I can't stop thinking about the Chicken Biryani

One of my most favoritest nieces got engaged this weekend. Shazia and Taylor met sometime last fall. Most notably they were part of a youth group that went to Nevada in October to rally the troops for Romney. From the day we met Taylor we liked him and they have been pretty much inseparable since the start.

Their engagement wasn't any huge surprise. They have been planning and talking about it for a couple of weeks. They really just needed the right time for Rashid to come out from Petaluma to meet Taylor and to make it all official.

Saturday night we met at the Aroma of India restaurant for the engagement announcement. Now, I'm not big on spicy food, especially Middle Eastern spicy. But, the food was VERY good. It was especially fun for Rashid, I think, because our waiter was from Lahore (Rashid is from Sialkot) and he spoke Punjabi with Rashid. Right at the start the waiter asked me who was in charge. I told him Darrell was paying the bill, but perhaps Rashid should be in charge. I didn't know they would essentially be countrymen.

Rashid said he had some trouble with the Punjabi (maybe it has been awhile.) But, they seemed to get along just fine and not involving Darrell in the ordering process was probably a good idea.

I think our party of 17 overwhelmed them a little. It took awhile for the food to start coming in adequate quantities. But, once again it was very tasty, especially the Chicken Biryani. The bill came to $500. So, thank you! Darrell.

Right as we were gathering to leave our waiter asked me what ward I was from. I wasn't sure I understood him correctly. We chatted for a bit. He told me his name was Ashraf Pius. He was a convert to the Church and he had been the translator for the Book of Mormon into Urdu. I explained to him about our wedding party and that Shazia is 3rd great grand daughter of Hyrum Smith while Taylor is 3rd great grand son of John Taylor.

Showshoeing

For a long time I've wondered what snowshoeing was like. We got a chance to try it out recently with the Kimber school. On 15 Feb I took of work around noon and we went up to Midway to try it out. The weather was sunny (had been for a while) with no new snow on the ground. So, we didn't get the full benefit of the experience. But, we had fun and a good workout and the weather was about as good as we could have asked for. I took one of my layers off and carried it with me. Probably only walked about two miles at the most.

We got home and hurried to get ready and meet the Youngs at MichelAngelo's restaurant. We hadn't been to their new location (just slightly north of and across the street from the old Villa theater.) The food was quite good, although I like my Carbonara better. And they have really good house bread that comes in huge loaves they sell for $6 each.

We wanted to get a movie at Redbox. We were looking for “Seeking a Friend for the End of the World.” The boxes at our Fresh market were all checked out of it. Turns out that was a good thing because we saw it later with Jensen and Ailsa and it was pretty raunchy and not that entertaining. We got Flight instead. It was also a little raunchy. But, much more entertaining.

Paper Faces on Parade

This production was VERY well done. Jensen was working behind the scenes (as part of one of her theater classes.) We went to the very last performance and Jensen gave us a tour backstage before we went to dinner. We couldn't resist taking some pictures.

Vocally the students were very good, especially Carlotta and Piangi and Phantom and Christine and Raoul, probably in that order. Carlotta showed off a couple of times by throwing out some notes that you normally just don't sing, more like in the auditory range of canines. There were occasions when I wanted more power from the singing of the principles (and let's face it also from the organ and the orchestra.) But, these are college students who haven't fully matured in their performance abilities.

They actually hanged Buquet (not a dummy.) Jensen says it was a first. And I must say it did add to the anxiety.

They did a number of staging and emoting additions/changes that REALLY helped the exposition and helped with understanding the motivation of the characters. Lenore said it put the story on the same level as the music. Whereas in the past the music was always the star.

Here I am doing my best ailing Vicomte de Chagny impression, getting ready to bid on lot 665.