We Now Return To Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

First of all, “Thanks Mom!” a care package has arrived from home with stuffing and cranberry sauce and a few other creature comforts. So, really thanks again mom you’re a peach. Did have a craving this morning for an ‘Orange Dream Machine’ with a protein boost from Jamba Juice and would absolutely kill for a half dozen ‘Carnitas Street Tacos’ from Rubio’s. I think that if you pack them together the cold of the smoothie might keep the tacos fresh? I’ll keep dreaming.

Speaking of Jamba Juice. While reading some fellow bloggers this morning I went to The Silly Con Valley Report which is a goofy site that tracks up and coming gizmos (sort of) near the middle of Mike’s page I saw this goofy entry (which I believe led me to have my Jamba Juice craving) for Blendie. It’s a small quick time video that you have just got to see. (Ky , are you thinking what I’m thinking?)

So plans for the Thanksgiving Bash are moving along nicely, latest count has us at possibly 18! Of course the logistic of this event are mind boggling. We will have to purchase 6 fold away chairs to avoid having people eat on the couch. The outdoor “picnic” table that was here when we moved in, will be dragged into the living room I think to accommodate most (but not all) of us. One small problem is that when we moved here I only brought half of my dishes and so I only have 12 place settings. Hate to go with paper for such an event but we may have to.

In other news…well in other old news anyway. When we arrived here and began to learn the highways, we noticed what looked like a bomb site on one side of the Rocade. Every time we went passed it, on the way to the airport or mall, I would wonder what had happened there. S eventually pieced together some info about some industrial accident that had happened years ago, we couldn’t figure why they hadn’t cleaned it up yet though. Well I found this story about the accident on the internet. And Paula says that cleanup has been slow due to the French versions of the EPA insuring the site is truly detoxified and clean.

Speaking of Paula, last Sunday after I took S to the airport (South Africa) Mags invited me to have lunch with her and Vincent at his mothers house. Since they were already there, Paula and I drove the one hour drive south to Salies du Salat, together. We had a fabulous lunch. Lunch was preceded by champagne and snacks (olives – yuck and sausage – double yuck), this portion of the meal being called the apéritif. Then lunch began with a salad of ‘lambs greens’ (I’d never heard of it or seen it before but it was yummy) and fois gras (Claudette makes her own Fois Gras and it was very good.) followed by a pork roast with roasted potatoes (The potatoes where supposedly for Paula because she doesn’t like veggies….hmm…and we had a heck of time making her share them), a zucchini casserole, bread and wine. Dessert was cheese and/or a dessert called a ‘Floating Cloud’. It was amazing! It was meringue floating in a custard sauce and drizzled with caramelized sugar. After eating to bursting we four women set of for Spain, Vincint chose not to join us, I think lunch with four jabbering women was more than he could take. We drove another hour south and we crossed the border into Spain. Don’t ask me the name of the little villages we went to because I can’t remember, I know one of them was Les but the others, who knows. It was freezing though. We were in the foothills of the Pyrenees and their had been snow in the mountains recently. We could see the snow above us and the breeze brought the smell of snow along with bone chilling cold. We were not really dressed for this weather. Luckily I'd brought along extra gear since Paula had only worn a wind breaker. We wandered around and found a cute little church that was undeniably old. When we entered it and looked around it looked like all the stone was about to come down on us at any moment. At least it was warm inside. There was a posting on the door announcing the recent death of a long time resident, a man who had been over a hundred years old. I didn’t read the sign but I think Paula said he’d been something like 113. Heck, he was probably baptized in the church when it was still relatively new. After leaving the church and wandering a bit more we found our way into a little Tapas bar for some refreshment. I was able to impress the ladies with my Spanish since my French is still so slow and halting (and often wrong). We had hot drinks and got on the road back, as Mags had seen a store in another little village near the border advertising Levis. Upon our return to Claudette's we were once again fed. Dinner included leftovers from lunch plus a homemade vegetable soup to sustain us on the drive home.

Claudette, Mags and Paula in front of the church.

Well folks that's all for now. I'm off to the airport to get S.