Stuffed and Sniffling but suffering through it to bring you updates

I have been so tardy with writing that I seem not to know how to transition anymore, hence I am going with bullet point (which for some reason don't seem to show up on blog- oh well, its indented, so you get the drift) updates

1. My sinuses are all stuffed up & I can hardly breathe

but
Had a major, loooong conversation with a v.old friend I hadn't heard from in months, who's so near her due date, she may pop baby out any minute and I wish her lots of love and good thoughts and I want to buy her something soothing and relaxing.
I have already decided what to get the baby but I feel the mom gets missed out during all this baby shower thing - If i were pregnant, i would be glad to get lovely baby things but would be glad (der) to get things to pamper my poor swollen body with.

1. the boy & I hosted our v.first married couple dinner party, as opposed to unmarried couple dinner parties, which really are the same except, during cleaning up, if you bicker- you can't really throw out the 'well, HMPF, why don't we just break up then?', because 'hmpf, why don't we just get divorced' just seems too mean to use when really all you want to convey is, 'really - you are going to argue with me about this??? you know if i wasn't here, you would just wither away and DIE!!!"

UGH - I HATE NOT HAVING A CAMERA.
WE ARE STILL LOOKING & ohgod let the end be near FOR SO MANY PRETTY MOMENTS ARE GOING BY UNDOCUMENTed.

Since it was an Eid dinner party, the menu was Indian Bangladeshi
& was changed a trillion times

My first run at it went :
Drinks - Mango Lassi
Cocktails (haven't fully decided which)
Borhani (i was looking around for an apt link to describe this v. Bangla drink & this was the best description - trust me, the drink has so many flavors in it - mint, cumin, crushed cilantro, ground pepper, salt, sugar - that it feels like pop rocks of diff spicy flavors are setting themselves off in your mouth - do they even make pop rocks anymore?)
Appetizers -
1) Turkey Kathi Rolls (which really sounded good, esp with the sauce even though the source was the Padma Lakshmi, who I secretly think smokes a little too much pot, esp before she has to say something on Top Chef)
And oh, let me take a moment here and say - i love you F&W -- I love your photographs and I love that your mag is all glossy and pretty and the recipes, even though a bit pricey on ingredients, does try to cater to all ethnicities and taste palates.
2) Spicy Hummous on Toast
Main Dish - Briyanis (Veg & Non Veg)
Dessert - Shirkhand, which is Indian but which I had had ages ago as a kid and desperately wanted the non-dessert loving boy & sundry others to enjoy

What I ended up with were
Drinks
Borhani
Home made Sangria - which was just delicious and pretty & which even the most die hard of hard liquor aficionado in group loved!
Appetizers
Plain Pastry shells filled with spicy turkey, because I realised making Kathi rolls for 12 people would be wayyyyy too much work
&
PP shells filled with spicy veg
with
semi-homemade sauce
Main Course
Veg & Chicken Briyani - which the boy & i made looking at the recipe on the back of the Shaan Chicken / veg briyani boxes, which contrary to my expectations turned out quite nice, though the rice was still a wee bit clumpy - just a tiny, tiny bit.
Dessert
Semiya Payasam or as the boy calls Seviya Kheer (which was made by friends' visiting mom, which, could you believe it, I resented, on and off, for 10 minutes, because I felt it was an intrusion into OUR little thing - oh how pettily jealous can i get)

We made the peeps dress traditional because we get so little of a chance to do that at times & the men all turned out in their Panjabis, even the boy
Note to self - when entertaining groups > than 5, screw the environment (ouch) and go with paper plates
Do not use lovely plates given by my beautiful peeps for wedding

After it all, we hooted our way to Disco Dancer and took a shot anytime anybody said the word Bastard - and boy, did they love saying it then.

"Jimmy, woh Bastard (shot), he has guitar phobia
Guitar Phobia?
Hai, uske ma guitar se mar ghe, so now he has guitar phobia, he is afraid of them (shot because that was just too funny)."

And I had completely forgotten about it but just before Jimmy's first performance on stage, he practises his dance moves to this



it was like Bappi Lahri was composing away and went ... uhmm...ek masti bari, modern, rock n roll music chaiya
and hai, really, what better than a Christian rock track ;)

Hard to believe that DD Mithun was 35!!! he looks so young and and flexible and nubile, which apparently is primarily used for women, - hmm...??!!!?

• I am looking forward to our Thanksgiving trips, when we catch up with far away friends, and I hope we get to do more cooking like last year but have a feeling we are going to be having too much fun being together to cook

I love the whole making menu, cooking, getting fresh flowers (my current obsession - oh for more fresh flowers at our farmers' markets) and entertaining others. I am painting my ugly wooden computer table this weekend to put in our upstairs nook next to window, so I have a place to write, make my lists, plan my menus and really pretend I am doing the english lady of the house thing

• UGH i hope we get our camera soon, for our place is coming along nicely and I want to take non fuzzy, non iphone camera pics of where we get different treasures, how we hang it up and generally how pretty our place is slowly coming along (esp, when i thought it was never ever going to happen) etc, etc.

Over the weekend, we bought two ginormous wall hangings that I can wait to hang up
and
our telescope came three days ago!!!!!
Our v.own ebay bought telescope and I (gasp) saw the surface of the moon yesterday
We take it to the beach next weekend to see more lovely stars.

• And finally, I am doing a little self-examination here and I am getting bugged with myself over FB.

i love that I get a peep into long lost friends' lives over FB and especially having non-deep, but still real 'Happy B'day" & 'I am so glad to know you are alive and well and happy somewhere in the world' with people you thought you wouldn't ever hear from again, but whose presence in group photos and fun parties and club nights you still fondly remember
But
And this is entirely me, I sometimes catch myself wanting to update my status just for the sake of doing the 'see how cool I am and see how brilliant my life is going' thing.
The whole needing the 'cool' approval of peers is something i left behind a long time ago in Madras and really, there's no place for it anymore in my life but I am surprised that it hasn't just gone away but lingers silently inside of me.

Oh well, I am just thankful i know myself enough to see when I am doing it and to stop myself in time.

Adios Muchachos
which reminds me of the first time i heard the term way back in the 80s in this :D
Adios Muchachos, and Tequila (what's tequila ? :D) & really, really understood what Plethora meant