sundry holiday chaos

Actually, it's not that bad.

I may or may not have shingles on my tailbone.
I may or may not have the equivalent of bad hips in a German Shepard, requiring surgery in my not too distant middle age.

I did not party hard with the rest of the household the last two nights. I did drink enough last night to get on myspace and to leave Christmas cheer everywhere.
Most of the Christmas shopping is done. Close enough.

The new espresso machine works alright. This means that Matty and I won't be powering through the gallon of French press every morning. Our guts thank us.
The meat pies do taste like dogfood mince.

The truck needed an expensive clutch job.
We don't have a renter for the house we're buying from Matt's mum.
I still want my kinky four way pluot (75 percent plum, 25 percent apricot) tree for Christmas.
I bought a year's supply of special Bishop mahogany smoked streaky bacon (known in local parlance as "crack bacon") because it was 25 percent off. I have had tomato growers in other states tell me that their BLT sandwiches don't taste the same since they can't get the bacon shipped anymore.
To get proper crema on the espresso, we'll need a better coffee grinder.
Let the cash hemorrhaging begin.

Lovely Tom and lovely Mark will be coming over to spend some time here in the Valley to ski, drink, and be merry with us.

Dad will watch the boy and Matty and I will get (gasp) another date and get to see Cat Power, Gnarls Barkley and the Flaming Lips after all.
And we'll still eat all the Chinese food we can stand, so tripe and chicken feet for days!

Four N Twenty oi oi oi!

Finally successfully stalked the Four N Twenty pies for sale in America. OZEpie is out of Florida and there is a case and a half (mince, mince and cheese, King Sized sausage roll, and vegie pasty) on its way to Bishop. This means the pies must be very old. I wonder if these are the pies that left Oz last August or so? Think about it, seafreighter from Victoria, OZ, to probably Los Angeles, then train to Florida, then UPS 2nd day air back to California. But what the hell. Dogfood mince is dogfood mince. Mmm, dogfood mince.

The price breakdown is pretty good. The pies start at @$2.25 (man, is that cheaper than in the MCG?) and the shipping is about 90 cents a pie.

We have had our fill of expensive gourmet, identifiable meat meat pies to last us at least another year.

Now, if only we could secure a cheap slab of VBs.....

New Year's Eve in Los An-hell-es

We have had two tickets to see the Cat Power, Gnarls Barkley, Flaming Lips New Year's Eve show for over a month now. Trouble is, there might not be anyone who can babysit the boy. Fingers crossed one of the grandparents will step in and save the day.

If it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. There will be plenty of tripe dishes as a consolation prize down in LA.

Matt down with the lurg. He turned down the season's first ski in fresh snow (not much of it, but still).

Gas station burritos, potlucks, snow

Second storm of the season. The mountains have been parched, so it is much appreciated.

Wyatt is now neighing when he sees horses or mules, baahing when he sees sheep, mooing when he sees cows, making engine noises and swanning his arms around when he sees an airplane. It's really quite fun and lovely. We three got out for a nice date yesterday afternoon when we drove down to Big Pine for Chevron gas station burritos (the best in the Valley - they are wrapped in foil and everything). Wyatt went down for his nap, and Matt and I chowed down on our burritos from our vantage up on Highway 168, looking back at the Sierras. It was too windy out, so we sat in the 4Runner and got some sun.

It was Marsha's birthday last Thursday. We didn't want her to have to clean up her own house, so folks like Karen, Zach, and Janet organized and we had it here out ours. Nearly 40 folks turned up on a school night, with a day's notice, bearing homecooked Asian dishes, and a good time was had by all. Bishop is good that way.

Heard from AT and Karen that they caught Beck's wee show at the Echo in Los Angeles last night. We had the feeling they'd get in.

Fixed the TV and DVD with Graham's help. The boy blew the TV circuit from his ON/OFF/ON/OFF fascination. We three grown ups watched Ray and Charles Eames' The Powers of 10 and The Machinist with Christian Bale once we got the boy to sleep. The Machinist was a bit slow, but yes, everything you heard about Bale's weightloss was probably true. Auschwitz revisited. Extreme? Yes. Did it help the story? Yes. Christian Bale is so interesting. Even my mom and teenage cousin think so. I am looking forward to the Werner Herzog film starring him. Matty and I had a good laugh reading the New Yorker article describing all the snafus during its Thai shoot.

Getting the house we are buying into shape is a Herculean task. Karen has proven herself to be Hercules, mucking out the shed, prepping the exterior walls for paint, cleaning out all the raised beds and side yards, trimming trees, etc. Getting rid of nicotine stains and smells from 20 years of smoking is the next task. The funny thing is, the house is in a million times better shape than most houses in the neighborhood.

These are a few of Wyatt's favorite things

the rings in gymnastics.
the trampoline in gymnastics.
the stamp he gets on his hands at the end of gymnastics.
Karen, whom he also calls "mama" (I think it's awesome).
big rigs.
having his stinky feet sniffed, one after the other.
Kipper.
all girls, especially young attractive ones.
cheesey egg omelet.
rolling the dice in backgammon.
mules.
dancing with his slew of "aunties" to the themesong from Hawaii Five-O.

Mmmm, Watties on top.

 

meat pies and dreams of men

The household is powering through a case of frozen meat pies from Z-pies in Placerville. These guys don't do beef pies as well as The New Zealander in Alameda, but their assortment of chicken and other pies will do. Their demi-puff top crust is among the best, too. I wish I had a bottle of Watties tomato sauce instead of Heinz. There's something about that anise and pruney sweetness that goes so well with a pie.

Been having strange dreams. I saw my good friend Tom, who passed away recently. He was dead and slowly decomposing, staying in an unused room in his house. He was aware of being dead, but could still talk and move. He was still so kind and sweet. He knew I was afraid to hold his hand because I thought it would be cold. It wasn't. He was "hanging on" so his family wouldn't miss him so. It was really quite sad. I got a lovely card from his wife the morning after I had the dream. We've since talked about it and had a good cry.

I did have a fun dream where I went with Matt and Bibi to see Don McGlashan play a college gig. I actually have had regular Mutton Bird/Front Lawn dreams for years. It always involves going to see them or at least Don McGlashan play live. It was a great show. The new songs - there was even one about TB- were great. Silly.