Merry Christmas

The sun is half-shining here and I'm just hanging, passing the day with preparing my roast chicken dinner, which turned out to be 2/3 terrific. The chicken was perfect -- moist and tender; the gravy tasted just fine. But the dressing -- well, that was not a winner. I had forgotten to get some necessary ingredients to make it like my mother and grandmother made it (powdered sage, fresh celery), and since I'm trying not to drive the car very much until it's once again legal (driver's side mirror), and since it was raining and I didn't want to walk, I thought I'd punt. Not a good idea.

I picked a bunch of small celery stalks with leaves from the garden, and some fresh sage that I dried and crumbled. Not enough sage -- but the celery was the real issue. Gave an awful taste to the dish that just didn't work. There wasn't all that much of it, but I guess it had gotten really strong after all these months in the garden. I ate some --not bad with gravy over it -- but tossed the rest into the compost. That's ok -- I had all the lovely chicken and gravy I wanted. Now, the carcass is covered in water to make stock and there's lots of pulled meat in the refrigerator.

My landlady has opened the chicken pen door, closing off their exit into the rest of the garden (on the right in the photo) but allowing them to scratch around the area next to my house. Good for both the girls and the garden. They've been hanging right next to the house, but tend to scatter a bit when I go on the deck. Unfamiliar territory to them! The red ones are babies from last summer, the black/white ones are older. They make nice neighbors.

I've entered a whole new world of existence in the last week or so: twitter feeds! I ran across some Oregon ones during all the awards excitement, found one of them (#GoDucks) to be a real source of up-to-the-minute news on what's happening with the team. Another, @WinTheDay, is more official, not as active, so I prefer #GoDucks. From there, I discovered an amazing array of hashtags and sites that could be clicked on. Did you have any idea that there was a page for @NCAAFballtrucks, for example? Used by people to talk about the big trucks that take game equipment to games around the country. Photos, travels. Who knew? The Oregon truck I spotted on I-5 a few weeks ago isn't in the photo with the two Oregon trucks headed to the Rose Bowl, leading me to believe they must have at least one more of these fancy toys.

Today, I made another discovery: @TheOregonDuck, which is a feed purely for and about the mascot, with photos of media appearances and much more. Full of humor. And there are plenty of others I haven't checked out -- probably won't check out. It's kind of addictive, all in all, even though much of what comes across #GoDucks is from fans, right now talking about Duck Gear for Christmas gifts, and Rose Bowl Tickets. Like I said -- a whole new world.

And, oh yeah. That end-of-the-year Holiday Blues? Started going away Monday (birthday) and are still disappearing. All without effort from me, and trust me, I wish I knew how not to make it come for a visit, or how to make it go away sooner. But I know and trust that it always goes, and I can live with that.

That's my day. Happy day to all.