My daughter made a woodblock print thingy depicting Badger, and it’s a work of art that should obviously replace the Mona Lisa in the Louvre:
In my little town, there are two Chinese restaurants, and both are terrible. So, I’m learning how to stir-fry, and tonight’s experiment turned out well.
Just trying to stay positive in post-optimism America (and optimism was all we ever had). What’s your best of 2019?
Open thread!
Patricia Kayden
Lapassionara
Post-optimism? Well, there is hope. The thing with feathers. And maybe the best thing.
Baud
As long as there’s Baud!, there’s hope!
debbie
That’s one impressive print!
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
Word.
Baud
The woodblock is awesome.
Keith P
This is one of my favorite aspects of Houston – 3 separate “Asia” towns – the biggest of which easily has over 100 Chinese restaurants, along with just about every other Asian country. With the good stuff, too, like wok-tossed noodles, salt n pepper fried whatever (pork chops are the best), and roast duck hanging in the windows.
Ivan X
I wanted to write and sing music all my life and somehow finally got unblocked and wrote a ton of it. And I stumbled into the idea of one minute songs due to Instagram’s limit, and that allowed me to write 65 of them, better than one per week. I’m proud of myself!
And I’m still sharing my life with the best person I could ever imagine being with, and we got through a lot of tough stuff following her successful battle with cancer, so I’m grateful for that too.
That wood block print is museum worthy!
raven
@Keith P: I went to the Art Car Museum while I was there!
Josie
@Keith P:
So true. The family went to a Korean restaurant yesterday where you cook the meat on a grill at the table and eat it with all the trimmings. Really good.
Omnes Omnibus
I don’t accept the premise.
ETA: But I like the art.
realbtl
Daughter’s first baby arrived 12-29, 9 days late but far enough from Christmas he will get separate celebrations. Will head down as soon as I shake this cold.
Ivan X
@realbtl: congratulations!!!
Baud
@realbtl: Nice, Grandperson.
Amir Khalid
I feel your pain, Betty. In the Kelang Valley megacity — KL, Petaling Jaya, Subang Jaya, Shah Alam, Kelang, Port Kelang — there are hundreds of Chinese restaurants, and I can only eat at the very very few that don’t serve pork.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@realbtl:
Congrats!
MelissaM
That print is fabulous! I’ll try to stay positve. But my 2020 is starting with a f family funeral on the 4th.
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
You can’t eat at a restaurant that serves pork, or those restaurants don’t have dishes without pork,
MelissaM
@realbtl: Lovely arrival! Enjoy!
NotMax
Terrible doesn’t scratch the surface of describing the wrong on every conceivable level meal was served at a (then the one and only?) Chinese restaurant in Aberdeen, Scotland circa 1974.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Love the wood block print. Saw a few Badgers* around downtown last night.
*The Wisconsin type.
Ruckus
My best of 2019?
Docs finally made a definitive call, I do not have Parkinson’s.
Of course it’s not all good, I do have Ménière’s disease. Which I found out the hard way one morning. And then again 2 days later.
If life was easy, anyone could do it.
Oh well, this will be my 70th new year, although the first 2 or 3 didn’t have a lot of meaning to me at the time
And I have to agree with Bill, the wood print is grand.
So to all of you, a happy New Year, may it bring you a better one than the last and may we defeat the sadistic bastard squatting in our house in DC.
Kent
Best entry-level Chinese cookbook I have found is Every Grain of Rice by Fuscia Dunlop who is this British Chef who has spent much of her life in China studying and writing about Chinese cuisine. She has a variety of cookbooks but this is the entry level one: https://www.amazon.com/Every-Grain-Rice-Chinese-Cooking/dp/0393089045
She was recently interviewed by Meghna Chakrabarti on the NPR show On Point. https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510053/on-point scroll down to December 26th.
Baud
@NotMax:
Nothing wrong with Szechuan Haggis.
Gin & Tonic
This year, my son finished his Master’s and married a wonderful woman. The bittersweet is that they then moved 5,000 miles away.
I have been fortunate. I hope that continues.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Like this?
susanna
@Ivan X: Bravo! On all fronts.
It looks as though your ship has rounded the corner and is in your sight. Needless for me to say but will— love your life.
raven
@Ruckus: Fuckin A, Dawg!
schrodingers_cat
I am chatting with people in Marathi on Twitter so that’s pretty cool
ETA BS sympathizers have infested lefty Indian political Twitter too, so that sucks
Keith P
@Josie: Right, there’s a whole string of them over on Longpoint (and Cypress, where I live, is loaded with pho restaurants for some reason). I used to eat Korean BBQ every couple of months but haven’t been in a while (my go-to place does it all-u-can-eat)
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
हे महाराष्ट्रात एक नवीन वर्ष आहे, नवीन वर्षाच्या शुभेच्छा, मांजरी.
Ruckus
@raven:
Yeah, ya take the good with the bad, do your best and keep putting one foot in front of the other. Or as a wise man once told me “Don’t let the bastards win.” Which has been good advice over the long haul.
So in that regard, the word from one of the great BJ commenters
Fuckem
Amir Khalid
@Baud:
You know how vegetarians can’t eat Burger King’s Impossible Burgers because they’re cooked on the same griddles as the real beef patties? Something like that.
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
Gotcha.
raven
@Keith P:
pho restaurants for some reason
Because that’s where the Vietnamese are.
raven
@Ruckus: There it is. . .
Kent
As for bad Chinese food? You haven’t experienced the outer bleeding edge of the Chinese diaspora until you have eaten at the China Princess in rural Jalapa Guatemala, which was a favorite Peace Corps haunt of mine back in the day, mostly for the cheap beer.
https://goo.gl/maps/CDdEztvUYjDQDyxK8
Anotherlurker
For me, 2019 was a big step away from the horrors of Superstorm Sandy “recovery”.
I moved out of Florida and moved to The Bay Area.
I finally recovered from a year long bout of facial Shingles. This was the sickest I have ever been.
I have been working out and I have recovered my health.
I have revived my career.
So I had some very good things happen to me this waning year of 2019.
However, my old Boy Buddy, a doggie who stuck with me they the ruinous effects of Superstorm Sandy scams, The resulting PTSD, the disastrous move to Manatee County Fla., and a year of ill health, is not doing well.
He is a big boy, @70lbs and for a few months now, his hips have been giving him trouble. Today he stopped eating, except for bits of Pizza crust. I know the signs of what is ahead and it is so sad.
So, my New Year’s Eve is heartbreaking.
I just want to say thank you to J.C. for establishing this wonderful community of vicious Jackals. You folks are the best!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus:
Ditto.
That’s a really cool art piece. The dog is pretty well drawn imo. Betty, your daughter’s a talented artist
Jager
How about this? (other than politics and 6 weeks at Extended (fucking) Stay America until our new housw was ready, 2019 wasn’t too bad.
New Years in Grand Forks, ND in the 60s…
10th grade chuds at Central, no girlfriends, invited tp parties that sucked, we decide to let alcohol pass our lips on New Year’s Eve. Over the week between Christmas and the big night, Beer, half bottles of whiskey from the old man’s liquor cabinet and, for me a pint bottle of Sloe Gin are collected. We pile in my car (now that’s a scary thought, right?) with KOMA blasting out the hits, we drive around and get, ah, drunk as shit weasels. It’s cold, the streets are slippery, we head to a house party, on the way I pull over and throw up in front of Sharon Lutheran Church. Not one to give up, I rinse my mouth out with Cherry Sloe Gin and get back behind the wheel. Off to the party we go, semi-drunk parents are chaperons, they pay no attention to us. I end up with a cute as a bug classmate in the hall closet, giggling, sharing furtive kisses.
I made it home safely, I woke up with a nasty hangover, got my skinny ass ripped by the old man and I’ve never even glanced at a bottle of sloe gin since. Cute as a bug ended up as Homecoming Queen a couple of years later.
Josie
@Keith P:
This one was all you can eat and on Long Point. Might be the same one. I enjoyed the sides as much as the meat.
Amir Khalid
Should Badger replace La Gioconda at the Louvre? Maybe not. Should he have his own spot on a museum wall? Most definitely.
trollhattan
@Ruckus:
A Buddy has Ménière’s and the symptoms come and go. His is mostly controlled but he’s a machinist and tinkerer and it affects his hands, primarily. There’s also occasional dizziness. We still go old-dude backpacking, so the important stuff goes on.
Mazel tov!
Kent
@Baud: About 30 years ago when I was working in DC I went into this old Chinese restaurant in DC’s little Chinatown with a vegetarian friend of mine. He asked the waitress if they had vegetarian dishes. She said yes, of course. So he said just bring me something good.
Out came a plate of stir-fried pork of some type. When he called her over to explain he wanted a vegetarian dish she nodded and said. YES! this is Vegetarian Pork! We also have Vegetarian Chicken and Vegetarian Beef!
Clearly something was lost in the translation. Heh! But the food was good.
trollhattan
@Kent:
I have learned that \when I inquire as to the absence of peanuts in Szechuan and Thai food, if I’m not careful I harvest extra peanuts. And don’t get me started on sauces.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: आभार
Happy New Year to you too!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
For my Best of 2019, I don’t have much to report. I only have a semester left of school and I graduate, so I’m happy about that. It’s been a long road since I graduated from HS in 2014 and I’m glad it’s almost over.
Nearly 10 years ago I was just starting HS. A year or so later I learned how to drive. A lot has happened to me during this time. I’ll always hate not being able to vote for Obama in 2012, since I turned 18 in 2013.
For the most part I don’t know what to feel or think of the 2010s. I suppose I’ll miss some aspects of the earlier 2010s and 00s. I miss the internet of that era, for whatever reason. I hate most of the new social media websites/apps, except Discord and Tumblr.
Forums are much easier to understand for me
Anywho, I wish all of you a Happy New Year!
raven
Well they are really unloading the ordinance and probably will be into the night. I don’t sleep worth a shit when it’s quiet. Should be a fun pre-dawn drive to the airport.
raven
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
since I graduated from HS in 2014
you are fucking killing me
Amir Khalid
@Kent:
Chinese vegetarian restaurants usually do traditional, low-tech imitation meats. I take it your vegetarian friend was not of Chinese heritage himself.
frosty
WaterGirl
@Ivan X: Seems like there are congratulations to be had, all around, on many levels for you and your wife.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Josie: We had all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ for Madame and the kid’s b-day here in town last August, good meal.
Amir Khalid
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Why, you’re practically a baby around these parts.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): After graduation you have your boards* to look forward to.
*The kid said they’re not to bad, she did do a prep course.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
Happy Mew Year to all you gorgeous jackals out there!!!
Much love to y’all. Here comes 2020 – hold on to your butts… ? ? ?
Kent
@Amir Khalid: No, the waitress mistook “vegetarian” for “vegetable”. So “vegetarian pork” was just stir fried pork with vegetables. This was long before the days of faux meat dishes. And yes, my friend was your typical fussy white guy eating in a very traditional Asian restaurant. I found his distress hilarious at the time.
Amir Khalid
@Kent:
Oh, I see. But faux meat has a long history in Chinese cuisine, alongside vegetarianism itself, and I was not aware the waitress had misunderstood your friend’s order.
hitchhiker
2019 is going to be the last year of living like working folk; mr hiker is retiring at the end of August, so 2020 will be the transition (for him) from having a paycheck and a schedule to having neither.
We’re putting a beautiful little modular house on a lot we bought last year … it’s in Langley, WA, a village full of old hippies and working artists on Whidbey Island in Puget Sound. Basically a RL version of this site, based on my many visits there over the years.
So, I get to retire to a beautiful island that’s almost in British Columbia, with both our grown hiker daughters within an hour or so away. It’s a wildly unexpected outcome for a person whose family included many of the most wrenching and intractable problems. Prison. Suicide. Addiction. Overdose. You name it, we did it.
So, yeah. Bring on the 20s, and thank all of you for your generous, dogged, bullheaded, wise, ridiculous voices on my screen. Let’s take over next fall!
Aardvark Cheeselog
@Kent:
Came here to say this. If you are learning to stir fry and you’re not reading Dunlop you’re probably Doing It Wrong.
WaterGirl
@Ruckus: All the best to you, Ruckus. Sounds like that could be an upgrade from Parkinson’s! Especially since I’m pretty sure you were not a fan of not knowing what the hell was going on.
Jager
@raven:
Me too!
Anne Laurie
Terrible! You’d think in a city with as many Muslims as KL, there’d be more Chinese restaurants who realized there was a market for halal dishes!
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: 5,000 miles, wow. At least there’s Skype and/or FaceTime!
Kent
@hitchhiker: Whidby Island is on our short list of places to retire. Love it up there. We are big into boating so it’s a perfect place to keep a boat for occasional cruising up the inside passage to Alaska.
We are still stuck down here in Camas WA on the edge of Portland which is a pretty nice place to live but without the saltwater. Still have 2 kids in school and college to pay for so we are at least 10 years out from being able to hang it up and move wherever we want.
Anne Laurie
Betty, that is indeed an amazing print! You should use the image for your personal medallion, if we ever get around to implementing those consistently…
chris
I turned 65 a couple of months ago, never thought I’d make it but here we are. Tomorrow I begin the new and improved 30-year plan. The last two didn’t quite work out as envisioned but I remain optimistic about this one.
Happy New Year, jackals
ETA: Badger print is awesome! As is the dog his ownself.
WaterGirl
@Anotherlurker: Lots of great news! Followed by the heartbreaker. Sounds like your boy was determined to hang around until he was sure you were okay.
A better friend could not be had.
tomtofa
Went back to visit my growing-up town in the Blue Ridge mountains of NC some years ago.
My parents were eager to take me to the newly opened Chinese restaurant – first of its kind in the area. The menu was limited; I ordered Lemon Chicken. The waitress beamed “Great! Want french fries or rice with that?”
Baud
I’m checking out. See y’all in 2020 — the Year of Destiny!
FlyingToaster
@Anne Laurie: I’m so used to pointing guests at the kosher Chinese places in Brookline that I expected Malaysia to have halal versions.
Nelle
We’ve moved 11 times since 2006, including four times across the Pacific. This past year, we moved to Iowa (our seventh state) to be near grandchilden. My husband retired at the age of 75 (I think he would only retire to spend more time with the girls, ages 2 and one born last February). So more change and disruption but also more chances to find good people wherever I go. Much joy in the little ones (though right now, one is distraught that parents have gone out for New Year’s Eve). I’m missing the warm summer New Year’s Eve birthday party we went to every year in New Zealand, but, since New Zealand has been in 2020 for 16 hours already, I’ve gotten to see the photos of this year’s bash. I guess the last 15 years have convinced me that there are grand and good people the world over. And some real stinkers. I will focus on the good ones, many of whom are right here.
Anotherlurker
@WaterGirl: Absolutely, W.G.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@raven:
“You’re killing me smalls”
Sorry, not sorry raven lol
@Amir Khalid:
I think the next 2nd youngest commenter here is M^4 and he’s like 34
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I know, but I’m super worried. We have like a six week NLCEX prep course that was paid for as part of our tuition. It’s just so nuts it’s going to be over in a few months
japa21
@Amir Khalid: Practically. The question is if it was before or after my 50th HS reunion that year.
delk
I got a new hip this year. Considering that I wasn’t supposed to live past 25, it’s sort of satisfying to have lived long enough to wear out the old one.
prostratedragon
Great dogs!
Been a tough year for me, but if you’re in Chicago area you might try the imam bail-de and bakhlava at Libanais restaurant on Devon near Kedzie.
Annals of the Salvation Army, part 1:
OGLiberal
The good news is that the combo Chinese/Japanese Hibachi by our vacation trailer in the Poconos is very good. The bad news is said trailer burned to the ground on Christmas Eve and we don’t have insurance on it – so have to pay likely thousands of dollars to have a contractor remove it so I can have a lot with a shed and half burnt deck.
At least we weren’t there – we were scheduled to show up Christmas Day evening. And, hey, I still have my job and actually got a raise in salary and bonus, albeit small ones. But that trailer, for reasons too complex and long to explain here, gave us an escape and happiness during some very tough years.
WaterGirl
Betty, I see that someone inherited your artistic talent. Amazing gift. I see that the long ltraidition of awesome Cracker women is being continued in your daughter. I am sure you must be proud.
At Christmas someone was asking me about a recipe, and I said it was Betty Cracker. Followed by “er, sorry, Betty Crocker”.
WaterGirl
@OGLiberal:
I hope that a year or two from now you will be able to report that you have another trailer giving you escape and happiness, “tough years” no longer included.
Gin & Tonic
@WaterGirl: Sorry, the omniscient Google tells me it’s about 4,520. And yes, we FaceTime regularly.
I’m so old (really) I can remember the Bell Telephone video phone from the 1964 World’s Fair.
OGLiberal
@Kent: Happened to me when we were in China getting our daughter. Had to send it back twice before I finally had to go the front desk (it was room service) where the staff had a better grasp of English. Finally got my vegetable (only) fried rice.
dww44
@Ruckus: Congrats on a not too bad medical diagnosis. My sister has menieres and manages well, plus she’s a couple or three years older than you. I’m glad you will be with us for some time to come. I’ve long appreciated your wisdom and insight.
Happy New Year to you.
Juice Box
@Anotherlurker: Sorry to hear about your best friend. I lost mine just thirty minutes before midnight the day before my 60th birthday this summer and her younger “brother” the previous T’giving. They were both elderly. My spouse an I had previously agreed to wait a while for a replacement, but he talked me into looking for an adult female in need of a home which is how I wound up with a male puppy. I still miss my girl though. OTOH, I called off my birthday and am in my second year of being 59.
Amir Khalid
@Anne Laurie:
@FlyingToaster:
In the cities here, the population is majority non-Muslim Chinese, and most Chinese restaurants serve this clientele. Some do seek out an all-Malaysian customer base; these are pork-free, and often also beef-free as well.
WaterGirl
I hope Cole remembered to set his alarm so he can show up here to help ring in the new year.
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
The Ménière’s hasn’t affected my hands, but the tremor that kept the Parkinson’s back and forth going for 4 yrs is still there, mostly controlled now but it isn’t gone. I still work as a machinist though. And from my studies and my doctors I’ve never heard of Ménière’s causing issues with the hands. Vertigo, hearing loss on one side, tinnitus, sometime nystagmus (I had that, it’s fun! Not.) There is some other proposed diseases, such as vestibular migraine that have some of the same traits, but a slightly different grouping, but the entire concept is an evolving situation.
OGLiberal
@WaterGirl: Thanks. Things will work out in the end but still in shock…no idea yet how it happened. Needless to say, put a damper on the holidays. But the kids still seemed to have a very good time, so that’s always good.
Ruckus
@raven:
We’re old, give the kid a break………
OK breaks over…….
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: 2020, the Year of Baud!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): The kid was stressing over her’s but actually found it pretty easy. I think it’s probably easier for BSN’s than folk with any old degree.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ruckus: Heh. I’ll be 60 in 3 weeks.
mrmoshpotato
Badger! And the woodblock print is damn impressive too! :)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@WaterGirl: My bet is he purposely forgot.
Kent
This seems like kind of a big deal. Not seeing anything on the news but then I’m watching the Alamo Bowl and not CNN
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/iran-backed-militia-supporters-converge-on-us-embassy-in-baghdad-shouting-death-to-america/2019/12/31/93f050b2-2bb1-11ea-bffe-020c88b3f120_story.html
mrmoshpotato
@realbtl: ?? Congrats!
danielx
@Baud:
Only a deeply twisted mind could even conceptualize Szechuan Haggis.
Ruckus
@frosty:
Well as my doc says, I’m not 100% normal, but then we all knew that.
Sorry about your dad and the Parkinson’s. There are some things I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy and that’s one of them. Do remember though that pretty much anyone can develop any of the neurological diseases, at any age, but usually after 60 or so, none of which are anything but hell on earth.
I’m hoping that it doesn’t show it’s nasty self, any more than MS, ALS or Alzheimer’s, which my dad had. All of these have some symptoms in common but all have different results because they affect differing areas of the noggin. A gentleman I used to know from pro sports developed ALS and passed away a couple years ago. It was hell. My dad’s Alzheimers was hell. And here I thought that hell came after a life as a shitty person. Nope. Some people get to live in hell to the very end.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: LMAO
dr. bloor
@Kent: I’m either getting wiser or more cynical as I age, but I pretty much assumed Iran had a hand in this. GWB is the best thing that could have happened to Iran’s geopolitical aspirations.
Yutsano
@realbtl: MAZEL TOV!!!
Ruckus
@hitchhiker:
Even with all the problems you’ve made it. Congrats.
I looked into moving to Whidbey Island a few years ago, sounded like a great place but a bit too much rain for me.
dr. bloor
@Baud: Only if you tell them to hold the MSG.
danielx
@raven:
Hey, probably lowering the average age in here by five years all by his own self.
Patricia Kayden
@realbtl: Congratulations ?
JMG
Happy New Year to all! It’s 10:30 here and that’s as far as I go. 2019 wasn’t bad for me and mine except for my three eye surgeries (two cataract lens replacements, good. One detached retina, not good. Avoid if possible). But I can still see and my family is well and retirement increasingly agrees with me. I do not think I would thrive in the current “hot takes uber alles” environment of sports journalism. Also, I just saw Caddyshack, so I feel good.
See you all next year which ought to be a doozy for better or worse.
Mike in NC
Entering 2020 with a lot of anxiety. My doctors have convinced me to have heart surgery next week to correct a congenital defect. I guess it’ll either kill me or cure me.
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
The worst part is that it was you may have, you don’t have but come back in 3 months for us to look again, take this medication to see how it works – and it seems that every neurological med there is, I’m in the 3-5% that has the shitty side effects they tell you about but say only a few people have.
This is a part of medicine that is being studied in the attempt to find better diagnosis, better treatments and possible ways to slow or stop them. So far, for all the work done to date, it’s still the relative early stages. The brain is a very complex organ and of course it affects everything else, so almost anything wrong can go sideways rapidly and/or massively affect life.
Ivan X
@susanna: thank you!! Simple message, but one I relish hearing.
Kent
@dr. bloor: Of course they do. That seems pretty self-evident.
Still, hundreds of protesters running wild on the Embassy grounds while armed Marines stand around behind fortified positions wondering when it is time to open fire. Seems like a recipe for disaster to me. Shit can get real in a hurry
Iran is like the velociraptors in Jurassic park. They keep probing the fences relentlessly, looking for weaknesses. And with Trump they are going to find them. I don’t think this ends well.
Ivan X
@WaterGirl: thank you, deeply, Watergirl, and not least for what you’ve done here. In 2019.
geg6
My best thing of the year is my older niece re-connecting with a guy she knew in grade school, buying a house with him, getting engaged (wedding day 9/12/20) and having the sweetest, most pleasant baby girl it has ever been my pleasure to meet. From age 21 to 25, I had worried about where she was going to end up, what with being confused about what she wanted to do in life and then getting involved with a real jackass, a relationship that caused some major family dissension. And now, at age 27, she has this beautiful baby to whom she is a terrific mother, is about a year into nursing school, has a lovely home and a fiancé who shows every sign of being a wonderful husband and father. It’s a turn of events that has made all the bad things this year fade just a bit when I feel the need to look for the good in life for 2020.
Tldjr
@hitchhiker: Love Langley! There’s a beautiful inn there (well there used to be) that my brother and I stayed at a couple of times while we traveled the area. I’m very envious!
mrmoshpotato
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: “Hold on to your butts.”
brantl
@Baud: Szechuan Haggis; nothing wrong with it? Only the “haggis” part. Blech.
mrmoshpotato
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Classic!
Steeplejack (phone)
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m somewhat optimistic going into 2020, at least on a personal level. But that may be because this year has been a bit of an annus horribilis. I’ll be glad to see the back of it.
mrmoshpotato
@prostratedragon: Noted.
Ruckus
@Nelle:
When I came back from my 3 week motorcycle tour of NZ, my sister picked me up at the airport. She asked me one question, what was the best part. I started naming stuff I’d seen and done and then stopped and said, the people. And that has been a part of most places I’ve been in the world, the best part was the people. And yes, sometimes the worst, but far more often the part that I remember far better and longer.
brantl
@delk: I’m 63, I’ve worn out 2.
Obvious Russian Troll
@Amir Khalid: A guy I know who works for a big vendor I do business with lives and works in Markham, Ontario. A lot of the nearby restaurants are Chinese, including some very good ones.
He’s also Muslim (I’m about 90% sure he’s originally from Malaysia), and because of the pork thing he ends up eating vegetarian sushi most of the time. Works for me, since I don’t trust most of the Chinese restaurants to make food gluten free.
Auntie Big Mouth
I’m really inspired reading about what is going on with everyone. I’m recently cooking more and eating healthier and trying to carry that over into the new year. I’m a photography enthusiast and this year started shooting film. This is one of my favorites this year.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B5XyuT4HhI1/?igshid=1qh2b700bcxvq
mrmoshpotato
If you’re in the Chicago area, the Marx Brothers’ Monkey Business has just started on WGN-TV.
Ruckus
@Gin & Tonic:
I’m old enough that I remember having to to the telephone exchange to make overseas calls from Europe to the US. Every major city had one, go in, take a number, when there was an open line coming up they would call the next person and you’d go up, give them the country and number and they’d tell you how much per minute, you pay then go to a seat with a phone, looked like half a jail visitation place. Kind of worked like it as well. Most surprising was once being in a bar in Denmark and asking the bartender where was the exchange and he handed us the phone, told us to just call, and can we pay for it. All that was in 71 and 72.
Ruckus
@dww44:
Tell your sister I’m sorry, from a fellow sufferer.
And Happy New Year to you!
Now that wisdom part, I think you may have me confused with someone……
WaterGirl
@OGLiberal: I’m sure you are still in shock. I was sort of in shock myself 6 years ago when the tree crashed on my house, and my backyard looked like a battlefield. Just a few days before or after, was a big storm where entire towns were devastated, and I could imagine what it would feel like to see the devastation from my house multiplied by 100. A lot of people in shock.
Anyway, that’s my long way of apologizing for coming off too perky and optimistic about the future at a time when you are surely still still trying to wrap your head and your emotions around the loss you just experienced.
Wishing you all the best, and yes, kids can keep you grounded in the moment, which is a blessing.
Ruckus
@Juice Box:
Second year of being 59. You can do that? I likee.
Let’s see that would make me in my 11th year of being 59. But then again my boss just turned real 59 last Saturday. Wonder how he’d feel about being the same age as me……..
delk
@brantl: I’m 57. Doctor says I have about 2 years left on the other one before it goes.
WaterGirl
@Ruckus: I can only imagine. The good thing is that you are here with us and that you are handling all the trials with grace. Here’s to a better year in 2020.
randy khan
@Kent:
In the early 1980s, I ate at a Chinese-American diner in Ogden, Utah. Run by Anglos. It was . . . an experience.
Ruckus
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
A veritable child…….
Hey, anyone that makes it past 50 is rather amazing to me. I remember hitting 30 and trying to imagine what 60 would be like or if I’d even make it there. Damn if I didn’t and then ran right on by.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Kent:
Dunlop is on a good episode of Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street.
WaterGirl
@Ivan X: May things only get better in 2020, for all of us! Hoping for energy and joy for all of us personally, and for a light at the end of this hellish tunnel we are in politically.
randy khan
The print is great.
Lots of good things in 2019 – both houses of the Virginia General Assembly flipped to the Dems; we had some great travel; I enjoyed watching Nancy Smash in action.
Hoping for much more progress in Washington in 2020.
hitchhiker
@Tldjr:
The Inn is still there, but the Doghouse restaurant on 1st street is closed.
We’re so, so ready to do this. Been living in downtown Seattle for the last 4 yrs, and as I write this there are 4 massive building projects within 2 blocks of our apartment. Each one will be at least 40 floors high, so we’re surrounded by tower cranes and trucks …
Langley, when we go there, is shockingly silent. You can hear individual birds, and dogs, and cars.
Ruckus
@Mike in NC:
Best of luck with that.
Granddad and one of his daughters, my aunt, both had congenital heart issues. It got both of them in their mid 40s. Because medicine didn’t know what to do then. It does now and I think the heart is one of the things they know how to fix most of all. A very good friend passed away almost 3 yrs ago was a very early pacemaker trial person, she got her first in 72, only 4 yrs after the first successful implantation. She lived with sickle cell and that causes a lot of heart/circulation issues. I’ve visited her in ICU when she had episodes, which she called them. She lived far past the normal age of someone with sickle cell because she would get anything done to live longer. The risk for her was not doing experimental stuff.
Anyway long way around to say once again, good luck and follow docs orders!
burnspbesq
Heading into the new year retired, unmarried (temporarily), and with a brand new stent in my LAD artery. Fun!
Kent
@hitchhiker: I went to grad school at the UW in the early 90s and then worked for a couple years at the NOAA labs out on Sand Point before transferring to Juneau. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING about the U-District is as I remember it when we passed through a couple months ago on a college visit with my HS Junior daughter.
I have a brother who owns a modest condo in lower Queen Anne just west of the Seattle Center. He will never leave. He’s an artist who has a part-time stand at the Market and a collection of other part-time jobs. I can’t imagine living in Seattle over the age of say 35 anymore. Just too much headache and chaos. And yes, I miss the Doghouse too for those late nite vittles after a night on the town. Especially the waitresses for their attitude. Or were you talking about a different Doghouse in Langley?
StringOnAStick
This year I got two new knees and I’m back skiing so I am pleased with the results.
right now we are in a town we are considering retiring to in a bit over a year, maybe 1.5 years. It all depends on if we have a D president who will protect and hopefully expand the ACA since we’ve got 3 years to go to get to Medicare age. This upcoming election is the most personally consequential that I can remember, but they all are, aren’t they?
Anne Laurie
Main complaint Americans have about haggis is that it’s made from the sheep bits people in rich countries like ours don’t usually eat, plus oatmeal.
Szechuan cooking, AFAIK, involves the bits of animals people in rich countries don’t eat, plus a whole lot of chilis / ginger / garlic. Seems like that would help disguise the ‘weirdness’ of haggis to good American foodies, wouldn’t it?
hitchhiker
@Kent:
In our current building on 1st Hill, we’re definitely outliers — old folks in the elevator among the hordes of amazon techies and hospital staff. Mr hitchhiker, who is disabled & can only walk for half a mile or so before needing a long rest, can get from our apt to his office at the convention center on his feet, which is why we live here, for now.
In our new house, I’ll have an easy mile walk to the town, but he’ll be able to cut thru some woods and get to the bus stop across from the fair grounds. I don’t anticipate any tower cranes, and I do hope to see something I almost never see here: little children.
This is the modular home outfit we’re working with. I love them.
https://timberland-homes.com/
NotMax
@Ruckus
I’m still not used to the added step of needing to dial 1. More than half the time forget to do it.
Another Scott
@Ruckus: :-( It’s good you have a diagnosis. It’s a bummer what the diagnosis is. My dad didn’t have that, but did have tinnitus that was aggravated by any noises (he often wore ear plugs in public, and bought the quietest refrigerator he could find when they remodeled their kitchen – before that, he rigged up a switch to turn it off when they were in the kitchen).
Hang in there.
Beautiful wood print, BC! Reminds me of Diego Lukezic’s Tango Dog, and, of course, George Rodrigue’s Blue/Red/Yellow Dog.
Best wishes for 2020 to each and every jackal and those they love.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kent
@hitchhiker: Excellent. Looks like a beautiful home!
I’m more of the downsize and simplify mindset. My wife is more the Latina mom who wants a big house to be the central homestead for the whole clan. She won that argument when we moved to Camas and we how have a big 3-story with lots of bedrooms and such. We had 10 here over Christmas with family visiting from Chile and oldest daughter home from college with boyfriend in tow. So I guess she knew best. Just put the 87 year old mother-in-law on the plane back to Santiago this morning. And daughter took the train up to Seattle today to celebrate New Years Eve with the boyfriend at some big party at the MoPOP. Then they are taking the ferry to Victoria. I don’t remember doing that sort of thing when I was in college.
When the kids are all gone I have my eye on converting the basement living area into a boatbuilding shop. We shall see if I win that one!
Ruckus
@NotMax:
I’ve only had a cell phone for the last 14 yrs and had both cell and landline for 6 yrs before that but was on the road so much I never used the landline, so I forget to dial one when I have to use the landline phone at work every 2 or 3 yrs.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Happy New Years!
Ruckus
@Another Scott:
I’ve had tinnitus for 16 yrs because of an industrial accident, I was standing next to an explosion and took the shock wave from about 5 feet from my ear, which was pointing in exactly the wrong direction. So 16 yrs of one frequency, one volume tone in my ear. I’d gotten used to it, not to the point I never noticed it but it was livable. Then that all changed and about 3 weeks after that, my first attack. Now it’s loud enough that some days it’s hard to get to sleep. It’s always loud enough to be noticeable over most normal noise. Also I’ve lost 20-25% of the hearing in the same ear. And as I can not take the only medicine they prescribe I have to be on an almost no salt diet. I often wear ear plugs at work because of the air hoses used to clean machines and the radio on an oldies station that I hated 50 yrs ago, which plays the same fucking music that it did then for all those old farts who think their teen years were the best years of their lives. Which for some of them they were.
SectionH
Betty C: your daughter’s print is great. No, really. Woodblock prints aren’t easy to do. I’ve done a few linoleum block prints, and they’re tricky enough. Capturing Badger, Excellent! The arrangement’s fun too.
Gotta say that, because I’m on my 4th hotel night inna row, after 9+ hr days of driving, some Interstates, dodging Interstates mostly*, and and I’m not gonna be awake at Midnight, and I wanted to post nice comments to So Many juicers who posted here tonight, but I’ll settle for FSM Monster Bless and Help Us All.
*Figure it out for yourselves… is the tempting thing to say, send me msg thru FPgers and I’ll tell you
Tdjr
@hitchhiker: We didn’t have anything to do one night so we went to the local movie theater. La Cage au Folles was playing with Nathan Lane and the rest of the wonderful cast. But what was so fun was the crowd was mostly locals. Greeting others in the theater before the lights went down. It was obvious they all knew everyone and it seemed like a close community.
Ben Cisco
My best of 2019:
I’m home. Family is great. Job is great – best of my career. Bounced back from a health downturn. Ready to make 2020 even better.
Happy New Year jackalteriat.
WaterGirl
@Ben Cisco: I’m so happy to hear that! You deserve it.
Tdjr
Longtime lurker here. Enjoy the intelligence and love here. Happy 2020 to everyone. Shitty year in general, was 2019. Good riddance. And we can only have hope.
Eta: Glad to see Cole hasn’t changed yet to a kinder gentler version.
Tim Wayne
Hey Betty – there are some great recipes on Maangchi’s youtube channel. She walks you through everything. The ingredients are pretty easy to get. So many stir-fry variations. And, yeah, I know it’s Korean not Chinese, but it’s close enough and soooooo good. If you learn the techniques then you can apply many of them to Chinese recipes.