Morris Dancing

There’s this which is cool in a cultural history kind of way.

But the fact that it’s evolving to include this:

Delights me no end.

Birthday dinner

Wonderful Spouse asked if I wanted to go out to dinner yesterday morning. Yes, please! We went to Cedar Creek. I had a lemon drop martini, which is just alcoholic candy. My taste in drinks is juvenile. Then I ordered pot roast, which I ate about half of. Ate all of my dessert, though. Maple crème brulee. Going to have the rest of dinner for lunch today. Minus the braised cabbage. Bleh. There may be some way you can make cooked cabbage edible, but I haven’t run into it yet. Mostly just don’t cook it.

It was weird, but almost everything I had had apples in it somewhere. I had the house salad, with candied walnuts, bleu cheese (also bleh) and apples in a balsamic vinaigrette. With the dinner came applesauce, with the apples cut just about the same way they were in the salad. The braised purple cabbage also had apples in it, cut in the same fashion. I don’t know whether to think they’re cheap, putting apples in everything, or pragmatic to use what’s available and make it work in multiple dishes. I don’t know anything about the restaurant business, and hope never to have to. Food service is way too much work.

Then went home and collapsed. That’s what happens when you stay up until two in the morning the day before.

Family Christmas 2010

Got up at 5:30 Christmas morning, packed up my stuff and went over to Mom’s. I haven’t seend the streets so empty in a very long time. There was heavy fog, as the earth breathed out some of the moisture left by the rains we’ve had this year. When I got there, the house was dark. I let myself in, turned on the
lights on the tree, the house Christmas lights and set to work. It took me an hour to clear enough space to get the turkey ready for the oven. Shopping and wrapping and all the other chores surrounding Christmas were just more than Mom could handle.

For a couple of hours, it seemed like we would be able to get everything done and all would go well. Then came the eggnog. Get down the punchbowl and the cups. Whip the ingredients together right now, because they have to sit for a couple of hours. I said ‘no’ and Mom did it herself.

Then the table controversy started. She wanted us to put together a table that Dad made so we could all sit together. Doing that means taking most of the furniture out of the living room, assembling the table for dinner, disassembling it after and moving all the furniture back before we left.

I know Mom is struggling to hold on, and having things be exactly the same as before would be comforting. But it seems like every year more things get added to the list of things to do for the Christmas celebration, but there’s less celebrating.

Marching giants

When we were on our way back from vacation I took some shots of the electrical towers in the central valley. I’ve always thought that they looked like metal giants marching across the landscape.

These guys had the same sort of idea, only geometrically more awesome.

Appropriately via The Awsomer

And now for something completely different

And something I never knew existed, but it totally cool, Yarn Bombing. Makes me wish I knew how to knit.

Lowest common denominator

Hey! Jersey shore!

You can buy boobies, but you can’t buy an IQ. Smart IS the new sexy.

Last Thursday

We thoroughly enjoyed the show on Thursday. Had dinner before and it was good and we got to the theater just in time to stand in line. There were two lines, one long and one with only a few people in it. I wasn’t sure where the will call tickets were so I went to stand in the short line. Got to the head of the line, showed them my badge and away we went.

It’s just not fair that one group of people should be so talented and funny at the same time. Both the Spouse and I really enjoyed it. And I didn’t need ear plugs like I did when we saw them performing as Spinal Tap.

We got to sit in the 4th row. I was really surprised. I expected to be way in the back. There wasn’t anyone at all in front of us for the first half of the show. Then a couple came and sat in front of us, but later one of them moved to another empty seat so I had no problem seeing the stage. I think that’s one of the nicest things someone I didn’t know ever did for me. Ah, the trouble with being 5 foot nothing.

Thursday night out

The Spouse and I are going to see these guys tonight.

I’m not huge on weeknight outings, but we’re getting in free because of my job and we really like them.  ‘Spinal Tap’ is my husband’s favorite movie.  We saw them here a couple of years ago when they were doing a tour as ‘Spinal Tap.’  It was good and they were funny.  One of the guys had shaved a bald spot in his long brown wig.

This show is a little different.  No wigs, no costumes and acoustic rather than electric guitars, so maybe I’ll be able to go without earplugs.