Now In Stores!

 

I got an email from DIL1 today saying that Zambaldi Beer's Good Dog Porter is now available in Festival Foods in Green Bay.  DS spent hours and hours at the brewery this week getting the bottling line up and running, and bottling the Porter and Yard Games IPA.  It's exciting to see and will, I think, help them weather the winter in better shape.  Fingers crossed.

Here's the other mound of chrysanthemums that are blooming.  I can't decide if this copper color is my favorite or if yesterday's coral red is.  What the heck, I like them both.

 

 The tree at the end of the street is changing colors.  The red is so vivid in the sunshine
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Tonight at Friday Night Knitting, Zoom edition, I finished the 22 rounds of the body of the Warm Tweed Hat.  Next comes the crown decreases which is when I learn whether I'll have enough yarn or have to open up a second skein.  I have a suspicion that I'll get a couple rounds from the center and have to add in, like, two yards to finish.  That will be a pain.  Watch, the closer I get to finishing the fast I'll knit which has no bearing on having enough to finish but I do it every time I'm playing yarn chicken.  I finished the second mitten with less than two yards of yarn left.  My fingers were flying at the end.

 

 

02 October--Barbara Malcolm, Better Than Mom's. 

She was surprised when she stepped inside to hear the four man, well, three men and one woman, combo playing Stardust.  As soon as Norman had closed the door and heard the music too, he grabbed her hand and twirled her into his arms. 

“Let’s dance,” he said to the surprised woman he held, “Stardust is one of my favorites.” 

Even with her purse swinging out and back slapping her in the side Fay enjoyed it.  She could tell Norman was a good dancer.  She also realized that she was learning a lot about Officer Norman Bates just being in his arms.  He was light on his feet, graceful even, he smelled really nice and the way his hand felt holding hers, with the other resting lightly just under her shoulder telegraphed how he was feeling about being there with her.  As the song ended Norman swung them around, holding her closer than he had, and bent her backward in a dip.  Couples who had been listlessly swaying back and forth alongside them stepped away from them as if they were about to spring—or fall, but Norman gently lifted Fay back to her feet, his hands caressing her shoulders before letting go to join in the applause.  The combo leader announced a break, so everyone left the floor, Norman steered Fay toward the hostess who was standing at her station, a pair of menus in her hands, staring at them as if she didn’t quite understand what they were doing. 

When they reached her Norman said, “Sorry but I can’t resist Stardust.  It just begs you to dance to it.” 

The teenaged girl just nodded and said, “Okay.  Two?”  She led them to a table in the small dining room off the bar, plunked down the menus at the seats across from each other, and said, “Mom, um, Beth will be your waitress.”  Then she turned and left, shaking her head as if she were thinking, grownups.

Norman pulled Fay onto the dance floor once more before their dinners came.  She couldn’t believe her eyes at the bounty of food their waitress brought.  There was a cup of good homemade French onion soup topped with a slab of baguette toasted and hidden under melted Swiss cheese to start.  Then came a tossed salad made with mixed greens and a light Balsamic vinaigrette.  Their entrée of tenderloin, the dish the place was famous for, looked to Fay like she was being served the entire tenderloin, not just a slice.  The meat was cooked to perfection and rested on a bed of sautéed mushrooms, not a white button in view.  When Fay declined a potato, their waitress asked if she was interested in the vegetable of the day.  When told that it was parsnips, Fay wasn’t sure she would like them, but agreed to try them.  She couldn’t believe her eyes when the plate of them was set down next to her.  

“I didn’t order fries,” she said to the waitress. 

“They’re not potato fries,” Beth said, “they’re parsnip fries.  Give them a try.”  She nudged the plate closer to Fay’s hand. 

Fay looked at Norman who had ordered the parsnips too to see him smiling like she was going to uncover a secret.  She shrugged and picked one up. 

“Careful,” Beth said, “they’re really hot.”  Fay gingerly bit the tip of the parsnip fry she held.  The inside was creamy and firm at the same time; the outside was crunchy and had some mild herbs on it.  The whole thing was heavenly.

Fay pushed her empty plate away.  “I am stuffed,” she said. “Do they think they are feeding field hands?” 

Norman laughed.  “Of course, they do.  This is farm country.  Almost everybody is a field hand or something.  People work hard, they have to eat to keep up their strength.”

Fay looked around at the room.  Dim lights around the ceiling illuminated pine paneling dotted with stuffed deer and moose heads interspersed with a bear roaring down at the laughing diners.  Sometimes over, sometimes under the hum and laughter Fay heard the jazzy strains of the band.

They found a table in the bar and spent the rest of the evening dancing to nearly every song.

Today's toss was yarn.  A garbage bag full of yarn that I know I'll never get around to knitting.  If we could meet in person I'd take it to Friday Night Knitting and let them take what they wanted before donating the remains but since we're not meeting in person it's all going straight to Goodwill.

I went to the pharmacy this morning at 11 o'clock for an appointment to get a flu shot and the first of the shingles vaccine shots.  He shot one in each arm so they both hurt.  Dandy.  And I have a bit of a shivery feeling.  I always have a small reaction to the flu shot, nothing extravagant, but enough to be aware of it for a day or two.  Also dandy.

--Barbara