Augie

It’s right up there with the 4th of July, or Independence Day as it is known, for cool holidays! Treat yourself to some pie today! On us!

If you find a little voodoo doll and some needles with the letter, you had better mind your P’s and Q’s. Just some friendly advice.

This is what happens if you don’t get it all out in middle school, I suppose.

You’ve already won, sir.

My wife has this meal down, and now she’s mixing it up some. It may almost surpass Easter as her favorite holiday now. She just got a call from a friend from our Sarasota days. Our oldest used to babysit their kids, so we go back a while. Her friend said her son called to say how glad they were to be coming to our place again this year. We’ve done about the last 25 Thanksgivings together, and it wouldn't be the same anywhere else. Both of their “boys” are married and in their 30’s, but on Thanksgiving Day it’s just like it’s always been. It’s pretty cool.

I might try to find a place for a sink…. Or is that what you meant?

I do almost all the cooking in our house. I shop and cook daily….except for Thanksgiving. It’s my wife’s deal, and I mostly just stay the heck out of the way. We usually have around 20 people, and she takes care of everything. For her first retired Thanksgiving she’s also making all the pies from scratch, including dough. Interesting Thanksgiving side-note: We are not huge dessert people. I’ll always ask for the smallest slice of pie, while my wife usually passes completely. This year we are filling small, 1-2 bite size pastry tarts (frozen by the pie shells and phyllo) with pumpkin pie filling and also a pecan pie/chocolate chips mixture. While I’m very slow to accept a whole piece of pie, I am very quick to grab one of those little bad boys and pop it in my mouth. It’s a little experiment this year to see what is more popular. The pumpkin pie filling really benefits from a little bit of crunch in every bite, imo, and I may get sick from eating too many pecan/chocolate chip tarts. EDIT: I’m worried that the sample size of pecan/chocolate chip tarts study might not be sufficient to render results worthy of publication due to supply issues. It’s dwindling. The geek says “well, we’ll never know”, while successful people see an opportunity. .

This should provide a serious boost to the passing game.

The guy with 9 catches for 124 yards at Thanksgiving was one of our bright spots? Things must be worse than I thought! How did the Browns use him to average 60 catches? In the words of Josh, “What are we doing here?”

Well, I assume he paid for those haircuts too, so nothing should surprise us.

The good news is, he knows where to look for a place to rent. He knows what’s around, and what he likes. And he’s learned NOT to buy and get the shortest lease possible, like maybe a hotel near the airport.

Anything between the arc and the rim is no longer cool, it seems. Just imagine all the countless hours of school, rec leagues and AAU ball, and some guys get thru without ever being taught how to be a decent FT shooter.

I will stand by Amari Cooper got us into the playoffs, even if he had minimal actual production (especially after the injury).

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. I’d rather try it than not.

I really don’t study this stuff the way some do, but I’d prefer an offensive HC so we don’t have to keep changing coordinators (like we do now) because if they suck they have to go, and if they are good they get poached. For that reason Vrabel, while I like and respect him as a coach, would not be ideal for me. Johnson had never been a HC before, and that gave me some concern. Harbaugh just annoys the &^%* out of me and seems to wear his welcome out quickly, so that wouldn’t be ideal for me. And so on….a lot of decent options but none that I personally just have to have. But what do I know? I don’t know who it will be or when, but something will happen at some point and I’ll probably go along with it. Some HC prospects (and I won’t argue specific names here as I’m tired of this already 😊) could push me over the edge. Not in a desperate way, but in an “I just don’t care any more” way. I don’t miss the NBA, and I have yet to watch my college hoops team play a game this season. I seem to be getting more balance in my life about this stuff, so it’s easier to take it or leave it.