Birthday gifts

Eric's birthday is coming up pretty soon, so I've begun to ask him what he wants. We'll be in Washington, D.C. for his birthday this year, which thrills him to no end. Because it means he'll get to pick and choose where we go and what we do for a whole day of our vacation. Anyway, in preparation for his birthday, I've begun asking him what it is exactly he's hoping to receive from me. I'm, unfortunately, rather hopeless when it comes to buying gifts for anybody. If you do not tell me specifically what you want, you will likely get something you do not like or find useful, or else nothing altogether. The last four years have had ups and downs as far as Eric's birthdays, but he still hasn't caught on that he needs to tell me exactly what he wants if he expects to get something really cool. I really do try to think of good gifts, but ultimately I find myself wandering around some store and finally settling on something that I think he might like.

As with all previous years, I'm asking now what he wants. So far, he has not been very helpful:

Me: What do you want for you birthday this year?
Eric: I don't know.
Me: Oh, I remember. You want that new Beatles album that is coming out.
Eric: Yeah. And to go to Arlington and the Air and Space Museum.
Me: Right, well, that is not so much something tangible that I can give you. What else do you want?
Eric: I don't know.
Me: Oh, I remember. You want a pastry knife.
Eric: I don't think so.
Me: And the Shel Silverstein books of poems.
Eric: No, not that.
Me: And, let's see. You already got a bundt pan, but you also want the America's Test Kitchen cookbook.
Eric: Hmmm... I don't think this list is going too well.
Me: What are you talking about? It's going great.

Well, at least Eric will know what to get me in a couple of months.

Friendiversary

I received a text message from my old roommate, Priscilla, on Sunday night. In effect the text said that we had an anniversary coming up this week. The anniversary of our meeting each other is today. Skilla and I met six years ago today. Heather and I met six years ago tomorrow. Janssen and I met six years ago... some time this week. I know I met her before Skilla and Heather because she and I were both at BYU early (for two different reasons).

Priscilla knew the date of our anniversary because she wrote it down in her journal. I however, did not write down when I met her. I must be a terrible roommate. Here are a few things I did write, though: (Please note that the days of the week correlate with the days of the journal entries, not necessarily with the days of the events).

30 August 2003, Saturday:
I'm really getting to enjoy my roommate, Priscilla. She's really energetic and fun. I also like my neighbors, at least the ones that are here. The girls to the left haven't arrived yet. The ones on the right are Janssen and Heather. Heather has been hanging out a lot with Priscilla and me.

14 September 2003, Sunday:
Dad sent me some coupons, so Priscilla (my roommate), Chad (our friend) and I went to Wal-Mart yesterday to stock up on snack foods since I don't have any time to eat on Sundays now.
[. . .]
After the recital, I went to this big party with Priscilla, our neighbor (Heather), and Chad. It was a huge party/dance for all the folks that live in Desert Towers and Heritage Halls. I had such a blast just dancing my heart out. I could feel the stress leaving my body.

20 September 2003, Sunday:
After the Elevator Club meeting, I called home and grandpa. Then I went to dinner with Priscilla and Heather. Then we spent a very productive three hours in the library. I'm still not caught up though. :(

28 September 2003, Sunday
[. . .] Then Priscilla, Heather and I had a chica-movie night. We watched The Goonies because neither of them had ever seen it.

And that is all that I wrote about those three girls the entire first month we knew each other. I wrote in my journal a lot that year. Just not much about them, apparently. The stupid thing is that I wrote a lot about at boy (whom I dated back then and is clearly no longer a part of my life), finances and classes. If I could go back in time, I would write more about the fun things we did together our freshman year. I fear that my posterity will not really get how much fun I had that year with those girls. Although, maybe I just need to read a little more and I will find that I wrote about them more as the months progressed. One can only hope.

Not My Job

One of the all-time funniest bits from Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!, which is my favorite radio show. (Um, yes, I am apparently 80 and have favorite radio shows).

The segment is from the part of the show called "Not My Job" in which they invite famous people to the show and ask them about things they know nothing about. It's generally pretty funny, but it becomes even better when the guest is funny on his own.

And if the embedding doesn't work, here's the direct link.

Revew: Pull Aparts

This week we had the annual L. Family reunion in Park City. It was a blast. Part of the tradition is a baked food called Pull Aparts. I mentioned that I still hadn't made them, and Eric said I needed to learn how, since I got a bundt pan a few weeks ago. Since I want to be just like Grandma when I grow up (including taking on the Alpine Slide at age 80), the Pull Aparts were an obvious choice for my the last week of Whip it Up.

Yesterday I whipped out the L. Family cookbook and found Grandma's recipe:

Ingredients:
24 frozen Rhodes rolls
1 3-oz. pkg. Butterscotch pudding (not instant)
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup melted butter
1 tsp. cinnamon
walnuts (optional)

Directions:

1. Place frozen rolls in a greased bundt pan, sprinkle with the dry pudding.
2. Combine melted butter, sugar and cinnamon. Pour over the rolls.
3. Cover and let rise at room temperature overnight.
4. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. Leave in pan for five minutes and invert over a large plate. Serve immediately.

My results were... less than stellar. The main problem being that I prepared the rolls at 10 last night. But I didn't bake them until I woke up at 11:30 this morning. Clearly Grandma's "overnight" is shorter than mine. (In my defense, I was completely wiped out yesterday after three days of reunioning, commuting to Salt Lake while reunioning, spending an afternoon at the lake, and going shopping at the mall. Add to that the fact that Eric didn't get home from work until about 12:15, and we didn't go to bed until after 1, and you can understand a little bit better why I slept so late.)

Because they rose for so long, they were literally spilling out of the bundt pan and onto the counter. Then, I baked them for the prescribed amount of time, but because they had risen so tall, the ones at the top got fairly badly burned. However, the ones at the bottom were great!

So, the questions:

• Was the recipe easy to follow? - Yes. It's about as simple as baking recipe can be considering you use already prepared rolls that are frozen. No complaints here, only next time I might try them with wheat rolls.
  
• Did the dish taste good? - The ones that were not burnt were lovely. I can understand why this is a family favorite.
  
• Would you make it again? - Definitely. But I will set an alarm to wake up so they don't rise for so long.
  

A boating family

Today we had a church boating/skiing activity at Deer Creek Reservoir. I have not spent much time doing those sorts of activities. Like, at all. I have been on a motorized boat one other time, and that was at a church activity in Dallas. That one time I got to go tubing. I went twice, and then it was somebody else's turn. Primarily because of my lack of experience, I was not very thrilled about this activity. It's not that I didn't want to try skiing, it's just that I didn't want to take up other people's turns with my attempts while they could have been doing the real thing.

I had a series of dialogues during the activity:

Upon arrival:
Me: You know, I don't really see us as a boating family. It just seems like such a commitment to have a boat and have the gear and use it often enough to make it worthwhile.
Eric: Well, it is pretty fun once you do it, but you're right that it takes a lot of commitment.

Getting on the boat:
Boat driver: So, what do we here? Skiers? Wakeboarders?
Eric: I can ski, but I haven't done it since before my mission.
Sean: Same here.
Lanette: I'm not planning on doing anything, I just want to ride the boat.
Me: This is my second time to ever even be on a boat like this. I went tubing once.
Katie: Well, you can try kneeboarding; it's pretty easy.
Me: Okay, that will be cool.

After Sean and Eric had skied:
Boat driver: Well, before we hook up the wakeboard, anyone want to ski? You want to try it?
Me: I don't know. I've heard it's pretty hard.
Katie: You can try it, and if you don't like it you can switch to the kneeboard.
Me: Should I try it?
Sean: Yeah, you should. It's fun.

Then I got up on my first try. It was very thrilling. After I got back on the boat some of them commented about how huge my smile was. My facial expressions make me somewhat of an open book, so I heartily believed them.

While the others wakeboarded and we road the boat:
Me: You know, maybe we could be a boating family.
Eric: Maybe.

After we were done riding and were eating lunch:
Me: So, how much does a boat cost?
Jeff: I'd say about forty to fifty grand.
Me: I didn't expect it to be so high.
Eric: Yeah, they're not cheap.
Me: I changed my mind again about being a boating family.

Moral of the story: We need friends with boats.

Review: Chinese Dumplings

Today we made Abe and Erin's recipe for dumplings. (Is it mostly Erin's recipe? This I do not know, but Erin is welcome to pipe in!)

We'd eaten this recipe a couple of times with Abe and Erin, and I'd always wanted to try it. I'm glad I finally did.

• Was the recipe easy to follow? - Yes. We made the pork dumplings, although we originally planned to make the vegetarian ones. When I called Abe to ask what kind of bean paste he counseled me to forget the vegetarian ones and just do the pork. He said it would be worth the extra cost.
  
• Did the dish taste good? - Yes, yes, yes.
  
• Would you make it again? - I will make it. However, as you can tell from the recipe it is a fair amount of work, especially if you are doing all the dumpling folding yourself, which we did. Also, I would not even attempt this recipe without a food processor.

Maybe one day we will totally rip off Abe and Erin and have these dumplings be a reason to host a party. That would require some planning though. And lately our Saturdays involve zero planning.