mole, eventually, that will, hopefully, knock our socks off, if we wore socks.

Hope all of you enjoyed your holidays thus far; I know we have. Going to the forever home for the Christmas/New Year. Can’t wait.

Will also be getting my haircut while there. Can’t wait.

Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves. Maybe, someday, we can consider the use of masks a thing of the past.

We have had too much time to think about the final disposition of Tomás.

We have changed how we are going to finish him off; how much of him to brine now, and freeze for later; what parts to to freeze in the brine, or not; what to roast for our “dinner”; well, you get the idea.

As of tonight, we are thinking about brining everything, individually, in ziplock bags, roasting 1/2 of the breast, and one leg, and thigh, freezing the rest in its brine.

There is so much differing information on the internet about freezing meat in its brine, however, most of it says that it stops the brining process until it is thawed before use.

The cream of mushroom soup came today, I am sure you wanted to know that. The canned green beans, come tomorrow, so that’s going to be ready to go. Corn on the cob is frozen, in the freezer, obviously; and the cranberry sauce came last week. Now, we are just waiting for the apple cider, and veg to be delivered tomorrow, and the brine will be made.

Can’t wait.

Hope things turn out as well as we hope they will.

Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

No such thing here.

A quick update on Tomás. I cut him into sections this morning, about 4:00 am. Put him, and his parts into our roasting pan, and another casserole dish, covered him in foil, and put him back in the fridge to finish thawing out. He is still so frozen, I could hardly cut him up.

All of the fruits, and veg. we need for the brine, and sides are coming tomorrow sometime, so we should be able to have roasted turkey, et al, by this Thursday. he was still full of ice.

Probably doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that the fridge is almost empty, and is set at 35ºF, do you suppose?

Hope everyone is happy, healthy, and safe. Don’t forget to wash, cover, and protect yourselves.