First Annual Immigrant Dinner (a.k.a. Thanksgiving)

Now that we have a dining room that can hold more than 4 people and several friends that are away from their families during the holiday season, it seemed appropriate to hold the First Annual Immigrant Dinner on Thanksgiving. Even if the walls weren't painted and we had to cobble together the tables and chairs from the random collection of furniture that we have.

The criteria for getting an invitation was that at least one of the couple should be a non-UK citizen. So, we had some folks you know already from the blog: Hachie Gal and Budman--Texans; Banana (Canadian/Croatian) and Sven (Swedish/Croatian); and newcomers to the blog, The Skids (Mrs. Skid is Texan, Mr. Skid is English) and The Falcon & Buffy--both Aussies.
Here's a terribly blurry shot of all of us (except Paulster--the photographer):


I was in charge of the Turkey and Potatoes Supreme--no holiday celebration is complete without Potatoes Supreme...So, my local butcher hooked me up with a 15 pound (weight, not price) turkey--which cooked up nicely thanks to a tip from Nigella Lawson--Domestic Goddess.
The other immigrants brought the rest of the fantastic fare...and in true Thanksgiving Day fashion, there was TONS of great food.

Due to the vet trip (see last posting) I didn't quite have everything together, but thankfully, Mrs. Skid arrived early and helped me unpack the china and crystal and silver and get the table set. And the Budman was travelling back from Iceland that day--he arrived just in time to help his plate with the rest of us!

Here's a picture of the bird halfway through carving.


Thanks to having double ovens, we were able to get everything warmed so that we could eat on schedule. It was imperative to eat in enough time to watch the Dallas Cowboys stomp the Seattle Seahawks! How 'bout them Cowboys!!!

The Falcon was in charge of the playlist and it was wonderfully entertaining--especially the track with The Falcon himself on vocals. Great songs in the background of the evening chatter.

A Thanksgiving Day spread isn't complete without an array of desserts. Of course, the Pumpkin Pie. Hachie Gal brought the ingredients and I made the crust (thanks to Ouidie's tutoring when I was young). The Falcon made his famous Rum Cake--beautiful and tasty. And Banana made Raspberry and Blueberry Blondies and a Canadian dessert bar whose name escapes me...special multi-cultural treats topped off our feasts.

Here's a shot of the dessert table.


As a stranger in this country, I am truly thankful to have such a great group of friends to share a special day. And I'm not sure we'll ever know the meaning of 6 lemons in a line.

Our first CAT-Astrophe

Well, I certainly hoped it would be a long while into cat-ownership before I had my first "emergency" vet experience. Not to be.
On Thursday, in addition to having a client meeting this morning and preparing for the 1st Annual Immigrant Dinner in London (that's Thanksgiving Day dinner to my friends based in America)...I got to take Sulley (the older fluffy one) to the vet.

I was horrified the night before at 11pm when I called Sulley into the house and he came...slowly, limping. I picked him up and saw some blood on his chest. He had multiple puncture wounds--presumably from getting bitten by another cat and his poor leg was very sore.
He lurked around that night and was in obvious pain--and grouchy. He didn't want anyone touching him. The next morning, Paulster researched vets on the web while I was in my client meeting. He made Sulley an appointment for later than afternoon. Dr. Katie was very nice and checked out the damage done by apparent fighting, as Sulley comes to grips with his pecking order in the neighborhood.

He got two shots--one for pain and one was an antibiotic. Later that night at the Immigrant Dinner (more on that later), he was back to himself, mingling with the crowd.
We go back to see Dr. Katie on Monday for a checkup--but it's clear that he's out of the woods.
Can't wait for the next one...[note sarcasm].

Here's a picture of Sulley from a few days earlier, as he was getting used to his new back garden [yard].

Heaven

Yesterday, I went to heaven. Costco. The warehouse store that is like a super-sized version of Target—my favourite store in the world. Fantastic.

Going to the warehouse store was a regular occurrence when I lived in Texas—if not a social event. My friend Rox and I used to go at lunchtime for a little shopping and have a slice of pizza!
In Texas, I had plenty of space to store 48 rolls of toilet paper and 32 rolls of paper towels [kitchen roll].
In Richmond, there simply wasn’t space for all that stuff—so I had not stepped foot in a Costco (or equivalent) in the UK in almost 4 years!

Sure, when I visited Texas or California, I’d take a trip in and stock up on monster-sized bottle of Ibuprofen or Flintstones vitamins—but never in the UK have I had enough toilet paper in stock to keep Moquitos’ fear of running out at bay. Maybe now, Moquitos and LB1 can come for a visit! ;)

The trip was really precipitated by the arrival of Kenny and Sulley. Eventually, they’ll go outside to do most of their “business”, but we’ll always need the litter box—ergo, kitty litter, in bulk.

And now, we have garage shelves (courtesy of Hachie Gal and Budman--a purchase from Costco in Korea--I believe) and plenty of pantry space! So, I had a meeting close to the Costco in Reading, so after my meeting, I popped in, got my membership and started shopping! I was giddy as I glided around with my oversized basket filling it easily!

We now have approximately 1 ton of washing powder [clothes detergent], 3,000 sheets of Bounce for the dryer, 2 tons of kitty litter (scoop-able, of course), ½ of a cow (actually 4 lovely “Texas-sized” ribeye steaks), and 12 gigantic rolls of paper towels. The boot [trunk] of the Golf was full to bursting!

This time, I stuck to my list and still managed to spend a small fortune. But I’m sure there will be a time when I go crazy and impulse buy. I guess that’s the danger of going to heaven…for those of you who have access to Costco and Sam’s regularly—count your blessings!

Trick or Treat--UK Style

Last weekend was Halloween and we had Drama and Blondie for 6 days over their mid-term break. We went to Sheffield over the weekend to see Paulster's family. The girls got to go Trick or Treating with their cousins.
Here's a picture of the whole motley crew! Drama and Cousin A were devils--obviously. And Blondie and Suzie Q were witches.


For me, watching the UK style of Trick or Treating was amusing. This is clearly a society that has picked up the activity and tried to make it a tradition from watching films and TV from the US, without the benefit of the protocol that underlies it.

In the US, we'd only go houses that had the lights on--clearly, if the lights aren't on, then no one there wants to participate. The kids here don't know that, so even though we'd turned off the lights at Nanny's house and people were still ringing the doorbell all night.
And here, when the kids would go to a house that was lighted, thinking someone in there had candy for them, sometimes, there'd be no answer. Then, the kids would spot someone moving in the house and want to keep ringing the doorbell until someone answered. It was like calling off a pack of wolves! :)
And it wasn't the orderly procession through the neighbourhood from one lighted house to another...Instead, we went from one of Cousin A's friend's houses to the next.

We went to Sheffield and back on the train. Here are a few pictures of us goofing around with chocolate eyeballs on the train ride home.






It was a good weekend of fun and family.

Our Expanding Family...Introducing...

Sulley and Kenny.
Paulster and I decided that our lives (and home) have stabilised enough to add a couple of new members to our family--of the feline variety. We surfed the web and found a cat rescue place that had 2 that we liked the looks of.

We contacted the rescue and they came out for a home visit--to make sure we weren't axe murderers, I guess. Really they were checking things like, do we live too close to a railway line or busy road, or is there a pack of Rottweilers roaming the nearby gardens [yards] that would want to pull our kitties to bits.

We then planned the day of adoption. On a day when the Drama and Blondie were visiting during their mid-term break, we planned for the rescue lady to bring the new members of our family to the local train station. We kept it a secret from the girls and boy were they surprised! (and happy).

We took both of the cats home and started getting them used to each other and to us.
Here's a picture of Sulley.



He's 7 years old and a Persian-cross breed. His former owners are immigrating to Canada and have a new baby, so I guess he was relegated to a lower social standing as a result...He was named Snoopy--but who wants a cat that's named after a dog? Not me. So I chose to name him after the Monsters, Inc. character--James P. Sullivan "Sulley"--the big blue hairy Chief Scarer--voiced by John Goodman.
To me, it seemed like a good transitional name from Snoopy to Sulley--same length and beginning and ending letters/sounds--he seems to be getting used to it.

And here's a picture of Kenny and his proud Dad. He's a 6 month-old kitten and full of energy! He's very lovable and snuggly. His original name was Conker--which I think in the US we call a horse chestnut. He was a stray and a vet in East London took him in for re-homing. They snipped and chipped him and now he's ours!



Paulster named him "Kenny", after Kenny Dalglish, "the greatest footballer to ever play for Liverpool", he says. Click his name to get a bio on Kenny's namesake.

Sulley is getting to where he tolerates Kenny and is friendly with us. I woke up the first morning to sweet kitty kisses from Sulley.

Here's a picture of them the first night, with Sulley looking down from his perch on the window sill while Kenny eats his food. I guess you can always count on the little brother to be annoying!



4 days later, they're sharing another window sill in the guest bedroom. That lasts until Kenny decides he wants to play and bugs Sulley. Which usually results in a nice hiss and swat from big brother.



And here's Kenny tasting a house plant, whilst sitting on top of the TV. Yeah, we'll have to figure out which (if any) of the houseplants are poisonous to the felines and take action accordingly. Sooner rather than later, I'd say!



And one of him relaxing under the coffee table. You can see he's not camera shy in the least!



We're really happy to have some furry friends to share our home! Wish us luck, we're a bit rusty at the having pets thing...