More of my day.

[xiphias]

This morning, Mom called me about the hot foods party, and I gave her directions.

An hour or two later, Mom called me back.

"After I got off the phone with you, I started reading your livejournal, to continue procrastinating. And, you know that story you wrote about? I've been reading it since I got off the phone with you. It's really creepy! I can't stop reading it!

"The thing is, there's a house that looks just like that three blocks from here. So now I'm afraid I'm going to be eaten by that house. If I don't show up at the hot foods party tonight, send the police out after me."

Dad claims that that's perfectly normal. Because houses eat people all the time. He says that, every so often, he'll be demo-ing (demolishing, not demonstrating) a building, and find bones in the foundation. . .

He also mentioned, tangentially, that there was one building my great grandfather designed, in Boston, that the demolition of it too six months longer than planned. Because, see, he was an ancestor of mine. And had his own ideas of what "building codes" should be. Instead of using steel rebar in the concrete, he used wire cables. The building would not fall down. Just wouldn't.

Anyway, there were parties. Still are, actually. It's only eleven, now, so I assume that both parties are going strong.

Lis and I have a friend, dusc, who has been on the Other Coast for most of a decade, but is now back. (We realized that it's probably a good thing that undauntra is now out of state now that dusc is back. We think the two of you would get along well, but we don't think that the rest of the world would entirely survive. You both have the same sort of Evil Genius mentality.) So we invited him along to the Lefton's party, and the three of us went over at about four-thirty or so. The chocolate pie seemed to go over well, although people were nervous that I labeled it "Chocolate Pie: Experimental Hot Version". I mean, I considered it experimental, because I was clear about the chocolate pie concept, but I was experimenting with spicing. It was the HOT part that was experimental, not the PIE part.

I headed over to my student's party and got there sixish or so. Her family was having a Winter Party, which was ALSO pot luck. Much good food there, too. A lot of her family and family-of-choice is Hispanic, so there was a definite Hispanic tone to a good third of the food. I learned a nifty trick with guacamole: according to one of the guys there, if you make up the guacamole and leave the pits in the bowl, it keeps the guacamole from oxidizing and turning brown. One of the other dishes, which was REALLY good, was tuna pie -- tuna fish, spices, onions, and stuff in a pastry crust. Of course, whenever I hear the words "tuna pie", I think of Bucky Katt from the comic strip "Get Fuzzy". . .

Anyway, I came back to the hot foods party and socialized some. dusc was doing fine socially: he was surrounded by beautiful women (some of whom were friends from when he last lived in Boston). We knew there was no reason to be worried about him getting along with folks.

And Mom and Dad showed up! Yay! I'd wanted to introduce them to the Leftons for a while. Turns out that Mom and roozle already knew each other, from Nishmat haNashim. Keen! At some point, I'd love to sit Dad and sunspiral down together -- they're both engineering/inventing geeks. Mom and Dad only stayed briefly, but had a great time.

Soon after Mom and Dad left, Lis and I did, too. I was kind of fading, and still have to do class prep for tomorrow, and have been fighting a toothache, and Lis was getting crampy. So now we're home.

Comments

[mattblum.livejournal.com]

Another way to keep guacamole from turning brown is to put a good amount of lime juice in it (which slows down the oxidation) and then, when you're storing it, put plastic wrap over it pressing the wrap into the guacamole to make sure there's as little air as possible between them. Since it's contact with air that makes it turn brown, that'll pretty much stop the reaction.

I like how your dad didn't (from your description, anyway) seem to think anyone should find it odd that he sometimes finds bones in houses' foundations. Now that is creepy.

So, how did the "Chocolate Pie: Experimental Hot Version" taste?

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I liked the pie, rather, and it seems to have gone over fairly well.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

:smile: ditto.

Downtown Jerusalem

[shmuelisms.livejournal.com]

Has this Mall with Office Tower, called the Klal Building. It was one of the first large such buildings, and as such has REALLY thick and deep foundations. It is well known in Orthodox circles that Cohanim should NOT enter this building, because those foundations have some permanent "residents", shall we say.

In Jewish Law, you can't in general have a unilateral divorce, so if the husband or wife just "disappears" their spouse is in a rather difficult spot... Because of this, you have the rather surreal situation were we've had members of the Rabbinical Courts go before the "Underworld Court", to accept testimony that indeed the missing person [of a known criminal background] is no longer among the living.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

The avocado pit thing is a myth. The part under the pit will stay green because it's not being exposed to air, but the rest will still turn brown. Make a batch sometime, halve it, and test. Plastic wrap directly over the guac will help, though, especially if you put a bit of lemon or lime juice over the top beforehand.

mmm... now I was some avocado...