Casita Klatsch

Spooky Pumpkin 2009

Ah yes, it's that time again...

We've just finished cleaning up after the Pumpkin Mutilation Party we just hosted.  (In case you're already scowling wondering, the seeds of the slain pumpkins were saved and roasted, and the innards were placed in a paper bag for deposition in a compost heap.)

This year we were also celebrating Patrick's birthday.  Happy Birthday, you handsome devil.

Patrick, disgruntled, displays his gift from Homer

It was also the celebration of Martha's birthday.  She's a year old now.

Homer deigns to give Martha a birthday hug (even though she's making his life an allergy hell at the moment)

Fueled with copious amounts of Sandy-made lasagna, Homer-made cake and various French-made wine, we all dug in and soon found ourselves elbow deep in pumpkin goo. 

Zane gets slimy wit' it

F.O. contemplates his next pumpkin strategy..

Getting the little pieces to pop out is half the battle.

Some started out with pre-drawn designs, but in the end, all pumpkins were done free-hand.  I think they're fantastic, each of them.

Happy Birthday, Homer

We hosted a birthday gathering for Homer on Saturday.  I think Homer had a good time, despite some wicked allergy problems. 

The temps aren't climbing as high these days, which means we were able to enjoy the backyard without roasting. 

I volunteered to bake the cake.  I love a good challenge, and considering Homer is the Cake King, the challenge was certainly on. 

F.O. puts together his famous homemade ice cream

Homer requested a yellow cake with chocolate frosting.  After some searching, I decided on a basic yellow cake recipe from The Well-Decorated Cake and creamy chocolate icing from Bon Appetit. 

 

A trip to the second-hand store solved the problem of not having an electric mixer.

Fresh from the oven, the cakes don't look too glamorous. 

But they clean up well.  

Like any self-respecting birthday cake, it stayed hidden from the birthday boy's sight in the cake cover I got at the second-hand shoppe.  Just like Grandma's!

And the moment arrived.

Homer blows

Richard

Homer and some of his fellow revelers

Pong for the President

You know, you gotta love life sometimes.  I do, anyway.  Especially mine. 

I mean, really.  Should I be exceedingly grateful, or does everyone else out there know some very cool people who lead them into all kinds of colorful experiences?  For example, beer pong.

I'm 46.  I haven't been invited to a drinking game in a couple of decades, give or take a semester.  But in the celebratory spirit of the Inauguration, I gave it a go.

Thanks, F.O. and Homer, for a fun night!  (Word from the wise, however:  don't take on Homer unless you're willing to drink.  He displayed some hidden talents last night, as the following video will attest.)

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And speaking of the Inauguration,

...who'd have thunk it?  It's quite overwhelming, how historic the moment really is.

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After the swearing in, Homer's hen escaped into the neighbor's yard.  Maybe she finally worked out she's living with a bunch of rabid Democrats.  While Martha and I watched, Homer scrambled over the fence, chased her down and brought her back.  

Holiday Party at Homer's

Zane, Mark and I had fun at Homer's annual holiday party.  In the world of bloggers, Brian, Cobban and Jim were there.  Many other guys came, too.  Homer has a lot of friends.

Homer broke out his holiday crafting kits, and after everyone had left, we stayed around and visited with him for a couple more hours. 

So this is what happens when you split an entire bottle of Goldschläger between three people:

Our projects for the night: my one-eyed-one-horned flying purple people eater, Mark's amazing hat, our card for Zane, and my cheapblueguitar cookie (in honor of Brian) 

Zane made holiday cards for Mark and me earlier in the evening.  He's such a cool kid.

Zane took great pleasure in poking fun at us as our words became increasingly slurred.  Oh, and Mark lost the close-your-eyes-and-touch-your-nosetip contest.  He's such a lightweight.

Thankfully, we just had to walk a few steps from Homer's to the casita, where we promptly loaded up on ibuprofen and fell in bed.  I like responsible partying. 

Electo-Fest

Shamelessly purloined from Utne.com, this is the drinking game that I aim to play tonight when Homer, Forrest and I get together for our little Election Day Party.

Utne Reader’s Election Night Drinking Game

by Hannah Lobel

Need something to take the edge off as you wait for your fellow Americans to decide the fate of the nation? How about a distracting drinking game? (Those who prefer not to imbibe, or want to ensure they’ll be both awake and alert when the next president is announced, can substitute alcohol with stale Halloween candy).

Here are the rules, suggested by experts Bennett Gordon, Elizabeth Ryan, and Kari Volkmann-Carlsen here at Utne Reader. Drink or dig into the Halloween candy every time the following happen, unless another frequency is otherwise noted.

1. A red state goes blue, or vice versa (Potential targets for the former: Ohio, Virginia, Florida, Nevada, Colorado, North Carolina, New Mexico, Indiana. Potential targets for the latter: Pennsylvania, New Hampshire.)

2. A pundit says something he or she actually believes, mistakenly assuming that his or her mic is off.

3. Drink/pop a Reeses every tenth time Joe the Plumber is mentioned. Anything less could cause alcohol poisoning or a hypoglycemic event.

4. Voter suppression reported. Do not drink or candy-binge for five minutes.

5. Flagrant network abuse of new Election Day gadgetry.

6. Keith Olberman pounds his chest saying, “What’s up now?”

7. A Fox News anchor starts to cry.

8. A former candidate looks more convincing than he ever did while he was running (i.e., Al Gore, John Kerry, Bill Richardson)

9. James Carville uses folksy expression hitherto unknown to all speakers of English.

10. Network assures you, Joe the Viewer, that they won’t screw up this year by calling any race too early. Then calls a race too early.

11. Hanging chads come up.

12. Network actually mentions the Green Party (drink twice).

13. Obama wins. Stop drinking/eating candy. Go and dance in the street.

14. McCain pulls off upset. Finish off all the bottles in house.

(Here's the link to the real thing by Hannah Lobel.)

Halloween 2008

Oh my god. 

It wasn't a dream after all.

At the Hop

Homer drove over to Palm Springs for the weekend, arriving yesterday afternoon.  After hitting the gay coffeeshop, eating at the Blue Coyote Grill, and driving around to gawk at the myriad examples of mid-century home architecture, we spent the night pub-hopping.

Yes, we painted the town ____. (You choose the color.) 

Surprisingly, I feel pretty good today.

Toucan's

Sidewinders

The Barracks, outside

The Barracks, inside

Tool Shed

Sunday the 6th

The last day of the long weekend saw another pool party and a trip to Lani's house in the desert.

I don't often feel like a daddy, but most of the guys at Scott & Victor's pool party were in their 20s and 30s.  Homer and I felt like the elders of the crowd.  Fun guys to hang out with, nevertheless.  And some pretty awesome plants around their backyard.  This one, in particular, was fairly entertaining to look at.  They call it Ms Hottentot.  I think it's pretty self-evident why.

 

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For dinner, Lani cooked up a couple of incredibly tasty homemade pizzas for us.  Norene, another choral conducting grad colleague from the UA, gave me a lift out there.  She and I go way back.  We both first moved to Tucson in 1995, and we've kept in touch on and off ever since.  It was wonderful to visit and catch up with her.

Lani, Chuck and Norene

Chuck and Lani's home is situated about 20 miles east of downtown Tucson.  It's a beautiful area, very distinct from my local environs in the western part of town.  I've posted some pictures of the plant-life around their house before, but when I saw the sun setting, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to take a few more photos.

We passed a roadrunner about a half-mile from Lani's house.  I missed a better photo opp, but at least I got it on camera.  It's only the second roadrunner I've seen in all my years in Tucson.

I hadn't seen a sunset with colors quite like this since I lived in Santa Fe.

A spectacular giant agave that bloomed last year and is still hanging around.

My tired is a hangin' out

... as my grandfather in Arkansas used to say when he sat down in his La-Z-Boy® at the end of an exhausting summer day of tending to cattle, chickens and two massive gardens.  I have no cattle or chooks, but I did spend four hours in the yard and gardens early Friday morning, and I don't think I have fully recuperated from that. 

I'm glad I got out there; the chore was highly overdue.   The yard needed a major clean-up.  Weeds and crabgrass had taken over in many places, and with the monsoons arriving, it will only get worse.  I used Homer's weedwhacker to knock 'em down.  I don't think I'd held one of those since I was a teenager and used one to help Dad around the house.  Even with all the gym work I do, my arms freaked out.

In the gardens, much of the spring and early summer vegetation had done its thing and was turning seedy, brown and crispy.  A good cleaning out was in order.  Now it's a trimmer, leaner desert garden. 

And now I need to catch up after too much grog and too many sweets the past few days.  Independence Day weekend parties, staying up late, eating food unusual to my regular fare and all this monsoon mugginess have contributed to the weariness. 

WEARY, a.
1. Having the strength much exhausted by toil or violent exertion; tired; fatigued.
2. Having the patience exhausted, or the mind yielding to discouragement. He was weary of asking for redress.
3. Causing weariness; tiresome; as a weary way; a weary life.
                                                                                     Webster's 1828 Dictionary

(Don't you love the formality of the English language as it was used nearly two centuries ago?)

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Yesterday was NPV.  I forgot my camera, but Homer took his.  I think I need to stay out of the sun for a while. 

 

A few weeks ago at NPV, Patrick brought a yummy noodle dish that he said came straight from the trailer park.  It brought back memories of a cookbook I'd once stumbled across, but I couldn't remember the title.  On Brian's advice, I found a recipe by Jolene and the Trailer Test Kitchen and showed up sporting a Frozen Butterfinger Pie (which, in this heat, was difficult to keep frozen).  Next time I'm making something a little less likely to induce a diabetic coma.

Today there's another pool party mid-afternoon, and then it's a journey out to the far, far reaches of the eastern Tucson desert to have dinner with Lani, Chuck and couple of other friends/colleagues. 

Then I'm sleeping.  All week.

Night Bright

Last night, Homer and I co-hosted an Independence Day party for some friends. There were some new faces and some familiar ones.

A few of us sat on my roof and watched the annual "A" Mountain Fireworks.  Others chose a spot in the backyard.  We are situated very close to the mountain, so the view is pretty darn good.

They started the show nearly an hour late, probably due to the monsoon shower we experienced a couple of hours before they were scheduled to begin.  Most of our neighboring houses whiled away the time by lighting their own fireworks during the wait.

It was good fun hanging out with these guys in the balmy, post-rain night breeze, drinking Tecate and waiting to be entertained by big explosives.  After a while, the percussive sounds began and we watched the sky light up. 

Waiting patiently

Blogger pals, Cobban and Homer

Cobban, Carlos and Brian

Jeffrey, Ray & Christine
(She had just arrived from Paris and was about to collapse from jet-lag, poor thing.)

ka-boom

my attempt at an artsy-fartsy fireworks photo