Bliss à la belge
Lunch at the Whetstone, featuring some sort of exotic Trappist Christmas ale and a plate of mussels in a rich broth. Yummy!
GingerBrooks House… not the first time this building has looked like a Gingerbread House.
Last night I was introduced to the best party game ever…
Cards Against Humanity
Oh, the weather outside is frightful
A foot of snow overnight leads to giant bucket loaders at 3:00 AM. But, we have a pallet of pellets tucked up in the shed, and Christmas lion keeps stern watch for intruders.
$30,000 lasagna
Not sure how long it’s been since we actually made lasagna from scratch, but it’s been a while.
So, tonight, we did. The new Advantium oven might mostly just be a gadget, but tonight it made PERFECT lasagna and so made up for its high price tag.
We don’t actually cook all that much these days, so we have to amortize the cost of the oven — and the rest of the kitchen remodel — over a smaller number of meals. Still, crispy cheese, bubbly sauce… priceless.
Messiah Sing-Along
This afternoon I went with Sage and MaryLu to the annual Messiah Sing-Along at Centre Congregational Church. I started singing this music in high school and have attended community Messiah sings on and off ever since. The event benefits our local homeless shelter, and in my view their non-religious work is as Christian as anything can be.
For whatever set of reasons, this music, celebrating a miracle I don’t believe in, written in a style I ordinarily avoid, KILLS me every time. I’m choked up by the first big chords at the end of the Prelude, teary-eyed with the alto’s Good Tidings, and by the time His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, I can’t really even sing at all. And of course I haven’t been a real tenor for a long time now, except alone in the car where I still got it (yeah I’m talking to you Nate from Fun). But it’s the part I know, so I sit with the tenors, clench my cheeks and aim for most of the high notes anyway.
This was a decidedly local production… I think the only soloist who makes a musical living was the mezzo/alto, who was hiding an enormous oak barrel in her abdomen and somehow singing from inside it… great! We had no orchestra, but a very spirited organist kept things moving beautifully. The soprano is an attorney in town, and her voice was just pretty until she opened up and smacked a couple of ad lib runs all the way out of the park, at which point we all knew this Jesus person is not to be trifled with.
My copy of the score was given to me 20 years ago !!! by a dear if now distant friend, and it’s a treasured possession… at least partly for the sinful smugness I feel when I bypass the score rental table.
Lee worked the phones to find me a date, for which I am very thankful. It was a great afternoon.
Dim sum carnage
What do you do with that last $20 in local currency when you are leaving a foreign country? Add to your wife’s blingy phone cover collection, of course.
Brattleboro Adventure – the Auckland Edition 