You're Canada!

People make fun of you a lot, but they're stupid because you've

got a much better life than they do.  In fact, they're probably just jealous.

 You believe in crazy things like human rights and health care and not

dying in the streets, and you end up securing these rights for yourself and

others.  If it weren't for your weird affection for ice hockey, you'd be

the perfect person.
Take

the Country Quiz at the

href="http://bluepyramid.org">Blue Pyramid

On the other hand, what's weird about an affection for ice hockey?

Mind you, one problem with quizzes is that you just can't seem to stop, can you?

Just for the record, I do not look like Aragorn, although I do have a weird affection for looking at him.

Elvis is home sick today. He went to the doctor, who prescribed some antibiotics. Hopefully, that will fix him right up and he'll be back to his old self in no time. Aside from the doctor, he's spent the day playing on his computer. At least he's relaxing, so that's good.

Saturday night, we went to a cocktail party at Fiona's. She called me on Friday, asking if I had any ideas of what I could do with chicken. Seeing as I can't stand the stuff, I had plenty of ideas, although certainly nothing appetizing. I suggested she call Brenda, but she told me that she already had, and that Brenda had suggested that she call me.

Thanks bunches, babe.

So somehow, I ended up 'volunteering' to bring "something with chicken, that people can stand around and pick at." In the end, I decided to bring wings. I do like chicken wings, although usually only if they're soaked in a combination of butter and Cajun Sunshine (or equivalent): preferably more hot sauce than butter, although I'm willing to go to half and half. Also, I don't recall ever having had a dry chicken wing, and certainly not a tasteless one, so that helps as well. Oh, and my mother never, ever made wings. Thank heaven for small mercies.

A long, long time ago, I used to cook at a restaurant that made excellent buffalo wings. We'd keep the wings in five gallon pickle buckets, as you do, along with everything else in the walk in. Do you have any idea how long it takes to disjoint enough wing pieces to fill up a five gallon pickle bucket? Or how many buckets we went through a night?

Well, a long time, and lots. Actually, I've forgotten exactly how long it would take me. Once you get the hang of it, you get into a groove of sorts and it goes faster, even though it seems like you've been doing it for eons-- must be some sort of chicken wing time warp. The point is, spending a couple of hours hacking apart wings just isn't much fun, really. I'd always rather mix-up a five gallon pickle bucket of bleu cheese dressing. Incidentally, the best way to do that is with your hands. And your arms. Make sure to reach all the way to the bottom, and to clean under your fingernails really, really well. But I digress. . . .

I decided against buffalo wings because they're quite messy, which isn't so good for a cocktail party. Also, we know too many spice-wimps. Instead, I brought three pounds tequila-lime (in keeping with the 'cocktail' theme) and jerk (in keeping with the 'you've had too many cocktails' theme). The jerk paste I made smelled unbelievably fabulous. I wanted to eat it with a spoon, or possibly take the ziplock bag full of excess marinade with me and have a big whiff of it now and then. Sort of like glue sniffing, but much, much nicer smelling. The problem was, the jerked wings weren't as pretty as the tequila ones, and they weren't spicy enough-- well, they were spicy, but not spicy-hot. How did I possibly allow that to happen? Next time, I'm using more peppers. Also, I think the looks would have been improved greatly if I had been able to find green onions, because the paste would have been pastier. On the other hand, I now have a bottle of Scotch Bonnet Pepper Sauce to play with. I wonder if it would make good buffalo wings? Hmmm. . . .

Anyway, the wings were popular, and they all got eaten, so that was good. I asked Brenda about her treachery, and she said she suggested it because she likes my chicken.

"But, Brenda," says I, "you've never eaten my chicken."

"No. But I knew I would like it."

Such are the perils of having a reputation of being a good cook. Especially since I suspect that Brenda is a better cook than I am, although I have no proof of that.

The party was rather fun. The champagne cocktails were excellent. The champagne sangria was pretty good. Then things got a bit scarier. Fiona doesn't have a blender, so she basically turned a bunch of drunks loose in her kitchen with a variety of (often strange) booze, a small food processor (that doesn't handle ice cubes), a book of cocktail recipes, a kitchen towel and a hammer (for crushing the ice). The only rum available, alas, was Malibu, which is fine if you like coconut (I don't, particularly) and the recipe calls for it. Pina Coladas: yes. Daiquiris: no. Although the strawberry daiquiri with whole strawberrys floating in it did have a certain charm. I guess the guys never did get the hang of the food processor, and I imagine they didn't know that the drink was supposed to be pink, either.

As the night went on, the cocktails got stranger and more exotic, as staples such as vodka, gin and tequila became scarce. We left shortly after I was offered something described as "supposed to be sort of like a mai tai but, dude, I'm really not sure about this one." When the gung-ho drunks get hesitant, it's time to go.

We made it to the pub for a drink before they closed, and then went on to the Late Night Bar of Evil.

And Mr. Evil was back!!

And Mrs. Evil, and Lady Jane, and Sir, and it was wonderful. Good music, cold beer, good dancing, good (read: bad) singing.

Good shots.

Is it any wonder we didn't leave the house on Sunday?