[SCA] Coronation

( SCA event )

bunny melt

This afternoon we joined ralphmelton, lorimelton, and several others for the by-now-traditional post-Easter bunny melt and high tea. We started with high tea, deferring the bunnies until later, and almost goofed: people were pretty full come slaughter time, but we proceeded anyway and were rewarded with a yummy fondue.

Lori made little tuna-salad sandwiches that were tastier than typical for tuna salad; the secret was that she used one of the spiced tuna fillets that come in foil packets, instead of canned tuna. That worked well! Half of the devilled eggs were nicely zippy; Ralph color-coded them, sprinkling paprika on the ones that had chipotles in them. There were many tasty baked goods, including cherry scones, English shortbread, and orange-flavored tartlets.

They had a nice black tea that was under-specified on the label; it was a black English tea (loose leaves, not bags), but beyond that, shrug. There were other teas too, but I liked this one so I stuck with it.

Before sacrificing the bunnies to the fondue pot it is customary to say a few words. Dani got the best laugh with something like "we dedicate to a higher purpose this bunny that wasn't good enough to be sold at full price". :-) Ralph told of a past bunny melt where a friend who wasn't there this year had blindfolded one of the bunnies before dealing the death blow with a larger-than-needed knife. The fondue is nice, but much of the fun of the bunny melt comes in the, err, execution.

It was a lovely afternoon during which we succeeded in keeping Louie (the most ambitioous of their cats) out of the food while chatting with friends and meeting a new co-worker of Ralph's. Bunny melts may only come once a year, but maybe we should have tea more often. (Maybe we'll host one and try to keep Erik out of the food. :-) )

repairs

A couple of weeks ago an electrician we hired pointed a finger at Duquesne Light. They said they didn't think it was their problem but they replaced the line from the pole to the house anyway. We've had no further problems; I hope that continues.

I ordered a memory card for my printer, which had become cranky about printing full pages. It came in yesterday's mail, so this afternoon I popped it in and things are now printing normally. I'm glad that it turned out to be an inexpensive solution. The pictures in the HP documentation didn't match the physical card, but fortunately there were enough similarities to work out the correct orientation.

Erik's appetite was back to normal as of a couple days ago. Today it's above normal; he's eaten two whole cans of food so far today (and I'll bet he'll want a bedtime snack). The vet suggested I water him daily for a few days (starting last Monday) and then drop down to every other day; I think given what he's been eating I can make tonight the transition into "every other day". The fluids do help a lot, though I really hate having to stick him with a needle to administer them. I can tell he's uncomfortable; I would be too!