As I mentioned, James volunteered to work today so he wouldn't get drafted, especially on New Year's Day. Plus it was double time and would make up a little for his three doctor's appointments last week. So this Christmas morning James was up at seven to work. I got to sleep in a bit.
James was twiddling his thumbs when I got up and had breakfast. I was changing channels looking for something Christmasy, and stumbled over Come to the Stable on FXM. I wish I'd known it was on. I hadn't seen it in years. It's not really a Christmas movie, but begins in winter when two nuns arrive in New England to try to found a children's hospital. I'd forgotten how funny bits of it was, especially Sister Margaret driving the jeep.
Tucker was very patient and waited for me to finish with the movie to go out. It was very cold out, in the high 20s with a sharp wind snapping the St. Nicholas banner and the flag. It felt good! There were high clouds and bits of sky showing as we strolled the neighborhood. Someone down the street was having company for dinner. The cars filled their long driveway and spilled out to the street.
James took a break before lunch and then we had presents! O, what a haul! Four books and two DVDs, the books all from my Amazon wish list: World War II in Rhode Island, Rhode Island Radio (with a photo of Jack Comley, my favorite radio talk show host ever), Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and Britcom FAQ. The DVDs were both Rick Steves: his new episodes for 2017-2018, and all his specials (even the Easter special). I gave James two military nonfiction books, Andy Weir's new book Artemis, the second season of WKRP in Cincinnati, and a Jethro Tull concert DVD. And of course the chair he was sitting in! (We discovered Tucker sleeping in it last night, and it looked so sweet, the little dog curled up in the big red chair next to the Christmas tree.
Put on The House Without a Christmas Tree while we had lunch: our turkey leftovers from West Cobb Diner on Friday night, a clementine, and Terry's dark chocolate orange slices. Tried not to snack too much so we could save the calories for the feast at the Butlers!
While James waited for someone to call, I also washed some towels and unloaded and loaded the dishwasher and made the bed.
Spent the later afternoon watching The Homecoming and feeling very drowsy, so took a 45-minute nap (well, I tried to; I really didn't sleep much), then took Tucker for a walk, fixed him a special Christmas dinner with a little chicken broth and beef and carrot dog-food puree, got dressed and washed my face, brought James his shoes (otherwise he was ready to go) and a hairbrush, and put the gifts together.
At five o'clock James signed off having had nary a call, and we loaded up the car with presents and chocolate cake and were off to the Butlers to enjoy three hours of friends, food and fun. People had just sat down to dinner and we availed ourselves of apple cider basted turkey, spiral-sliced ham, pot roast, mashed potatoes, noodle kugel, sprouts, and carrots. Dessert was two homemade pies, fruitcake cookies, our chocolate cake and a coconut cake, and some Andes mints we also brought. Once the feasting was complete, we gathered in the living room for gifts. We got many lovely things, too numerous to list.
Journeyed home about eight, stopping at a housing plat along the way to see their decorations. One end definitely had a "glitter gulch"! Yet another lawn was covered with inflatables: two Mickey Mouses, a Minnie Mouse, a Minion, Olaf the snowman, Santa in an airplane, Santa with his sleigh, and about a dozen more.
Once home we watched the Call the Midwife Christmas special—very interesting story based around "the Big Freeze," the cold winter of 1962-1963. Will the actress who played Barbara not be in the new season? They have sent her and her husband the curate to another church for six months. I've always loved Barbara and will miss her.
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
25 December 2017
01 January 2013
And A Phone-y New Year...
"Fast away the old year passes....hail the new year lads and lasses..."
James did it all Sunday night: prepared his lunch for work, made his tea, got his clothes out. (I whiled away the end of the night watching the beginning of Jurassic Park: The Lost World, which was just as stupid as I remember. Yes, take the bleeding baby T-Rex back to base camp, so the parents can track you down and destroy everything. Then continue wearing a shirt with the baby T-Rex's blood spattered on it so the parents can continue to track you. And these are supposedly the smart people!)
The one thing he forgot was to turn the alarm clock back on.
So he woke with a start at 7:15 a.m. (his day starts at 7:30, but he needs fifteen minutes just to log on the computer), gave an almighty shout, and grabbed his phone to call in to tell his supervisor he'd be late. Well, they've been sending people home early because there's barely any work at Christmas, so his boss said he could come in, or he was free to take the day off.
So we went back to sleep.
Serendipity anyway, since we had some errands to run: he had prescriptions waiting at both Kaiser and Kroger.
And finally we were fed up enough to take our new phones back to Verizon and tell them they had to do something. James' phone was still rebooting pretty much every time he plugged it into the charger and has been rebooting in the middle of phone calls and when he tries to answer the phone or hang up. Mine locked up most of the time when plugged into the car charger (like when I was using the GPS, but once I had it plugged in, just charging, and it kept rebooting). Plus my nap timer had quit "alarming" and I couldn't use the stock clock alarm because it would ring all right, but the pop up to dismiss/snooze wouldn't come up, so you'd have to reboot the phone to get it to shut up. A lot of times the phones would get so messed up we would have to pull the battery.
Well, Verizon was sympathetic, but did mention that if they sent us replacements they might be used. We suspected our phones had come from a batch with connector problems; what if we got "new" ones with the same problem? The salesman told us we might have better luck if we called Customer Care directly. So we came home and chatted online with one rep, and then called another. The second rep said that since we bought the phones on Black Friday, we had a different guarantee; through January 15 we could return them for new units, and she would annotate our file to state so.
So back we went to Verizon and they tried again to get us a complete return. They finally had to do something complicated with refunds to get it to go through. However, we finally got home with replacement new phones just in time to fix a little something for a small dinner. We didn't want to eat a lot because we knew we'd be grazing at the party. I should have just left the phone in its present state—that it actually made phone calls—but I messed with it so long that I barely had time to take a few Ibuprofin to combat the headache that the oncoming storm was pushing my way and lie down if only for few minutes.
So we packed up our goodies about 8:30 and headed off to the party. We had a great time! Had conversations about meeting celebrities, this year's crop of movies, etc. Finally met the youngest member of the Baskin clan, little John, who was clad in knit trousers with a TARDIS on one leg and a Dalek on his backside. Sampled a little of each of the dishes, which included shrimp potstickers, sandwich fixings, baked ziti, sweet potatoes, and lots of different desserts. Peeked into the media room, where they were showing "The Snowmen" (moved on because we haven't seen it yet). At about 11:50 I snagged two cups of cranapple juice and met James in a doorway and we kissed in the new year together.
Stayed for over another hour and finally wended our way home. The streets were dark and quiet save for a few bars still celebrating the new year. Lots of Christmas lights still up and still on, so we could enjoy those. Wasn't tired when we left Bill and Caran's house, but was getting heavy-eyed by the time we walked back into the house. Nevertheless, started talking with Schuyler and messing with the phone, with the result that we didn't go to bed until about 3:30. Neither of us can take this sort of thing anymore. We woke up this morning at ten feeling hung over—and neither of us had anything alcoholic! So we made our apologies to Juanita and David—we'd been invited over to watch the Georgia game—and went back to bed for an hour or more. Thankfully, I had programmed the Tournament of Roses Parade into the DVR and the light rain had not smothered the satellite signal. James and I both got up feeling headachy and shellshocked.
Lots of gimmicks in the parade this year, most of them sweet. A couple got married on a float. Some teenybopper named Coco finished off the parade with a song. The HGTV float not only had a model of the new "Dream House" on it, but contained two penguins.
The capper was the Pedigree-sponsored float, which had a model of the monument that is to be built in Washington, DC, dedicated to war dogs. A soldier on the float was supposedly still in Afghanistan, and his wife and four-year-old son had been told they won a contest to come to the parade. They didn't know he was on the float, so when the wife and son came forward to get the "award," they were really surprised! The little boy charged forward and was tossed up in Dad's arms. ::sniffle::
Oh, and Jane Goodall was the Grand Marshal!
Afterwards put on Rudolph's Shiny New Year, and then the first episode of the 1975 Ellery Queen series, which takes place on New Year's Eve 1946. This was a great show, with Jim Hutton as an adorable, tousel-haired, absent-minded but sharp Ellery, and David Wayne as an acerbic and often grumpy Inspector Queen, with a super period setting. And, yeah, messed around more with the phone. It seems to be working better than the previous one. We'll see. I'm loading podcasts back on it. Again.
[Later: James went down to the "man cave" for a bit and I rewatched Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol. For supper we had some of our homemade turkey soup with whole-wheat gnocchi. And then it was time for our yearly New Year's Day viewing of Galaxy Quest. We have pretty much watched it every year since we saw it at the movies on New Year's Day 2000.]
James did it all Sunday night: prepared his lunch for work, made his tea, got his clothes out. (I whiled away the end of the night watching the beginning of Jurassic Park: The Lost World, which was just as stupid as I remember. Yes, take the bleeding baby T-Rex back to base camp, so the parents can track you down and destroy everything. Then continue wearing a shirt with the baby T-Rex's blood spattered on it so the parents can continue to track you. And these are supposedly the smart people!)
The one thing he forgot was to turn the alarm clock back on.
So he woke with a start at 7:15 a.m. (his day starts at 7:30, but he needs fifteen minutes just to log on the computer), gave an almighty shout, and grabbed his phone to call in to tell his supervisor he'd be late. Well, they've been sending people home early because there's barely any work at Christmas, so his boss said he could come in, or he was free to take the day off.
So we went back to sleep.
Serendipity anyway, since we had some errands to run: he had prescriptions waiting at both Kaiser and Kroger.
And finally we were fed up enough to take our new phones back to Verizon and tell them they had to do something. James' phone was still rebooting pretty much every time he plugged it into the charger and has been rebooting in the middle of phone calls and when he tries to answer the phone or hang up. Mine locked up most of the time when plugged into the car charger (like when I was using the GPS, but once I had it plugged in, just charging, and it kept rebooting). Plus my nap timer had quit "alarming" and I couldn't use the stock clock alarm because it would ring all right, but the pop up to dismiss/snooze wouldn't come up, so you'd have to reboot the phone to get it to shut up. A lot of times the phones would get so messed up we would have to pull the battery.
Well, Verizon was sympathetic, but did mention that if they sent us replacements they might be used. We suspected our phones had come from a batch with connector problems; what if we got "new" ones with the same problem? The salesman told us we might have better luck if we called Customer Care directly. So we came home and chatted online with one rep, and then called another. The second rep said that since we bought the phones on Black Friday, we had a different guarantee; through January 15 we could return them for new units, and she would annotate our file to state so.
So back we went to Verizon and they tried again to get us a complete return. They finally had to do something complicated with refunds to get it to go through. However, we finally got home with replacement new phones just in time to fix a little something for a small dinner. We didn't want to eat a lot because we knew we'd be grazing at the party. I should have just left the phone in its present state—that it actually made phone calls—but I messed with it so long that I barely had time to take a few Ibuprofin to combat the headache that the oncoming storm was pushing my way and lie down if only for few minutes.
So we packed up our goodies about 8:30 and headed off to the party. We had a great time! Had conversations about meeting celebrities, this year's crop of movies, etc. Finally met the youngest member of the Baskin clan, little John, who was clad in knit trousers with a TARDIS on one leg and a Dalek on his backside. Sampled a little of each of the dishes, which included shrimp potstickers, sandwich fixings, baked ziti, sweet potatoes, and lots of different desserts. Peeked into the media room, where they were showing "The Snowmen" (moved on because we haven't seen it yet). At about 11:50 I snagged two cups of cranapple juice and met James in a doorway and we kissed in the new year together.
Stayed for over another hour and finally wended our way home. The streets were dark and quiet save for a few bars still celebrating the new year. Lots of Christmas lights still up and still on, so we could enjoy those. Wasn't tired when we left Bill and Caran's house, but was getting heavy-eyed by the time we walked back into the house. Nevertheless, started talking with Schuyler and messing with the phone, with the result that we didn't go to bed until about 3:30. Neither of us can take this sort of thing anymore. We woke up this morning at ten feeling hung over—and neither of us had anything alcoholic! So we made our apologies to Juanita and David—we'd been invited over to watch the Georgia game—and went back to bed for an hour or more. Thankfully, I had programmed the Tournament of Roses Parade into the DVR and the light rain had not smothered the satellite signal. James and I both got up feeling headachy and shellshocked.
Lots of gimmicks in the parade this year, most of them sweet. A couple got married on a float. Some teenybopper named Coco finished off the parade with a song. The HGTV float not only had a model of the new "Dream House" on it, but contained two penguins.
The capper was the Pedigree-sponsored float, which had a model of the monument that is to be built in Washington, DC, dedicated to war dogs. A soldier on the float was supposedly still in Afghanistan, and his wife and four-year-old son had been told they won a contest to come to the parade. They didn't know he was on the float, so when the wife and son came forward to get the "award," they were really surprised! The little boy charged forward and was tossed up in Dad's arms. ::sniffle::
Oh, and Jane Goodall was the Grand Marshal!
Afterwards put on Rudolph's Shiny New Year, and then the first episode of the 1975 Ellery Queen series, which takes place on New Year's Eve 1946. This was a great show, with Jim Hutton as an adorable, tousel-haired, absent-minded but sharp Ellery, and David Wayne as an acerbic and often grumpy Inspector Queen, with a super period setting. And, yeah, messed around more with the phone. It seems to be working better than the previous one. We'll see. I'm loading podcasts back on it. Again.
[Later: James went down to the "man cave" for a bit and I rewatched Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol. For supper we had some of our homemade turkey soup with whole-wheat gnocchi. And then it was time for our yearly New Year's Day viewing of Galaxy Quest. We have pretty much watched it every year since we saw it at the movies on New Year's Day 2000.]
12 December 2012
Tree Dreams
Getting the tree up yesterday was almost an anticlimax!
Monday night I got the glider rocker out of the way, moved James' end table over about three inches, and vacuumed the space. Why I'll never know, because once James toted the tree upstairs, there were artificial "needles" everywhere.
Yesterday was my birthday and I took the day off. After sleeping late until eight and having breakfast, Operation Tree commenced! I had been dismayed when I first plugged in the tree because, once again, part of a string of lights was out. However, as I ate breakfast, it came back on. Have no idea why.
Put on some of my Christmas cassettes and spent about an hour fluffing and refastening lights to branches. Then I unloaded the wooden box that used to be the stand for the tree when we had "Sara," who was a shorter tree. I put the boxed ornament sets on one side, the unique glass ornaments in the middle, and the plastic/cloth/resin ornaments (this includes the Hallmark and the Carleton ornaments) at the right. I started with the sets because most of them are the older ornaments. I put them to the back of the tree, facing the foyer. They glimmer as brightly, and it's hard to see from down there that they are faded. A few of the sets are new, like the four chickadee ornaments and the six bright silver holly balls, and those go at the front, along with the satin balls. Next I started putting on the larger glass ornaments, like the 1930s car with the wreath on it, the sailboat, the parrot, etc., then the medium-sized ones, like the pine cones. Each time I found a small one, I would put it aside as a filler ornament. Finally I placed the ones made of other materials than glass. Again, any small ones were set aside. The "wrapped gifts" were scattered mostly to one side, the pine cones one to either side, and others dotted around. Finally the small ornaments were fitted into small holes.
After about three cassettes I remembered that, hey, it is my birthday and I can break into the birthday gift I bought myself. On Black Friday, the Sullivan Entertainment site had the remastered, widescreen version of Anne of Green Gables and the remastered sequel on sale for half price (I wasn't interested in The Continuing Story, which Kevin Sullivan made up whole cloth—it was Anne and Gilbert's children who were young adults during World War I, not Anne and Gilbert!—nor the New Beginning, which turned Anne's backstory in the original book into a lie). Half of $30 each was certainly a good savings, although the postage nearly made my hair turn white. So I put Anne on and it was really splendid, especially the scenes of Prince Edward Island countryside! Cried in several places, stopped to eat, then girded my loins and began to tinsel. Once silver was spilling down the back of the tree, I pushed it inch by inch into the corner, then finished the front. It's like a lovely silver waterfall down the height of the tree.
I cleaned up as I went, so there was little to vacuum up, and then I set the manger down, lovingly piece by piece, between the V of branches I made at the bottom of the tree and lined with appropriate ornaments: the lion and the lamb, two different Hallmark shepherd boys, stable animals surrounding the baby, a lamb, and St. Nicholas. (St. Francis I left up near the bird ornaments.)
I was already hurting anyway, so before and after James coming home and eating supper, I finally vacuumed the rest of the main floor, since it wasn't worth vacuuming until James got the tree upstairs, and then those everlasting stairs. I also swept the downstairs hall, put the stools back in place, vacuumed out the "Christmas closet," and put the last few boxes put back, and vacuumed out the laundry room.
Before bed, to make sure Willow didn't go near the tree, I brought out all the presents and surrounded it.
Let's say my back wasn't happy when I finished, and, boy, when I had a chance for a nap today, despite it being in the 40s out, I fell asleep happily under my blanket until the alarm went off (heck, I went immediately into REM sleep, dreaming about a blackout at the house, and my rear-view mirror falling off).
Monday night I got the glider rocker out of the way, moved James' end table over about three inches, and vacuumed the space. Why I'll never know, because once James toted the tree upstairs, there were artificial "needles" everywhere.
Yesterday was my birthday and I took the day off. After sleeping late until eight and having breakfast, Operation Tree commenced! I had been dismayed when I first plugged in the tree because, once again, part of a string of lights was out. However, as I ate breakfast, it came back on. Have no idea why.
Put on some of my Christmas cassettes and spent about an hour fluffing and refastening lights to branches. Then I unloaded the wooden box that used to be the stand for the tree when we had "Sara," who was a shorter tree. I put the boxed ornament sets on one side, the unique glass ornaments in the middle, and the plastic/cloth/resin ornaments (this includes the Hallmark and the Carleton ornaments) at the right. I started with the sets because most of them are the older ornaments. I put them to the back of the tree, facing the foyer. They glimmer as brightly, and it's hard to see from down there that they are faded. A few of the sets are new, like the four chickadee ornaments and the six bright silver holly balls, and those go at the front, along with the satin balls. Next I started putting on the larger glass ornaments, like the 1930s car with the wreath on it, the sailboat, the parrot, etc., then the medium-sized ones, like the pine cones. Each time I found a small one, I would put it aside as a filler ornament. Finally I placed the ones made of other materials than glass. Again, any small ones were set aside. The "wrapped gifts" were scattered mostly to one side, the pine cones one to either side, and others dotted around. Finally the small ornaments were fitted into small holes.
After about three cassettes I remembered that, hey, it is my birthday and I can break into the birthday gift I bought myself. On Black Friday, the Sullivan Entertainment site had the remastered, widescreen version of Anne of Green Gables and the remastered sequel on sale for half price (I wasn't interested in The Continuing Story, which Kevin Sullivan made up whole cloth—it was Anne and Gilbert's children who were young adults during World War I, not Anne and Gilbert!—nor the New Beginning, which turned Anne's backstory in the original book into a lie). Half of $30 each was certainly a good savings, although the postage nearly made my hair turn white. So I put Anne on and it was really splendid, especially the scenes of Prince Edward Island countryside! Cried in several places, stopped to eat, then girded my loins and began to tinsel. Once silver was spilling down the back of the tree, I pushed it inch by inch into the corner, then finished the front. It's like a lovely silver waterfall down the height of the tree.
I cleaned up as I went, so there was little to vacuum up, and then I set the manger down, lovingly piece by piece, between the V of branches I made at the bottom of the tree and lined with appropriate ornaments: the lion and the lamb, two different Hallmark shepherd boys, stable animals surrounding the baby, a lamb, and St. Nicholas. (St. Francis I left up near the bird ornaments.)
I was already hurting anyway, so before and after James coming home and eating supper, I finally vacuumed the rest of the main floor, since it wasn't worth vacuuming until James got the tree upstairs, and then those everlasting stairs. I also swept the downstairs hall, put the stools back in place, vacuumed out the "Christmas closet," and put the last few boxes put back, and vacuumed out the laundry room.
Before bed, to make sure Willow didn't go near the tree, I brought out all the presents and surrounded it.
Let's say my back wasn't happy when I finished, and, boy, when I had a chance for a nap today, despite it being in the 40s out, I fell asleep happily under my blanket until the alarm went off (heck, I went immediately into REM sleep, dreaming about a blackout at the house, and my rear-view mirror falling off).
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