Make Thick My Gravy
A really great weekend, filled from the crown to the toe top-full of fun activities. (Extra points for knowing that reference!)
Friday night I went to a yearly dinner they have for all the families who attend the school. It's always tough, because they want to have all the families there, so kids are welcome. But all the parents want to chat with each other, so what do you do with the kids? They don't hire the teachers to help out, so we're not going to babysit (though we do get free dinner, so I didn't mind a leetle helping.) In any event, it went pretty well this year. There were a couple of easy art activities that didn't require supervision, like playdough and putting stickers on cups, and a man singing familiar songs with a guitar. It was still Very Loud. But I like free food!
Saturday was very busy. We're redoing our kitchen, so we started our day by checking out granite. Then we went from there to making sushi with some of my coworkers. We'd been discussing going out to sushi when one of my co-teachers, S, who is from Taiwan, told us that she could just teach us how to make it. Sure! So about six of us gathered at a different co-teacher's condo (I teach with three other women), including k_beckett. He was not missing a sushi lesson. S came with a bunch of sliced veggies, egg, imitation crab, lox, sushi rice, seaweed, rolling mats and showed us what to do. It was a lot of fun, though I learned just how much prep was involved. Today S asked me if I thought I could make them now, and I said sure - as long as I was provided with the rice and the veggies and the sushi paper and mats and anything else I'd forgotten.
After sushi we went straight to the first of many Thanksgivings. I think I'm up to four if you count the Thanksgiving feast we had in class today. It was a wonderful time, and I think the story of the First Iralithsgiving will be told and celebrated for generations to come. I'm so glad I'm friends with all these excellent cooks, and I'm glad my own beet, arugula and goat cheese salad was a hit. Also, random old Christmas carol books alternate between charming and terrifying, sometimes (often?) at the same time.
After that, thanks to the beneficence of conspiratrix and jameyhasnolj in offering to drive me home, it was off to primp, yay! Someone asked me if costuming/dress up is the reason why I play games. After some thought I think the answer is no - I play for the story and the acting. But the costuming is a close second. In any event, then it was off to the club. I'd had minor misgivings about the evening's theme, but it turned out to be low-key, and I very much enjoyed the kimono fashion show. I particularly liked one outfit where the top was a notebook paper and the pencil skirt was a pencil. School-teacherish visual puns for the win!
Finally back to my house at 1ish. Phew.
The next day was much less exciting, though I got to teach my monthly Hebrew School class and watch the children make and spin dreidels. After some errands to buy backup glasses and dinner the rest of the day was spent recovering. As for the following week... Well a different story for a different time!
(Phew, that took about a week to get out the door. I guess I need to post in smaller chunks if I want to keep things timely!)