TGIF

Ah, Friday. I feel like I've worked two weeks in the last two days. Partly from my lack of energy from being sick and partly from the multiple little jobs I've had to juggle. I spent the weekend and Monday (my vacation day) being really sick and then Tuesday and Wednesday I rested (and sniffled and coughed) at home with barely enough oomph to respond to work emails. I felt pretty good yesterday especially after a nice long hot shower but today has been difficult. I'm so glad it's Friday.

I left the office early yesterday and had enough energy to not only think about cooking but actually doing so. I chopped up an onion and sautéed it in olive oil in my dutch oven along with a few (pretty dried up) garlic cloves that I pressed in. I cut up a snack packet of baby carrots and some leftover steak and added them to the pot along with ground pepper, dried thyme, celery salt and a couple of bay leaves. I deglazed with a bit of water, melted in some Better Than Bouillon and then filled the pot with water. In went two cans of white beans and I left it to come to a simmer then added a can of green beans and a head of cauliflower chopped into small florets. Once the cauliflower was tender, I filled up my bowl and had some delicious soup for supper.

I'm headed home now to have some more!

vendredi

I've been having Grandma Mary's chicken soup for lunch this week. It's got a whitish vegetable in it that I don't recognize by sight or taste. It might be rutabaga or turnip. But really it just looked like a white carrot cuz it seemed to be cylindrical, cut crosswise and had a differently textured center. Any ideas? Oh, I just went to their website and it says parsnips right in the menu. I'm so glad to have figured that out. Funny, they also say the soup has noodles but mine never does.

Tomorrow I'm finally going to get my car washed. It's been too long. I'd like to be able to see out again please. Sallie and I are going to the zoo once I'm done with my errands. We'll be doing some shopping as well. Her collapsible grocery cart broke and she's been having to carry things in blue IKEA bags. As I was googling I found some great essays on "granny carts" and how they should be promoted as green alternatives to driving a couple blocks to the grocery store instead of being sneered at as solutions only applicable for poor people or those with fixed incomes. We're hoping Target or Wal-Mart have a good selection.

Here's the office chair I decided on. Leti's was able to get a good price on it since she orders from here alot. Still it's kinda pricy but, like I said, I have specific needs.

martes

Paul and I had lunch today at the Indian restaurant nearby that has a korma that is tolerably mild. Sometimes I'm in the mood for the spices of India and sometimes not. I think I want it but then as I'm eating it I realize that I'd really rather be eating Thai. There's something darker and moodier about Indian flavors that I rarely appreciate. I always feel thirsty.

Anyway, at this Indian place they have daily specials that include the main dish (chicken korma, if the gods are with me) along with a spiced rice, a cucumber/lettuce salad and the vegetable curry of the day. The curry's always too spicy for me so, if I remember (which I did not do today), I request that I get more salad in exchange for the curry. They're very accommodating, so much so that we feel fine asking for korma or, in Paul's case, chicken tikka masala, instead of whatever's on special. Oh, I almost didn't mention that you also get a big basket of naan. How could I forget!? It's so yummy.

To complete my food finds of the day, I must mention that my Starbucks had the pumpkin muffins this morning. I love the combination of the pumpkin cake and the creamy cream cheese center topped off with some roasted pumpkin seeds. Such a good reason to love fall! My Starbucks drink is hot chocolate and they just came out with three signature hot chocolates: Signature Hot Chocolate, Salted Caramel HC, and Hazelnut HC. I may have to try all three.

Paul y yo almorzábamos hoy en el restaurante indio cerca que tiene un Korma que sea tolerable suave. Estoy a veces en el humor para las especias de la India y a veces no. Pienso que la quiero pero por otra parte como yo la estoy comiendo yo realice que sería realmente algo consumición tailandesa. There' s algo más oscuro y más cambiante sobre los sabores indios que aprecio raramente. Siento siempre sediento.

De todas formas, en este lugar indio tienen specials diarios que incluyan el plato principal (pollo Korma, si dioses están conmigo) junto con un arroz condimentado, una ensalada del pepino/de la lechuga y el curry vegetal del día. El curry es siempre demasiado picante para mí así pues, si recuerdo (que no hice hoy), yo pide que consigo más ensalada a cambio del curry. Son muy serviciales, tanto de modo que sintamos muy bien que piden masala del tikka de Korma o, en el caso de Paul, del pollo, en vez de lo que está en special. Oh, casi olvidé la mejor parte -- una cesta grande de naan. ¿Cómo podría olvidar!? Es tan deliciosa.

Para terminar mis hallazgos del alimento del día, debo mencionar que mi Starbucks tenía los molletes de la calabaza esta mañana. Amo la combinación de la torta de la calabaza y del centro cremoso del queso poner crema rematados apagado con algunas semillas de calabaza asadas. ¡Una tan buena razón para amar caída! Mi Starbucks bebe es chocolate caliente y acaban de salir con tres chocolates calientes de la firma: Chocolate caliente de la firma, caramelo salado HC, y avellana HC. Puedo tener que intentar los tres.

Friday

I use the basic Quicken to write checks for our main checking account. In order to avoid duplicating my effort, I'll be switching to using Peachtree to write checks pretty soon. I'm a little bummed about it though. The Mac version of Quicken has such a nice look with which Peachtree cannot compete. It's just so ugly.

Also, having to running Parallels to get to my check register may cause me a bit of a hang up. I'm used to being able to switch back and forth between many programs at once including some pretty heavy CPU and memory users: Excel, Photoshop, InDesign, FileMaker to name a few. Parallels eats up a lot of power and memory so I almost can't do design work when I have it running. Which would mean not being able to write checks -- or look up a check I've written -- on the spur of the moment. Something I do many times a day.

Today for lunch I went over to the SF shopping center and got some potstickers and brown rice from the Bristol Farms hot food selections. I was really looking for their roasted turkey cuz it's so hella good. I almost got some scalloped potatoes from the comfort food bar but the rice and gyoza just looked yummy. I spied some organic honey crisp apples so grabbed a couple. There was no birch beer or sarsaparilla in the specialty soda case so I made due with water back at the office. All in all it was a good lunch.

I have this weird habit of staying late on Fridays. I explain it by saying the other days I know I have to come in the next day so there's no reason not to just go on home. But on Fridays I tend to just keep on working. I've been tending to work until after 7 most days anyway. Then I don't come in until 10:30 or so. I get loads done after most everyone else has gone. I do have one late night companion down the hall so I'm usually not here by myself.

Have you ever wondered who the strange phone number is calling you? Try visiting WhoCallsMe? or Who Called Us to see if someone else is getting the same calls.

I almost forgot to comment on Survivor. Hhmmm. Not a clear fave for me yet. Perhaps Ace. Bob the Bow-Tie-Wearing Physics Teacher is pretty awesome too. I was agreeing with Charlie as I saw the tribes forming. Almost all the predictably weak people on one tribe? Not too smart. Love the tribe names though: Kota and Fang. Are those African words? I have to report that the HD was true HD and I switched my DVR recording over as soon as I got home. I caught over half of it and it was lovely. Jeff's looking hot (Emmy-winner!).

Drat!

I forgot to stick my umbrella in my bag this morning and it's raining! I need to go out and grab some lunch too. Maybe I'll check the radar and see if it's going to clear up anytime soon. I might be stuck with running next door for a slice of pizza (no!). Maybe I can make it down to the soup place. Mmmm, Grandma Mary's chicken soup sounds pretty good right now.

Today in My Lunch

My friend Paul and I went to the sister restaurant of our favorite Thai hole-in-the-wall today for lunch. Our place is currently undergoing some rather significant remodeling so we are reduced to lunching across the street in the slightly higher-priced, somewhat fancier place which is owned and run by the same people. Our familiar wait staff are working over there now too.

We walked in and the place was packed and noisy. I decided I wanted to splurge and get not only a Thai Iced Tea (delicious) but also some spring rolls (yummy). I noticed that they had brown rice on the Sides menu (I did say fancier) so I asked for brown instead of steamed along with my ginger chicken (surprisingly less tasty than normal). Our waitress wasn't writing anything down so I just knew one of us was going to have something wrong with our order. Of course, me requesting no bell peppers in my entree didn't help either. But, hey, I like what I like.

Our orders came and, yes, we both had white rice. Bummer. Next time I guess.

Twizzlers Are My Favorite...

Dress??

Yes, that's right. Only on Project Runway, of course. A dress made of the delicious strawberry-flavored licorice was one of the creations on a recent episode where the challenge was hosted by the Hershey's shop in Times Square. The contestants were set loose in the candy store with five minutes to collect materials for a garment they had to make that day. Only Jillian had the eggs to use an edible material. All of the others grabbed pillows and toys and wrappers. My favorite, Christian, used the brown wrappers from peanut butter cups glued to a brown halter dress. My least favorite, the oddball Elisa, was finally "auf" of the competition for her boring brown dress. Jillian's confection creation gave her a lot of problems but the judges approved of her finally completed design.

This past week's episode was a prom dress challenge where the clients were high school girls from New Jersey and were also the models. Christian's client was a design student herself who had very definite ideas for her gown. He was caught between trying to put in all the elements she requested and creating a garment that had his look. He wasn't that successful and on the runway he blamed his client for his difficulties. That turned off the judges and he only escaped being cut because Kevin had a really bad week. My favorite gown of the week was Chris' green creation. Lovely.

Anne & Don in California: San Francisco

So Sunday night I left Anne and Don at their hotel near Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco and loosed them onto the City. I didn't see them again until this afternoon. Here's a rundown of their week so far (sorry, no photos):

Monday: They woke up super early (pre-dawn!) so went walking about on the wharves. A guy on the street stopped them asking, "Are you hungry? I've got clam chowder in a bread bowl." They thought that sounded pretty good so they got a couple bowls and sat on a bench in the big parking lot watching the seagulls (and enjoying a good chowder). Later they took the cable car down to Chinatown and joined three dozen others in a walking tour. That's a lot of people to organize in and out of those little alleyways. Supper was a Wharf staple: Scoma's (Don had the swordfish).

Tuesday: It was clam chowder bread bowls for breakfast again (those crazy kids). Then they hopped on the F line streetcar around Herb Caen Way... to Market Street for their morning tour of the historic Palace Hotel. After lunch, they caught up with the historic Market Street walking tour in the financial district. They ended up near my office but Anne couldn't remember exactly which building it was (and had forgotten her cellphone I guess). They cable-car-ed it back up to the Wharf and I forget where they went for supper, somewhere delicious, I'm sure.

Wednesday: Chowder again for breakfast? Out at 9 and back at 2, Anne and Don spent most of the day out on the Rock, also known as Alcatraz. They had a late lunch at Houston's to fuel themselves for their hike up Telegraph Hill to Coit Tower. They found a different set of stairs back down and just kept walking back to the Wharf. They took a self-guided tour of the famous sourdough Boudin bakery and I think it was In-N-Out for supper.

Thursday: They were actually able to sleep in this morning so had to skip their chowder but after catching a cable car down to Union Square they found a nearby diner where Don had corned beef hash and Anne had a turkey breast omelette. They met up with the Victorian Home Walk group at Union Square where they caught a bus out to Pacific Heights. They got to see where Mrs. Doubtfire was filmed and where Don Johnson lived when he was here filming Nash Bridges.

They made their way back my way and decided to come by so I gave them a tour of our office and they met some of my co-workers. We made plans for tomorrow's pre-Yosemite rendezvous then I sent them to the BART station to buy tickets for their morning trip (after chowder, of course) over to my place. They discovered the movie theater in the mall next door so decided to see Dan in Real Life and by the time that let out it was suppertime so they checked in with me about plans for dinner. I was just finishing up a project for the day so was happy to get out of the office before 7. We had a lovely supper at Out the Door (shrimp spring roll, crispy vegetarian roll, grilled prawns with rice noodles, cellophane noodles with crab) where they told me all about their week so far.

Oh, my BART trip home was uneventful. Well, I did just miss a train and had to wait 18 minutes for the next one (had a book though {of course}).

SepteRemember: Mom #7

When I think back on all the birthday presents I've received from my mom perhaps the most memorable one was what she sent to me in Barcelona. My birthday is often near Easter and she wanted to send me something that didn't weigh very much and therefore wouldn't cost too much to ship. So her ingenious solution was to send some marshmallow peeps. If I remember right, they were the yellow kind. She also sent a tape of a Tigers game she had recorded from the radio so I could experience a bit of home while I was in baseball exile.

I Hope You're Over It By Now

I was looking back through some old emails and found this gem:

At 5:03 PM -0800 3/13/01, Joanna wrote:
>So I've been wondering what corned beef was and what
>it tasted like. I bought some last night and followed
>all the directions for cooking it. I did everything
>right and it was the most vile salty tasting crap I've
>ever had. Plus our house smells so horribly. We each
>took one bite and threw it in the trash and went to
>Russ' for dinner. I can't believe anyone would like
>corned beef. With my one bite, my tongue was
>practically swollen and I couldn't get the taste out
>of my mouth!!
>j

My reply was:
>I nearly threw up that sounds so nasty. I'm trying to
>remember if I've ever had corned beef. If it were as
>bad as you describe, I'm sure I would remember.

Midwest Vacation: #6

On Sunday morning I had some nice quiet alone time and made sloppy joes for the family for when they got home from church. I was feeling rather clumsy and had a couple spills so I spent a bit of my time cleaning up too. Whoops!

After lunch John and the kids and I went into Grand Rapids to Heritage Hill and the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Meyer May House. It was reconstructed about twenty years ago to its 1909 design. The house is owned by the Steelcase corporation who uses it for company events.



I was surprised how many people were there. There was already a group of people watching the film they show about the reconstruction when we arrived. So we sat in the conference room looking at binders of photos. Zander found this pop-up book that shows several Wright designs.



After touring the house, we drove around Heritage Hill a little bit. The next time Anne visits, she really must spend some time in this neighborhood. This was one of our favorites. Don't you love the keyhole window?

For supper, we cooked up a Chinese feast. Joanna and Zoe made homemade egg rolls. The kids and I used up the remaining wrappers for shrimp rolls. Joanna and I worked on some sesame chicken and she made some coconut shrimp. Everything was so tasty.

On Monday morning, I went with Joanna to Zoe and Zander's school to volunteer listening to the kids in Zoe's class read what they call their "baggie books." The books are just photocopies stapled together which the kid carries in their backpack in a gallon-sized ziptop bag. Every day, each kid reads a book to a volunteer parent (or other). So our job is to correct any mistakes the child makes and to pass them on to the next book in the list. If they make more than three mistakes, they have to keep working on that book. I only had one girl who was close to not passing but I thought she did a good enough job so I gave her the next book. What can I say? I'm a softie.

One girl had a book with the word "zyzomys" in it. Now who knows what those are? I sure didn't! We agreed to disagree on how to pronounce it and when she read that it meant "rock rat" she decided to read that out loud instead of zyzomys from then on. She was pretty funny. And I learned something at school that day.

That afternoon I discovered on their DVR a show called Planet Earth. Have you heard of it? It's amazing. I watched three and a half shows! The photography is amazing and one of the cool things about it is that with new technology they were able to capture footage of animals we don't normally get to see: snow leopards, wild baby giant pandas, for example. It's pretty amazing stuff. It's a Discovery Channel 11-part miniseries, so check it out.

Midwest Vacation: #5

Tuesday Sal and I drove up to my folks' in Kaleva. My dad had an appointment in Manistee so we meet them there for lunch at the newly re-opened House of Flavors. I got a brat with some deep fried cauliflower. The brat was okay but the batter on the cauliflower was too thick so they weren't so appetizing. I had to get some ice cream too so had a vanilla malt with extra malt. It was delicious.

The next few days were filled with puzzle-solving, riding in the car with Dad to his doctor's appointments, cooking, reading, watching baseball and hockey, and sleeping. Just like a vacation should be. I, of course, spent just enough time on the computer as well. I even did a little IT support for my mom when she wanted to figure out how to create PDFs on her computers. I hope that's working out for you, Mom.

Sal had to be back to work in Minnesota on Friday afternoon so she left early Thursday morning.



It was long debate whether she should go the southern route through Chicago or cross the Mackinac Bridge and go west through the Upper Peninsula. For awhile it looked like it might be better to go through all snow in the north rather than a snow/rain mix in the south, but in the end she made the correct choice to stay on the big highways through the more populated areas. She arrived safely home around 10:00pm after 13.5 hours of driving without any weather difficulties at all.

Mom went down to camp on Friday night so Dad and I had a quiet evening and then drove down Saturday morning. I had my camera out and was able to capture this family of turkeys crossing the road. It was my third sighting of turkeys that week. I was lucky to catch them with a background of snow. Otherwise they tend to blend in with the trees.



I just barely caught this fun barn as we turned south on 80th Avenue.



I spent about an hour or so looking around the camp lodge seeing all the changes since I'd been there last. It was awhile ago. John, Joanna and the kids got there around noon and Zander, Zoe and I took advantage of the ping pong table in the rec room to get some practice in. We all need it!

The people who were there for the meeting were about to sit down for their potluck lunch so we took off and headed south in search of our own lunch. We couldn't agree on being hungry or where to eat so we ended up at one of their favorite Chinese buffets near their home. It was soooo good. I had a few bites of sesame chicken, orange chicken, honey chicken and pepper chicken all on my plate at once. No wonder they call it the Jumbo Buffet.

Another fun note about the Buffet was that all the hand-written signage was in Spanish and what it said was that kids three-years-old or younger had to be accompanied by an adult. Three? So four-year-olds are allowed to go get food by themselves? I don't even think they could hold their own plate much less reach the food. The delicious, delicious food.

Saturday evening was the last home game for the Grand Rapids Griffins hockey team and was an important one for them to stay in the playoff race. I went with John, Zander, Joanna's bro-in-law (thanks for the tix, Fitz!), and his two younger kids. We had a good time. The team didn't end up winning but it was a fun game (and the onion strips were lovely). I spent a lot of my time entertaining three-year-old Elise who was sitting beside me. She obviously wasn't that interested in the game so I tried to get her to dance and play with me so she would have a good time too. The weather is supposed to be really warm on Sunday so we're planning on going to the West Michigan Whitecaps game so I'll get my hockey and baseball goals met for this trip. Woo hoo!

Midwest Vacation: #3

We met for breakfast on Saturday in the fanciest McDonald's I've ever seen. It's the flagship restaurant near Hamburger U. It had a McCafe so I got hot chocolate. It was delicious. We sat around the center elevated oval table and decided to split into two groups for the morning activities and meet up for lunch at Ann Sather. I went with the group going to the Frank Lloyd Wright home and studio while some others went to the Lincoln Zoo. We had to wait about a half hour for our guided tour so we spent some time exploring the gift shop.

The tour was fun, the tour guide was irreverent and both the house and studio were very interesting. We weren't allowed to take photos inside so I had to do with shots outside and of items in the shop.





Ann Sather specializes in Swedish food but I ordered the Southern Decadence: poached eggs, biscuits and gravy. It was superb but, when I tasted Zander's Swedish pancakes, I wished I had ordered those instead. I do love a thin, eggy pancake. I'm glad I wasn't sitting too close to the three people who ordered Reubens. I feel a little sick when I smell sauerkraut.

After a brief stop at Trader Joe's, I was off to Michigan with Joanna and the kids while Sallie and John took her car. The visit in Chicago was highly successful. I'm so glad we were able to get together even for a brief time.

Midwest Vacation: #1

I've been on vacation for a week and it's been great.

I flew to Chicago last Wednesday...well, with a brief, unanticipated stop in Salt Lake City. We were about an hour into the 4-hour flight from Oakland to O'Hare when the pilot announced that because of a valve malfunction, all the onboard water had been lost overboard. Oops! They decided that we really needed water for flushing the toilets and washing the hands so we had to fill up in Salt Lake. It took about an hour to land, determine the problem, fix it, acquire more fuel and take off again. I did get to see the snow-capped Grand Teutons and the big salty lake. I wish I had gotten my camera out.

I also later wished I had borrowed my seatmate's cellphone and made a call to Sal who was picking me up. She was driving down from MN but did have her phone in the car. She didn't bother checking the status of my flight so drove around the airport for an hour before finally deciding to park and find a restroom. She was just checking the arrivals board when I found her in baggage claim. We headed out into the cold, cold Chicago night and our fancy room at the Hilton Suites.

My folks had arrived earlier in the day so we called them to arrange a shared breakfast the next morning in our suite. They arrived with some egg, Canadian bacon, muffin sandwiches which we matched with the apples and plums Sal had brought from Costco. My dad's birthday was Friday and I wanted to go shopping for a present with my mom. She suggested some new dress shirts so we left my dad at the hotel and headed for the fancy mall next door.

It was just a little too fancy for us so we set out in search of the Men's Wearhouse we were told was nearby. We didn't find it and were about to head elsewhere when I asked a woman in the car next to us in the left-turn lane. She confirmed it was just where we were headed. It wasn't. And we got caught in a railroad-crossing traffic jam. We gave up again and headed for Borders.

And, of course, right there on the side of the road was a Big & Tall Men's Clothing Store. Just the kind of store we were looking for. And they were open. And they had lots of pretty dress shirts to choose from. So we agreed on a couple, bought them and were about to leave the store when Sal sadly realized that she had locked her car keys inside her car -- along with her cellphone. Fortunately, she had her AAA card in her wallet in her jeans pocket so made a really long call and finally got someone to come out and open the car. In the meantime, Mom and I had found the short-sleeved dress shirts and decided Dad needed one of those as well. He's a lucky, lucky guy.

Anne, Don and Jordan arrived that afternoon and Anne needed to get some gift wrap for her presents for the new baby. I volunteered to go out with her while the others watched a movie on the portable DVD player Sal had borrowed from Mike and had hooked up to our hotel TV (pretty cool, huh?). Anne thought for sure she had seen a Target back the way they had come so out we went. And kept going. And going. And going. I swear we drove 20 minutes to this Target. We had fun choosing some greeting cards and she found a wine box that looked cool and was just the right size to fit all her outfits in. We got back to the suite and pretty soon the others left for Love Feast at a local church.

Sal and I started watching Eragon but about halfway through we realized we were really hungry so we went search of dinner. We had seen a restaurant next to the Borders just around the corner. So we stopped for some books first then had dinner at J. Alexander's. It was a bit pricey but the filet I got was amazing. I think the Alex salad that Sal got with her burger was almost as good. I wanted to go back there again. Maybe some day...

By the Dozen

I'm not sure how Anne came up with the idea (maybe it was impulse shopping at Safeway) but she suggested we dye Easter eggs. It sounded like a fun crafty idea (and I had two dozen ancient eggs languishing in my fridge) so I said sure.

While reading the kit at home we agreed that we preferred the bright colors supplied by using vinegar along with water in the dye. However, there was no vinegar to be had in my house so we put off our project until we could make another trip to the store. I dropped Anne off at the library to try to check her email (that's another story) and ran into Safeway to pick up some vinegar. Of course, I had to buy two other dye kits: tie-dye and rainbow.


The colors of the dye tablets were misleading. The pink and purple couldn't have vinegar so we had to drop the tablets in the water first, then add the acid.


Our idea was to dye a base coat first. I loved the orange, green and yellow.


This is the tie-dye kit. I had to poke cloth through the holes, press the egg between the cloths, then add dye with a dropper. I gave up after one.


For the rainbow kit you don't use the tablet dyes, instead it has little pouches of liquid dye. You put an egg in the little bag and smush it around as you add the dye. Anne was very good at this method.


Here you can see the yellow egg I did with the tie-dye kit and a pinkish egg Anne did with the rainbow kit.


Now those are some beautiful eggs! Which one is your favorite?

Tick Tock Taco

TagFest: Food

I love tacos.

I love crunchy tacos. I love soft tacos. I love crispy wholewheat tacos. I love tacos with hamburger. I love tacos with beans. I love Rubios chicken tacos, just not too hot. I love tacos with a little cheese and a lot of lettuce and fresh tomatoes. I just love a taco.

Cabin Fever Reliever

TagFest: Family

I got an intriguing email recently from my mom with a too-short description of a party my dad is going to be hosting at their home in Michigan. It sounded like fun so I thought I would ask him a few questions about it.

What is the name of your event?

Cabin Fever Reliever Party

What was the genesis of the name? What prompted you to have your event?

With all the snow and ice, lots of people don't get out of their 'cabins' very often, thus we get cabin fever, which leads to depression which leads to you know what. Part of our thinking was having a Mardi Gras-type of party.

When is your event being held?

February 20, 2007 from 11:00 to 1:30. Since most of our guests are older than we are, it's at lunchtime.

Tell us a bit about your guests.

We have invited around 20 folks who either live alone, are widowed, or have some reason they don't get out much, plus a few to help with transportation and with our party.

Tell us about your decorations.

The decorations will be the food. We don't have anything else planned.

Are you planning any party favors?

We will give them the spoon they use for dessert.

Will you be leading any party games?

No. If there is need for some activity, we are prepared for 'scissor craft' to make snowflakes, or some simple paper folding [origami]. And we have air hockey in the basement though only a few might risk the stairs.

What's on the menu? Tell us a bit about the inspiration behind it. Who will be preparing the food?

The menu will contain items that we have liked and enjoyed through the years. Since our six children are no longer nearby to honor with parties, we thought it was time to honor some others. The menu is mostly fix-your-own because it's easy to prepare.

We'll start out with Treasure Chests—stuffing cheese into a slit in half a hot dog, wrapping them with prepared biscuit dough, and topping with ketchup. While they are baking in the oven, we'll make our own appetizers by stacking meat, cheeses, pickles, olives, etc. on toothpicks or on crackers. By the time we finish eating those, the Chests will be out of the oven.
For dessert, we will have Brown Cows—root beer poured over vanilla ice cream in a tall cup. Tapioca pudding with whipped cream topping and 'poor folks apple pie' [applesauce on saltines] will also be available.

It's probably obvious that the menu was chosen by the man of the house. Having everyone in on the preparation will make us feel more like we're all part of the family.

What do you hope is the outcome of your event? What is the possibility of you hosting any other events of this nature?

I'm sure everyone will have fun and enjoy each other. We are all from the same church and already know each other to some degree. Maybe we'll learn something new! If it turns out well, we might hold it again.

Thanks for sharing, Dad, and I hope you and Mom have a great Cabin Fever Reliever!

Dinner: Impossible

Have you watched Dinner: Impossible on the Food Network yet? Tonight I caught an episode where the chef had to cook a dinner for 200 on a Maine island in 8 hours with two sous-chefs and a handful of volunteers. He had one tiny kitchen and one barely working oven. Right now there's 2 hours left and he hasn't raised his voice to anyone except to call for progress reports from his guys in the next room. All the food they're making looks really great too. Lobster mac & cheese? Yes, please.

Guess What I Had for Lunch?

If you guessed chicken korma, you would be correct. Paul and went to the Indian place that had korma for $8 and it was pretty good. It wasn't as sweet and coconutty as I had in the UK but neither was it too hot to eat. I might go there again if only to have the roti that I ordered to accompany the korma. I usually get garlic naan but the menu said roti was whole wheat bread cooked in the tandoori oven. So I said what's wrong with that? Nothing! It was delish.

Thoughts of the Day

I'm still not at 100% and it seems the lingering super-phlegm is interfering with my ability to read comfortably on BART. So on the way home today, instead of reading -- and feeling nauseous -- I just sat there and thought about...

Identity
The new gameshow, Identity, premiered last night. The premise is to match up 12 strangers with 12 identities which may range from sumo wrestler to shark attack victim to professional bull rider to retired English professor. If you match all 12 you get $500k. Some of the strangers have obvious visual clues (a sumo outfit or cowboy hat) which the player can easily match to one of the identities on the list, while others are less obvious but still have visual clues (white-bearded, argyle-sweater-wearing older gentleman, dark-haired woman in a bikini top with a long Hawaii print wrapskirt).

Then the potential matches get harder and it's pretty much just guessing at that point. I found it entertaining for a little while but the easy matches irritated me with their predictability and the hard guesses annoyed me because really there wasn't much intelligence involved with guessing. I won't be watching it again, I don't think.

Korma Revisited
Yesterday while walking to the burrito shop, we walked by one of the four Indian restaurants within a few blocks of my office. I checked out the menu in the window and they have chicken korma for $8. Woo hoo!

The place I went to for lunch last week didn't have korma so I ended up getting chicken tikka kabaab which was too hot even when I told the guy I needed it mild. Paul got the chicken tikka masala and his was milder than mine. Plus the Bollywood music was hellaloud. We checked out the closest place to the office on the way back and they're quite pricy with korma at $13. Paul and I will be going to Little India on Thursday and I will report back on the $8 korma. I hope it's good! There's only one place to go after that.

Loud Music on BART
I like listening to my iPod on BART. The headphones discourage strangers speaking to me and the tunes provides a nice background to whatever I'm reading or thinking about. I don't listen to it very loud; I like being able to hear any announcements that might come over the PA system, you know, in case of emergencies. There aren't any signs banning it or anything but most people know it's not nice to play a boombox or radio out loud on BART.

Unfortunately the guy sitting behind me this morning didn't get that particular memo. I don't like calling attention to myself so I wasn't about to turn around and ask him to turn it down. No one else was brave enough to do it either so we all suffered through his jams the whole way in. It's sad because the more we let people like him get away with being rude, the more he's going to think he can do it. Or he just doesn't care.

The Nerve
Speaking of not respecting social boundaries, my phone rang on Saturday night around 10pm and the second ring was a higher pitched tone meaning the number was known to me. Now all my close relatives live in either in the Eastern or Central time zone and I don't really talk to my friends here on the phone that much so I couldn't think of who it might be. Of course, my first thought was that something bad must've happened somewhere to have someone calling me that late (which would be much later for most people I talk to).

But it wasn't a friend or a family member. No, when I checked my Caller ID the phone number was my office number. Say what??! Just who would be at work on a Saturday at 10pm much less calling me from work on a Saturday at 10pm!! Obviously, someone really really needed my help.

I thought, well, maybe our new IT guy wasn't back from his father's funeral in Oregon yet and something serious had happened to a computer. I could see someone calling me for that. But no, there was no computer emergency. There was no emergency at all.

In fact, as I listened to the never-ending message being left, I couldn't understand why this person would be calling me at all. It turns out she was asking about a situation she had talked with me about on Friday. She had shown me a letter to see if it made sense. It seemed okay to me but I had no experience in the matter so I didn't see how I could help her that much. I just don't know why she thought calling me about it, much less on a weekend, late in the evening, was appropriate. Really, the nerve.