on a completely random note, i really love these doritos packages from japan.

merry christmas, everyone!

it's been a bit of a difficult weekend, as my mom told me (in no uncertain terms) that she didn't want to see me or talk to me. i had been planning to see her today, since we usually spend christmas eve together. traditionally, my family had celebrated on christmas eve, by attending the family mass in the late afternoon, then returning home to find that santa had arrived and opening presents that night. that kept us from getting up early on christmas, and (as i'm learning is truly important in any relationship) left christmas open for extended family holiday-time.

anyhow, i saw my mom on wednesday night and thursday morning, and that didn't go entirely smoothly. when i got in, she was grumpy (from dealing with metro airport traffic) and i was grumpy (from dealing with air-travel and a mis-labeled luggage carousel. we went to dinner, which is always a bit of a challenge since we're both picky (i don't like 'american' food, and it's pretty much all she eats). then we had a bit of an argument when i didn't know what my dad is serving us on christmas day. she wanted to make sure she isn't serving the same thing that night, and since we were having this discussion on dec 20, i hadn't even thought that far ahead.

when i emailed her the next day to let her know that my dad had emailed me about having lasagna, she wrote back that she wanted to cancel seeing each other on christmas eve. i was confused and tried to make sure she knew i was eating with dad on christmas, day and in response she sent me a link to my flickr account, which only confused me further. the most recent photos on flickr are photos that my dad sent from thanksgiving, which is apparently what upset her. i guess i'm either not supposed to see him, or not supposed to have/post photos. i'm sure it doesn't help that the other most recent photos are from the halls' trip to san francisco. however, i tend to take photos when people visit and when i travel. and i post photos that are sent to me (that steve and i are in). so unfortunately that means that since the halls visited, and since my dad sent me some photos with us in them, the most recent photos don't include my mom. and i guess that made her sad (which is understandable). and then that made her mad (not as understandable).

so today, instead of seeing my mom, i hung out at the halls. i'm sure steve was glad for the extra time with his family, but for me it was bittersweet. i could not have asked for nicer in-laws, but it would be nice if my mom would like me and want to see me as well.

we had a dinner party tonight, which went pretty well. we tried all new recipes (daring!) and invited a pretty diverse/random group of people we like and want to hang out with more.
here was our little menu:
little baked prosciutto bites (filled with pear and goat cheese)
shrimp salad served on endive
bay leaf crusted pork roast
butternut squash and apple puree
green bean and fennel salad with pecans
wild rice
and christy's famous rosemary shortbread cookies.

yum!
the green bean and fennel salad needed a different mix of beans vs. fennel (more beans) and i probably would have left lumps in the squash for texture since it looked like baby food. however, the prosciutto bites, squash, pork and cookies were all huge hits.

okay, off to bed!

the nytimes magazine had this funny excerpt from a letter that mark twain wrote to his wife in 1874:

"My darling, I want you to be sure & remember to have, in the bathroom, when I arrive, a bottle of Scotch whisky, a lemon, some crushed sugar & a bottle of Angostura bitters. Ever since I have been in London I have taken in a wine-glass what is called a cock-tail...before breakfast, before dinner & just before going to bed...to it I attribute the fact that up to this day my digestion has been wonderful -- simply perfect. It remains day after day & week after week as regular as a clock"

i really loved this little article about the US rock paper scissors champion. hopefully you will too.

we had a bit of a date night on friday night with our friends jessica and eric. we had dinner at the new
fancy schmancy mall here in town, which kinda puts somerset mall in troy to shame. their food court uses real plates and silverware, sells wine/beer, and has branches of some very nice restaurants. it was a bit weird to see how hopping the food court was on a friday night, but it was yummy... then we saw casino royale. we *really* liked it, and i have to say that i was pretty smitten with daniel craig. it's not that he's completely hot when you see a still photo of him, but he is incredibly hot in action. i realized that i really haven't seen more than a couple of bond films, so we are going to try to schedule time over the next year to rent and watch all previous bond films. there's a pretty good ranking that entertainment weekly did of the bond films from best to worst located here.

i just finished the bookclub book for our meeting tomorrow, and loved it. it's called the hemingway book club of kosovo and was written by a woman in her mid-50s who goes to kosovo to teach english in 2000-2001. it's a quick but moving read.

i love that the book has a website that not only has information about the book, but updates on the author's students.

so i wrote this long post the other night about my recent trip to vegas, and i just realized now that i guess i somehow didn't save it properly. gosh darn it!

it all boils down to this:
- i took a very lovely trip to vegas right before my birthday
- on the night before my birthday, i stayed up until 5:30 am
- that seemed like an okay idea at the time, since i believed my one-hour flight would be on time and i could sleep the following afternoon
- that didn't work out, since my flight left the vegas airport more than 2 hours late and then sat on the tarmac
- while in vegas, i saw prince's new show, which was funky, but not as funky as i would have liked. he only played a few old songs and ranted a bit about scripture. he did, however, walk right by me when jammin' his way through the audience. yes, he is short.
- while in vegas, i saw don rickles. i was given the choice of seeing either don or 'tom joyner’s oh oh oh comedy show”. i decided to see don, since i'm guessing he won't be around as long as the tom joyner crew. i also was already feeling very pasty white in the desert sunshine of vegas, so i didn't feel the need to feel even more white in an audience of tom joyner fans.
- i went to the 'comic relief' after-party, which was filled with comics (sarah silverman, billy crystal, bill maher) and other fun festive people. dane cook wouldn't take a photo with me (even though i saw him doing that with other folks, and i only asked him since it was my birthday and i was put up to it), so i'm through with him. on the other hand, i'm even more infatuated with ed burns, since my friend knocked over a tray of glasses and ed helped pick them up (he even said something sweetly dorky like "it's always easier when working together!")


so that's my trip to vegas, in lengthy bullet-point fashion. i wish i had properly posted the previous version of my trip, since i'm sure i was much more witty that time.

___________________


we had a really lovely time this thanksgiving in michigan, and were grateful that we got to see a number of friends. we truly are blessed with the sweetest, smartest, wittiest, most fun pals around. so yeah, i'm pretty thankful.

michael moore has written A Liberal's Pledge to Disheartened Conservatives, and i heartily encourage you to sign it.

mmmmm... there's a fancy schmancy and yummy looking new place to get lunch on our office's block. and they're open for dinner for those super-fun nights that i have to work late. yum!

george clooney is the sexiest man alive. duh. that's the biggest non-news i've heard in awhile.

of course, i think steve is super cute. don't you agree?

i hate to take any sort of pleasure in anyone's misfortune, but i figure i can be completely pleased about dave brandon not being re-elected to regent, since i'm guessing he does just fine with his day job.



it's been awhile since i've written anything about what we've been up to. work has been not just busy, but extremely stressful lately, as one of my accounts hasn't been going so well. i'm hoping things will get smoothed out by thanksgiving...

steve and i had a lovely pre-halloween weekend up in napa valley with our friends ann + andy, who came in from nyc to see their friend 'fabulous jeffrey' graduate from culinary school. we'd never met jeffrey, but we crashed a lovely party for him at a beautiful estate, and then went with a group of his friends to a couple of wineries that he'd worked at, where we had special tastings of their reserve wines. we learned that we don't like even the reserve wines at beringer enough to buy them with an employee discount. we are, however, even bigger fans of robert sinskey wines. yummy!

on halloween itself, we went down to the castro to see the craziness firsthand. for those unfamiliar with the castro halloween celebration, there are some photos of costumes here. the best photo of what the street looks like filled with revelers is here. anyhow, this year some bad sports caused a ruckus; several gunshots were fired and the whole thing was shut down.

i guess those are the most exciting things that we've been up to lately.

we're going to be home in michigan for both thanksgiving and christmas. we're hoping to have some sort of get-together with our friends on 11/25. if you're interested in seeing us, drop me a line...

blackberry ad

steve said i need to get this helmet. he's probably right...

i can't believe bob barker is retiring from 'the price is right'! i mean, i can't believe he's still on the show until june.

my favorite quotes from the official news release on the cbs site:

"I will be 83 years old on December 12," he said, "and I've decided to retire while I'm still young."


He said he'd take on a movie role if the right one came along, but filmmakers, take note: "I refuse to do nude scenes. These Hollywood producers want to capitalize on my obvious sexuality, but I don't want to be just another beautiful body."

But when it comes to saying his final TV goodbye, Barker said he'll do it the same way he does each day on "Price": "Help control the pet population. Have your pets spayed or neutered."

here's a hint as to how my last week has been at work:

happy International Moment of Frustration Scream Day!

looks like we're coming home for the thanksgiving holiday!
i want to see everyone, but have no idea how to do it. those of you reading that who live in michigan, is it gauche to have some sort of big event where i can see you all (like reserving a "party room" at a restaurant)? or maybe just having people stop by at my in-laws, where i'll likely be staying?

we had a lovely weekend here in town. keenan and carrie brought petra to visit us so that she could present at a toxicology conference. apparently she did a kickass job. wooohoo, go petra!

oh. wait. steve just told me that keenan was the one that presented, and petra was the little pink person that kept crying. i'm sorry that i was confused.

it was great to see the boras. they even put up with the raging party that we had for steve's 30th birthday on saturday night. we had about 20 people over, and i used our two story living room wall to project some messages from friends who wished steve a happy birthday from afar. steve's high school friend justin also brought some impressive high school and early college footage of steve that got us all giggling as well.

the other highlight of the party was an amazing cake that our friend derek (who's taking a cake decorating course so that he can make a wedding cake for a friend) put together especially for steve. i had promised a prize if anyone brought an erotic cake, and so (even though he couldn't come to the party!) derek dropped off a boobie cake for steve and the partygoers to enjoy. hopefully soon i will upload a photo or two for you all...

having visitors lately has really led me to think a lot about living out here. it's really damn far from a lot of our friends, but i'm also extremely excited about all of the fun things to do and see out here. steve's parents (who were here last week) were amazed at how beautiful it was, and his dad does an admirable job singing the praises of our beautiful bay area on his blog, where he also compares san francisco to detroit. ahhh, detroit. (insert sigh here). well, at least detroit has the tigers (go, tigers, go!).

in terms of local things that i love that steve's dad didn't gush about, the amazingly temperate weather is one of them. locals may complain when it's "hot" or "freezing" but that just means it's 80 or 50. seriously, it usually only ranges from 55-75. today was a beautiful, sunny 70 degrees.

and in terms of culinary delights, see's candies are awesome. they're not only all over the place at the airport (which is dangerous enough for me), but they also have a store right across from my office building. evil!
between see's and beard papa's it's amazing that i don't eat more sweets. i guess it's just gotten to the point where i think about them. mmmmm...

...


very random change of topic: i was walking past a toy store on my way home, and discovered that darth tater has been joined now by spud trooper in the lineup of star wars themed mr. potato heads:



gotta love it!

i had the distinct pleasure of traveling to NY this past week for work, leaving during the fun phase of airport security when NO liquids were allowed (and therefore making it impossible for me to fly with just carry-on luggage) and flying back once the idiotic "one quart plastic bag" rules went into effect.
i thought about buying a bunch of plastic bags in NY, but since you're only allowed one filled with toiletries in your bag, i wondered if having the rest of the box of baggies would matter. i also decided it was completely retarded to have to buy a bunch of ziplocs just to get home, and that my bag was a bit heavy to lug through the airport anyway.
well, i'm obviously not the only one irritated. a wisconsin man wrote "Kip Hawley is an Idiot" (mr. hawley is the director of the TSA) and was apparently detained at the milwaukee airport.
i have to say, i would have been fine with being detained for a few minutes for the pleasure of expressing my opinions in that manner, if only i had thought of it. and many people seem to agree.

my in-laws are visiting, so from the minute i got back we've been having touristy fun. we went to our awesome and famous farmer's market, then drove up to marin county, where we went through some of the awesome areas along highway 1, including muir beach and stinson beach. today we went to the final giants game of the season and then watched one of my fave movies, strictly ballroom, which we chose because steve's parents are taking tango lessons. man, i love that movie!

in other news, the betty brigade got some great press this week. go, sharon!

steve and i disagree about whether lindsay lohan really reads the economist. he says no, and i am guessing she likes to skim the funny captions.

i love that the nice folks at mattel are teaching civic responsibility by having a new barbie that comes with a dog (named 'tanner') also come with a pooper scooper: