Holiday Warm Fuzzies

What I really love about the holidays is spending time with friends and family. Unfortunately, this year my sister didn't make it home for Christmas. I think this was the first ever, but with marriage comes the holiday split between families. In addition to that, there was no extended family get-together for Christmas due to some drama that need not be discussed.

Maybe because the family time spent this year was at an extreme minimum, the scale tipped way over in favor of my friends. I don't think...actually I know...that I haven't seen my friends this frequently since high school when we'd spend a minimum of six hours together each day.

<--begin sappy sentimentality>
Most of my closest friends are from my high school days. Somehow over all these years, we've be able to keep in touch, despite that some of us live in far cities and farther states. Some of us are married, others are engaged, a bunch are coupled and then there are us perennially single folk. But even with all the changes in our lives and new significant others added to the group, we've managed to maintain the retarded and random sense of humor that makes me laugh so hard that I sometimes fear dying of asphyxiation in wet underpants.

We ended 2005 with a bang, complete with bike rides, trivia game show contest of the elementary schools (go Leal!) and two consecutive nights/mornings that ended at 5 a.m. Here's looking to a great 2006!!
<--end sappy sentimentality>

Wide Set and Heavy

Last night, I hosted the monthly SCRSFWHSAA gathering. The theme of the night was BLT (optional A). Dinner consisted of Bacon/Lettuce/Tomato/Optional Avocado sandwiches, Bettle Chips, Tomato Soup, Bosher Lill Tickles, Beer with Brownies and Breyers for dessert. Get the jist?

I don't have much experience with bacon. I rarely actually make it for myself. All I know is that it's FREAKIN' DELICIOUS. Who knew that a strip of bacon that initially started out at 12 inches would shrink to only a quarter of its original size??? I thought 2 packs of bacon would be enough for 8-10 people but we could have easily done finished off 4! Everyone got a few slices of bacon, but not enough to make a really good BLT. It was more of a LT with a little B.

But despite the bacon shortage, the night went well. We had some newcomers to the gathering, which mixed things up a bit in a good way. With new people joining the party, I've realized how strange we must all seem to them.

For example, the two notable quotes of the night. Thanks to bchoi!
"I can't help it if I've got heavy flow and a wide set vagina!" --Brian
"Mabaho ang bpeck bpeck mo!" --Joel (via Brian)

Good times.

Pay It Forward

I never really liked the movie Pay It Forward. First off, the ending was retarded. Second, age isn't being kind to Haley Joel Osment. He isn't quite living up to his potential cuteness that we saw in The Sixth Sense and Forrest Gump. In general, I thought the movie was a bit too idealist and warm and fuzzy. Did I mention the ending was RETARDED?

But just because I didn't like the movie, I'm not beyond the idea of paying it forward. I think that if I do good unto another, it'll come back to me eventually. I also believe that Karma is a bitch. What goes around, comes around, good or bad.

Apparently I've done something nice, though absolutely nothing comes to mind. But whether it was the Christmas spirit or someone else paying it forward, I was the recipient of a kind gesture yesterday.

Last night, Doris and I decided to have dinner at CPK. Initially it was a good idea, until we remembered that we'd have to battle with the mall parking lot. I normally avoid malls during the holidays like the plague, for somehow we thought that since we were eating instead of shopping, it wouldn't be as big of a deal.

We circled the lot for a while without any luck. As we were about to give up on yet another row, a woman and her daughter motioned to us that they were parked in the next aisle. As we snickered about how closely the woman resembled a man with her mullet and sports jersey, we pulled around, only to find other cars already there. Goddammit! Another parking spot lost!*

But to our surprise, the mother/daughter pair waited around, loitering aimlessly. We weren't sure what they were doing, whether they were just crazy or what. They hung out for a couple minutes while the other cars waited to see where they would go. Eventually, after the other vehicles left, they headed towards their car. THEY HAD WAITED FOR US!!!!! To make sure that we got the spot!! In fact, just as we signaled, another car pulled up from the other side and signaled for the same spot. The daughter then motioned to them that the spot was indeed ours.

I then felt REALLY bad for making fun of the mannish woman. Doris and I were both so touched by the gesture. So many times we forget that there are people that aren't cynical and self-serving and rude. Today, it's my day to pay it forward.

*I have a history of people VERY RUDELY stealing my parking spot. One incident involved a whole family. What kind of lessons are you teaching your children??? The other incident involved AZNs. I bitched the driver out, ending with "FUCK YOU BITCH!" Oh yeah, and both my parents were in the car. After I drove off steaming mad, my mom, in the back, very quietly says, "I don't like it when you use that kind of language."

Meow means Yes!

[Name] Ginger
[Nicknames] Ginger-poo, Gin, Kitty!!!, Sweetheart, Sweets, Honey, Hon, Bunny, Big Foot, Baby, Babe, Floppy McFlopperson,
[Age] 5 years
[Likes] Napping, Costco Rotisserie Chicken, under the chin scratching, tissue paper (the wrapping variety), sun bathing, char siu, sliding on the wood floor, playing behind doors
[Dislikes] Baths, having her tail grabbed, being molested by Scott Takano, her cousin Carlo, being picked up upside-down by all her legs, the garage door, Petromalt, car trips
[Unique characteristics] Bowl legged, makes slurping noises while grooming, has a broken meow
[Annoying habits] Pawing my head at 4:30 a.m., chewing on plastic at 4:32 a.m., trying to manuever under the blankets at 4:33 a.m., licking my face at 4:35 a.m., purring in my ear at 4:40 a.m., repeat every 10 minutes
[Adopted] August 16, 2003 from the spcaLA

Candy Maker

Take that one off the list of potential careers.

I am seriously hurting right now. I went to sleep yesterday at fucking 4 a.m. Doing what, you ask? DIPPING FUCKING CHOCOLATES. I started around 9 p.m. Between trying to keep the chocolate tempered, getting the optimal procedure for dipping the truffles down, dipping each one, ONE BY ONE, and packaging them, I spent a good six hours slaving over this project. Not to mention that in the process, I got melted chocolate on EVERY SINGLE SURFACE IMAGINABLE.

Sigh. I love chocolate*, I really do. But today (or maybe just a few hours), as I hurt from only 3 hours of sleep, I'm putting chocolate on my black list. Oh the pain.

*Dark Chocolate. Not milk and not that white shit. WHITE CHOCOLATE ISN'T CHOCOLATE!!!

A Sticky Situation

Damn the crystallizing characteristics of sugar!!!

In addition to making truffles, my plan was to make toffee and peanut brittle. My thought was that the toffee and brittle would be easy compared to the multiple steps required for the truffles. Ha!

I should have known after I broke the thermometer. I bought one especially for my candy making project. As I peeled the plastic away from the paper backing, the thermometer slipped from the packaging and in slow motion, I watched it plummet towards the ground and shatter into bits and pieces. That was my sign. Stop! Turn back!

I didn't heed the warning.

I went through all the steps of making the toffee: melting the sugar, cooking until it reached soft ball stage, pouring in the greased pans, tempering chocolate, chopping pecans. Yesterday, I went to break it into pieces. Ha! Break!! Instead of crispy and crunchy toffee, I had a mess, topped with chocolate and nuts. The sugar failed to solidify because it crystallized, leaving me with clumpy sugar floating in butter. Tell me that doesn't sound delicious!

Melts in your mouth AND in your hand

I thought I was being smart. This year, instead of baking cookies, I planned on making candy for my Christmas treats, particularly truffles. I've worked with chocolate before, but somehow I always forget how tedious it is to work with it. These are the things I've (re)realized tonight:

1. It's a pain to chop chocolate.
2. After chopping, it gets everywhere.
3. Tempering is annoying.
4. Chocolate is extremely messy to work with as it melts by just touching it.

We'll see how the rest of the process goes!

A Change Will Do You Good

Food is all about change. A simple change such as cooking temperature can make the difference between your fried chicken being soggy and greasy rather than crispy and juicy. Changing the method in which you combine flour, butter, salt and sugar can result in shortbread cookies or pie crust. The power to change and manipulate ingredients to affect the outcome is one of the things I love about food. It's a world of possibilities where the options are yours to choose.

Why, then, if I love the aspect of change in food, do I have so much difficulty with it in life? I'm not oblivious to the fact that life rarely stands still. But I've never been very good with quickly adapting to change, especially when it is not as a result of a decision of my own. Is it normal to be sad, to mourn the loss of what you had before? I have to think that it is.

I feel like I'm standing on a mountain peak and I can see so many changes ahead of me looming in the future. My job, my home, my relationships, my expectations, so much. Will I rise to the challenge?

Sheryl Crowe wouldn't lie...right?

Foot in Mouth

This past Friday night, a few friends and I braved the rain and cold to attend a birthday party Tina threw for her fiance, Bill, at Dominick's. The dinner party was originally set to be about twenty people; it ended up to be more like 40!! The party turned out great. Tina even put together party favor bags with Dollar Bling Rings, Mint Kit Kats (they're like Thin Mints!!), and other goodies!

The food at Dominick's was great, as usual. For dessert, the restaurant has these really good fried ricotta fritters served alongside a chocolate dipping sauce. YUM. But because it was Bill's birthday, we had this awesome shoe... err... cake for dessert.

Dialogue between Tina and me T: I was nervous the cake wasn't good. S: How come? T: I wanted lemon cake with rasberry filling, but the bakery said the filling needed to be stiffer. Instead they did lemon cake with lemon filling. S: I thought it tasted great. T: I was worried, thinking, "Is lemon on lemon a cake faux pas??... like denim on denim is to fashion????" S: HEeeeeeEE!!

And later on in the night, sans alcohol mind you, I willingly posed for this flattering shot. Go me.

Tina says "Waxy Snot is Sexy!"