Sunday, November 18, 2007

Hello, world!

The debut of Mortified Austin went very well. It sold out (which isn't saying much because the space only holds about 35 people, but still...), and all of the performers did very well. David Nadelberg, the author of the book, was there, and was super nice. And CUTE! I mean, based on the adolescent photo of him in the book, I never would've guessed it. We put the show on again in a couple of weeks, so if you didn't go this time, try to go next time...and get your tickets early, yo.

Saturday was the big fall cultural festival at The Geej's school. One part of it was a big cultural potluck where you're supposed to bring a dish that speaks of your heritage. Well, since my "heritage" is deep east Texas, I briefly considered bringing blackeyed peas and cornbread. But then I decided to go with something from The Geej's country of origin and found a recipe for "Russian Tea Cookies" on this Russian food site, and decided to make those instead. The recipe for "Veal Tongue in Aspic" was tempting, but I decided to stick with the cookies.

Let me disclose that I do not bake. I'm a pretty good cook, but baking is not my thing. Never has been. So the fact that I chose to make cookies FROM SCRATCH that were meant to be eaten by total strangers should send a slight shiver down your spine. Did I mention that each potluck dish had to have a label on it that said your name, the dish's name, country of origin, and ingredients? So yeah...it's not like I could be all anonymous if they sucked. And also? No "do overs." I found this recipe at 9:30am Saturday morning, and these suckers had to be cooked and at the festival by 3:00pm.

Luckily, they didn't. In fact, they were damn good if I do say so myself. Yeah, I took photos. But I was PROUD, y'all! My first cookies from scratch EVER, and they were pretty AND yummy. Then again, there were 4 STICKS OF BUTTER in these suckers...and powdered sugar, so really, how could they NOT be good?
The festival was really great in theory. The potluck was awesome, the silent auction had a lot of nice goodies that had been donated (I have yet to see if I won the yoga classes, acupuncture, massage session or microdermabrasion I bid on. Do you see a theme here?), the two moonwalks and face painting and balloon animal stations were a hit, the Mariachis were entertaining. However, the RAIN sucked. That's right: It was cloudy all day, and about 15 minutes before the festival was due to begin, it started to rain. Lightly at first, and then pretty steadily. I was working the entry table, and we were soaked. The moonwalk had to be shut down. Most of the potluck (except for the dessert tables, which were under tents) had to be hurriedly moved into one of the classrooms and everyone went scurrying for what little shelter there was. Bummer. Oh well... I hope they do something similar next fall, because really, it was pretty cool. Oh yeah: And the Geej won a HUGE cake in the cake walk. I'm serious--this thing is monstrous. We haven't even cut into it yet, so I have no idea what kind of cake it actually is.

Later, after the festival, we were going to go to a 40th birthday party for one of Mr. Wonderful's friends, but The Geej and I bowed out, and let Mr. W. go alone...and in peace.

Today, we all went to Southpark Meadows for lunch and to let Geej run off some of her energy on the awesome playscape. Then we came home, and Geej and I took a freakin THREE HOUR nap. I can't believe we were actually able to get her to sleep pretty easily tonight.

Now it's time to go watch America's Most Smartest Model, so I'll post more tomorrow. I swear.

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