Sing A Song, Seattle Grace: Grey's Musical Event

Celebration! No class and Grey's Anatomy! Cheers!

So first, some good news. Yesterday I had my...wait for it...my last class. There was no celebration or champagne. It was a pretty dull class about corporate governance and having not slept the night before or eaten for that matter, I was not in a fun place. But my days of 5am wake up calls, and dashing for the 6.34 bus are over! Needless to say, the grandpappy of assignments still plagues my life - the dissertation and another minor annoyance better known as a mood board (yes, believe it...I have to do a MOOD BOARD!!). However, the end is nigh, peeps! The end is nigh!
And a bit of housekeeping. Click here, like it, that's all.

And now to the crux of the matter...

Sara Ramirez as Dr Calliope "Callie" Torres

I am not sure I have truly expressed how I feel about Grey's Anatomy on my blog. I have mentioned my love for the show in passing a couple times but in reality, I love it. Being in London, while a great experience on a lot of fronts, is a total Grey's buzzkill. Sadly, as with most of the American shows, the episodes are behind the US airings - 7 episodes behind. I can stream the episodes of course, but the fun was always in watching the show with friends via Facebook. There is a cult following on my friends' list and now they watch it without me and I have to catch up. And I just realised as well, that I am going to have to miss the awesome experience of watching the Grey's finale with friends as well.  The Grey's finales are usually epic and a must-see and had I used the grey matter that I have been putting to the test on assignments and exams, to plan my "vacation", I would have booked my flight after the finale. lol. Yes..it's that serious.

In any event, the Grey's musical event was tonight, or in my case, this morning (wow...it's 4am!), and I will admit, I had some serious misgivings about this. While I love a show trying new formats, I was not feeling a musical Grey's. I could not imagine my favourite surgeons singing, scalpels in hand. It sounded awful, mind numbing and annoying. So what did I think of it then?

Eric Dane as Dr Mark "McSteamy" Sloan

There were some brief nauseating musical moments like Owen's sudden outburst to calm the other attendings. Could have done without that. I thought sometimes the singing got in the way of the script. I must say, the singing was good but when I tune in to watch Grey's, I want the drama. If I wanted to watch tv musicals, I would watch Glee. It was just too much for me, for the most part. But to Shonda's credit, it did not overwhelm the story as much as I thought it would. It was woven in to the episode where it made sense and at least there was no dancing in the hallways of the hospital or anything. The Callie sequences were the ones that worked best and made the most sense and fed into the emotion of the episode. Not to mention Sara Ramirez's voice is beautiful. Amazing! Callie worked. She worked. Cro Magnon and Karev - not so much. lol. Kudos to McDreamy aka Patrick Dempsey for admitting he cannot sing and would not be singing. I could not have my image of him tainted by out of tune, no tonal quality squawking. I give the episode an 8 still - it was not that bad really. I survived.

*spoiler alert - stop if you don't want to know how it ended*

The episode itself was brilliant and of course, tear jerking and it was not even 2 minutes into the thing and I was beside myself. I kinda wish Callie had woken up with amnesia and forgotten she was in love with Arizona and then maybe see Mark and fall madly in love with him but no such luck. The Callie/Arizona wedding is looming. God. I feel it for poor Meredith though. And finally, the student is outshining the teacher and Dr Altman is suffering from Christina tabanca - I mean, first Christina took her man and now like she want to take the wuk too. Heifer. lol..

I am so glad it had a cliched tv end - with baby and mama alive. If the baby had gotten up and sang, it would have been the end for me though.

Let's hope they never do a musical Law and Order: SVU. I do not think I am ever going to be ready for a singing Det Stabler.

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Makeup Porn, courtesy Chanel

The eyes have it!

I love a well done eye. Makeup, I mean. It's always the part I place most focus on when doing makeup, especially since I don't wear lipstick as I mentioned here. These days, I have nowhere to go where I can do a pretty makeup job like this. At least not anytime in the near future, but I love makeup porn. I just do. My makeup job these days includes chapstick and mascara (my one daily  must-have).

Me? I've been alright though - trying to focus on school and controlling hormonal rages. Managed to get out of the house this weekend for dinner and a movie. Huge thumbs down though to the snoggers next to us. I mean, if you really want to spend 2 hours kissing, can't you do it at home?

Thumbs up to Wahaca at Canary Wharf, specifically to our waiter, Brendan, who was a ball of energy and courtesy. I just love Wahaca.

But, Matthew McConaughey - can he be any hotter? The Lincoln Lawyer was excellent and for me and my date - both of us huge Michael Connelly fans - it was well scripted and well cast. I give it a thumbs up - an unmanicured, shabby cuticles, thumbs up!
 
I really love the Black Pearl nail colour Lisa is wearing in the video. Nail polish porn.

Lust and enjoy as much as I did.

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Foodie Pics: Curry Tabanca

I always say, I could eat curry every week - maybe not everyday but definitely once a week and it had been a while since I had a good curry. And my mantra is, if you want something good, best you do it yourself and so I did. I had promised a friend to come over and cook Trini curry for him this weekend and we did that, while watching my dismal cricket team play India. It was lovely. And so after introducing a Brit to Trinidadian curry on Sunday, and ultimately teasing my own tastebuds for the spicy goodness of a curried chicken, yesterday, I went to Tesco and got chicken, chick peas, potatoes and chapatis.

First, I seasoned the chicken last evening so it could marinate overnight. Lots of onions, garlic, green herbs, , peppers, geera (cumin) and curry powder. Chief curry powder, and Chief ground geera - not the crap they have here. It looks beautiful doesn't it?

I love cutting drumsticks in half for curry. To me boneless chicken for curry is sacrilege

Then this morning I cut up my potatoes into small cubes. I also chopped some onions, garlic, peppers and threw them in some very very hot oil, with some whole geera, (I just love geera) before adding curried powder mixed with water for the chunkay. Then, in went my chick peas and then later my cubed potatoes. Bubble bubble...

The channa, better known as chickpeas, bubbling in the curry

With my oil extremely hot in my dutch pot, I added the seasoned chicken and allowed that to cook in a covered pot for about an hour. I nyammed on a toasted sesame bagel with a scrambled egg white and some hot chocolate while this was going on. Did I mention I started cooking at 8am?

Putting the chicken on to do its magic

I finished cooking before 10am which was great and cleared the kitchen and packed everything away until 2pm lunch hour. I did make dhalpuri from scratch on Sunday but there was no way I was doing that today so I picked up some chapatis and heated them in the microwave for about 20 seconds. I also, last night, brewed some green tea and added the juice of 3 limes and some sugar for a thirst quenching iced green tea. Lunch was then served.

Tuesday lunch - curried chicken, curried channa (chickpeas), chapatis, iced green tea with citrus

Close up of the meal, with the chicken so tender, the flesh was falling off the bone. It was bliss. Jealous much? Back to work.

Curry a la Trininista!

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London Spring Wine and Cheese Festival

When I woke up this morning there was a big ball of light in the sky and it looked gorgeous outside. Pity it did not also feel gorgeous. The weather vacillated from hot to cold every 5 minutes it seemed. And by now, it is just biting cold. Weirdest weather ever.

So went down to Southbank to the Spring Wine and Cheese Festival and it was a nice time. A bit crowded, and the exhibitor staff were a bit grumpy and sometimes unhelpful but all in all it was a good afternoon out of the bedroom I call home. And leave it to me to actually forget I am fasting from alcohol. It somehow never clicked that I was going to a Wine festival during Lent - I guess I am more stressed out than I thought. And thanks to Sonso for reminding me AFTER the 4 glasses of pinot noir rosé. God will forgive me this slight indiscretion I am sure.

Essay time. Going to resume the work I started at 6am on this essay for a couple hours before hitting the sack. Tomorrow I am cooking a Trini curry dinner for a friend, and watching West Indies vs India at the Cricket World Cup, so no student life this Sunday. Hope everyone is having a great weekend. Here a few photos from the day.

Sunshine - a rarity in London.

Sunshine in London! Amen!

And when there is sunshine, the people leave their houses and come out to play.

Spring cometh in London

There were surprisingly a lot of sweets and desserts at this wine and cheese festival.

Desserts at the London Spring Cheese and Wine Festival

But also a lot of cheese. A lot of cheese! Some really nice, some did not smell so nice.

Oodles and oodles of cheese at the London Spring Cheese and Wine Festival

And cheesecake!! Group shot!

Cheesecake at the London Spring Cheese and Wine Festival

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Support Boo and Operation Smile

Boo
Photo courtesy Boo's Fan Page

A lot of people follow their fave celebrity on sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg recently started a Fan Page for his dog. But no pooch comes close to gaining my love as Boo has done.

CNN recently featured Boo, who has over 920,000 Facebook fans as "The Cutest Dog in the World" and Boo is not even a celebrity dog. He does not belong to the queen or to Obama. He is just a cute dog whose owner decided needed to be shared with the rest of the cute dog loving world. Thank you Boo owner person. We love him!

Boo and his best mate, Buddy
Photo courtesy Boo's Fan Page

Today is Boo's 5th birthday and he is asking not for personal gifts but for donations to Operation Smile, which raises money for kids born with cleft lips to get the simple operation that will give them beautiful smiles and the confidence to face the world. Boo has up to 6.04pmGMT raised $1,250.00 out of the $5,000 he has hoped to raise. That is pretty outstanding for a dog. And pretty darn cute. It has brought light to my grey day.

You can find Boo on Facebook and if you want to donate to Operation Smile on behalf of Boo, you can check out his Birthday Donation Page.

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