The Weekend Report

[oyceter]

I ate so much! We had hamburgers from the Creamery the first night, and I swear, they have the best hamburgers in the world. Ok, maybe not all the world, but it's close. Also, the mint oreo shake was not bad ;). Pizza the next day (thin crust... I am not a deep dish fan). Dim sum the day after, in which I ordered way too much. Heh. But! Fresh shrimp, just caught out of the tank right by the door! Ginormous fresh shrimp, just lightly steamed with only a little soy sauce with scallions and ginger for dipping so that you could still properly taste how creamy and tender and nicely textured fresh shrimp can be.

Although the giant buggy heads may have scared off fannishly, oops. And I finally got jook (rice porridge) with preserved eggs and pork, which is very much comfort food (my mom's is still better though), BBQ pork pastries, taro dumpling things with crispy outsides, crispy other things with pork in it (I didn't get to try this, boo), the rice noodle outside of long shrimp rolls rolled together and stir fried, with the sauce from Peking duck on the side (I really liked these! Never had them before!), green tea sesame bun things, egg tarts, shrimp wrapped around sugar cane, sticky rice in lotus leaves, and Chinese broccoli in hoisin sauce. Yum.

And there were peas at the farmers' market still! Although these peas were from another vendor! My other vendor's peas seem to be not so sweet any more (the last batch was definitely very starchy), but these were still so good that you could just take bites out of the pod, which both me and rachelmanija were doing when we were shelling them and watching Firefly (it seems rather appropriate to shell peas and watch Firefly, for some reason).

So I finally got to sic peas on someone who is not fannishly!

There was also much playing with the fuzzbutts, both of whom probably enjoyed the attention immensely and let it get to their little ratty heads.


Here's Fool-rat being very happy about being scritched behind the ears.


Fool-rat is indeed a spoiled rattie!


Rachel with two rats!


The rat stack! Fool-rat doesn't look quite so happy in this one.


And because I am a mean rat-mom... more rats in bags!

I also have more book loot!

Dick Francis, Banker - it's about ibanking! Ha! I mock you, ibanking! Eh, sorry. Anyhow, I think Rachel is sneakily trying to convert me to another genre.

Ruth Park, Playing Beatie Bow - I've never heard of this in my life, but I have reassurances that a) it's very good and b) it's very out of print

Zilpha Keatley Snyder, The Egypt Game - because I've never read it and probably should

Margaret St. Clair, Sign of the Labrys - because I remember both yhlee and coffee_and_ink blogging about her. Also, the back of the book has pictures of rats. And! Check out the back blurb:

WOMEN ARE WRITING
SCIENCE-FICTION!
ORIGINAL! BRILLIANT!! DAZZLING!!!
Women are closer to the primitive than men. They are conscious of the moon-pulls, the earth-tides. They possess a buried memory of humankind's obscure and ancient past which can emerge to uniquely color and flavor a novel.

Such a woman is Margaret St. Clair, author of this novel. Such a novel is this, SIGN OF THE LABRYS, the story of a doomed world of the future, saved by recourse to ageless, immemorial rites...
FRESH! IMAGINATIVE!! INVENTIVE!!!

Yes, I have tried to accurately reproduce the relative font sizes. And for once, I wasn't the one sticking in all the extra exclamation points.

I wonder how she felt about that.

Comments

[deadsoul820.livejournal.com]

If you like the Dick Francis, my favorites are the two featuring ex-jockey(surprise, surprise) Sid Halley. I wish I could remember the books' names but I left all my DFs back in MO when I moved to CA.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Those are Odds Against and... I think Whip Hand. The former is the one that opens with him getting shot in the stomach. It's one of my favorites too.

[deadsoul820.livejournal.com]

Yes, of course. Thanks! I also really like Straight, the one set in the gem business.