Mary had a little

Well, I know I'm too late for the lamb question; just went to the computer now, because I've been cooking since a little before eight.

What I've done with the lamb (after agonizing, soul searching, web surfing, etc) is to make a mixture of rosemary, olive oil, salt, garlic and pepper. It's a boned leg, and I rubbed some of this stuff inside, then Charlie and I tied it up, then I rubbed the rest over the outside. It was 1/2 cup olive oil, 10 cloves garlic, a couple of tablespoons of fresh rosemary, 1 TB salt, and 1 tsp pepper. Whizzed it up in the tiny Cuisinart, but it'd work in a blender or big Cuis, too. I've also made hummus (for my one hors d'œuvre) and am cooking the last of last year's canellini beans (with sage, olive oil, and garlic). I'll also make a fennel and orange salad Mom spotted in the Chronicle when we were in S.F. Ruth is bringing dessert and some shrimp, Mom is bringing some h d's. Should be a nice meal. Also having green beans, which Charlie will cook.

Marty made us a wonderful meal on Friday night: a great pasta dish as a first course (please post recipe here, Marty!!), then grilled chicken and zucchini with a terrific basil sauce (I'd like that recipe, too). Charlie and Nate spent quite a lot of time talking about their proposed deck.

We spent yesterday doing work around the house. Charlie began washing windows (and he's at it again as we speak). I cleaned out all of the kitchen drawers and cabinets on the east wall and lined the pot shelves with bumpy plastic stuff that Charlie got at Ikea. Looks good.

Then I reamed out Julia's room, including purging my bulging clothing drawers. I have a huge goodwill bag filling up. Her room looks nice now. There's still a lot of stuff on the dresser, most of which needs to go to the attic. For example, I don't know if she'll have much time for Monopoly in the near future (though Chris, Wayne and I played a lot of it when Chris was in college), and Ben's not ready for it yet. I have a much better arrangement for Josefina, too, which Julia will appreciate. Ben is enamored of Josefina's food, and always brings it downstairs to play with it. I shudder, since the dishes were so expensive, but there's no good in a toy that kids are not allowed to play with.

We had a fine time dying eggs on Friday afternoon. Ben's pretty quick and casual about it, but it was fun. He ran around outside a lot. And we read the squirrel book (Julia will remember it) about a million times.

He amazed me in the car when we were talking about when birthdays are. I pointed out that he and I both had birthdays in January (his conception of this is still pretty hazy), and he asked me if I remembered when we were at the hockey game and it was Charlie's birthday. I'd forgotten, but he hadn't!

Gotta go back to cooking. I'll add a photo to this in a minute, so come back if you don't see it now.