brainylady

Well, I didn't win a bike, but I am the proud owner of a new rice cooker! I'm thrilled, actually, since I didn't have one of these. You may not even realize that you need one, but trust me, you do. No more pots boiling over on the stove, no more burnt or overcooked rice, no more scraping gluey rice off the bottom of a pot. I just have no idea where I'm going to put it.

(I don't think I've described our kitchen. It's small. Sure, sure, your kitchen is small, too. But no. Mine is SMALL. There are no cupboards or drawers. There is no oven. The fridge is out in the hallway. We have a sink, two gas burners, and about 2.5 square feet of counter. We bought a small toaster oven, and it's on the floor. Our food that doesn't need to be in the fridge is either on top of the fridge (which, remember, is out in the hall) or in a box on the floor beside the fridge. I dare you to have a smaller kitchen than I do.)

Anyway, back to the office party: It was even more tame than last year's party! Last year there was whiskey and lots of toasts. This year there was white wine, but just two bottles per table of twelve. I didn't eat anything too gross, and some of the food was really good. My coworkers are totally unaware that shark fin soup is politically unacceptable; blank stares all around when I tried to explain why I wouldn't eat it. There was some serious karaoke action. And it was all over by ten o'clock. Of course, it was also a Thursday night, so I'm not complaining. (Last year the party was on a Monday night; my Australian coworker and I drank way too much whiskey and then decided it was a good idea to go to a bar after the party and drink beer. Clearly this wasn't a good idea.)

Via a link at knitting notes, I've just discovered Madame Glitchbane's contraptions! I love the Project Time Estimator for Hand Knitted Garments. I guessed at my numbers for a Rosedale sweater, and apparently it'll take me just over five weeks to finish it. So, let's see... if I order yarn tonight, maybe it'll arrive around January 20, and if I start knitting right away, I could be finished by the end of February! This is encouraging!