Just wondered if this was going on your wish list or not.

Or whether you’ll be at the bookstore tomorrow to get it on release date.

Or…none of the above.

So…interested? They’re only printing 12 million copies.

The only bummer about not cooking Thanksgiving dinner at my house (well, besides the fact that I like to entertain) is that I don’t get to keep the turkey leftovers and get the turkey carcass when we go somewhere else.

But since my mom doesn’t like leftovers (huh?), and she knows I like the carcass, she gave it all to me after yesterday’s fantastic meal at her house. Yay!

What’s the big deal about the carcass, you say?

It makes the best stock. And stock is…liquid gold. You know that, don’t you? You don’t have to be a great or even good cook to use it well. Make stock!

So don’t throw away the turkey carcass until you’ve leeched every last bit of goodness from it!

And it’s easy. Just drop the thing in a large pan, fill it with water, and put it on the stove on the lowest setting for…oh, at least all day. I usually let mine sit for at least twenty-four hours…sometimes longer (if I forget about it or don’t have time to strain it).

I also add whatever seasonings I might have on hand that sound good…definitely a bay leaf, a handful of carrots and/or celery, a little salt and pepper….but you don’t really need any of that because the turkey’s already been seasoned during its cooking.

Then after the hours and hours of slow, easy cooking, I let it cool for an hour or so, then strain all the lovely golden broth from the remains of the turkey. Put it in the fridge to chill (and then scrape off the fat that rises to the top–about a day later)…then freeze.

I freeze it in small containers or even Ziplock bags.

So what do I use it for? Anything. You can use stock/broth to make soup, of course. Super easy. Or you can use it to cook rice or noodles to give them an extra-yummy taste. You can use it to fondue. You can add it to your stir-fry (after the meat is cooked). Its uses are endless!

So don’t throw away the carcass. (If you already did, dig it out of the garbage. You can thank me later.)

So those of you who follow me on Twitter have gotten used to me doing a gas price check about once a week….so here we go. How much is a gallon of regular gas where you are?

I just saw it for $1.79 here in Michigan–and I know there are places not too far away that are even lower.

What about you? How much is it costing you for a gallon, and to fill your tank?
Doesn’t it make you wonder about the fact that all of a sudden, the prices have dropped almost 60% from what they were two months ago? Does this mean that when oil was going for $100, $120 a barrel, it was artificially inflated? Or is it simply that demand has decreased…hmmmm…more than 50%?

*scratches head* Somehow I don’t think demand has decreased that much. Have you been driving less? I haven’t. Not really.

Am I wrong to be smelling something ridiculously stinky?

Okay, so there were the big three playing this weekend: Quantum of Solace, Bolt, and Twilight.

What did you see and what did you think?

I confess…I saw nothing at the movies this weekend. Wasn’t planning to see Twilight *gasp!* and, frankly, I was afraid to go near the theaters with all the commotion surrounding it. I may be dragged to see it this Friday.

I did, however, make two big comfort food dinners and am now feeling like a big blimp, sitting at my computer chair, because of much overeating this weekend. Why is comfort food so heavy and filling? Why?

PS…You know I picked this image of Bond for a reason. You know I did.

I don’t promise a Friends or Seinfeld episode, so if you’re looking for a good chuckle on a Friday, you won’t find it here.

But it is an interesting story.

I don’t consider myself a huge Madonna fan. But I do like a lot of her (older) music. I think I sort of fell away around the time she did Ray of Light. I was a big fan during the Dick Tracy era, and before.

But I’ve always wanted to see her in concert–I mean, Madge is an icon. She’s a performer. And she’s fifty and fabulous.

So I had mentioned something awhile ago about going to see her when she came to Detroit, but never pursued tickets. My 12 yo daughter, whom I shall aptly nickname MiniMe, was in hysterics thinking there was a possibility I might actually take her.

But then I ran up against a deadline and put all thought of the concert from my head.

Then…Tuesday, after a marathon week of finishing a book (wherein the family saw me for only ten fleeting minutes at a time and there was much takeout at Chéz Gleason), I mailed the sucker in. I took a nap. I read a book and watched a funny but ultimately cheesy/stupid movie (What Happens in Vegas), and then MiniMe got home from school. And said, “Mom! Tonight’s the Madonna concert!”

And the wheels started clicking. Music Man said, “Let’s go!” (He’s prone to last minute, live for the moment decisions–which can often lead to anguish and strife in my life, as I am usually a Planner.)

So…I made the calls, got a babysitter for Pirate Boy and Scooby Girl and started trying to find tickets.

Long story short….there were no tickets to be had via Ticketmaster or online brokers (there were plenty of tickets; I just couldn’t get my hands on them because they were either in frigging Texas or because it got too late for Ticketmaster to print them out, etc.), and…it was after 5:30. The show started at 7:30.

By 6:00, I finally got through to the ticket office at Ford Field (where the unfortunate Lions play and where Her Madgesty, for some unknown reason, decided to perform) and they said, “Yeah, we have tickets, but you have to buy them in person from the ticket office.”

So I looked at Music Man and said, “Do we take the chance?”

“Hell yeah,” he said. (By this time, nothing was going to keep him from going. He was fired up and ready to go.)

So off we went. By the time we got to Ford Field, it was probably 7:00, 7:10. I wasn’t worried, because, of course, I knew Madonna wouldn’t start on time even if she had an opening act (which she didn’t)…and I’m notorious for arriving in my seat no sooner than moments before the first song. I hate waiting around.

So Music Man dropped MiniMe and I off and went to park…and then we saw it. The line. The line was…unbelievable. It was ten people wide and the entire length of the city block on which Ford Field was located (and that was just for one of the entrances). And it was 30 degrees. And half the people weren’t dressed to be waiting in line for an hour to get in.

Mind you, this is maybe fifteen minutes before the show is supposed to start. I’m like, WTF? WTF????

I don’t know for sure what the situation was, but it seemed as though they hadn’t even started to let people in by then. The entire audience for the Madonna show was standing outside, freezing their butts off, in a line that wasn’t moving. Ridiculous. (Take note if you ever go to Ford Field for a show.)

So at first I thought MiniMe and I were going to have to stand in that line to get in, to get to the ticket office…and only maybe get tickets. I was like…no effing way. I was ready to call it quits when I found a security guard and asked if I had to wait in line for the ticket office, and he pointed me to the free-standing, no-line ticket office. I could have kissed him.

MiniMe and I approached the ticket office (which had four or five windows open and no line) and I asked for 3 tickets.

“How much you wanna spend?” the guy asked. Bored as shit.

“$80-90 each,” I told him, knowing that nosebleed was $50 and main floor, front section was $350.

He showed me the map of the arena, and pointed to the lower level ring, which was where those tickets would be. “Okay, what do you have there?” I asked.

He walks away, comes back a few seconds later, and shoves three tickets through the window at me.

I’m like, “Wait a sec…aren’t you going to show me where they are? How do I know I want these?”

He looked at me like I was a total ditz and said, “They’re free.”

“Oh.” I grab the tickets (before he could change his mind) and thank him profusely and walk away…and see that the tickets are MAIN FLOOR.

W00T! I’m freaking out by now. Free tickets, to the Main Floor.

No, they weren’t close at all–they were near the back of the floor. But they were free, and it was the floor. So, yeah, I was jazzed…and so was Music Man when I showed them to him. Of course, MiniMe was over the moon, texting her friends (who didn’t believe that she was actually at the Madonna concert) about it.

Then we had to get in that ridiculous line, although after ten minutes of waiting and not moving (it was after 7:30 by then…and we’d learned that Madonna wasn’t coming on until 9-fricking-30), Music Man went and found a different entrance that was 1) blocked from the wintry wind, and 2) had a line that was about ten minutes long instead of an hour.

So, anyway…the show. The show was Madonna, just what you’d expect. She’s a performer. Even though I probably knew only five songs out of the fifteen or twenty she did (which I knew would be the case), I enjoyed just watching her. The woman can dance. The woman is ripped…but not necessarily in an attractive way.

Her arms were stringy and veiny and her thighs were like Mikhail Baryshnikov’s. Huge. Music Man noted, “Her boobs are gone.” *snort*

But wow…her voice is still great, she runs the bloody show like a general–you can just see what a perfectionist she is.

(At one point, during a complicated jump rope sequence during “Get Into the Groove,” someone screwed up and the jump rope got all messed up. She stopped, and sort of put her hands on her hips, and you could tell she was pissed. She said, “You screwed my shit up!”…and then went on with the song. So, yeah, heads might just have been rolling after that concert!)

One of my favorite parts was when, on the screens behind (the background ones, not the ones that were shooting live so we could actually see her) they showed a montage of Madonna over the years. All of her different incarnations. Talk about reinventing yourself. Really fascinating and amazing to see them…they weren’t chronological, they were just all mixed up together.

The stage set was amazing. The show was nonstop activity.

My favorite songs were “Vogue” and when she played electric guitar and totally rocked out on “Borderline.” Great arrangement. She also really pumped up “La Isla Bonita,” but it was too much so for me….sort of like it was on steroids, and I love that song…but not that version.

We left during “Like a Prayer” which was either her last or second to last song before the encores–none of which I knew. And I was glad we did, because the next day, we ran into someone else who’d been there on the floor too, and they said it took them a half hour to get off the main floor after the concert was over. Yikes.

So, all in all, I cannot complain. We didn’t pay for tickets, got to see an icon perform, and gave MiniMe a memory she’ll never forget.

Of course…it’s never enough. Apparently the fact that her mom and dad took her to see Madonna at the last minute still doesn’t compare to the fact that her friends’ mothers are going with her and a bunch of other girls to see Twilight tonight…and I’m not.

Sheesh. What does a gal have to do to get the Coolest Mom Award?