A Very Good Day

[chomiji]

So yesterday I went down by Metro to visit smillaraaq at her place. I met her lovely doggie Ms. Biscuit and her sweet but shy cat Strega, and Biscuit and I got along very nicely indeed, and Strega got used to me pretty quickly and even came and hung out around me. And smilla baked bread and we talked for hours and then smilla let me play with her "Okami" game. And then we ate popcorn and watched anime: "Ginga Legend Weed" in strange Nordic fansubbing, which was cutely heroically silly, and the first couple of episodes of "Samurai Champloo," which was very cool.

And then the Mr. and the Young Lady came and got us, and we went to Old Town Alexandria and had (sadly) an only average-ish French dinner at Le Gaulois, which was disappointing because 20 years ago, when it was in DC, Le Gaulois was a really great restaurant. But then we went back and hung out at smilla's some more, all together, and listened to Anna Russell (classical music humor) and ate goodies and drank tea and read smilla's books, and then the Mr. fell asleep on her floor. XD

I brought smilla some books and manga to borrow, and she sent me back with more than twice as much, because that's just the sort of awesome person she is!

Comments

[chomiji]

I'd love to come over again.

We're pretty picky about restaurant food. The place doesn't have to be fancy, but they need to be really good at what they do. I probably shouldn't have ordered what I ordered - it was meant to be Asian fusion, and that's probably a mistake at a country French place - but I usually like to get fish. And the lamb the Mr. had probably wasn't as good as at Tavira, and it was even more expensive.

(I still think it's generous to let your books and manga wander off with me, especially given how stuff gets just piled up around our place.)

[chomiji]

For that matter, I haven't cooked you a meal yet, either! But now that it's getting colder, I'm more likely to want to cook large hunks o' meat.

[chomiji]

The big hunks o' meat comment is because I've loathed being too hot for years (and of course it's only become even worse recently), so during summer, I don't like the amount/duration of heat required to cook said hunks.

I improvise with brisket. I refuse to do the Coca Cola one because it gives the Young Lady indigestion and because we're avoiding low-fructose corn syrup. For Rosh Hashana this year, I made one with mustard and brown sugar that I thought was very tasty (and it disappeared quite rapidly). Another time, for Passover, I did one with apricots and white wine.

[chomiji]

I believe I posted an approximation of my beer pot roast here once upon a time ... . If I were going to use a crockpot, I'd still want to brown my meat first. When I roast lamb, though, it's dry-roasting, so a crockpot wouldn't work.

[chomiji]

I need a Hakkai-w-vines icon ... .

I didn't know about the origin of the name of rugelach! Oh man, that's too funny!

Tomorrow's going to depend on whether my colleague makes it into work ... her little girl was apparently still very ill today (her husband usually cares for the child during the day). I suppose I can always just gab my chicken wrap and 10 minutes with you, if nothing else, but I don't know if that's worth your while. On the other hand, if she comes in, it should be no problem to spend the usual 45 min or so.

[chomiji]

We got another frantic phonecall this morning from my colleague ... her child and her new puppy are both ill now ... so if you want to blow through and say hi ... but I don't know whether that's worth for you.

[chomiji]

I have rescheduled the doctor's appt. I had for tomorrow morning (my yearly stress echo-cardiogram), so if she does come in, I should be able to have a nice lunch with you. Otherwise, I'll be in the same boat as today.

So didja get my e-mail, anyway? I wrote that instead of a saiyuki_time thing ... (although I feel bad about that too, because I told louiselux I would do one this time).

[chomiji]

So the colleague's little girl is still sick (although colleague sounded more hopeful on the phone this morning), but my boss said the world would not end if I took a bit of a break for lunch (vs. grabbing something and bringing it back to my desk). So are you still planning on coming down here?

>hugs<