Happy New Year!

We're back on the beach again - out at David's house. His housekeeper is away visiting family and since he's still in the Solomon Islands on temporary duty, we're house sitting for a while. The upside is that we've got the entire menagerie with us and the weather is great for jogging along the water. We also get to enjoy David's tortoise while we're here. The downside is that the giant squid turns into Mr. Grumpy when he has to go to work when we're on the beach. He'd rather be home. I'd rather he was home, too. But we still have evenings and weekends to be naughty.

I love New Year celebrations - no matter whose New Year it is. There are several we celebrate during the year - all with great food of course. This past week we had a fairly large crowd over for dinner. We celebrated Rosh Hashana - the Jewish New Year and also the beginning of Ramadan - the holiest month of Islam. It was a wondrous affair!

We had spicy falafel and brown rice and stuffed grape leaves along with a succulent brisket and garlic mashed potatoes and tzimmes. Tzimmes is a sweet carrot dish made with apricots and pineapple. I made sweet noodle kugel, honey cake and a confection made out of walnuts, pistachios and honey. The honey symbolizes the hope for a sweet year. The dessert table also included a variety of fruits with a honey dip and one of my favorite treats - fresh dates and of course, chocolates.

I ate a LOT.

Cowboy ate more than I did.

The sailors and marines in attendance ate more than Cowboy ate.

Bull ate more than anybody else...

When dinner was over and most of our guests left, Cowboy told me to put my feet up and he and Bull and a couple of Bull's friends would clean up. In the process of cleaning, Bull ATE all the leftovers. The pups started whining because Bull isn't big on sharing food with them and he ate what they usually get when a meal is finished.

Tsk.

Speaking of Bull... he asked if he could invite three of his lady friends to dinner.

"Bimbos?"

SWAT!

Tsk. I forgot Cowboy was in the room at the time.

So the three bimbos show up. Truly I can't recall their names but I refer to them as Batty, Brownie and Blackie. All three are gorgeous creatures but unfortunately, it takes all three of them to come up with a 2-digit IQ.

Batty is a blonde with big blue eyes and implants... She kept batting her eyelashes at everyone wearing long pants and I kept waiting for one of those eyelashes to fall into the soup.

Brownie is a sweet little gal with long brown hair, green eyes and the gaze of a star-struck cutie pie who realized that as a female, she was in the minority at the dinner table. She kept taking inventory of all the testosterone in the room and I swear she was mumbling... "So many men - only own two thighs to spread... so little time."

I whispered my thoughts to Cowboy and he had the gall to smack my butt when he passed me in the kitchen!

Tsk.

SWAT!

Double tsk.

Blackie is a beautiful brunette who had to TOUCH every male at the dinner table, including my husband. She went around the table several times and asked everyone if they needed anything she could get for them. I quietly asked her to sit down and enjoy the meal, that it wasn't necessary for her to hostess. She turned to me with her big brown eyes and smiled and said... "Who are you?"

Before I could reply... "I'm your hostess, you moron!" Er... I mean before I could voice the most civil response... the giant squid sounded a warning - sotto voce - "Sar..."

Bull recognized the "Sar..." and chuckled. This led to others chuckling... I smiled at the giant squid and continued serving the meal. Not only do I need to jot this "goodness" down in my quarterly letter to Santa... this is definitely an event that needs recording when I'm up for sainthood.

I finally took Blackie's arm and escorted her to her seat. The long sleeves of her dress probably hid the bruise my fingers must have made. I stopped short of shoving her chair under the table. She needed spanked!

Cowboy gave me "that look."

I ignored him and barely resisted spilling something awful on her head.

However...

I DID put the platters of green uglies in front of her and I hid the chocolate.

Cowboy invited one of his subordinates... a female who has an obvious crush on the giant squid and rarely takes her eyes off of him. I seated her between two grizzly bear-sized marines. They called her "ma'am" all evening. This did not make her happy but I got a couple of good chuckles out of it.

Unfortunately, I also got a few swats when we were alone.

Tsk. See how he repays my kindness? Just for that, I'm making PLUM cobbler.

Moving along... there was a segment on one of the local news channels. It showed an adult male chimpanzee offering a whole papaya to a cute female chimp. He even breaks it up into chunks for her to eat. Then... after she eats it, he tries to mount her. Tsk, bribing the sweet innocent for sex!

Just like a man... bringing gifts in exchange for hanky panky.

SWAT!

"Do I bring gifts just for sex?" the man I live with asked.

"No. You don't always bring gifts..."

SWAT!

Tsk. The man needs to bring MORE gifts.

~Sar~