(On the other hand, perhap's it has something to do with a lack of attention span. I won't tell you when I started this entry, but it sure as hell wasn't today. I guess I just wandered off to do something else, and never wandered back.)

That's not to say that I haven't been busy. The weekend was filled with the usual expeditions to the Pub, the Irish Pub, and the Late Night Bar of Evil-- standard stuff. I spent an inordinate amount of time talking to Horatio about hair coloring-- highlights versus dye jobs, what colors look good on whom, post-coloring hair care. Sometimes, I find it really difficult to believe that that man is not gay -- or, given our latest conversation, a hairdresser -- but he most definitely is not.

"Are you sure he's not bi(sexual)?" queries a friend.

Um, not entirely. Why don't you ask him?

Actually, I think he's just well-groomed, with an acute sense of fashion. I had thought that these traits were coming to be perceived as 'less un-manly', although that appears not to be correct. I don't even object to men wearing thongs, provided the man in question is not strolling down the beach, wearing nothing else. I wear thong underwear, I am not comfortable in any other type, why shouldn't a guy do the same? And that's even before we get to the whole VPL issue. Mind you, it goes without saying that for anyone, male or female, to haul their thongs up and out of their trousers for purposes of public display (or even by accident, really), is tacky in the extreme. I would add "but that's just me" here, except that it isn't. But I digress. . . .

In any case, I'm delighted to have him as a friend. We're going to go to some art exposition he's hot to see that's opening in the new year.

Went to another luncheon, but not quite. This one was Christmas Dinner at the Pub, and it was loads of fun, as well as very tasty. Turkey with all the trimmings -- mashed potatoes, gravy, veggies, cranberry sauce -- plus a roasted potato, a cocktail-type weenie, and a sausage croquette the size and shape of a golf ball. There was also a 'stuffing ball', about the same size, which is the way they do stuffing in the UK, or so I'm told. Notice to all homesick expats from the US: Paxo is exactly the same thing as Stovetop Stuffing. I'd recognize that salty, chemical-laden, too-much-dried-sage flavor anywhere, but there are people who like it, so there you go. It's memories of childhood, for a lot of folks, but in my case that's not necessarily a Good Thing. Not that I had a bad childhood (I didn't), it was just filled with not terribly good food. Then again, I don't particularly mind mashed potatoes made from potato flakes, as long as it's not some cheap-ass brand filled with salt and so forth. Oddly enough, my mother never tried to fob us off with fakes-- she always, always mashed her own spuds. She was, however, extremely partial to those meals that consisted of some sort of meat, a 'spice packet', and a bag to cook it all in. Just add water! You might think that that you couldn't really go wrong, but you would be in error. She tried to cook our Christmas turkey that way, once.

Important safety tip: Never try to stuff a 20 pound turkey into a 12-14 pound turkey bag. Oh, you might be able to squeeze the bird in there, given adequate help, but the end result is not at all pretty. You'll just end up spending the day scrubbing the oven; the turkey will spend the day in the snowbank outside your front door, steaming; and you'll have to feed your family hot dogs for dinner. You'll probably end up getting a bit snippy at all the sniggering, too, so if someone suggests that it may not be such a stellar idea? You should probably listen.

I made beef stew for dinner yesterday, and it turned out quite good. The closest I got to a packet was adding a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste from a tube. Important safety tip: Do not hold a toothpaste-type tube of tomato paste, fresh from the fridge, over a boiling pot of stew ingredients. It will only end up slipping around in your hands, and you're liable to end up with a healthy squirt of tomato paste all over the front of your wool sweater. Your slippers, too, provided that they are beige and made of suede. Oh, and another thing. That extra tube of tomato paste that you swear you remember buying at some point? It's in the spice drawer, so don't bother opening up an entire can of the stuff.

I'm just full of good advice today, aren't I?