Chicken Little
With the discovery of the fish and chip batter mix from Bulk Barn, we have been really enjoying Fish Fridays for the last couple of years. For those of you who might not know, a mythical carpenter had a bad day on a Friday, and people remember the cross he had to bear ... by fasting. Eating absolutely nothing got old in a hurry, so they compromised by not eating meat on Fridays? Years later, MG introduced me to the great mystic Kurt Cobain told us it's OK to eat fish cause they don't have any feeling. So now we have Fish Fridays. We also have Takeaway Saturday. Sunday Roast. Meatless Monday. Taco Tuesday. Spaghetti Wednesday and Thursday Chicken Dinner. That last one struck me as sketchy, so Maddie and I looked it up. The prevailing theory is that the lowest casino bet you could place in the late eighties was two dollars. Itinerant gamblers, when absolutely forced away from the tables to eat something, would order the inexpensive chicken dinner that was on every menu for $1.99. Since a win doubled your two dollar bet ... Winner Winner Chicken Dinner was heard around Vegas in that era. Guy Fieri went to university in Nevada and spent time on the Strip. He would later make the phrase world famous by using it on his show very week. How folks got that into Thursday nights seems to have faded into history.
Our Optimum Week
Between the deposit, bling for the new car and a certain small dog that I have taken to calling Floppy Potato, I am facing a significant budget shortfall over the next couple of months. I think it's going to be around $2560. One place a guy with 1.3 million points can cut costs is groceries. So we did a PC Express order on that great flyer and caught all of those offers that I have been tracking for December 3rd. I massaged it to just over $175 and redeemed 150K in points. 20% of that came straight back in points. You can accumulate faster with the upgraded PC Mastercard. For $120 annually, you get forty points per dollar at Zehr's and fifty points per dollar at Shoppers. That's instead of ten! You get premium PC Express service and free delivery to your front door. So, do the math? Any combination of $3000 annually at Zehr's or $2400 at Shoppers or a delivery a month ... the card pays for itself. We spend triple that, so it's a no brainer. Did anyone redeem 800,000 points for $1500 off at Shoppers? I just didn't have room in the pantry or the freezer, but an extra $700? That's a lot of Crepe Erase? Here is your list:
Did you save that pickled red onion recipe.a few months ago. They are on the list again. Here's the link
We Are Watching
I got SWMBO started on West Wing. I have watched it cover to cover about four times, so I can quote the dialogue in advance. It remains perhaps the best show ever made for television.
I'm a Ken Bruns fanboy, so The Revolutionary War is on the menu.
Season Two of Landman, Season Four of The Mayor of Kingstown and we ran out of gas on Season Four of Killing Eve. It all just gets on the other side of believable after a while? You'd think that after watching her boss's son get thrown off a roof and her husband stabbed in the throat with a pitchfork, she might take a moment to reflect on her choices. Not so much.
I see a Black Friday deal on Curiousity Stream for like thirty bucks. It is well worth it if you like science or history documentaries. I decided Britbox was no longer worth a hundred bucks, so I went to cancel it. "Say You'll Stay"🎵 (I don't even know who sang it) but they offered half price to renew, so I relented. For $50 annually, that is a good deal as well.
... and finally
The Greatest Game Ever Played (by me this year)
So as I'm packing away my golf stuff for the winter, I was reflecting on my golf highs from this past season. First, for the non-golfers who read this, I need to outline how tee blocks work. There are three sets for every hole. The WHITE ones are the middle set. Say it's 150 yards (eg.) to the front of the green. A set of REDS (usually called the ladies tees) is placed in front of that white set. It might be 142 yards to the front of the green. It makes the hole play a little shorter and easier. To make the hole longer and more challenging, particularly on par threes, the course places a set of BLUE blocks behind the white tees. Those are for skilled golfers. I played nine holes with a couple of nice young guys. They had expensive clubs, a cart, beers, smokes, a couple of doobies, you know ... the essentials for an HIIT workout on the golf course. They are hitting drivers from the BLUES (so they must be good) and I'm walking from the REDS. We wait for the old ladies in the group ahead of us to hit their second shots, and off we go. I get my normal bogie, double, bogey, bogey start, so I'm five over after four. My playing companions. I don't know what they shot on those first three holes? Thirty? Forty? Each? They travelled those boys! Backyards, the forest, swimming pools, there's a little swamp — they were circling for a bit. It was a sight to behold. The fourth tee is back near the clubhouse, so they made a pit stop for more beers. Actually, spell check got that wrong. Four more beers. I think they made the right call! So, I am still OK, but as anyone who has golfed with me knows, there is only one unbreakable rule. Do not play slow. "Hit it. Find it. Hit it again." (Lon Hinkle) Take a hockey stick (7), a snowman (8), a hangman (9) or a Bo Derek (10), I'm OK with that. Just get at it. Thus, an hour in, we are standing on the elevated fourth tee and I realize two things:
1) Those four old ladies were gone! One of them was sporting a shiny new titanium hip and they had just walked away from me and two Philippino youngsters in a golf cart. It was a great big par five. They must have hit ten shots to get over the horizon!
2) I was in for a three hour (nine-hole) round. Sigh.
So, I parred the next hole and hit it close for a birdie on six. Hey! I'm now only four over with three to go? I bogeyed seven and pumped one straight down the middle on eight. The youngsters catch up and congratulate me on having a great round. You hit is straight all the time? So, I say: "In my defense; I am playing from the ladies tees." Then I can't help myself. "They also suggest you should play from those until you break a hundred and then play from the whites until you break ninety. The driver literally puffed up his chest and said, "But we are men?" to which I laughed and replied, "We may be men, but those four old ladies just kicked our ass all over this golf course". I am not sure he liked that very much. There was a distinct chill in the air after that. I finished bogey, bogey for a 42! Tied my best score of the year. Sitting on the patio three hours and ten minutes after I started, I apologized to the group that came off behind us. The guy said, "Don't worry about it. We saw what happened. Those guys playing the blues?? There should be a frigging law!"
Next year, same goal as this year. I want to break 40. Just once. Maddie tolerates and supports my desire for this goal provided I play with alacrity. When I show up after a four hour absence, I get the side eye.
Mitch and Maddie 😒