Meet my new friend, Sansa!

Santa brought him early because santa's little helper couldn't stand to wait another minute to give him to me. He is currently holding a little less than 300 songs...with room for-oh my god-1700 more. Ha! Time to hit the dollar section at the exchange for sure! Anyway, Sansa has barely left my side since I unwrapped him. He is very attractive with his shiny black case and his cool blue light up dial and big picture screen which will show the album art of whatever song is playing (provided my computer could tell Sansa what it looked like when he transferred the music) Sansa can also play VIDEOS and show PICTURES and play FM RADIO. Last night I was able to listen to Dee Snider's house of hair on Sansa while I cleaned up the kitchen after my dinner shift. I have decided that I am just not an "earbud" kinda girl though. I tried to use them all last evening and it just drove me crazy. So it is back to the sony in ear-phones. Much more stable and comfortable for me. Before we go on another trip we need to get some kind of adapter for Sansa to play in the truck. I seem to remember that they make things now so your mp3 player can transmit over a radio station? I gotta look into those, if it isn't actually science fiction.

So, besides making the acquaintance of my new best friend Sansa, I had a seriously killer weekend. Thursday we got the tree all put up, drinking some seriously delicious eggnog with brandy, then watching the Office and Scrubs before passing out. The tree looks great with the colored blinky lights...I'll have to take a picture to show you. It is all covered with aliens and lizards and martini accessories. Friday I worked breakfast and then bolted home because it was a stressful morning full of administrative nightmares. I managed to get them straightened out(sorry to be cagey, but it's payroll stuff that I just can't get into again) but I was reminded why I am super happy to be mostly off the corporate grid. The little interactions I have to have with corporate America in the course of my counterculture restaurant job only serve to reinforce the fact that the money was not worth the stress. Pure and simple.

Anyway, rebby came over and we had early christmas. She enjoyed her gift just as much as I am enjoying Sansa(I can't tell you what I got her, but if you are curious you can send me an email and I will probably answer you!) and then we had a disco nap before going out to Planet Claire.

Ahhhhh........I just can not say enough good things about this place! As soon as we walked in the door (and rebby was suitably overcome with the opulent loveliness of the place) the bartender gave us a huge smile and the friends of DJ girls let us know where the request slips were and we ordered up a couple of giant beers. I had a giant organic oatmeal stout. Rebby had a yeungling. We paid for the beers and the cover and made our way up to the loft. Wow. It was just as gorgeous as I remembered it, with the added bonus of some kind of party going on so there were little snacks everywhere. Chocolate covered dried cherries, serious local organic goatcheese on whole wheat toasts, a beautiful cheese and fruit board on the mantle piece, and a couple of steam tables with little eggrolls, little chicken sticks, amazing stuffed mushroom caps, and balsamic roasted onion bruschetta. It seems like they were set up from the Karma on 8th staff party, but one of the owners quickly made the rounds and invited everyone to try the food. The eggrolls and chicken skewers were nothing special, but the other stuff was definitely home made and delicious. DJ Imperium came around and started the video screens which were playing a loop of alternative and new wave videos, and then he went and took his post on his DJ balcony with the red velvet curtain and bronze cherubs. I really can't imagine a more perfect setting for a gothly leaning DJ. It took a while for me to get into the dance groove (in fact, it took all the way through the giant beer and halfway into my first giant vodka tonic) which had to do with the fact that I needed to get my second wind, and also the fact that the videos were so fascinating that I couldn't stop. But, eventually the magic happened where he played "No Big Deal" by Love and Rockets and I was up. I danced to a couple more things, and then I put my requests in. OH! I forgot to mention the hot as blazes gothic bellydance chick, didn't I? She also made it equal parts harder and easier to dance...easier because she was up there having a great time to Siouxie's "Cities in Dust", and harder because....well, don't you just want to sit and dreamily watch a beautiful goth chick floating around the room to Siouxie? It was a toss up.

The crowning definitive moment came when I was just starting into my second giant vodka tonic, and DJ Imperium played my first request...."Desire" by Gene Loves Jezebel, and the goth bellydance chick and her friends and the other dancers all got up and we had a lovely time while the video screen went from Peter Murphy to Echo and the Bunnymen. He also played my request for "Pale Shelter" from Tears for Fears and "Ha Ha I'm Drowning(In Your Love)" by Teardrop Explodes. I spent the rest of the evening alternately relaxing on the giant overstuffed couches watching Sisters of Mercy videos and getting up and working it out to awesome tunes. I can't wait to take all my friends to this place! It really is awfully close to my idea of heaven. I can't wait to go for dinner too!

Saturday we had a lazy morning, and then we went to Kazansky's for breakfast and then to the co-op for some spices. While there we ran into Laura who reminded me about the Winterfest that evening where Styles for Modern Living and Telefonics were playing, so we made plans to go. We finished our shopping and then stopped at rebby's house, and then continued on to the farm.

I was kind of bummed that the farm had lots of vegetables for sale.....all from california(except for the onions...they were from Peru) I managed to get a local acorn squash, but everything else seemed to have been trucked in from elsewhere. Bummer. I did get some local Amish cheese and butter and eggs, and egg noodles. And really nice thick cut bacon. We decided to go to John McGinnis to check out the meat....and we were not disappointed. We got some smoked pork chops and ground beef, and I got the most beautiful bottle of fizzy spring water from scotland. (it really was just as much about the bottle as about the water for me--it's just gorgeous!) I did not go crazy buying salty licorice even though they had several varieties I've never had. It's just nice to know they are there. We started planning out dinner on the drive out...smoked porch chops with roasted raspberry chipotle sauce (which rebby got at the farm), the brussels sprouts of the gods, and smashed taters. Which reminded rebby that we needed milk, so we decided to stop at McGinnis SISTERS (on the way back from McGinnis dads) for milk and so I could get some Amish chicken, which I had managed to talk myself out of at the dads. I got my chicken and some cream and she got her milk in a glass bottle and some green mountain coffee. It was a great foodie day....but I still have that lingering sadness about the vegetables. Couldn't someone have local kale or something for me to buy? I am so going to have to get a community garden plot next year. This is ridiculous.

We went to her place and made our fabulous dinner, and then we got ready to go to the co-op party. Which for me meant building up the mental defenses, as putting myself in a co-op situation is always a little bit traumatic. I survived though...managed to hide out from most of the people I was not keen on talking to. I did have to suffer through some heinous hippie disorganization, but the music was worth it. Until the end, when an old metalhead I used to know who has apparently turned into a crotchety old man came running up and made the band stop because it was too loud. Argh. We decided that it was Telefonic's spinal tap moment. Still, it was all kind of awkward and weird.

Sunday was a super chill day, and then I worked the dinner shift last night. It was an easy enough shift, but I managed to get myself worked up about some things. There needs to be some more consistency in the goings on of the kitchen, I think. I had a nice zen time listening to Sansa and making salsa. And I managed to sleep in to 8am this morning! Woohoo! Now I have to get myself roused to go do some christmas shopping. Pray for me, please.