A new delicious food and today’s entertainment

(Insert obligatory but sincere Happy New Year! here)

Today’s food experiment was rice pudding.  Brown rice, vanilla, almond milk, agave sweetener, cinnamon, a little nutmeg, walnuts and thinly sliced banana.  Note to self. Two tablespoons of cinnamon might be a little excessive. Also if you think it needs more milk, add a little at a time-that will keep it more ricier and less puddinger.  All that being said, it was delicious and more importantly filling without too many calories.  Also very very dessert-like. As in a tasty treat that’s fun to eat.

Daughter-in-law sent a vegetarian cookbook as a gift and there are a handful of recipes that definitely look interesting.  Assuming I sleep well and have the right amount of pep I may experiment on Tuesday.  We return to school on Wednesday.  There may or may not be children there as the temperatures allow.  Teachers now report on cold days and kids are supposed to work on their chrome books (that they left at school for the break.)

As for the entertainment-it was the greathusbandbob show at lunch with aunt and company. And the company is growing weekly.  We started as four Aunt, lornadune and Juanita. Husband joined in as did new resident Louise and Carol who usually eats with her daughter but not as much lately-possibly for fear of missing some laughs.

GHB plans some material which always feels awkward and stumbly but he doesn’t notice. While he believes everyone is entertained by the story, it’s usually his telling of any story that works for him more than the story itself.  Today’s most annoying moment was when he said "Becky, do you know what a fable is?"  Annoying that he doesn’t realize how obvious his question is (Carol taught English for crying in a bucket.) and I lean over to Juanita and whisper "they're old not stupid."

Lornadune reminds me of Aunt Agatha on Bewitched but not as dingbattish.  She’s from Minnesota and I adore her.  She’s often quiet until she isn’t and then she’s either funny or absurd- both winners in my book. 

Juanita doesn’t match her name but I’d peg her as Endora.  Especially if I get to be Samantha.  She makes a point to be at my side for the under the breath remarks. 

 Carol is definitely the Mrs Kravitz of the bunch without any ill intent.  She just hears all the gossip and knows all the stuff.  

Aunt fits in as Dr. Bombay although she seemed tired today so it might have been Dr. Bombay with some wacky illness that needs cured. 

 I haven’t been around Louise much but today when a funeral director resident made small talk with Carol she leaned in to me and said "He's licking his chops" which set me to cackling because I did not know that he was a funeral home director and thought she meant something else.

Most significantly there was no talk of aches and pains or illnesses and prognosis.  Just laughing and conversation on how that is in fact the best medicine.  Last week aunt said she had a dream that she died and I was a hot crying mess.  Then she said "promise you won’t cry when I die."  I told her I wasn’t making any promises. But there is a small part of me that thinks she’s feeling some deterioration in her wellness and thinks she is trying to prepare me.  But what will be will be.

Here’s a gratuitous cozy dog pic if you made it this far.