Stutzfamily blog thingie

Oompah-loompah doopidty doo: that’s how we all felt last night as we tried to sleep on tummies stuffed with food. We had an outstanding meal, made all-the-better by the fact that we had good friends as guests, really making the holiday complete.

So let’s see – the menu was rotisserie chicken (which we cooked for the first time ever on the barbecue and which turned out great!), mashed potatoes with gravy, yams (Indian yams: not really yams and not really sweet potatoes and the only disappointment on the table), squash, green beans with almonds, stuffing, pumpkin muffins, jello, spice cupcakes, apple crisp, and ice cream.

We ate and drank to excess, and then finished off the evening with rousing games of Eye-to-Eye and The Game of Things, and the promise of an invite to Google Wave (which we’re still awaiting, BTW). All in all, a nearly 6 hour festival of gratitude. My “what are you thankful for” was that this year, unlike last, we were not celebrating the holiday under an umbrella of uncertainty and fear.

This weekend doesn’t just revolve around the giving of thanks and the consumption of copious amounts of fowl, however. It is also the Muslim holiday of Eid, so our basement is once again filled with goats.

They don’t know it yet, but they are scheduled to be ritually slaughtered today – Breck has been asking whether or not he can watch. Raising your kids internationally lesson #274: instead of crass commercialism during the holiday season, we get a discussion on the differing religious traditions.

But I suppose it is not much different from that-which-gave-Alea-great-pleasure this weekend: Uncle Billy got a big buck hunting, which means there will be venison sausage for her this summer!

The webpages from our Dharamsala trip are online and rarin’ to go. This last week has been really weak on the blog entry front, and I’m worried that trend might continue as we enter the holiday season of things.

We did have an exciting event this last weekend, as we went to downtown Mumbai for dinner with the parents of one of my students. The interesting thing about it is that the husband happens to be the 34th richest man in the world (this after having his net worth drop by $42 billon last year. Yes, you read that correctly. He’s only worth $10 billion now). When all is said and done, however, he and his wife were delightful hosts and we had a fabulous time.

But that doesn’t excuse me from neglecting my internet duties now, does it? Until I get back into the real swing of things, go take your mind off your other problems and check out all the fun we had a few weeks back!

Since Susan is hosting a book club meeting tomorrow night, we figured we’d get our jack o’lanterns done a few days early. Our maid had picked up a few (greenish yellow) pumpkins from the market, and a neighbor from downstairs brought up carving magazines and stencils (I kid you not).

Oh, in case you were wondering – here’s a little bit of international Halloween trivia to keep handy: Indian pumpkins are MUCH easier to carve than Serbian pumpkins. They are soft and scoop out with very little effort.

In any case, there were some scary faces, a stenciled-on spider, and Breck even carved his very own pumpkin for the first time – a zombie! Aside from the cheesy (pumpkin) pi tattoo I gave mine, the evening was a success. Plus we’ll have lots of roasted pumpkin seeds to eat!

So now we are all set for the girls coming over to talk about “People of the Book.” I won’t be attending, but just for the record I thought the end of the book ruined the whole thing: how in the world could he have recreated – perfectly (except for the wrong skin) – the book. Silly, silly, silly, and there goes all pretense of reality for me.

Oh but wait, this post is about pumpkins. OK – so this is what they looked like in the end. Now we’ve gotta see if they last until Saturday!