Karen's bday

Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light

Last night I thought we were going to Gail and Mark’s for drinks but they had put together an amazing surprise party to celebrate my new citizenship! I always knew I have wonderful friends but I must say I was flabbergasted, the amount of work and care made me feel so appreciated it was by far the best party I have ever been in this country!

It was Gorgeous Gail idea and they really did a fantastic job of keeping me in the dark. It is hard to know where to start to thank you all for what you did: all the delicious food Gail prepared, the bubbly Karen brought ( and even more specially risking being stranded in Torrington by the predicted snowstorm),  the great cookies done by the other Karen, and gorgeous gift she and Rit gave me, the American Flag shaped Christmas ornament I got from Bob and Stacey, but above all it was the hugs and smiles and genuine love and friendship that even at this moment brings tears of joy to my face.

 He-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed deserves an Oscar, not for a second he gave any hint that it was a party. He actually even said we might skip it since he was feeling so very tired, he asked me to make chili con carne for dinner pretending we were just going for drinks and he wanted a more substantial meal beforehand.

It was fantastic to enter the room and see them all there, Gail, Mark, Bob and Stacey, Rit and Karen, Marc, Linda, Bill, Frank and Pam, and Karen entering from the kitchen as she got there one minute after I did!

 I do feel amazingly proud to be an American but more importantly I feel immensely lucky to have such friends!

Not a bad bird at all!

T-day!

At first H-W-M-B-O declared we can do without a bird this year. He decided we shall have steaks and be thankful for that. I thought to myself no need to worry about buying a happy turkey, a free range, organic, hormone free (although being on hormone therapy myself I do realize the advantages of hormones if one have strong breast preferences! I have been feeling pretty chesty lately, but I diverge) the bird should preferably be Mozart listening 12 lbs specimen, all in all had a great life prior to get to his destiny as a happy meal.

I had made peace with the idea, especially because a turkey for two means lots of leftover that even my creative nature can feel challenged to come up with a variety of uses.

We went grocery shopping yesterday evening, H-W-M-B-O wants all the side dishes that usually goes with a traditional Thanksgiving dinner minus the bird, I was not convinced about cranberry sauce with steak but was prepared to please the boss. Then it happened: I found myself surrounded by fresh and frozen birds and could not help but stare and be overwhelmed by turkey lust!

This is my 9^th Thanksgiving here, the worst being the very first one when I did not realize H-W-M-B-O bought a frozen one and I spent all day giving it a cold bath in the bathtub and we still did not get to sit for dinner before 10 pm (I have proof, in the form of pictures, but I refuse to show them here!) the best one being last year’s at a friend’s house, surrounded by her family and friends and all I did was the cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie the rest of the meal was prepared by her husband and let me tell you he is one hell of a cook!

In the years in between I was never able to convince H-W-M-B-O to have just the breast, in the light of us being very much into white meat. Some years I did the full turkey, just to please him, once I made a roasted duck( I love duck) and once I just made a nice roasted chicken, refusing to surrender to roasting a full bird that will take us weeks to eat.

H-W-M-B-O saw me eyeing the fresh breasts and finally surrender to the idea, so we are having a roasted turkey breast, with all the trimmings , I have done plenty of research and will do a combination of 3 different recipes, I have this thing about creating my own, sometimes just an adaptation from someone’s recipe, or two or three!

I truly believe we have plenty to be thankful; it was by no means an easy year but still a pretty good one.

Wishing you all a great T-day, surrounded by family, friends or both or like in our case just our two dogs which by the way are crazy about green beans!

Teresa's Birthday!

I lost her email and wanted to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY, so hopefully she will check this blog soon!

The witch's caldron

da Capo

I have been trying to help with the restaurant website and yesterday I took a few photos to be used there!

Every time I visit the place I get so many compliments I will be needing an extra chair for my ego!

Bread Fever

The fever is actually gone by now, all that is left is an annoying cough but for the past two weeks the "bread bug" got me and I have been baking a storm.

He-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed had no complains about having fresh bread on a regular basis!

A Welcome to Teresa

I have been a bad blogger!

It was not intentionally, just one of those things that happen without rhyme or reason.

Today, out of the blue sky (and trust me the sky is unbelievably blue today), I got a phone call and a request for newer posts! None less than my most gorgeous mother and the very nice friend of her Teresa!

So this post is to officially WELCOME Teresa to my regular readership!

Teresa it will be a pleasure and an honor to know you are checking my little musings on this page.

Green Bounty

It has been a very wet summer and my garden looks beaten down by the severe storms but I do have to feel glad when I see the green bounty of sugar snaps this weather brought me.

Sunny side of the street

It has been awhile, one can even say a real long while. I will not offer any excuses or explanations.

Today I could not resist an attempt to capture my big white. I am fascinated by sharks but in this case I am talking about my dog Matisse. It seems he is getting whiter and whiter every day. I think the change gives him a spooky look but at the same time he has mellowed so much it has been even easier to love him.

I went to check where he was because the door to the patio was open and I found him taking the sun in. I went to get the camera fully knowing the chances were slim since usually he likes to check what I am doing and would just follow me but alas this time he must have been enjoying the heat on his bones because he just stay there even after I took a few snaps. Of course my Mr. Bug (also known as Frito Jack) got all curious and managed to insert his head on the last shot I took of Matisse.

He did raise his head when I went for the camera but then he just went back to look like he could not be bored with such a trivial thing as a photo shoot. On the next couple of pictures he does look a bit depressed although I know that if a fire truck drives up the hill he will be back on top of his game howling his head off! 

Somehow the order of the pictures got messed up but hey they are all there!

my boys

Brotherly Love

Nutty

Positively Grinchy

We got quite a bit of snow in the last 3 days! Most of my life a White Christmas was something that only happened on TV, well or the movies but you got my drift (bad pun, bad pun), and even after I moved here it was not that often that we got snow on the days before or around Christmas. Today there is no doubt we will have a very White Christmas by Wednesday.

It would be nice to have some of that Christmas spirit to go with it but I am afraid mine is still looking for me like a lost child in a Mall somewhere south of here.

We don’t go crazy with decorations around the house but He-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed always makes sure we have a good size tree, one that takes advantage of our cathedral ceilings. Every year goes more or less the same way, does not matter if we go cut our own or just to a place to pick already cut ones: He-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed says” Go choose which you want”, so I look around and choose a nice, not too fat, not to tall one, and he looks at it and says” You don’t want that one, is too small!” so we look some more and grab a big tree, maybe nothing to make the one at Rockefeller Center feel bad but still a sizable tree.

Instead of a nice Christmas spirit I found myself hostage to a nasty cold, one that includes a tiresome dry cough and a nose that could put Niagara Falls to shame. Last night no one got much sleep. He-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed sleeps lightly and often will ask me if I called him, honestly, I was just moaning but even the dogs got restless with my tossing and turning, coughing and moaning routine.

I have a small, errr make it medium size Nutcracker army and a growing one of snowmen. This year the snowmen are on our mantle and the nutty men on our shallow shelves at the kitchen eating area. I keep looking at them and hoping the spirit will catch me but so far it did not happen. But I still have hope I will not be feeling so Grinchy in a couple of days!

Winter Wonderland

If you have a nice fireplace and the remote why bother with outside?

Curious George

This little fella is the newest addition to my small army of snowman. He-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed got him last saturday, usually I don't name the snowmen, but somehow George needed a name, so we decided to use the store owner's name, he is a nice guy just like George here!

I do realize George is not a popular name now, but alas I never gone political on this blog and I am not about to start now, anyways this guy here does not look like Obama!

Honestly when we first thought about choosing George, the name being a result of where he was bought and the other reference to the children's book about a monkey were the only things that came to my mind. Later I thought about the headmaster from my high school years, but there is not even a dash of resemblance there and he was a Georges with an s at the end.

So cheers to this jolly fella, may he be happy amongst his chubby friends.

Blog Abandonment ends here

I needed time away to be able to lick my wounds in privacy. Sharing sometimes helps on the healing process and yet I was not ready for that. I can do with the forgiving but the forgetting will take a whole lot more time. That said I also discovered that now there is something called slow blogging, much the same way as slow food goes, meaning it is not because we are a bit too lazy to write something funny or witty, it is because we are adhering to a whole new trend. We take weeks to come up with something and we still get to look cool? How fun is that?

Plenty.

Since I have no desire to get all proustian and go in search of the time lost I decided to concentrate my attention on an American right: The pursue of Gorgeousness, well I know it was supposed to be Happiness but alas I will just trust that the second will come (even if temporary) right along when the first is acquired.

 Did you guess I have a party next weekend? Yes, sir, I sure do.

Thanks to my Special K friend now I even have a dress for said party, I must say it took a serious amount of looking to find something that fit reasonably well for an agreeable price. Special K being such a fantastic friend she even got me the shoes to go with the dress. Let me tell you how I love thee shoes. They are the prettiest, sexiest shoes I had in a long time. I did have a pair, bought for my school reunion that was pretty sweet, pointy little ones in very light grey suede. Now they live somewhere in Minnesota and hopefully they are making a niece happy. Actually the dress bought for that reunion is now in Rio and might make another niece happy at some party.

I am very thankful this week to be off Turkey duty, again was Special K doing, since she invited us to her house for Thanksgiving, her husband is the one with turkey on his hands, but I already had proof that he is a very good chef so I expect nothing less than a wonderful moist bird. All I need to make is a pumpkin pie and some lumpy cranberry sauce (special K is very particular about all things lumpy, she cannot stand them but He-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed is also very particular about avoiding food stuff from cans so I will bring the one he likes and she will get her unlumpy one from a can). All in all everybody should be happy and of course thankful.

I cannot forget my very first Thanksgiving in this country, sure because we don’t have such a holiday where I come from or in any other countries where I lived so far. Suffice to say the experience can be called Turkey Spa Day, and involved a frozen turkey by Thanksgiving morning, a whole day turning the bird around in the bathtub in order to make it defrost in record time. Never done one before I did not realize I needed to get a fresh bird or get the frozen one earlier and let it thaw. It was close to midnight by the time the bird was roasted and we could sit for our very late Thanksgiving dinner. I think I even have pictures of it somewhere.

Looking back I do think I have many reasons to celebrate a couple of weeks back and even more reasons to be thankful today.

just sad

I am beyond upset. I am feeling stupid and somehow redundant. I never thought life is perfect but I truly believe mine was not that bad.

I had always refrain from writing anything here when I was not feeling good, well sometimes I would post something about a bad cold, or a not so good day but mostly I filter my emotions and try to keep my blog light.

Today I feel quite different about it.

I am hurt and for once I don’t know how to deal with it. It crossed my mind calling one of my dear best friends and ask for their help. Ask them to make me feel better. I do know they both are capable of cheering me up but somehow if I do call them I would have to say stuff that right now I am not comfortable to say. Because it would mean I have to admit being wrong, or worse than that to admit I do not have what I thought I did.

I wish I could do what he does, just ignore it, just pretend nothing happened. Just pretend it does not change anything.

Unfortunately he does not believe in saying “I am sorry”, he probably does not even think he needs to say it.

If you take someone for granted it stops you from making the effort to be nice.  It also stops you for saying “I am sorry” when you are not nice.

I always have been big about celebrating special occasions. Next Monday it will be 8 years since I move here.

Now I found myself wondering if there is anything to celebrate about it?

Playdate

The day has been cloudy and not ideal for pictures but I could not resist!