Laffy taffy

I had a really nice day today and I say that without any irony whatsoever.  I'm still sick, but it was the right amount of productive (with work), chilled out and sans cabin fever.  

I bought a ridiculous amount of winter-appropriate clothing for an upcoming work trip (I've been looking for an excuse to buy a fuzzy-inside hoodie for SO long).  

And in the afternoon, I made corn with ideas gleaned from a bunch of online recipes.  Corn is just one of those things it's hard to get wrong and is good with almost all fixings. This variation is amazing - it's sweet, salty, spicy and zingy all in one, and everything goes perfectly together.  

You just boil the ears of corn and while they're cooking, whisk together a spoonful of melted butter and a spoonful of honey.  Stir in some salt.  Douse the corn in the mixture, sprinkle lightly with chilli powder and squeeze a wedge of lime over before eating.  My parents loved it.

In the evening, I grabbed an impromptu early dinner with my friend, Wei-Yuen, from work.  We haven't known each other for very long but we kind of hit it off over general silliness.  We spent the evening laughing like a pair of languid hyenas and nudging each other over way too much food.

She enjoys photography as well, and very obligingly let me try out Big's night-portrait mode on her (check out the sweet background exposure!), though you wouldn't guess that from the face.  Later, we went shopping at that palace of books, Kinokuniya and both bought very cool things that I'll share eventually.

Before dinner, she made me meet her at Uniqlo to help her pick out a poncho (I'm telling you.  They're the next word in fashion).  I have some kind of disease.  Every time I enter Uniqlo, my hands twitch violently in the direction of my wallet.  I was proudly doing quite well this time, waving a haughty arm at the offerings and we were about to drift beatifically out of the store when we saw stacks of elastic waistband pants in crazy prints.

"Ohmigod," I grabbed her elbow.  

We stared at the stacks for several minutes, then at each other.

Those are the same pants in different colours, in case you can't tell.  I'm not even kidding when I tell you that we've planned to wear them to the office on the same day.

Wei-Yuen is leaving the country soon, and for a long time, so this was one of our last meals together.  I'm going to miss her.  The world is big, and our friends so small in them. 

But I'll be happy to stay in touch, see her when she travels, and know that just like all the other special people I love across the globe, sometime, somewhere, a friend may be thinking of me.