Xiaoniu 小妞

Yesterday we had our first non-family house guests. I’m still nervous about having people over since I don’t think our house is complete and up to my standards, but it all went well.

We started off by meeting at their house. They recently bought a brand new house in a new neighborhood not too far from ours. It is amazingly big, with tall ceilings, many rooms and everything was new. Even the basement was huge. Tall ceilings in the basement and cool, but no musty feeling. They paid for it though. A lot more than I’m willing to pay for a house. It was nice to see though.

The house is owned by Sue’s friend and coworker. They have a 4 year old son. His wife made up some nice Indian treats for us to snack on. A mango milkshake/smoothie (no ice cream), which Sue seemed to like a lot. I enjoyed the Tandoori chicken and Kaju Katli. The chicken was a little spicy, but not bad. The Kaju Katli is a cashew desert that closely resembles mom’s peanut butter fudge in consistency. It was all very nice.

Next stop after gawking at his house was ours. The town is tearing up part of our road so we had to take the long way back to the house. Sue brought little girl to the bedroom to try to get her to nap and I proceeded to give a tour of the house. I have to say that I’m a terrible tour director. I find that I can’t keep myself from pointing out the flaws, things I’m going to fix and projects not yet complete. I was pleased when Sue came down to finish showing them the house.

For dinner I cooked up some veggie burgers, marinated chicken, grilled corn on the cob and some chicken ke-bobs with bell peppers and pine apple. Potato salad, pasta salad and green salad were already made. It was all yummy! For most of the dinner Aneesh, their son, entertained us. Lots of energy and non-stop talking.

Dessert was watermelon, cantaloupe and grapes. Fresh fruit tastes great after a big meal. This came all after a long day for me. One of my coworkers is helping out another by installing their TV for them. They bought a huge 55″ plasma TV with a wall mount bracket, but don’t have the know-how or skill to put it up. He’s been running over during lunch for a week helping to install all the cabling in the walls.

Yesterday, he coaxed me into going over to help. Once I saw the thing in person it was very clear why he asked for my help. 55″ sounds big, but to see it in person the damn thing is gigantic! According to the manual the TV weighs in at 130 pounds. Add on the 75 extra pounds for the wall bracket and it was a beast to hang. One bracket was lag screwed to the wall and the two of us heaved it up and onto the bracket.

I think I’d have heartburn just from the stress of having that thing hanging on the wall. It is huge, very heavy and the wall bracket allows it to be pulled out and turned. Seeing something that big and heavy moved around like that is frightening. I just keep thinking it was going to come off and crash to the floor. Call me paranoid.

For a reward she packed us big lunches of homemade (everything from scratch) Indian food. I wish I knew what it was exactly, but here is the basic description. Yellow rice with caraway seeds. She said it was spicy, but I didn’t think it was hot at all. A hot and spicy lentil soup. The last dish was a spinach and curry mixture with homemade cheese (kinda like cottage, but formed into cubes and very mild). Fresh, handmade naan to soak it all up. I was stuffed after eating all the food and started to feel guilty that the little work I did to mount the TV to the bracket and put it onto the wall wasn’t worth lunch. The food was good, but it stays with you all day. Very rich and much spicier than I usually take. By spicy I mean spices, not spicy hot.

I think once the house starts coming together a little bit more I’ll more comfortable and willing to have guests over. I would like to have some friends from work over and maybe have the neighbors over. I’m sure they’ll spend a lot of time gawking and checking out all the changes we’ve made. I’m sure they know what the place looked like before.