Home Stretch

December 25.  The rest of the world is celebrating the holiday and I'm peddling as fast as I can to catch up.  Baked and stirred most of yesterday, and then I stepped in quicksand.  I had a bit of trouble while hunting in the freezer for the pork I knew was in there.  There wasn't any.  I know this for sure because I took everything out of the freezer and time slipped away while I put it all back.  Fearful that the nearest grocery store (which is a fair piece up the road) would either be closing early or out of pork, I called.  The nice man in the meat department said he had plenty of pork butts.  "And how much might they be?"  "Oh, about a billion dollars."  "Well, that's okay then; I won't have to break open the piggy bank."  He turned to ask someone the price, and I heard the response, "Punch in 1103."  "Wha-a-a-t?!," I yelped, thinking $11.03 a pound.  The nice man nearly dropped the phone he was laughing so hard.  There was a kitchen time out while I jumped in the truck and went to get the main ingredient for Saturday's chile verde.

Determined to get in the mode, I dragged out the box with the Christmas tree last night.  It took all of "A Christmas Carol" and most of "It's A Wonderful Life" to insert each color-coded branch into the trunk.  Filled with as much spirit as I could handle for one day, I left the tree au naturel and went to bed.

Happy holidays to one and all!