Birthday Cake

My birthday cake, a carrot cake and it was delicious. Big Daddy said the people at work almost tramped each other for the left overs. Do you do that, send food to the office so you don't eat it at home?

An old friend of mine made the cake and I am so glad I found her again.

The Comcast equipment arrived today and I am sure BD will spend the weekend trying to fix the TV sets scattered around the house.

BD ordered a crap duvet from Costco for 200 bucks and it was ugly and not soft and not staying. Nope, going back.

Need to try my recipes for Thanksgiving and possibly for gift baskets. Yea, yea, yea, I am no cook. I think I can do this with BD's help and everyone will think I am a genius.

Weekend roundup

I am about to let out a long guarded secret, I am going to be 60 years old on my next birthday. I have been very sensitive about my age for years and then suddenly this year it has become less important. Not so unimportant I am telling people I work with, but I am loosening up a bit. I told Big Daddy I want a great and special birthday even though he and I are the only ones left here in the rusted out city in the rust belt. Since he was worried he had to have something special made for me he showed me some pics for my opinion. On the above I told him no, too fussy and not me. I want something I can wear every day.

Punkin Head asked for pics of the gorgeous hand loomed towels from Joanne, Cup on the Bus blog. She sent these to me and I am touched that someone would send me something so wonderful. I am saving them for Thanksgiving when we take food to my MIL's and I can show off my lovely towels. And yes, I will no doubt hand wash and press them. They are the bee's knees.

Went to get my pedicure yesterday and as always half awake as it a 9 am appointment on a Saturday and she is telling me she has this new product to try on me. And as I am leaving she tells me to report back if it lasts and is okay and doesn't chip. Wait a minute I just paid full price to be a test subject? No, I want OPI at these prices.

Watching the Lions at Wembly Stadium, 21-0 Atlanta at half time, WTF. Late breaking news, Lions won 22-21 on a kick when weeks ago they had no kicker. Must have been the tea.

Made the Trader Joe's pumpkin bread mix with added chopped walnuts. Not too bad, I mean nothing is as good as scratch but for a mix, as Miss Verita would say, not too shabby.

Got a call this morning asking if I knew that the vehicles were leaking. As in water leaking. No, I did not know that. I guess I am the only one and now this is the new big thing. Wet feet.

Big Daddy has a question for Esby, he is one of my long time readers and an owner of a dog. BD is convinced that dogs have been proven to have an internal compass to poop with the poles, they poop north south or south north, aligned with the poles. Can anyone confirm this? This has something to do with that circling that they do when they get ready for bed.

Gotta get my galoshes ready for tomorrow, that would be for inside not outside.

Happy BIrthday to me.

This is not the best picture, it is a sterling silver "Candy Kiss" that Big Daddy got me years ago from a jeweler at the Fisher Building in downtown Detroit. We were there to see a play at the Fisher Theater and this was in the window. The store was closed and he made a special trip to get it. I don't wear it often as it is heavy and the chain seems short, but it was my birthday and I always try to wear a BD gift on my birthday.

I had to buy donuts today as one of the plants I visit have a tradition of the birthday person supplying the treats. When I got the donuts it was rush time, lunch hour and the place was packed. I went through the drive-thru and stuffed the change in the console and when I got to the plant and put the change in my little purse I noticed I had 10 dollars extra. Shit, now I had to go back and return this money and it was not in my direction home. I must say though the people at the store were very appreciative.

The weirdest thing happened to me today and it is the second this year it has happened. And it has never happened before. I was walking down the path to visit one of my parts when a huge nut flew across an area and hit my foot and almost caused me to fall as it could have been worse for getting under my shoe. Once at the old plant a hi-lo dropped the forks really hard and something hit my thigh really hard. It just makes me wonder if the maintenance is getting lax in these plants.

My Punkin Head sent me some lovely books and called me for my birthday, he is a sweetie.

And no flowers, hmmm.

What a beautiful day

Today my Punkin Head is celebrating his birthday. He is looking forward to homemade lemon bars with fancy made lemons. He gets his love of lemons from his mommy.

Big Daddy and I finally found the requested double dutch oven on line and it is winging/bumping its way to college town. He gets his love of cooking from his daddy.

We hope he has a wonderful day.

Speaking of cooking I found a wonderful oatmeal muffin recipe on line and Big Daddy made it for Sunday breakfast. It is very good and not too sweet tasting. This afternoon we are making oatmeal bars with no sugar, he can take these on his trip the West BFE for snacks and nutrition. That is the one thing bad about his travels, no food or crappy food.

  The excitement for the week was finally finding clothespins after months of searching. ACO has them. Yes, I still hang clothes.

Well off to get the house in daylight savings mode. A tip from a home inspector years ago, flip all the switches in the electrical breaker boxes so the switches don't rust and break. We also change the batteries in the smoke detectors and clocks and watches and cars, quite a bit of work to do so we must get started.

One of the best birthdays ever.

Silk Scarf , map of Shanghai

I made Big Daddy soup on Friday so he was Mr. Happy all weekend. That man loves his soup.

I will start with the most exciting and finish with the WTF.

Punkin Head called and wished me a happy day. That boy makes me happy. Last year he sent a card but we never gave him the new address when we moved.

Big Daddy gave me a beautiful hand made shawl with 999 roses sewn on, this signifies everlasting and enduring love and devotion. The color of the roses means his only love forever. So if I die he cannot give it to wife number 2. And because it was my birthday and we have spent a bunch of money there the shawl store gave me a silk scarf with a map of Shanghai on it.

Amay gave me a beautiful silk scarf in my favorite colors, purple and green.

After a nice walk I got a taxi and surprised BD by going to Kapps for dinner. He loves that place and we both had excellent steaks. First steaks since we have been back in China.

Sunday we went for a walk and ended up grabbing a taxi to the Italian restaurant on Maoming. BD has wanted to go there for awhile and have pizza. Their pizza is just like the ones he had in Torino, and last night the special was truffle pizza. He was over the moon.

When I got my hair done Saturday Anna gave me a free deep conditioner for my birthday. It is the one where they wrap up your head and put under a bonnet that ties you down and then a bunch of steam comes off your head for 20 minutes. Gotta say my hair looked great.

Oh yes, others remembered my special day too, Sephora sent me an email with a free gift (did not open the email yet) Delta Airlines sent me a Birthday Greeting and a discount code just in case I want to spend a bunch of money with them before December 31, and my old radio station in Detroit emailed me a have a happy day. Wow.

Seriously, I had a great weekend, drama free. Except for one little thing. We stopped at the video store and no they do not have The Help movie. They tried to show BD the new movies and he told them is not buying anything until they get The Help. They were sad, we do spend some kwai with them. Then we were walking past Mr. Woody's and what do see, a poster for The Help. Mr. Woody does not have the movie The Help, he has the poster. Yes, yes, we have the poster now. WTF. BD went on the Internet looking for movie here in Shanghai, they sent him to my blog.

I am 50% on Birthday presents

Hand carved plaque I bought in Qiantong, fish and flowers, I am water in Feng Shui talk and need wood in my surroundings. Seemed a perfect match to me.

Birthdays are very emotional for me, we don't need to get into that hot mess, but they seem to go really well or really badly. My countdown started early this year as my birthday is the 5th.

First gift received this week was a lovely bottle of wine from the Howard Johnson in Ning Hai. Of course they did hedge a bit and said it was also to make up for the fact that they woke Big Daddy up at 2AM and tried to get him to change rooms. So, the wine is 50% mine. My second gift was refused. Not by me, but as I received 1 of 2 still at 50% but now the math is getting harder and I have never been good at math.

Big Daddy has been telling his supplier he is very sad for over a week. This is because it is the only way to communicate to them that they are the worst piece of shit ever. He then draws tears on his face and refuses to go to dinner with them. Entertaining really escalates when the job is in the squat toilet.

When Big Daddy left Ning Hai yesterday the supplier tried to give him a bottle of wine for my birthday. Unfortunately the wine was accompanied by hand rolled cigars for BD. So yep, he turned them down. I told him I admired his integrity and they probably gave the loot to the Frenchy. Frenchy called today and said that he had heard how sad BD was and whatever he did worked because the tool shop was busting ass.

Funny of the day: At the train station BD heard someone calling his name. He said it was a little Chinese lady, very young. She told him she worked at the Howard Johnson and was very excited that she could tell everyone at work that she had seen him at the train station. I guess we are popular.