I got nothing on my brain. At least that’s what people say. Mmm-hmmm.
I’m welcoming you to the Colorado State Open Thread to share news, thoughts, and whatever else might be on your mind these days.
Today would have have been my wife’s 68th birthday. She had something — likely a heart attack — about eight months ago and passed within a very short time. Likely around 5 minutes or less, and considering what happened, I doubt she knew what was going on or felt any pain. Her son texted me to say he misses his mother and he wished he could tell her that tomorrow he’d be celebrating four years of sobriety. I promised I would announce it here at the house which was where she passed. I have been thinking about her a lot recently. Every time I hear a sound in another part of the house, I almost always think of her first, wondering what she’s doing, and then I realize it’s either one of the animals or the wind creaking the house. I miss her presence more than anything. Knowing someone else is around if I need something or just want to talk. Nearly 20 years of her presence doesn’t just get forgotten. I still use plural adjectives, like “our house”, when describing what is now mine. I’ve been told that I will keep using words like that for a long time.
Things I have on my plans for the next couple of weeks are to keep filling up my bird feeders (so I’m not attacked if I wander out and the feeders are standing empty), my first appearance as Santa for the Tree Lighting ceremony in downtown Estes Park, followed up a week later by the “Catch the Glow” parade through downtown Estes Park the day after Thanksgiving
From last year’s parade. About 20K people came for the parade.
This year, I will be doing nearly all of the events and the woman who played Mrs. Claus for the parade and last year’s Santa will, for the first time in 17 years, be finally able to take off that weekend after Thanksgiving and attend a family reunion that has happened every year.
I also have a number of food events coming up. This Thursday evening I will be participating in a chili cookoff again. Last year I smoked the beef and pork and the peppers but they wound up oversmoked to the point of some charring on the vegetables, but I still tied for 3rd or 4th in the competition. This year I’ll not smoke them as long and hopefully I’ll get a much better, milder smoke.
This Thanksgiving, for the first time in a generation, I will be making the whole feast by myself. I issued a general invitation for up to seven guests from my Newcomers group if they wanted to come over for dinner, but I really do enjoy cooking a turkey, fixings including brandied cranberries, mashed potatoes, stuffing, giblet gravy, at least an apple pie, and maybe a pumpkin pie, and maybe one or two other things. Then I enjoy leftovers for days. I am happy I don’t have to have a “discussion” about my refusal to use a bag to cook the turkey in, which imo makes turkey soup instead of roast turkey. My late wife can make a turkey in whatever afterlife she’s in and she can use a bag and be happy. My task is to figure out whether to roast the turkey in my smoker, actually smoke it (lower temperature and longer time), spatchcock it (Take out the backbone so it can roast flat so it cooks more evenly, deep fry it, or someone said when I had my diary with the beer can chicken earlier this year that they had done a beer can turkey one year. That sounds tempting. If anyone wants to share their tips, tricks or what to avoid doing, please put those down below.
We still have a bit of snow on the ground up here. I would enjoy some more snow. It has seemed to be a rather dry fall and winter so far, even though we’re supposed to get heavy snows this winter. I’m not anxious to have very cold and heavy snow while I have many events as Santa outside, but I think I’d rather have snow than have a dry winter leading to fires next year.
Anyone have any shows they’re attending or participating in this holiday season? They’re doing Handel’s Messiah up here in Estes — not the full production, I understand, but a shorter 2 hour version. I attended the Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s Christmas show a few years back and it was a beautiful production.
Now that you have had a chance to digest the election, are there any races you want to draw our attention to?
This will be a busy couple of months, which then will turn into a busy series at the beginning of next year, but I’ll save talking about that till later. I look forward to seeing how active the Daily Kosacks are planning on being this winter.
This little girl on my lap can now walk and I’ll see her downtown at the parade. Maybe take another photo with her. It would be fun to get one every year as she grows up.
I did hear that the Club Q shooter is not in prison in Colorado anymore, for his safety. He was moved to Wyoming, the Matthew Shepard hate state, to serve the balance of his thousand year sentence.
The floor is yours...
