Picture Sunday

Hello, end of weekenders, and welcome to a star-studded (don't believe that, it's not true) edition of Picture Sunday.

Picture Sunday will be rather abbreviated tonight owing to the fact the Oscars© are on, and some of us will be watching online. And playing Stennie's Annual Oscar Drinking Game, which should provide just the excuse I need to get blistered. (The dead people montage. It's always the dead people montage that gets me.)

This weekend it was off to Mr M's, where he took me to the Indian restaurant for my birthday. It was very nice. It was also clarinet duets, which went decidedly south when I decided in the first measure of the first piece we played that I was going to suck that day, and by damn, I was right. I couldn't play anything right! Was out of tune, had lead fingers, couldn't hit high notes. I'm the living example of why more people need to go into the field of "Musician Psychology." For as much as I knew it was all in my head, I couldn't release it, nor escape it, and I was doomed. Oh, so so sorry, Mr M, for you had to endure it. No movies, just TV, during which he read and I fell asleep. Then I had to leave early because of another brewing ice storm. I was a bad houseguest this weekend.

As I mentioned above, kind of, tomorrow is my birthday. Yee ha. They don't excite me anymore, I enjoy the greetings from friends, and I'll probably hang around the Poderosa by myself, enjoying the quiet after-a-Monday at work, then hook up with Stennie for the podcast. That should be fun.

However, I did get a rather nice gift Friday night. My boy Sherman, with some help from Mr M I'm sure, gave me a photograph.




















Nothing like a birthday hat.

I also got on Friday my gift from the parents. See, as you all know, or at least those of you who listen to the podcast, I've been limping along for about a year on a pair of glasses so horribly broken that not only can I not wear them out in public, I'm embarrassed to wear them alone in my own home. Only one nose piece, a seriously scratched right lens, earpieces that wobble so badly they don't stay on even when I wear them on a leash.

So the folks, kind, kind people they are, told me, "Go and pick out some glasses. Don't go for the cheap, get a nice pair that will last you." And so I did. And found out something quite interesting in the process.

I thought it would be a quick "go in and get some frames" type of thing, but seems the doctor wanted to look me over again. It hadn't been a full year since my last exam, but with my family eye history he couldn't let another opportunity to shine the light at my pupils pass by. And he put me through the whole process again, and oddly enough, changed the perscription in both my eyes. The right went one degree stronger, and the left, one degree less.

Now, I'm perfectly willing to admit that this all could be me and not my eyes. You know, when they start adding lenses to the letter chart and saying, "Better here or better there," there comes a point where they all look the same to me. So in the last "better here better there" choice, it's entirely possible I might be choosing "there" when I should have chosen "here."

Anyway, I got new perscriptions, a bagfull of new contact lenses, some cleasner and cases for good measure, and the glasses, which arrived Friday. But here's the exciting thing about it all.

Since the new contact lenses, I've not once - I mean this, not one single time - had to resort to the trusty bag glasses to be able to read small print, write checks, or thread needles. So what I was considering a quirk of old age was maybe not so, and I guess the lens change has corrected that. For now, anyway. And I, for one, am glad.

So how about a pic of me and my new glasses?























Boy, those are some thick lenses. Even with the fancy "high index" kind that aren't supposed to be so thick, they distort my face.

And now, time for the recipe du jour. As you all know, tonight is that most special of celebrity nights, The Oscars©. (I use that copyright because I hate it.) Many people will be attending after-Oscar© parties and having all kinds of delightful treats. Well, what could be more delightful than this one? From the "Vegetable Awards" file in cardland, please give a healthy round of applause to The Squashcar©.





















The Squashcar© is a healthy, happy, and hip little dish, though I wouldn't say it's easy to make. What you need is the squash(©) of your choice, I chose butternut, and the patience and gumption to carve it into your own little statuette. Mine has no sword, what looks like a crewcut, and a decidedly forlorn look on his face. And physique? Well, he's no Oscar© in that area either. The Squashcar© doesn't work out. He sits around watching movies, for God's sake! Maybe he knows that after the awards are presented and the pictures are taken, he's going to be boiled and whipped into a side dish. Then you will have to accept the Squashcar© on his behalf.

Happy week.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Listen, people. I have not forgotten about the Kim Jong Il Fashion Show. As we stand I only have one entry and one promise for an entry. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go to last week's Picture Sunday. If I don't get a few more entries, I swear I'm going to spend every Picture Sunday posting my own Kim Jong Il fashion pictures. That's a threat.