My mom will be in town for her birthday and I usually like to take her out for dinner...any suggestions for a moderately priced nice place to take a mom for a birthday dinner?!

It seems I've become a bit of a joke around the office. Everyone likes to make fun of my headphones that I wear at my desk so I can quietly listen to my music.

It makes me annoyed. I wouldn't feel compelled to wear my headphones constantly if they hadn't moved me from my office into a cubicle.

I listen to my music on headphones because....

I'm pretty sure that no one else wants to rock out with me to the christian praise music that I listen to (I do listen to more than that btw).
I don't want to listen to the music that the people play in the offices behind me....80s cheesemetal and some jazzy bluesy clarinet crap
I don't want to listen to one of the women in an office behind me cackle-laugh all day long.
I don't want to isten to the same woman bitch about her supervisor and co-workers loudly all day long to any one who will listen.
I don't want to listen to the guy in adjoined cubicle harangue and berate his fiancee like a child.
I also don't want to listen to the same guy talk about sports ad nauseum on the phone.

So say what you want...but I'm a lot happier with my head phones on.

(e:changeisgood)'s mention of office parties was an unpleasant walk down the memory lane of my previous job. My previous job was in and of itself stressfull. I oversaw a lot of staff and clients and I was on call 24-7. To add to the joy of working there, we had mandatory office parties.

When I was a mere program manager, I was simply mandated to attend the office parties and mandated to pressure, twist arm, and make threats of various natures to get my staff to attend. I had to tell my staff who worked two jobs, went to school and had spouses and children that they must attend the party. Management is throwing a party for the staff, and darn't,they will show up with gratitude and appreciate it!

When I became program director, it got even better. I was mandated to mandate my program managers to attend and to pressure/bully their staff in attending. I also had to cook for the events and buy gifts for the chinese auction. Ok, so I hate the name Chinese auction, that alone pissed me off. I tried to get people to call it a ticket auction, but it never caught on...and I have to cook? What?

I'm a great cook. I love to cook. But I get stressed out cooking for work events. You know that people are judging your food, judging you and no one wants to be left with a bowlful of whatever they brought as indication that their food sucked. For one event, I made my sticky caramel rolls...usually very yummy. In my haste, I did something wrong half way through. I stomped my feet, pouted and started over. Then when I was rolling out the dough, I couldn't get it to roll out right...Drew walked into the kitchen to find me pounding the ball of dough on the counter with tears streaming down my face in complete frustration. I did manage to finish them, but they turned out crappy and no one ate them. So from then on, I refused to cook for events.

Toront was one of the reasons I agreed to move to Buffalo and it certainly fulfilled all of my expectations.
Friday night we stayed at the Doubletree Hotel where we were greeted with warm gooey cookies. What a welcome! We also took advantage of the indoor pool and shoved small children aside to ride the water slide which did not measure up to the expectations (e:drew) had fed me. But that's not why we visited Toronto.
First stop of the day, Chinatown:



More specifically, Bright Pearl Restaurant for Dim Sum. It was my first dim sum experience and in my haste I settled for steamed dumplings when I should have held out for more fried dough concoctions such as the fried dough stuffed with red bean paste pictured on the bottom. Drew had the fried squid on the right and we both had the sticky rice with pork wrapped in a leaf on the left.



We wandered around looking for lucky cats to add to the lucky cat collection, but no luck...



but we did enjoy the sights....



And I also found my favorite fruit from south asia...rambutan....



We visited the largest mall in the area. I'm not a shopper but it was an incredible view of consumerist culture....



We stopped by India Land to celebrate Diwali. India land was only two blocks long, not much to see, and the celebrations weren't hopping when we got there, so off to other things...

We wandered around some more. Drew had an improv workshop and by the end I was exhausted and ready to go home.



(e:Leetee) asked for impressions from a first time visitor. The public transportation system was incredible. The city was clean. People were really polite and really helpful. There was a whole range of accents outside of what I think of as the Canadian accent so I was a little intrigued. I didn't see a lot of historical sights, buildings, homes, streets, everything looked really modern, but maybe I didn't see those areas. Restaurants were everywhere. I swear I saw a sushi restaurant on every corner. I thought that was kind of funny. It seemed more expensive than Chicago, but less expensive than New York. So even though I really liked it, we probably won't be living in Toronto any time soon. But all in all, can't wait to visit again.

(e:drew) is going to TMBG concert with our friends and I'm going to something he defines as "lame". But we're all going to party hard after the concert, so it's cool.

I'm going to the meeting of an elite women's social group. It's actually not that elite, but it's fun to pretend it is. It's basically a sorority for women. I never did the social sorority thing in college, but this sorority is a business/social organization that supports women in education. My mommy was in it and she is sponsoring me. But sort of like sororities, I have to go to meetings at all the different chapters in the area and I have to be invited to join a chapter...and oh, the drama!

After only 2 meetings, I was invited to join chapter A. But, oh, this isn't the chapter that I want to join. I want to join chapter B. So I'm going to all the events and meetings of chapter B in hopes of securing an invitation from this chapter. But meanwhile, I don't want to decline chapter A's invitation quite yet because maybe it's the only invitation I'll get. So I have to dance around any questions from chapter A about why I haven't accepted their invitation while I'm dropping hints to Chapter B, that I want to join them.

So, therefore, I am sending my husband and friends off to the TMBG concert without me.

and got totally duped by NY Times...

This weekend after a long break from the Buffalo News, I picked it up again and remembered why I stopped buying it. There are a lot of things I like about Buffalo, the local paper is definitely not one of them. And I WANT to like the local paper, because I like to keep up on the local news. But I give up. I'll just catch up on local news via Buffalonews online.

So I wandered over to the NY Times and it seduced me all over again. In my lust for a good Sunday paper, I failed to fully comprehend the rates. It really looked like the price was $3.25/week for the Sunday paper and for the first 12 weeks you would get it at 50% of the rate...turns out $3.50 is the 50% off the rate price. After 12 weeks it jumps to $6.50. Stupid, stupid me. I can get it for $5.00 at the General Store on the corner. So now I have to be smart enough to remember to cancel it after 12 weeks else I'm going to be paying $1.50 for the privilege of having it delivered to my door instead of walking down the street less than a block to buy it for $5.00.

(e:drew) and I decided it was time to be healthy. For him to lose weight, he goes almost all vegetables with a little bit of beans and whole grains thrown in on occasion. I'm a nice wife and I have a few lbs I'd like to shed so I'm happy to do the diet that works for him. The main difference is that he can eat plain veggies day in and day out, but I need a little something to flavor the veggies up without resorting to butter. So thus...I made these spice mixtures...

Going clockwise from the top left hand corner: Trinidadian spice mixture of coriander seeds, cumin seeds, fennel seeds, peppercorns and mustard seeeds; Roasted sichuan pepper and salt; Sesame Salt; and Sesame seed seasoning which is sesame seeds, salt peppercorns and a whole dried red chile.



I spent maybe an hour roasting the spices in a pan (see below) and then grinding them in our coffee grinder. The coffee grinder is the best thing I've ever sneaked out of my parent's house!



I also made clarified butter flavored with shallots, garlic, cardamom pods, cumin seeds and oregano. I use in small quantities on vegetables. I would have taken a picture of that but (e:Drew) left and took the camera with him. See (e:tinyplinyID)#41670 for a description of clarified butter in the coments section.

Halloween was a great deal of fun this year. It's the first year in probably 10 year that I got to hand out candy to little kids ... and we had a lot of kids. So many that we had to run down to the Lexington General Store to buy handfuls of their penny candy.

Halloween is even more fun when you get to share it with a person from Malaysia who has never seen or heard of Halloween before. We went all out and carved pumpkins, toasted seeds, and coached him in handing out candy to the little ones. It's fun to see Halloween through the eyes of someone who has never participated in it before.

Here's our pumpkins!

I fell in love with Philadelphia. It was heartbreaking when I left. It's cheesy, but I sometimes miss Philly and I feel a sad achy pain. It hits me at the oddest moments and it hit me today on my way to work. I think partly because (e:tinypliny) is going there for a conference. But she doesn't get to see all the things I love about Philly....so here's a tour of Philly for (e:tinypliny).
Kelly Dr. is beautiful year round and everyone jogs on the path along the river, and I did too. It's an upscale meat market.

I love the row houses in Philly. These row houses were the homes of famous individuals in the late 1700s, but by the 1950s urban blight almost caused them to be destroyed. Now they go for easily $1million.

Best art museum I've ever been to. Drew and I had membership passes and went there every Friday night to listen to Jazz when we were dating.

When I first moved to Philly, I'd never been to such a big city and I wandered around the Benjamin Franklin Parkway gawking at the buildings like a big ole dumb tourist. To this day, I am amazed I didn't get mugged.

I miss Chinatown... a lot. No Chinatown in Pittsburgh, no Chinatown in Buffalo. Where do I go for my fresh baked moon cakes and buns with red bean paste? And where do I buy my lucky cats now? No, really. I need to know. Toronto?

The best for the last...the mummers parade. The best description I've heard of the mummers parade is Broadway meets Mardi Gras. Its Broadway in terms of the performance and costumes. Its mardi gras thanks to the drunkenness of the participants. I think every year I've fended off a drunk mummer trying to hit on me! You get up early in the morning. Get to Broad St. with your chair and thermos of coffee (because it's January 1st) and you sit for for hours and watch the show and then you leave because it's freezing cold and you watch the rest of it on television. If you're hard core, you stay all eight hours and party with the mummers at the mummers houses after the parade. I'm not hardcore. Here's a link as I'm guessing few of you know much about the Mummers parade.



It also rained gumdrops and snowed skittles in Philly...I'm crossing my fingers that it snows skittles in Buffalo and that I'll love Buffalo as much as Philly.

What are the "official" times for trick or treating in the city? When should I expect the little ghouls to start showing up at my door?!

And is there really a thing called "Beggars Night" where kids trick or treat on the night before Halloween?