Author: Doris

Party, party, party.

We started the day at 8:30 am with a breakfast birthday party at Annette and Frank’s apartment. They were celebrating Frank’s 35th birthday. We had a yummy breakfast of bread, cheese, chicken salad, fruit salad, tea, coffee and cereal. Yum. Jeremy brought back a lot of goodies for the Germans, including bread for Frank’s birthday and licorice candy for Patricia. Jeremy bought 5 bags of this cat-shaped candy for her and they were pretty awful tasting, but she seemed pleased. The kids got chocolate eggs filled with toys. These toys are pretty cool, they are quite complicated and mechanical.

Then we went home and got Emy and headed up to Bard for an afternoon birthday party for Vince, Edda and Bob. We had pizza and the chocolate cake that I made (which was quite fluffy when I pulled it out of the oven last night, but had collapsed to half of it’s height by this morning). Katherine made meringue. We all wore Thomas the Tank Engine hats and ate off Thomas the Tank Engine plates. They were left over from the party on Wed.

Then we headed home, dropped Emy off at the train station.

Jeremy is home!

Hooray! He’s home! Let’s see… On Friday, Vince went to school and had pizza day and I went to the a coffee clatch given by a German’s expat’s wife Annette. Annette has two kids, Ben and Henry. She usually hosts this coffee on Friday, I went a few weeks ago. Patricia, Zilka and Jackie were also there. It was such a wonderful time, we talked about our families and our kids and our trips and nude beaches and the kids all played wonderfully with each other.

Then I drove to Bard. That night, we tried to go to a Habitat for Humanity fundraiser at the Bard Student center, but they were giving out free food and the line was waaayyy tooo long. So Vince got a bag of Doritos and we went back to the Martin’s house for dinner.

This morning, Bob and Vince took the doggies for a walk to get the newspaper. When they got to the spot where the newspaper is delivered, it wasn’t there. They waited for a little while and they were about to turn back, but then the truck came by and the driver threw the paper out. Vince was very impressed. Bob left for NYC to hear cellists audition for the conservatory and Katherine and the kids and I went to the mall and bought some socks for the kids. Man, those socks disappear really, really quickly. I always seem to need to buy more. We had lunch at the food court. Then we went home and read stories and I left at 2 pm. Came back home and waited for Jeremy to come home (he got a ride from Bob). Emy came up too and is spending the night here in our apt. Tomorrow we are going to celebrate Bob, Vince and Edda’s birthday. I baked a chocolate-sour cream cake, we’ll see how it turned out tomorrow.

More Work & …

When I decided to visit Doris last week, work was pretty slow. That was why I drove off to see them before they are leaving for overseas. I thought the work load might drips, drips and drops to a complete stop. But, work is picking up again now. Part of it is due to re-analysis with revised input.

Well, I will submit a request for 3 weeks vacation without pay later this month. Hopefully, they will extend my job after that. But, not sure. If not, I will collect my un-employment insurance in Washington State for 6 months. But, hopefully, I will have something before that. If not, I will cook for Mom for 6 months with help from Mom & Doris before looking for another job. Doris showed me some of her cook books and a lot of ingredients from her pantry while I was in NY.

Do you folks still remember Ms. Pan? Our in-house keeper while you were young. She is a realtor. She is around Deerwood area and is asking, thru one of our common friends, whether we will sell our house or not yesterday. I told her friend not now.

Oh, the mediation session by the Maryland State will be held on Monday, March 21 in Baltimore.

Green frosting.

Vince’s birthday was nice. I dropped him off at school with his supplies and when I picked him us, Ms. Pat said that he had a nice day and that he had fun.

In the afternoon, we went to Bard and met Alex Cook who was up at Bard giving a talk on the Gang of Four. Started learning Chinese in college and now he says that he reads a lot of text in Chinese, but since he doesn’t really speak it to anyone, he’s forgetting how a lot of it is pronounced. He’s married to a woman who writes for Glamour magazine. I asked if that makes his life more glamourous and he said no, that his wife gets invited to stuff, but usually he stays home.

Today, we went to see Eileen, Bob’s assistant at Bard. We haven’t seen her in a long, long time. It was a lot of fun hanging out with her. She is such a cool person and she lets Vince go to the Thomas the Tank Engine web site to play games. Shhhh…. Don’t tell Vince you can get it on any computer. Only Eileen’s computer.

With Mom This Weekend & Tax Time

I will be with Mom this weekend. My tickets were the cheapest ones. It took me to everywhere that you might imagine. This time, Friday noon time, Pittsburgh to Newark, there to Seattle and then to Richland. The forecast is for snow in the NE and Pittsburgh. Well, should be okay and hope there will be no delays.

This weekend is our tax time. Getting very complicated. A lot of States and a lot of something else. Need to wrap up before going to our 3 weeks trips (April 16th -> May 7th) with friends in Las Vegas. Also, need to get and mail birthday card & gift to Donald. Donald, what do you prefer? Please just let us know, besides a dinner for 4, traditionally. Hope, at least, one of them is a lady 🙂

Will get back by red-eye flight on Sunday evening. Also bring back dumplings, duck and may be turkey. Oh, good stuffs! BTW, Doris’ cooking is also marvelous. Donald, don’t eat out while in NY.