Dinner overload / Dreams of babies and drugs / Progresso Italian-Style Bread Crumbs

Man, it's been years (2001?) since I've done the "eat a lot one day and eat barely nothing the next" thing. In my defense, I'm not going on a sudden starvation diet - although I do wonder about the people who were walled in to starve to death in the old days! (and about this person who got wedged behind a bookcase and died there more recently) When I got home yesterday at 11:30, all I wanted to do was to quickly check my friends list and then go to sleep since I felt really tired. (alcohol, waking up before 7, and having a long day probably all contributed to things) I was going to write this update when I got up this afternoon, but quickly found my endurance sapped since I felt tired and almost pukey: honey-roasted peanuts and water to my blood sugar's rescue! Clarified things with Andrew just now: it's understandable that he leaves for church at 9:45, but my living in Richmond means I have to leave earlier!

Yesterday's dinner at Nathan's was pretty good, even if we had to eat two hours later than anticipated. The white sauce wouldn't thicken, so the guys dumped some cornstarch into it. Like I told Jeremy, "THE WHITE SAUCE THAT JUST WOULDN'T THICKEN! That would make a good horror movie!" He laughed and agreed: just have a skeleton standing at a pot in mid-stir! Eric said hello to me, and told me that the wedding did go ahead as scheduled. He brought his Victoria buddy Korey, who confused us at first when he called Eric "Clarice." Turns out it's his spin on a Victoria nickname since there were two Erics a few years ago, haha. (SILENCE OF THE LAMBS?) Pepperjack, aged Gruyére, habanero, and probiotic cheddar cheese - yay! We joked that Isabel's parents would yank her out of her second home at Nathan's if they found out that she drank some white wine while underage - "we thought it was free room and board, but now we know the truth because they're contributing to the delinquency of a minor: OUR DAUGHTER!" Discussed Jen and her boyfriend, watched crazy Youtube videos ("Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show" x2 [Isabel: "Hey, they have a website!"] and Stephen Colbert singing in Korean) and vetoed Christmas music on Nathan's laptop, observed that the music on Jon's new CD was very ambient and could put you to sleep (not good if you were on drugs), laughed at the party in the kitchen (everyone except Korey was in there at one point!), discussed my blog (Jon: "Mediocre honey-roasted peanuts?" Me: "That's my blog!" Jeremy: "Hey, you could stop blogging about your life and just do videos from now on!"), laughed at Jon documenting stuff with his digicam, and found out that Jeremy's bottle of olive oil contained 6000 calories. ("I think it would just flow out of you after a while, and you wouldn't feel too good!")

We had three baking dishes full of macaroni and cheese / Gatorade / tea / water / Belgian beer / lots of salad (build your own!), discussed STREET FIGHTER II / STARCRAFT characters (Ken / Ryu / Chun Li / E. Honda / Saget), clarified Japanese / Korean eating habits (soy sauce is bad, but Christon's dad is a chef...), referred to a tinfoil spill as "rolling out the silver carpet for the mac and cheese," and yelled hi to Phil via phone since he was moving today near Christon. Later, I went downstairs for a bit to escape being social and also to rest on the couch. Said bye to Christon, and then to Jeremy - 5:30 AM comes early, even if he IS getting faster at biking to work! He also accidentally crashed his bike into the closet in the foyer after I told him that my mom thought he and Jen would be a good match - no matter that Jen already has a boyfriend! (she never objected when someone called him that in her presence a while ago!)

Eric thought that I should go home with him and Korey, so I confirmed with my brother while telling Nathan that they could have my chocolate / Smarties ice cream. We stopped off at Dragon Ball since Korey wanted some bubble tea - Eric ran in the rain while Korey and I stayed in the car. We discussed his weight, his cane, his accident, my being related to Jon, how he'd met Nathan and Jon before, his feeling that Jeremy rambled (my sister thinks so too), his being the outsider (I felt protective of Eric and didn't like Korey's telling me stuff at dinner, yet I was all social a while later - go figure!), how Eric didn't live in Surrey, how long I'd known Eric for, his own age, and Vernon / Ontario / Powell River / new jobs. He seemed really surprised when I told Eric that I wanted pudding bubble tea (which I still haven't touched!), but it's all good. After we dropped Korey off and talked about Victoria friends / mistakes / pregnancy, Eric asked me about Mondays. I have no idea, haha. He told me exactly who called him "Erice," discussed some of our other friends, said that Jeff wouldn't be pregnant with Anita's baby (crazy!), asked if my bubble tea wouldn't melt if I saved it for later, figured that alcohol made me into a psycho (no), thought that I poked him with a pencil / my fist a few times when it was really the green bubble tea straw (I stayed in the back after we dropped off Korey since he wouldn't fit in the backseat), and made plans with Jon for the return of his blue bowl. Definitely good times!

My dreams were pretty insane - a bunch of us had to listen to AC/DC, Natalie Imbruglia, Destiny's Child, and other artists while dumping our luggage in a central location since it was toxic. We all yelled at my mom when she expressed objections to a "drug lunch" - that was really our term for mountains and sandwiches. Baby Amanda had lost six pounds, and Frances held baby Andrew while noting that he was probably sick because it was his sister's birthday since it had happened last year, too. We wrote about Joshua, similarly-titled songs, Ministry's RELOAD, and tried getting Randal to help buy us a bunch of groceries because we'd pay him back via cheque later on. So weird!

Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show 1
Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show 2
Stephen Colbert sings in Korean to try proving a point to Korean singer Rain


Progresso Italian-Style Bread Crumbs

Here's a really easy one that clones the most popular brand of seasoned bread crumbs. Just throw all of the ingredients into a small bowl, mix it up, and you're done. Use the finished product for an Italian-style breading - when frying or baking chicken, fish, pork chops, eggplant, etc. - just as you would the store-bought stuff.

1 cup plain bread crumbs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon parsley flakes
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon sugar
dash oregano

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl. Makes 1 cup.