I managed to miss the morning's live broadcast of the Kouhaku. Usually I sort of watch the morning broadcast so that during the evening's rebroadcast I can tell Oz (who is actively trying to block it out), "Okay, pay attention now. This bit is really horrendous."
I did get a few tantalizing glimpses during the quick review of the evening they run during the voting. Also, they had Enya, live from some castle in Ireland. In a red dress. Wow. Enya is really, really pale. Red is maybe not her color.
What did I do instead? I balanced my checkbook, cut off my ISP (we have a new one now) (so if you're someone who corresponds with me using an Earthlink address and you didn't get this morning's "hey, new email address" email, drop me a comment or a Flickr-mail, or something), cleaned out the fridge a bit, fiddled around with photographs, and not much else. This doesn't really sound like five hours worth of activity, does it? (There was coffee involved at some point … )
So the Kouhaku will have to wait for tonight.
It being the time of tasty treats, we've been busy planning meals and snacks. We are determined not to have a repeat of Thanksgiving, when we planned the feast meal but neglected to plan any other meals. By afternoon, when the turkey was roasting, we started scavenging through the pantry and fridge. "Hey, this popcorn hasn't expired yet!" "Oh, look. Here's some of last year's fruitcake in the freezer. I wonder if it's still edible."
It was. We didn't even wait for it to thaw.
We still have another brick of fruitcake, just in case our plans for other food on Christmas don't work out. I've been encouraging Oz to roast his turkey breast on Christmas Eve so we'll have cold turkey to nibble on while all the other dishes are cooking.
I'm back up in Alexandria right now. I'm working a few days this week to conserve vacation days. It seemed like a good plan, until I got up at 6:00 this morning and saw that it was 17 degrees outside. I knew it was going to be cold, I was expecting it to be about 21 degrees. That extra four degrees made the gratuitous use of three extra vacation days look like the smarter choice.
But speaking of snacks—
Why is there a run on Grandma Utz potato chips in Richmond?
(These are the good kind. Fried in lard! Bring on the trans fats!)
The last few times we've gone looking, we haven't found any. And we want some too.
Here's why:
They're great with champagne. Seriously, two great tastes that taste great together. And if you run out of champagne before you run out of potato chips, be sure to have some dark chocolate on hand, because dark chocolate and potato chips is just about unbeatable too.
Why potato chips? Once upon a time, my friend, Princess and champagne aficionado, was staying at a fancy hotel in Paris. After a mix-up with her reservation, once she was settled in a proper room, the hotel sent up a bottle of champagne and some potato chips. She didn't know what was the deal with the chips. Was it because she was American and the hotel staff assumed that Americans ate potato chips with everything? Or did the French in fact enjoy potato chips with champagne? She ate the chips with the champagne because it was what she had, and said they were pretty good. (But was that the champagne talking?)
Anyway, champagne and potato chips is good enough for Marilyn Monroe and the Princess, so it's good enough for me. And Oz is suddenly much more enthusiastic about champagne.
We've got our champagne and a little over a week to find the perfect potato chips for New Year's.
So if you see Grandma Utz's potato chips at the supermarket, please leave a bag for us!