Conversations with a Priest

This evening, Pablo and I had a telephone conversation that started out like so:

[my phone rings]
Fern: Hello
Pablo: Hello! I'm done with my funeral!
Fern: okay good!

Then it it hit me "I'm done with my funeral" and I could not stop laughing smack in the middle of the produce department at Kroger...

To clarify, earlier in the day Pablo had told me that he had to do a funeral in the afternoon and that he would call me as soon as the funeral was over so we could figure some stuff out. So he called me... to inform me that he was done with his funeral....

Das Auto

After confirmation that the Jetta was determined totaled, we were able to sort things out with the insurance of the lady at fault and now we have a new car!

And guess what... It's another Jetta! There is a Volkswagen slogan out there that goes like so: If only everything in life was as reliable as a Volkswagen.

The official color name is "metallic white gold" - we love it!

About to drive it out of the lot!

Can you see Norm waiving?

it sparkles!

Traditions

Traditions to me are always so awesome, but one thing that is super awesome is having the opportunity to start your own tradition. We started celebrating Norm and Jeffery's birthday at our house three years ago and by now, not only getting together for their birthdays has become a tradition but also our meal has become a tradition.

Our meal consisted of the typical Peruvian dish: Adobo de Chancho which involves pork shoulder cooked in spices and vinegar, boiled sweet potatoes, salsa criolla and white rice (cooked Peruvian style). We also had salad, but who needs to eat salad when you have some many other exciting options right before your eyes?

Here are some pictures of this year's Birthday Celebration

Mom fixing the salsa criolla:

Cheers!

Ed was trying to explain this game he's made up about abbreviations....

Test picture for "group picture":

They were all yelling at the photographer (yours truly) because their food kept getting cold... but how can you have a group gathering without a picture that involves a "self timer" as well as creativity on getting the camera to just the right height and angle and figuring out where the photographer is going to run to for the picture? Exactly....

Our meal also consisted of Paleo Dessert - thanks Eric and Kerrie - we had chocolate cake and cookies that involved coconut, dark chocolate chunks and some other crazy ingredients:

And there you have it - Birthday Celebration Tradition, year #3.

Write Up

Norm's restaurant - Vintage - had a write up in the Macon Telegraph this past weekend! The review got 3 out of 4 stars.

Here's to the first signs of the long, hard hours put in for the past few months.
Click here for the article: Vintage at the Marriott offers special dining experience

Congratulations Love!

Norm's Birthday - Part 2

In case you've missed the first part of Norm's birthday activities - click here and catch up.

Now that everyone is up to date, we can continue the events of December 18, 2011.

We finally made it to Atlanta about 3:00pm and made it to the 4:00pm showing of:

One thing Norm absolutely wanted to do (even after the accident) was go watch El Bulli movie and that we did. It was very interesting.

Right after that, we were ready for some drinks and dinner. We went to Iberian Pig in Decatur and it was beyond amazing. Drink of choice? Gin Gin Mule:

Happy faces:

And as usual, great eating and drinking (and overall) company!

Between being hungry, begin happy about hanging out with friends we hadn't seen in a long time and being excited about all the food we were eating, I totally forgot to take pictures of all the tapas we ate. So I only got a few of the last ones - we had a total of about 9 tapas, not counting dessert....

This is the Meat flatbread (Serrano ham, arugula, caramelized onions, shaved manchego cheese, pistachio, chilean extra virgin olive oil):

This is [half] of the Mushroom flatbread (black truffle creme fraiche, cremini, oyster, shiitake mushrooms, shaved Mahon cheese) -- it was amazing!

Churros! (house made, dusted with cinnamon and sugar and finished with a cinnamon-chili infused chocolate sauce):  

Happy (32-year-old) birthday-man determined to have an awesome birthday against all odds!

Norm's Birthday - Part 1

Sunday was Norm's birthday and we had a whole day planned out. 

What was planned: Go to Mass at 9:30am in Macon, drive up to Atlanta to meet Kerrie and Eric, spend the day at the market, Trader Joe's, have lunch wherever, go to a 1:15pm showing of El Bulli movie, hang out some more, go have dinner at Iberian Pig somewhere after 5:00pm, go back home.

What actually happened: Went to Mass at 9:30am in Macon, stopped by work to pick up Coquito de Ron that Chef's wife had made for us (Puerto Rican eggnog), got in a car accident on I-75 North. Yes- Got.In.A.Car.Accident.On.Norm's.Birthday [we are okay, no severe injuries, just soreness]. Waited around for the police to get there, got a ride to the Starbucks, had coffee while we waited to be picked up by Pablo's awesome friends, went back home to pick up the Escape and take some Motrin, went to Atlanta to meet Kerrie and Eric, went to the 4:00pm showing of El Bulli move, had dinner at Iberian Pig, went home.

Back to the accident.

We were on I-75 North bound approaching construction zone where the right lane was closed, so all traffic was merging left. Traffic actually came to a stop rather quickly, so Norm hit the brakes and we stopped right behind an SUV, well, apparently the truck behind us didn't see us stopping and ran right into us:

Might want to click on the pictures to enlarge to get the full effect...

So due to the wonders of physics, we ran into the car in front of us - and the guard rail at some point.

This is how the truck behind us ended up... perpendicular to traffic.

That's how the truck's hood ended up.... quite accordion-ly.

The car in front of us ended up with a flat tire and a scratched up bumper.

Tow truck came and took our Jetta away... it was quite sad.

Then we got a ride on the State Patrol car to the Starbucks up the street... Our cop was so nice!

Riding in the back of the State Patrol was the highlight of that morning....

The cooler bag was the only bag in the car, so we filled it up with the Coquito de Ron (we were not about to let that go to waste!) and other miscellaneous items from the car. We looked rather homeless at the Starbucks (please excuse Norm's washed out face... all these pictures were taken with the cell phone).

This is what happened according to the police report. We are car #2:

I was on the phone with Pablo when the accident happened, the phone flew out of my hand and landed on the driver's side of the dashboard... After the accident we could hear Pablo still on the line "hello? hello? have you guys been in an accident? are you okay?" It seemed like 10 minutes must have gone by before we found the phone and grabbed it to let Pablo know we were okay. Norm and I knew we were alive and okay, no blood, nothing appeared to be broken right away. But I can't imagine what Pablo must have felt and thought on the other end of the line just waiting to hear from us... those seconds must have been never ending for him.

Thankfully we were not hurt and neither were the other people involved. My poor car was very hurt though - but it protected us like a trooper!

Sunday morning we had the displeasure of meeting adversity but we kissed her goodbye in little over one hour. We were not going to let her spoil Norm's birthday, so Norm's Birthday - Part 2 will follow...

Gotta Love E-mail

E-mail is a wonderful tool, no doubt about that. However, I'm sure we have all been victims of it at some point in our lives - you know, when you send an email and the person that receives it reads it and totally misinterprets it. Then you both go into this dance about "what did she mean by that?" and "is she going to apologize?" and "I didn't mean for her to get upset" and on and on.

Well, on a lighter note, sometimes e-mails are misinterpreted, but in a good and funny way. This is what happened today in e-mail interaction between myself and my friend Kerrie:

Fern: Pool Love, the restaurant he wanted to go to for his birthday is closed on Sundays...

Kerrie: POOL LOVE? I can't find that.

Fern: NOOO!!!! It was supposed to read like this: Poor Love, the restaurant he wanted to go to (Abbatoir) for his birthday is not open on Sundays. Were you googling Pool Love????

Kerrie: I WAS googling pool love. I couldn't find ANYTHING!

Fern: what did you think when you read Pool Love?

Kerrie: At first when I read it I thought, who the hell would want to go to the pool at this time of the year! I was so confused!

I hope you find it as funny as we did. We are still laughing about it.... six hours after the fact. I have a feeling we are going to laugh about Pool Love for the rest of our existences...

Feelings of Lost

You know those feelings we get when we loose something of value? Angry, disappointed, sad, frustrated, anxious, in denial... We search and search and search only to find ourselves falling deeply into these feelings. 

Well, welcome to my boat. Today I came to terms that I had lost something of great value that I had been searching for for the past two days.

Then, all of a sudden it hit me: "if I lost it, it means somebody must have found it" (hopefully). Then I had a mini change of heart. All the nasty feelings lifted off and my thoughts turned to thinking about the person who must have found it, and how happy they must be to have found my lost item and how they probably need it more than I do after all. 

Merry Christmas season! 

Nativity on our console table

Date Night!

Love and I haven't had a date night in quite some time - mainly due to moving, working and life over all. So tonight we finally got a chance to go out for a nice dinner and a fun time out in the big city of Macon... We ended up at the Tic Toc Room and enjoyed every minute of it.

Norm had a 30-oz bone-in ribeye with mashed potatoes, broccoli and blackened shrimp. Look at that face full of excitement! 

I had Atlantic salmon with garlic asparagus, rosemary potatoes and avocado and mango pico:

This is how it ended up:

We had a lovely Grahams 10-year tawny port:

That was a perfect match to our chocolate ganache cake. Check out the sugar treble clef (it was quite tasty):

And this is how that ended up:

Happy:

The Hamster Cage

That, (the hamster cage) is how we now refer to our backyard. It is one sea of straw:

No, we have not planted grass seed. The straw is an attempt to get the dogs to stop laying on the red clay that was all over the yard as a side effect from the wholes that have been dug...

They never dug holes like this at the other house. Could it be that maybe they get bored here so they dig holes? I have no clue but the cycle goes something like this:

Dog digs hole
Dog lays on freshly dug up dirt
Dog gets red clay on feet, belly and other random areas
Dog goes inside the house
Fern/Norm attempt to clean dog's feet
Dog gets red clay on the carpet, the floor and it's bed anyway
Fern/Norm cleans up red clay stains off carpet
Fern stresses out

Every.Single.Day.

The straw seems to be helping... until they realize that the nice red clay sits only fractions of an inch below it. We will cross that bridge when we get to it.