It's Official!

After several attempts at getting my "identity" it is finally done and I am an official resident of the District of Columbia!

You would have thought DC would have needed DNA & blood samples to accomplish this.

But now that it's all done I will probably get my first summons for jury duty by Monday.

The Birthday cake

Yesterday was my friend Mark's birthday and I told him that I would make whatever kind of cake he wanted.

He asked for something with chocolate and peanut butter so I whipped up this little delight.

It is a dark chocolate and peanut butter flourless chocolate torte, a variation of a recipe that I used when making desserts at the hotel on Saba. And just to add a few extra calories I topped it with a peanut butter ganache frosting.

It was almost too obnoxiously rich to eat but the party guests seemed to manage choking it down.

It turned out so well I am making another one this morning to take to the family's house for Mother's Day.

I almost got Beat Up today

So I had to go out to Virginia into "the burbs" to run some errands and buy a wedding gift today and.....

as I was checking out at the local "Specialty Store" with my gift the cashier told me the total was $76.21. I reached into my pocket and gave her $81.26.

She told me "No, no you gave too much moonee" I replied "Yes, I know. I gave you an extra dollar and penny because I don't want singles and the pennies back".

She looked at me with confusion and curiosity in her eyes and tried to return the single dollar and penny.

I told her to just simply put in the amount into the big machine and it will tell you how much I get back!

She tried again to return the dollar and the penny at which point I commented to the customer behind me...

"and I thought the Chinese were good at Math" while chuckling to myself.

Well the customer scoffed and said to me "My husband is Viatnamese"

I said "I'm sorry" to which she replied "Well, you should be!"

I said "No, honey. I meant I'm sorry that your husband is Viatnamese"

I rapidly got my $5 and nickel back and literally ran for the car, locked the doors and sped away.

OK, so I cried today

I had to go into Alexandria today and was traveling down the parkway which is right along the river and as I rounded the bend I saw a Mama Duck and her babies trying to cross the divided four lane highway ahead of me.

As I slowed down this JERKY car in front of me ran over the mother and the little babies started scurrying all over the road.

I slammed on the brakes and this JERKY driver behind me blared on the horn and nearly rear ended me and as I stopped braking I ran over one of the baby ducks.

I barely made it to the nearest exit when I burst into tears.

I'm sorry poor little baby ducklings. I really didn't mean it.

And to all of you JERKY drivers who are in such a rush to get to wherever you are going, why don't you stop and take a break and appreciate life!

Rah, Rah - We LOVE Cheerleaders

One morning on our weekend beach trip was spent at Brown's on the Boardwalk for breakfast.

They make homemade doughnuts and serve them HOT!

Nothing at the beach is diet related so you just have to go with the flow and enjoy yourself.

And speaking of diets... This table was right next to us and I found the lady's jacket on the end interesting.

It was monogrammed with See's Viking Cheerleading Squad.

Since I found it hard to believe she was actually part of the cheerleading team I came to the conclusion that she was the See's Candy Store's chief representative.

Could you pass the chocolate covered caramels, please??

"Pleasant"ville

Saturday was the day for the Ocean City flea market and mass yard & garage sales. In the middle of town was a collection of of nearly 70 vendors selling their wares plus dozens of private sales around the island.

One vendor was selling old glass door knobs and vintage architectural salvage items. My sister needed a new (old) door for an opening in the house that was discovered when they took the old paneling down.

The lady said she had a salvage shop in Pleasantville and had lots of old doors, stained glass, hinges and other stuff so we decided to take a trip out there.
As it turned out Pleasantville was NOT so pleasant afterall. The whole town had certainly seen better days.

One block had this strip of storefronts which included:

The Discount Divorce Center
Latino Tax Preparers
a Bail Bondsman
The Karaoke Training Center
Shiatsu AND Tantric Massage Salon
and last but not least
The Forever Nail Studio offering nail extensions and "African" weaves!

We finally found our way to the Architecural Salvage place only to see that it was closed.

We wandered around for a while and stumbled into a Thrift shop in hopes of finding some hidden treasure. No such luck.

I did come across a pair of crutches but one of them was about 6 inches shorter than the other "match". I looked at my sister with curiosity in my eyes and she says to me "Please don't go there" I told her they must have belonged to Eileen.

I had to explain to her that the crutches belonged to I Lean.

We literally ran out of the store in hysterical fits of laughter!

Baxter's Beach Trip

Baxter went with us to the beach and he had a blast running up and down the dunes and checking out the surf.

He was getting adjusted to the new house and sounds and every time someone walked by the house he would start barking at the top of his lungs.

Woof, Woof, Woof, Woof

As I scolded him and told him to stop, he would then "tone it down" a bit and bark at a normal level.

Woof, woof, woof, woof

I then would say "Baxter, enough barking" and he would stop, stare at me and go

woof, woof, woo, woo quietly

"Baxter, stop"

woo, woo, wo, w, w in a whisper

Obstinate little Mutt!

What's with Religion?

Yesterday was a chilly day at the beach and so we decided to break in the new "beach" chairs by having a little happy hour on the driveway which shielded us from the winds.

A new neighbor of Lila's came down to introduce herself and said "Hi, I'm Nancy. I'm from the Jewish house a couple of doors up the block"

I thought to myself; "Myself, that was a little odd. How am I supposed to reply? Oh, Hi. I'm Chris and we're from the Episcopalian house right here?"

Well, we exchanged our pleasantries and off she went. Later in the day we walked by her house and the shingle on the gate read "The Hewisch's" and it all made sense.

Good thing I CAN keep my mouth shut from time to time and didn't actually reply as the poor lady would have thought I was off my rocker, or a little more off my rocker than I already am.

Animal Cruelty

As we crossed the Delaware River and headed into New Jersey on Friday and started our trek through the rural farms of south Jersey we passed this cow farm which had all these little igloos around the barn.

The image isn't all that great since I took it as we raced past at 60+ miles per hour.

My youngest sister then proceeded into this long story about Molly (my other sister) going on and on about how cruel is was to have baby cows stuck in these things and how horrible it was, blah, blah, blah.

She went on and on about how people need to start an action plan to save the suffering animals, blah, blah, blah.

Later that night, she goes on, Molly and the rest of the group goes out for dinner and she says to the waiter without even thinking; "Oh, I think I'll have the veal parmeson"

The soda I was drinking actually snorted out of my nose!

Where's the Quality Control?

I knew that my road trip to the Jersey shore was going to be a "gut buster" of a weekend but thought "Why not throw caution to the wind" and enjoy myself, extra calories and all.

So before we even pulled out of the city limits of Annapolis I was already rooting through my sister's bag full of food to see what I could eat and found (my all time favorite) the "new" Golden Oreo cookies in the snack pack size.

Well I must admit I was devastated and disappointed all at the same time when I saw that the creamy goodness inside each cookie was pathetic and didn't even cover the entire wafer! I ranted and raved about it for a while until my 2 sisters looked at me with their famous "Shut the F*%K up" face but continued on about how I should write a complaint letter to Nabisco about their lack of quality control.

I mean, after all, it wasn't even worth eating them at all if I was going to be shorted out of the best part of the cookie.

As I was finishing the last one out the the six pack I made one final comment about how cheated I felt and got "the stern look" once again and realized I had gone too far.