I attended my company holiday party on Friday night. On the way to the hotel, I passed a performance being given by school-age children. It was so cute to see them dressed as ginger bread people!
This year I went stag. My plan was to say "hello" to everyone, eat, and be gone. Going alone is fun when your co-workers are similar in age and life stage. In my case, sitting around with couple that have kids and/or are pregnant is challenging. Naturally they all want to compare notes and share stories about child rearing. What am I supposed to do?
All in all it was nice to meet my co-workers' spouses. It's important to put on a happy face and be seen. I high-tailed it out of there once the dancing started and I'd had my fill of dessert.
Saturday morning was a volunteer event. I love being able to help give underprivileged children gifts. Some of us talked about the unrealistic expectations some kids have these days. One person recalled seeing a child ask for an iPod, another wanted an XBox in other locations. When a family is not in good financial health, how can these kids think to ask for something so expensive from strangers? How does a kid learn to be humble versus demanding?
We started talking about all these examples of people who have their priorities in the wrong place. I remember a news segment fifteen years ago where they interviewed people standing in a food line in the Bronx. The reported asked each person if they owned a microwave, had a telephone, had cable tv. Many said "yes." In another example, someone shared how she was unable to reach a single mother for a charity donation meeting. The woman could not pay her phone bill, and service had been cut. Yet, she had premium cable and a family season tickets to an amusement park. One guy volunteered with a group that did repairs for low-income families. They were sent to repair a hole in the roof over the children's bedroom. He was surprised to walk through their living to see a huge projection tv and stereo system. Maybe some of these people had a good explanation, but it just doesn't look good.
In the afternoon, I was supposed to watch my friend's annual holiday performance, but I skipped it in light of the weather and traffic. Instead, I went home and took a nap before heading out for another holiday gathering.
My friend's business school friend was having a big party at a local club. Although I knew no one but her, I thought it would be good to get to know new people. Parking took forever. It's one of those neighborhood's where you know there's NEVER any parking. After 30 minutes of driving in circles, I paid $8 at a garage.
I tried my best to meet people, but it's hard when you know many are not sober and have been smoking something. Still, they were a fun group. Dancing was great because the DJ picked the best 80s songs. It was cool to seem him get into the music as much as the crowd.
On Sunday morning I slept in as long as I could. I found someone on Ebay who had been unable to sell some cookware that I had been eyeing. I asked her to consider selling it to me for less after no one matched the price she wanted.
We agreed to meet at a cafe downtown. I arrived early in hopes of writing some Xmas cards, but the cafe was packed. I decided to walk over to the Farmers' market for a bit. This is the last week for persimmons, so I wanted to buy a bagful. I marveled at all the beautiful vegetables - leeks, celery root, squash, trumpet mushrooms, radishes, etc. I wanted to buy some but realized that I have no idea how to cook some of them. Maybe it'd be fun to buy something and then look up on the Internet for ways to prepare it. This way I'd learn something new and hopefully have a tasty meal to show for it. Next time... for now, I settled on some beautiful bell peppers and Japanese eggplant that I'll saute in my new pan. :)
I had just enough time to drop off the groceries at home before running to my next event. A friend of my cousin's arranged for free makeovers by a woman launching her own line of cosmetics geared towards Asian faces - Thi Cosmetics. I'm not big into makeup, but it's always fun to see what they suggest and learn new techniques. It turned out to be rather fun, except for getting my brows plucked. The makeup felt light and highlighted my features well while looking natural. I did buy a couple items like the Soy cream and Quinn lipstick. I've been needing a new red lipcolor.
The next activity of the day would have been Jew's annual White Elephant party. I was sad that she chose a Sunday evening for it. With all my running around, I really wanted a quieter night and wasn't in the mood for driving almost 70 miles each way to be there. She was very understanding about it.
I've been meaning to bake cookies to take to work. I love making desser recipes. It's been challenging to find the time. I thought I'd start out by at least making the dough since it refrigerates well and finishing the baking another night after work. I guess I was on a roll, because I spent the entire evening baking. There was some 1.5 pounds of butter, 2.5 cups of sugar, and 5 cups of flour involved.
I ran over to the television between steps to watch "The Amazing Race." The finale was rather disappointing. The last part seemed way too simple. I wonder if they edited out some of the final challenges. The "Survivor" finale next Sunday will hopefully be much more interesting.
All in all I spent 5+ hours measuring, mixing, and baking. Towards the end I developed a pretty good system of preparing one sheet of tea cakes while the ginger cookies baked and vice versa. The only tricky part was alternating the oven temperature between 300F and 325F. The pizzelles probably are the most time consuming since only two came be made at a time and it requires constant attention. I ended up making four dozen chewy ginger cookies, two dozen chocolate pizzelles, and three dozen tea cakes. Yum!
Whatever cookies don't get eaten at work will go with me to my next volunteer event tonight. I'll be wrapping more gifts for kids. Whee!
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