I hope everyone’s Christmas or Kwanzaa or weekend went well – ours went pretty well. We went to Fred’s father’s house for Christmas Eve dinner – we had to wait ’til the chickens were up and didn’t leave here ’til 5:00. He had told his father we’d be there about 5:30, and so apparently his father told everyone else (Fred’s sister and her husband, and Fred’s stepsister and her family) to be there at 5:30.
Now, I’ve done a total of 13 Christmases with Fred’s family, and every single year we’re the first ones to arrive. Everyone else tends to run late, we tend toward being early, and thus – we’re always the first to get there. This year, on the drive to his father’s house, Fred fretted and worried and fretted some more.
“We’re going to be the last ones there!” he said. “They’re going to be all standing around waiting for us! Maybe they’ll have already sat down to eat!”
“We’re going to be the first ones there,” I said.
“I bet everyone’s there, and they’re all annoyed at having to wait for us!” he fretted.
“We’re going to be the first ones there,” I said.
Guess who was right? You don’t even need to guess because IT WAS ME, OF COURSE. We were the first ones there by about fifteen minutes.
Finally, everyone else showed up and we sat down and ate, and talked, and ate and talked some more. Fred’s niece and nephew couldn’t come (they were working), but her husband showed up. He’s joining the Army in a few months, and he decided it was time to lose some weight so basic training didn’t kick his ass, and he looked pretty damn good. Sixty pounds, he’s lost.
(Fred whispered to me, out of Dan’s hearing, “Has he lost weight?” and I said “YES.” Clearly he had, but I guess Fred didn’t want to ask and be rude. That was okay, though, Fred’s father didn’t mind asking. Guess how Dan has lost that sixty pounds? GO AHEAD GUESS, YOU’LL NEVER GUESS, IT’S RIDICULOUS, THE WAY HE DID IT! He stopped eating so much and he started exercising. I know! I told him he oughta write a book.)
Also, Dan has a Hispanic background (I swear to you, Fred said to him, “Dan, you have a Hispanic background, right?” and Dan laughed and said “Yes.”) and so Fred asked him what the deal was with our Hispanic egg-buying customers never ever using the word “docena” (which is Spanish for “dozen”), and as it turns out, it’s because it’s slang.
Interesting, the things you learn.
So, we had a good time at Christmas Eve – we brought dessert, Paula Deen’s banana pudding. DAMN that stuff is good. Fred’s sister’s husband, who is French, showed us up by bringing a lemon tart, and DAMN it was good.
We got home after 9:00, which is super-late for us. I took my makeup off and we went to bed almost as soon as we got home.
We are such partiers.
Christmas morning, we had to leave the house at 8:30, and we did even though I lazed around in bed ’til after 6 (SLACKER!).
Even though we were doing breakfast at Fred’s sister’s house, we brought Paula Deen’s Strawberry Cream Shortcake rather than any kind of breakfast dish. It was, to say the least, a hit. Everyone ate it and loved it, and we got to have leftover lemon tart that Fred’s sister’s husband had made, and I even got to bring a big wedge of the lemon tart home with me, and DAMN THAT STUFF IS GOOD.
So, we ate breakfast and sat around and talked, and then went into the TV room where Fred and his niece and nephew and her husband and his sister’s husband all played Rock Star. Fred sang three or four songs, and his sister sang a few, and Fred tried to get me to sing a song, but HELL TO THE NO, I wouldn’t inflict my singing voice on other people. Fred’s mother and stepfather seemed to enjoy watching, but I strongly suspect that Fred’s mother would have liked to get up and sing a few.
We finally left there close to 12:30, and intended to go to the theater to see Avatar. Unfortunately, when we pulled up to the theater, we found that the listings Fred had seen online were WRONG, and nothing was showing until after 3. We went by the movie store and then went home.
We eventually sat down and watched The Taking of Pelham 123. Well, I should say Fred watched it – I slept through the first 45 minutes of it, then watched the rest and that 45 minutes I missed? I didn’t miss a thing. I’m starting to think movies are MADE so you can snooze through the first 45 minutes and not miss anything.
Around 4:30 or so, we decided to go up into town to see if there was anything open where we could find something for dinner. It didn’t occur to us to think ahead and make sure we had food in the house (that didn’t have to be thawed and cooked), of course. As it turned out, the only place open was Waffle House, which was PACKED. We ended up getting some stuff from a gas station deli, and it wasn’t bad (corn dogs, chicken fingers, and an egg roll, if you must know), but next year we will definitely think ahead. Though I think what threw us off was that most years we bring food home from Fred’s father’s house. This year we had spaghetti and meatballs for Christmas Eve dinner, which doesn’t really lend itself to leftovers, so we had nothin’.
And the weekend was pretty low-key. Saturday, I took Violet and Veruca to the adoption center, then ran over to Target to grab a few things. Later in the day, we went to see Avatar, which I highly recommend because it was fucking AWESOME.
Sunday, Fred processed 10 more chickens. We watched movies, we read, we snuggled kittens.
You know, the usual.
I finally got my Kindle version of Under the Dome, but I was in the middle of a Laura Lippman book (the more I read by her, the more I like her). Yesterday morning I finally finished that book, and then had to beg for help from my fellow Twitterers. If there’s a way to go to a certain page in your book, I haven’t discovered it yet, but I knew I had gotten to page 150 before I gave up on the printed version. Then I sold the printed version on half.com, so I didn’t have any way to figure out where the holy hell page 150 was on the Kindle version. I Twittered, asking if someone would tell me what the first sentence on page 150 was, and got several responses.
My fellow Twitterers, you rawk.
We made another attempt at getting a good Christmas card picture for next year. While we were shooting pictures, a Cookie came along, and well, I’m pretty sure she was screaming “I ARE NOT SANTA!!!!” after Fred put the hat on her tiny little head.
Santa make kitty scared.
I don’t know what it is, but something about Mike’s sweet profile just melts me. He is the sweetest cat on earth.
Gus and his floof.
“Ah, zees lahf. Eet ees, how you say? So deefeecoolt to be thees beyootifool.”
I can’t stop taking pictures of the floof. It fascinates me.
Cookie say, “PARDON ME, COMING THROUGH!”
That cat bed (well, really, TWO cat beds) Miz Poo is laying on over there to the right? I had no idea that location was going to be so popular, but there’s ALWAYS at least one cat over there. It’s Hydrox’s favorite place to knead and suck fleece.
Fred put this poor, unsuspecting Cookie (I think it’s Blue) in the cat bed with Sugarbutt. As you can see, it didn’t go so well. Sugarbutt has no use for little kittens.
Previously
2008: No entry.
2007: “Your flight’s been canceled.”
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: Let’s see if this puts you in the mood for a nap, huh?
2003: If you’re wandering through the Cincinnati airport around 10 am tomorrow and see someone with a hideous bag, say hi. It’ll be me.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.
1999: Best laid plans, and all that.