Saturday Report

Kelly is a real schemer. We went grocery shopping and her school is having a raffle in front of the store. For the second week in a row, she got Jean to give her a dollar so that she could buy a ticket. Great, support the school, all that, I thinks. We went about our shopping business, and as we left, Kelly got involved talking to somebody, so I grabbed a dollar and bought a raffle ticket too. Jean said that the raffle person told her that they weren't selling many, so I was thinking I'd do my part, and maybe have better odds as well. On the way to the car, Kelly seemed a little miffed, and Jean explained. It seems Kelly planned on winning a specific prize, the Xbox. Then since she owned it, she'd make Daddy ask permission to use it!

Geez, what gratitude! I let her use the PS2 pretty much any time it's practical (Jean's not using the downstairs tv, it's before Kelly's bedtime, etc.). Now I'm a competitor for 'her' prize. Sorry kiddo, maybe next week I'll bring a twenty! Or maybe I'll just give her a dollar or two myself. We'll see...

So now I know what Armagnac tastes like. Trouble is, it's been so long since I've tasted any kind of brandy, that I couldn't tell you if this is rougher than cognac or what. Jean, Kelly and I made the trip to John Barleycorn, which is a McMenamins restaurant ten minutes from where we live. This is incidentally one of the post-NOVA hangouts when no movie is handy.

We went for lunch on Saturday, Jean playing designated driver since I knew I wanted to try the Armagnac. I'd heard one of those 'color' stories on NPR about the history of Armagnac, and how it is fading away in the face of more populist liquors, so when I saw it on the menu at Barleycorn's one post-NOVA night, I decided I had to try it (despite the possibility that the brand served by Barleycorn's might be one of the 'tweaked' versions with more sugar that desperate producers have been experimenting with to try to bring back business, and incidentally hastening the demise of genuine Armagnac).

Result: it was smooth and quite pleasant tasting. I'll have to try the cognac some other time to see if there is a noticable difference. Food-wise, Jean had a salad, Kelly had a honkin' cheeseburger, and ate it all, and I had the fish tacos. Yum! We shared a hummus plate as well.

Saturday evening was the NOVA Christmas party, and food was brought by all. I pigged out, and got a shake and sweet potato fries at Burgerville on the way to Tom's after the meeting, so my weight spiked a good five pounds. Going down now, thanks.

There was a bit of Christmas themed anime, but otherwise it was a standard meeting. I'd already handed out my presents to select friends at the previous meeting since I was unsure Alan was going to be in town this weekend. So I got to receive without giving this time. Alan got me a book on taking better family portraits. I'm gonna have to cram between now and Christmas morning to see if there are any good ideas for good spontaneous photos. Tom got me a Code Monkey T-Shirt from Think Geek, and I'm wearing it now! Yahoo! Finally, John Jackson got me an Indian epic, since he knew I was curious about Indian cinema. My memory is so shoddy I can't remember if I got him a present or not. I'll just have to double up and get him a treat post-holidays. King Hu's A Touch of Zen is out on DVD, maybe he'd like that? I'm getting it for myself, so maybe I'll just buy two copies.

We all piled into Tom's apartment to view the Canadian DVD of Brotherhood of the Wolf, which we'd seen in the theatre, but had fun watching again. While there, I got to sample Tom's gift to Alan, a bottle of Oregon made Sake. It was served in tiny glasses, so since I had a single one, you know I'm not a souse! Finally it was time to go home, and I drove safely, rest assured.