How I spent my Christmas Day

Christmas morning is pretty much the same every year. It's nice and quiet. All of my family's traditional Christmas celebration and gift opening happens on Christmas Eve so this day is mine. I do cook a nice holiday dinner and I enjoy the process. So here we go...

7:30:
It's time for coffee and the paper. There is an abundance of post-holiday sale flyers to go through even though I'm never interested in entering the fold of those who are out looking for the deals. But it helps me open my eyes and start my day.

8:00:
I shower and get ready.

8:15:
Time to think about cooking. I surf the net for a few ideas about how to prep things even though I will fall into my usual habits and do it all my way.

8:30:
Chop onions and celery while finishing my third cup of coffee.
Start cooking the pork sausage.
Add a stick of butter and the onions and celery.
Open the bag of croutons and empty into a large bowl.
Slice the fresh mushrooms.
Add chicken broth and the mushrooms to the cooking sausage.
After the mixture boils, I pour it over the croutons.
Gently stir it together until the croutons are all saturated.
Wash out the turkey pan, it's been stored away since last year and must be pretty dusty from lack of use.

9:00:
Preheat the oven. Prep the pie pastry and bake the pie shell.
I let the pie shell cool on the deck rail outside.
Peel and cut up the yams.

9:15:
Boil for 30 minutes. Set the timer.
Mix the vinegar, sugar, and oil together and cook.
Let it cool on the deck rail outside next to the pie shell.

9:30:
Clean and grate the cabbage and the carrots.
Chop the green pepper and mix with the cabbage and carrots.
Refrigerate until later.

9:45:
Drain the yams and mash.
Add the butter, milk, vanilla, and brown sugar.
Spread into a baking dish and refrigerate.

10:00:
Make the lemon curd.
Pour it in the cooled pie shell.
Make the meringue.
Top the pie with the meringue and brown it in the oven.

10:30:
Take out the turkey and clean it up.
Remove the neck and gizzards.
Throw them in a pot of water, onion, and spices and boil.
Stuff and prep the turkey.
Rub with spices and butter, cover with foil.
Put the rest of the stuffing in a casserole dish and refrigerate.
A 15-pound bird takes 4 and a half hours so I don't have to put it in the oven till noon.

11:00:
Make the creamy cole slaw dressing.
Take half of the cabbage-carrot-pepper mixture and mix in the dressing.
Pour into a fancy bowl and refrigerate until dinner.
Get the vinegar and oil mix off of the deck and mix with the other half of the cabbage-carrot-pepper mix.
Pour it into a fancy bowl and refrigerate until dinner.

11:15:
Cut up the broccoli.
Stick it in a ziploc bag until later.
Cut up the cheese into cubes.
Set it in a microwavable bowl until later.

11:30:
Turn off the boiling gizzards.
Pour the liquid broth over the turkey. I do the dishes and take out the dinner dishes.
The dining room table is cleaned off, the chairs are in place.
I think I will make the sangria now.
Get the pitcher, fill with ice.
Add sliced fruit and pour in the liquid.
It smells so yummy.
In the fridge it goes until later.

12:00:
The turkey goes in the oven.
The timer is set for an hour so I can remember to check it.
Take out the frozen dinner rolls.
Prep the cookie sheet and let them rise.

12:30:
I am going to go watch The Da Vinci Code now.
I need to sit down.
Jeff makes orange julius and we watch the movie.
I warn him that I will want to pause it in an hour when the timer goes off.
Since the movie is 2 hours and 40 minutes long, he doesn't mind.

1:30:
Baste the turkey.
Set the timer for one hour.

2:30:
Baste the turkey.
Set the timer for one hour.

3:15:
What a great movie.
It will inspire much conversation later.
Time to peel potatoes and make a note to turn them on at 4.
Get the steamer out and fill it with water.
Dump the broccoli into the steamer.

3:45:
Jeff takes the cheesecake out so it can reach room temperature.
Finish setting the table.
Set up the coffee pot so all I have to do is turn it on later.

4:00:
Time to cook the pototaoes.
Put the rolls in the oven.
Pop the stuffing in with the rolls.

4:30:
Check the potatoes.
Almost done.
Take the turkey out.
Let it sit.
Turn on the steamer.
Take the rolls out of the oven.

4:45:
Rinse the potatoes.
Add butter and milk and mash them.
Cover and set aside.
Take the stuffing out of the oven.

5:00:
Take the slaws out and set them on the table.
Jeff carves the turkey.

5:15:
Why does everything seem to go crazy at this time?
Turkey is carved, gravy needs to be made, food needs to be put on the table.
There's broccoli, cheese sauce, and dinner rolls the need to be dealt with.
And I forgot to turn on the coffee.

5:30:
It's time to eat everybody is happy and well-fed. I think they like it. I can't tell, and to be honest, I'm too tired to care anyway. The cooking was fun anyway. The irony is that I don't think it really matters whether it is good or not, it's all about just hanging out together anyway. I just wish I had tomorrow off to relax after such a busy day.

Busiest Post Office Day

I have today off. On a normal Monday morning, the alarm clock goes off at 4:55 and I'm up and running. I mean that literally. I get up, get dressed in my gym clothes, grab my work clothes, and head out. It's great having a fitness center right at work. I can run my 3 miles, shower, and head downstairs to work. It's a perfect schedule for me.

But this morning, like I said, I have off so no gym for me. I did get up at 5 this morning. As a creature of habit, I just couldn't fall back to sleep. I got out of bed, saw Jeff off to work, and poured myself a cup of coffee. As I contemplated today's schedule, one of the items on my to-do list I could do right now - go to the Post Office. Luckily, the Airport Post Office is open 24/7. I needed to get stamps to mail my Christmas cards and I have to packages to mail. I wasn't convinced that I should get dressed right now and head out so early. After all, this is my day off. So I turned on CNN where the story turned to the mail. Today is the last day to guarantee delivery before Christmas so it is considered to be the busiest mailing day of the year. That was the push I needed to get me out the door right now, before the long lines form.

I decided to pull my hair back with a headband and put on my gym clothes because they are so easy to slip on. Of course because they are gym clothes, my checkered flannel pants that I wear while driving didn't match my long-sleeved shirt I got from a 10-mile run a few years back. Needless to say, I looked like crap but at 5:30 in the morning I figured I would see a few people in line in front of me and the Post Office clerk. I've stopped there this early before and I know that before 7 there is only one clerk, and usually one or two other people are there like me, the early birds on their way to work.

This morning I was wrong. I pulled into the lot which was packed. I got the last available parking space and there are many. I brought my cat, Toby with me and I immediately regretted it. I wasn't sure I would be comfortable with leaving him in the car for any length of time. I swallowed my angst and headed out of the car. Toby's sweet little sad face made me feel guilty but I was there and I wanted to get this done.

As soon as I walked in, I could feel the hustle-bustle of how busy this day would become. There were three clerks working the counter (how unusual), and two lines. One for self-service package mailing and the other one for counter service. I needed counter service as I wasn't sure how to send my packages. The line was long and as I walked up, the guy in front of me did the head-to-toe once over. He was impeccably dressed and I looked like a slob. I thought to myself vainly, at least I have lipstick on and my earrings (as if it mattered, I knew I looked like crap).

What was not immediately apparent to me was the camera crew and the newscaster getting ready to do a story. As I realized their presence, I remembered the CNN story this morning. Oh crap, this really sucks. As the 10 people in front of me went through their transactions, the news people still hadn't starting broadcasting. The guy in front of me who I'm nicknaming Mr. Impeccable was next when the camera guy picked up his camera and started to get ready to film. Mr. Impeccable looked down at me, brushed off his shirt and straightened his leather jacket as if to get ready to be interviewed. But alas, guess who they picked out of the line to put the camera on? It's Murphy's law, isn't it? So there goes 60 seconds of my 15 minutes of fame. Arrggh.

Not exactly the way I wanted to start my day off.

Skate, skate, and skate some more

My son's girlfriend, Jeanette wanted to go ice skating for some time. So last Sunday we headed to Pettit Ice Arena for an evening of skating. My son, BJ, Jeanette, her girlfriend, the girlfriend's boyfriend and I looked like an odd group. Mostly because they are all near 20 and I am...well, let's just say more than double that. I wish I could remember the girlfriend and her boyfriend's names but they just didn't stick.

We got to Pettit and all of us had to rent skates but Jeanette. She had her own and apparently she was good at skating. As we tip-toed to the ice, my main concern was to not fall down and I did succeed at staying in an upright position. Since it took everything in my power just to stand up on skates, I relied on my runner's stamina as I glided around in circles for the entire two hours that we were there. Running every day does have its benefits so 2 hours on ice was pretty easy for me to do. GF and BF seem to spend more time on the bench watching then actually skating.

BJ was on the ice while Jeannette skated circles around him. With one foot over her head she skated. She skated backwards, forwards, and in circles while the rest of us spent our energy focusing on standing up. She didn't only skate around BJ she was making circles around all of us. For a moment I was tempted to just push her down. All that energy, all that youth, all that talent.

Actually I am just teasing I would never really push her down. I was the first to give up and give in. It wasn't for a lack of energy but my skates gave me a big blister on the back of my foot so I was done. Even with that, I might have continued but the blister had popped already creating great agony and pain. The friends were next to call it quits. They weren't all that into it in the first place so I was surprised that they weren't done before me.

Eventually BJ and Jeanette had to stop, the rink was closing. They had no choice. As we're heading off the ice, Jeanette announces that she likes in-line skating better. So next Sunday we should go the the Rollaero and roller skate. I told her that I also liked in-line skating better, mostly because I have my own skates and I am certain that they will never give me blisters. So she says we should go. I told her I didn't think I could since I would be going to Chicago for the day next Saturday. She announced, "But I want to skate on Sunday," in a whiney tone. She didn't seem to understand that it's way too much for me to spend all day in Chicago then spend the next day rollerblading. I just don't have the energy of the 20-somethings. I knew I should have pushed her down when I had the chance.

The 6th grade revisited

Now that my boss is MIA, me and my co-workers have to report to the manager of the application development department. He has combined his department and mine so that we all get together for weekly project status meetings. In the past few weeks, the three of us women would show up to the meetings, we would discuss our projects then we would leave and he would continue his meeting with the rest of his staff. This week the manager decided that we would rotate around the table, not singling us women out first.

This is a story about yesterday's status meeting.

Understanding the development group is not an easy thing. There are six men in the department. All have different quirks, as most people do, and the stereotype "computer geek" definitely applies to each of them in varying degrees. One guy looks like Elvis, another I like to call Comic Book Guy (see any episode of the Simpsons), and another reminds me of a cross between Louis Skolnick and Gilbert Lowell from Revenge of the Nerds. They like to talk about things like comic book heroes (obviously), the Lord of the Rings books, Star Wars and Star Trek, as well as get involved in discussions where they can argue theory and logic with furvor. With that said, I imagine their experience involving dating/relationships with women to be quite limited. I think I was right.

I was seated between Comic Book Guy and Elvis when the meeting started. I had my legs crossed where my foot was dangling under the table. Elvis decided to ever so gently bump my dangling foot. I thought it was an accident until he kicked me two more times. So I uncrossed my legs.

When it came to my turn to speak Comic Book Guy decided to slowly and deliberately push on the seat of my swivel chair. The chair moved until the left arm bumped into the table. I thought it was just centrifugal force moving the chair so I just scooted back to my original position. Until it happened again. Of course, I was speaking so I was half-paying attention to CBG's arm reaching towards the back of the chair to move it again. Bam. Into the table we go. Elvis was snickering.

When I realized what was actually happening, I had re-crossed my legs. So I took the dangling foot and gave CBG a soft kick in the shin. I was just trying to make him stop pushing on my chair. He immediately howled, "OUCH! She kicked me!"

Oh for God sakes, I thought. So I asked out loud, "What is wrong with you?!"

The response: "I didn't do nothing."

Elvis looked down and CBG folded his hands in his lap. Apparently the department manager was used to this type of behavior by these boys so he just ignored it all. It felt like I was in the 6th grade again with boys who somehow knew that had an interest in girls, but they just couldn't figure out why quite yet.

I was waiting for one of them to pull my hair and snap my bra.