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Friday, December 01, 2006
Dominic the Donkey
Despite the fact that the radio stations have gotten a little out of control with the holiday cheer (still not okay with the caroling before Thanksgiving), its taken until yesterday afternoon to hear the best Christmas song ever on the radio.Several years ago, a local station that we listened to at work was having a conversation about the most ridiculous Christmas songs they coul dthink of, and someone mentioned "Dominic the Donkey." No one believed that it was an actual song. They broke for a commerical, and when they came back, that DJ had found the song, and played it. I died. Cracked up laughing, right there at my desk.
Its not quite as funny anymore, but the novelty hasn't worn off and Dominic has definately become a pretty integral part of the holiday season. And, like most truly wonderful things, its even better when its shared. And so, I give you: Dominic the Donkey. Jingedy jing, heehaw heehaw!
Posted at 10:47 AM :: 0 comments
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Birthdaygiving
I'm amazed at the amount that Jason and I have accomplished today, in light of the crazy that's been the past several days. I don't think we've stopped moving since Wednesday night, when we started prepping food for Thanksgiving.We spent Thanksgiving day (which was also my birthday) at my parent's house with Christine. There's always been a ton of people there for dinner, so I was surprised how nice it was to have just the five of us. There was good wine, food for an army, pie, homemade carrot cake and presents which, really, is almost too much excitement for one day. My parents got me enough scrapbooking tools that I can move on from the place I got stuck during the first round of phto cropping. Jason treated me to tickets to see Rent next weekend (a huge surprise following the shopping we did last weekend as an early b-day gift) and Christine put together a basket of warm fuzzies for me...fleece socks and a robe, hot cocoa, exciting coffee, candles and probably other things that I'm forgetting. She also made me awesome Pandora's Vox art (yay!), which will go on my blog as soon as the holidays are over and on LJ as soon as I can figure out how to trudge through their system to customize headers. After dinner and cake and presents, we went to see The Santa Clause 3.
Bright and early Friday morning, we headed to Jason's mother's house for Thanksgiving Redux. All of his siblings were there, as well as a few "adopted" siblings, and there was still more yummy food and presents. It is, evidently, the season of coffee--both of Jason's parents found coffee gifts. His mom went so far as to find six different holiday flavors of homemade coffee creamer so that I can have my pumpkin spice and its friends all year long. Starbucks gift certificates abounded, and I'm pretty sure that I'll never have to drink cheap coffee again. His brothers gave me Hot Topic and Gap gift certificates, so that I can have fun finding goodies for myself to break up the holiday shopping for other people. There was a birthday trifle, too, which was pretty perfect after two heavy meals.
Saturday was Tom's wedding, so we lounged until it was time to leave for that, and headed home once it was over. It was a small wedding, and we were very happy t obe ale to be there. They worked with a very fire and ice sort of theme...lots of poinsettias and holly and candles and red tuxedo accents. Mandy looked wonderfully like an ice princess. Its always a little surreal and makes me feel strangely grown=up when I realize high school friends are getting married, even though I've done it myself.
Last night, we caught up on email and watched television until I decided it was sleepy time, and today we've been cleaning up around the house, trying to find homes for things and declutter. And that's been another Thanksgiving.
Posted at 4:31 PM :: 0 comments
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Dinner and Cirque.
About a month ago, Liz showed up at our apartment bearing tickets for Jason and I to see Corteo as a wedding gift. (First of all, awesome, awesome gift, and second of all, way more exciting when it comes seperately from all the others.) We decided to make a night of it, so Jason made reservations for dinner at Restaurant Kolumbia. We'd been there once before, during restaurant week, and had wanted to go back to try their "real" menu.As a restaurant, Kolumbia throws me a little. Admittedly, both times we've gone have been fairly early in the evening, but both times the bar has been busier than the restaurant and we've been one of only a few tables. I have no idea whether the place actually gets busy. It also amazes me how pretty the place is, in a rusticly modern sort of way, when you take in the big picture, because each individual aspect on its own is actually sort of ugly.
There was some sort of a bizarre trunk show going on Saturday night, with designers peddling scarves and jewelry. That meant that there were lots of women in the bar carrying handbags that cost more than I make in a year. I'm going to assume that's why our entrees were so long in coming out, because the first time we ate there, the service was almost too fast. I' also going to assume it accounts for the smoked salmon amuse-bouche, and the tiny cookies we were given at the end of our meal.
I don't remember what Jason started out with, but after seriously contemplating trying the blood sausage, I ordered a rabbit and foie gras terrine. The wonderfulness of the foie gras at V&As in Disney this summer and the bruhaha about it on
My entree was a whole different creature. It was listed as Salmon Superfoods, and it was, in fact, super. I don't know how you arrive at the idea to put together fish, pumpkin, black beans and blueberries, but holy cow it was good. The pumpkin was roasted and mashed, and made a bed for the fish, which was topped with the beans and some sort of herbed butter. The berries made a sauce that rimmed the plate. Seriously, its probably second on the list of the yummiest things I've ever eaten. Jason had the biggest filet mignon I've ever seen, and while the bite I had was pretty tasty, it didn't hold a candle to my fish, and the foie gras it was stuffed with looked a little too buttery for me to have been able to handle.
We had to rush a little from dinner to Cirque, and for some reason, I was surprised to see that when the ticket said it was "under the Grand Chapiteau" it meant it literally. There, in the middle of the city, was a huge, multi-spired yellow and blue big top. Its the sort of thing that instantly rockets you back to age six for a few minutes.
The show itself was spectacular. I've heard so much hype about Cirque shows that I was worried by expectations would be too high, but I was more than amazed. An LJ friend pretty much hit it right on the head when he said that bodies did things that are difficult for bodies to do. Like hula hoop twenty hoops at once. On a tightrope. Or hold a heavy ribbon in your teeth and swing through the air...with another person holding onto your legs. My favorite were the chandelier girls, and not just because I have serious sock envy.
I don't think I've ever sat through any live performance that held my attention so closely, or flew by so quickly. So now, of course, I want to take about a dozen trips to Las Vegas so that I can see the rest of the shows.
Posted at 1:05 PM :: 0 comments
Friday, November 10, 2006
Lights Out.
Written last night, around 7:30.The power in our building is out. Again. The last time this happened, we were panicking about getting our wedding invitations stuffed in time. This time, its just annoying. Jason is at his boxing class, and my grand plans for the evening all involved electric—vacuuming, cooking, editing for Street Sense, bad television, holiday shopping online, trying to catch Christine on AIM. We’ve been without power since about 3:30 and the powers that be at Pepco have said that we should have electric again around 4 a.m. Awesome!
We’re actually fairly lucky. We’ll have hot running water pretty much no matter what and the cell phones have alarm clocks. A bajillion places deliver food, we own enough candles to illuminate a small third world country (but ask if we can find a working flashlight…ha!), and for now, I have the laptop. If I weren’t so lazy, I could go out, but that would mean relighting all the candles and that would be a pain in the ass.
The building next door has power—we’re on a different grid than they are, even though the buildings are connected through the basement—so I went down to the gym for awhile. The leasing office is closed (I still say they should have to stay here when something like this happens) but the poor maintenance guys are stuck here. At least their office is in the other building. They’ve run uber-extension cords from the basement of that building through the stairwells and into ours. I kind of feel like there should be backup lights in the halls and stairwells that have an emergency generator or something, but I guess we’re just not that cool. Its all kind of jury rigged and looks pretty ghetto, but its nice to have light.
I decoded to try putting some thought into a pre-birthday gathering, since I’ll be at home for the actual day this year (yay!), so I scrounged up a phone book from the lobby and made a reservation. A handful of people were sitting around up there reading papers and talking on phones. I think its about the closest to busy as I’ve seen it.
My fingers are crossed big time that the food in the fridge survives the night. Doesn’t it just figure that we just bought a gallon of milk?
Posted at 1:03 PM :: 0 comments
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Wherein I Blog About Coffee Creamer.
One of my favorite things about the fall is that all of the coffee creamer companies release their limited edition holiday flavors. (Does anyone else have a problem with the fact that there is "limited edition" food?) Pumpkin Spice is usually first (along with the pumpkin spice flavored coffee), followed by Gingerbread and Eggnog. This year, I've also seen Chocolate Mint Truffle, Almond Toffee, and Caramel Praline (Is it pray-leen, or praw-line?).I just bought a bottle of Peppermint Mocha to spruce up my boring old Eight O'Clock Coffee (which really isn't bad, for a four dollar bag of beans), and holy cow it is awesome. It's very definitely shades of Starbucks Peppermint Latte, and doesn't cost me $3.50 a cup, either.
I wonder if I can stock up on the special flavors before they stop making them. I get that they're seasonal, but I could totally do with some pumpkin yumminess to get me through the dregs of March.
This post has been brought to you by too many parenthesis.
Posted at 10:32 AM :: 0 comments
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Knitting on the train.
One of the more interesting things about knitting on my metro ride to and from work is how the other passengers regard it. Most people in the general viscinity spend at least a few seconds watching me work. Some will spend the duration of my trip watching. Some regard the project with the air of another knitter, someone who understands what I'm doing and is following along with the pattern. Others look at me as if I've grown another head. Their eyes narrow a little, their head tilts, and they watch with absolute curiosity and bewilderment.A brave few will ask what I'm knitting. (Of course, not everyone knows to call it knitting. I've gotten the ambiguous "making," along with "crocheting" and "sewing.")
This morning, a man dressed in work clothes and a baseball hat splattered with paint and spackle, stretched out across both seats opposite mine called over, "Are you knitting a sock?"
Usually, I try not to make eye contact with people on the metro because they get the wrong idea and I wind up lured into conversation. I had to glance at this guy, though, to figure out if he was serious. I was working on a scarf. It was flat, bulky, fairly narrow, and at least two feet long. A sock? How does it even begin to resemble a sock? But he looked serious, so I told him it was a scarf, and he seemed impressed and left me to work without saying anything else.
Posted at 2:22 PM :: 1 comments
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
West Coast Delay.
Jason and I (along with my parents, who are still there) spent the this past weekend plus a few days visiting my brother and his wife in California.Robert has been living on base at Camp Pendleton on and off for the past several years, but this was my first trip to the west coast and I was pretty enamored with it. I loved that I could see mountains in one direction and the ocean in the other. It was beautiful, even though it was a little weird to see mountains (or hills or whatever they call them out there) that weren't green and covered in forest. I also loved that the freeway seemed to run right along the ocean forever. I totally get why he bought a Jeep when he first moved out there.
We ate, a lot. The highlight, besides the baked ziti dinner that mom fixed on Saturday night, was sushi from Hanna, Robert and Ashley's favorite sushi bar. We drove around the base, which is ginormous, and bowled a game at the alley they have there. We met some of my brother's friends, and their adorable kids. Irvine Improv to see stand up. We saw San Clemente and Del Mar and San Onofre, and I'm still not clear whether they're actually different towns, or just little neighborhoods in one big town. Either way, it was all very pretty, and laid back, and quaint. We visited San Diego, too, but I was a little less impressed with the actual city. I suspect its because I chose the wrong area to visit, at the wrong time of day.
Robert took me to the Rainbow Sandals store, which appears to be where flip flops are born. I have to say that there's something a little spectacular about a store full of nothing but flip flops. He bought me the sandals he's been promising (and I've been nagging about) for years, and they were totally worth waiting for. I've been wearing them nonstop ever since.
Ashley took us to the beach at San Onofre, where we watched people surfing in October, and a couple of guys surf fishing. There were picnic pavilions with fire pits all along the beach, and I was terribly jealous that they had a place like that within almost walking distance.
On Sunday, we went to Bernardo Winery, an old winery outside of San Diego. It was very rustic and cute, and had a little shopping village along with the tasting room and picnic pavilion. Mom, Jason, Ashley and I all tasted wine while Robert and Dad wandered. It tickled Jason and me that Mom and Ashley actually had fun tasting the wine. Ashley fell in love with their Moscato, and I was pretty taken with one of their estate grown reds. We brought home a bottle of their Cab and a bottle of their Gewurztraminer, but the highlight of the trip was getting to taste their 1952 unfiltered Port. Holy. cow. I have never considered spending $75 on a bottle of wine before, but I gave it actual, serious thought and am still regretting not bringing it back a little bit. Of course, like Jason pointed out: If we had it, we'd never open it, which is probably true.
It was really nice getting to see the whole family at once, and getting to see where Robert and Ashley have been living. I'm pretty jealous of their house, and that they get to live someplace so pretty.
My boss and her husband were in San Diego at the same time, for a business conference that Larry was attending. They were staying at the Hotel del Coronado, so we stopped by to crash the conference's opening party on Sunday night before we caught our flight home. The hotel was amazing and definitely worth visiting.
The red eye home was unremarkable, except to say that sleeping on a plane is pretty awful. I did manage to get hung up at security. I had tucked a bottle of medicine in my backpack without even thinking about it, and had been carrying it around with me all day, hidden in a side pocket. They asked me at the security entrance if I had an liquid that I needed to get rid of, and I said no, sure that I didn't. The x-ray machine said otherwise, and I wound up having to sit in the Bad Person Chair while they poked through my bag to find the offending substance.
We made it home Monday morning in time to sleep till noon and lounge around in our pajamas all day. I think I'm still partly in vacation mode, and not at all happy about being back at work, and in a flat, oceanless city.
Posted at 12:58 PM :: 1 comments