A Busy Weekend

Friday afternoon I joined some ladies downtown for lunch at Govinda's.  You may recall that is the vegetarian restaurant where Daniel and I attended some Hare Krishna meetings.  The food is still amazing.  It is alway busy downtown, so meaningful conversations were hard to have.  I did see many pictures of people's pets.  I was more interested in the cats, however, I "ooh-ed" and "aww-ed" at all the animals like the best of them. 
Later I met Daniel on campus and we took a long walk through the botanical gardens together.  That evening I began making a pasta dish for Saturday.  Our lovely friends, Sandra and Tom had invited us to their home for their son's birthday celebration.  We met their older son, Mark when we all had dinner together last month.  He's a wonderful person who had a 'pretty okay' time about turning thirty. 
The next morning I finished the dish while making Daniel try it ten different times as I adjusted the flavour with spices.  We walked up to Carolyn's house to ride with her and her youngest son, Damien, who brought along his best friend, Harry, and his new pet guinea pig, Toffy. 
When we arrived, Sandie and Tom's neighbors were just leaving.  They own the two houses next door where there was going to be an open house.  The two houses, by the way, are selling for 1.8 million and 1.5 million.  First, I love open houses.  Second, I was curious to see what an Australian million dollar home looked like.  We all decided to go after we had lunch.
Family members continued to arrive as we sat and visited with our friends.  It was a lovely afternoon.  The food was amazing; Mark's girlfriend is also vegetarian so there was a lot to choose from.  Plus, Sandie made my favourite dish for me, Saag Paneer.  She knows that I love it and would eat it every single day if I knew how to make it myself.  Before we leave here, she will give me the recipe!

[The birthday cake! Yes, Sandra put a large taper candle in it.]

The million dollar homes were not terribly impressive.  They felt rather cold, sterile, and like a hotel.  You walk into the middle floor where there are four bedrooms and a bathroom or two.  Upstairs is the master bedroom, complete with a bathtub in the middle of the room.  No curtain, no doors; the water spout is mounted in the ceiling, and the tub faces the bed.  An interesting choice.  The view is nice, though, and the sliding glass door opens the entire length of the floor which we liked.  The bottom floor is the kitchen, a theatre room, and another bathroom.  Oh yeah, and of course, there is a wine cellar.  Mostly we were interested in the wine cellar and the hot tub.  Right?!

[The view from the 3rd floor of the million dollar home.]

 

[We were pretending to live in this house. This is the 3rd floor terrace off the master bedroom.]

 

[Which wine shall we have tonight, Darling?]

Carolyn had to leave early to get Harry back home and she was also hosting a gathering at her house that evening.  Tom offered to take us later so we could keep enjoying everyone's company.  We were the last to leave.  It's important to have friends that treat you like family.  Two weeks ago I had an awful cold, then passed it along to Daniel.  It didn't hit him as hard, although he was feeling tired so he went upstairs to sleep in one of the bedrooms while I helped clean up the kitchen and patio.  Sandra and I had a long, lovely conversation in before Tom and their youngest son, Daniel came in and joined us.  We had more wine and talked about politics, religion, travel, manifesting, celebrities, family, and food.  We covered quite a bit in the few hours.  Eventually Daniel joined us and we all did a lot of laughing.
The greatest part about the drive to Carolyn's house was that I showed Sandra how to get there using the back roads.  She and Tom were impressed; I was happy that I did not get us lost!  There were about a dozen people already at Carolyn's when we arrived and we ate again.  We brought the rest of our pasta over to share and it was gone before I got any.  However, there were two different kinds of dahl there and I ate them both.  [oh yeah, Janelle!]
We had very interesting conversations with everyone and moved around the room.  I do believe that I talked with every person that was there that night.  I just asked Daniel if he talked with everyone as well and he said, "Mostly."  People are fascinating!  We're grateful to have made such neat friends here.
Sunday morning Daniel stayed home to rest and get some work done while I went to church.  We weren't home until after midnight so I definitely had to have a small nap when I got home from the service.  Then I set out to meet my friend, April where she lives in Carindale.  The bus was slightly tricky to figure out than I'd hoped, however finally I was on my way.  April was very surprised to learn that I do not ride the bus in the States.  She and I had some lunch together and she showed me around her neighborhood.  We went on a walk and ate some tiramisu and drank awesomely healthy juice to balance out the dessert.  It was a great way to wrap up a busy weekend.  Plus, April always laughs at all my silly jokes!  So does my friend, Treva, and I really love when people laugh.
When I came home, I made dinner for me and Daniel and we had a nice, quiet dinner together.  My latest hobby is making salsa.  The Gabba Fruit market down the street often has really ripe tomatoes on sale for either fifty cents or a dollar and we buy a large bag and I make 2 litres of salsa at a time.  We can pretty much eat it all in a few days.  It's easy when you add it to every meal.

It's been a great week so far and we look forward to next week as well.  We have some adventures coming up that I'll get to share with you.
Until then: G'day!

 [P.S. Carolyn brought this elephant back for me from India where she recently vacationed to see her family.  I love it.]