artykins

So I've had an interesting 24 hours.  In those hours I've had encounters with both Charlie and Caesar, which I shall explain. 

Last night I had a dream.  Jeff was in it, as was my mother and Mr. Quinn.  We were all meeting up at school to discuss things for the Performing Arts Academy and Jeff was telling me that he had been having a particularly bad time with the theatre ghost as of late.  So he asked me to go into the theatre with him to do some stuff.

Thing is, it was the theatre, but it wasn't, you know what I mean?  I knew it was our theatre, but it looked nothing like it actually does.  It was much bigger and backwards.  Still, there was a ramp going up to the sound booth level and one at stage level and each place had a door, as it actually does.  The top door was propped open with a chair and the bottom one was just open.

Well, the theatre ghost was a mean one, unlike the one that actually haunts the theatre, and it took the chair propping open the top door and hurled it at us.  Naturally, Jeff and I fled.  We went and told our mother and Mr. Quinn and the four of us went back.  Mr. Quinn walked right in and up to the sound booth, but my mom lingered with me and Jeff just outside the bottom door.

And then, all of a sudden, I saw the ghost.  I gasped and told Jeff and he looked and he could see it too.  We were the only ones that could see it on stage just inside the door.

Strange thing about it is the ghost was Charlie Chaplain.  He was center stage, in black and white, dancing the Charleston.

Of course, when I saw Jeff today, I told him about it.  And as I knew it would come to pass, he only laughed at me.  The thing is, the dream really did scare me and it woke me up in the middle of the night.

My encounter with Caesar was much more enjoyable.

Jeff came over tonight with Chrissy, who's home for Christmas break from school.  He's gotten really interested in learning how to cook lately, so I've been teaching him how to boil water, more or less.  Tonight he helped me make some pasta pesto with sausage and peppers, so garlic rolls, some rosemary butter bread and a Caesar salad.

I decided to expand my own culinary horizons by trying my hand at making my own Caesar dressing.  This, of course, meant I had to have all manner of un-Godly ingredients in my kitchen that somehow, put all together, taste delicious.

So I set about making the dressing:

Raw egg.
Worcestershire sauce.
Anchovy paste.

It was all very exciting, if not a little off putting.  Still, the dressing turned out wonderfully and tasted amazing!  There's nothing quite like a house-made Caesar dressing.

So there you have it.  My encounters with Charlie and Caesar.  I hope the dressing doesn't induce weird dreams tonight... 

Hello!  Merry Christmas to all you crazy kids out there!  I trust everyone is getting into the Christmas mood with the weather getting colder and carols being played in the background.  Actually, Christmas carols have been with us in stores since before Thanksgiving.  I think corporate America is very nervous about how much we'll be spending this year.  Or to put it more bluntly, what we won't be spending.

I've been a busy little beaver as of late.  I feel kind of bad because I haven't been keeping up with my blog reading, let alone my blog writing!  I have no idea what my friends are up to!  There are some people I know I haven't missed much on.  DJ hasn't blogged in aaaaaages.  Hobbs and Margo haven't written since before they got married.  I'm giving them a pass since they're newly-weds and have other matters to attend to at the moment.  DJ, however, has no pass.  He just sucks.

Anyway, things here in California have been progressing right along.  Matt and I have been married a full eight months now.  That event occurred yesterday.  To celebrate the occasion, we went to a local store that sells stuff made by local artists and artisans.  They've got everything from garden bird feeders to saki jugs and cups to handmade pottery.  It's a rad place.  We decided to go there and get a Christmas ornament and we also decided to make it a tradition to do so each year, so for those of you keeping track, that means we'll be acquiring a new ornament for each Christmas we're married.

The ornament we bought is a glass ball, which is now one of many on our tree.  The first year ornament is a bright peacock blue with a flower design on it done over in white and silver glitter.  I actually think that it's one of my favorites on there and not just because of how it came to be there.  It really is just a beautiful ornament.

Other favorites include six ornaments that my mom and dad got us.  Each one is a Golden Gate Bridge one.  Big surprise considering my dad works for the bridge, eh?  He got me the newest one last week and called me just to tell me about it.  He put it in my stocking and this afternoon when Matt and I stopped by the house, I fished it out and brought it home with me.

Let's see.  There's an antenna ball that I have on my tree that looks just like Mike Wasowski from Monsters Inc.  There's a small California state flag sticking out of our tree as well.  Oh!  Then there's a small handmade mask (like a Mardi Gras mask) that Matt got me when we went to see Kooza last year around this time.  A new ornament is one Uncle Benny got me.  It's The Very Hungry Caterpillar eating his way through a book.  I LOVED that book as a child!  That one is very near the side of the tree near the sofa where I always sit so I can look at it and smile.

There's a keychain that Lily (Alfredo's younger sister) got me when we all went to Disneyland a few years ago.  It was Alfredo and his siblings, Carlos and Lily, my brother and me and Uncle Benny.  It was a fun trip.  Lily was still fairly young, so I took it upon myself to keep an eye out for her.  You know, things like wait with her in the bathrooms (which are always crowded!) and do all the 'princess' stuff, which admittedly I don't really care for, but I did for her.  She got that for me as a 'thank you' and since then it's been packed away with all my ornaments so that it can go on the tree each year.

We have another keychain that's nothing but a pair of crossed palm trees.  You California natives ought to know what that means.  For those of you that aren't, crossed palm trees are the symbol of In-N-Out, a burger chain that got it's start in Southern California and has since moved north.  It's quintessential California stuff.  It's different from other 'fast-food' chains because nothing sits around.  Everything is made fresh to order.  Also, the menu is painfully simple.  They sell burgers, fries and shakes.  That's it.  And it's great.  So we've got that on the tree near the top.

Believe it or not there's a pickle in our tree as well.  Not a real one, so cool your jets.  The pickle is a nod towards my German ancestry.  It's tradition there for parents to hide a pickle in the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve.  In the morning, the first child who finds it gets to open an extra gift.  So because of that, I have a blown-glass pickle hidden in my tree.  I'm actually pleased that my uncles had to search for a long time for it when they were over last.  I don't have that many ornaments compared to them, so hiding the pickle is a task for me.

Enough about that, though.  In other news, my hands are UBER dry and I am displeased.  To be fair, I haven't been faithful in moisturizing lately.  Between having my brothers and their friends over until early morning hours (like last night) and other stuff, I've just lacked the energy to take the time to do it right before bed (which is when I usually do it).

I made cornbread muffins earlier tonight.  I used blue cornmeal that I got on honeymoon in Sedona.  I've made them once before, hence why I made them again.  They were that good.

Matt's a very handsome guy.  I just thought I'd throw that out there.  He's gorgeous.  He's especially so right now.  He's sitting on the opposite side of the sofa scribbling ideas into a notebook of his, dressed in his nice brown jumper and sipping on a glass of Bowmore scotch.  I can't stand the stuff.  I think it smells as if it could remove oil-based paint, but he likes it.  The rule is that he has to sit far enough away that I can't smell it, which is why he's on the opposite end of the sofa.

I found out today that a friend of mine is expecting.  She has a little boy already, but I was so excited to hear that she's pregnant again!  It's wonderful news.  She's still very early on, so I don't know the sex of the baby yet.  I'm hoping it's a girl.

I also heard today that I missed Margo yesterday, which made me very angry/sad.  From what I heard, it sounds as though she's a bit homesick, so I've been shooting up little prayers on her behalf all day whenever I think of her, as is my habit when something like that is on my mind.  I miss talking to her and to Hobbs.  They're funny people.

Well, I think I'm going to stop here.  I'm kind of hankering after one of those muffins I made earlier.  Besides, there's jazz music on and the lights are off, all except for the Christmas tree.  I think I'm going to go enjoy those things together.

Later Days,
Arty 

You gave it to me as a gift
This braided tradition of yours
You gave it to me
With hopes I would be
Able to tell of your life

You told me once I’m alone
In wanting to learn the lost craft
Of making this bread
This dear Christmas thread
That binds all your family to mine

So now the task is all mine
To help this tradition to thrive
My family and I
Will always remember
This precious light in our lives

Because with this a story survives
The memories of our past
To keep us together
In darkness and pain
When everything else has died

And now that the torch has been passed
Your life with live on through mine
As long as I live
As long as I breathe
I won’t let anyone forget

This Christmas bread that you gave
The memories that I can smell
Your smile in my eyes
Your love in my heart
These things will be mine ‘til the end