Luncheon Conversations.

Pretty much every Sunday, a bunch of folk from church meet for lunch at a local restaurant. Today Jimmy John's got to be the venue of choice.

Conversations at these informal gatherings can be, quite literally, about anything. With Thanksgiving still fresh in everyone's minds, discussions naturally turned to what everyone had done. 3 of those present had been to the same dinner that I had, so there was some talk of that. In particular the fact that our host had a "sighted pellet gun, it was cool" with which he shot some squirrels that had become a nuisance came up. It was then pointed out that the best thing to do with dead squirrels was to eat them, because then they had been useful, rather than shooting them for their own sake. Never mind the fact that they ateall sorts of things growing in their garden, and they really were annoying. An argument ensued. Was it better to eat the squirrels, or not? Did not eating them make their killing senseless? Was the fact that there's really not much meat and it's a lot of effort to get what little meat there is relevent? I proposed a simple solution. Bury the dead squirrels below the tomato plant that they'd been eating, as a kind of ironic justice. No hassle with getting the meat, and they'd decompose, feed the tomatoes, which you could then eat.

Later, I was examining someone's scarf that looked like it was knit. Since I've taken up knitting, I've become a lot more interested in fabrics and how they are made up. I commented that as I knit, I was interested in knowing more about the fabric of the scarf. This completely blew the mind of B.

"You knit?" B said.
"Yes," I replied.
"I don't understand. You mean with wool, and needles and stuff?"
"Yes, that's how most people do it."
"I don't understand. WHY?"
"What's so hard to understand?"
"But I don't understand why. Did you always knit, did you just wake up one day and decide to knit? why?"
"Well, my mother-in-law taught me when she was visiting in the summer. I was at a loose end."
"Oh. I guess I can accept that."
"No, you can't, you still think it's strange," piped up someone else there.
"Well, yes, I guess you're right," said B.
"Why do people have a problem with this? I knit, I like scented candles, and I'm not gay!" I exclaimed.
"You forgot to say you're British, which would explain a lot" said someone.

It was all very amusing.

In other news, I'm making soup for our regular Monday Night Football gathering. Tomorrow, the Saint Louis Rams play at the Green Bay Packers. As a Packers fan in Saint Louis, this could be an interesting game, in as much as I'll be pretty much the only one rooting for the Packers. It's also Brett Favre's 200th consecutive in-season start. (It will be his 219th, including playoffs). That is a phenomenal record. Anyway, with the temperature likely to be in the 20s, the Packers are in my opinion, a shoo-in, especially the way the Rams have been playing this season. The spread of 6.5 points that the Packers have been given is surprisingly low. I reckon Green Bay will win by 14 points. We shall see.

As for the soup, I'm making beef stew, and a mexican-like caldo de pollo.