Saturday, January 6, 2024

on the road

 Instead of jinxing us with my lament about the missing sun, our hopes for a sunny day on Thursday were granted, at least for a few hours. Not before a trip into the city to Costco on slightly snow-covered roads, but all was clear and dry when we headed to Olaf's for the night to help Stephanie celebrate her birthday.


Pat stayed here with the dogs and Grace which certainly made it possible for us to go and have a good time! Thanks Pat!!!


We arrived just before dusk, too late for full light, but too soon for Christmas lights (do they even put them up there?). It was funny, at around 5pm, after a glass of bubbles, I proclaimed that I had already reached the point in the night where I wanted to tell everyone that I love them… would it all be downhill from there? At that point it seemed that the evening might drag but suddenly it was 6:30 and time to meet up with Kirsten & Shawn virtually… and then BAM 9:30! Blinked again and it was midnight!


Oh, the potato skins - a 4 or maybe even 5 out of 5. The green onions that I forgot would have  knocked it out of the ball park. They were worth the extra 2 bakes and they warmed up perfectly in Olaf's airfryer. The chocolate cake however was dry and overcooked :-( I MUST get the proper sized springform pan before I make it again. The buttercream icing was okay but could have used a bit more cocoa. 


Olaf made a wicked Mac & Cheese in his airfryer… so rich and decadent! Topped with crushed doritos for a nod to the 70s when they put chips and marshmallows on everything.


Speaking of the 70s, I get the occasional post on facebook with recipes from that era 😱 OMG! They were crazy for jellied everything… like what the actual heck! I will admit to a certain fondness for tomato aspic, but that last time I made it for Thanksgiving I was still living in my apartment downtown… decades ago… we had a dozen people for dinner… and it sat in the fridge barely touched until it was an exciting chemistry experiment - how many types of mould will grow in jelly? And really, how appetizing is ‘ass pick’!


In the middle of the night (tossing and turning on a strange bed), I wondered if last year's December electricity bill was less, even though it was colder, because of the dearth of sunshine. Our house gets a lot of passive solar heat in the winter, alas, it's been cloudy for months now… As soon as we got home yesterday I extracted the 2022 and 2023 weather columns from my records and sent it to Carm for analysis. Will report results later! Midnight musings…


Surely all of my slightly insane record keeping will be useful for something!


Today the santas and angels were packed away, leaving the forest of green trees for another month or more. We've left the garlands up for now too. The tiny fairy lights are also still deployed!



Awesome!


“birthdays”

“a few hours of sunshine”

“the dogs slept until 9 this morning!”

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