Yes. I Watched.

Having recorded multiple hours of the Royal Wedding broadcast on BBC America, yesterday, I decided to make time today to watch at least some of it.

I have to admit that I really enjoyed watching it. The pomp and circumstance was pretty amazing, and BBC America did well at explaining the history behind a lot of what was going on, without making it into a history lesson.

I liked watching the arrivals at Westminster Abbey - although I would have enjoyed knowing who more of the people are (aside from the endless shots of the Beckhams) - and watching the carriage procession afterward was pretty cool, too.

Christopher didn't watch any of it. He kind of gave the TV sidelong glances as he walked through the room. Maybe that difference has to do with the fact that I had a TV in 1981 when Charles and Diana were married. Or maybe the fact that my mom is Canadian has something to do with it. Either way, I watched a decent amount of the first 5 hours of the broadcast.

For the record, I watched PARTS OF the first 5 hours. Not all of it. I fast-forward-ed through a large amount of the stuff about the dress designers and the family gossip and all that. But I did watch all of the royals and paid attention to the interior of Westminster Abbey. And I both enjoyed - and was appalled by - some of the hats.

And, yes, I was kind of blown away by it. But I'm also really glad I didn't get up at 5am for it. I may be crazy, but I'm not that kind of crazy.

To Watch or Not To Watch

Part of me really wants to get up in the middle of the night - or at least the very early morning - to watch the coverage of the Royal Wedding.

Part of me really really really wants to just sleep through the night.

Someone I work with is actually taking off the day from work because she'll be up most of the night watching the coverage.

I have friends in Britain who are planning to watch with family. And hats.

People I work with are planning to stream video live during the workday.

I have set our TiVo to record hour upon hour of the festivities.

Whether or not I watch it is yet to be decided.

Travel Tuesday - The Countdown

Sure. Travel is great. But you know one of my favorite things?

Planning travel.

One month from today I will - for the first time in almost two years - be leaving the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area for more than a long weekend. I won't be going to visit my parents. I won't be going somewhere within the state of Minnesota. I will, in fact, not even be staying within the country.

Christopher and I are going to be going away for a full week. His sisters are helping us out with house-sitting and dog-sitting and, as a by-product, even bird-sitting. And we'll be on our way.

Which, of course, means that we have planning to do. We get to figure out where to stay. We get to make a list of places we want to see. We get to contemplate food to eat and sites to visit and all the things that come with travel.

So we've got tickets and now the fun begins. The research and the planning and the anticipation.

Yeah. As strange as it sounds, this may be one of my favorite kinds of Travel Tuesday.

The Monday Hangover

No. Not from alcohol.

The Monday hangover this week has to do with Easter food. From some of the best ham I have had in my life (Fischer Farms... what more can I say?), to - yes - the bunny cake, it was an all-about-food day.

After dinner last night, the remains of the ham were cut and put into the fridge. The leftover potatoes and beans were put into the fridge, as well. And the candy was hidden in the hopes of an "out of sight, out of mind" situation. (That worked until I got up this morning...)

Although Hallowe'en is known for the candy, Easter is the holiday when all of the candy is... well... seasonal. After all, once the holiday is over, the Cadbury eggs and the Peeps and the Reester bunnies all go away. And we are all very sad.

Of course, this means that on the day of Easter, after trying to abstain all during Lent, the pigging out happens.

I have eaten more jelly beans in the past 48 hours than I have all last year. Some of them were on the bunny cake's bow tie. (In case you're wondering, the ears and the bowtie of the bunny are both gone. It's down to just the "face," now.) Many were straight out of the bowl.

I'm kind of looking forward to the next week of sugar-y bingeing. I'm also looking forward to it being done. After all, my pants need to still fit when this holiday is done.

Bunny Cake 101

I was "talking" this week with some friends about how our moms all used to do these really creative cakes when we were kids. There were teddy bear cakes for birthdays. And my sisters had those weird princess cakes (where the doll was frosted into the cake). And one of my sisters once made me a pan of frosted brownies in the shape of a Nike tennis shoe.

These days, so many cakes are made using pans that are whatever shape they're supposed to be - and then just frosted "as-is" - that this week I started thinking about the Easter Bunny cakes we used to have every year. The ones where you used two round cakes to make the Bunny - with ears and a bow tie.

I kinda decided to throw down, and accept, my own gauntlet. And, thus, the following took place earlier today. Enjoy the pictures (and a few captions), below.

First, we gather the supplies. High class all the way.

Sorry, no picture of the two cake rounds, but here they are with the cuts made. I had forgotten how large this ended up when laid out. Too big for our largest cookie sheet, so it's on a foil-covered plastic bin lid.

Tinting the coconut for the fluffy ear interiors. This was the second attempt - the first time around I put in too much food coloring and it would have made the ears look a bit... well... bloody.

First layer of frosting. Well, second layer, really. But I was reminded - the hard way - that it is nigh impossible to thin store-bought frosting for a crumb coat.

Looking pretty good. We used chocolate Twizzlers (snipped into a thinner, more bendy style), since neither of us likes licorice whips.

It just didn't look right without something on the foil. Some green-tinted coconut and we're good to go.

And a reality shot - with the tools of the trade in the background. Including, yes, two pairs of scissors: one for the paper ear pattern, and one to trim the Twizzlers.

I've got to say that it was a) harder than I remember; b) more fun than I remember; and, c) really fun to spend a few minutes connecting with my inner five-year-old.

(Thanks, Mom!)

Friday Food - Easter Style

Christopher and I now have a ham in the fridge. Not exactly a whole ham, but a ham nonetheless. We're planning to have it for dinner on Easter Sunday. We actually put in an order for this ham quite a while ago, as it's from a farm* which also produces the absolutely amazing Peppered Bacon we love so much. We've never tried any of their other pork products, so we're excited to try the ham.

I was thinking about the ham on the way home from work today. This is not strange for me. I think about food - and, more precisely, meals - a lot. In the morning when I get up, I'm already thinking about lunch and dinner. When I'm sitting down to dinner on a Monday, I'm contemplating dinner on Tuesday. It's not an obsession or anything, it's just one of those things I do. But, anyway, back to the ham.

I was thinking about the ham on the way home from work today and thought of something odd. You know how Easter already has the colored eggs and the chocolate bunnies and the jelly beans. I know that there are stories for why those things exist (the whole idea that Easter kind of co-opted a Pagan rite of spring, with eggs and bunnies representing fertility, and jelly beans representing really sweet chewy... beans), but why is Easter a day for the eating of ham?

Truth be told, Christopher would prefer to have good ham for any major holiday. Well, maybe not a grilling-out holiday like the Fourth of July, but definitely for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Me, I'm a turkey guy - I love having turkey on those two days, although ham has always been the New Year's Day centerpiece for my parents' open house.

I know that in a lot of places, the Easter dish is lamb. Which, frankly, has always kind of freaked me out. What with the whole "lamb of God" reference to Christ. I mean... really? He's put to death, he rises to eternal life, and then - after the hunt for the eggs left behind by the bunny - we eat his representation? That's just a bit weird - even for me.

Which brings us back to the ham. And my drive home, today.

It dawned on me that while we're eating ham at Easter, those people celebrating Passover are... well... at least most of them... are NOT eating ham. Not sure if it's a marketing ploy ("Hey, we're not selling any ham for Passover, let's push it for Easter.") or maybe a really passive-aggressive way for early the Easter-celebrants to thumb their collective noses at the Passover-partakers. Or maybe someone mis-heard the orders for lamb and sent out a bunch of ham. Or maybe, just maybe, hogs are the thing most likely to have been slaughtered in time for a nice cured ham for Easter each spring.

I bet it has something to do with the bunnies.

*The bacon we love, and the ham we're hoping to love, come from Fischer Farms in Waseca, MN. We buy it at The Golden Fig in St. Paul, which prides itself in finding really good mostly-local foods.

Sarah Jane Smith Sighting

I realize that in most of my postings which have "Sighting" in their titles I'm referring to John Barrowman. Tonight, however, I'm referring to Elisabeth Sladen, who embodied Sarah Jane Smith in the universe that is "Doctor Who."

My first recollections of "Doctor Who" are from the late 1970s and early 1980s. At that point, the South Dakota Public Broadcasting folks were showing "Doctor Who" (a few years late) on Saturday afternoons and - sometimes - Friday or Saturday nights.

I honestly don't remember much about those episodes. I remember Tom Baker (Doctor Who #4 - the one with the huge long scarf) and I remember Peter Davison (Doctor Who # 5 - who had previously been Tristan in "All Creatures Great and Small"). I also remember Tegan (whom I met when I volunteered at a "Doctor Who" event in Sioux Falls), and I remember Sarah Jane Smith.

I had almost completely forgotten about Sarah Jane when she re-appeared a few years ago in the newly-revamped Doctor Who universe. Sure, she had gotten older, but she was still just as spunky and direct and clever and full of gumption as I had remembered. As one of the very few people from "Doctor Who" who have ever resurfaced in it's decades-long history, she held her own with the new casts. She was wiser and more worldly, but no less powerful or worthy than any of her counterparts.

She even did well enough in the ratings to get her own spin-off - "The Sarah Jane Adventures" - and was a player in one of the few episodes that meshed "Doctor Who" and "Torchwood" (there's our John Barrowman moment!) and "The Sarah Jane Adventures" all in one.

When the Doctor said good-bye to her in her final appearance, there was a finality about it which made me tear up almost as much as Sarah Jane did. Only she held it in better.

The same thing happened to me, today, while I was sitting at work and saw a message from a friend of mine marking the death of Elisabeth Sladen. Having never met her, and having not even really remembered her for a good 25 or 30 years, the news of her death surprised me, and I found myself kind of welling-up at my desk at work.

There had been something so refreshing in seeing her back on TV with the Doctor and everyone. There was a feeling of continuity that kind of grounded me back into the promise of youth. Back to a time when everything was possible in time and space. And seeing her again showed me the promise that growing older and growing up can both be done gracefully and with as much wit as wisdom.

Elisabeth Sladen (and Sarah Jane Smith) will be missed.