Holiday Catch-up

The holidays were a blur of activity, so I'll try to wrap them up in this post!
     Friends and I attended the Roanoke Christmas Parade, which was a little larger than the City of Rock Hill parade, but equally as fun. I especially liked the stilt-walkers... And the brilliant Polar Express train...But my fave was the bagpipes! Made me feel like I was in Scotland again - almost...I finally had time to visit one of the Asian grocery stores in Roanoke to see if I could duplicate some of the yummy food I had in Shanghai. This was a first attempt working with Korean Rice Cakes. (I don't know why they are called "cakes" when they look like really fat noodles!)I purchased a Korean sauce, fish cakes (again, this came in a stick shape that looked like little flowers when cut), and cooked it all up. It wasn't bad for a first attempt, but I can do better.It certainly wasn't the same as the crab dish I had in Hangzhou! Gadzooks that was good! This was the first time in a long time that I had an actual front door to decorate for the holidays. Watch this get more obnoxious over the years! Although, I thought it was quite pretty... (I did tell you I now live in the ground-floor apartment of a 100-year-old Victorian, yes?)     But I didn't get to enjoy it for long because I drove down to Atlanta for the holidays - a beautiful, 7-hour drive mostly through mountains heading down Interstate 81 through Knoxville and Chattanooga (my old home!). I packed way too many sweaters forgetting that Georgia is a good 10° warmer than the Virginia Appalachians.
     I loved having lunch with old friends like Vicky Alvear Shecter, R. Gregory Christie and his wife Claudia, and Melissa Libby. Sadly, I didn't think to take photos of us or our great meals at the Deer and Dove's bakery (a Michelin-starred restaurant!), Desta Ethiopian (OMG!), and Seed in Marietta.
     Meanwhile, Vicky helped me find another home for one of Stan's Parting Stones - the planter outside The Brick Store Pub, where we used to love to go. The Brick rather embodied everthing we loved about Decatur, which was a very good chapter for us. Here is Stan at our favorite table... probably in 2014 or some such.And here I am making sure he can enjoy it for all time - or at least for a while longer... Christmas was fun, although interrupted with some family health issues (which have since been resolved).      I loved attending Vicky's daughter's wedding. I was planning on wearing that dress I bought in China, but my parents were recently adopted by a baby Puma named "Fred." Fred is a 14-pound kitten who thinks that anything that crinkles is a toy. That included the dry-cleaning bag that housed my dress... yeah. I'll see if I can have it shortened into a cocktail dress. We'll see. Hm. (Click the image to watch him getting into trouble on Youtube.) Anyhow - back to the wedding. The couple met when they were 15-years-old, and the wedding took place on the 11-year anniversary of their first date. Sometimes, love really does WIN! They're very private, so I'll just share this photo of the venue - but the whole event and the couple was gorgeous.My gift to myself this year was a hairstyle change. Between bifocals and long hair, I felt half blind most of the time, so I got my hair out of my face with bangs. I'm still getting used to it, but am so enjoying not having to get my hair out of my face all the time!The drive back to Roanoke was also lovely and I enjoyed "Casey Kasem's Top 100 from 1977" - what a great year for music that was! And the number one hit was Andy Gibb's "I just want to be your everything." Gads, I had such a crush on him! I've also been trying to understand the new genre of "Romantacy" so have been listening to Rebecca Yarros' Fourth Wing. The only difference I can tell between Fantasy and Romantasy is a very explicit sex scene. Otherwise, it's pretty straight forward fantasy.
     So, it was a busy holiday! And it was good to get home to my sweet little apartment and the banquet seat my dad made for my kitchen - it's just so stinkin' cute, I never want to leave it!!!HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!