It's official: not only am I an adult, I'm also really, really boring. Upon discovering that I would have the house to myself for all of Wednesday (due to Jeff's attending a conference out of town) I felt that I should do something to celebrate.

So what do I do? Do I go wild, dance naked in the streets, party until the cows come home, stage a wild drunkfest at my place, and frantically run around that evening trying to hide the evidence of the day's debauchery?No.

Yet another HeatherRecipe™. I confess that this is one of only two ways that I can stand to eat Brussels sprouts. (The other way: scads of cheese sauce.) No matter how the sprouts are prepared, I can still taste the underlying bitterness, and it's a bit of a turn-off. Jeff, however, loves the taste of Brussels sprouts, and would probably greatly enjoy it if I made this recipe more often.

Weekends at Brian and Suzan's are always interesting. Always. The conversations are the best part. After all, have you ever had this conversation over good barbecue before?

By the time I returned from grocery shopping with Kat and Sean this afternoon, I was somewhere between light-headed and seriously low on blood sugar. A quick rummage in the fridge turned up real honest-to-goodness yogurt—the real kind, with fruit, sugar, and calories.

After I ate it, I settled down at my desk to fire off some emails. Jeff came in with a dinner idea, just as I was finishing giving Gareth the details he needed for a script I've been begging him to write for me. "Why not try the new Vietnamese place?" Jeff suggested. "Okay," I said. "Give me a sec, and let me finish giving Gareth the information he needs to write this script."

This one's pretty simple, actually; much simpler than most restaurants would like you to think that it is. The key element for this recipe is, yes, time. Plenty of it. From my point of view, there's simply no way around it. This recipe won't thicken properly if the beans haven't had time to cook down and release starch molecules in the water, and cooking down beans just takes time.

Visitation is over, at last. Call me selfish, but I'm glad it's over.

We've had a houseful of visitors today, and—in the great Southern tradition—they all brought food. The fridge is full to bursting, and we have drinks and paper plates and sandwiches to spare.

To quote my brother-in-law: "Don't eat that cherry pie."

"Not good?"

"Nah. I'll eat it. Wouldn't want y'all to get sick or anything."

Last I checked, Carl had eaten about three generous slices of pie so far. There's one piece left, and I fully expect that Carl will come over and polish it off with lunch.

We had a bit of a fracas today when we learned that at least one of the local florists told their customers that Dad's visitation was from 6-8 p.m. today instead of the 7-9 p.m. that it actually was. In order to prevent any hurt feelings, Jeff and I were at the funeral home just before 6 so that the people arriving early would see at least one member of Dad's family.