Author: Brian J. Noggle

On Monday, we were in the Walmart getting last minute gifts and groceries. I bought a dozen eggs and spotted a bag of hard-boiled eggs in the dairy case.

I commented on them, and she mentioned that they were for lazy people. Whilst I know an easy way to bake the eggs to the same consistency and have been known to do so when I go on a kick where I eat them every morning for breakfast, I was not quick to condemn people who might prefer to pick them up at the market.

Then, of course, I saw that said products were being recalled for listeria contamination:

More hard-boiled eggs and egg products are being recalled from stores nationwide related to a deadly listeria outbreak.

Nearly 80 different hard-boiled egg varieties sold by more than 30 brands have been recalled by Almark Foods of Gainesville, Georgia, according to a recall notice on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration site due to risk of listeria contamination.

The more processed the food is, the more chances it has to get contaminated. So I’ll continue baking my own.

Or will when I get back on that kick. I think it’s been five years, so it’s about time to get back into the habit.

So I had a little time to kill whilst my truck was getting a state inspection, and I went to a coffee shop with my notepad in case I wanted to write a poem–or work on one that will take me five years to complete. So I went in and ordered a cappuccino and a pastry.

Sorry to go all Instagram on you, but I got this:

A coffee thing served in a glass along side a fizzing clear glass of something.

I have never seen cappuccino served like this, and, to be honest, gentle reader, I was not sure what was in that other glass nor what I was supposed to do with it. Did the order taker hear something other than what I ordered? Did the shop have a liquor license, and I ordered myself some coffee-and-booze cocktail with a chaser?

I fear the unexpected and unknown consumable ever since the Great Sushi Incident of 2005, wherein I went to a sushi restaurant with a more sophisticated friend who was surprised to see me take up the pile of pickled ginger with my chopsticks and pop it into my mouth. Not as surprised as I was, although I managed to keep my face stony whilst the sweat burst forth from my volcanic pores.

So, yeah, I have no idea what that was, and I’ll probably fear ordering a cappuccino there again. The coffee drink was a small portion and not especially compelling. I didn’t even sniff the clear liquid, preferring to pretend I was sophisticated enough to know what it was and that I eschewed it knowingly. But, yeah, black coffee for me from now on.

I saw this on Facebook a couple times yesterday:

However, I used to know a girl named Eve when we were both wanna be poets in the St. Louis coffeehouse circuit. If I were still talking to her, I could say today, “Happy Christmas Eve, Eve” which DESTROYS this meme.

I think she went on to become a real poet, unlike me. Although I guess I did sell a poem for money once.

Gentle reader, here at Nogglestead, it has not really felt much like the Christmas season at all this year. What follows is a bit of a personal cri-di-coeur, so I’ll tuck it below the fold.

Thanksgiving came late, as you know, and my mother-in-law was ill and could not attend the holidays, which highlighted how few we probably have left with her.

After Thanksgiving dinner which was attended only by my immediate family and a single friend, I learned that my aunt in St. Charles had passed away that morning.

I had planned a little weekend getaway with my beautiful wife for that weekend, a polite fiction that would have allowed us to visit my aunt while having a date night with my wife. However, it turned into an extended stay ending in a memorial service.

Over the extended weekend, my remaining aunt, the caretaker of my recently passed aunt, walked with me through the house so I could earmark anything of hers I wanted. My aunt had decorated her house in fine wood furniture and antiques, many of which had been in the family for generations. But I have a complicated relationship with the possessions of dead family members. My father had once said about my sainted mother that she was sniffing around for money or would be when someone died. I don’t know what prompted him to say that, but it gave me a lasting fear that people would think that I was interested in benefiting from the deaths of my family. So I have always minimized what I accept after the death of a family member. Which sometimes leads to internal conflict when I think I could really use that, but it’s a practical need and not something to remind me of my aunt.

So I ended up with a collection of books, a nice console stereo, an entertainment center, a pair of cat sculptures, and some wall decorations. Which presented a logistical challenge for getting them from St. Charles to Springfield and have enough adult bodies to carry said furniture. I planned to to drive to Poplar Bluff with my youngest son, pick up my brother and nephew, and go to St. Charles, where we would rent a truck and drive the truck from St. Charles to Springfield, unload my things, and my brother and nephew would continue to Poplar Bluff to unload their things and drop off the truck. We could not do it the first weekend of the month, as I had other plans.

The other plans, unfortunately, were not fun. My wife and boys were going to Camdenton for the First Lego League state competition. Last year, we turned it into a weekend in Osage Beach just down the road from Camdenton, and while the boys were competing, my wife and I could do some Christmas shopping and having a date day somewhere else. Unfortunately, this weekend was the first weekend I had to work on a Saturday, so I had to work instead.

While in Camdenton, my wife aggravated a slight sports injury into a major case of sciatica which, after she drove home on Sunday, left her barely able to move or walk on her own, so she needed pretty attentive care, and her debilitated state left us unable to attend any of the school or church Christmas programs–including a concert she was supposed to sing in as part of the church choir. She’s moving better now and is almost back to normal, but it did wipe out the Christmas program season.

She convalesced in our parlor, where our existing record player is, which limited access to the annual rotation of the Christmas records. And, of course, I could not leave her for my circuit of Poplar Bluff-St. Charles-Springfield, so I had to rely upon my beatified brother and nephew to bring my aunt’s furniture to me. Which he did.

The weather hasn’t helped. I’m from up north, so I expect winter to be, well, snowy. Even though my boys have had three snow days already this year, we have yet to see measurable snowfall. Kansas City and even the St. Louis area have had proper snowfalls, but nothing here. As a matter of fact, it’s spring-like, with temperatures predicted in the 60s through the week.

And, to be honest, I’m a little disappointed with the gifts I’m giving this year. I usually like to have something that I think will wow the family, but this year, the gifts are pretty rote and predictable. I also like to have something for the family from Santa, something a little out of left field for the whole lot of us, but this year, I haven’t thought of anything. Which is just as well. As I look back over the years, a lot of times those gifts have gone unused ultimately. So maybe this safe Christmas of giving will be better than previous years.

If it happens. The oldest boy has been under the weather a bit, so an abundance of caution might prevent my mother-in-law from attending Christmas dinner and gift exchange.

I am glad that I kind of follow the church calendar and mark Christmas as the beginning of the new year, as I am about ready for a new beginning. I’m off work for the next week and a half and hope I won’t blow the time sitting at the computer doing nothing. Except, perhaps, tapping out something on a mostly unread blog.

Meh, it’s a mindset that makes a feedback loop, where negative things leads me to see the negative things. I need to shake it, and I’ve generally found that when I’m finally able to talk about it probably means I’m on the upswing already.

As you might know, gentle reader, I come from a line of carpenters. My great-grandfather and my grandfather and then my grandfather and father were two sets of Noggle and Son remodeling. My father knew how to do everything and often did. My mother was unafraid to tackle large remodeling projects. My brother, too, is like a Borg infesting a house and improving it. And, as you know, I have done a bit of (rudimentary) furniture making.

I am pleased to say that carpentry skill is indeed transmitted genetically, as my boys (mostly the younger) has taught himself how to use tools (auto-didactic because working on anything his father does is like, you know, work). So they have set themselves to building a birdopolis outside their bedroom windows:

He used pine boards not cut but broken during martial arts testing and a couple nails, and not much more.

Apparently, the birds have seen these fine domiciles and have determined that the rent is surely higher than they can afford, as none have yet moved in.

Man, the centerfold in this week’s Springfield Business Journal is HAWT!

When I posted this on Facebook, my beautiful wife pointed out that the story on her company is not in the centerfold, but on page five. The math proves she is better than a Page 3 girl.

I was just talking to my grandmother this week, and she remarked on a twenty-year-old picture my wife and I that I sent her (my grandmother) in October. She said that she had forgotten how pretty my wife is. I have not, of course, although I do have some difficulty in convincing my wife how pretty she is.

I guess I have already mentioned that she’s all that from 1998 and more. This post was just an excuse again to show how I married up.