Rand and Erin visit (part 2): friends, music and tea

WritersMarket.com and my Market Watch column is offline today while the site is majorly revamped. I haven't seen the new design yet, so am excited; the site hasn't changed in quite a few years and I'm sure will greatly benefit from a facelift. In theory, WritersMarket.com will be back online tomorrow at 9 a.m.



But back to Erin's and Rand's visit. We've been trying to arrange a visit for about almost a year now, but scheduling just hasn't worked out. I see the two of them occasionally at conventions, but only for the usual snatches of conversation or somewhat hurried meal between programming items.

I especially enjoyed getting some one-on-one conversation time with Erin. Friendships with couples is enjoyable, of course, but it's a much different thing than being able to spend time with a friend by themselves. It was fun to be able to chat with another writer about writing, and getting to know Erin a bit better.



Erin and Rand were able to take off work early on Friday, and they offered to take me out to dinner to a restaurant of my choice. I had a craving for food that was bad for me since I'd been very good all week, so I chose Duff's Wings, where fried mozzarella sticks and a plate o' deep-fried wings satisfied my craving. Thanks, E & R! For dessert, we dropped by Hollywood Gelato. Yum.

Erin and Rand were great houseguests. Like me, they each seemed to need some quieter (non-socializing) time each day, so we each spent that time doing our own thing. Erin and Rand would usually pull out their laptops and use the wireless access:



Jodi and Allison joined us on Saturday, and we had a great afternoon of conversation, music and tea. We listened to Chris Conway's and Mich Sampson's newest CDs, as well as some Jonathan Coulton music that Rand and Erin had brought. I've been hooked on Jonathan Coulton ever since hearing Tony Fabris perform Skullcrusher Mountain and Your Brains in his concert at OVFF. My favourite Coulton song is Skullcrusher Mountain so far...I've had the song on repeat for embarrassingly long periods of time since OVFF; I bought it and some other Coulton songs, but can already see that I'm going to be buying some albums as well. :-)



Lunch was a "make your own sandwich" affair with pulled pork from Cumbrae's, sliced meats, and other fillings along with rolls I had picked up from the bakery that morning. Dessert: chocolate-covered strawberries. I couldn't find insta-chocolate for dipping, so I melted semi-sweet chocolate chips instead.

Much tea was drunk throughout the weekend, and we talked about tea memories as we lingered over our choices. "1001 Nachts" (which I'm drinking right now, in fact) will always remind me of Juliane Honisch in Germany. Cardamom Cinnamon: Beckett Gladney in California. Blood Orange tea: Katy Dröge (who gave me some in Germany) and Anita T. (who introduced me to the stuff in her flat in Vienna). Casablanca tea: Kristen Chew, who got me hooked when she asked me to bring her some from Paris (because of course I had to get some for myself, too!). I love my "Debbie" tea mug from Lissa Allcock in the UK, and my Penguin tea-timer from Crystal and Steve. And I still use the Teavana tea-infuser I bought during Boskone in Boston: more wonderful con memories.



We did some music on Saturday afternoon as well. Allison, Jodi and I played some of our newer songs, including our new J.K. Rowling song, and Rand asked if we could do Allison's "A Twinkle In His Eye" for Erin. He had made the request in open filk at OVFF, but we never had the chance.

Dinner: a chicken stew recipe I had gotten from my mom-in-law, who got it from a Cooking Light magazine. I took out the onions for Erin. Side dish: make-your-own salad set-up, since everyone had such differing tastes. Dessert: lava cakes and fresh raspberries. Wine: a nice Shiraz, courtesy Jodi (thanks, Jodi!).

There were quiet moments during that day as well, when Erin was looking through my Guest Graffiti book for the first time, Allison was doing cross-stitch (I had asked her to sign the cross-stitched Christmas ornament she made for me) and Jodi was signing the Kathleen Sloan cookbook for Interfilk.



During a conversation about animated movies we liked, we discovered that Erin had never seen Lilo and Stitch, so we decided to watch it. Allison, Jodi, Erin and I all bawled, of course. I'm sure Rand was bawling inside, though he won't admit it.

;-D



On Sunday, we met my friend Parki for lunch at Cha Liu, a dim sum place on Yonge Street. It was Erin's first exposure to dim sum! In the photo below, Rand demonstrates his own unusual technique in holding chopsticks before showing her the standard technique.



After dim sum, we visited Sugar Mountain and a couple of bookstores before Parki headed back home. Rand, Erin and I went to a drugstore to pick up some allergy pills that aren't easily available in the U.S. as well as dropping by The Tea Emporium, where Rand and Erin stocked up on favourites as well as a few new teas. We managed to squeeze in one more visit to Hollywood Gelato (you can never have too much gelato, after all) before they had to drive back to Buffalo.

The photo yesterday, by the way, had Erin modeling her new Will Write For Chocolate t-shirt. I had originally ordered the shirt for myself from my Cafepress store but found that the style was in Youth size only, and the Medium was too small for me. But it fits Erin perfectly, yay! I ended up ordering XL, which fit me comfortably. Most of the other styles are in regular Adult sizes, never fear.



A fine weekend with good friends. And Jeff's home now, yay! He had loads of fun at BoardGameGeek.con, played over 40 games, came 18th in an elimination poker game that started with about 120 people, won a boardgame to take home, bought some new games.





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