5:39 p.m. | 2003-10-28 Albondigas Anyone? Anyone? While I was at Dearest Sister�s (DS), we made albondigas (meatball soup). For 40 people. I was very impressed with DS�s laid-back attitude towards it all. I mean, I�ve never cooked anything for that many people, so I was a little nervous about it. This didn�t make me feel much better. (CI:) How do you know how much of everything you need in order to feed 40 people? Did you take the recipe and quadruple it or something? (DS:) Naw, that�s what I wanted to do, but I don�t have my recipe. (CI:) It�s in the family cookbook. In fact, I just made a copy of it for Boss because her recipe is a little different than yours and she wanted to try it. (DS:) I can�t find my family cookbook. What did my recipe say? Did you read it? (CI:) Uh, well I just skimmed it because I figured you�d have it since it�s yours and all. (DS:) Oh well, we�ll just wing it. We stayed up late making and cooking 12lbs of meatballs with rice, and cutting up thousands of vegetables while watching my new Absolutely Fabulous DVD. And, talking. A lot. We rolled out of bed at 4:00am the next morning to head up to the SummerHome to put the soup on. It was dark outside. It was dark inside my tiny sleeping brain. It was so dark that I didn�t even resist DS when she insisted that she must dye my hair. She used a temporary dye and my hair is pretty much the same color, so no one�s even noticed the change. However, had DS realized that I don�t understand English (or any other language) and will agree to just about anything for 5 more minutes of sleep in the wee hours of the morning, I�d probably have pink, purple and blue hair right now. Anyway, the albondigas turned out great but we had lots of leftovers as only about 25 people showed up and a number of them didn�t eat any. We sent people home with freezer bags of it. That�s a strange little ceremonial parting gift, isn�t it? Strange, but tasty. We�ve finally hit our slow season at work. Now is the time that I get to do one of the things I truly excel at � organize. Specifically, I need to clean off and organize my desk. I have random paperwork everywhere, and enough sticky notes to populate the Library of Congress. These notes have strange cryptic messages written on them. At one time, these scribbles meant something important but I no longer recognize their significance. So, time to organize things. It�s kind of sad because the things I really excel at are quite pedestrian and not glamorous at all. Useful maybe, but not particularly exciting. However, organizing is so natural for me that it�s not really necessary for my brain to participate so it�s free to do more creative things such as make up new signs to throw at my arch-nemesis. So far, I have two signs in my handy (har har) arsenal. Since I learned American Sign Language (ASL) as soon as I started talking (which was early, of course), it�s only natural that most of my signs are some sort of derivative form of ASL. The first one represents our feudal relationship. I�ve taken the single-handed sign for �I love you� and replaced the index finger with the middle finger. My sign says, �I love to say FUCK YOU�. Which, in general, wouldn�t be such a nice thing for me to say, but when you consider that I�m throwing that at my arch-nemesis, you can see the necessity of the harshness. The second sign is my name-sign for Leebo. In the deaf community, it�s common for a name-sign to be derivative of another sign that�s indicative of a characteristic. In this case, I took the sign for �crazy� and replaced the index finger with the letter �L�. Take THAT Leebo! I think I�m gonna add a boomerang to my arsenal too. This afternoon, Boss and I took a break and walked over to the post office. I needed to send Dearest Sister a copy of her albondigas recipe and her picture of Little Nephew (which I somehow took home with me), and I wanted to send a postcard to Girls Don�t Cry. I waited in line until it was my turn. Here�s that. (Post Office Man:) Can I help you Miss? (CI:) Yes, thank you. I just need to mail these. (POM:) That�ll be $1.99 please. (CI:) (Holding three $1 bills.) Here you go. (Handing him $2.00) (POM:) I�d be happy to take that other dollar bill also� for the beer fund. See, we try to collect money all week in the beer fund for Friday, but usually there�s nothing in the fund so we all have to buy our own drinks. (CI:) A beer fund� that sounds like a good idea. Thank you. (POM:) You�re welcome. Have a great day! Then I joined back up with Boss and this happened. (Boss:) I heard you laughing. You were flirting with him weren�t you? (CI:) I couldn�t help it! His nametag said �Dan the Man� and he was talking about their beer fund. Well, and he was a hottie too. I didn�t mention that to Boss, but she�s not blind. Actually, I�m just happy when anyone at the post office is pleasant. Someone who flirts is just a bonus. your thoughts? seed flower