So, it is party time again, folks!

[wiseheart]

Each year this time, we launch my virtual birthday party, which starts on October 1 and ends on October 9 at midnight, sharp. The goals of the party are to post as many comments and collapse as many threads as possible, on as many new pages as we can. It is always great fun, as you can see if you check out the similar entries of the last few years.

This year, I'll also throw the real party at mid-time - and post the recipes of all the food that will be there for you, so that you can all participate if you want to. Virtual food has no calories.

Fandom-related discussions are as welcome as the ones about coffee or chocolate (just to name a few favourites from previous years), and, of course, pictures and recipes of birthday cakes. ;)

So, drop by, tell your story, post your pics or silly poems, ask questions you always wanted to ask and have a good time!

Soledad, in excited expectation




Oh, and by the way, to provide birthday gifts hobbit-style, I've got a revived story and a Kansas 2 update for you.

Enjoy!

Comments

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

My counting is rubbish; checking again I think this is top-level comment number 26...

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

Yes! I made it onto page 2! \o/ Chocolate all round to celebrate!

[rcfinch.livejournal.com]

Latecomer reporting for duty.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Welcome, welcome! We have enough virtual food to treat everyone!

[rcfinch.livejournal.com]

And so, happy birthday week, Day 1

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Finch. :)
It's good to hear from you again. It has been too long.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Hurray! Finally managed to find the way in!

A very happy birthday to you! Hope you have a lovely day!

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

That's still coming up. I've had very Hobbit-y days, buying groceries and preparing ungodly loads of food for my guests on Saturday. Most of it goes into the freezer and will be heated up, of course, as I have to work insane hours, this week even on Saturday, but we still hope for a great party.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Sooo, on with the food discussion, I proudly present... Mum's famous aubergine paste
(or is that a creme???)

In any case, she bakes two medium-sized aubergies on an iron plate on the hearth. Once they've cooled, she peels them, purees the fruit flesh and mixes it with chopped onions. Or with onion paste, lately. Then she adds some sunflower oil until the whole thing is smooth, thick and creamy, and seasons it with a pinch of salt and either with lemon juice or with vinegar.

Usually, she just eats it as a bread spread, but when she prepares it for guests, she fills it into small, hollowed tomatoes.

Me, I hate the thing like the plague, I can't even stand the stench of it, but everyone else who gives it a try gets positively ecstatic, so I thought I'd share the recipe. *g*

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on aubergine -- can't abide it!

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I wish the_wild_iris were here with us, because this would be a topic for her heart: did you watch Merlin? And Camelot? What do you think, pro and contra?

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

I haven't heard from Wild Iris in ages; I hope she is well.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

So what foods do you love to hate? We've been taking about aubergine above, which is one of mine. Sweetcorn is another thing I can't abide, especially tinned.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Hamburgers. They taste like sawdust soaked in stale motor oil, put in day old rolls that have been soaked in dishwater. And don't even let me start about Ketchup.

[lhun-dweller.livejournal.com]

I forgot to tell you that I actually saw the season premiere of Dr. Who, in which a new Doctor arrives. A dear friend invited us over to eat and watch. The evening was fun, but I guess I just don't quite "get" Dr. Who. I saw it in NZ when we were kids -- that was back in the Jon Pertwee Doctor days. Back in the States, I saw a bit with Tom Baker because my middle sister liked it, but he just made me buggy. There's "quirky, then there's "a bit odd" and then there's "oh please stop." Baker was the last one. [ducks under the table in case a food fight breaks out over Doctors]

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Tom Baker was my ideal Doctor! (Though my adolescent self liked Peter Davison, too.)

[lhun-dweller.livejournal.com]

I forgot to mention that tonight, I fetched out the comforter cover. We've been sleeping under the comforter sans cover for several days, but it's not officially "cold" until the cover is on it!

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

We've got insane weather over here. Over the day it's warm and sunny (or warm and clouded over), so they won't start central heating, understandably enough. But over night, it drops fifteen degrees Celsius, and we broke out the winter comforter to prevent getting a cold.

[lhun-dweller.livejournal.com]

In other news, I am currently baking a (rather flat) loaf of bread using wild-crafted yeast. While down at the sea last week, I set a bowl of warm water and flour on the ledge of the large front porch. The first batch didn't take after two days, but my second attempt worked. However, it's been very slow going -- or is that "slow growing"? I brought the bowl home and "fed" the yeasties some more flour and water After a couple days, it changed to what looked like a viable bread starter, so I set some aside in a jar in the fridge (for the next batch) and made the rest into a dough.

The dough has not risen much since, and it remains prone to being sticky, although the texture in my hands feels right. The flat ball I just put into the oven on the hot baking stone is not much bigger than the span of my hand. So, we shall see what happens...

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

wild-crafted yeast?

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

So, what should we be aiming for today? For 300 comments or for Page 3?

BTW, last night I imported the first 134 comments to DW, just in case. Tonight I'll do the same. Better safe than sorry. Let's hope LJ holds out until that hour. *knocks on wood*

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

What would the birthday girl prefer?

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

What is everyone having for dinner tonight? I am being very lazy! I stayed at work until twenty to eight, so I order a pizza on-line for delivery, specifying when I wanted it delivered with a bit of margin so that I was sure I would have time to cycle home. Actually, I ended up with a bit more margine than I needed, so despite the fact that I have been home for 15 minutes, I still have another ten to wait for my dinner...

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

We've just had chicken curry with butternut squash & lemon juice (which we're using in place of rice) and cucumber & mint raita. One of our standard meals but enjoyable, nevertheless.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

The past couple of evenings I've been working on my last year's Yuletide recs. I always read (or at least start) everything in sources I have even the vaguest knowledge of (including many where that's just I've read a fanfic before, or I've heard people talking about the source, or someone recs a story and it looks accessible without canon knowledge). I bookmarked about 150 stories to reread back in January, and now I'm finally ploughing through them all again, with ~15 to go.

The slow stage is always the final one, where I've read everything at least three times but have a big batch I can't decide whether to rec or not. I'm trying to be more organised this year, so my file now has heaps for Grey Area on Fourth Reading...

Does anyone else recommend regularly? How do you go about it?

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I had such good intentions with telekis_vendiak, my reccing journal, but I always end up years behind my actual reading, such as it is. I do put stuff on my Favourites list at FF.Net, but mostly to find the stories I like again.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

How about plans for the weekend as a discussion topic?

I am sadly going to have to spend a fair chunk of my weekend at work, preparing teaching material for an on-line Master of Science course I am both coordinating and teaching the first half of the semester. I am actually reasonably well prepared, having got half of the weekly notes written weeks before the semester started. However, since I also teach an on-campus module for the first three weeks of the semester, with three lectures a week, I find that I don't have time to get more notes for the on-line course written during the week...

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

We've got a huge backlog of gardening to do -- lots of bulbs to put in, which are languishing in our too-warm kitchen, and a big area of weeds that needs clearing and digging over so we can plant it before the frosts set in. It's always enjoyable buying plants, but it's much less enjoyable digging and weed clearing to put them in. My back still aches from last weekend!

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

DW importer hates me. I tried to import my new comments, and it simply doesn't. Yesterday I gave it a second try and the comments got imported. Today, the new ones won't get through, not even after the second try. I'll try it tomorrow again, and if it doesn't work, I'll have to bother Support. *sigh*

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Sigh. It maybe doesn't like importing the same thing repeatedly?

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Also, you obviously can't save a page of LJ as a whole. My laptop only saves the entry, with a garbles mess around. The computer at school automatically scrambles the expanded comments while saving. Guh.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

It is really annoying, the different formats of things and how you can't save a sensible off-line copy! Finger's crossed LJ won't eat the party this year, and that you get the importing issue sorted with DW.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

We seem to have reached -- and exceeded -- our target of 300 comments for tonight, so I will say good night! Looking forward to continuing the party tomorrow.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Good night! I might not be around much over the weekend, I fear.

[lhun-dweller.livejournal.com]

And over here in the New World, I shall also sign off, move my dog a bit and slide into bed!

[rcfinch.livejournal.com]

So sorry! I was going to make a few more comments yesterday and then something came in between and I forgot.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I kept getting caught up in interesting discussions...

[rcfinch.livejournal.com]

Fortunately, I am thinking of it now!

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

You are setting a very good example for us!

[rcfinch.livejournal.com]

Making it to page three is the least we can do today!

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I believe we can make it!

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

It is a glorious day here, with beautiful sunshine. There was a bit of a chill in the air as I cycled to work though, and I saw the most glorious ivy on a building having turned a vibrant red, so it is most definitely autumn. How are other people fairing for weather?

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

Here is something I realized I don't know about a lot of you? What sort of place do you live, in a flat or a house, in a small town, big city or quite isolated in the countryside?

I live in a semi-detached house in relatively new mixed housing estate, on the outskirts of a smallish city; it takes me about half-an-hour to cycle to work. From there it is maybe a 15 minute walk to the city centre.

[lhun-dweller.livejournal.com]

I am in Boston, Massachusetts, and I live in a building style that is unique to the New England region called a triple-decker or three-decker. There are a number of variations, but the original idea was that the owner lived on one floor and rented the other two for income. As is usual, we have a built-in china cabinet with drawers below, and a small stained glass window high up in the bowed wall of the dining. Closets are small -- Victorian factory workers had not so much stuff to put away! And there are porches front and back, high ceilings (helps with cooling in summer) and tall windows all around. And although the houses are built close together, there's usually at least bit of space between them, enough for light and air to come in.

When we moved here, at the beginning of the century (it's so fun to say that!), many were being sold off and converted to condos. That was the arrangement in both our previous homes. Our current buidling is completely owned by the landlady -- she grew up here -- so we are pretty sure we don't have to worry about that this time!

Read more here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple-decker

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I am going to make another top-level comment to wish wiseheart a happy off-line birthday party! May it be a great success, with lots of fun discussions, and not too tiring clearing up afterwards!

[rcfinch.livejournal.com]

My house is at the corner of a row of five, with a railway crossing and a path to the platform of a nearby station at the other side.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

That sounds lovely! Do you find the sound of the trains going by a pleasant noise, as I do with my railway line, or a nuisance? I think it helps that trains don't run much more often than 3 an hour in each direction, and only that often during rush-hour. In the evenings and on Sundays there is only one train an hour in each direction, which makes it less useful as a form of communication...