Triptotrivia

I watched a few episodes of Dinner for Five this evening. Good show. Anyways ... I learned that Charles Nelson Reilly was at the Hartford Circus Fire as a kid. He was talking with Charles Durning (who sounds like a fascinating guy) about how he can't watch a performance of anything from the audience. If he tries, the sounds of the crowd call back that memory. Then he sat on Dom DeLuise's lap and they did the "other guy's hands" bit that I remember doing with Dat.

In another episode, Alec Baldwin was far more interesting interesting to watch than I would have guessed. I guess that's what I like about the show, it reveals aspects of these people that you would never guess were there.

At Thanksgiving, a little Dinner For Six at my mom's house, my grandfather was up to his usual tricks. He's trying to sell Tif on making some horseradish for me, it was hilarious. We're all sitting around eating, talking about this and that, and the conversation turns to wine, winemaking, and then (naturally) to horseradish. (I love horseradish.) So he invites us over -- he's got a patch of horseradish ready to be dug up, all we need to do is grab a shovel, get a root, and he can tell us how to prepare it. Now, it's just started raining and I've got no intention of going out in the dark, cold, rainy night to dig up horseradish but he's all fired up now and you know after you dig it up all you've got to do is cut off the ends and peel it, but make sure you're wearing goggles because this horseradish, you really don't want any of it in your eyes. 'Any of it' isn't just a stray shaving or you've touched it and then you rub your eye without thinking (remind me to tell you my dad's story about the habaneros some time), 'any of it' is any of the air within ten feet of the thing. The vapors will drop a draught horse. So you peel it with your goggles on (which I don't have) and you really ought to wear gloves too -- and whatever you do, don't try to peel it inside, peel it outside. And, not to near the house either. I'm really not digging the prospect of the cold, the rain, the shoveling, the goggles, the gloves, the whole ordeal, but I do like horseradish, so I'm borderline tempted to try to sell Tif on the idea, then Ginny throws in the added bonus that this horseradish patch isn't just horseradish, it's laced with this amazingly virulent poison ivy that you don't even have to touch to get the rash from, you just have to be standing near it when the wind blows and any part of your skin that's exposed gets it. Nice. Needless to say, we just took home some leftover turkey, stuffing, turnip, and cheesecake.