And Now For Something Completely Different

I have been thinking about blogging on this subject for some time now. I probably first had the thought before Thanksgiving. But I dismissed the subject as being not appropriate for the holiday season. It doesn't address anything about being thankful. And it certainly doesn't seem very Christmas-y but, we are now more than half way through the cold dreary month of January and I needed a silly distraction. So I'm asking all of you. What is the strangest item in your fridge? I want to hear from everyone, especially our family members who are abroad. Yes specifically Zack and Leslie.

As you can tell from the above picture I have an overflowing assortment of condiments from fast food restaurants. This is my entry into the "Strangest Thing in the Fridge" collection. It is not that fast food condiments are odd. It's that it is so large. I open up my fridge and invariably a packet of fancy ketchup falls out at my feet. It's as if the refrigerator is making the choice for me. I can just hear it saying, "You may think that you want to have milk on your granola but, try this fat free ranch dressing. It has only been in here for three years. I'm sure you will enjoy it. Go ahead try something different." Or as I'm reaching for eggs my eye is drawn to excessive amounts of little sweet and sour sauce tubs. I own many of them and I start to wonder can I mix the McDonalds brand with the Burger King brand and can I then mix them both into cheese souffle? Probably not. I am an adventurous cook but, I'm not foolish. So let me tell you the numbers.

24 thin packets of parmesan cheese
16 packets of crushed red pepper flakes
8 mini tubs of cream cheese
8 packets of horsey sauce from Arby's
4 packets of Signature BBQ sauce from Arby's
7 packets of salad dressing (included are 3 fat free classic Italian dressing, 3 fat free ranch and 1 Newman's own southwest dressing)
6 packets of mayonnaise
11 containers of butter
7 mini tubs of sweet and sour sauce
4 containers of honey
1 imitation sour cream
1 mini moo half and half
16 packets of soy sauce
8 packets of hot sauce
1 unlabeled container that I think might be honey mustard dip
24 packets of fancy ketchup (Why does it turn into fancy ketchup if it is packaged into a small aluminum envelop?)
1 Special garlic sauce from Papa John's Pizza
1 mini jar of orange marmalade, partially used
3 packets of Gulden's spicy brown mustard

Oh as I was counting I found 2 more buttermilk ranch dressings. I was thrown off because they are in a mini tubs instead of a packet

And for the strangest item I have an unidentified large packet of some oddly colored gunky goo. It's lumpy and rather greeny, yellowy brown. My guess is that it may be really old garlic.

I hope that I haven't forgotten anything. Please share with all of us "The Strangest Thing in My Fridge."

Going to the Mikado

Last September, for my birthday I received tickets to the Lyric Opera's production of "The Mikado". They were a gift from Seth and on Wednesday last we drove into the city and saw a wonderful show.

I t was all very English-y and set in the twenties. This is a shot of Nanki Poo and YumYum returning at the end of the show.

Pictured here is the arrival of the Mikado and his daughter-in-law elect, Katisha. I must mention that the man who sang the part of the Mikado had a beautiful rich bass voice that was so big it filled the theater. The woman who sang Katisha was so funny and her voice was equally good but she would do funny things with her voice to make her character even more comic.

The Young Sweethearts

Koko is kneeling and asking for mercy from the Mikado

The Mikado doing a little dance

Seth is all excited about going to a cultural event in the city. (The pictures are now my own and not production photos from the Lyric Opera web site.)

Once we got into the city we found really cheap parking, but they wouldn't take my debit card, so we ended up at the closest Starbucks for a sandwich and some extra dollars to pay for the upfront parking fee. I had planned on taking Seth to a little bit nicer place to eat, but it ended up being at this corner Starbucks.

So Seth took a shot of the counter at the ubiquitous Starbucks.

It just so happens that the Lyric is very close to the Sears Tower.

When we first walked in the usher told us to go to aisle 5. We did and our seats were on row "E". We went to row E and it was right down front. There were two seats waiting for us and I was amazed that Seth had got such great seats. Well, there really weren't our seats. Our seats were in the upper balcony row E. We went to the upper balcony and we sat down and this is what we saw.

Lots of fancy architectural features.

Such a grand theater.

After the intermission we stood up and we saw that no one had come to sit in those two seats down front. We looked at each other and decided to go ask if we could sit there. Seth told the ladies nearby that this was a birthday present for his Mom and would they mind if we came and sat by them. The ladies smiled and did not tattle on us to the usher. So we saw the second act from five rows back from the orchestra. This picture is of what was behind us.

Seth took these shots just after the show was over. You can get a better idea of the size and the glitz.

I don't know why, but Seth took a picture of the chair that he sat in.

The stage door is a few steps away from this sign. We saw the guy who played Nanky Poo leaving the theater and we stopped and gave him his very own standing ovation.

Now for something completely different.

Rachel and I spent some time on Friday afternoon making rice bags for her and Seth. We used to aqll have rice bags and then we got our new furnace and the house was toasty. Then I started turning the heat down at night and the kids wanted rice bags again. So ten pounds of rice later we had two rice bags and they each had two covers in soft minky.

This is Seth's bag. Four minutes in the microwave and no such thing as cold toes.

I just had to throw in this picture of Rachel. She's pretending to be sad because her toes are cold. Yes, this was taken before the rice bag was complete.