Huns-giving Reminders- By Alma Boykin

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

*While I’m AFK doing family like stuff, Alma has undertaken to keep this place minimally safe through tonight and tomorrow – SAH*

Huns-giving Reminders by Alma Boykin

1. No, you may not serve yourself from the turkeys. After someone took two entire turkeys, we have to limit access. Don’t blame us, blame the miscreant.

2. No arguing theology, especially while in the serving line. The last time someone started the “9 mil or .45” debate over the potatoes, the mess took an hour to clean up. No. Off limit topics include: religious theology, trying to convert someone to your denomination*, stuffing vs. dressing (unless you are offering the serving spoon to someone), sugar in cornbread vs. plain, football,** the American Civil War, and the other forbidden topics.

3. Yes, you can have both dark meat and light meat.

4. Yes, you can get seconds, but only after you finish your firsts. No preemption, please.

5. The management is not responsible for what Jeff does to you if you mess with the coffee machine in the main bar. If you want to experiment, that’s what the labs are for. The machine in the bar is very touchy, and Jeff finally got it re-calibrated after the last honyacker tried to program it to make mulled cider. Touchest thou not!

6. The range will open after the buffet line this year. Yes, there are Reasons. No, the management is not going to list all of them. If there’s no range-safety officer available, act like a responsible shooter and follow the Four Rules. Plus the other two posted on the gate. When in doubt, don’t do it. The sheriff is still recovering from last year’s trauma, as well as from getting out-shot on the 100 yard pistol range.

7. No alcohol is allowed on the range. If we have to go back to breathylizer tests to unlock the gate, we will. Yes, you. No exceptions. Seriously.

8. Please warn kids and newcomers that fishing in the sea-monster pool and swimming in the minion pool are both prohibited. Kids generally know better, but some theoretically-adults need a reminder.

9. The Introverts’ Association meeting is in the Diogenes Memorial Library, fourth floor, first plaid door on the left. Talking and eye contact are not required, nor is taking a name tag. It is come and go, as usual.

10. Yes, there is a kosher line this year. It is fleishig, so plan your desserts accordingly.

11. If you signed up for side-dishes or desserts, keep in mind that chtulumari bothers some people, so it needs to be in a covered dish. Midwestern gelled salads go with the green salads and vegetables, while Southern gelled salads are desserts. Unless it is TXRed’s gelled cranberry salad, which goes with the other cranberry sauces beside the turkey.

12. No, you may not use mecha during the touch-football game. Limited cybernetic assists are approved, but check the insurance policy carefully.

Thank you for your cooperation, and have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

*Unless they are socialist, in which case preach away! Beating up on statism is always appropriate.

**OK, one exception. It is fine to wager on how badly the Dallas Cowboys are going to lose. Remember the House gets 10% of the winnings.

112 thoughts on “Huns-giving Reminders- By Alma Boykin”

  2. Yes, you can get seconds, but only after you finish your firsts. No preemption, please.

    I still haven’t sold my grandson on this.

    Have a quiet and thankful day, if you can get it.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. We had our big family dinner last Sunday at my sister’s. Only two family members missing. One in college out of town. The other new job and had to work. One new baby (< 5 months). It was mom’s birthday party. Turned 89, 11/14. Mom stayed north (new baby). Will be there for the Christmas holidays too (new baby).

      Just us locals Thursday. S/b relatively quite. No dissenting political views. The “kids” that will be there are all north of 30, and have learned their lessons. No one who will be there voted for the plant in chief puppet you-know-who.

      Liked by 1 person

      2. Looks up gluten-free cornbread recipes. Don’t have the corn meal, but maybe some time in the future. Used to like it when I could eat it, both sweet and savory types.

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        1. 1 ¼ cups cornmeal
          ½ cup white sugar
          ¼ cup masa flour
          1 tablespoon gluten-free baking powder
          1 cup water, 1/4 tsp salt
          ¼ cup butter flavor, melted
          1 egg (or egg replacer for one egg)

          Stir dry ingredients. Mix salt in water to dissolve.
          Melt butter flavor. Add wet ingredients. Stir. Bake in 8×8 pan for 30 min at 375 or until toothpick comes clean.

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    3. The problem is that the Cowboys have the knack of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. I’ve been watching since Tom Landry’s tenure, in 1977. Things seem to go very well, then splat!

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  4. I’m just hoping the Pho place near my house is open. Otherwise, I’m having fast food and not even good fast food.

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          1. Waffle House is concentrated in the South. Outside of the former Confederate states, it’s mostly just the Midwest (Ohio, Indiana, etc), some of the more southerly Atlantic states (Pennsylvania, Maryland, etc.), and a few of the Four Corners states. The Great Plains, Northeast, and Northwest are devoid.

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            1. The Reader thinks they should transplant some from Mississippi where there are interchanges on I-10 with one on each corner!

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                    1. The week after the DDG under construction the Reader had toured (we were looking at novel ways of installing a large radar) had a 30 foot hole in its side which delayed its delivery 18 months or so. Nothing was left of the hotel / casino where we stayed in Biloxi except the concrete slab the hotel section sat on.

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            2. Having been to Huntsville AL. during a snow/ice storm (2″ maybe with Icy coating, basically closed the joint down for 48 hours on a weekend in Feb 1996). Waffle House was one of 6 places in the whole city (and surrounding suburbs) that was open. There were also a somewhat sketchy Indian joint, a Hooters, a Cracker Barrel, an excellent Tex/Mex joint and A BBQ joint run by two elderly Black gentlemen and their families (first rate BBQ!!!). Only the Cracker Barrel and Waffle House served breakfast and Cracker Barrel’s menu was limited due to deliveries (Trucks and icy roads mix poorly). My compatriot ( NH born and bred) and I hit the the Cracker Barrel (not quite literally but close, VERY icy) and we two Yankees had an epiphany. There are sugar houses in NH/VT (places that make maple syrup and sell pancakes/waffles in season) that are perhaps a smidge better due to the availability of real maple syrup in quantity, but in general Waffle House is hard to beat. Sadly I do not think there is a single one in all of New England. My compatriot and I were saddened when we no longer needed to go to Huntsville for that project.

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    2. Yeah. I hear ya. “Stuck” is a thing.

      My secret weapon is the “Hormel Completes – Turkey and Dressing” meals. (Usually in the canned meat section, or with the Dinty Moore canned stew)

      Civvy MREs. Heat and eat. Actually not bad. And it’s bailed me out a few times.

      Power out? Can’t cook? Throw them on a dark towell on a car dashboard on a sunny day, windows closed. (Towell is in case one pops and leaks).

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Cardboard box.
        Aluminum foil.
        Couple of straightened coat hangers.
        A pan to hold the coals.
        Improvised oven for heating your tv dinners, or even for baking a cake or a pie for that matter.

        You do need a wood fire as a source of the coals unless you happen to have a half dozen or more charcoal brickettes.

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  5. ALMA is a jewel!!! Great stuff, thank you!!! I am so impressed by her writing, that I would invite her to join my Solipsist Society, but for obvious reasons, I cannot allow anyone in except myself.

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      1. A fellow cultist of l’Odge, the god of cast iron cookware and improvised home defense weapons? Well met.

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          1. Conan, what’s your breakfast like?

            Crush your eggs with cheese,
            See the yolks running before you,
            and hear the sizzling of the bacon

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          2. Never forget Patricia Wrede’s “Enchanted Forest Chronicles,” one portion of which involves the Tournament and Cooking Competition needed to award the Cast Iron Frying Pan of DOOM! to a properly-qualified hero.

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  7. The Reader officially pardons all of the writers here from feeding his habit for one day. Celebrate, give thanks and back to the keyboard tomorrow!

    Liked by 2 people

  8. “The management is not responsible for what Jeff does to you if you mess with the coffee machine in the main bar.”

    A more explicit warning that Jeff is a dragon shifter might avoid anyone attempting make their own Americanas.

    Liked by 2 people

  9. Ok. Since my worst case didn’t happen, I am merely stuck here solo, reposting on this thread:

    . – . – . –

    1) Happy Thanksgiving! I still have immense blessings for which I am thankful. Including this place.

    2) (singing) “You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant.” (Guitar playing….) “wait for it to come around again…”

    3) Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.

    4) WKRP “…as G-d as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly!”

    Traditions upheld!
    (Kzin grin)

    . – . – . –

    (Puts out big vat of my special trail mix snack, cool version. Slightly less addictive than crack. Slightly.)

    High heat version:

    Cashews, almonds, pecans, raisins, low sugar dried cranberries. Approx equal measures.

    Cool version:

    Add chocolate yogurt covered raisins and dark chocolate covered pecans, half measures.

    Warning. Very high calorie snack. Also see “crack”.

    Liked by 1 person

  13. We alternate deli turkey with store-roasted chicken for regular meals (one wonders just what the birds from Costco ingest, or what species they really are…), and the nearest family is too far away. $SPOUSE is seriously gluten-allergic (“I like to breathe, thank you”), while my GI system reacts to gluten like the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence meeting up with the members of Westboro Baptist Church, so we’re not joining the neighbors at their dinner.

    OTOH, the salmon fillets are thawing in the fridge, and the George Foreman grill does a wonderful job, so we’re doing our own special occasion dinner. (When the restaurant supply outfit got bought by US Foods, they kept the supply of wild-caught Keta Salmon. Vacuum packed and frozen, it keeps a long time and tastes really good. The super-sekret sauce $SPOUSE does is the finishing touch.)

    A county-level judge just threw out the entire contents of Oregon’s draconian gun law, Prop 114, though the next level includes a “judge” who thinks that all gun owners are racist antisemites, so I figure we’ll end up seeing this at the federal level sooner or later. Still, we’re seeing a bit of freedom emerging, once again. I’m giving thanks for that.

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    1. A county-level judge just threw out the entire contents of Oregon’s draconian gun law, Prop 114, though the next level includes a “judge” who thinks that all gun owners are racist antisemites, so I figure we’ll end up seeing this at the federal level sooner or later. Still, we’re seeing a bit of freedom emerging, once again. I’m giving thanks for that.
      ……………….

      Interestingly enough the local news article (email input, don’t watch it) when reporting this stated, for the first time ever, even started with it “The narrowly passed citizen initiative …” Previous reporting implied overwhelming passing. Me thinks voting by fraud cheating might have pushed it over the top to put to the lie that most residents were against the measure, even those vocal out of Portland metro and hippy south I-5. (Who am I kidding? We know vote by fraud cheated. Cheaters cheat.)

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    2. Heh. I remember going on a chartered fishing boat for salmon way back when I was stationed at McChord AFB, Wa. Caught a nice Dungeness crab, a flounder, and a real nice salmon. Boat captain kept complaining about my fishing too deep. But since I was the only one to actually catch a salmon on that trip, I figured I knew more about it than he did.

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  15. Happy Thanksgiving! It’s just me and the Mrs. rattling around in the apartment these days, and neither of us is particularly fond of turkey. Steak today, and Korean barbecue tomorrow, I think.

    @Jolie: “Easy on my poor Cowboys and sugar in cornbread is heresy.”

    I don’t think the Cowboys have all that much to worry about. If Washington couldn’t stop the Giants, they’re unlikely to stop anybody. I’m pretty sure Coach Rivera’s a lame duck, and I’m pretty sure he knows it.

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  16. Happy Thanksgiving.

    I won’t be eating until 8:30 EST when our (closed for the day) Trivia Bar is open to staff and regulars for a potluck Friendsgiving. Since C is both and I’m the latter we’re going. C is making cranberry sauce. I’m making green bean casserole with homemade cream of mushroom soup base (white stuffing, portabella, and shitake mix) and home fried shallot topping and broccoli cheese rice casserole with homemade cream of bacon soup base.

    And, I know it’s a generally happy day, but this was too cute not to add as my semi-regular off topic comment to lighten the mood.

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  18. My spouse and I are doing Thanksgiving with just ourselves today, so it will be a nice pot roast with home-made yeast rolls and lemon meringue pie for dessert. I’ll open a can of jellied cranberry sauce for that special Thanksgiving touch.

    Liked by 1 person

  20. Happy Thanksgiving all. Remember, if you are deep frying your turkey(s), please keep in mind the safety rules for doing so; do not deep fry a frozen turkey and put it into the deep fryer SLOWLY.

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  26. 9mm vs 45ACP? Embrace the power of AND! (Seed dispenser specific, of course.)

    Hmm, one thing missing from that list of prohibited discussions is meringue vs Cool Whip on banana pudding. Just to stir the pot…

    My wife and I are one state over in Greenville, SC, helping my sister, BIL, niece, and her boyfriend. Niece is 25 and had bimaxillary osteotomy and rhinoplasty on Tuesday – pretty major. We made Thanksgiving (I will NOT use the HR word) dishes and brought them down with us, along with a bunch of useful stuff. Surgery was in Charlotte). She can only have liquids so far, so this is a fairly different Thanksgiving – but as least we’re all together. And have lots of stuff to be thankful for!

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      1. Had my BP flinter pistols at the range. Was shooting the big ugly .50.

        Mouthboy: (something really f-ing rude and offensive.)

        11B-Mailclerk: “Sir, you might want to consider another man might take offense.”

        Mouthboy: “Whaddygonna do, slap me and offer me a choice of pistols?”

        11B-Mailclerk: Opens zipcase of .45 cal dueling pistols. Gestures.

        Mouthboy: “…uh…”

        11B-Mailclerk: (grin)

        For some odd reason, Mouthboy left.

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      1. Panda, stick of bamboo.

        I forget the anime where the hero defeats the female red dragon by shoving a spear up her butt. Well, maybe defeat is the wrong word. Excites and enthralls her. She was a really kinky dragon.

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        1. Arifureta: From Commonplace To World’s Strongest.

          “There’s one spot on a dragon that’s not armored…”

          Tio is a black dragon adorned with red bits here and there.

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    1. I have a Colt third model Dragoon revolver. When I bring that puppy out, I own the range. -Everybody- gathers.

      I have a very “tame” load for it. So I use it for “Would your kid like to fire a -real- old school Colt cowboy gun?”

      On the other hand, loaded with 45 grains FFFG Blackpowder, it is the King of Kaboom. Also spot on sights at 75 yards.

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  28. Happy Hunsgiving, folks. The wife is down in Florida selling jewelry at a Ren Faire and I’m stuck up here with the Nublet, a non-working car (dead battery), and having a lovely Thanksgiving dinner of keto breakfast sandwiches (me) and Bagel Bites (her).

    We’re totally incapable of having a normal holiday.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. A holiday is when you and your loved ones get together. Therefore, you and the Nublet are having a great holiday. :)

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  29. My set of teenage boys necessitates smoking two turkeys; otherwise we don’t have enough leftovers for the traditional turkey enchiladas on Sunday.
    Our Thanksgiving dinner is fairly typical, save for the recipes from the Elder Scrolls cookbook. Their Snowberry sauce is amazing!
    I love hearing about the other Hun’s traditions. It’s good too know I’m not alone in my weirdness. Thanks for sharing.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. We got a twenty-two pounder, and one of the boys had all four wisdom teeth out at the oral surgeon Monday and has a mouth full of stitches as a result.
      There might still be some turkey left tomorrow. Possibly. A good deal less than usual has vanished, which seems to be related to the one young man eating mostly mashed potatoes, jello, sweet potato casserole, and pumpkin pie filling without crust (littlest sister hooked him up).

      Among the oddball things that grace our table, sherried onions with pecans and cranberry horseradish relish.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. /laugh
        I remember the year I came home from tech school for Thanksgiving having had the AF yank all 4 of my wisdom teeth the week before. Ity bity bites and chewing with the front part of my mouth. And a lot of rinsing to keep the sockets clean.

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      1. Then banana bread should be banana cake. I’m torn on zucchini bread, because while it is sweet it also has a vegetable in it (which vegetable is technically a fruit [mellon?].

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  32. Hope all enjoyed their Thanksgiving meals of whatever flavors. We three had savory roast duck, lima beans, and refrigerator biscuits. And this year I managed to not overcook the duck. The giblets and the carcass were simmered long and slow in the soup pot, and will be dealt with tomorrow.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. We went for ham, a different sweet potato recipe, heavily saged [is too a word] dressing, the cranberry gelled salad, and pie. And a turkey-shaped loaf of sourdough bread. Saving the green-chili-corn casserole for tomorrow.

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  33. Kind of late to this thread. One of my husband’s brothers had Thanksgiving at his house as he’s done for about the last 10 years. Last Friday night, the wife of another BIL was killed in a car accident, but that BIL still came to the family Thanksgiving and was glad he did. He’s still making arrangements to have her cremated and her ashes divided between him and her daughter. This BIL and his (now late) wife have hosted Christmas for the past 7-8 years and he says he’s still going to do so this year, they were already looking forward to it and it was what she would have wanted.

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