Figgy Pudding

Short Version:
Waffle fail, Black Friday. Angry cripple, fridge excellence. It's a small world.

Long Version:
We started the day with a telling-off from the hotel manager. Apparently the sign affixed to the waffle-maker that read: "Pour mixture in, close lid, turn handles" meant that after pouring the mixture in and closing the lid one should grasp the two handles and rotate the entire device. I'd been busily unscrewing the plastic handles while the "This muppet hasn't flipped me!" alarm blared out, grating and harsh in the early morning stillness.

Black Friday's a strange one: Thanksgiving Day is a public holiday. It falls each year on the last Thursday in November. Many businesses don't open on the Friday either*, turning Thanksgiving weekend into a 4-day break. Kind of makes sense when half your populace is travelling long distance to be with family. Most of the thrift stores in Corvallis were open, though, as was brewpub Block15, which is the home of delicious Figgy Pudding seasonal beery deliciousness. Both things suited us just fine but did mean that it was evening by the time we reached northern Seattle.

We stopped at the local shopping centre for delicious foods and wine, and witnessed a wizened little old crippled lady taking to task a robust chap who'd sinned cardinally by parking his enormous pickup truck in the disabled parking spaces (both of them). We joined in the righteous indignant condemnation of the able-bodied park-snatcher ("How dare he? Shame on him!"), and then high-tailed it out of there, to the not-quite-as-badly-parked Reaper and then on to Scott and Wendy's house, where we found the two of them and daughter Fiona decorating a bloody big Xmas tree, with "assistance" from Lulu the dog and the two cats.

Scott has edited their downstairs fridge, and it is now such a beautiful marriage of form and function that it beggars description. The key change is the hole in the door, sealed by rubber flanges, to which a hose has been run, on the inside. On the outside of the door, a tap. Inside the fridge, at the far end of the hose and connected to a gas cylinder for propulsion: a keg of delicious, nutritious Deschutes Brewery's Jubel Ale (a seasonal release from the people who bring you Black Butte Porter).

To recap: the fridge has a keg of beer in it, hardwired to a tap on the door.

It's like those refigerators with an inbuilt iced-water/ice dispenser built into the door, only much, much betterer.

Between that miracle of modern engineering and the bottle that came out once we admitted a liking for usquebaugh, we were a little the worse for wear by the time we hit the sack after an evening of conversing about everything under the sun, and some things which aren't. Mighty interesting to hear an alternate perspective on Amerikan politics, although one can't help wondering whether referring to Sarah Palin's political prominence as a proof-positive of the Mayan calendar's determination that the world will end in 2012 might be taking things a step too far. Speaking of that so-called lady, it turns out that our Seattle and Sedona connections were already connected, through mountain-biking, trail-building, and the magic of tequila. Small, small world!








* = Although it sounds like more and more stores are buying into the concept of Black Friday Sales and opening their doors. The name Black Friday actually comes from the belief - probably apocryphal - that it's the day of the year when retailers move to profitability for the year. Whether that's a result of having most of a year's trading under their belts, or whether it originated as a throwaway remark from a retailer enjoying a frenzied sale attendance, it's certainly now the equivalent of the Boxing Day Sales in NZ**

** = ie Avoid at all costs