Howdy From WI

We're on a whirlwind trip to WI. I realised last Wednesday that my sister's birthday was going to be on Saturday. And it was the big four-oh. So rapid arrangements were made, and Friday afternoon we drove out here to WI to surprise her. My mom was going to pick my sis up and take her to lunch, so we told my mom that we'd pick her up instead. Was she ever surprised, LOL! That was fun. :-) We went to an Indian buffet. Mmmmmm! Currygasm.

So here we are, doing the WI thing for a week or so. Last night, my sis's boyfriend threw a big barbecue for her at his house. He grilled yummy kabobs with Ellie's delicious marinade (squeeze 6 limes, add a can of coconut milk, keep adding garlic paste and ginger paste until the marinade itself is a paste, and spread it on the meat.) There was a lovely fire (I know, Egan, I know) in the fire - um - holder thinggy for roasting marshies, etc. Both Navan and a portion of The Getaway Drivers were there, so we sat around the fire singing and listening to all the musicians make great music. Excellent private concert. :-) Ellie is a luthier, so the fuel was partly fueled by guitar and mandolin bits - mostly leftovers, outside cutout pieces, etc.

GuTTer MuNKi started things off with a lovely political discussion, so I pretty much hid in the corner of the yard until that was over with. It took a long time. A long, long time. Obviously I need to enforce some kind of "no politics" rule with him. I can't take him anywhere. Although truth be told, he and Ellie had a lot of fun with the debate. I, on the other hand, am a very non-confrontational person. You may have whatever beliefs you like, I will have mine, and we'll all be happy. Or at least I will. If you are a miserable sort of person, that's your problem, not mine. Arguing about the rightness and wrongness of our conflicting beliefs makes absolutely no difference to the spinning of the world, so who cares? OTOH, I do find it interesting to have a political discussion now and then when everyone has had at least 2 glasses of wine and is feeling mellow, and is capable of discussing things without caring whether or not everyone's beliefs are perfectly in synch.

Today SIL and I took our Mongol Horde to a petting farm where I was thoroughly sampled by baby goats (bangles, hair, necklace, sandals, ankle bracelet, shirt) but mostly hung out with the kittens. They were excuciatingly cute, and GuTTer MuNKi actually believed me for a couple of very horrified moments when I told him that I'd brought back a new kitten. I was seriously tempted to bring one back for the in-laws, whose "cat" is one of the most evil creatures I've ever had the misfortune to meet. I don't know what it really is. It has the shoulders of an ox, the body of a pig, the legs and tail of a stick drawing, and the temperament of an extremely pissed off electric eel.

We hit one of our favourite used bookstores yesterday and scored a bunch of good stuff, including one of the Outlander books. We'll be hitting the very best one - Frugal Muse -sometime before we go home. I brought a big bin of books to trade in with the dual intention of offsetting the cost a bit and making some shelf space for new books. But I'm really eyeballing some of IKEA's bookshelves.

Speaking of IKEA, I finally saw Fight Club thanks to SIL. What a very strange film. Interesting, if a bit slow paced in places, but strange. The lack of continuity at the end with the whole massive head wound thing kind of yanked me out of the story. We started watching Boondock Saints again with SIL last night, but SIL and I were both losing the battle with the Sandman, due to our late night antics of the preceeding twenty-some hours. Every time I see that film, I appreciate it even more. It's on my Top 5 List. Maybe Top 3. Check it out. :-)