Impending Decisions

Clippers @ Tides 051
Originally uploaded by bzarcher

The conference at the mound last night where the Clippers decided to give Campbell the chance to finish his Complete game. Top 9, 1 on, 1 out, and a 1-2 count on the batter.

Not only did he finish, but he retired the side in grand style to earn the shutout. :>

I have to admit it seems wierd that after getting wound up about my mom's surgery, and acting as the telephone exchange between my dad at the Hospital and my grandparents, Aunts, and other relatives, that I decided to go ahead with going to the baseball game. Heck, I very nearly handed Klegman and Wyatt the tickets I'd gotten and told them to go without me, but something stopped me, and told me to go.

What I found was that after getting myself wound up, going to the game, turning my brain off and just enjoying the evening and taking pictures let me release all that stress. And when I did go to visit Mom tonight, she really enjoyed the pictures from the game, as well as Monday night's smoker assembly. It gave us something to talk about and share without needing her to move much or put any stress on her neck, and she kept telling me how glad she was that I had gone out and gotten the pictures to share with her.

She is home now, resting. She complained and apologized about getting tired very quickly, but I shut that down as soon as she started. I told her that I was pretty sure that major neurosurgery was a -very- good reason to be tired, and assured her I wasn't bothered by it. The doctors took out "a lot" of cartilege from around the nerve, and she said that even today with feeling very weak and tired, she still felt like it was much less pain than she's felt in at least a couple months, which was a huge relief.

Recovery will take time, but I think she's gonna be just fine, once all is said and done.

Scrabble Night: The TASTENING

las and haceldama are coming by tonight for dinner and Scrabble, so I decided to try something bold and unusual for dinner.

We're going to smoke a fattie.

No, no. Not that wacky weed, though I suppose that'd make the Scrabble game interesting.

A Fattie in BBQ/Smoking terms is basically a rolled meat contraption that's stuffed, smoked and served like a roulade. The upside being that it takes much less time to cook to done-ness than a full roast.
( OK, that's a little longer than I thought. )

We'll also be doing some baked potatoes in the smoker at the same time - wash the potato thoroughly, brush with olive oil, sprinkle on kosher or sea salt, and smoke at ~250 for (coincidentally) 2 hours or until done.

Yes, I'm going to take pictures of this. :>

If anyone else wants to come by tonight to play some scrabble and eat this thing, just let me know so I can throw a potato on for you.

I'm also planning to do ribs tomorrow night. :)