bwah beth. Paper is done - but the nudist is fun.

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"Thank you for setting me up, Parents, but I've already found Mr. Right."

::Hopes desperately that P-C says this.::

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Check it: I made a cream of mushroom soup/puree. From scratch.

1/4 finely chopped onion, 1 clove finely chopped garlic, maybe 2 cups finely chopped mushrooms. Melted 1 tbsp butter with a drop of olive oil, added onions and garlic and cooked over low-medium heat until soft. Add chopped mushrooms and turn up heat to high-medium. Wait for mushrooms to give off liquid, and for liquid to cook off. When mushrooms are dry again, add about 1/2 cup of vegetable stock and 1/2 cup of water, and bring to a boil. Then drop to a simmer and simmer uncovered for about a minute or so. Remove heat and add three big dollops of half and half, plus a tbsp of finely chopped Italian flat-leaf parsley, and stir.

For people on soft food diets, blend thoroughly with and immersion blender, and serve over lightly toasted, whole grain whole wheat bread with crusts cut off.

It's very tasty. I'm all impressed with myself and stuff.

(S talked me through it the whole way, and had to repeat many steps more than once, and would approve my amounts before they were added)

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Go on with your from-scratch-cooking self! I am duly impressed, never having tasted cream of mushroom soup that didn't come from a can.

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ditto - and it sounds yummy!

We are in CODEL hell. The congressional delegation that arrived yesterday is the worst I've seen in 14 years of doing this job. Normally when the congressmen's behaviour (or their wives') gets really bad, you can remind yourself that they are in country for a purpose, promoting US interests, whatever.

This group is just here to party, and I don't even know why they chose here - half of them have never heard of the Acropolis and don't know why the embassy scheduled a visit to it. The other half have heard, but don't care.

They've only been in country 12 hours, and we've already had 4 phone calls at home, them pitching fits about various things. First one was that they wanted to go to a taverna or rebetica and drink and break crockery, but the breaking stuff is illegal in Athens now ("Hell it is!" said the head of the CODEL. "I built the Plaka! I know this city better than anyone!"). Latest one was that the hotel didn't provide salmon eggs at breakfast.

And then one of the spouses accused the embassy cashier of cheating her: "Excuse me, but I know how much per diem is here, and this isn't enough!" "Ma'am, it's disbursed in euros." "Well I know that! But I'm supposed to get $250/day and she only gave me €218!" "That's correct, ma'am. That's the exchange rate today." "I don't even know what 'exchange rate' means, and I don't care! I won't be cheated!" "Ma'am, the exchange rate between the euro and the dollar means that for every US dollar, you get about .73 euro cents." "What, they're taxing us?!?" "No ma'am..."

::headdesk::

And there's a whole bunch of boring government regulation stuff that I'll spare you - the gist is that Congress sets these laws for what official Americans can use government funds for, and then doesn't want the laws applied to themselves.

Seriously, this is worse than the time the CODEL got mad at me for the city losing power (back in Bucharest) while they were shopping. I'm going to write this all down for my book, later, when it can't be clearly identified which congressmen I'm talking about.

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Ai, Raq. How idiotic.

Oh, for people who are not on low sodium diets, feel free to salt that recipe to taste. I added salt to my portion.

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::waits for Hil to show up with competing injury::

I tinted my brows tonight. Without blinding myself!

And I petted a shiny race car. But that's not competing, just pure giddy.

From scratch.

Impressive!

We are in CODEL hell.

::blinks::

People are that stupid? And that dumb? And that rude? Did I already ask about the stupid?

Though I was offered crockery to break in Athens. It was a long time ago. If I had been in a bad mood, it could have been theraputic but I was happy so I passed.

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We are in CODEL hell.

Bwahahahahahahahh! I'm sorry, I know it's not funny. Except for how it is.

Are you guys being Punked?

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Without blinding myself!

Though it seems that I did wrench my back somehow. Not that I think it was from the brow tinting, just random rotten luck.

5 mg of Flexeril to the rescue. One hopes. I need a chiropractor to make me their bitch. Or be mine. Whichever snaps, crackles and pops me back into allignment, I'm game.

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Argh, Raq, that's just... would that the stupid, rude, and I don't even know what could be forcibly smacked right the hell out of them.

Ouch, Cass. Hope the drugs work.

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