Not a Porkie, But Yes, Pork

"I thought he was just being a jerk."  Stephen learns of the news and realises that Erik's forceful, "We're delivering all her stuff to your place," had some actual basis. 

The timing might be affected (they should probably reschedule this). 

And with that (and some more congratulations: Beth on her new house, Steph on new job!), Games Night Feast continued.

"Leave my bunny alone!"

"This is a very touchy-feely game..." ~ Paul on Dixit

Erik: Suck salmon!

Next day, went to pick up groceries with Paul and saw stewing pork was on sale.  Well, one can't pass that kind of sale.  We picked some up and I decided to try it with the Gilroy garlic chili recipe that worked so well last time.

The "Pork and 40 (less 20) cloves of garlic* with the largest onion in the world" was even better than the beef version.  A hit, despite being discordant - i.e. lacking in hominy. 

* It turned out we actually finished using up that huge bag and was short. 

How did you get this number?

Paul and I have an invention!  Article: A popsicle with art on it.  But, hm... how would we price it?  According to the art or the quality of the popsicle?  And is it best to sell on a hot or a cold day?

Many things to think about, as shown in Carole Price's Cushion Cover Cushion Cover business plan. 

We had time though.  Matahari wasn't too busy and we didn't feel rushed at all through dinner.  We did some people-watching and then Paul flipped through my latest read, Sloane Crosley's How Did You Get This Number. 

The book was a collection of essays, and so far contained a good amount of both funny ha-ha and funny uh-oh.  Though, possibly not so funny (ha-ha) when sections are read out of context. 

What Paul wanted to know was, why are these essays? 

I tried to find similarities between those "papers" I'd written at school (called essays), with the collection here.  Is it because there was an element of truth?  How is it different from a long blog post?  If it wasn't printed on the cover, I probably would have called it a collection of short stories or articles (the non-popsicle kind). 

Now with connections to the internet, I looked it up. 

"An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author."

I'm pleasantly surprised that the wikipedia Essay article's next line is: "The definition of an essay is vague, overlapping with those of an article and a short story."

The long blog post might not be too out of range.  Fingers crossed my blog posts can eventually reach that level. 

(Thirty) Five-Alive!

Cam: A turducken just seems wrong.

Rem: It's fowl.

Another trip around the sun! Erik's birthday celebration yesterday started off with dinner at the Sawmill. There were presents too. Sure Erik said he's old enough to buy what he wants - but did he even know he wanted a book by David Sedaris? Or the awesome popcorn accessories Steph gave him?

Dinner was overall very pleasant... after I figured out what I wanted (there are a lot of meat choices on the menu). Each of our orders arrived with a brown puffy thing: Yorkshire puddings. Someone (Cam?) said there are bits of a real sawmill incorporated into the restaurant, I'm not sure about that, but I am sure the gorgeous stained-glass was real (I gave some of the pieces a good touch just to make sure).

"Erik's a mango!"

Steph and I found some items that could be turned into dessert at the store, and headed over to Cameron's place to continue the party. Turns out he lives in the same complex as Darren.

Steph and I get a tour and see (atleast) two sides of Cameron reflected in his two libraries: Science Fiction/Fantasy and Romance. The latter was a surprise to me. We combed through boxes of discards and happily took home some things trashy.

(Right: Steph and Cameron check out the china.)

O.k. back on focus: Dessert! Steph makes chocolate cake. And then we add ice cream to top things off.

The night did not seem complete without a little more geeking out, so onward to the internets! And we watched J-Lo have a catfight with Mango, and "im in ur manager killing ur saviour" by fortaxreasons.com. So fun.

Happy birthday Erik!

Friday Night

I remembered to RSVP (and not just inside my head!). Went to Kelly's after work Friday for dinner. Darren, Andrew, Sherry, two girls from Taylor, and I were treated to beef stroganoff, a spinach based salad, and baking she had done just that day (apparently all Baptist potluck favourites). Delish! So eventhough I wasn't at Feast, I was having a feast. Kelly also served us with a smile, and I extra appreciated the fact that she was wearing her Hallowe'en costume which included a little black dress and apron (so cute!).

The plan was for everyone (except me because I was a stick in the mud) to head over after dinner to the UADC Hallowe'en dance. The two girls from Taylor had chorus-girl dance-feel to their dress-up with top hats and a pearl strung tie necklace (must make one...) Andrew and Sherry, armed with a bloody box of Life, were cereal killers. Darren said his costume was a surprise.

Andrew said I could easily whip up a costume, that I naturally looked (and projected?) a lot like T.V. Carpio in Across the Universe. She plays a lesbian cheerleader named Prudence. Here's her performing "I Want to Hold Your Hand". Despite this, I wasn't convinced to join (definitely a stick in the mud kind of mentality). I will have to watch the movie now.

We flipped through the magazine - Good Housekeeping - which had the article that quoted Kelly's research and just had a fun time talking (about some girlie things, and how the new place was looking really good.) It was beginning to look like maybe we'd just all hang out at Kelly's! But, the call of the dance was too strong.

I got Andrew and Sherry to drop me off at Steph's. Feast was still going strong. I join up for some board games. And though I don't win, it was a great cap to the Friday.

Remedy for a Candied-date

"Is it kind of like a sugar-plum?" ~ Malcolm

We're at Remedy to celebrate Malcolm's candidacy exam pass. I had arrived (from my last Tone & Sculpt class) to find tables pushed together on the second floor to form an extra long table, and Malcolm surrounded.

At one end sat Ben, Matt, and Jamie. Though some of them had eaten, Matt and Ben looked hungry so I offered to get something to share. It was only when I returned did I find out the details:

1. Ben was now fully moved into Matt's place.
2. They were planning to redecorate (I believed they called it "white trash seduction" with a new doorbell that sounded "Bow-chica-wow-wow" as one of the features)
3. They had been eating bacon wrapped pickles all day!

Boys! So much for hunger. The vibe I picked up on was probably a well deserved tummy ache. Anyway, I shared the food and was glad to have Beth join us. We caught up on some girlie stuff, and it was funny to see how Matt was trying to follow. I was grubby and in my Star-Trek-uniform-inspired shirt, was definitely not feeling such, but he seemed to understand "dressing up to feel pretty". (Qualifier: This was not himself, but a past guy roommate who had some time with a girl roommates clothes). And with dressing and being tired the topic, he relayed the Tara's story:

Tara was tired, and very glad to go home. She was hoping no one would catch her before slipping out the door, but Matt saw her. Matt probably wouldn't have noticed, but Tara confessed herself - she had left the house with two different black shoes. Understandable, you're tired, they're both black, and I'm sure no one else noticed, he assured her. She then walks to show him. Clunk, CLUNK, clunk, CLUNK... The shoes had different heights of heel.

I laughed. Another "win" for flats!

In the middle of the table, Anna and Micah were speaking German. They looked up when someone suggested Micah and Beth should arm wrestle for boys (or for one boy in particular). It was getting late, and though I didn't really talk to Malcolm much at all (Congrats again Malcolm!), it was time to go.

Beth gets up to go with me. She does this dance thing with her arm and with a sly smile and look, and all across the table the guys are now quiet and paying full attention. This I have to learn.

Bakin'

I had booked off the weekend for studying. But I wasn't interested in studying. Not being even sure if I'd make it to the next exam, thought I might has well enjoy it. So, headed out to Kathy and Neil's for a games night - and managed to go in the opposite direction. This is not the first time that I got "St." and "Ave" mixed up. At least I was driving... Made it eventually and sat down to some very good dinner and Apples to Apples... but not before chasing the cat around the apartment.

Next up was "Kill Doctor Lucky" a Cheapass Game. The object was to kill Dr. Lucky. This was going to be fun... who knew there would be that many rules and conditions? With our Monopoly game pieces, and a bottlecap I had picked up at some party (still wondering what drink it belongs to), we moved around the board picking up cards and interpreting rules. Without a weapons card in hand, we could attempt kill Dr. Lucky by poking him death. *evil giggle* Had to laugh too when Top Hat (Steph of course) decides to use her weapon the "Tight Hat" to go for the kill... it all seemed so fitting.

Saturday was beautiful and I looked forward to going with Catherine to the 2nd Annual Highlands Sidewalk sale. This year with the sun and warm weather it was an even better turn out. A schoolbus turned mobile greenhouse display had some interesting items - including a pepper variety that had Catherine exclaiming "I have a cat. And she's fat and Sassy." That of course warranted a picture (left) I finally got to see the insides of La Boheme. A little late since they stopped having tango parties there over a year ago, but it was still very lovely. Someone brought us down to the wine cellar (nice and cool) and we wandered the rooms upstairs. The Van Gogh room was surprisingly not Van Gogh-ish at all... well, maybe the pale yellow walls... We also visited a new restaurant named Bacon. Sitting on the patio in the back, we enjoyed their house salad, some ice cream, and cold water. Contrary to original belief, there was bacon on the menu... just not a lot of it. The wind not only rattled the makeshift (opaque plastic) roof, it also brought me this (right). One last stop to Brian Mason's new office to say hi to Jeff (and to see his handy work) and we were off. A 15 minute rain that turned into a sunshower made it all beautiful. And then back to the heat.

Wok N Roll

Mass exodus from the RSO. The oil patch and Alberta Finance are stealing people away. More next time.

Found on the way to Catherine's:

Made her stop so I could take a picture. At least I was laughing.