Dearest Rachel –
Well, I promised to tell you about last evening, and as to whether it was a full night or a disappointment. And I have to tell you, it may have been a little bit of both.
Let’s start with the disappointment, because that’s how it actually went. Ellen offered to bring a main course, but I thought I might as well break out some of the stuff we’d picked up during our travels…
However, there was a bit of a problem with it; like with the seasoning packets we’d gotten a couple of years ago (and eventually turned into a doria), I couldn’t read the preparation instructions. Not a big problem, though; I could just ask one of my AI assistants what they said, which they did. However, they also pointed out that the bear on the bag was simply for decoration, rather than any indication as to its ingredients. Bad enough that we couldn’t find any tinned bear meat while we were there in Otaru; what we did find didn’t have any, either. So yeah, that was a disappointment.
However, the AI did recommend adding a few ingredients to give it a specifically Hokkaido flavor to the ramen (not that the seasonings that were already included didn’t do that already. And since we had a few coupons going begging – that will expire while we’re away starting this coming weekend – at the local hypermarket, I figured I might as well head over and see if I couldn’t pick up what they called for, so it wouldn’t be a complete loss.
I should mention that, when I went out to grab these items, the boys offered to join me on the excursion, but I pointed out that we didn’t know when, exactly, the girls were coming over. Ellen, who was bringing over the main course (a shepherd’s pie she had finally found after months of its absence from the store shelves), had said she would be by after sundown, but we’d had no specifics from the others. So I told them I would head out on my own, in case any of them showed up while I was gone, which they agreed to. It’s not like I went crazy with my impulse purchasing.
A quick aside here, though; it’s unusual, even for us, to talk about meeting time based on the position of the sun, as opposed to trying to hover around one or another number representing a specific hour (“around four”, “one-ish”, that sort of thing). Or maybe it’s me who found that curious. Still, it was better than not knowing at all, and it was a pretty definite time, when you think about it, as the sun is always going to go down – and fairly soon, at this time of year.
Regardless, I still got home with plenty of time to spare; it was still bright and sunny out, if a bit chilly – it is November, after all. I wasn’t about to do more with the preparations until our guests arrived – the pie would take a while, but the soup wouldn’t. No sense starting the appetizer until everybody was here to enjoy it.
Which turned out to be a little awkward when, true to her word, Ellen showed up just as the sun was disappearing behind the houses across the street… and still with no word about the others. We did some catching up between the four of us, but we realized there wasn’t much sense in telling stories we would have to repeat once the others arrived, so a few moments were passed in relative silences, as we tried to figure out what to do next.
At that moment, we got a text from Erin about having taken a nap and just woken up, so she would be running late; however, she made it clear that she would not be running late, but rather driving to get over. And, in fact, she arrived ahead of Kerstin, and with barely minutes to spare before the pies would be coming out of the oven, so we started to work on the soup, in two separate saucepans (with mismatched lids; I’m thinking one of them lost theirs in the purge, but I’m not sure).
It was a little bit of scrambling for Daniel and I to make sure that everything was cooked properly and in a timely fashion – and he dropped a bit of the seasoning packet onto one the burners, leading to a bit of a fusion reaction as a result – but we managed to finish the ramen just as Kerstin arrived.
Several of them were a little leery of the soy sauce flavor, but ended up preferring it to the miso ramen one. Which is strange, because I liked the miso better, personally. Well, at least one variety didn’t go like gangbusters while the other sat there forlornly, waiting to be finished off. In short, it was a reasonable success, despite lacking any hint of bear meat – or even mushrooms, which the AI recommended, but the boys vetoed.
I should also mention that Daniel mixed up a batch of lemon sours for everyone, and those turned out to be a big hit, too. Turns out, he might have a talent for mixology, even if only on a mocktail level.
And the shepherd’s pie also went over well – although it was to be expected, as we’d had it before, and all enjoyed it on a previous occasion. It didn’t plate particularly cleanly, though – we couldn’t cut nice even squares out of it and put it on plates – and I think it was Ellen who suggested that we just spoon it into our soup bowls and eat it with our spoons, which actually worked quite well. It meant one less plate for me to wash up afterwards, too, so they’d get no complaint from me.
Mostly, Ellen’s stories covered the shelter and her dealing with her two condos – the one she moved from and the other to, in order to take care of her mother earlier this past year. She’d planned on renting out the old one, but the permitting process is a nightmare; it’s as if the village doesn’t want people doing that, for some reason. So she’s not going to; what she is going to do remains to be seen. It’s an interesting story, to be sure, but not exactly mine to tell, apart from the bare-bones framework I’ve just relayed to you.
As for our stories, I think I left Daniel to tell more of those while I was cooking the ramen and he was mixing the drinks; we didn’t go into great detail, apart from the usual wish that they could join us on our voyages, now and then. I will mention that Peter Gabriel’s Big Time had been running through my head earlier in the day:
My parties have all the big names
and I greet them with the widest smiles
Tell them how my life
is one big adventure…
Erin brought a collection of Piggie and Elephant books that she’d managed to find, either garage saleing or at one used bookstore or another; I seem to have been recruited to play Gerald the Elephant alongside her Piggie. Considering that she’s supposedly done voice work for the odd project here and there within one fandom or another (at least, I think so; you might remember her telling about at least submitting an audition recording at some point long ago), it might be fun to just put these up online someday. But probably not any time soon.
It was after reading those that Logan needed to retire, in order to wake up in time for his job this morning, and we had to say goodbye. At this point, the closest thing to a disappointment was that we had started so late in the day that this couldn’t go on longer; and isn’t that the way, when we all have our own lives? Still, if we have to settle for this, I suppose we can live with it; I just hope it can be more frequently than once a month (or less) like we’ve been doing. Logan himself made a recommendation for a place to go to – which we’ve been to before as a group, but I don’t know if I told you about it – which is in Kirsten and Erin’s neighborhood, so it might be doable… but we’ll just have to see. In any event, you would have been able to wield considerably more influence to ensure that everyone could get together more often, and not just make that parting phrase the cliché it is… one more reason to wish you were still around.
