Putting things into perspective

I haven't written in a long time because there was nothing really to write about, especially nothing food worthy. However, I thought I should make a note here of any incident that happened recently. DH had to go to a funeral for a co-worker. This guy who passed away was 38 years old, and the only son of some more elderly parents. After all the whining and complaining I've done in the past, this incident reminded me to be grateful for what I have, and that whatever my problems may be, they are insignificant in the whole scheme of things.

Back for more

We went to our favourite restaurant last nite before going to see The Phantom of the Opera, a gift from hubby's parents as an anniversary gift. As always, the food is impeccable and a steal. We both went for the menu prix fixe, and at $30 per person, what's not to like?

Hubby started with the borscht, and their borscht is amazingly sweet and tasty. He went for one of their specials for the day, bison stroganoff, and he said that was very yummy. For dessert, he had their signature cake, which looked very, very good.

I decided to go with the lox stuffed with crabmeat lobster, and that was only because they didn't have the elk and zucchini starter. The entree was lobster tail which was completely surrounded by tons of scallops, shrimp, mussels and prawns and vegetables in a lightly curried cream sauce. The lobster tail was sitting on top of a seafood risotto which was to die for. I joked with hubby that this was so unlike the chinese way of serving lobster; this one was out of the shell, and the shell was just there to raise the meat up. I ended my meal with the tiramisu, but couldn't finish it, it was just too decadent.

We both had tons of our entree to take home, which means we basically got two meals for the price of one. Guess what's for dinner tonight?

A different sort of fusion cuisine?

I gave DH a bowl of borscht to take for lunch yesterday, as well as a container of yogurt for coffee break. Later that evening, I asked him if he ate his yogurt, and he looked at me incredulously and then made a face. I asked him what was wrong, and he said, he though the yogurt was the sour cream to go into the borscht, and he wondered why the borscht was so sweet. It was vanilla with peach flavoured yogurt, so it probably put the borscht taste over the edge.

On a grosser note, did you know that having large amounts of beet will give you a different,
but just as interesting, effect as eating asparagus when you do your bathroom business?

A taste of the old world

My parents have been talking about this wonderful Japanese restaurant they've tried and wanted us to go, so this past Saturday, we went out for lunch there. My parents, wonderful as they are in their own way, have no blinkin' sense of direction, and with DH driving, this made for an interesting excursion to start. We had the address, but an old map and on our map, the road didn't exist. Good thing mom knew the approximate streets to where this restaurant was, but it was still a bit of like we were exploring the new world.

What our parents didn't tell us, maybe because they thought it'd be a nice surprise or something (lord knows what goes on in their minds) is that this restaurant is not in a commerical area, but rather is a part of the dining room of an assisted living complex for elderly Japanese people. This meant, of course that they aren't going to be serving what you and I would normally go out to eat when going for Japanese. Oh sure, they had tempura on the menu, but the samples they had out were mostly fried this and fried that, with a panko breaded exterior. The menu was a hand written one pager with about 10 items on it, and like I said, almost everything was fried. Mom ended up ordering udon with chicken off the placard that sat at the table, DH had the salmon patties plate, and dad and I each had a different fried seafood platter. With the exception of mom's dish, the rest of the platters came with a mixed green salad, potato salad and miso soup. We also ordered some tempura starter.

As this isn't a normal restaurant, you can't expect it to function like one either. They brought out our meals in drips and drabs, and I was halfway through one of dad's fish pieces (thinking, mistakingly, that it was my platter) when mine finally came out. The tempura, which we had thought would be a starter came at the very end.

All in all, it was very filling, DH's plate had two large salmon patties on it and between that and the salad, it filled him up alot. I couldn't even finish my plate there because I had to finish off the tempura. Not that that's a bad thing, and the price of all the dishes was about $7-$8, very reasonable.

Afterwards, dad said how much he liked this place because it wasn't all sushi, which he didn't like. Personally, I would much rather go out for a sushi meal, and that's why when I go out with the folks, we go for Chinese, something we can agree on.

Anniversary dinner

For our 10th anniversary, DH thought it'd be nice to go back to the restaurant that we went to after we got married. Le Meridien is now Sutton Place Hotel, but we figured the food would still be as excellent as ever, since it is a 5 star hotel. The menu looked incredible and I was looking forward to it.

When we finally found a parking spot (some bastard stole the parking spot we wanted) and almost had to run back to the restaurant, we found that it had changed. For one, the restaurant used to be in the back, but that room is now changed to a lounge, and the formal dining room area is out where the chocolate buffet resides, so it wasn't as quiet and intimate as we hoped. We had dressed up for the occasion, and was disappointed to see that it wasnt' a dressy place anymore. (As an aside, always try sitting in your outfit to see how it sits. I didn't realize my coat dress would open up in the front like it did and spent a good part of the evening trying to keep it more closed).

They started us with a complimentary sampler of halibut tartare, and that was delicious. DH started with the trio of lobster, and he said the chowder was excellent, so much so that he tried to lick the cappucino cup that it came in. I had the trio of tuna and the tartare was brilliant, but I was a little disappointed in the tuna roll. Next, he had the quail breast and I had the sablefish. I have a bad feeling that sablefish is on the endangered list, so to all the sablefish out there, I apologize for eating your bretheren. It was quite nice, but my scallop was a little overcooked, so a bit tougher than it should be. In hindsight, I should've gone with the table d'ote, which would've been 4 courses, for about the same amount of money for the 3 courses we ended up having. Although I wasn't considering having dessert, the chocolate buffet was too tempting to resist, so we went for it. I loved the bread pudding made with croissants partly because it wasn't overly sweet, but really I couldn't eat my money's worth from that buffet. Even DH couldn't do it.

We went home a little poorer, but full and sleepy, and we can now say that we managed to stay together for 10 years plus!

Wasn't that a party

Actually, it wasn't. When it's almost all JW's and/or wankers (some people fall into both categories, unfortunately) the party tends to be fairly boring. However, we managed through it; I did it by taking 4 Midols and 2 margaritas, don't know what DH did. But then again, it was his parent's 50th anniversary party, so it was not so bad for him.

We did our part by making 4 crockpots of chili, guacamole , spanish rice and buying chips and ice cream. I did get to try out my new handy dandy food processor for this, and it works like a dream, so in that way, I really didn't mind helping out with the food. A friend at work taught me a trick with the guacamole, which really made it nice. She said to soak the sliced onion in apple cider vinegar for 15 minutes to take out the sharpness of the onions. I found it also added a very nice flavour to the guacamole, even without adding more vinegar to the avocadoes.

My s-i-l, who planned the party did all the decorating, inviting, hiring of the mariachi band, and the rest of the food. The b-i-l, well his contribution was ice. Hope that didn't put too big of a dent in his time and money.

To give my s-i-l credit, she put in a lot of time and money into making this a special occasion for their parents. I personally wouldn't host a party for 60 people and try and make all the food for it. That's what caterers are for in my opinion. Guess that's why our parents always just go out for big meals, that way there's no prep, no clean up and no more than 3 hours with people. That's what I like.

The best part is that it's all over.

The more people I meet

the more I like my dog, the bumper sticker says. Well I can see that, at least the dog is doing what comes naturally and not being pretentious.

I find alot of people are like dogs, they seem to feel the need to mark the territory with their scent, or in this case, their own way of doing things. For example, our exiting president has turned this from a campus into an elitist neighbourhood. A more recent reaffirmation of my theory tho, is a woman at work who is trying to change the way things have been done here for at least 15 - 20 years. Not that it's right or wrong, but it was never seen to be broken in the first place, so why fix it? It doesn't affect anyone, it has no relevance to her little world, so why make a big deal of it?

The more people I meet, the more I like my imaginary dog.

Stupid is as stupid does

You try and help someone out, and what do you get in return? Ignored for a full day.

Our friend is going through (or was at least) a breakup, and so we tried to support him by keeping him occupied on weekends. He got an email from his (hopefully soon to be ex) girlfriend and nex thing we know, he went AWOL for a day. I joked to DH that it's too bad we aren't better computer hackers; we could've sent an email back to her, from the law firm of such and such on behalf of our client Mr. X, and that she should cease and desist all communications at this point. Ah, to be smart enough to do such things.

Wonder if those people who help with removing people from cults work with people in destructive relationships?

Snakes and Ladders

Remember that game you used to play as a child (or for those of you who're parents, that you played yesterday with your kids)? Well that's how my life is feeling right now, at least work wise. I've been climbing up the ladders for the last 12 years I've been here, short ladders mind you, and now I've hit a snake. Actually it's more like a pit of them and theyr'e all venomous.

Guess that's the way things are these days, it's a dog eat dog world and everyone's out for their own asses. There's no longer a sense of comradaerie, and doing things for each other. Despite what they teach nowadays about corporations flattening out and having no managers, it doesn't seem to work that way in practice. Kinda like communism really. Maybe it is happening with all these newer companies that are run by younger people, but when you work at a place that has done things the same way for a long time, it takes someone with energy and a high rank to change things, and it's so much easier to just pay lip service.

To sum it all up

I went to my reunion afterall. Got guilted into it because my dear friend had said she'd go if I'd go. Well how can you refuse that, plus the offer to buy me drinks (I had two club sodas the whole night).

It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but it wasn't as great either. Most people don't seem to have changed that much in 20 years, which means we either all have great genes, or people have gotten hair transplants and been to the gym for 8 hours a day every single day prior to this event. We received booklets with updates on most people, as well as name tags with our pictures from our high school grad. Needless to say, I didn't wear my name tag, bad enough I looked the way I did back then, but who wants to be reminded of it as well?

It's funny how even after 20 years, some things never change. We all hung around the same people that we did 20 years ago, a few people did venture out to say hi to other people they haven't talked to in a long time, but overall the cliques remained, the snobs were still snobs and the rest of us, well we just were. I enjoyed having people look at me and not recognize me, that was the most fun of the night. The scene was a little too young, I haven't gone clubbing in 20 years and I hadn't planned on going back to a club anytime soon. At least it was only us old farts there, so it didn't really matter. Some people dressed like they go clubbing every weekend still, which made me wonder, do they and if so, how do they do it? I'm in bed by 10:00 every night, but I probably get up earlier than most as well. Age, it's a wonderful thing.

Reunions continued

Seeing how someone I haven't talked to in a long time just gave out my email to the reunion organizers (obviously someone doesn't work in a field that views privacy of information as a major issue) I decided to respond and continue to read the emails.

An evite was sent out and the cost of this "exciting" event? $45 a head. I told my friend who was going to attend with me, for the money, I want George Clooney and Hugh Jackman there feeding me peeled grapes. Call me cheap,but I prefer to be considered economically wise.

That time of the month

I think that I've solved the mystery of having periods. You don't actually lose an egg or two in the process, what you're actually losing, are brain cells, which is why I'm getting dumber and saying more stupid things as I get older. Also, after your period, your mind adjusts to having a few less brain cells and you talk like you normally do. When you get pregnant, you actually hold in all your brain cells until that final push, then you push out nine months' worth of brain cells.

Why do I say this? Well I just insulted our finance officer and I'm blaming it on my period. I told her I thought she was older than I was, and her driver's license told me that she's actually about 3 years younger. Oops.

Reunions

I was talking to a friend about our upcoming reunion and how I received an email from one of the people who's organizing it. I checked out her website www.asweetbegining.com and I was surprised to see how much she's aged. I know it's been a while since we've been in high school, but my goodness, I dont' think I've changed that much. Okay, I have, but for me, I just took a long time to grow out of the ugly duckling stage. This woman, as my friend exclaimed, looked at least 7 - 10 years older than what we actually are. I think she must have kids on top of the business, kids seem to age people considerably.

I'm almost tempted to go (again) just to see who else has aged as badly. Plus, it'd be an opportunity to flog my business, something more on the edge to contrast with this event planning woman. I think I've gotten jaded as I got older.

New foods ahead

I haven't bothered writing cuz I've got nothing interesting to write about. We've been busy getting ready for our trip to Rome, Paris, Istanbul and New York, in that order. I'm looking forward to trying out new foods and going crazy in the spice market buying all sorts of things. Nephew #1 wants basalmic vinegar from Rome. How many 10 year olds do you know who would be asking for vinegar? Nephew #2 is a more typical kid, and asked for chocolate from Paris. Guess I better ask how much cocoa he wants in his chocolate.

Speaking of chocolate, DH and I went to pick up milk from the grocery store the other nite. True to all shops, you never come out with only what you went in for. They had the Callebault chocolate on sale, so we picked out the largest piece of dark chocolate we could find, and the second largest piece of dark chocolate. So we head to the check out with our 4 items, 2 giant pieces of chocolate and 2 things of milk. The cashier asked what we were going to do with all that chocolate and DH says with a straight face, "Oh, it should hold me for tonite." I better hide that chocolate.

Who's PMSing

Just finished talking to my sister's mother (I refuse to be connected to her when she's acts up). I've already had a long day at work and just wanted to unwind and have a nice conversation. It started well enough, mom told me that they couldn't use my credit card to book their cruise for whatever reason. And that's okay, it would've been nice to get the air miles but whatever. So I asked her about the cruise; she had mentioned New York and Rome in passing when she asked for my credit card, and Rome is the one place she really wants to see, being the religious fanatic that she is. She said she wasn't happy about it because both New York and Rome were just going to be stopovers and not really a destination point.

She said the people that they're going on the cruise with, had been to both Rome & New York before and therefore, didn't really want to spend that much time there. Plus staying in Rome would be several hundred dollars in hotel alone, she said. I told her that it didn't have to be, that we booked cheaper places to stay than that, and she gets all exasperated with me, saying how because her and dad don't speak English well, they have to rely on other people to take them to these places. (The implication there, for anyone who's not of asian descent, is that while DH and I happened to plan a trip for there, we weren't taking her along, so she had to go with other people.) I said her English was fine, and she pretty much told me not to patronize her. Well so much for honesty. The cruise itself sounds nice, sailing around Italy and Spain, all in all about 2 1/2 weeks of cruising. She said she didn't really care once she found out they weren't staying in Rome for any period of time, but dad really wants to go, so that's why they're going. Gee mom, that's the attitude alright.

The conversation then moved on to her saying she should give me the phone number of the girl who called me about our high school reunion. I told mom that it was alright, that I got an email from another former classmate with the organizer's email. Mom asked if I had emailed back yet, and I said no, I'd been busy. She retorted with "What, she only emailed you today?" As a matter of fact yes. Mom made it sound like it was a horrible thing for me not to get back in touch, she wanted to know why I didn't just take the phone number and call this person back. Well I've been dealing with more people today than I care to, I've had a woman at work on my case, and then send a snarky email all round to everyone about how we weren't doing our jobs. Plus, on top of all that, I'm PMSing, so if I don't want to f***ing talk to anyone, I don't think I should have to. But you'd think, from talking to mom, that she was the one having the bad day and PMSing. It's no wonder people become alcoholics.

Read twice, measure once

That's what I need to keep telling myself, course I'll forget by the next time I do any baking. I decided to make cranberry scones last nite and mis-read the 1 cup plus 2 tbsps. buttermilk, to 2 cups, plus some amt of buttermilk. And then I was trying to figure out why the mixture didnt' come together in a soft dough. I also figured out why they say to mix the dry ingredients together first before adding wet; cuz brown sugar just doesnt' break down that well. Plus, I found it never did come together as a soft dough. I remembered my sister had a recipe for scones in which you didn't knead the dough, but instead, plopped it onto the baking sheet, so that's what I did. They turned out beautifully (to look at at least), and it was so much easier and less gunky. At least my chicken fettucine with peanut sauce turned out well, even without the basil and cilantro.

I think I just wasn't meant to bake this weekend; I made a chocolate cake for a client of ours, as his birthday was coming up, but I forgot some key ingredients and it turned out flat and not tasting great. So I filled it with cherry pie filling and frosted it with chocolate frosting. DH was happy cuz there was frosting left over, even tho he never did get to try out the cake.

The Most Expensive Restaurants in the US

I was reading an article about the most expensive restaurants in the US (so I can drool and no I would never be able to afford to go). One of the ones that's actually close by and not as unreasonable is The HerbFarm in Washington state. I read the review about them, how they use fresh herbs and veggies grown on site and I'm thinking to myself, hey, my BIL could open up a restaurant at his home and charge these exorbitant prices. Something to think about after the kids have moved out and he needs a new career. ;-)

The original article was in Forbes and is an interesting read.

People are funny that way

I was talking to a co-worker the other day, let's call her Jane. We were talking about another co-worker, Sheila, and how Sheila didn't like a former colleague, Joanne, who she found to be too abrupt. Jane said that Sheila was just too critical of others, and that she, Jane just took people for who they are.

The next day, Sheila comes into my office and said that Jane was critical of her planning on retiring. So who's right? Is Sheila just being too sensitive, or is Jane not seeing the log in her own eye? At least Sheila's still happy about retiring, which is good. It's always nice to have something to look forward to.

Pot or skunk?

It used to be that people would tell me that pot smoking smelled like skunk and that was all I had to go with. Nowadays, pot is probably the biggest income earner for people living in the Greater Vancouver area, and skunks are ruling the west side of Vancouver and therefore, being run over and permeating the vicinity with their stench. I can tell the difference between the two, which is really sad. It means that while pot smoking is still illegal here (as far as I know), people do it so openly that I know it from a single whiff. I have no problem with legalizing marijuana, heck, I think they should so they can tax the heck out of it and stop taking so much from the rest of us, but I think it should be stipulated that people can only smoke it in certain areas, such as their own home and that rule would be strictly enforced. I don't go outside to smell things that smell worse than durian, I want to enjoy the fresh air.

Okay, enough whining for the day. Here's an interesting site that has nothing to do (for the most part) with food or my complaints.

Guess it's what makes us individuals

I just finished reading my sister's blog and decided to check out a random blog. Just my luck, ran into the blog of an ultra religious who thinks HP books are basically evil and should be banned from households. She said she felt a bad presence when she was reading it and was trying to convert a young girl over to Christianity.

IMHO, good is not just in religion but in all things that are not harmful to others. We all know what's right from wrong and if you need some organization to tell you, then you've got major problems. As for her feeling a bad presence, how about mind over matter? It's the case of the medical student syndrome; if you believe in it enough, you'll exhibit symptoms of the illness you're reading about. She believed it to be a bad book and that "witches" are all bad and therefore felt this horrible thing around her.

I'm not against religion, as long as people don't use it as a crutch of justification for doing harm to others. I believe there could be a higher being, not necessarily just one, and not the one preached by religions. There, my rant for a Monday.

Think happy thoughts.

Winning is so much more fun

Went to see the junior hockey last nite (junior my ass, they're all towering over me. Course, so will my nephews in a few years) as they played their final game of the regular season against Seattle. They've whupped Seattle's butt all season so far, and this game was no different. Seattle's team, while not the best as far as scoring goes, does have a bunch of goons to fight, and due to the history between the two teams, plus the fact they sucker punched one of our guys in Friday's game, there were fights to be had.

DH (I"m going to start calling him DH #1 soon if he doesn't stop annoying the heck outta me, which would mean there's a DH #2 in the sidelines) was heckling the Seattle players whenever they were in the penalty box, in particular the guy who did the suckerpunching. There were hoots and hollers of laughter at DH's ribbing, and at the end of the game, a young man (early teens if that) came up to DH and said, "Man, you made this game enjoyable, I esp. liked the comment about his nose being a banana." So there ya go, DH has a fan club. Mind you, the fan club is due to crude potty humour, but people like to be appreciated any way they can.

The Giants are now number one in their division and tied for first place overall in the WHL with Calgary. As the Virigina Slims ads used to say, "You've come a long way baby."

Olympic gear

There's an ad going on right now, advertising "exclusively Canadian" wear. The ads on the billboards show a model wearing a fuzzy hat with earflaps. It doesn't even look good on her, how's it supposed to look good on the average person. And they're flaunting this while the Olympics go on in Italy, a place that knows good fashion from bad. If people don't already think of Canadians as being laughing stocks, they will after this.

If you want to see what I'm talking about, check out the HBC site

How time flies

I was sitting there enjoying my peace and quiet last night when my mother calls. Not that that's a bad thing since I owed her a phone call anyway, but she called to tell me that a girl from my high school had called. We've reached another milestone in high school reunions. Where does the time go, I don't feel like I've aged that much, although I have to say, I've gotten slightly wiser and a lot mouthier since then. Part of me wants to go to the reunion, if there is one, but more out of morbid fascination than anything. I don't tend to stare at car crashes (I just look to see if there's any cute firemen on scene) so this would be my version of slowing down to check things out. Another, bigger part of me is screaming, don't do it! I haven't really kept in touch with people from high school, and since most of them are overachievers, I'm going to come home feeling worse than ever, I'm sure. Or maybe I'll come home happier knowing that the men are getting balder and the women fatter.

So I'm not a brain surgeon

But should you really need to be one to work Adobe Photoshop? I swear, a job that should probably only take an expert half an hour takes me the whole friggin' day. Okay, so I don't do it continually, but who wants to work on an exercise in futility for 8 hours a day?

Last night's meal was less ambitious than I had planned, but I think we wanted dinner some time last nite, not waiting to have it for breakfast. So I did the cod with smoked salmon, but I used pre-made smoked salmon cream cheese instead of following the recipe, full of all sorts of other things. I also didn't make the wild rice mixture, instead, I made straight basmati, which will go great with tonite's meal of beef masala kabobs and chapatis, and if I'm feeling a little adventurous, I'll make the peas and potatoes to go with it.

By the end of the week, I'm not feeling nearly as ambitious about making dinners as I am at the beginning, so I can see why people eat out every Friday. I'm too cheap for that unless we're going to a hockey game, but since this week's game isn't til Saturday, I guess I'll have to figure out something. Pizza's always a good standby.

The production guy from the film company was very nice, he called up again to thank me for my help with getting the pilot show shot outside our building. What can I say, I'm just a nice person. But considering what most people say about people in the filming industry being self centred and snobby, I think it's great that he made the extra effort to call back after they completed the shot. Maybe the tv guys are just better people to work with than movie people.

The Day After

Well DH really liked the beef stir fry, or so he says. I think he did, I think having Chinese cooking wine in the marinade really intensified the flavour. I splurged and had B&J's brownie magic ice cream for dessert, and DH decided to have screwdrivers. Otherwise, Valentine's day was spent like every other day, he in one room, me in another. Couldn't imagine what we'd do if we only had a one bedroom apartment, we'd probably have killed each other by now.

I'm going to try and walk off at least some of last nite's dessert at lunchtime, seeing how it's absolutely gorgeous out again, hopefully DH does likewise, he could use it.

I figured for tonite's dinner, I'd try something a little more romantic, maybe something out of "Intercourses." The pictures are great even tho they aren't of the meals, but prepping a meal while staring at a well formed male torso is always fun. I was thinking of cod stuffed with smoked salmon and zucchini ribbons with a wild rice and basmati rice mix. We'll see how adventurous I feel by the time I get home.

Does anyone celebrate Valentines?

It seems to me that more and more people boycott Valentine's than celebrate it. There's an event happening downtown tonite for non-Valentine's people who want to enjoy their single love. They are apparently going to be hanging stuffed animals up by their necks and general non-lovey dovey things. I'm not a Valentine's person myself, in fact, I'm not much of a romantic at all. My DH, when we were dating, would buy me all sorts of lovely, but very useless things, like cut flowers. I told him to stop wasting his money and buy me things that I could use, or eat.

My carpool asked me if he was going to take me out for dinner tonight. Why would we want to go out for overpriced food at overcrowded restaurants? We did it for the first time ever last year, but we went to our favourite restaurant, which while a little crowded, at least kept the price the same. Our oh so romantic dinner tonight will be a beef stir fry and no, I didn't even bother to make a chocolate dessert. He can have a chocolate chip cookie with some ice cream if he's good.

Little Miss Homemaker

I spent a good chunk of the weekend cleaning and baking. I love baking cuz it smells wonderful and it warms up the kitchen. Since we had to go out to someone's house (see previous post) I made a chocolate cake to take, since mom has taught us never to go to someone's house empty handed. I also made chocolate chip craisin oatmeal cookies, a good thing to have, esp. when you're feeling low, there's nothing like a warm, gooey cookie straight out of the oven to put things into perspective.

I also made fresh pasta! Thanks to some encouragement from Jamie Oliver (not directly at me, but from his original cookbook) I decided to try making my own pasta. Also we had bought 5 dozen eggs, and still had about 8 left over from last time, it seemed like a good time to do it. As per my dear sister's request, I tried out both my pasta maker (mixes the dough and spits out the final product) and the pasta roller to see which was better. I came to the conclusion that there isn't one better than the other.

My Cuisinart pasta maker was definitely faster, but I wouldn't be able to make tortellini or ravioli with it since it only has certain cutters that it comes wtih. However, it has the advantage of not needing much sitting time, and I only need to worry about cutting the lengths off as I need it, the machine does everything else.

The Atlas pasta roller was much more fun, gives more of a sense of accomplishment. I had to mix up the dough myself first, but that's not such a big deal. Once you get used to the roller, it's really quite a lot of fun to use, and by the time I finished making my final batch, I figured out how to make my pasta sheet looking more like what they showed in the picture. Yes, I'm a genius. I made spinach fettucine and regular fettucine, so next will be tomato pasta of some type. Jamie Oliver has a great recipe for a roasted squash ravioli which I will have to try next time. Being the newbie at it, and not giving myself enough counter space made it a little awkward, but other than that, this is going to be my new pastime and fresh pasta will be part of my gift baskets come next Christmas.

How to get yourself not invited over again

Went to a house party last nite, the buddy of DH's former band decided to get everyone together. I considered not going, but figured 1) it'd be free food and 2) it's probably good to give DH some support wtih people he hadn't seen in a long, long time and 3) not make DH the only non-believer in "the Truth" at this party.

People were very nice there, very hospitable but I'm horrible with names at the best of times, and not being introduced to everyone makes it even more difficult to figure out what their names are, and who's related to who in what sense.

The dinner fare was just burgers and dogs on the BBQ, and some salad. Nothing overly exciting, but hey, at least they tried. I was getting some condiments for my bun when I felt the candle underneath my hand getting very warm. I lifted up my hand, which was the one holding the plate, and realized I had set my napkin on fire. "Oh shit!" I yelped as I tried to put it out without setting anything else on fire around me. Probably not the best thing to say in front of a group of religious people, but in the heat of the moment, (pardon the pun) what do you do except go with your instincts? DH helped me put out the flames while the hostess moved the offending candles off the table. The rest of the evening, fortunately was less eventful than that.

The party was to get the old band members together to jam again. DH wasn't thrilled with it, and managed to get out of the hot seat after singing one song and sitting through a couple more. We managed to make our escape around 10:30, which is late enough for us. Plus, I had shared a bottle of wine with DH, so I was feeling it a bit. I think it's going to be the last time in a long time that we'll be getting together with those people again.

Gougers

Aren't institutions of higher learning supposed to be for learning and research rather than profit making? A filming company wants to film outside our building, and the university because it's their place, will give the department a very small percentage of the profit. This is on top of all the private homes they're building on campus, a place which is supposed to education, not profit making. Gone are the days when this was a place for learning and reasoning, instead, billionaires get to leave their mark by donating a ton of money (all of which is tax deductible I'm sure) and getting buildings named after them. It's a sad state of affairs as far as I'm concerned.

Aging

You know you're getting older when you worry more about dry skin than zits. I'm getting that dry skin close to the eyes syndrome. I don't even mind the idea of crow's feet near as much as the molting skin, very unattractive, especially with makeup on top of it.

On a happier, less disgusting note, the office celebrated Chinese New Year today. Okay, so we're only a week late, but it was a great offering of lots of good food like ginger beef, curried fried noodles, sweet and sour pork and twice fried beans. Dessert was a mango mousse cake which is great for a non-dessert person like me cuz it's a little sweet and a little tart. All it needed was a nice glass of white wine to accompany it and it would've been the perfect ending. That and a nap in the sunshine.

Springtime

Went for my usual lunch hour walk with my friend today, and lo and behold, there was a bald eagle sitting in the middle of the field. Just sitting there, looking out, occasionally splashing in the little pool of water that accumulated there. They are such regal looking creatures, it's hard not to admire them. We also saw Canadian geese (which never go away anyway) and a heron flew by. I take this to meaning spring is on its way, which will be a nice change from the crazy weather we've had of late.

We had the biggest storm in a long time on the weekend, power outages in a lot of places, and some houses had trees fall on their roofs, flooded basements, the whole gamut. We were fortunate in that we only had a power outage for a few hours and no major damage to the house, just a lot of branches all over our yard. It was a great night to stay in at least.

Yesterday, hubby cheered on the Seahawks in the Super Bowl. To me, the Super Bowl is a much more hyped version of the kids' game, Go, Go, Stop. That seems to be the gist of the game, they start, they stop, they start they stop. Hockey, now that's a game.

People are funny

I was just reading an email from my friend. She said that her daughter had to go to the doctor, because the "poor thing" (her words) couldn't stay awake and figured it was because of her thyroid. Being the mean sort of person I am, I was tempted to respond, well if I was to not work and just laze around all the time, I'd probably be sleeping a good bunch as well.

On a lighter note, my DH, bless his heart, makes me laugh. Not always intentionally, but he does. He is not much of a cook (although he used to tell me how he worked in a restaurant in his younger days), and I enjoy cooking so I tend to do most of our meals. He is trying to help out since I usually arrive home later than he does from work, and thought he could make some of the meals. He calls me yesterday and asked if we had breadcrumbs. When I replied in the negative, he said that we should put it on our "basic necessities" list for our next shop. I for one, don't believe in buying such silly things that is easily made at home, and certainly not part of my essentials in my pantry. There's nothing quite like bashing the heck out of a loaf of stale bread to release stress. Course, that could be why I'm much more at peace with the world, I tend to take all my frustrations out on inanimate objects, like bread.

Just wondering

Am I not remembering my grade school grammar right (senility y'know) or have everyone else's knowledge of the English language gotten worse. For example, so many people write "your welcome" rather than "you're welcome". I believe "your" is a possessive meaning something belongs to you, and "you're" is a contraction of you are. If anyone reads this, and has a different idea, I'd love to hear about it.

On a different note, it's a nice sunny day today, for a change. It started out as a beautiful day yesterday, but then Mother Nature pulled a fast one and turned the day rainy and cold. On the bright side, this should mean less of a drought this summer than in previous years of late.

As I'm sitting here typing, I realize that I, like so many other people, have very bad postures. Instead of taking advantage of the ergonomically correct chair that I have, I tend to slouch down, putting a lot of pressure on my back. Not to mention that at my height, I always have to pull myself up to my full height so that people can even just notice me.

Blogging Newbie

Well all I wanted to do was respond to another blog, but you have to sign up as a blogger yourself in order to do so, so here I am.

Not a big deal, and people at work were interested in learnign more about blogging, so now I can tell them even dummies can do it, it's that simple. And yes, that includes them.