So, nobody told me……

That the older you get the busier you get.

What’s up with that, I thought you were supposed to slow down? I’m not sure I like this.

First things first. Dave and I now have Andy living with us for a few weeks. He arrived while we were in London with a friend of his; Antony and they had a good time. Unfortunately Antony had to go back to London because of work but has another ticket to come back here this weekend (I know, it’s kind of crazy but he wanted to do it). Anyway poor thing got back home (in 1st class) only have an a cysts start to grow very fast on a certain part of his body. This was causing pain in the extreme so he went to the doctor’s right away.

Emergency surgery!

And he still plans on coming back to DC this weekend after this ordeal, how crazy is that?

Anyway, I’ll get to meet Antony finally after reading his blog for a couple of months now. I think we’ll be walking gingerly around him while he recovers.

We will be having a 40th birthday celebration this Friday. Our friends Simon and John are back in town and it’s Simon’s big 40 so we’re having a surprise party Friday at 5 for him. Hopefully it will not turn into a complete blow out because we have our Italian lesion in the morning and I don’t want to miss it.

Saturday is pretty much clear except for the Italian lesion. We’re having a brunch on Sunday in honor of Simon and John. A friend from the UK was supposed to make it but he’s gotten an ear infection and is grounded. So that’s it pretty much for the weekend to come, now for some stuff about the past last two weekends.

First off two weekends ago was Kiat’s 30th birthday. Can you believe we’ve known each other for over 8.5 years? Isn’t that amazing. I never knew I hung out with such chicken back then. The party was great with a little bit of drama. Seems that the caterers said they would make one drink and then tried to come out with another one when they actually got there. Kiat was not a happy camper. Luckily they mostly fixed the situation. I ended up staying there until about 3:30am. Had a blast and wasn’t too trashed which is always a good thing.

The next day we did brunch and then went to Kiat’s house again. I stayed until about 6 at which point I just couldn’t stand it and had to go home. Bed was calling my name.

I’ll write more about the next weekend and the London trip a bit later. I’m swamped at work right now and my Italian hasn’t been getting the attention it needs in the evenings.

I'm alive, just bloody busy!

I'm in London this week. Work and pleasure.

I have lots to talk about from the last post, here are some bullet points

Kiat's 30 birthday party
Matthew's first day at the job
Busy, Busy, Work, Work.

When I get some more time I'll expand on the topics above.

Until then,

Slugs and Hisses,

Chris

Spring meeting hell, or Chicago in the spring.

Sitting in the Red Carpet Club at O’Hare.

Well, well, well. This wasn’t my average week at all. I’ve been in Chicago all week working our spring meeting, and surprisingly it wasn’t that bad. Although it seems like I’ve been here forever, but that’s because of the five hours sleep every day since Tuesday. Tuesday and Wednesday were quite busy. I ran around and set up all the computers to be able to access our network and our database.

I was also on hand for some of the big wigs meetings. Mainly to make sure things went smoothly. It’s fascinating to hear all the stuff they talk about. Not going into that here though.

Thursday wasn’t so busy in that all the setup was done and there were no more meeting that I need to be in, and I question why I was even there on Friday (today).

I don’t think I mentioned this but I didn’t know that I was going to be here until last Thursday so it was a very last moment kind of thing. I’m glad to be going home now.

Now some thought on Chicago in general. I like the place but I couldn’t imagine living here. I’m not sure what it is but there is just something that’s not quite right.

It might be that most everyone here is large, having eaten in a few restaurants here I understand why. The amount of food served here is beyond belief. There is no reason for anyone to eat a 22oz steak, none. And then if you want some greens you have to order them on the side. I’ve seen this before in places in the rest of the US but in Chicago every other restaurant is like that. It’s also very expensive. Seven of us went to a steak house and it was $800.00, and I only had two appetizers.

Another thing. Why do all the bathrooms have attendants up here. I find this a bit creepy. Someone is paid to sit in the bathroom and wait for people to finish their business, he (men’s bathroom) will then turn the water on for you and squirt soap in your hands and hand you a towel to dry with. Then you reach into your pocket and take a nasty ole paper bill and give him a tip. I just fine it strange that someone is paid to watch you pee.

If you think you have a bad job, just look at what I wrote above and thank god you’re not doing that.

Lastly, everyone smokes and I mean everyone. You can smoke in almost any venue. It’s just strange seeing it after DC banned it in-doors. Now, I am one know to partake every so often (the weekends) but it was just gross.

Oh yea, Chicago has really tall building too. Kind of cool

Don’t stay at the Hyatt Regency on Wacker drive. It’s a dump. That’s where our meeting was. Needed updating badly.

I also didn’t get my upgrade on the way home. Too many people and a full plane of people with status.

Dinner parties galore

It’s been a week since I last wrote, a very hectic work schedule is the cause.

The girl that works for me is out for a funeral in Jamaica so I’m doing her work along with mine. We also have the spring meeting coming up this week and I found out last Thursday that I would be going this Tuesday to provide Tech support. Just another example of my work’s brilliant planning skills. All of this and the fact that I had a gourmet dinner planned for Saturday evening made me wake up at 2:30am on Friday night. Ughh. I “computed” for about an hour and had a very strong gin and tonic thinking that would help, it didn’t. Dave ended up waking up and coming to find out where I was, he was smart enough to recommend a sleeping pill. I took one and was asleep within 15 minutes.

The only problem with those things is I don’t feel like I really sleep when I take one. So even though I was passed out from the pill, I felt like I only had 3 hours sleep the whole day. It was horrible.

Anyway, we had Robert and Kathy, Ralph and Amy, Mikko and Rob, and Maria for dinner on Saturday evening. One of the reason I couldn’t sleep the night before was the dinner and who was going to be there. Mikko is the chief at the Finnish Embassy so I always try to cook something impressive when he comes over. Also Robert and Kathy love to go to good restaurants and know their wines, they even own some land in California growing grapes for wine making. So I was worried everything would turn out well. This is what we had.

Seared sea scallops atop wilted spinach with a calvados cream sauce for the starter.

Grapefruit and Gin sorbet for a pallet cleanser.

Lamb chops done French style with saffron rice and grilled asparagus for the main. The saffron came from our friend Andy direct from India.

Homemade cream cheese ice cream (sounds funny but it was amazing) with half a poached pear cut into a fan, poached figs and a red peppercorn sauce.

Very rarely does everything go right and Saturday night, it all went right! I was thrilled with the results and there was nothing left on the plates. I love having dinner parties because it’s one of the few things in life that I get instant gratification out of. One day of cooking and happy people at the end of it . Always good.

For the nine of us, we went through 3 bottles of Champaign, four bottle of white wine, 5 bottles or red wine, a whole bottle of Pear Williams brandy, and most of a bottle or regular brandy. This doesn’t even include the shots (grapefruit and gin sorbet) that where served before the main. We were all very happy by the end of the meal.

I got up on Sunday before Dave which is very unusual for me. I had my coffee and then ended up munching on the rest of the sorbet. So I got a bit toasty in the morning and started making calls. We ended up at Tony and Kiat’s house after I picked up lil’David from the circle. So it’s Tony, Michael Mathews, lil’David, Rob and Mikko, Dave, Kiat and myself sitting on the back deck drinking for the whole afternoon, and it was a gorgeous day. All of this before we go to Brett’s for dinner at 6 that evening.

We get there and we have exactly the same thing I served the night before at my dinner party. Scallops to start with, lamb for the main and ice cream for dessert. It was all quite good but very funny. We meet some interesting people whose names I can’t remember. Mind you I was pretty tanked at this point to the point that remembering the meal was pretty amazing.

We then leave that party and remember that Rick has a come meet the mother thing going on at his place which is on the walk back home. So we stop in for yet one more drink. We stay for just a little bit. I was exhausted at this point so we take a cab back home.

Next thing I know, it’s morning and I have to go to work. I’m moving a little bit slow today. Tomorrow I’m off to Chicago for my work’s spring meeting. Hopefully I’ll be able to write some where I’m there.