‘Twas a bizninny weekend…let’s see if I can do a super fast re-cap!
Friday, went to Owens for cheap chinese, sex talk, catty gossip and hair dying. I’m blonde with the lightest pink highlites.
Saturday was David’s bowling birthday party (pictures posted soon). It was a great time, we bowled and hugged and harassed and ate the unhealthiest food ever. I bowled longer than I should have and my wrist and hand gave me hell for it for hours.
This year for David’s cake I covered the bottom of a 9×13 with sliced pound cake then covered that with hulled strawberries, sliced plums and rasberries. Sprinkled on spiced vanilla sugar (my own recipe) and melted butter. Baked at 400 for 30 minutes. Covered the whole thing with a zabaglione (which I overcooked goddammit).
Bowling was great fun. I love birthday parties, especially those for people I really care about.
Sunday was David’s birthday proper. We celebrated by eating suburban pancakes and discussing movies that made us cry. I was going to make a special dinner but he’s not feeling up to par right now, he’s coming down with something, so I’m going to save that for another night.
Off to make lunches and read. Have a good night, party people.
Oh, and a belated happy birthday to a certain munchkin!

The best part about the giant grocery shopping trip is that I have all new fresh things to choose from when I am standing in the kitchen. The only problem is picking what to make. Roasted radicchio with carrots and rice vinegar? chick pea fritters? butternut squash curry? kale risotto?
Tonight I settled on udon/miso soup. Miso broth with sauteed zucchini, carrots, broccoli, water chestnuts, fresh spinach, toasted sesame seeds, chili oil, lime juice, egg and chewy good udon noodles. Good god, you cannot make a better combination than egg cooked in miso broth with toasted sesame seeds. The noodles and the veggies are secondary, I love the umame-tastic combo of eggs and miso.
Happily chilling with dinner in my belly.
Speaking of food and such…
Been packing lunches for David and myself lately. Part of it is an effort to save money (it’s working!) and part of it is an effort to give something tangible to David, a way to say thank you. I don’t have much to give, not many good solid ways to show him what he means to me and how I care for him. I can cook, this is something I can do fairly well. I can pack a lunch for him, I can make sandwiches on homemade bread, I can pack up leftovers from dinner, I can do this. I can accomplish something. I remind him every morning to take his lunch (at least on the mornings he has one to take. I care about him, but that does nt mean I am on the ball every night!).
Maybe, tomorrow, if you remind me, I’ll tell you of the purely obscene moments I’ve been having lately!
Just filed my taxes. Why did I wait so long? Pure, unadulterated procrastination. Why else would I allow such a big chunk of money to just sit there doing nothing!
Birthday party for David on Saturday! YAY YAY HOORAY!

All day Friday and Saturday I cooked. It’s what I did. I cooked. It was hardcore intensive work. It was so important to me that the food turn out well. I was lucky, though, I had help. Friday night my aunt sue came over and we caught up on old times. She is only a few years older than me, we spent a lot of time partying together during my college years. We slugged through most of the prep. I crawled into bed, aching and sore at 1am.
Saturday I got up around 8:30 and as I was trying to wake up I got a call from my aunt saying she and her brother, my uncle donnie, were coming over to help. Like perfect guardian angels these two swept into my place and immediately started washing dishes and working on food. Donnie ran to the store for me and he ran to get lunch for all of us. Lovely.
Later, a dear friend of mine and Sue’s, Chad showed up and I had yet another set of hands at my disposal. Chad is the expert at clearing, organizing and assembling. He stuffed and rolled all the croissants and assembled all the crostini for me. With all the help I got I was actually finished with time to spare. Time to spare, that’s pretty much unheard of for me.
Sue’s little girl, Evelyn, came along on Saturday and she fell in love with the dogs. And Ghengis, realizing that children are mobile buffets, fell in love with her. Ghengis profited dearly from this relationship.
The party was a lovely, warm event. My grandfather got to celebrate his 80th birthday surrounded by friends and family that truly loved and admired him. It was a great time and I got to see relatives I’d not seen in ages.
Unfortunately, I am getting old. The party started at 6pm and I was done before midnight. I got home, went to bed and kept my pitiful, semi-hungover, completely pained body in bed until noon when my mom called.
My mom’s cousin, Rebecca, had a flight out at 9:45pm so she spent part of the day with my sister then came over here so we could visit before she left. I don’t know much of my extended family so it was nice to spend some time getting to know her and getting perspective on family history.
For dinner we went to Everest on Grand, the local tibetan/nepalese place. I can now say that I’ve eaten yak! YAK! I ate YAK! Actually, it sounds more exotic than it tastes, if I didn’t know it was yak I would have assumed it was beef. So there, you can eat yak and it won’t kill you.
Yak, it’s what’s for dinner.
The rest of my evening will include crocheting and watching movies and generally spacing out.