Christmas Baking

For the second year running, my place became the sight of a major Christmas baking festival. It's been underway for the better part of the last two days. And the girls just left to deliver the goodies.

Here are a few shots of the party.

I see I haven't got many pics of the finished product. Those will come later... above I am eating delicious perogies that Kristen made. I am sure she made 10 dozen of the little gems.

The marshmallows were for the fudge I think. Not something I eat though. And my poor pots were so dirty. Maybe I should help with the cleaning seeing as I did nothing but eat.....

The two above are shots of the mess, and the mice. The oreos are going to become those funny little mice Dev makes. They have an oreo on the bottom, a cherry dipped in chocolate for the body. A hershy kiss for a head, and the cherry stem is the tail. They are cute.... I'll get a picture of them for the next post.

Headlines

I spent a good part of the afternoon looking through the paper. It was Friday of Saturday when they have a big fat version. Monday's was about 4 pages by comparison. Anywhoooo, there were several really interesting articles in there.
One was about Edmonton's recycling set-up. They are building a $70 M "gasifier" to make the majority of the waste into gas or steam to create methanol, and eventually a more valuable ethanol. Which would be nice to see some of the corn crops go back to the food cycle rather than to ethanol...... but that's another story all together. Eventually the City of Edmonton will only send a few trucks to the landfill everyday. The only trouble is they're only using residential waste which only makes about 20% of all waste. But we must start somewhere.
Secondly, a story about a circle of ice forming at just the right temperature can make something similar to a crop-circle in the water. They found one of these in Mississauga last week on a pond. It's called a creek circle. I guess it's when some ice forms in the middle of the water, rather than the edges. The little ice shavings will gather together and kind of float there for a while making it look like a circle in the middle of the water. Pretty nice picture.
And finally one of the best headlines I've seen all year. I didn't think you could get away with such things these days, but it said; Two Wangs Make a Right for China.
It was from a curling tournament where two people by the name of Wang must have won their game or something. That is very clever.
Well, it's one thirty in the afternoon and I've finished my day at work already. Luckily it was a light one for me because it is a terribly cold -25 degrees. Brrrrr.

Oilers lose

If it's goals you like, last nights hockey game was one for the ages. Trouble is, the Oilers were on the losing end of a 9-2 romp. The Chicago Blackhawks made the Oilers look like novice players. Every bounce that could've gone their way did. Deflections and funny bounces ended up in the back of the Oiler goal. And everything the Oilers tried bounced the wrong way.
The trouble with a score like that is none of the excuses really hold much weight. It was a good old fashioned ass-kicking. Not something I have ever seen at a game before.
So clearly, mom picked a good night to stay on the couch with her book.

The strangest thing happened right at the start of the game when Cal Nichols (former owner), Gary Bettman (NHL Commish), Bill Daly (VP of NHL) and Patrick Laforge (Oiler President?) came to sit down right behind us. It was hilarious. Eavesdropping throughout the game I learned a lot about buttering people up. I don't think I could handle an evening let alone a career of suck-holing one another like that. I do think there were some drinks had over supper though ;)
When Cal offered to leave with about 10 minutes left in the game for a night-cap Mr. Bettman said it was out of the question. He would NOT be seen leaving early - no matter the score. That's when I finally turned around and said it was likely because Bettman didn't want to miss overtime. The response from both Cal and Bettman was something like, "We'd need three days for the Oilers to catch up in this one".

It was a real treat to watch the high-flying Hawks though. Kane scored a beauty. As did Brian Campbell. Duncan Keith was terrific all night. It was a real lesson for the Oilers. Maybe they'll fair a little better tonight.

Chilly

After a terribly cold weekend I went to work this morning and the temperature read minus 25 with a windchill making it feel like 35 below. It was meant to warm up during the day to a balmy -18 degrees. After yesterday this should be fine, but I didn't have to work yesterday.
So I rolled in at 6 AM for the voluntary early start to deal with the Christmas mail, and really lucked out. All I had to deliver was the afternoon portion of one guys walk. Not bad at all! I was only out in the cold for an hour and a half. A lot nicer than the usual 3 or 4 hour walk. But with 5 layers on my body, and two on my legs, I went out and really enjoyed the walk today. The cold doesn't really get to you when you are walking around. If I were standing out there it would be a different story.

Also had a call from mom last night offering up her ticket to the Oiler game for tomorrow. So I will be off to watch the Blackhawks and all their high-flying young stars. And Ales Hemsky has been incredible this year. It sure looks like it will be a whale of a game. Keeping my fingers crossed for a good one. The last one I was at a month ago was a real snoozer. You never know what you'll get at the games. But I will NEVER turn down an offer.

This has been in the works for a while...

At the risk of making you think that there is something profound in this post, I will admit that I've been meaning to get this down for quite some time.
I had a silly encounter with someone while working the other day. And I do see it all. From people reaching their arms out to grab the mail wearing their pajamas in the middle of the day (which might just mean they don't work during the day) to every type of dog you've seen. Not to mention the places some people live.
But what captured my attention last week was someone's name. I had a signature item for this locksmith. I asked for his surname to enter on the sheet and he said McMurray. Ok I thought, and started spelling it out. When I looked up he was pointing to this frame on the wall. He said, "first name's Fort....... My mother had a sense of humour....... the witch."
Seriously. He was called Fort McMurray. No kidding.
Among others I've seen which may or may not be real are David Bowie, a few Cinnamon's, a Harvest Moon, and John Assman. And those are just off the top of my head.
I am not sure if I should put all these names up here, but I had a Marion Friesen. The first name is spelled differently, but that's a name some of us know. There was a Wally Friesen too. Seriously.

On a totally unrelated matter, I watch Horton Hears a Who last night. Cool movie. Made me think of reading all those Dr. Seuss books as a kid. The ryhme or cadence or whatever he had is one-of-a-kind. This one is about an elephant who sees a speck go floating by in the air, and he hears someone screaming for help. Turns out he notices an entire city on the speck of dust on the end of a flower. It's cute. And the best part is it was short so I did not fall asleep in the middle of it.
I do think we are under 40 days until the Africa trip..... yay!!!!