summerlike_sociability epitome of incomprehensibility So, Thursday was the coldest day in Montreal for a few years, with a low of almost -30, -40 with windchill. Just the evening to walk three blocks to a neighbour's house for a dinner party and eat fried plantains (mmm), roti and daal (thick pita bread and pea dip, also yum) and curry chicken and potatoes. And then eat pineapple squares and drink sangria while playing Settlers of Catan. Eat/drink/play summerifically, and then have the water vapor from your breath freeze on your eyelashes. 140104 ... e_o_i I expanded this onto blather_blue because I felt social. But the pumpkin of my mind turns into jellybeans after midnight. I mean that someone unexpectedly gave me jellybeans, and while I've said I've renounced such teeth-rotting earthly pleasures, I'm tempted to eat things like this on the holidays. And they're almost done. And I had a dream. And everyone has a dream. 140104 ... e_o_i I'm guessing from the descriptions that this January 3 or 4 dinner ten_years_ago was at the house of my mom's friend Ruth. Her parents are from Guyana but have Indian backgrounds, which is more common than you might think. So Indian food had an influence on the cuisine of the Caribbean and parts of South America - my (unrelated to them) friend Julia said the same about Trinidad and Tobago. Anyway, Arden had a warm day after a string of cool ones, and for an hour I was sociable. Food was also involved: the local senior's club hosted a chili dinner at the community centre just down the street from Aunt Sarah's house. We two went - Sue and Isaac were elsewhere. Sarah knew almost everyone there and spent a while deciding where to sit. I correctly guessed her friend Betty's accent as Dutch. We weren't talking about languages or accents or countries at dinner so I didn't bring it up, but I asked Sarah about it on the way home. Betty is a few years older than Sarah - her daughter Jackie, the one I saw at tai chi on Wednesday, looks to be in her fifties. "That must have been hard, being a kid there during the war," I said as we walked towards the house. Meaning Betty, the Netherlands, World War 2. "I heard a lot of people didn't have enough to eat." "Oh, she has some stories she can tell you!" said my aunt. But this evening everyone was well filled with various chilis, coleslaws, and desserts. And I almost ate a bug, but I can put that in bug_reports. 240824 ... e_o_i edits *seniors' club (not just one senior) 240824 what's it to you? who go blather from