25 December, 2024
Merry Christmas everyone! Hope it's been a great one.
Going with a relaxing seasonal ambient stream for your holiday evening libations and relaxations. Hope you enjoy.
Great Christmas shave this morning! Returned to Noble Otter again and their excellent "'Tis The Season" shave soap and splash. Wonderful scent with excellent lather built with the Wild West Brushworks "Rosé Noir" SHD Silvertip Badger brush for two passes (plus touch-up) with the '56 Gillette "Gold Tip" and I finished with a splash of Quinn's Pink Grapefruit & Orange Rind witch hazel, followed by the matching aftershave splash and Burberry "London for Men" EdT.
The "Happy Hogan" Homefront Report: Okay.. Well, this day turned out to be busier and a lot more stressful than I had wanted and I more than need the (second) dram of Scotch I'm having now. The day started off nice enough with some coffee and orange rolls this morning (always orange rolls on Christmas morning) and my wife and I opening our presents to each other, along with the gift from my Rudolph buddy. My brother, sister and niece are coming over at 1pm for a Puerto Rican dinner. I have everything set up to begin cooking at noon. El Gran Combo is blasting (makes me feel like my dad's with me. Loved cooking with him). There's a big pot of boiling water for the pasteles (kind of Puerto Rico's version of a tamale). These take about 45 minutes to cook and I was gonna make tostones (twice-fried plantain slices), rice and gandules, and pintos. I use the Lucks brand pintos but I like to add to it. Typically I add some sofrito, olives and a seasoning called Sabor A Jamón (ham flavored concentrate). Now, I could have sworn I had some packets of this seasoning in the house. Nowhere to be found. I tore the kitchen and pantry apart looking for this stuff and couldn't find it anywhere. Clock is ticking so I finally had to call my brother to see if he had any. Luckily, he did and after a quick trip to and from his house, I was back on track.
About 12:30 my cell phone rings and it's my co-worker who's on call this week. He has an alarm in and doesn't know what's going on. Now, at work, I'm more of the "software guy" and he mainly handles the hardware side of things. But we always look out for each other when we're on call, and if one of us needs help, we always try to be there. Especially today because he wants to spend time with his family also. So I lower the heat on all the food (at this time everything's going except the tostones), get out my laptop and log into our system and try to talk him through the steps needed to rectify the situation. Nothing's working so I have to leave the house again and go into the office with him. Finally, we get it figured out, but by then almost an hour has passed. I had texted the family letting them know I'm running behind and to show up at 2:30.
I get back home, fire everything back up and I'm cutting the plantains to begin frying them. Now, my wife is HIGHLY allergic to any kind of rubber-based products / items. I always try to be extra careful when using anything with banana, plantains, etc because she can go into full anaphylactic shock. Her throat swells and we've had to make trips to the Emergency Room in the past. In a rush I messed up. While cutting the plantains I grabbed a spoon to stir the beans without washing my hand off first. Well, she came along and moves the spoon out of the way to get something. A few minutes later her face gets beet red, she starts rubbing and scratching her nose incessantly and is beginning to feel a full on attack coming.
She has meds (epinephrine shots) which she keeps handy at all times. They help but she has a rough time after using them. She gets flush with rapid heart rate. She also gets the jitters and nausea & sometimes a headache. So I cut the heat down again to tend to here. At first it seemed like the shot wasn't helping (we're both freaking out) and we're talking about whether or not I needed to take her on the the hospital. She said she wanted to try taking some Benadryl on top of the shot to see if that helps. After a while it did. But by that time I had gotten back in touch with the family, letting them know what had happened and that I didn't know if the dinner would have to be canceled.
As I said, she finally started feeling better, but now she's wiped out! Down for the count. Sitting in a chair with a wet cloth on her face and the ceiling fan blasting. So I go back in the kitchen and immediately toss out the plantains in addition to wiping down everything with some Clorox wipes. The thing I DON'T want is her coming into contact with anything else.
It's after 3:30pm before I'm able to get dinner served. We had a great time together, but right now I'm wiped out. Listening to the relaxing music posted above and enjoying what is now my third dram of Scotch.
Hope you have a great day.
Merry Christmas everyone! Hope it's been a great one.
Going with a relaxing seasonal ambient stream for your holiday evening libations and relaxations. Hope you enjoy.
Great Christmas shave this morning! Returned to Noble Otter again and their excellent "'Tis The Season" shave soap and splash. Wonderful scent with excellent lather built with the Wild West Brushworks "Rosé Noir" SHD Silvertip Badger brush for two passes (plus touch-up) with the '56 Gillette "Gold Tip" and I finished with a splash of Quinn's Pink Grapefruit & Orange Rind witch hazel, followed by the matching aftershave splash and Burberry "London for Men" EdT.
The "Happy Hogan" Homefront Report: Okay.. Well, this day turned out to be busier and a lot more stressful than I had wanted and I more than need the (second) dram of Scotch I'm having now. The day started off nice enough with some coffee and orange rolls this morning (always orange rolls on Christmas morning) and my wife and I opening our presents to each other, along with the gift from my Rudolph buddy. My brother, sister and niece are coming over at 1pm for a Puerto Rican dinner. I have everything set up to begin cooking at noon. El Gran Combo is blasting (makes me feel like my dad's with me. Loved cooking with him). There's a big pot of boiling water for the pasteles (kind of Puerto Rico's version of a tamale). These take about 45 minutes to cook and I was gonna make tostones (twice-fried plantain slices), rice and gandules, and pintos. I use the Lucks brand pintos but I like to add to it. Typically I add some sofrito, olives and a seasoning called Sabor A Jamón (ham flavored concentrate). Now, I could have sworn I had some packets of this seasoning in the house. Nowhere to be found. I tore the kitchen and pantry apart looking for this stuff and couldn't find it anywhere. Clock is ticking so I finally had to call my brother to see if he had any. Luckily, he did and after a quick trip to and from his house, I was back on track.
About 12:30 my cell phone rings and it's my co-worker who's on call this week. He has an alarm in and doesn't know what's going on. Now, at work, I'm more of the "software guy" and he mainly handles the hardware side of things. But we always look out for each other when we're on call, and if one of us needs help, we always try to be there. Especially today because he wants to spend time with his family also. So I lower the heat on all the food (at this time everything's going except the tostones), get out my laptop and log into our system and try to talk him through the steps needed to rectify the situation. Nothing's working so I have to leave the house again and go into the office with him. Finally, we get it figured out, but by then almost an hour has passed. I had texted the family letting them know I'm running behind and to show up at 2:30.
I get back home, fire everything back up and I'm cutting the plantains to begin frying them. Now, my wife is HIGHLY allergic to any kind of rubber-based products / items. I always try to be extra careful when using anything with banana, plantains, etc because she can go into full anaphylactic shock. Her throat swells and we've had to make trips to the Emergency Room in the past. In a rush I messed up. While cutting the plantains I grabbed a spoon to stir the beans without washing my hand off first. Well, she came along and moves the spoon out of the way to get something. A few minutes later her face gets beet red, she starts rubbing and scratching her nose incessantly and is beginning to feel a full on attack coming.
She has meds (epinephrine shots) which she keeps handy at all times. They help but she has a rough time after using them. She gets flush with rapid heart rate. She also gets the jitters and nausea & sometimes a headache. So I cut the heat down again to tend to here. At first it seemed like the shot wasn't helping (we're both freaking out) and we're talking about whether or not I needed to take her on the the hospital. She said she wanted to try taking some Benadryl on top of the shot to see if that helps. After a while it did. But by that time I had gotten back in touch with the family, letting them know what had happened and that I didn't know if the dinner would have to be canceled.
As I said, she finally started feeling better, but now she's wiped out! Down for the count. Sitting in a chair with a wet cloth on her face and the ceiling fan blasting. So I go back in the kitchen and immediately toss out the plantains in addition to wiping down everything with some Clorox wipes. The thing I DON'T want is her coming into contact with anything else.
It's after 3:30pm before I'm able to get dinner served. We had a great time together, but right now I'm wiped out. Listening to the relaxing music posted above and enjoying what is now my third dram of Scotch.
Hope you have a great day.
Noble Otter / Wild West Brushworks / Gillette / Wizamet / Quinn's / Burberry
