An Attempt to Clean Out the Fridge

We bought a lot of food. There was no plan of attack like, "We can eat this twice, we can eat that tice..." We just bought enough food to feed a family of four for week. A family of four we are not.

Above is my attempt to use up the leftover tacos from Monday night (I forgot to take a picture) in one salad. It's the equivalent of putting two big tacos in a bowl with half a head of lettuce.

I'm surprised I ate even that much. LV had the leftover steak and a hamburger bun. Because our hamburger meat had gone into make tacos, we needed to figure out how to use up the buns...

After lunch, we took a walk and noticed the grills had been repositioned. A new sign said, "Matches or flame needed to ignite." A big lighter for the grill was not one of the perks included with our condo rental.

Unable to grill the pork, I once again got out the frying pan. There was half a stick of butter left, and I was going to use it up.

Well, not quite all of it. That would have been gross. Almost as gross as eating half a bag of frozen green beens in one sitting (shown above).

There was a pretty full package of shredded cheese, but I didn't use more than necessary on the hamburger buns I put in the broiler. I completely forgot about the onion, grape tomatoes, and olives until right before we sat down. We decided to skip them with dinner. I had black olives for breakfast to try to finish them. The onion and shriveled and grape tomatoes went in the trash.

Probably the most creative thing we did with leftovers was earlier in the week when LV suggested mixing the artichoke dip with a can of tuna to make tuna salad sandwiches on hamburger buns. Again, no picture...

Dairy Queen

This is the first Blizzard LV ever ate. Much like Sonic and Walmart, Dairy Queen is one of those things advertised constantly on New York television yet not readily accessible to New Yorkers. So, we hit the Sonic (where LV learned that all the commercials take place in the car because you eat in the car) and Walmart Supercenter (to get Scrappy one of the High School Musical T-shirts constantly advertised on TV) and the DQ.

Branching out from his usual Cookie Dough ice cream, LV went for the Caramel Waffle something or other Blizzard. It was so good we went back the next night.

Ketchup and Pickles

Crazy kids that we are, we had after party at the Marriott's bar. I, of course, did not make this Angus burger. I was just fascinated by the way it appears LV decided to wipe ketchup all over the pickle--as though it might be more edible that way.

LV had no idea that a) there was ketchup all over his pickle or b) his burger was that rare.

There should be more pictures here from Sunday--the next morning--but I didn't take any pictures of the brunch we made. I didn't even think about pictures. I was more concerned with trying to keep pace with my Aunt Monika who can prepare food and wash dishes faster than anyone I've ever witnessed.

In Case of Rain...

Again, I have no idea what we had for dinner Thursday night. All I remember is assembling fans and finishing all the tabletop decor I had created Tuesday.

Our plan was always to have the fans that doubled as programs. We took a while to get around to actually printing, Xyron-ing, and folding them, but it was always the plan. The plan had never been to create a seating arrangement. Until I realized on my last day of work (Tuesday) that, if it rained, we would have more guests than seats.

Sitting at my desk with no response from the restaurant manager, I decided that we could turn our excess of reply cards into Metro cards and each table would be a stop along the N line, seeing as I used to live at one end while LV lived at the other.

I designed and printed the materials on Tuesday, ran around looking for rubber cement on Wednesday, and began pasting and cutting on Thursday. LV went to get Twin Tak during the day, then painstakingly assembled tabletops Thursday night.

Friday, after the manager received the check we left in person on Monday, she sent the following email:

"I seriously doubt many people are going to bother you with seating questions on Saturday. That is our job and we would answer that the seating is not assigned and to sit wherever they would be comfortable... If it rains (which it won't) it won't be crowded at all. I wouldn't even worry about that."

If she had told me this in person, I might have hit her. Not so much because she was patronizing and implying I had wasted my energy even dreaming up the plan to use the N line, but more because only an idiot would think that the guests at a wedding are going to ask the disinterested wait staff about seating before asking the bride or someone close to her. No, not "everyone" asked me what the name tags were for, but I certainly didn't see anyone approaching the bartender to ask, "What's the deal with seating?"

Treats

I have no idea what we had for dinner that night. All I remember is running around to so many different stores, trying to figure out what would be good to put into welcome baskets for my out of town guests. When I spotted all the single-serve items at CVS, like Fig Newtons and Oreos and Pop Tarts, I was elated. No, I didn't make the food, but I assembled all the bags with the food...