Clean Up Day

Today is total clean up day at 1510 because we're hosting Family Supper tomorrow and we mostly have piling systems instead of filing systems. Durwood is the biggest offender because it doesn't irritate him like it does me, but I'm no slouch in the piling department. His solution was to leave a leaf in the table so he'd have more room to pile sh*t on. I'd like to make it eensy weensy so that we had to keep it clear to eat. Guess who wins. Not me, partly I suppose because I detest fighting and it would be a constant fight, plus I would be treating him like I'm his mother and I refuse to do that. Re. Fuse. Today I have to put most of my yarn toys away, carry down the small pile of ex-dresser drawer contents, carry down the 2 sandwich grills and the old VCR and jelly jars that have gathered by the basement door. I want to clear off the counters as much as I can so that there'll be room for recipe assembly and prep tomorrow. We're celebrating Chinese New Year tomorrow and will have pot stickers, Egg Flower Soup, Beef with Hoisin Sauce, Chicken with Almonds, Snow Peas and Shrimp, and Stir Fried Veggies, rice or noodles to serve them on, with coconut ice cream & fortune cookies for dessert. We're making some and the others are bringing some. Also today I want to make some quick pickled beets and see what other kinds of things I can pickle as accompaniments to our main dishes. Gung Hay Fat Choy! It should be fun. I'll give a report.

January 27--George Bellows, Tennis at Newport. "For God's sake, George, just serve the damned ball," Lisa said. It was supposed to be a friendly game of tennis but when Lisa and George are on the courts together it's outright war. Who had been in charge of setting up the matches? Oh, Margo, of course. She and Becket enjoy mixing up the most volatile pairings so they can lurk in the shade sipping their G&Ts and watching for blood. George and Lisa are merely their first victims of the weekend. Looks like Coochie and Edwin are over on the other court. How did she ever convince them to play each other? She has to know that Coochie was the one driving when Edwin's brother died.

And they're off. Imagine a weekend in the country with sworn enemies trapped together. Should be a classic Christie weekend. I'm off to commit a tidy, a very big tidy.
--Barbara