Rabbit Style News

I’m hosting a Thanksgiving dinner for the first time.  There will be only five of us so it’s a fairly easy, relaxed foray into Thanksgiving at my place.  I set my alarm for noon to make sure I got up in time to cook all the food I didn’t prepare ahead of time, and now it’s barely 3 o’clock and I’m almost done.  Guests will arrive starting at 4:30.  Now that I have a dinner table — two little folding tables put together, with a sheet as a tablecloth and plastic folding chairs alongside — I plan to host dinner parties on a regular basis.

Today’s menu:

– Cheese, crackers, and grapes plate

– Stuffed Tofurkey, brought by a friend
– Mashed potatoes
– Roasted rosemary brussels sprouts
– Turnip greens with caramelized onion
– Potatoes and turnips au gratin
– Tossed green salad
– Fresh cranberry-orange sauce
– French bread
– Wine

– Apple crisp with vanilla ice cream
– Pumpkin pie (first time I’ve made it, we’ll see how it turns out)
– Assorted teas

• My birthday was a couple weeks ago.  My friends had a cake with candles at midnight on Zombie Prom night to recognize it, and then the following weekend people came over for a little party.  A few of us went out to what’s commonly known as the piano bar, where singers on two pianos and a back-up band play requests from the audience for tips.  It’s one large, intoxicated singalong pretty much.  The last song of the night was “Friends in Low Places” by Garth Brooks, which I’m sure they have to play every night — it’s the quintessential drunk singalong.

• I started a new job a couple weeks ago as well.  It’s at a different business unit of my same Fortune 500 company, in the equipment finance field instead of auto finance.  So far I’ve shuffled some papers around and put the files in various piles but haven’t learned much yet.  Real training will hopefully start this week sometime.  The people are nice enough and don’t seem to actively hate their jobs.  Oh, and there’s free soda!  The break room has two vending machines and all you have to do is press the button, without putting in any money, and a nice cold Sprite Zero or Diet Coke will come out!  For zero dollars!  It’s great.

• I’m back on caffeine again, after 10 months without it.  The new job is an hour earlier and I fell asleep at work my second day, so now I have half a can of soda around 10:30 a few times a week.  That’s only 20 mg of caffeine, so I’m off the wagon but still running along beside it

• My gentleman friend gave me a 30 gallon aquarium for my birthday and it will be ready for actual fish on Tuesday.  I’ll start with two guppies and if they don’t die I’ll buy another two guppies.  If those don’t die I’ll get a plecostamus and a pair of orange swordtails.

• The San Jose Sharks are still #1 in the league after a quarter of the season and I am still all about hockey.  They’re currently 15-3-1, and 10-0-1 at home.  They have NHL-best average shots per game, total goals scored, and wins at home.  (Basic lesson about hockey rankings: The first number is wins, the second is regulation losses, and the third is loss in overtime or shootout.  Teams receive 2 points for a win and 1 point for an overtime or shootout loss.  The top 8 teams in each of the two conferences go on to playoffs after the regular season is done.  There are 30 teams in the NHL,  6 of which are in Canadian cities, and each team plays 82 regular season games.  The playoffs are a 4-round tournament consisting of best-of-7 series.   Then winning team gets the Stanley Cup.  The Detroit Red Wings are the defending champions.)

Beyonce’s new song “Single Ladies” is my favorite music video right now.  It seems like really long takes and the simplicity is striking.  I want to learn how to do those moves around 0:55.  Hot damn.

The apron I made for Donna for her Running of the Bulls dream vacation was voted best of the swap!  Thanks to  everybody who voted for me and also thanks to Donna for being such a delightful model.  I’m sure that if she hadn’t submitted such a great picture her new apron wouldn’t have won.  Shawnee, the organizer of Flirty Apron Swap, said that a surprise is on its way to me in the mail.