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wrapping up the turkey
December 01, 2008
The food, company, booze, and crackling fire at P & E�s was as delightful as ever. Even with the spectre of dual unemployment peeking around corners. The red wine went over well, the Round Barn whites I bought last summer in Michigan were marvelous, and P threw in a couple of culinary curveballs. He made a delicious cranberry salad with walnuts and apples from a new recipe he'd found, and he made--of all things!--Popovers!
Yep, I said dual. E lost her job to the economy last week. She is actually in a good spot, though, because she has enough independent projects going on to keep her consulting biz going for the next year�and hopefully things will be looking up by then.
Talked to my mom and dad a couple of times this weekend. Family holiday plans are to have it at my nephew TJ�s new house; family tradition dictates new homeowners get the honor of hosting. It�s on the twentieth.
And in other news, they�ve changed the gift scheme. Instead of one generation drawing names, we now have all three generations in the same drawing�grandparents, grandkids, kids, spouses and significant others. Cutting my gift purchases from 9 presents to 1 for that group, and earning my undying gratitude in the bargain. The bad news is, of course, that they took advantage of my absence at Thanksgiving to stick me with most difficult family member to shop for. But on the other hand, my Mom got me! I don�t know who drew Spouse�s name, but he got our nephew Ben, which made him happy.
And speaking of gifts, I ordered Mom�s �Annual End Of November Pick-Me-Up� gift this weekend�she�s really into angels, so I found a figure of a sleeping angel and ordered it to be delivered to her. It isn�t the sort of thing I�d give houseroom, but it is actually kind of pretty. It is something called a �shelf-sitter��I guess you put it on the edge of a shelf and it kind of hangs off a little bit? Anyway. She�s an angel, she�s pretty, and she fell into the right price range for my mom�s un-Christmas present. Right up Mom�s alley and mine. Done Deal.
Even though I'm a strong opponent of premature Christmasization, I did begin some cookie baking, at Spouse's (a/k/a The Cookie Monster)urging. I did a small(2 dozen) batch of iced gingersnaps on Friday. Spouse has pretty much got them wiped out, though. This is a perennial issue--every year, I spend weeks baking, and arrive at Christmas with barely a crumb remaining. Honestly, he just hoovers them up! And he doesn't even particularly LIKE iced gingersnaps! I shudder to think of him laying waste to next week's Spritz cookie output.
And I took advantage of the long weekend to make real progress on my Christmas cards. I even did a couple of letters, for the aunties and uncle, who absolutely expect it.
I�m pretty much done with my personal list, give-or-take a few folks here and there. And I�m about halfway through the card exchange list. I�m certainly in a good position to finish them all up this week, and I�ll get the stamps and mail them on Friday.
Spouse and I had our home Thanksgiving dinner yesterday--turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, baked sweet potato, baby peas, butterflake rolls, cranberry sauce, and pie. And as good as my brother-in-laws Thanksgiving dinner was? Foodwise, I'd have to saw that I enjoyed ours the most. It was fabulous.
Of course, when you eat like that, you end up making one meal cover the whole day.
I mentioned I talked to the �rents a couple of times this weekend�the second time was last night, when I spent 90 minutes on the phone with my dad, helping him get into his email, because he A) forgot his Yahoo ID, B) wasn�t sure what his password is, and C) didn�t have any idea what an alternate email address was.
Yes. It is my destiny to be my dad�s �Clueless Old Fart 24/7 Technical Support�. My dad freely admits that he�d never think of bothering my brothers, or his grandkids, with stuff like this. Nope. Only me. Yippee! I�m special! (or is that Yahoo, I�m special?)
I already knew his ID, because I know his email address. And I know that�s how it works with Yahoo. Once he�d given me his password anyway, I figured I had nothing to lose by trying to log into Yahoo mail as him. Even though he swore up and down he�d tried it a million times already.
Guess what?
Yeah, turns out he was capitalizing his password. Once we got that straightened out, and once I made him update the alternate address in his profile (turns out he never had one), he was good to go.
But when you are dealing with someone who types with the speed of a glacier and has to ask you where the �C� is on the keyboard (Bottom row, dad�just over the space bar.), it�s exhausting. And I really didn�t need to end my weekend with exhausting.
The combo of nasty weather blowing in, the looming return to work stress, and too many blankets on the bed made for the perfect mixture of nightmare fuel last night. I had numerous rough dreams that featured me being suffocated with room freshener, breaking down in tears, at work, screaming �I�m so unhappy!�, and the return of the old favorite where I�m being swept away by a raging flood and all I feel is relief.
And I woke up at 3:00 am and didn�t get back to sleep. I wouldn�t even mind that so much, but having appointments and necessary errands and other stuff to do after work, I�m feeling pretty played out right now.
At least I was up in plenty of time to remove the layer of snow--and the--under-layer of ice--from my car.
Reading: �Murder Must Advertise�, revisiting an old Dorothy L. Sayers favorite.
Surfing: No time.
Listening: The Mountain Goats.
At Random: click here
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