Sunday, December 30, 2007

So It's Come to This...

The end of the year. I'm sitting at my desk in the editorial department, waiting for stuff that's not going to show up until Tuesday. As with every other workplace, ours is rather disorganized, as everyone has rushed off to have a wonderful holiday and left all the loose ends for others to deal with. I am one of those others today, and I'm trying not to grouse about it, since I'm taking tomorrow and Tuesday off, and people will be in here then, grousing about all the stuff I've left undone (though I'm trying not to let that happen).

Christmas was very quiet and low stress. Steve and I spent it together. He got me a new shaver (my old one was coming up to its 10-year anniversary), a really nice sweater with a T-shirt dickie sewn right in and, of course, socks (which are my most favorite Christmas gift: Thanks to holiday givers, I haven't bought a pair of socks for myself in about two decades, save the wild, artsy pair I bought for myself in Paris this last year). I gave Steve an automated cat litter box, since I don't clean the manual one (is there such a thing as a manual cat litter box?) I also gave him a pair of mocassins so his feet can be toasty when we sit out on the patio this winter, and the two Harry Potter movies he didn't already have. He gave me season 3 of "Lost."

My sister Kittie and her husband David gave me a sign for the patio that says "Bite Me," and gave Steve a bizarre rock person, also for the patio, that kind of looks like the central object in a Stephen King novel. I still feel like I'm being watched when I go out onto the patio, but I'm hoping that sensation will fade once I'm used to the slightly demonic stare of its glass eyes and the akimbo dentition.

Christmas Day I cooked a beef roast in the roasting pan we bought after last Thanksgiving and have not used since. I figured we had to either use it or donate it, and I didn't want to give it away. Baked potatoes and asparagus went with the dinner, which was quite nice (though I cooked it about 10 minutes too long).

Since then, we've watched lots of Harry Potter (because I had only seen the first one and had two to catch up on) and eight episodes of Lost: Season 3. Good Lord, the story just keeps getting weirder and weirder. Like my friend Gerry Hiken said about the show: "It's just wonderful: They can make up anything they want and it doesn't have to make sense" (I paraphrase him here). And I'm starting to look toward this upcoming weekend, when we will be taking down the tree and putting away the decorations and getting back to the real world. Still, the last two weeks have been quite pleasant, with two work days, three days off, one work day, two days off, one work day, two days off. It has been kind of confusing, though.

So, wishing everybody who stumbles across this post a Happy New Year. And, for God's sake, somebody leave a comment!

Friday, December 21, 2007

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy New Year, Jolly Ramadan! Here it is, that time of year again (no one has to tell you what "that time of year" is). Tis the season to be dealt with, as I like to say, and we're doing fairly well, although I don't have any holiday shopping done yet. I'm just proud that the tree is up. Also, I baked two dozen cookies for Steve to take to his holiday potluck at work, so I've done the holiday kitchen thing, as well. Don't even ask what we're having for Christmas dinner. I haven't thought that far ahead.

Mom (see octogenarian entry below) e-mailed saying she missed the blog entries. So have I. I've been struggling to get back onto this blog site in order to update. I think I've finally figured it out, at least from here at home. I will spare you the technical details, but I hope it means more regular entries.

Let's start with the weekend with sister Kittie and her husband Dave. They came down the first week in December, just in time to go out for dinner at Panda Inn, a really nice Chinese restaurant here in Pasadena. Lots of rich food. Really great time.

We came back home and, after a little libation, I chucked up my dinner. Doesn't happen often. This is the second time this millenium. Felt much better afterwards. Once I convinced everyone I was feeling much better, we went to sleep.

Saturday we headed out to the Reyne Cafe up on Lake Avenue, which is our traditional weekend breakfast place. Everyone there was delighted to meet some of my relatives and said awful things about me, which touched my heart. Breakfast was lovely, and it stayed down with no problem. Then, after parting wisecracks, we were off to the Magic Kingdom and California Adventure.

I have access to four free passes a year, being a member of the press, so this was kind of my gift to Kittie and Dave (at least it explains why I didn't get them anything else for Christmas).

After picking up our passes at Guest Relations (no standing in long lines for us...just yet), we headed into Disneyland and decided upon the Pirates of the Carribean ride as our first Disney holiday experience. The park was incredibly crowded, and we cursed the hostile parents who use their children's strollers as battering rams to attack the crowds of brain-dead people standing right in the middle of everything, not quite sure of where they are. The line at Pirates wasn't too long, and after about 30 minutes, we were at the head of the line...and the ride stopped.

They kept us there for about 15 minutes, and then announced that the ride was closed. Not an auspicious beginning, but we were undaunted and headed for the Haunted House. You can see from the picture that the line was infinite. The little sign at the entry said the wait was only 45 minutes. An hour and a half later, we figured out that the sign had lied.

It was interesting that I ran into a former coworker from the Daily Journal while in line. What a flash from the past.

The Haunted House has been totally rebranded with "The Nightmare Before Christmas," and it's much lamer than the original ride. Kind of a letdown after all that waiting.

Here the day becomes a blur for me. I recall getting FastPasses for the Indiana Jones ride and spending time trying to find something worth buying as a souvenir (hopefully with a holiday theme that we could put on the tree). The general memory of the day is crowds, crowds and more crowds. And Disney-style crowd control with underpaid "cast members" waving glowing flashlight wands and preventing anyone from getting where they wanted to go.

We spent time in California Adventure, I recall. We went on Soaring Over California during the parade, so there were no lines and we got right through. Then Steve bought a Disney homey cap (wool cap to the white people out there) to keep his head warm, since the night was getting chilly.

We got there about noon and headed back home about nine o'clock. We could hear the fireworks going off in the park as we loaded ourselves into the car in the parking structure and headed home. We had all walked plenty, eaten the requisite amount of unnecessary food and had a really good time.