Hester

Hey Chloe: I can empathize. I had trouble finding garters to hold up my pseudo-period stockings for a Regency ball. I wound up sewing my own from elastic and lace and they turned out rather surprisingly well. They kept my stockings up most of the night, despite rather vigourous Country Dancing. I did have to hitch them up periodically, but I was drunk from the pre-dinner rum-tasting party by then, so I didn't have too many inhibitions and just hiked them up right there on the dancefloor in a very un-Jane-Austen-like manoeuvre. Imagine the look Colin Firth would have had on his face if he'd seen me: Cheers, Hester

Hey, Mats: Unibroue also makes the prettiest beer I know: ... although it's often hard to find here in Ontario. But you gotta love Quebec ... a province that will happily make an apple-flavoured beer with a picture of a fairy on the label! As for rum ... I do like Matusalem, although I think Gosling's Black Seal Bermuda Black Rum is probably my fave: ... very molassesy! Mmmm... like old-fashioned Hallowe'en kisses! To mix with fruit juices, though, I like Appleton Estate. Speaking of which, when I was in the liquor store the other day, I saw they had a 3- litre bottle of it for $110 CDN. [That's 0.79 US gallons, btw.] Tried Pusser's at a rum tasting earlier this year and enjoyed it. I also like Lamb's Navy (which was served at one of the campus pubs when I was a grad student). One of my classmates used to drink a couple shots of that with a bag of ketchup-flavoured chips, and call it "lunch". Ya didn't want to mess with her! Cheers, Hester ... who does not like it "spiced" ... and don't even try to serve her white rum! (I mean really, what's the point?)

Tea, of course! Preferably loose Yunnan in my "Robin Hood" Sadler teapot: Cheers, Hester

White Sinfandel

so gingerly by its...

[Thanks to the mods for splicing me into this pre-existing thread!] Last night, I dreamed of rescuing someone from the side of a cliff, in a dirigible: For fuel, we made our own bio-deisel out of the used grease from a Chip Wagon: Cheers, Hester

I'm truly coveting this little bit of plunder: ... a Faberge egg called "The Memory of Azov" ... held at the Kremlin Armoury Museum in Moscow. I asked Mr. H. to plunder it for me for Easter, but he declined. He did suggest, however, that such a jewel heist would make an excellent plot for a thriller novel ... or the next "Ocean's" sequel. Cheers, Hester

^A Faberge egg with a miniature pirate ship inside: ... oh, I wish! No, just lots of chocolate for me & Mr. H. (no kiddies in our house) ... and soft-boiled eggs in bunny eggcups and hot-cross buns for breakfast. < Thinking it's about time to have a bath & get dressed, even if it is a holiday today. V Do you have any special Easter/springtime rituals or traditions?

24-hour Pirate Porn channel [Grab a bowl of popcorn and a Corona and get comfortable!]

^ All the time! I can't understand why the rest of the world doesn't think I'm screamingly funny (especially those poker-up-the-bum Brit folkies who decided I was a mentally ill alcoholic based on my posts). Maybe it's a result of my resistance to emiticons and my insistence on writing in paragraphs (to say nothing of all those piratey references to rum). < Eaten many seasonal eggs this morning, both hen & bunny delivered. On the accent Q, I recently had someone I'd just met ask me if I were British, as they said they thought they detected a slight accent. I told them no, I was probably just overcompensating for my working-class steeltown upbringing and trying not to sound like a stevedore in polite society. V When you were a child, did the bunny deliver your eggs conveniently all in one basket, or were you forced to hunt for delicious droppings all over the place?

Right, O'eye: You take the blonde one on the left ... I'll take that lovely black beauty on the right! Cheers, Hester ... chestless (well, except in the buxom sense)

My toenail has just worn a hole in my turquoise & black pirate-stripe kneesocks. Bugger! What hosiery problems are the rest of ya experiencing? Cheers, Hester

Oh, right ... you pirates have all these special "grow lights" and "heat lamps" and "humidy monitors" and you expect me to believe that all you're growing is bananas? Hey, dudes, I'm Canadian, eh ... I'm hip to what you're really growing! Cheers, Hester

^Tornadoes. One blew past while I was in a tent in the backwoods one summer night. The lightening was continous -- you could've read a book by the light. I was pretty sure I was gonna die that night. The wind took our canoe that had been 20 feet up on shore, wedged securely between a tree and a boulder, and hurled it to the other end of the lake. Happily other campers found it and brought it back to us the next morning, or we'd have been stranded and waiting for the rangers to rescue us. Trees down all over the place when we paddled out -- huge things broken like matchsticks. < Really looking forward to the Easter chocolate! V Have you ever been in a situation you thought was life-threatening?

[Ya, I'm double-turning...] marriage [Couldn't resist flaunting more Canadian culture.] [besides, 2 more posts and I'm "Notorious"!]

gay [The one with the purse, apparently.]

Oh sure, Matusalem, go ahead and rub it in! We've got a windchill of -13 degree Celsius here, and I still have to go out and do more errands as the Easter Bunny's little helper. I was back to wearing earmuffs again today! Goddess grace, I hope that bloody rabbit actually brings some spring weather this weekend or I'm gonna skin it and make new earmuffs. Cheers, Hester

Nevermind the face ... I even eat the rude bits on my bunnies! No rescue mission going on here ... I plan to slaughter those chocolate long-ears this weekend in an orgy of sacred pagan ritual sacrifice! Cheers, Hester ... who for now is biding her time with a tame bowl of vegetable beef soup

Hallowe'en kisses -- the really dark molassesy kind. If you can find kisses at all anymore, they're anaemically pale toffee. Oh, and I just discovered that Laura Secord has a new Easter Egg flavour this year: Caramel Fudge Pecan! The bunny laid a beauty this time! And, of course, the thread header makes me think of a different type of "candy" ... immortalized in Bow Wow Wow's song, "I Want Candy": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOErkDX5ViA ... hmmm... that bassist was pretty 'sweet'! Cheers, Hester

It's bloody SNOWING outside! April 5th! Damn, I have to go out in that. Guess I won't be washing my hair this morning, as I'm running late and won't have time to dry it. And I'd rather not arrive at singing class with icicle ringlets. Cheers, Hester

"Arse Lickers of Satan" [it's a Canadian political joke.] [Here's the video: ]

^ Of course! I'm a good Canuck and only listen to the CBC (it's on right now in the background). In fact, I haven't listened to a US radio station since I was a little girl and could sometimes pull in signals from across the border at night on the old transistor when I was supposed to be sleeping. < Swimming to shore on the Amalfi coast? Matusalem, that's not a dream, that's a vacation! V What is your favourite internet radio station?

Okay, I'm borrowing a topic from ^< v. What do you remember dreaming about just before waking this morning? [before going to bed, you may need to consciously remind yourself to remember in the morning.] This morning, I had 3 dreams that morphed into one another 1. Because of global warming, the lake at my cottage had risen right up to my neighbour's front porch (and made a nice little wading pool in the front yard, with sand ripples on the bottom). But, there were also still some large snowbanks from the winter near the road, and my neighbour told me there was a new branch of the library buried under one of the snowbanks, and that the entrance to it was in the trunk of her car -- like Alice going down a rabbit hole. But, when I tried the trunk entrance, it was really just a video phone. 2. Went to a museum to do English Country Dancing in the parking lot, but it was cancelled. Went inside the museum, and the docents in period costume pulled out a book of Austrian dances and suggested we do them instead. But, then the dancing turned into a rave. 3. My brother-in-law was visiting from out of town. He's an excellent cook [iRL] and we took him to a large fish market. I found the place intimidating, as it was very loud and chaotic and the staff seemed to be closing up. There was broken glass on the floor and fish blood seeping down the floordrains. I approached a counter with a display of fish. I turned around to ask my b-i-l what he would pick. He said the "grouper" (which in my dream were small round black-scaled fish with very red gills). I turned back to the counter and all that were left were "gobi" (which in my dream were large, ghostly white, flacid looking things). I asked for some of those, and the fish seller was very rude to me, chastising me for not telling her exactly what weight of fish I wanted. ... and then I woke up What did you dream just before waking up this morning? Cheers, Hester

^ Not serious as in racing/swim team. But serious in that whenever I see a natural body of water, I want to be IN it. I'm not fast, but I'm a floater [one benefit of high percentage body fat] and I have endurance. < Haven't annoyed the harbour patrol, but I have frightened the elderly neighbours at my cottage when I swam round the shoreline of our bay and disappeared out of their view. V Do you ever have dreams involving swimming or water?

Oooo... look at all that red meat! Did I mention I'm anaemic? Any extras? Send them our way, please! Cheers, Hester ... steak for breakfast!