Not to make you all jealous (or sick), but-

I decided to take today off. There might be a special, romantic dinner in your future.

!! Lucky me...

That's funny. I was just thinking of how lucky I am.

And on a totally unrelated note-
This is fantastic. My kind of therapy. $5 for 5 min.

Ok, so I finally uploaded my pix. So here they are. A little view into my week off. :)

First, a little tribute to my mom and her Martha-ness. I really wish I had inherited more of her sense of style. And it's not about breaking the bank- just putting stuff together well.





And here's her Thanksgiving table. I think setting the table is Mom's favorite part of thanksgiving- she does it about 3 days in advance, and then keeps changing the centerpiece etc for the next 3 days.



This one is for Paul. I am not even going to try to defend it.



And the bird- it was especially delicious this year-




Then on friday, I went to "Holiday Cocktails" at this snooty old club at home... It was not especially fun.

But this letter cracks me up. They have it framed on the wall.



And since I doubt anyone can read it, it says:

Dear Mr. President,
With great regret I must tender my resignation from the Board of Governors. Time and distance do not permit my regular attendance at meetings and I should free up a slot for another young traditionalist.

I have enjoyed my tenure and hope that one may say of it that I have done what I can to thwart change, impede progress, and enshrine the status quo. I pray that under your heroically unenlightened leadership the governors will continue to follow the path of unrighteousness, outrageousness, elitism and exclusivity, stopping just shy of outright bigotry. Remember: the best way to prepare for the 21st century is to embrace the 19th.

Then I got back into town on saturday, just in time for the disco- which really was a blast. It's like Halloween all over again. The special guest was Erik Estrada, and he announced that all 7,000 tickets sold out in TWENTY MINUTES. Whoa!

This is a friend's co-worker. He grows his hair out all year long, for the disco. His afro was WAY cooler than all the afro wigs there.




And this was another friend's date, wearing her jacket and her glasses.



Ok, I am all pictured out.

Later, peeps.

Long time no post...

I will post some thanksgiving/disco/random pix once I get them out of my camera. But in the meantime-

1: To all the roswell peeps- I am officially back at roswell. Until the end of january. And I officially already hate it. Despite JUST getting off a week of vacation (and an especially lovely day yesterday)- I am already cranky, miserable and exhausted. :( So please let's have lunch. Today I had diet mountain dew and a stale cookie for lunch. At 4:30. Ugh. And I found out that I have dec 24/25 off. YAY!!! But, they are making me work the weekend- 22/23. BOO!!!

2: Whose lame idea was it to make a work christmas party from 6-8 on a wednesday??? BOO!!!

3: Since I have no pix to post yet, I will post some lovely holiday/other sentiments from someecards. Thanks again to (e:hodown) for my favorite new website. There are so many awesome ones it was hard even to narrow it down to six. I mean seven.









4: I think I might be seeing someone. How/when did this happen?!?!? He took off work to take me to the airport. And picked me up. And then felt so badly for falling asleep and not meeting us out after the disco, that he came over sunday and made me breakfast, yada yada, and dinner. And sends me texts that say things like "you are absolutely amazing." Holds my hand at the dinner table and all of the sudden out of the blue says "you are SO beautiful". Holy crap. It's the kind of thing that makes me want to vomit- when it's other people. Somehow when it happens to me- I kinda like it. Who knew!!
Now to just decide how/if to tell him about all YOU people. ;)

Well, I'm back at the homestead, and as usual things are getting insane.
Sometimes I need to remind myself of how great I have it, and not to sweat the small stuff. Because it really is great to be home. I get to see my family, and I adore them. And play with the dog. And sleep in my childhood bedroom. It's really great. I'm perfectly content to just sit around with family- we laugh all night. I love it.

But Mom is getting usual holiday crabby. Which I understand, but it's tough, because we just can't do anything right. If we try to help, we're all just in the way and doing things wrong. If we stay out of the way, we are lazy ingrates who don't help.

Sigh.

So my dad and brother are picking my sister and her husband up at the airport, and I'm hiding out on the computer.

As much as I love being home- I love having the space/privacy of my own place.
Last night I was trying to use the computer, but my brother was just hovering over my me reading IMs and spying on email...
Not that I have anything so secret to hide, but still, it would be nice to have a little privacy.

But here's the kicker-
We have a well, and the pump died this morning.
We have NO WATER.

And mom is more worried about the dirty dishes piling up than she is about the fact that we can't flush the toilet or take showers.

And mom is doing her usual weird sadistic thanksgiving dinner. This year we are NOT having the sweet potatoes that everyone loves. But we ARE having extra chestnuts and brussels sprouts- which everyone (including mom) hates. I don't get it. But I just try to stay out of the way.

Oh boy...

Grant me strength.

Dad made the liquor run last night- tons of beer, and 7 bottles of wine since there will be seven people. Minor point- four of them don't drink.
Ha, more for me.

I made a half-assed attempt to go out last night... i.e. i texted one friend and she didn't respond. Oh well. I went to bed at 10. it was great. did have lunch with an old friend from high school though, which was great. And have been trying to catch up on some old emails. (did you hear that ladycroft? You're next!)

Am supposed to go for "holiday cocktails" at The Reading Room tomorrow. I've never been there. And frankly, am not sure why I should want to- except that women aren't allowed except for certain occasions. It's some old snooty members-only men's club (no, not a strip club). I said "sure, I'll go, but I'm not sure I brought home dressy enough clothes" and my friend replied "are they clean? that's good enough. Everyone there smells like moth balls anyway."

Yeah... good times. ;)

Mom is calling!

later peeps.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Ok, so I just ate at Torches. I'd never even heard of it. I guess it's fairly new (a few months?)- it's where Tsunami used to be.

But it was really good.

I don't know how to write a real restaurant review, but I'll try.

We had an early reservation, and so we were the only people there when we arrived. (but by the time we left it was packed.)

It's sort of an unassuming building, but true to its name, there are lots of torches all over. And, a weird animatronic christmas penguin, that looks very out of place. Whatever.

But you walk into a little foyer area with these cool tables that are like rough-hewn stone. And the hostess greeted us and took our coats and told us about two featured wines, and gave us tastes of a Shiraz before we were even seated. I've never seen that before, and it's probably a ploy to get you to buy overpriced "featured" wine, but, eh, whatever- it was tasty.

It's a little (too) dark, but not bad, and overall the decor was nice. Certainly more a date/special occasion kind of place than "family dinner with the kids". Left Bank-ish, maybe.

And our waiter was awesome. Very funny. And attentive without being intrusive.

I had a crab cake special appetizer with some carrot ginger coulis (or something- some sauce)- it was delish. And a nice presentation. The crabcakes were maryland style, and there really was a lot of nice crabmeat. Though maybe they could have been crisped up a little more.

For an entree I had chilean sea bass and I don't know what the sauce was, but it was also great. Served on a bed of risotto, with some porcini mushrooms.

And warm caramel apple pie for dessert.

And a bottle of wine, and coffee.

I think I am going to explode. And then fall asleep. So much for the party I was thinking of going to tonight. ha!

But as the restaurant got more crowded, and we were no longer the only table, it took our waiter a few more minutes to stop by- but honestly I wouldn't have even noticed and certainly didn't think it was bad service. But then he came over- he said he was sorry if he'd neglected us, but that things were a little crazy since Janice Okun (buffalo news restaurant critic) had just shown up, unexpected.

So I'm curious to see her review, but I thought it was great, and would certainly recommend it.

[I did look at their menu online though, and it is FULL of typos, which is a major pet peeve.]