Darkest Suburbia...and Beyond!

....in salute to members of our armed forces, past, present, and future.  Whatever one may believe about particular past or present conflicts, those who accept the honor and duty of military service deserve our respect and tribute.

Off right now for family time, and an annual pilgrimage.

Birthday greetings to deedop!  (LiveJournal reader software is a wonderful memory aid....)  The virtual truffles are on me.

More than usually interesting Mother's Day dinner this year; for special-occasion dinners, I sometimes pick places we haven't been that look capital-I Interesting (within the limits of my parents' culinary tastes). This time I chose a relatively new establishment in Portland's Western suburbs, Dessert Noir. It was in many respects an excellent meal, but I find myself more than usually conflicted about the experience.

( Lengthy comments beneath the cut to spare the non-foodies: )

I am faintly astonished.

As I type, there is turkey and dressing in the oven. The table is set (for three -- my parents will be over shortly). Two-thirds of the components for apple pie are prepared and awaiting the arrival of the third (I admit it, for pie I cheat and use refrigerated premade crusts, but the store was out when we went shopping Tuesday night). But there is only one dirty dish in the sink -- the sauté pan in which the veggies for the dressing were heated -- and the kitchen is otherwise in extraordinarily tidy shape.

What's really astonishing is that the kitchen is that neat, and I have time to type a LiveJournal entry, even though this is the first Thanksgiving dinner I've hosted in a very long time. Most years my parents and I go visit the Kid Brother and his family in sunny southern California for Turkey Week. David is a superb turkey-chef (he indirect-grills his birds), and my sister-in-law's family joins us for the feast, so it's definitely a full-scale Thanksgiving. This year, however, Mother is recovering -- very, very well, mind -- from knee replacement surgery, and isn't yet up for a long trip. So we are having a smaller Thanksgiving here.

( pause, answer phone/door )