Holidailies!

"At one point, when Geoff and my mom and my brother and I were on the el, riding downtown, Geoff looked over and me and took my hand and said, "hello, wife." "

Hey, Jessamyn and Geoff are married now!

Give them your congrats, it sounds like they had a lovely time.

I remember my delight in calling Jeff my husband. Not altogether thrilled with the first Mrs. Page, but that just sounded Old!

Referrer Logs Fun

Fishing Guides to the Stars by Kramer Wentzel.

I'm linked to under Taurus; "I was listening to some cowboy music last week, and I started to notice a trend. Snuff"

Not sure how I'm related, but a links a links a link.

Yesterday was Pop's (Jeff's Dad) 70th birthday. Jeff and his family are the next generation up from mine, although he's just three years older than me, he's the youngest boy, and I'm the oldest girl. My Mum is 57 this year, my Dad, 62, Pop is 70, Mom (Jeff's Mo/um) 65.

For his 70th, his Dad wanted one each of his favourite cakes from the kid couples. This would be so much simpler if I'd written the cast page. I'm not anonymous, my name is my name, as is Jeff's. I'm less inclined to put other people's real names, this is my out there live without (for the most part) a net, not theirs. I'm going to have to work on the psuedonymous tags, I started with B1 and B2 for his brothers, and it sounds like I'm related by marriage to these guys. Then when it's time for the spouses and kidlets, it becomes algebraic equations, which is just not so much fun, to read or write.

Jeff's going to assist with the monikers. In the meantime, he made the chocolate cake, his sister made the orange cake, and his middle brother's wife made the coconut cake. All from scratch, all very good. I only had a piece of the orange cake, I'd reached capacity by that stage. (It's a very easy recipe to make it, she says. A yellow cake mix, made with tropicana orange juice instead of the liquid, and an extra 1/2 cup of liquid consisting of pureed tangerines/mandarins. The icing is a stick of butter, a small bag of confectioners sugar/icing sugar, and enough pureed tangerines/mandarins to make it icing consistency. Sweet, but surrounded by a layer of tang, a great combo.)

Jeff's second chocolate cake turned out great. The first one, not so good. It's been a while since I culled the old baking provisions, the first lot of flour he used was stale, and the cake tasted stale also. The second lot of flour we could find came complete with it's own previously wriggling extra protein, so we didn't even bother with that. I made a mercy dash to the Acme for some flour, and we managed to get to the party only 30 minutes late, well before the cake was needed.

I played Present Cop Aunt Amanda. Present Cop Aunt Amanda's main job is to stop the 5 nieces and nephews all under 7 from opening other people's presents. I don't remember ever opening anyone else's present when I was younger, it was automatically known that was not done. I don't really remember being under 7 so much, so maybe I did. I suspect not. I opened my own presents ahead of time, on the sly, but no-one else's. One Christmas, a week or two before Christmas, I opened them all, played with them all, sticky-taped them back up and feigned surprise and excitement on Christmas Day. This would explain why I have my mother mail my birthday and Christmas presents to my sister-in-laws, and I don't get them until just before the day. This would also explain how I can pretend to be the mother of three from North Carolina. How healthy a child technique this is, I really couldn't say, but I do like to impress on a child the consequences of an action. Turnabout is fair play. Which results in the following conversation;

Present Cop Aunt Amanda: Hey, it's Pop's birthday, he should get to open his own card, and his own present

Nephew: This one's almost opened, look, the corners ripped already.

Present Cop Aunt Amanda: And it can stay that way until Pop's ready to open that present.

Nephew: But I don't know what's inside the present! I want to know now!

Present Cop Aunt Amanda: When it's your present, then you get to open the gift first. This isn't your birthday, these aren't your presents. How would you like it if I came to your house, on your birthday, and opened all your presents?

Nephew: (gleefully) That's OK! (his birthday has been already for this year, in October)

Present Cop Aunt Amanda: Actually, you've already had your birthday, I'll come and open your Christmas presents, when's a good day for me to do that?

Nephew: (horrified!) Noooo! You can't do that!

Present Cop Aunt Amanda: That's the same thing as you opening Pop's present now, without waiting for him!

Nephew: ...

Pop let them open a few, but it was still done in a structured manner, and with his permission, not a grab fest. I did manage to get him to open one present of and on his own, and felt not a little satisfied at that. Present Cop Aunt Amanda has some fascistic tendencies with the present thing. Present Cop Aunt Amanda would also bite your hand off if you tried to open her present.

Pop, aside from being a Turkey Mad Dad, is also a John Wayne Fiend, so we got him two John Wayne Videos (Comancheros and True Grit) and a CD entitled "America, Why I Love Her" by John Wayne. That CD truly stuns people until they find out he's reciting (things like the Pledge of Allegiance, which I am not doing a link, because there's that whole Under God, not under God thing that just gets me rumpled and ruffled. You know John Wayne's doing the Under God, that'll do) as opposed to singing.

 

The notify list knows I went out to lunch today to a restaurant recommended by L, the person I went with. She drove, and we chatted and then ate, then visited Borders. A fun afternoon without huge cost. I take my Palm with me to bookshops now, add to a "To Be Read" list, which I bring home and add to my Amazon wishlist. I can buy at my leisure, at a local second hand bookshop, through Amazon, or just borrow from the library with my list in hand. Trying not to drop $100 every time we go in there, and it's working well so far.

It's not the best Indian food I've had, the restaurants in Adelaide take some living up to, but it's the best I've had since coming to the US, and the best I've had in some time. Palak Paneer, Tandoori Chicken, Butter Chicken, Curried Lamb, Mango Lassis, raitas, freshly made naan, all in a buffet style, all for $6.95 (except the Mango smoothies, aka lassi, $2.75 each, for fresh mango, that's more than OK), all good. I ate so much I didn't have any room left for the rice pudding dessert, and I could tell it was good, it smelled warm and spicy, cardamom and cinnamon and nutmeg. Next time, for sure. I grabbed a small portion of their fennel seeds on the way out, it's a traditional meal ender and breath freshener, nice little anise flourish. If you're ever in a Fijian Indian shop, they sell little lollies, they look like small version of the candied licorice bullets (what the hell are they called here in the US, someone? They're traditional movie candy), but they contain fennel seeds, a nice anise crunch.

A tasty raita (A side dish or condiment, very often cooling, such as cucumber and yoghurt) that I haven't had for a while, but made every time I made my own Indian curries (doesn't go well with Thai curries, for example, it's not a good mesh) is a tomato onion raita. No quantities per se, it's all to look and to taste. Diced tomatoes, diced white onion, diced banana, sultanas (golden raisins would substitute), and unsweetened desiccated coconut. Fresh would be fine, but don't use that pre-sweetened crap, it'll fuck up the food, and that's a mortal sin in my book.

I'm going to borrow from Dorothy R, with my bulleted list of things I should put in an entry at some point;

• swimming, bathers, and going down a size
• Jeff's birthday and the three cakes
• JournalCon 02
• Syd
• Plin Con
• My birthday
• China Outlet & Garage
• Saving the house next door from burning down
• Debt collectors pissing me off
• Christmas Parades, gallons of hot chocolate and more house fires
• 3 years of photos from Walmart
• gratuitous pics & chat of the kitten (that'd be Adelaide aka Cutie).