All the world's a par-tay

While we wait anxiously for things to start happening on the The Damiens front, life goes on. Specifically, the anniversary party for The Manor goes on, in typical spectacular fashion. Not only have I been planning the necessary festivities and merry-making, but beloved Cancerchick friend Cori timed her visit to Oregon so that she would be here for my par-tay. Score!

Before Cori arrives, she taunts me with missives on Facebook talking about the birthday gift for me that she’s managed to sneak through security. I can’t even imagine what this might be, as she has quite the history of ferreting out bizarre yet supremely perfect gifts.

To hear Cori tell the tale, upon arriving at The Manor:

“So I get to the first security guy, and he takes a look at my gift and tells me ‘oh no, they’ll never let you through security with that.’ I tell him well, I can only try. Second guy says the same thing, ‘oh, they’ll definitely not let you through with something like that.’ I can only try, I tell him too. It’s like a kids’ book at this point. The THIRD security guy before I actually get to screening ALSO tells me they’ll never let me through. ‘Nothing else to do at this point,’ I tell him, ‘so I can only give it a try.’ 

I get to security and lay the gift on the conveyor right next to my carry-on bag. It goes through. No one says anything. I pick it up and hustle the hell out of there – they might still be looking for me. As I’m trying to stuff it into the overhead bin on the plane, everyone is asking me how in the world I got that through security and why I’m traveling with it, and I just tell them it’s a gift for Miss Tasha, and it had to make it to Silverton.” 

THIS is what Cori took through security and on the plane:
 
Now I don’t know about you, but that’s what I’d call a cudgel. A heavy iron one at that, with a very pointy hummingbird beak, whereby once you start swinging that thing, more than just an eye or two will be lost.

And yet I’ve had a tiny nail file, a letter opener, tiny scissors all taken away from me. Cori, tweezers.

I will laugh about this, and the sight of Cori showing up in my driveway wielding this thing, until the day I die.

The party of course was a smashing success. Too much food as is typical for my par-tays, and Kone ate a goodly number of deviled eggs before anyone noticed. Old-timey punch, more captives in the JCoT, and croquet rounded things out, as well as a celebratory cake with frosting much to Kone’s liking (see: deviled eggs).

Speaking of eggs, in keeping with my goal of making this blog purely informative and science-based, I did in fact do a highly controlled experiment to determine if there were a way to boil/cook fresh eggs in which one would actually be able to peel the damn things. A bit of crowdsourcing via FB yielded the following suggestions:

1. Baking them
2. Boiling them with some baking soda

I tried both methods, and the verdict was……BAKING SODA! Which apparently helps get splinters out too, so that shit is good for everything. But yes, adding a tsp or so of baking soda to the cooking water worked like a charm, whereas the baked eggs weren’t cooked all the way through, and were impossible to peel.

Yes, life goes on, and there are always good things to be found, without much effort at all.