Two Pilots & an LSW: Lists

Kaylee had asked me if I had a chili recipe, because her work was doing a chili cook-off with the 7-8 ladies in the office there. I had my Mom's chili recipe, which has always been my favorite chili, so I snapped a shot of that and sent it to her. Last night she texts me "where am I supposed to find 3 pounds of lamb??" I look at the pic and respond with "That's 3 lbs of HAMB. Hamburger, dear." She slapped her forehead and moved on. Awhile later I get a text that says "That's a LOT of meat. Are you sure??" I said "if it's in the recipe, I'd guess so, but text your Grandma, it's her recipe, she'd know!" Kaylee texts back that Mom uses 2 lbs. Good call, it was already very meaty, just perfect. :) She had me come over and do a taste test later, and I couldn't put my finger on why it tasted good but a little bland. So we added some more spice, and then let it be. She said that most of her co-workers were dieticians who take cooking classes so she was just trying not to embarrass herself. We decided it was good, and went to bed. She gets up this morning and drives to work, and their whole street loses power. No warming up chili there! She had to drive all the way home and do her three clients virtually over the computer. And in the meantime, we get the chili, because they're not doing it again until later in November. So Steve and I had it for dinner, with cubes of cheese in the bottom, as per my favorite, and the flavors had blended in overnight and it was delicious! Childhood memory unlocked again, and an explanation on why I'm never as fond of anyone else's runny or noodly chili. :)

I finished the 3 available seasons of Ted Lasso tonight. I enjoyed his little inspirational speeches, and he reminded me of a sort of male version of Steve's mom. An unfailing optimism and faith in the goodness of other people even when they proved otherwise. Giving people a second or third chance when they definitely didn't deserve it, forgiving without a second though, and just kind, at all times, and in being so, genuinely, changing their lives for the better. Also rather wise in life things, too. But he was still human of course. He was annoying with his little non-stop chatter especially the first season. But at the end, his mom came across the world to come visit him, without telling him she was coming, and her last evening there, he stood in the kitchen and did a "Thank you" and "F you" list. Ann would never say F you, so there's a difference. "Thank you for the delicious dinner tonight. F you for showing up and not telling me you were coming. Thank you for the little things when I was a kid that made me feel special like putting googly eyes on the vegetables in the store to make me laugh. F you for pretending like everything was fine when Dad killed himself, and making me feel like I had to pretend too". Etc. It was a good speech, a strong, meaningful one. I enjoyed the show. I also liked Coach Roy, who was rough and gruff and said "Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck" with a low growl so many times that I can hear it in my head now when appropriate and it makes me laugh. They also had a thing where if you said something, and the other person said "Oklahoma", you had to tell the truth. If they say Oklahoma, they're wanting to hear the truth no matter what, so you had to say it. "I'm fine" "Oklahoma" "I'm horrified by this". Kinda handy now and then, I'd think.

Steve and I got a vented heater for our deck to replace our electric heater. The electric heat causes so much moisture on the deck that we grow mold on the wood, which he spends a lot of time, money and effort to get it off of there. It's also a super expensive electric bill over the winter since that area isn't insulated. It wasn't meant to be a 4 season enclosed deck, but it's become that way. First because we had cats to keep alive, and then because Steve and the boys meet on the deck at least once a week to hang out all night, drink bourbon, and smoke cigars, and they don't care to do that without heat. So this new vented gas heater will help with that, and then he's having insulation put in on the roof of the deck too, to help out. We went to Menard's to pick it up today. Their system for picking up big items is quite efficient. You get a code to scan in at a gate, that alerts them on the inside that you're coming, you drive up, they pull your item and load it into your car and give you a receipt, you show the receipt to the guard at the gate who makes sure you're not driving off with anything but what you're supposed to, and off you go. It was quick and easy. He'll probably try to have it up and running by next weekend, I'd guess.

I was supposed to T-6 fly tomorrow morning with a new guy, but the winds are supposed to be a 40-50 degree crosswind gusting up to 25 knots, and I'm not doing that with a new guy. Probably not doing it anyway. No need.

They did a video of our formation flight. When I heard that, I flinched. I hadn't flown a 4-ship with T-6s since May of 2023. MAY OF 2023. That's 2 and a half years. In October of 2024 I did a 4-ship with mis-matched airplanes for a checkride for the JLFC, a year ago. That's it. That's all the formation I've done. And here we are getting videoed and sent out to the public. Terrifying. I was rusty as hell, which was the point of the practice. Fortunately the video isn't too bad. There's a video of our diamond pass over the runway which actually looked really good, but it's on Facebook and I can't seem to link it. This video is okay. There's some stuff that wasn't great, but not so bad that the general public would likely know. ;)