A Week in Review
The past week has gone by so quickly that I didn’t realize I have not posted anything over 8 days. After my 2 days off last week, I only had to work for 3 days and then I was off again for 2 days; in fact the rest of the month will be full of short work weeks – just the way I like it.For those of you who listen to NPR, you may be familiar with a game show called Says You where the 2 teams have to answers funny and, often, witty word puzzles. The show is based in Boston, but they have road shows ever so often. Last Friday, they were in Seattle. Dan and I went to one of their shows (where they had 2 recording sessions) at Town Hall as part of his birthday gift. It was a lot of fun and, apparently, the Town Hall audience that night was the biggest audience they have ever had! I thought that was pretty neat. The hall itself is a pretty cool place and Dan recognized it as the venue where John McCutcheon, the folk musician, performed when he was on Seattle (we saw it on PBS). We found out some interesting trivia about Seattle during the show.
Mum came down to visit last weekend: she spent Saturday hanging out with Aunt Katherine while I was at work and then both her and Katherine made a wonderful seafood dinner that evening. We were hoping to go to the dog park with them the next day, but the weather was horrid, so we only ended up going shopping for a bit, having a late lunch at Fins and coffee at our house afterwards, before Mum had to head back.
It was Mum’s birthday on Monday, so I was going to give her the birthday present while she was in town. But we found out during dinner at Katherine’s that she has bought the same cookbook I have got for her just recently! What can I say? Great minds, right? So we went to B & N on Sunday morning to exchange the one I got her for something else. At least she got to pick her own present, so that’s pretty good.
On Sunday night, Vince and Yuka came over to watch the Penn & Teller show on NBC with us. It was quite a fun show even though I am not a big magic fan. Having said that, these 2 guys are pretty clear on the fact that there is no magic involved, just good tricks and debunking. We had pizza for dinner and home-made red bean soup for dessert (yes, a wired combination, but who could say no to red bean soup!).
While we were having dessert, Gander did the most amazing thing. We have witnesses and we have it on tape. To understand why this is so cool, you need to know that usually when we go out and have to leave Gander at home, we often put treats in his toys to keep him occupied and out of trouble. One of these toys is a rubber tire. We would put treats in the hollow of the tire and then plug the hole in the middle with another toy, often a Kong which also has treats within it. Sometimes we would also put a toy that he likes in that hole, so that he has to work at getting it out in order to play with it. In other words, he has been conditioned to think that if he pulls the toy out of the tire, he will either get treats or a toy that he wants.
In the past, we have seen him attempt to put a toy in the tire; he would then pick up that toy and look in the tire to see if any treats magically appear. He has never been very successful in plugging the hole with the toys. But on this night, he repeatedly put his rubber squeaky toy all the way in and then pulled it out through the other side. You could tell that his action was very deliberate and that he was getting better at it after a few attempts. He always checked the inside of the tire after he pulled the toy out, just in case some treats appeared. He must have done it five to six times altogether and Dan got most of it on tape.
It was very interesting to see how Gander figure things out and I would love to find out what his ‘thought process’ was. The ultimate goal for him, I am pretty sure, is to get a treat. This is what we think his ‘logic’ is: he knows that treats are often hidden in the tire and he had to pull something out to get them. So if the tire is empty, he will need to put something in so as to have something to pull out. All in all, he is a pretty smart puppy! I may even have to get him one of those Fisher & Price games soon to teach him shapes!! And then we can progress to numbers… Nah, I am not that crazy!
Yesterday was Dan’s birthday, but we did the whole birthday thing on Monday, my day off. I successfully made his birthday cake – a Victorian sponge sandwich cake with Nutella in the middle. Ok, so it was not real Nutella but the Trader Joe’s version of it; but you can’t really tell when it is in the cake. For dinner, we had roast leg of lamb with polenta – in fact, that is what I am having for lunch today as well!! It was a very successful birthday dinner.
My culinary adventure did not end there. Yesterday evening, I made a batch of Pistachio, Cranberry and White Chocolate biscotti. It was so good!! The recipe actually asked for dried raspberries, but I couldn’t find any at the store, so I decided to be bold and start substituting even though this was the first time I made biscotti. Luckily, it turned out great and it seemed more seasonal with the cranberries. I already have ideas on adjustments to the original recipe for the next time I make it. It is more work than getting it in the store, but definitely less work than I expected and much more satisfying to see it coming out of my own oven! It went extremely well with my latte this morning. All that talk of food is making me hungry…. Lunchtime!
posted by Anne-Gigi @ 12:09 PM
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