It’s not my birthday!!! Grrr…

All day yesterday and some of today, sooome people have been wishing me a happy birthday. They’d better be prepared for just retribution on theirs. Aherm! Well, the funny thing is that whoever did the schedule this week put two 11s, which means Wednesday and Thursday show up as 11 and then 12 is on Friday, with a happy little “happy birthday, Ange” note. So, I might actually get by without any in-person happy birthdays tomorrow, hahaha. Well, probably not, as I was laughing about it the other day, so somebody might remember and correct it in person, tomorrow. Aherm. Anyway, it’s not my birthday yet, so shhh!!! I was really hoping I’d be able to get away with a no-happy birthdays birthday this year, being new here and people not being so clued in and all… heheheh.

On another happy note, I had “sports evening” last night, which consisted of a lively game of soccer. Well, it wasn’t entirely lively, but I was pretty lively. Haha. The lighting was terrible, either not visible (in the dark spots) or glaring in your eyes (at whatever level the street lights were at), so that was slightly impeding. Also, we ended up with 3 unknown (to me) Asian men on our side (and 3 on the other) and I could not tell the difference between our Thai, Japanese and Chinese guys and theirs, ack! Well, not features-wise, but all being about the same height and wearing similar colors and the lighting being what it was, between the 6 of them… Hik was on the other team (he’s Japanese), but he was in white and making snide remarks every time he came around with the ball, so it was very obvious who he was, heheh. But I was thoroughly confused and kept taking the ball from my own teammates, collided with one of them (knocking him to the ground), etc. -– very confusing and slightly alarming, but fun overall. Yay! Now I just need to decide whether or not so much fun and exercise is worth staying up at night (being wired from the expenditure of energy so late at night [we get home at 11:30]), when it happens) and tiredness the next day (today), or if it’s better to just stay home Tuesday nights and pretend to sleep, heh. So many important things to think about. Oh well… :)

On an additional happy note… I made chocolate salami, today. That may sound disturbing, but it’s not. Well, to me it is, as the thought of eating butter, basically, flavored with cocoa, just disturbs me. But anyway, apparently, some of the people who will be moving out of our Home enjoy the thing, and since it’s Brasilian, I was asked to do it. So, since I didn’t have a chance to get it done between last night at home and this morning before leaving (seeing as I only got the supplies last night -– and was even missing some and had to improvise), I brought everything over to the office and took an hour to do that. So now the salamis are happily sitting in the fridge, solidifying and preparing themselves for this evening. Oh, that gives me an idea of something to photograph… Finally, an inanimate object I don’t need to worry about offending, by trying to take its photo! Should’ve photographed the process, for somebody’s viewing pleasure… Oh well, next time…

They're made out of butter, cocoa, condensed milk, vanilla and cookies. Like so:

- Cream: 2 cans of condensed milk*, 4 cups of cocoa, 2-3 cups of butter, 2 spoons of vanilla

- Add: 1 kilo of cookies** broken into small pieces; mix well until cookies are coated

- Roll: Spread a piece of tin foil and place the mixture in the center, then fold it over so it's covered, roll it into the shape of a salami and seal the ends

- Chill: Place it in the freezer for an hour or two and they're ready to serve

- Serve: Remove from wrapping and slice like salami slices; when handled, the butter will melt, so handle it as little as possible, basically, just hold the end wherever you need to, to slice, and remove from freezer right before serving, so it doesn't get too mushy

*I made condensed milk, as we couldn't find any (1 cup of powdered milk, 10 tablespoons of sugar, 1/4 cup of boiling water -- mix well; the recipe actually calls for 1/2 cup of boiling water and says to blend it for several minutes, then let it sit in the fridge for a few hours; I guess you could do that if you have more time; also, I wasn't so sure I wanted it that liquid-y, so cut the water amount in half)

**In Brasil, they have basic cornstarch cookies called "Maria" cookies; someone here (American) calls them digestives, but I didn't find any Maria cookies or anything that said digestives in English, so I went for the cheapest basic cookies/biscuits they had, so anything hard and plain (not savory) would work (I'm sure your favorite cookie would work, too, if it's hard enough to crumble into chunks)

- Extra: Some recipes say you can throw in raisins, almond chips, coconut, etc., so it's really up to whoever's making it; also amounts can vary, according to the cook, like, if they want more butter/chocolate and less cookies

- Extra much: I thought my mixture needed to be sweeter (strong Thai cocoa used), so I made the equivalent of another can of condensed milk and threw that in

- Extra plus: Some people like an alcoholic flavor, so throw in some rum or brandy or vodka or whatever you like, for another flavor

These amounts will make A LOT -- we're feeding 20 people.