A review of ‘Reacher,’ a movie I have not seen, but whose trailer I watched when I went to see Lincoln with The Princess

“It was the one in the middle, Officer. He ran by quickly, but I’d recognise that bulbous head anywhere.”

I was out with the Princess this afternoon and walked passed a Claire’s – and hey wait, they do ear piercing, right? They do! I went in figuring that I would do the forward holes, since that seemed like the more important set to do, so I explained to the salesgirl what I wanted.

She was super nice, but pretty much baffled, “Isn’t that too close to your regular holes?”

Nope.

“Isn’t that up too high?”

Nope.

“There? Really?”

Yep.

Finally I had convinced her that I knew what I was doing, so she washed up and sterilized. I signed a release form, slathered on some sanitizer, and marked the spots on my ears (since she still wasn’t entirely sure what I was talking about), and then she got it.

“Oh, I see.”

Two big pinches later and,

“Wow! That’s amazing! I guess you really did know what you were doing! I want to do that too!”

I sat for a minute and my ears didn’t ache at all, so I figured, I’m already there, just do it. The girls at Claire’s weren’t sure if they were allowed to do two sets of piercings at the same time – since I think their guidelines want you to remove any other ear piercings when getting new ones done, and I obviously couldn’t take mine out yet. So a few phone calls to the head office later, and we were cleared to go. I marked the second set as well, since I wanted them a little further back than I think is normal, and another round of pinches later …

(the dark lower dot is where my regular [old] holes are)

Ta da!

I was surprised to see the salesgirl frown, “That looks amazing, but, well, how are you going to sleep?!”

Oh. Dear. Hadn’t thought about that. On my back I guess? But I don’t care!!

I love it!

My ears have ‘pockets’ that made placement for the new holes really easy and obvious, and I have quite a dangly lobe *wink wink*, so it worked.  The right further back hole aches a little bit, but I don’t even feel the other 3 holes. My only concern really is that since my ears lay pretty flat against my head, the posts might poke into my neck when I lie down. I’d really prefer my neck to remain puncture free, why else would I keep garlic bulbs on hand at all times?

That’s a really big picture of my ear. Sorry.

Claire’s is a pretty teeny bopper shop that sells things like shiny jewellery and accessories and nail polish, they’re not an actual body piercing joint, so while there is surely a name for the forward lobe piercing, I have no idea what it is. I considered going to a body piercing place since there was one relatively nearby, but Claire’s was right there, and did I mention that they sell shiny things and nail polish?

I’ve been wanting to get my ears pierced again for a long while now, though I’ve just never really bothered to do it. I would either be somewhere near a piercing place and just hadn’t remembered that I wanted to do it. Or I would be really wanting to do it and not near anywhere that did piercing that didn’t seem riddled with disease. Or I would totally forget about it for a while and not do anything.

I’ve been thinking about it again though I’m not sure where exactly I want the second set of earrings.

(Clockwise from top left) My current earring location, forward and up, back and slightly up, or both.

And then do I do the same thing for both ears? Questions questions! Also, how much is this going to hurt?

The original menu wound up with a few tweaks after the testing phase, a few substitutions once I was in the grocery store and couldn’t find a couple of items, and a few total changes when I decided to just totally change things (or just forgot about them).

We normally do a separate Amuse, but decided to just do a bigger appetizer once we (my sister and I) saw these huge new plates my parents had bought.

On Christmas Eve I put some fresh sage and about a cup of whipping cream in a jar and set aside in the refrigerator to marinate? season? make sage yumminess spread to whipping cream. I whipped the cream (leaving in just a few smaller bits of sage) a little before serving time, and the taste of sage was definitely present and delicious. Scallops were seared in olive oil, plated immediately, and then topped with a bit of the sage cream and a dollop of caviar.

The other side of the plate houses an escargot pie. I used a cream cheese crust (1 c butter, 16oz cream cheese [2 c], 3 c flour – mix and form), and filled it with a mix of egg, milk, and butter/garlic sauteed escargots.

Of course nothing is complete without alcohol, and everyone in my family does better after a personality drink, so we make sure to get something extremely yummy so no one will consider not having any.

Have I used the word yummy enough yet? Probably not. I’ll make up for that in part 3.