Slipping on sidewalks, too much candy, just enough snow, and other morsels of delight from my Christmas 2010

BLOT: (29 Dec 2010 - 12:45:18 AM)

Slipping on sidewalks, too much candy, just enough snow, and other morsels of delight from my Christmas 2010

On Friday, we went out of town. How would that sound as the start of a novel? "On Friday, Martha and I went out of town." No, too much. Make it less. "We went out of town on Friday." There you go, both bare bones and evocative. Who loves the English language? Alright, here we go...

We went out of town on Friday. Christmas Eve. To Birmingham. To see Sarah's Nana and her family, a group of people I know about this much of (picture me pinching my fingers all the way together). Just about nothing. I know her Nana. I know of this or that person. That is it, though. It was still a fun trip. The actual trip to B'ham mostly consisted of us listening to music and joking. Got there, had a nice spread of food including several way over the top deserts. There was a thing called caramel pie that is apparently what happens when you take sweetened condensed milk and simmer away all pretense that it is not chock full of calories. Good lordie it is tasty, though. After food and visitation, Sarah and Alicia went out and did the hoop thing in the yard for thirty minutes.

Here are two life lessons I learned for sure that day: (1) even if you are just picking up a hobby and the other person has taken classes on it, everyone will delight in pointing out, the whole time, in how much more you suck than the person who is better at it; and (2) if you ever mention to anyone that you know belly-dancing, they will require you to dance on the spot. I wonder if Bull-fighters have to put up this. "What do you do, Daniel?" "I am a matador!" "Oh, well, slaughter that one right there..."

Friday night, the last two bits of consciousness I have, an entire eight or nine hour swath, is eating at a gas-station McDonalds while still wearing my suit and then, about 4am, going to bed to the sound of sleet. Now, on to the next day.

9am. Sarah jumps in the bed. It has apparently stopped being the Christmas from Winter Hell and turned into the Christmas from Winter Wonderland. A nice, pretty blanket of snow lays on the ground and a fresh batch is still falling. I get up, barely conscious, and meander about for a few minutes until Sarah and I head out into it and march around and play here or there for an hour. Finally, my coat and head are soaked with cold, wet mush and we come on back inside. I'll go ahead and post our pics here in slide show. Some (the last few) are actually from the next day when we were going out, but I put them all in one place. If you prefer seeing the photos directly in the gallery, here is the link to my snow outside of Fontainbleu Pics 2010. Or, if you like slideshow technology:

Because of the snow, as pretty as it was, we were not sure if Sarah's parents were going to be able to come over or not. The roads were closed and such. Because of this, we went ahead and opened gifts and hung out with each other. I'll avoid going into an exhaustive list of my loot (or Sarah's), but I'll highlight some of the better. Sarah got me a Cthulhu Dice set, which we played while waiting. That link discusses the game and my review. Lots of quick little rounds. She also got me a copy of Mark Twain's autobiography and a deck of cards with Tim Burton artwork. She, on the other hand, got a t-shirt that should make its debut at this years New Year's Eve party (not at my apartment, if you are interested, let me know) and a couple of Chibithulhus. She got the Halloween one (you can see it, and the others here at Steve Jackson Games' Chibithulhu page). Also one of the minis. I also got her a small pack of books for her Amazon Kindle so let me drop this piece of advice:

Eventually, Sarah's parents did make it through and we got to hang out for a bit. I baked kabobs and then we had another, smaller round of gifts. Sarah and I got some nice pots and pans and a food processor. I got a few books and DVDs, and she got some DVDs and a drum. It was all good. I actually received three or four Lovecraft/Cthulhu based things, which is neat. Unfortunately, her parents had to leave shortly after the gifts were exchanged (by the way, we got her mom a massage session and her dad a giftcard to buy games to go with his new Wii...the giftcard was kind of lame but the crowds were much too high for us to be able to shop for something he wanted by the time we found out he had one). There are not many, but there are a few pics from the gift exchanges. For funsies, spot the one where Sarah wrapped a gift from Amazon straight up in the box it was shipped in. Heh, and the look of joy on her face when she found that Halloween Chibithulhu has a jack-o-lantern for a heart.

Which brings us to Sunday. Sarah and I went over to visit Niko's mom's house to indulge in a post-Christmas party. It was a nice getting to see him and Mari and Kristabelle again. Though K mostly spent time running after a young boy about her age there. Watching two slightly sugared up kids running for an hour is almost tiring in its own right. Niko and I talked games and Doctor Who (oh yeah, watched the Doctor Who Christmas Special on Christmas Day) and just hung out. I got to make some custom tea (recipe at the link if you are interested). About two hours in, though, I was tired. I had had socialization of various degrees for three straight days. I needed to head home and get some sleep.

And this is where the first bit of this post's title comes from. Leaving Niko's mom's house, I hit an icy patch. Slid about 2-3 feet, all the way across a "square" of sidewalk, and never lost my footing. It was like a little express walkway. Now, in some quantum universe, there is a Doug whose head got split open and in another there is me in a broken arm, but this me is fine. Just a little bit of happy fun slides, is all.

We stopped off at Kroger, got food to eat because we had devoured pounds of sweets and candy over the past couple of days (my entire Christmas supper consisted of sweets). Came home, made a nice meal, and wrapped it on up. With some of the Christmas money I was given, I picked up some Zombie Dice to go with my other, but that's another tale.

And so that wraps up what I did this year's Christmas. Hope the rest of you had a good one or, if that wasn't possible, at least one with the absolute minimum of bloodshed.

Si Vales, Valeo

LABEL(s): Me in 2010

OTHER BLOTS THIS MONTH: December 2010