The Windown

Tomorrow we leave to go home. I'd be ok with that if I could take Alex with me, but I can't, so I am pretty bummed. I just have to remember the days when we were separated by an ocean and it was months before we could see each other again instead of 6 weeks or less. I bet Jezzy remembers how this feels!

I'm trying to stuff my face full of cheese, chocolate, pastisseries, and wine today so that I can get overloaded before I head home. That way, I won't miss the food here and all, right??? Honestly, I can get "brie," "Camembert," "Chevre," and other types of cheese at home, but it just is NOT the good, fresh stuff there. Why would it be? Few Americans get into cheese like that, so the grocery stores don't waste time on investing in quality cheeses no one will buy. Sigh. I suppose when I visit my folks in Tampa I can visit a cheese shop there, or when I visit my brother in the triangle area, I can go to the gourmet shop there and have some good cheeses...that's where my friend Joe fetches the cheese he brings me sometimes.

I still can't believe that their "american" pizzas here have creme fraische on them, emmental instead of mozzarella, and a big ol' egg on top of it LOL Instead of pepperoni or italian sausage, the meat they place on that pizza is ground beef/hamburger. That's ok, our "french" bread is NOTHING like the bread I can get over here. I'll miss that bread...

I'm a geek, a real, true geek. So, last night it was fun because a couple of Alex's friends played a dungeons and dragons roleplaying scenario. They all spoke in English for me! It was very appreciated. We had a great time. Alex was the dungeon master. I haven't played a PnP (for those of you non-geeks, that means pen and paper) roleplaying game in years. Most of my geek games are on the computer now--Balder's Gate and related games for the PC itself, and then assorted games like Gauntlet on the PS2. What is great about hanging out with a room full of geeks is that you can make obscure movie or book jokes and they all laugh like you're the funniest comedian. For instance, we had this candle burning that forces players to only answer questions in a truthful manner (MY GOD do I want one of these for real life!!!!). One of the players we suspected of being a doppleganger (that is, a shapeshifter who was pretending to be our friend rather than actually our friend). So I was grilling him, and he was refusing to tell me his true name by evading the question. Since he was evading, I pushed once more, "WHAT is your name?" and then added suddenly, "WHAT is your favorite color?" Of course every person in the room had seen The Holy Grail and loved Monty Python, so we all burst out laughing. Then, as I grilled further, he finally started to say, "My name is...." and then trailed off. I couldn't help it. "My name is Indigo Montoya! You killed my father! Prepare to die!" LOL I mean really, even non geeks know and love The Princess Bride! hehe It was a one shot, couple of hours dungeon and we all had a great time. Alex's friend Frank, who was there last night, had always insisted that friends were better than girlfriends because you could share everything with a friend, and Alex always contended that I AM his best friend, something which Frank rejected out of hand. We think it's because nearly all geeks are male and he had no idea there were women out there who liked fantasy/sci fi too. Alex and I were joking this morning that maybe NOW he understands why Alex and I are so close...haha! Frank and I actually have read and watched similiar fantasy/sci fi stuff. The beginning of the game got distracted because I found out his first scenario was based in Amber, Roger Zelazny's many book masterpiece which starts with The Nine Princes of Amber (excellent series, by the way). I excitedly told him that I got to meet Zelazny at a sci fi convention a few years before he died, and Frank and I babbled at each other for a while.

I promised Frank several cheesecakes if he came to America to visit us. Cheesecake isn't common here. I know I could get a springform pan here, but I honestly didn't see cream cheese in the grocery at all. The closest thing would be boursin, which is herbed and the wrong texture entirely. Alex's mom told me she thought it was made with cottage cheese and I almost started weeping openly in front of her. Cottage cheese? MY GOD! The only cheesecake I saw made with cottage cheese was a diet one. How nasty...it's like when people tell me that they use cottage cheese instead of ricotta in a lasagna. If you do that, PLEASE do not let me know as it upsets me something hellaciously LOL

Today is all about packing up, stuffing my face, and resting before the awful journey home. We wake up at 5a so that we can get ready, go to the train station, catch an early train, ride it for almost four hours, take a subway to the airport, get on a very long plane to detroit, then take a second plane to home. Five million hours later, we will arrive rather dead at home. I have made sure to pack Jared's spare clothes including a spare pair of pants so we have no more "nude child in the airport" incidents.

I've got to enjoy the good food today because after today, it's time to learn how to make poor woman's food from Amanda! Classes start on Monday and I've still not heard that even the full timers have all the classes they want. Sigh. I will enjoy the break, I just won't enjoy the time where I'm more poor than usual.