Adventures in Dining Out

My Nephews are great fun to take out to dinner. They always have been. They never misbehave or run around or make a scene. They’re 8 and 7 now and they have their own favorite places to eat out (other than fast food).

One of those places is the Chinese Buffet in the next town over. Usually a Chinese Buffet place is the last on my list. I’ve eaten in a lot of crummy ones, but this one – really good. They refill the trays often so everything is hot and fresh and they have specialty dishes that change every time you go there.

Last weekend my SIL called and asked if I wanted to join her and the boys for Chinese Buffet since my brother was out for the evening? Yeah!

We planned to get there a little on the early side because that place gets crowded and with two kids it’s just easier to have room to move around the steam tables. We ordered our beverages and headed over to load up our plates. As I was reading which dish was which on the “sneeze guard”, I read something that surprised me. Nephew1 was next to me and so I said:

“Hey look. Read what that is.”
“Faaaa... I don’t know.”
“Yes you do. Try again.”
“Faaahhhhg. Fog,”
“No. One more try.”
“Feerrrog… Frog? Really?”

From the other side of the steam table Nephew2 pipes up “I wanna try it!” I put a frog leg on his plate.

My Brother and SIL don’t inflict their food likes and dislikes on the boys. My parents were the same and let us try anything we wanted to try. But frog is something I never wanted to try, or even look at. But, I wasn’t going to inflict my “ICK FROG!” thought on the boys. Neither was my SIL who felt the same way as I did.

We went back to the table and started to eat. We paid attention to Nephew2, watching out of the corner of our eyes to see if he would actually taste the frog leg. When he did we asked him what he thought. “It’s good. I like it!” He went back for seconds and Nephew1 went to try it too.

After Nephew1 took his first bite my SIL asked him “How is it? Does it taste like chicken?” Heh.

“No. It’s salty.” He didn’t eat any more but I think if it wasn’t “Salt & Pepper Frog” he may have had more.

Nephew2 had 3 helpings. When he went back for the 3rd, he rooted around to find the thighs because there was more meat on them.

I’m really proud of them for trying it; but I’m a little skeeved out too.

Knitting!

It's been a while since I had actual knitting content. Here is what I've been working on the most, even tho the WIPs are piling up (3 sweaters and the Lady Elenore shawl are waiting for me).

My March socks for Socktopia. I'm knitting the Roza Socks from the Spring 2007 Interweave. It's an easy pattern, and I love the brioche stitch.



(click for larger image)

I've also been working on the Cherry Leaf Shawl from Victorian Lace Today. I'm using Briar Rose Legacy which is thicker than called for in the pattern, but I wanted something that would be almost like a blanket. The yarn is wonderful to work with and the pattern, so far, is fairly easy. We'll see what happens when I get to the edging.


(sorry for the blurry photo)

I've also been working on a top down cardigan, again in Briar Rose yarn. I'm using a strand of Forth of July with a strand of the Sonoma that I won from the KAL site. I need to slide the stitches onto some waste yarn and see how the fit is across the shoulders before I get any further. But it's a quick knit so far and I love how the fabric is coming out.



And you may have noticed that a little someone has taken quite an interest in all things knitting. Can you blame her? She especially likes the Briar Rose yarn and my Knit Picks DPNs.



Either that or she's decided to become a camera hog.

The Law & Order Incident

I admit it. I’m a Law & Order fan. But for some reason I don’t usually watch on prime time, I only watch the re-runs on cable. Mostly I watch SVU and CI because I haven’t seen many of those episodes.

Last week I was flipping around the channels because my usual Tuesday night show (House) was pre-empted for 3 weeks so that Idol could greedily take over all of the Fox programming for that night (Wednesday night too – which pre-empted Bones. 4 hours of Idol a week for 3 weeks. Who can stand that much of the most annoying judges in prime time TV?) There was absolutely nothing “good” on. Then I came across the L&O CI at 9PM. COOL! I’ll watch this!

I snuggled into my chair, put my feet up and Katie jumped up and stretched out along my legs from thigh to ankle. This is a new thing. See picture below; it’s so funny and it kind of pins me down. Last night she was so anxious to get on my lap that she laid down on my yarn so I couldn’t knit.

I hadn’t seen any CI episodes with Chris Noth and I was looking forward to it. Katie continued to snuggle stretching herself longer and longer along my legs. It was a good show, but I get confused when they start talking about which Middle Eastern country could have been behind the murder plot and the reason for it. It was kind of an unsolved murder.

The show ended and I was starting to contemplate going to bed. Katie was still stretched long, snuggling her little nose between my ankles when that noise happened. You know the noise I mean? The metallic, resonating dah-dah? The Law & Order noise? The noise that had played several times the hour before played again at the start of L&O SVU and it scared Katie so bad that she launched herself sideways, across the coffee table and ended up on the other side of the living room on the love seat. She scared the be-jesus out of me. I felt so bad for the poor little thing. She sat there collecting herself and I didn’t want to do anything to make her think she did something bad or that something bad was happening in the house.

That’s when I felt it. Pain. Searing, itching, pain in long strips down my legs. Yup – I was scratched all down my calf and across the shin of the other leg.

I'm healing nicely and I should be able to wear skirts and hose again in the near future...

What's in a Name?

I have posts waiting to be posted. But I need pics to go with them and I am completely unmotivated to do anything once I get home from work. I haven't even knit the past two evenings. It's just WRONG!

So until I get off my bum, a little amusement for you.

Snitched from Midnight 2 Sticks:

1. YOUR GANGSTA NAME (First 3 letters of first name plus izzle)
CHRIZZLE

2. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (fav color and fav animal)
Purple Camel

3. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, and current street name)
Annette Williamson

4. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name, first 3 letters of mom's maiden name)
Lapchbok

5. YOUR SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd favorite color, favorite drink).
Yellow Martini (Mild mannered Administative Assistant by day, Cocktail swilling superhero by night. When danger rears its ugly head, the "Martini Signal" flashes in ladies rooms all across the city! Never fear, Yellow Martini is... oh... passed out.)

6. YOUR WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother's middle name)
Elaine

7. YOUR GOTH NAME: (black, and the name of one your pets)
Black Katie

Katie's Perch

When I put my Christmas tree up, I had to move the table I have in my foyer to another location. The only place the table fits is in my dining room. Part of the table is in front of a window. Katie LOVED sitting there and watching whatever was going on in the pine trees on that side of the house.

I took the tree down and moved the table back to the foyer and I felt a little bad about taking away the perfect Katie perch. So I bought her a present this weekend…

It was worth every last penny… I placed her in it and she lay right down and started purring like a motor boat. Every time I turned around she was in her window hammock.

Can you tell she is totally annoyed at my intrusive picture taking?

Success!

Teaching my co-worker to knit was not only a total success, I have lured her to the dark side. Here is an e-mail message I just got from her...

"I'm officially addicted. I hope this feeling never ends…"

Now where's my toaster oven?

All sorts of cool stuff...

I joined the Briar Rose KAL. I have 1550 yards of Legacy that I want to make into a shawl from Victorian Lace Today and I'm going to need all the support I can get. What I didn't count on was prizes! I won this:
3 skeins of Sonoma! I'm so thrilled! I'm not too sure what I'm going to make with it but I can't wait to wind it up!

I also have a finish to report...

I just love the way the stitches on this scarf look.