Journal of No. 118

Dad in Florida (alas, Grandpa is ailing, but that will no doubt be another post, all too soon) & Mom is... well... Should I get into this? Her world has become narrow and circumscribed. She wanted to have us over, but only to go out to eat at a restaurant. I have reservations about making people serve me on a family holiday, but I have even stronger reservations about not having a family meal on a family holiday. So we passed. We counteroffered making dinner at our place. They passed. We doublecounteroffered bringing fixings and making dinner at their place. They passed. Allrighty then.

Fortunately jason_brez sent out the call, and so we had a fantastic Thanksgiving meal with him and his parents at their awesome Dana Point place. We brought wine and some cauliflower to fry up with tahini sauce, an idea started by our fond remembrance of the cauliflower at Bucato. They gave us everything from turkey to pork terrine, homemade rye to fresh rolls, pickles to sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pie for afters. The conversation was just as fantastic as always. And I scored the loan of some of nihilistic_kid's work, which I have strangely avoided, because he's just that dude who's a friend of friends. But of course my friends are awesome, so he's probably awesome, too.

In the Bahá'í calendar, the Festival of Ayyám-i-Há celebrates the 4 (or 5) intercalary days that round out their calendar of 19 months of 19 days. The days run from "sunset of February 25 to sunset of March 1" (conveniently making leap years automatically accounted for).

The grandparents kindly sent us some tasty Omaha Steaks for Christmas. It came in a styrofoam cube, packed with dry ice. Dr. Pookie says, "What should we do with the dry ice?"

I immediately say, "Let's put it in drinks!"

The dry ice is in a plastic bag, which has all sorts of verbiage on it. In huge letters, it says do not handle with bare hands. But slightly beneath that is a long list of other things you shouldn't do. And #1 on that list is "Do not put in drinks."

Total buzz kill. They probably put poison in it to keep winos from having smoking drinks.

Now that Pookieday is over, the holiday season can officially begin. So the holiday lights are up on the house, with a bare minimum of cursing.

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Earlier today, we were driving around, and the slow car ahead of me changed lanes virtually in synchrony with me (thus blocking me from my intended pass). As is my wont in such situations, I intoned, "The force is strong with this one."

Dr. Pookie briefly worried about the fact that when driving, my go to role-model was Vader. Then she reconsidered, imagining that if I modelled myself on Luke, I'd turn off the GPS and drive with my eyes closed.