Dragon

Tomorrows birthdays will surely include 2011 which will be born in mere hours. Happy New Year everyone!

Baldur

Each year Robert likes to host a New Year's Eve party. He invites far too many people.
I expect anywhere up to 75 guests here at Boughbreak.
This home is far from palatial, so it could become rather crowded.
I might add that my contribution to the guest list this year has only been 5 people.
Because of this impending event the domestic and kitchen staff (that being myself) have been running at full tilt for the past two days.
Champagne becomes the annual issue. Robert runs around the house at about 11:30 surveying the guests as to whether they will be having champagne or non-alcoholic carbonated white grape juice. He is very determined to get this as accurate as possible.
He pours them and distributes the beverage just before the stroke of midnight, and then gets flustered at having a glass of champagne too few or too much non-alcoholic stuff poured. Both are easily remedied in my opinion as we are adequately supplied, and if there is extra poured it will indeed be drunk.
The concept of pouring great quatities of each and having the guests just pick up their glass of choice has not been adopted here.
He also uses rather flimsy plastic flutes, the type with a snap-on disk for a base. These are meant to be disposable, but have been reused for at least a generation. He washes, dries and packs them away each year. The bases inevitably fall off and get trod upon.
This year I had him rewash them 3 times before they were clean enough to use. My standards appear somewhat higher than his.
My concept of disposable glassware includes the process of disposing with them after use.
If one is to wash them for reuse one might as well be using glass champagne flutes. Sigh.
I have indeed offered to purchase a quantity of glass flutes, they can be had quite reasonably at IKEA.
But, no he is worried that they shall become broken.
It all just takes time and perseverance. Eventually I was able to bring 24 balloon style red wine glasses into the house, a vast improvement over serving Merlot in juice tumblers

Baldur

This year's menu includes:
Assorted chips, crackers, pretzels and salted nuts
A crudite' platter consisting of raw broccoli, cauliflower, cucumber slices, carrots and grape tomatoes (one can see Baldur's general disdain for raw celery here).
Chicken nuggets
and to dip the above into we have:
Hummus
Green Goddess Dip
Salsa

Also there will be:
Pastry wrapped Spanish olives
Deviled Eggs
Boiled Shrimp with Cocktail sauce
and Pecan Bars with Brown Sugar Meringue
Coconut Lemon Squares
Chocolate Crinkles
Baldur's Famous Homemade Fruitcake (vintage 2007!)

Plus whatever the guests bring, and everyone brings far too much

Baldur

A Happy and Prosperous New Year to Everyone!

lilalee

Thanks Baldur! May we all be blessed with a New Year of 'Baldur" here!!

marius

Enjoyed reading about the cleaning of the plastic champagne glasses. Absolutely charming. The menu sounds fantastic too.

Wishing all a wonderful, happy and healthful New Year, and beyond. : )

Baldur

Happy Birthday to Pablo Cuevas, Sammie Henson, Tim Dog, Leilani Kai, Rayo de Jalisco Jr., Abdul Ahad Momand, Grandmaster Flash, Sergei Avdeyev, Jimmy Hart, Gennadi Sarafanov, Country Joe McDonald, Frank Langella, B. Kliban!, Milt Jackson, J.D. Salinger, Carole Landis, Rocky Graziano, Dana Andrews, Xavier Cugat, J. Edgar Hoover, E.M. Forster, Alfred Stieglitz, William Clowes, Betsy Ross, Paul Revere and Pope Alexander VI.

clorophilla

Very funny for me to read about disposable glasses and pouring champagne before midnight. This here in Italy should be a HERESY!! Therre is an art of pulling out the cork of the bottle - it must pop out exactly at midnight. And it has to be a very soundly POP, for being a good omen for the new year! Not easy, as the corks tend to pop at their own wish... LOL

when the cork pop out (often with hight risk for chandeliers and ornaments) all people stretch out the glasses that would be generously poured, then EVERY ONE has to tinkle his/her glass against EVERYONE else glass (but we have not so much people, LOL), so you may well understand that plastic glass should be another Heresy and could waste the whole year!!

clorophilla

sorry for my English, I would say - could spoil the whole new year!

And, I can add, each one is not allowed to drink before finishing the whole tlinking thing... it would be the most desplicable act!

Baldur

Thank you clorophilla, I do much prefer your Champagne tradition to the one here at Boughbreak.

Baldur

#8264
quataties + n = quantities

Baldur

Happy Birthday to Syesha Mercado, Karina Smirnoff, Cuba Gooding Jr,. Tia Carrerre, Pernell Whitaker, Jim Bakker, Roger Miller, Bozo the Clown !(Larry Harmon), Isaac Asimov, Willi Graf, Barry Goldwater, Jim Londos, Lillian Leitzel and Queen Emma of Hawaii.

Dragon

Happy New Year all! Dragon had a lovely time out at a friends house at a Pirate Murder Mystery/Fondue party. I was terribly pleased at this theme as it gave me yet another chance to wear my beloved corset (I'll use any excuse to pull it out). It also meant I got to wear my big lace up boots and feathered pirate hat too, again, never a bad thing.
We did have champagne at the stroke of midnight, in disposable glasses (though these were shot glasses- there was only one bottle and 15-20 people) these disposable glasses were disposed of after, not washed again.
New Year's Day we drove back up to Red Deer again and promptly laid down for a nap. To tell the truth Dragon fell asleep in the car on the way home but sleeping in the car is never terribly restful so a nap was very much needed. Our lovely nap was interupted by both the phone and Oscar, our horribly talkative cat. It was an extremely unproductive day.

Dragon

I did have a very productive day on the 29th though. My best friend/maid of honour is back in the country from Australia and we went wedding dress shopping. The very first dress I tried on is the one I want. I did go on to try on 8 or 10 more that day and I must say that, though tiring, trying on wedding dresses makes you feel really really special. Naturally the dress I want was just a little above what I was hoping to spend on it. I've been saving up my cat toy money a specifically for the dress, so I'll have to really start selling them so I can afford it!
Weddings are so expensive! A destination wedding is looking more and more attractive to us. In fact we're going to go out today to talk to travel agents about just that very subject. The only problem with a destination wedding is that some of the people that we really want to be there can't afford the trip, which means we'd need to buy their tickets if we're going to get them there. On the plus side, we were wanting a honeymoon anyway and a lot of the resorts offer free weddings when you're staying there. We're keeping our fingers crossed on this.

Baldur

There's been some chat on the Steampunk forum that I follow on people planning Steampunk weddings and choosing gowns for these most complicated events.
My first wedding was an elopement actually, there was no religious ceremony. Baldur Wore a grey suit, Mrs. Baldur wore a navy blue dress.

At a dinner party recently the topic of gay marriage came up. The hosts were a couple in Massachusetts, we men can legally be married. They had done so.
Robert said to those assembled that as soon as it was legal in Primrose that we would be married.
Baldur was rather surprised. When last we had discussed the matter matter when it was previously before the legislature here Robert's opinion was that such a ceremony was not necessary.

Baldur

Happy Birthday to Kimberly Locke, Jerome Young, Mel Gibson, Dean Hart, Jim Ross, Victoria Principal, Stephen Stills, Bobby Hull, Dabney Coleman, Geoarge Martin, Maxene Andrews, Victor Borge, Ray Milland, ZaSu Pitts, J.R.R. Tolkien, August Macke and Cicero.

Normal

Too funny about Robert's remark! Always enlightening when one's nearest & dearest informs the public what has not been exposed for consideration by oneself.
Gernerally my champagne is consumed all evening, with a possible remnant for next day (since celebrating on my own). However, I posses a pair of champagne corks acquired on a Korbel tour. Agree that plastic glasses are heresy: however, must have used such in Hamburg. We would take our bottle to the harbor to enjoy the beautifully lit ships and the fireworks. Doubt the glass flutes were brought along.

marius

The link below is one of the most delightful forwards I've ever had. Even if you don't like model trains, don't see how anyone could resist the sheer magic. Enjoy! (And, I agree with link instructions: look at the photos first and then go back to watch the video.)

http://gossipcolumnonline.blogspot.com/2010/08/two-german-brothers-have-put-this-train.html

marius

That link didn't work for me. Try the one below or else google "Two German brothers put this Train Set together."

http://www.miniatur-wunderland.com/exhibit/

marius

And for the third try, google "two german brothers *have* put this train set together" ... just an easier way to view the photos and video all in one space ...