"If I just ignore him maybe this pumpkin head will go away."

I was so taken with the new toilet seat we purchased today that I had to shoot a quick video of it in action. Enjoy!

Separated at birth?

The one famous person that people always say I look like is the ex-coach of the Chicago Bulls, Phil Jackson. What do you think?






I was sick as a dog with a 103 degree fever and a runny nose when this picture was taken, which I think is the reason my nose looks big and puffy in this picture. Just try to ignore that.

After five years of living here we do not really have any friends in the neighborhood. We know a couple of our neighbors well enough to have a little talk when we are both out working in the yard, or to ask them to watch the house when we are on vacation, but no one to go out to dinner with or watch a movie.

To remedy this Sheri started doing some investigation and found a few neighborhood clubs. She signed up for the monthly bunco club and has already been to one of those. She had a good time and met the head of another club called the Gourmet Club.

The information she brought back home was it only meets four times per year, and it is just going to someone's house and everyone brings a side dish. OK. I can do that and it sounds like a good way to meet people. It cost $30 to sign up for the club.

Tonight was the annual kickoff meeting. There were 35 couples, which means 70 people. It was a little awkward at first because we didn't know anyone, but then a guy recognized us that we rode the bus with to the train station when we first moved here. Then his wife joined in the conversation, and then a women that knew the bus guy joined our circle and brought her husband. So within 30 minutes we had a pretty lively conversation going and felt right at home.

The official meeting part of it started at 9 PM and we all moved into the house. They passed out a little hand-stapled booklet that had the word "rules" in the title. Warning bells went off in my head. Why do you need "rules" to have dinner at someone's house?

I did some quick flipping through the booklet and came to a page with the dates of the four dinners. Under each date had every couple's name grouped with three other couple's names. The word "host" was by the first couple's name in each group. More warning bells, and louder this time. I looked for our name. On the date of the third dinner the word "host" was next to our name. "Whoop! Whoop! Whoop! Warning Will Robinson! Danger! Danger!"

I just wanted to go to someone's house, bring a side dish, and mingle with people and basically blend into the background. I don't want to have to host a gourmet dinner night for three other couples I don't know. I was a little annoyed because I was roped into something without knowing all of the facts.

The topic for tonight was cordials. A couple women were standing up in front of everyone and would talk about a liqueur and what cordial they were going to make with it. They made the drinks in little plastic cups that probably only held a couple ounces, and I think they made four different drinks. In between talking about the drinks, mixing the drinks, and passing out the drinks we started talking to the couple that was sitting next to us. It turns out they live just a few houses down and have three boys. They said they are going to have us over to their house soon for a cookout or something, and they have a trampoline they said Sheri could use any time she wants.

So that was the third nice couple we met and liked inside of 90 minutes, and I looked around the room and it seemed like most of the people looked nice, so I started to change my outlook on hosting a dinner. We only have to make the main course and provide drinks. We get to tell everyone else what side dish to bring, and it's not like we have to find seats for 70 people like the couple did tonight. Only eight people.

So after my initial uptightness and social anxiety fears subsided I think I am looking forward to these small intimate dinners and will be a good way to meet a lot of people in the neighborhood.

We are already talking about what we will have on our menu. It falls on St. Patrick's day so the question is do we do the obvious boiled corned beef and cabbage or Reuben sandwiches, or do we do something totally unrelated to corned beef. They purposely do not schedule new couples to host a dinner until the third or fourth dinner so we get a feel for how to host one. Maybe a boiled corned beef dinner isn't gourmet enough. I think we might contact the three couples that will be at our house and ask them if they want to go with corned beef or something different.

It turned out that the guy that hosted tonight's get-together works for one of the engineering firms we use and knew at least half-a-dozen people in common! Small world. They were really nice people and had a cool house. He is bridge engineer and she reminded us of Bree Vandekamp.They just installed a large koi pond in the backyard. He built a permanent round brick fire pit that us and the first two couples were sitting around at first. Lots of nice landscaping and strategic plants.

Everyone got to go home with a nice bottle of wine, a bottle of pre-mixed Kaula white Russian, and a table decoration that the host couple made out of a wine bottle. They drilled a hole in the back and fed in a small string of twinkle lights and decorated the top of it with some plastic grape vines. It looks really neat.

We had a nice nine day vacation to visit our families last week. I still have write about it.

We went into the city Wednesday night to see Cat Power in concert at The Vic. I still have to write about it.

Early tomorrow morning we are going to watch a cricket match. I want to write about it.

We are going to a neighborhood gourmet club party tomorrow night. I will probably write about it.