Seaweed Beer and Holiday Cheer

This past Saturday, Liz and I threw a Birthday/Christmas party. Thanks to some creative clip-art choices on the E-Vite, it somehow became the Birthday Squirrel/Christmas Monkey party. This was early in the party-throwing process so there was much deliberation as to how far we should carry this non-sequitor. It went only as far as one birthday card (mine of course) featuring some joke about a road-killed marble squirrel. Most everybody had the good sense to write off the thematic mammals as what they were: Jesse being random.

Parties are very difficult to throw on ones own. There are so many factors that one fails to consider until it is upon you: things like ice, knifes, or even beer! Fortunately, Liz and I were not alone; we had the help of Lani, super-awesome-incredible Lani. It was like having a really cool nanny for a week. Last Sunday she came over to our house to help us decorate, hang lights, and (I kid you not) cook us dinner. Why? Because she enjoys it, that's why! As I was napping to recover from Jennie's party, she was making a chicken parmisian cassarole. This was not an isolated incident. On Wednesday, Lani came over again, this time with her wisdom-toothless husband Craig. She cooked us steak and pasta and then proceeded to decorate even further. I don't think we could have trimmed our tree without both her tasteful eye and her handling of the balls...Christmas balls...you know, ornaments? You'd think that was enough help for one super-friend, but no! She was over again early Saturday to help us prepare food. Thanks to her we had hot roast beef, sliced vegetables, teriaki beef, pepperoni bread, macadamian nut white chocolate cookies, rolled deli meats, and a wide assortment of fixin's for the sandwich eaters. Did I mention she was battling a cold throughout all of this? I didn't? Well, if you ate food, enjoy the black plague.

Help also came to us from my mother and brother in law. Thanks to their efforts on Saturday afternoon we had a 7-layer fiesta dip, spinach dip, a mexican sausage dip, and an undercooked and concetrated chocolate cake, or as I call it, the diabetic coma on a plate (drool).

I did my part in buying most of the food and supplies. Of course my efforts pale in comparison to those of my family and SUPER-Lani ::distant fanfare:: but I put a lot of heart into my errands nonetheless. The roll-buying was especially taxing. As I meandered into Del Buono's, I realized that my inexperienced brain forgot that it was a cash-only affair. Since I needed five dozen rolls, I didn't think my ten-dollar-bill was going to cut it. I traveled up the Black Horse Pike until I stumbled across a Wawa. I tapped their MAC and fought my way back to the bakery. Image my slap-in-the-forehead-ness when the total bill came to $8.75. Just to redeem my judgement, I made sure to swing by the liquor store to buy Vodka, Triple Sec, and Margarita mix, none of which ended up being consumed the entire evening ::distant sound of forehead being slapped::.

What was consumed was my collection of exotic Scottish beers. After Buddy and Lindsay came back from their honeymoon in Scotland, they made sure that all of their loved ones got personality-appropriate presents. My Dad and I are obviously the alcoholics since he received three bottles of Scotch and I got a variety pack of traditional Scottish beers. And by traditional, I mean the following: Scotch Pine Ale, Gooseberry Ale, Heather Ale, and (again, not kidding) Seaweed Ale. This Squirrel/Monkey party marked the first opportunity I had with my fellow beer-drinkers to sample these imported concoctions so I jumped on my chance to share. And to be honest, most of them were alright. The Scotch Pine Ale was pretty nutty (as in nut-like) but smooth; the Gooseberry had a similar taste up front but a really fruity finish; and the Heather Ale tasted kind of like flowers. We tried these three and were mostly saitisfied with the taste. But we did not feel so ambivilent towards Kelpie, the Seaweed Beer. Did I mention is was called Kelpie? As if such a cute mascot-like name could distract you from the fact that there was seaweed in it. It tasted a little bitter at first, but then it turned. Everybody made the exact same series of faces: curious...surprised...disgusted...revolted...dear God, give me some gasoline to wash this taste out of my mouth! It was nasty. But as the French say: "what a surprise!" As if seaweed could possibly make something taste good.

The rest of the evening included eating, drinking, eating, carolling (which was great), eating, presents being unwrapped, eating, and some more eating. Everybody was both happy and stuffed. It was nice to get Liz's theater friends over with some of my friends. Not that any of them interacted at all but it was nice that they didn't fight. That's my definition of a successful party in a nutshell.

Everybody left well before 2:00am which was very relieving for me and Liz. This made me realize that I am getting older and lamer; my parties don't last as long and I'm okay with it. Oh well. To coin the French again: "that's life (I had to use Babel-fish for that one)."

On to the movie-de-blog (that's not French in the slightest). What do you get when you mix Mastodon (the metal band) and Balinese shadow puppets? This next video from Leviathan, that's what!