This blog post today is sorta about my strange brother and ceiling fans.
T & I were having dinner with our neighbors after Christmas so I was bringing a bottle of wine and I asked Joanie what should I bring as a dish. She said "Surprise us". I was excited. I love carte blanche.
I also was visiting Ray of Sunshine at his new abode in the Sierras ~ way closer to us, so the plan was to visit him for lunch after Sue & I finished tracking. He moved from nasty Oakland were he was dodging gun shots regularly outside his home to now dodging bullets from hunters, but somehow he seems at peace with that. Seeing his place, I can see why. It's beautiful and his collies love it there. I think he should have doggie day care there. My dogs would love to visit for a while.
Anyway........
For Joanie's dinner I went to Pioneer Woman's blog and thought I'd make a simple soup. I found her "Carrot Squash Curry Soup" and felt it would be perfect. http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/?s=carrot+squash+curry+soup&submit= I love curry and also making something simple.
Then I went to the market to find the ingredients and pick out a wine. I know nothing about wines except how they make me feel so that's what I go on. Wines that give headaches are bad.
I also like wine labels and love to look at them. Sometimes I buy that way if I don't know. But, I'm also smart enough to not buy wines under $4, but anything over $12.99 stresses me out.
I look and see all of these.
This is T & my favorite Chardonnay. He says it's "buttery". I guess. Maybe he knows more about wine than I do. Maybe that's why I feel fat this month. It's buttery and I've been drinking a lot of it.
I named Sage after this wine because she was always sticking her pretty long muzzle in the wine glass. Plus she's the same color right now. It's amazing when she was born I thought she was a tri-color.
This is what I got for Joanie's party. I felt guilty not getting it for Ray because he spends a lot of time at the Russian River with his friend ~ or he used to when he lived in scary Oakland. I got him the wine above. So, since I named Sage after that wine, he should be happy. Like it's the Entais Wine, or something. I also got him 4 weeks worth of Top Ramen to feed him til he gets a job. Maybe he would have rather had PW's soup.
Then I see this. I crack up. First of all, that's a dumb name for a wine. Second of all, I remember the story of my brother Alan who decided when he was about 16 to change his last name to "Hess" because Hiiesalu was too hard to say. Or write. Or something. He had his own business that my parents helped him with and no one said ANYTHING. Like "What the FOK is wrong with you?????? You just can't change your last name!!!!!" (Can you say "Denial"????) He used to sign checks like that. "Alan Hess" and his friends would call him that. It really boggled my mind. Eventually after a few years it wore off and I do notice he goes by the name we were born with. He really is the strangest person I know. In every way.
Then I see this. I think of Blondie and Sage. Awwwwwhhhhhhh.........like the heavens are singing again!
And this one. It looks manly. The Manly Man Chardonnay.
A boxed wine. And really, is there anything really wrong with this? It even says "The World's Most Popular Wine". Maybe I'll get some.
Oh, here's another one. A Collection of Hess. Ha ha.
This one I buy in the Chardonnay and Merlot version when I'm on a budget. I've even had it in a restaurant.
This was a little pricier than I like to pay but not by much. If I designed wine labels I'd do something like this. I love it. Love the type. Love the art. Everything. B E A U T I F U L .
On to Joanie's After Christmas Dinner. I tell T I'm bringing wine and making a "carrot squash curry soup". He says something that sounds like "Why do you always embarrass us in public?" comment. I pretend I don't hear him. I really must stress him out.
At Adam & Joanie's nearly everyone slurps down the soup and comments on how amazing it is. Only two people don't really eat it. T might have been one of them, but not totally sure because I was drinking my Chardonnay.
Here is Joanie (far right) and part of her family. Several more were scared to be on the blog. Joanie's sister and brother in-law have a show Doberman puppy (10 months) so we talked a lot about dog shows. They are screwed. The life they know is gone. Pretty soon they'll have 5 Dobermans and an RV. It's so funny to see it happen to nice people.
(Later on all the girls in the group drove back to our house to see Sage & family after dinner. That was fun. I like showing off my collies and the collies loved the company.)
We have a great time and laugh about a whole bunch of stuff. We ate "Thor", the daughter's 4H lamb (yum!!) and someone else's hog. Equally yummy. There were yams, and potatoes, stuffing, wine & beer and Joanie's son is playing with some helicopter toy. That was most interesting.
Especially when it hit the ceiling fan above the dinner table. This is how we all know Joanie also doesn't clean ceiling fans. She is my hero.
We had already eaten which is probably a good thing, but I think it would have been ok to just scoop the dust ball off of the yams if we hadn't. In fact I asked Joanie that. She probably lied and said she wouldn't do that, but if we weren't looking, how would we know?
These plops of dust made us laugh more than anything. They were even in our hair. Sooooo funnnyyy!!!! Are they not HUGE??? I've noticed the same type of thing on our bed and didn't know what they were. Now I do.
This is the end of my post. I know you all are saying I have too much time on my hands and there are bigger things in life to blog about......oh God.....or maybe I should clean the ol' fans. But, really would that be as fun to blog about? I don't know.
