use real butter

This morning, I emptied my jar of generic antacid tablets. Why did I eat the ice cream last night? And it’s been killing me all day.

My parents are coming out to visit us at the end of February. I will probably go crazy while they are here, but for now, I’m really happy about seeing them. Silly parents.

Anastasia liked the Brussels sprouts! YAY!!!

Okay, I’ll admit it. I don’t want to deal with the backed up kitchen sink anymore. Why can’t we call our landlord, who is the coolest landlord on earth, and have him come fix it? He was a professional plumber in communist Poland for crying out loud! Now he’s an optical engineer working on secret stuff. He could fix it in no time, I’m sure. But we must let Jeremy try his hand at the solution. Meanwhile, I feel like my OCD-self is going to have a meltdown shortly. My kitchen is MY domain. I do my best work THERE. When it is piled with dirty dishes, a sink with nasty dried crap all over it, and this goes on for 4 days, I start to get disturbed. It bothers me. groan…

Lydia invited us over for dinner this weekend, except we’re going to be in Atlanta. The Trud said she was preparing a special meal and everything just because it was us and that Lydia was stressing over it. Now, I need to make something very very clear here. Just because I like to cook and entertain, doesn’t mean other people should feel compelled to cook (especially if they don’t cook) for me. My pal, squid, she doesn’t cook. She tells me so all the time. She and Shahen always say, “come over to our place, we’ll order out – we don’t cook.” And that is fine. They have a lovely flat, and better than that, they are so much fun to talk to and be with. A while back I was talking about reciprocation from friends. It doesn’t have to be in kind, it need only be in friendship. Cooking a meal for friends should not stress a person out. What the hell would you do if your friend was a professional chef? Get a degree in cooking just so you can invite them over? nooooo.

In fact, I recall inviting Ro, E, the Trud, and Lydia over for my bday (and Ro’s – same day!) and I BOUGHT the cake, BOUGHT the pizza, made simple pesto pasta and we drank wine and knitted. That was a lot of fun. Sheesh, the last thing I want is for friends to feel this sort of obligation. Lydia, I love you no matter what. Trud, you don’t have to make pavlova (but it seriously kicked ass last night) to be my friend. You are awesome in your wacky way as is. Are we clear on this now? I would never try to write a lithospheric compensation model for you :)

Yay! I found liquor-filled chocolate bottles at Cost Plus Imports yesterday. I also bought more chocolates and other interesting things for Ben’s crackers (a mini gummy hamburger which is nice and squishy). When I unloaded all of the candies into this large bowl on the table, I told Jeremy we may have more candy than can fit into the crackers. He assured me this was not a problem.

Baked more brownies and this morning I got up super early to bake some cakes, make more crackers and print some little cards for my mom. I’m totally wired but I know I’m going to crash later in the day. We’re having a small potluck today at work. It was originally a “white trash” potluck lunch, but folks got a little bashful about the white trash part. I think true white trash food is kinda scary, but the standard casseroles and dishes that I saw growing up in Virginia – that’s good stuff. It’s bad for you, but it tastes great. I’ve found that white trash is not a Southern thing per se, because you find this stuff anywhere in America where white people can’t really cook (the midwest comes to mind, rural locales, upstate NY…) No, I take that back – there are few really good recipes that come from the midwestern “white trash” category. The best ones really are from the south. I brought potato-cheese casserole. I got the recipe from my ex-boyfriend whose family is from Kansas (there ya go!).

Oh, Kaweah isn’t seven years old, she’s six years old. Carrie pointed out to me that Hailey is only six and a half – and Hailey is older than Kaweah. I hate to say this, but we never remember the year Kaweah was born, only that we got her close to our second anniversary. And we couldn’t remember which year we married… So Kaweah gets a year back!