January is almost done!

I can't tell if the month went past quickly, slowly or normally. Can you? It has been an interesting month. Today looks to be interesting as well. At least pleasant. Yesterday, though, not so much.

Ok, just joking. It was a gorgeous weather day here in the Triangle - sunny and in the 60s - though to judge by people's attire it was more like the 70s. Weird how the reaction to temperature is relative.

Is it sad that all of the pictures I took were at the Saucer? Sigh.


It was a Ted Hurley plate party. He unveiled his 7th or 8th I think, which he finished back in 2008! The last in Paul Collins' week of plate parties. Go Ted! Go Paul!


Jamie and Necole made an appearance. Apparently it was Brian's 26th birthday! Go Brian! And Joe, who I have met before was there as well!


Also making an appearance was the entire Mulford Clan!


Some of the crew looking on at the unveiling.


And the Necole/Jaime group looking on as well!


Wow! Possibly one of the worst pictures I have taken in a long time. It is not good of the plates that are in the picture, and not remotely near where Teddy's unveiled plate was. Weird.


Our server, the lovely Aimee. Oh, and Brian and Nacho... :)

Liverspots?

Eeek! I see a liverspot on the back of my hand! I really am getting old!

Ok, I can see it, even if it isn't evident in the picture. Sigh.


Daniel hard at work on making the wontons for the soup.


It doesn't look very appetizing, but it was pretty darn tasty. Cate requested it. Yes, I sometimes do requests.

Saw "The American" last night. Anyone else see this movie? Entertaining, but not great. Too much of George Clooney's furrowed brow...

New Follower and Other Things

I have a new follower! Yippee! Up to 8 now. At this rate I will be in double digits by 2050! Woohoo!! Thank you, new follower!

Is anyone else mildly obsessed with email and electronic messages? It is not quite a cacoethes, but close. (A word from Dictionary.com I got this morning. How apropos!) I check my email at least 5 times an hour. Ok, maybe not that frequently - but still quite often. It is my main mode of communication with the outside world. I write email all the time. Not much of a texter since I don't have a text plan on my phone and do not have a smart phone with a qwerty keyboard. Texting with the phone keypad is tiresome to say the least. I do, though, where possible and where desired by the other person, use my email to send them text messages. But I digress.

I will send email at the drop of a hat. Sometimes they are just little greetings and hellos. I will also send pithy emails full of information and questions. I have faith that emails are received. Yay technology! Whether they are read or not is sometimes open to debate or question, since sometimes they go unanswered or even unreferenced. That is considerably frustrating.

But life is that way sometimes. I have to understand a few things and they are things that help with making it through life happily in all situations. A) Everyone is not like me. B) Other people have other priorities and responding to my email may very likely not be one for them. C) I have a life and need to live it and not obsess over email (or anything too much too often). I guess it all boils down to a feeling of rejection which is never pleasant. It is, something, though, that needs to be accepted and let go. Moving on.

Pictures! Woohoo! What you have all been waiting for!!


This poor bird house needs to be either removed or renovated. Sigh. Maybe that is why my house didn't sell a few years back...


Gotta love blue skies. Does anyone else still see pictures or things in the clouds?


Grocery shopping! Loved the citrus display at Lowes Foods!


Dinner last night - house made beer batter french fries and a steak and cheese sandwich. Yum city!

Almost a month of pictures and blogging every day! Wow! Thank you for looking! Comments always welcome! Happy Saturday! Time to get my oil changed!

Another Day, Another Plate Party!

Luckily, there is no party, at least to which I am invited, tonight. And I think I am going to pass on the one on Saturday. We shall see how I feel.


I like Flying Dog beers! Generally.


The Plate Party Host - Jim - with our server for the evening - Catherine Bell!

And that's all I have in me today. Yippee!

Another Day, Another few pictures

Pictures from yesterday, today. Time is so cool!

I didn't really do a whole lot on Wednesday. I played a bit, I worked on the book a bit, had an idea for another section in the Self Help Book and then went to the Saucer for two more plate parties! Yippee!

Two people had parties on this, the second of Paul's "Week of Plate Parities" night. Jack Van Schorr started his party when he got there, which was like 4:30. He unveiled his 17th plate!


Katie, Josh's sister, graced us with her presence! Always a welcome one in the male dominated Saucer world!


And of course, my next picture is of two of my favorite women, Cate and Nancy!


Mike Greenspon had his party too! With his beautiful wife, Paula. She only likes Carolina Pale Ale.



One of my only pet peeves about the Raleigh Flying Saucer - they just can't keep their men's bathroom neat. I wonder if the women's looks like this...

These and the rest of the plate party pictures are posted on my Facebook page!

Cooking

I had a minor epiphany last night while rolling up tater tots, or was it eggrolls. Heck, who knows? Anywho, I realized that one thing that keeps me cooking is that it let's my monkey mind have something to distract it, so that I don't think about all the crap in my life. Not that I mind the crap, or dislike the crap. It is all crap. And hence it is all wonderful. And I mean crap in the nicest possible sense. Gotta love philosophy. Speaking of which, I met a nice ex-philosophy professor and his wife the other day. Meeting interesting people is always, er, interesting.

If I had the money, I would travel all the time. Ok, three months travel, one month at home, or something like that. Travelzoo sends me a weekly Top 20 Deals email and it makes me drool. Sigh

Yesterday was all about food. I did little else besides cook. Frying was the key word. Though I did not end up frying the salad that Cate put together. I could have done without the cucumbers...


These are fresh navel oranges, picked by the lily white hands of Cindi Miller herself and carefully conveyed to yours truly. Yum! :)


Regular tots.


Sweet potato tots!


And the result of the whole day's labor. Hot and Sour Soup, Chicken Egg Rolls, Italian Sausage pot stickers, tater tots galore and greek salad by Cate! Yippee!

We've got rugs!

I don't know why, but I am not a huge rug fan. That being said, I do like the occasional rug. Growing up, the house we lived in had a lot of rugs. Hmm. Anyway, Greta, the old German Shepherd who lives here, is not very graceful on her paws just now. And the slippery wooden flooring in the house isn't helping. So, I bought a couple of runners.



I think we still need one more.

The other excitement of the day was the first of Paul Collins' masterminded "Week of Plate Parties." Last night was his dog Friday's plate party. And Robin McElroy's 10th plate party. Robin is very far behind in his parties. He is working on his fourteenth or fifteenth plate and is just now having his 10th party! Eek!


Jack was styling, wearing a borrowed chapeau!


Why was Eric sticking his tongue out at me? Heaven alone knows...

Not a lot of pictures

Sunday was plate and Saucer stuff picture day. I got up and got to the Saucer around 11. Jessica, I think she might be a new Key Employee, was there, helping get the place ready for brunch.


Jessica was hungry and Meghan was trying to protect the oranges from Jessica's ravages!

Brian was also there, moving plates around to make it so that the next few years worth of new plate people will have a place to be hanged, to be hung?, in the future.


We took the opportunity to get our Photo with Facebook Friends.

And I was there to take pictures of a few of my plates that I did not have decent pictures of.


My favorite plate.



Hmm, what holiday was this plate for?


I love the word "Fie." Actually a few good words on this plate.


My intention was to bring this in and set it up sometimes and let people fill in the blank with provided yellow stickys. Hasn't happened but a few times..., so far.


An actual flying saucer!


Lori took more than 100 picture, 99 of them were better than this one. This one just had the sign, which was subsequently stolen...

After all of the photo taking, I went home and basically ate dinner and went to bed. Nice day, though!

Joy in the weirdest places

Like everywhere. Right? Why the heck not? Why choose to look for the negative, the evil, the sad? Look and see the joy. It is right there. Staring you in the face. Choose it. Embrace it. Say yes to it. Why choose confusion and complication, when you can choose simplicity. If a relationship is complicated, move along. If life is confusing, look for the clarity and move along. Yippee, even.

Ok, I have some pictures.


Cate found an old jacket of Pekoe's. I don't think it fits anymore!

Completely unplanned and spontaneously, Jeanie texted me about going to see the Rockwell exhibit. How very thoughtful!

Kismet or the universe sending a clue - a train - very long, gave me time to read the text and call her back. Yippee!





I only wish Jeanie had had more time to hang out, but she had places to be! Good show, fun stuff. I liked the Lincoln, a piece that was done on my birthday in 1922 and a few other pieces. And we saw Kim and Russell!

I had to rush home to turn this:


Into this:

Daniel liked it.

Cate made a dinner of Greek salad - I made the dressing. :)


I also have a cool picture of the sky, but I think I have done enough with pictures for the day.

Anyway, joy to you and yours! It appears now and again...

Bored Yet?

I hope not! There are still many more days in the year. Heck, January isn't even finished yet. And although I do drone on sometimes, and probably repeat myself, there are moments of wit and charm, aren't there?

Not a lot of pictures and a not a lot of doings yesterday.

Eggrolls! I love them. Making them, eating them. Woo hoo! Made a dozen pork eggrolls yesterday.

They were yummy!!

I also went shopping to get a chicken for dinner - which will become stock and chicken salad - curry I think - and saw this cool sky!



Daniel and I again watched movies. We saw Me and Orson Welles, which was surprisingly entertaining. And Shall we Dance - maybe the best music of any of the F&G movies.

Today is cake baking day. Wish me luck!

Pictures from January 20, 2011

Not a lot of pictures from yesterday. Not a day I had planned at all. My plan was to stay home on Thursday and go out on Friday. Oops.


What the error message looked like.

Anyway, after the internet debacle threw off my day, I didn't get active until late. Then I noticed that I had a phone message. For those of you who don't know, years ago I trained myself to not be uber eager to answer the phone. And my cell phone has been on vibrate for most of the past 7 years. So unless I happen to have it in a pocket where I can feel it vibrate, I don't even know that the phone has rung most often. Hard to answer a phone if you don't know it is ringing. There it was, a phone message. From the massage people. I called them back, fully expecting to once again get voicemail, but part way through leaving a message Christy picked up. There was a cancellation. Did I want to take an appointment in an hour and a half! I dithered for about 12 seconds and said sure.



The place is in Cary, in an office park. Never would have known it was there. Hey, I have three referral cards - I think they are valid for $15 off any service of $65 or more. Anyone want one?

Got there in plenty of time and had a lovely massage. Actually, on a scale of 10 it was about a 6.5. That being said, any massage is almost always better than no massage and this one was that. And I think there are other practitioners there...

Then to the Saucer and sat at the bar! My hair was pulled back in a pony tail. It is funny, people were shocked about both occurrences. In a weak moment I promised Bryan that I would sit at the bar at least once a quarter this year. Sigh. Going there, I planned to have only one beer and leave - partially out of parsimony, partially out of a desire to not spend much time there. Oops. Had my three. Two of them really low alcohol and not tasty. The third was Big Operator that wasn't as Big as I thought it was going to be. Oh well, still pleasant. And the visit only took about an hour and a half! That is fast for me.

Home, I cooked steak for dinner. Cate cooked broccoli with cheese sauce. And we watched Easy A with Emma Stone. Thoroughly enjoyable. And later, Daniel and I watched Swing Time, another F&G movie! Yippee!

Pictures from Lilly, er Wednesday

I think today is Thursday. I am all discombobulated. Life is uncertain at the best of times. But Life is certainly fun, if you look at it right. This morning, I woke up early, again, and wrote a blog about movies and love. I am sure you were all mesmerized by it. Then the internet went out, so I went back to sleep. When I woke up again, the internet was still out. It finally came back around 2. Yippee! Since then, I have been playing. Sigh. Yes, I play video games. And I like them. Brain melt factor and all!

Moving on, pictures from yesterday.


This is one of the reasons I like living in NC. Blue Skies. They seem to be more frequent than the appearance of them in Geneva, NY. Could just be my impression.
If any of us are Facebook fans, you might have seen my Status update about it being Jiaozi day yesterday. Well, it was. I made about 60 of the buggers. And cooked them in a couple of ways.


Jiaozi ingredients


Jiaozi creation - like dumplings.


Boiled Jiaozi.


And fried/steamed/boiled Jiaozi - also known as pot stickers. Yum!


And Daniel and I made Hot and Sour Soup together. It is his favorite. Not sour enough for me, but oh well.