Not even if she's a Trekkie

Tonight I had to advise my husband: you may not tell your wife she looks like a space alien. Not even if you think it is a compliment.

(This was prompted by my new glasses; pictures to follow soon.)

Guests: wanted, unwanted, and somewhere in between

Guests who were wanted: We hosted a Christmas party last night. It made me feel more rooted in Miami. Last year I didn't know enough people to invite to a party, whereas this year we know know enough people that half could decline and we still didn't feel lonely.

I meant to take pictures, I really did. I had never hosted a Christmas party that would take place both inside and outside, and it took some planning to figure out how to construct a room in the garden. (The answer: several strings of lights, a couple of chairs and a lamp, and of course plates and plates of food.) Unfortunately, I had so much fun I forgot about the camera, so you only get an annotated menu:

Rum Punch (Terrific - rum and fresh lime juice are an unbeatable combo, and the nutmeg and bitters raised it from good to stellar.)

Non-alcoholic Punch (I used chamomile tea, white grape juice, and lime juice.)

Chili (to soak up all the Rum)

Extra-thin chocolate chip cookies

Sfratti, walnut-honey Rosh Hashannah cookies (Named for sticks used to evict the Jews. Aside from the dreadful back story, they were excellent.)

Goat-cheese topped apricots (These are the easiest hors d'oeurve I've ever made.)

French onion dip with crackers. (I think I was thirty years old before I discovered that there was a way to make this dip without Lipton soup packets.)

A guest who was unwanted: The success of the party was a welcome diversion from our ongoing battle against a mouse in the house. Since discovering its presence, we had filled holes, boxed up the full contents of the pantry into Tupperware boxes, and had used both no-kill and regular traps, to no avail. In the middle of the night, Andrew heard it chewing again and managed to corner it, where he discovered it was a RAT. Andrew trapped it and carried it halfway across the neighborhood. He then spent the day filling even more holes, and disinfecting the house. I am experiencing equal parts disgust (at the idea of a rat in my kitchen) and gratitude (for a husband who deals with it all).

Guests who are a mixed blessing: This week is Art Basel Miami Beach, which is a international art Show. The show has now spread to other neighborhoods, and the Design District, where we lived, has been overflowing with exhibits, live performances, and other events. This means that we can just walk out of our house and immerse ourselves in interesting art happening all around us. It also means that the traffic in our neighborhood is outrageous, and we must plot alternative routes to and from our house.

We intended to snorkel

We decided on a non-traditional Thanksgiving this year. Our friend E was in town, with her sister-in-law, and we had reservations to snorkel on Thanksgiving afternoon from a glass-bottomed boat. The glass bottom was for me, since I think snorkeling sounds a bit like a sport, or at the very least, like exercise. Unfortunately, our tour was cancelled, and the rebooked tour the next day was also cancelled. (This was understandable, due to the choppy conditions, but next time I wish they wouldn't wait until we were an hour into the trip to make the decision.)

Instead, we had a picnic in the Everglades, followed the next day by lunch in the Keys.

Andrew slices the bread. The lake in the background was part of the Long Pine Key picnic area. I didn't quite catch why it's named after a Key (island), since it's not one.
The spread: ciabatta bread and vegetable pate, truffle deviled eggs, pickled onions, and fruit. The vegetable pate recipe made a LOT, so we still had the traditional Thanksgiving leftovers.
We could almost reach out and touch this guy, as he was sitting right below the board walk. I've never seen such big alligators in the wild. It was fun and a bit unnerving.
The next day we were in the Keys, enjoying the sunny weather, blue water, and pelicans.
Andrew and E enjoy more than just the weather.

Reason #412 to live in Miami

People visit you.

In the last year and a half, I've had visits from parents, two aunts, one uncle, a brother with a wife and two kids, and two close friends. That's not bad for someone who can only offer an Aerobed on the living room floor. Even if they mainly come to enjoy the balmy weather and warm seas, I get to see them, and I'm not complaining.

A good friend from DC is visiting Miami this weekend with her sister-in-law. I got to show them my favorite pizza place, Harry's, which has trendy thin-crust pizzas and local Florida beers. (For me: pesto pizza with homemade ricotta and housemade fennel soda). I was so proud that they liked it. After dinner we drove the Mini over the bridge to Miami Beach where they are staying, and they were cheering to see the Miami skyline and neon-lit palm trees. Experiencing your town through visitors' eyes is a great way to appreciate where you live.

It was refreshing to hear such skillful settings in a season that will shortly be dominated by dispiriting dreck.

That was the final line of my choir's concert review. And I agree that it went just smashingly. I am enjoying the feeling of accomplishment that comes from taking on the challenge of learning to sing again. But now I think I will bask in all the free time I have available, with rehearsals done until the new year.

Singing through a haze

My choir is singing our fall concerts this weekend, with the first being this evening. I am equal parts exhausted (ten hours of rehearsals plus six hours of commuting to rehearsals) and excited. Last night we rehearsed in the first performance space, a church, which turned out to be a modern building (all cement, glass and wood) which had the acoustics of a Cathedral (because of all the cement, glass, and wood). Singing with the orchestra and soloists makes us sound like an honest to goodness real choir. They hope to put some of the concert on YouTube, so if that happens I'll post a link.

In other news, I somehow hurt my back and am taking muscle relaxants. Although I am only taking one quarter of the drugs prescribed, I am tired and loopy. My coworkers have intimated that I am not censoring my comments quite as much as I usually do. So far they find this amusing, but I'll be glad when I'm back to my usual self.

On the Sandia mountains

We were in Albuquerque this past weekend, and, my, is it lovely there. Andrew was ready to move, but the lure of mountains in my back yard is not as great as the lure of warm seas and city skylines for me. I originally planned the trip so that my husband and uncle could go hiking together, thus relieving me of any responsibility to climb anything beyond a couch cushion on the way to the kitchen to get a drink. Unfortunately, various injuries and maladies prevented hiking, and we took the wimpy tourist option of driving up into the Sandias. On the mountain top we enjoyed lovely views and stunted trees:We also encountered a whole herd of the rare mountaintop antenna:
Later we got our fill of red dirt, visiting ruins of Pueblos and churches at Pecos National Historical Park. As my aunt pointed out, the story of the American West is pretty consistent: Native people lived there until missionaries (or soldiers) came and converted (or killed or enslaved) them. It's a rather disheartening story if you think about it too much.
For Andrew, the highlight of our day trip to Santa Fe and points north was a petting zoo. The "zoo" was really a pen of goats, chickens, and an alpaca in the middle of a tiny town. For $2 you could buy a bag of corn and earn the intense (but short-lived) interest of every beast.

I appreciate the less animate animals, such as the Steel Burro.

For even more about the trip, check out dispatches from our reporter on location here and here.