Second Friday since the last misfits box...means another one is here

 But first, it seems to be time to be in touch with Santa, as this little elf  is demonstrating today in the Advent Calendar

And since there's no knowing exactly when my Misfits box will arrive, tracking telling me it was loaded hours ago at their depot about ten minutes from here, I thought I'd better observe Action Stations.  

 

I find I was lucky in my choice of time to start with Misfits, since I get a delivery every two weeks, and it conveniently was not Thanksgiving week, and will not be Christmas week, either.  So I don't get any interruption in service, as they say.  I hadn't thought about this at the time.

Meanwhile, since I was in the kitchen anyway, I made a big pot of pumpkin, carrot and cashew soup, with plenty of nutmeg, a bit of curry powder, and a dash of lemon.

Which eventually became this, and very nice it was, too.

And when I'm not reading Olive and Mabel,  I'm into another Lisa See, very readable, even if hard to cope with at times, but she's a terrific storyteller. Two sisters who grow up fairly affluent and unthinking in Shanghai, where they earn money modeling for an advertising artist, until their lives come to a crashing halt when their father loses his entire property, and they are more or less traded to his creditor as wives to his sons.  Much complication follows, including the Japanese invasion and some scenes I felt I had to read, because historically this sort of thing did happen, but I was glad to move on from.  They eventually get to San Francisco, and that's where I'm up to.  It's unputdownable.

Then over lunch, there was a presentation from Amherst, which Emily Dickinson fans know as the home territory of the poet and a lot of history.  This was a series of slide presentations from four well prepared people, who know their stuff.  The Emily Dickinson Museum click here to see more, does a lot of these Zoom deals;  the material is usually very good indeed, and the technical knowhow of the academic presenters friendly, but not always on top of it.

Today there were a few, um, you're muted, Dr. Blank, no,  you're still muted.  Can you take over the screen now, thank you?  and a few muttered oops, mixed the buttons up, in the background.  But it is usually really good, and with none of the fake slickness you get in documentary type work.

I think of this as Zoom Without Tears, since all I have to do it click on the link and watch and listen.  No need to sit right in the right place, adjust my lighting so I look a little less like I've been dead a couple of days, and find and fix my sound levels. It's very restful.

This one examined the Dickinson family's relations to the College, which one of them founded, at terrible cost to himself, and their relation  to the town, the Civil War, race relations, immigration, flower pressing always gets in, she did a lot of it, and her college coursework. It was a lovely program, and I think may be found on their website, you could check at that link.

Then finally, the Misfits box arrived and did not disappoint.  This week it's top-heavy with fruit, enough for my daily intake for two weeks, urgent need.  The lettuce and Roma tomatoes and celery are all involved in tonight's supper.  The chocolaten, some ferociously dark stuff, with seasalt, is a little treat for Handsome Son, the dark chocolate lover.

And here's my supper, coming to the table shortly. I have a whole range of apple varieties, and I forget which this is, I took off the label, but it's crisp and juicy, even if anonymous.

So that's a quiet Friday around here.  Also I did some spinning in case I ran out of things to attend to..