Return of the King, Turkish chicken, and penny whistle lessons

Xmas ornament made by a niece years ago.

So of course the first thing I did this morning was to buy the DVD of the Special Extended Version of Return of the King. I've promised Jeff not to open it until tonight, when he, Craig and Ray arrive for a ROTK evening. I'm in the mood to cook, too, so am going to make Chicken Breasts with Yogurt, Garlic & Coriander (Turkish recipe I got from my friend Justin's mom), coconut ginger rice, and Sugar Snaps in Lemon Butter (Moosewood recipe). Ray's bringing dessert, and I'm also going have some chocolate-dipped strawberries around for munching on during the movie.

Geez, I am SO hyped. :-)

My friends Luisa and Allison are highly amused, of course, since five years ago I hadn't yet even READ Lord of the Rings. And now I'm a gibbering fangirl breathing steam on the package of our spankin' new Collector's DVD Return of the King Extended Version Gift Set, gloating over my mini Minas Tirith. Go figure, eh?

Had a great evening with Luisa and Reid last night at Milestones. One of the wonderful things about our friendship with them is that all four of us are good friends, making it much more fun to do couplestuff. Just wished we lived closer.

Session tunes update (tunes I've learned so far):
The Swallow Tail, The Donegal Reel, The Galway Rambler, Cooley's Reel, The Boyne Hunt, The Sligo Maid, Drowsy Maggie, Ms. McLeod's Reel, The Green Groves Of Erin, The Bank of Ireland, The Earl's Chair. Next project: The Fermoy Lassies.



After learning The Fermoy Lassies, I'm not going to learn any more new tunes until I have the 13 tunes I know so far learned so well that I can play along with the fast version of my CD recording without hesitation. I figure I'm already going to be way nervous playing with people, so I'm better off knowing fewer tunes at first but knowing them really, really well.

AND I'm going to take some penny whistle lessons every other week, starting in January! Through the Tranzac session, I was introduced to a whistle-player named Karen Light. It's been a while since I've taken formal lessons of any sort (I took Celtic harp lessons in Philly for six months a few years ago) and I'm pretty excited.

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