Baked rice pudding with rhubarb sauce

Gratulerer med dagen!  Happy birthday!  To Norway.

Yes, as I’m sure you realized the very moment you woke up today and had your first conscious thought of the morning, it’s Syttende Mai, and it is a day for celebrating!  I’m doing a little flag waving and national anthem belting, and I’m sure the bottle of aquavit will come out for a small nip this evening.  But, for the second time ever in my life, I’m neither attending nor hosting a party.

(The first time, I was in fifth grade, and I was stuck on a week long camping field trip.  We did a lot of outdoor education at my school.  And, though it probably would seem to an outside observer that it would be fun to be camping for a week in May, it is, in fact, not at all fun if you are a)missing one of your favorite holidays and b)under an unbelievably aggressive siege by bloodthirsty  wood ticks.  They were crawling all over our tent.  When I got home I picked over 30 off my body.  It was nightmarish.  It could have been one of the plagues.  Goodness knows why I continued to love the out of doors after that.)

Anyway, it feels extremely odd.

The reason I’m not hosting a party this year is several fold.  Partly it is because we are in the midst of another round of data collection this week and the timing couldn’t be more difficult for party planning.  But, that on its own wouldn’t stop me.  It is mostly because I have a slew of visitors coming in a little over a week, and I’ve been putting all my spare time and energy into crafting an epic, but belated, celebration for all of them to attend.

I like to amuse my guests in style.  Particularly in heavily embroidered woolen style.