I don't know about you, but I had a great holiday weekend!

After spending Turkey Day with family and good friends, and pigging-out on more than my share of a sumptuous and traditional Thanksgiving meal, I headed to my sister's home--a couple of hours out of L.A.-- for a weekend of rest and relaxation.

Sis is a trip! I think I'm funny? Forgetaboutit! She's a freakin' riot! Here's a recent snapshot of her that she's submiting to "High Times" magazine in hopes of being included and profiled in some future issue.

As you can see, she's quite the horticulturist. And her annual harvests are something I always look forward to... cuz she's generous and she shares, know what I mean? (hint, hint... nudge, nudge...)

You might be thinking my little sister looks like she's trapped in some tie-dyed, Grateful Dead, alternative reality. And the truth is you wouldn't be too far away from the truth. But she has other skills and interests as well, other than gardening and a nouveau-hippy lifestyle that is. (BTW, she makes all of her own tie-dyed stuff-- which is another of her varied and ecclectic, can't-get-by-without-it, skills.)

First off, she's an accomplished Donald Duck impressionist. She can carry on a long and intelligent conversation on almost any topic never so much as uttering a single syllable that does not perfectly conform to the vocal stylings and feathered-phonetics of the world's most famous duck. You don't think that's impressive? You try talking like Donald Duck for hours on end. Better yet, try listening to it-- that's a lesson in patience and endurance all by itself.

She can also cook. Her specialty is traditional Italian-American fare. She spent two days preparing an awesome guinea feast! We had 'al dente' rigatoni with a perfectly prepared red, meat sauce. We had meatballs, sausage, and braciolla (I once provided some recipes for meatballs and braciolla and you can find them with a simple search here on the site.) She threw together an incredible anti-pasto type salad and there was plenty of fresh, crusty Italian bread plus three kinds of imported, grated, Italian hard cheeses to sprinkle atop the meats and pasta. Marone! I'm still stuffed!

I think she's also a student of the Alice B. Toklas school of dessert baking. And so, after inducing me to sample too many of her super-moist, decadent-chocolately, and uber-potent brownies, I don't remember much of the next ten or twelve hours.

Yep, it was a great weekend. But all good things must come to an end, and now it's time to return to the serious business of creating smut.

Someone's gotta do it, right?



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