“Remoted” Day 255 (Thursday – Thanksgiving!)

The Thanksgiving Holiday began Wednesday night with YouTube videos of old football games from the Fitchburg-Leominster Thanksgiving football rivalry. There was a video from 1930 that had some really cool winter coats and views of Crocker Field, downtown, and the high school building of the early 1930s before it burned down. The video from the November 1978 game had crowd shots with people I recognized, and the 100^th playing of the game in 1983 had entertaining and illuminating clips with the cheer squads, candid interviews with people at the mall, and local commercials that were pretty funny. One of the commercials featured my old boss from my first stint in banking in an IRA ad, and the old "IT" Instant Teller ads were a real blast from the past.

This morning included network TV airings of highlights of past Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parades, the last few episodes of the series I was watching on Prime, and back-to-back Hallmark Christmas movies. Boy, it’s been ages since I watched “regular tv” with commercials and now I remember why I prefer streaming Prime and Netflix. I've seen at least a dozen different pharmaceutical ads today.

Christmas decorating commenced with the hanging of the wreath on the front door, then promptly stopped for the day. Technically speaking, the decorating started back in January with the one forgotten ornament that stayed out on a shelf in the bookcase all year. It’s a silver colored wire tree with a wire star on top, and tiny red and green ornaments and glitter. Tomorrow is a vacation day with no plans, so maybe the decorating will resume then. Or not. It’s nice to have options.

Lobster pie and veggies.

The food portion of the day included a very easy lobster pie, using melted butter and half and half poured over the lobster and baked 15 minutes, then topped with cracker crumbs and melted butter and baked for 5 more minutes. It was the perfect combination of easy, quick, and all the ingredients sat in the pantry. The lobster came in a box pre-cooked and frozen, and the hardest part was last night with calculating the thawing of the lobster. The package said in two locations to “thaw in refrigerator immediately before using,” and that was it. The same packaging included instructions in six highly detailed steps on how to make a lobster roll, including precisely how to butter and grill the roll and how to spread the mayo on the roll before adding the lobster meat. But it required a visit to the company website to find out how long it takes to thaw the frozen lobster in the refrigerator "immediately before using," which was noted on the website, buried deep in a FAQ and was 16 to 24 hours. I might be wrong, but that seems like a more appropriate and important message for the package. 

There were brussels sprout and carrots, roasted the other day, and leftover apple crisp to round out the menu. Later, it was Ben & Jerry’s Blackberry Marscapone ice cream, which will not be bought again any time soon. The description, “blackberry and marscapone ice cream with shortbread chunks and chocolate covered almonds,” sounded a lot better than it actually tastes. There was a touch of regret over not sticking with tried and true favorites like Cherry Garcia or Phish Food. Sorry Ben, sorry Jerry, this is going on your permanent record with the equally gross Coffee Caramel Fudge non-dairy flavor abomination of the summer.

The day was lazy and leisurely and, beyond the less than exciting ice cream, the only other disappointment of the day was that it went by much too quickly. One minute I was drinking morning coffee, and in a blink it was 4:00 and then it was night.