SURPRISE!

 

Fresh from the oven yesterday, a loaf of Chocolate Chip Banana Bread.

Judy said it ought to be called "cake" rather than "bread".

But she (and I) liked it!

THE FRIDAY FUNNIES

Here we go again, another year of ridiculously ribald and rambunctiosly rakish roars from my retinue of chucklemeisters.

In other words the Friday Funnies as sent by my Humor Elves.

It's all sunshine here in Arizona in early 2025 so let's begin the race toward 2026!

Now that's just not nice.

Let's help out with a couple of health reminders.

Oh wow, that water is hot!

Gee!

Some people just can't get over the holidays, I guess.

Let's forget them and take a trip back to the Olden Days.

I can hear it all the way here.  

You're groaning.

Well, let's see if the Trekkies have any wisdom for us.

Okay, I hear you, I'll stop.

Now I don't know about food and wine after what seems like weeks and months of fine dining or just overloading our plates, but do whatever you can to have a great, normal weekend.

And always remember to keep laughing!

Here, kitty-kitty . . .

( . . . oh, man, everyone has to get into the act . . . )

A NEW YEAR - NEW RECIPES

You just knew I couldn't get through this "weekend in the middle of the week" without showing you some of our culinary adventures, didn't you?

I spent a busy and tiring day in the kitchen yesterday, assisted as always by my much more experienced tutor and the head chef, Judy aka She Who Must Be Obeyed.

The first item on the agenda was an overnight breakfast casserole, known to midwesterners as a hotdish.

It combined eggs and milk and sausage and cheese and peppers and day-old bread, sourdough in this case.

The sausage was crumbled and sauteed until it wasn't pink anymore, then layered in a pan with the other ingredients, covered and refrigerated until this morning.

Then baked for an hour and enjoyed.

The other item on the agenda was a round of Brie, liberally coated with a Mango Habanero Pepper Jelly, then wrapped in puff pastry and baked.

It was the centerpiece at our New Year's Eve dinner.

Actually I suppose you could call it more of an indoor picnic as it combined big seedless red grapes from Peru, some slices of that sourdough bread, sliced apple, summer sausage and Judy's very special Deviled Eggs.

Of course there was Prosecco to enjoy with this little feast.

It was all tasty and put me to sleep by about 7:30 last night, which allowed me to miss the fireworks as a New Year entered the picture.

I hope your New Year's celebrations were equally as delicious.

SO LONG, 2024

 It is the last day of the year here in Arizona.

For some of my readers it will be the first day of the new year long before it arrives here.

For those of you making resolutions for the future, here's a little help.

Good luck with yours.

But don't feel bad if they don't last.

Many millions of good intentions have gone into the waste barrel over the years.

To be a little serious, I'd like to thank all of the blog helpers who provide much of the material for Oddball.

I'd also like to thank all of you readers who have stuck with me through the year and years.

It is, as the saying goes, my pleasure.

So to all of you, readers, commenters and lurkers, may you have the very merriest of New Year's Eves and the best of times in the New Year.

CRAZY MONDAY

 Oh, my, so this is how the another year nears an end.

What a day!

It began with doing my normal Monday chores: filling my pill containers with the week's dosages; cleaning out the cat pan; clipping my fingernails.

Then after I had stepped out to dump some stuff in our dumpster and noticing how warm it felt in the sunshine I decided to go for a walk.

(All my doctors have been nagging me about that for years, to no avail.)

I told Judy I was going over to the nearby park because the sidewalks there are relatively level.

I walked all the way around the outside of the dog park (though I stopped several times to observe the many dogs also enjoying the weather).

At home, I dug into Henry David Thoreau's Walden book once again and read several pages.

For some unknown reason this prodded me to do some long-put-off dusting of my desk, a large art picture of my late uncle over it and a small-ish wall cabinet for my collection of mini-Buddhas and other  Asian figures.

Then I decided to hang a few paintings that have been waiting for weeks to occupy an empty wall space.

And now I'm listening to a Classic Country station on Amazon.

Judy asked me why I was listening to Hillbilly music but she nodded approvingly at the Hank Williams song that came on.

Later I tried to create a mocktail for Judy but I missed the food coloring that I needed to fix her my version of a "Shirley Temple".

So that's my December 30th.

We're only two days from a New Year and it seems I've already started on my non-existent List of Resolutions.

A PASSING

 

Jimmy Carter, the 39th President of the United States, died today in his home in Plains, Georgia.

He was 100 years old.

THE IN-BETWEEN DAYS

Call them the Days of Confusion.

When Christmas and New Year's both fall on Wednesday like this season, it muddles the mind into a gray mess.

I saw a thing on the Web the other day that said in part something like "No one really knows what day or time it is. Can we start drinking at 10 a.m.? Why not.  Who cares."

I haven't reached that stage yet though the thought has occurred to me.

I thought I'd show you our Christmas dinner.

Which we had on the 26th, I think.

I got up and made yeast waffles and Judy fixed breakfast sausage Christmas morning and we stuffed ourselves to the degree that the thought of making dinner that day was just too much.

So I doctored up a frozen pizza and that was our meal.

After all, it's just the two of us.

But the next day we finally roused up enough to fix our yuletide feast.

Which is a bit of deflection on my part because actually it was reheating the leftovers from our Thanksgiving meal.

Clockwise, starting on the left side, roasted sweet potatoes and pineapple, mashed potatoes, roast pork and dressing; the latter three draped in pork gravy; and an addition, some sliced red beets, which I liked but Judy didn't find to her favor.

At any rate, it was a tasty dinner, accompanied by a bottle of Prosecco.

Dessert may have been homemade cookies but I can't remember for sure.

Meantime, our little cat Sweetie-Pie, took over one of her favorite spots, cuddled on my bed for a lengthy nap.

I dozed off for a bit either in my recliner with a book open on my lap or in front of the television set in the living room as Judy stayed awake and watched a movie.

Pretty boring, huh?

I think it's the meaning of a good but quiet life in retirement.