Unplugged

I'm not totally off the grid these days, but it feels like it after our two-week Thanksgiving trip, which ended with the discovery Sunday evening that our refrigerator had died during our absence and left its rather pungent ghost behind. Not the warm welcome we were hoping for! Everything I'd been depending on for the last few months of allergen avoidance -- organic meats amassed on sale and frozen for later use, homemade soup stock, all the gluten-free baking I'd done -- had to be tossed.

This elimination diet thing is getting a bit too literal for me.

After a day of research, we chose a new fridge last night, which will be delivered tomorrow, but until then, any foods that need chilling are crammed into a cooler on the back porch. Believe me when I say I'm counting the hours until the delivery truck shows up.

With the exception of this electronic snafu, our Thanksgiving was a good one. D and I spent the holiday and then some with his family in central Illinois -- we're trying to alternate Thanksgiving and Christmas with his parents and mine so that we don't have to do one marathon multi-city trip at the end of the year. So far, I think I like the change. We did throw in a small road trip to visit D's brother and sister-in-law in Michigan, where both are graduate students, but that was a relaxed six hours in a borrowed family minivan with leg room, rest stops, unrestricted access to personal electronics, and no worries about someone else's seat back reclining into my lap.

Of course, the view was a lot less impressive than it might have been by air, but the road did offer some scenic gems. Seriously, how can you not appreciate the comic irony in strip malls like this one?*

* I have no idea who took this picture -- we didn't have time to stop to take one ourselves -- but I am thoroughly impressed that Google, using only a search string that contained the names of the stores shown and "strip mall Indiana highway 30," was able to provide me a link to a discussion board where this image was posted.