h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

[p] bleary-eyed and back in the office.

Happy New Year

I'm back jobhunting now...
Spent the evening watching a video, then heard the chimes on the radio, toasted with elderflower cordial. Went to G's parents yesterday, and met his grandmothers, who are very nice. Ended up acquiring a couple of serving dishes and some random cutlery as one of them is down sizing and needs to dispose of some stuff.

I hate Top Gear, I really do. I feel that the presenters might as well just spend the hour shouting "I am male!" at the top of their voices.

I guess I'm not part of the target audience.

I guess I'm not either. Top Gear is very silly (at best). It reminds me a lot of brother, for some reason, probably because he likes cars. A lot. I don't even know how anyone can talk about cars for more than about three minutes at a time.

Anyway...

Belated happy new year to everyone!

No Top Gear here - my cable company doesn't carry BBC America. I watched the caravan episode on the web yesterday though, and thought it was very amusing.

[GDZ]

Top Gear makes me laugh. It's the sheer silliness and testosterone fuelled-ness of it all. Mind you, I sometimes don't know whether I'm laughing with them or at them.
It's filmed somewhere near Guildford, which is about half an hour's drive from the Towers. One of these days I might just get tickets.
I saw JC once, down at Beaulieu where the motor museum is, and the kindest way of putting it is to say he's uniquely proportioned.

The festive season is definitely over now as far as I'm concerned. A combination of steroids and Eating for England has done me no favours.
Last night was our final blow-out. Champagne; Blinis with sour cream/horseradish and smoked salmon; Roast rack of venison with redcurrant jus, celeriac mash, parsnip baked with gruyere, garlic and cream, carrots, sprouts with lime, garlic and hazelnuts, and a rather good Crozes Hermitage; Xmas pud with double cream and brandy butter.
No wonder I can hardly move today

I'm just back from putting Ma on a plane to Scotland. It was touch-and-go whether we got there in time for the flight, thanks to a major motorway snarl up.

*drags herself in, having endured 180 posts in new thread, taken in in small snippets all through the first w*rking day of the new year*

Blinis? Matina, I need a large G&T to recuperate, please!

Matina, as it's just not good to have a woman drinking alone, may I have one, too?

It's too early here for a G&T or I'd join Titania and Santra.

Mother, bless her rapidly decreasing gray matter, has frozen pipes this morning. She has lived in that house since 1954. She knows that she has to drip the water when it gets cold - 8ºF/-13ºC overnight. She was reminder twice yesterday to drip the water. Then I went into the bathroom before I left yesterday afternoon and dripped it for her. Which she obviously turned back off.

So, I get a phone call from her telling me that she may have to come to my house for a couple of days. OH NO SHE ISN'T! She can just sit there and stew. She has lots of juice, milk and pop to drink. She's po'd because she can't make coffee. Tough.

Then I went out to leave for work and the Olds wouldn't start. Too cold. Fortuantely the old Escort fired right up.

New Year's eve was unexciting but pleasant. Yesterday was fair considering I had Her Crankiness for most of the day. We didn't have anything traditional. I fixed a chicken in the oven with home made BBQ sauce so I wouldn't have any MSG, HFCS, etc. I made some Spanish rice to go with it and a couple of vegetables. Hot cheesy bread for her, which I had to smell, wanted, but couldn't have. Finished off the pumpkin pie.

My closet project didn't materialize. After I got back home from Mother's, I took a bubble bath, put on something comfy, put some nice music on the stereo, opened a new bottle of Bombay Sapphire and got quietly mellow.

It's almost a relief to be back at work. Not quite

Three's company! Matina, another G&T, please.

none for me, thanks. I had my New Year's fun, but now it's time to just not drink for a while. I get like that.

Mmmm.... Bombay Sapphire gin... I do like a good G&T.

> I refuse to eat blackeyed peas. They are disgusting,

Whose blackeyed peas have you been eating, Hypatia? Well, like I always say, all the more for me.

I think I'm going to abstain from eating for the next week. I'm tired of food! I had to eat a bit of butternut soup for breakfast, but any more than that and my stomach will shut down. I'm not even going to get on the scales until I've had a week of dieting!

We had a nice and quiet New Year's eve - the police were out breathalyzing everybody and giving random blood tests, so we thought it best to stay home with the parents and a few friends.

i wish i was tired of food

Lentilla, the ones I've eaten had an odd texture and tasted like dirt. Some textures I just can't hack. Take garbanzos...please. With them, it isn't the flavor I can't handle, it is the texture. I like most dried/fresh shelled legumes. I could probably eat beans in some form every day of my life and not get tired of them. But not blackeyed peas.

Tired...of...food?

Tired of food? How does that happen?

_One_ evening in my life I've come close to say "food? never again!" It was after a 4-course dinner, not even particularly expensive, at Le Procope in Paris - according to what they say the oldest running restaurant there.

OK, it probably was a mistake to take their word that the onion soup (with gratinée bread on the top as it the tradition) was a 'rather small portion'. We estimated - not exaggerating at all - half a liter of rich broth, thick with onions. Delicious, though.

The second, and more fatal, mistake was to order banana split for dessert

A couple of cognacs / armagnacs at a nearby bar put us right though, and we started the rest of our lives with breakfast the next morning

Hypatia, I'll take your garbanzos if you take my brussels sprouts!

I like food...far too much, if my waistband is any indication.

Lentilla - The police take people's blood? That'd keep me inside certainly.

I usually don't like having to ID customers at work. I feel like when I refuse to serve them I'm accusing them of lying. It was a relief to have a couple of young lads asking for cigarettes today, because I know darned well that they *were* lying. Such a weight off my mind.