Here it is mid-January and the sharp Christmas presents just keep filtering in.  In addition to the Wüsthof knife  Mom gave me, last week a shiny new Mandoline showed up in the mail from my Uncle Roy & Aunt Joyce.  Note the “e” on the end there;  No I did not take up playing a stringed instrument, it’s a kitchen utensil.  OK actually maybe it wasn’t an official Christmas present;  More likely they were just tired of listening to me repeat how much I’d always wanted one and when they saw a good sale they jumped at the chance to shut me up.  It’s happened before.  Anyway I was pretty excited to get to slicing, and finally decided on eggplants.  I can’t explain how I arrived at that decision;  I’ve probably only had eggplant once or twice in my life.  It made sense at the time though, so we had Eggplant Parmigiana for dinner on Thursday.  I have to imagine the recipe we used (out of our Betty Crocker cookbook) was some type of crime against true fans of the dish.  But, having no idea what good Eggplant Parmigiana is, it tasted pretty darn good to me.  Fried stuff with lots of cheese…  What’s not to like?  And, I’m sure it tasted considerably better with each piece of eggplant at an exact, uniform 3/8″ thickness.

Friday we again did happy hour with the Wilcox’s.  We have established something of a routine, revolving around John’s new PC.  Long story short, I “helped” John with his shiny new super-spec gaming computer, and after a few short weeks of “Call of Duty” nirvana it quit working.  Over the last several weeks I’ve been over there a few times trying different things to get the beast revived.  I’ve been slowly running out of ideas though, and by now my troubleshooting sessions have degraded to giving it a few sharp raps on the side, shaking my head, then going out to dinner.  Not very productive as far as the PC goes, but fun.  We went to Bobby Bakers for a while, then went over to Tanner’s and picked up some takeout.  In keeping with our New Year’s diet, we ordered all “small” foods to keep the calories down;  mini corndogs, mini burritos, and mini baked potatoes, a.k.a. cheese fries.  I figure anything with the word “mini” in it has got to be low-cal.  Armed with this delicious dinner, we headed over to their house and played cards for the rest of the evening.  We enjoyed the meal, and team Kenagy pulled out the victory in the Pitch game.  As a side note, if you ever go to their house for cards, here’s a little tip for you:  Throw the game.  Susan may  only come in at 4′ 8″, but she can get extremely aggressive when provoked and does not take losing well.  That reminds me, I need to call and check on John, she was still  pretty upset about that last bid when we left.  (We said we were going to refill the Cheezit bowl and crawled out the kitchen window;  It was very clear we were not allowed to leave until she won a game.)

Saturday rounded out pretty well.  We got around rather slowly in the morning, then headed out to Mom’s for lunch.  My intention was to do a little winter maintenance on my motorcycle (under the “better late than never” category) but after driving all the way out there discovered I had forgotten the key.  Whoops.  Oh well, no worries, I’d have probably electrocuted myself trying to take the battery out anyway.  So, we headed out and had a solid lunch at the Best Burrito.  After lunch Donette went home and I went over to my friend Ron’s house (a.k.a. “Flop” if you don’t recognize that name) to watch the MU game.  Ron lives in the quintessential bachelor pad down in Brookside;  A big 3,000 square foot house furnished with a leather recliner, big screen TV, refridgerator, and a microwave.  What else do you need?  You want to watch the game sitting down?  Bring a chair.  You want to be warm?  Wear long sleeves, ’cause the thermostat stays on fifty-eight. Want to cook something?  The grill’s out back, coals are on the porch. Cigar smoking isn’t just allowed, it’s encouraged.  I swear, the guy could charge a $5 cover and make a mint.  I spent most of the day over there, watching the unfortunate MU game and then the first NFL playoff game.  After that I went back home and watched the second game, then played Wii games the rest of the night.

Sunday we started the day off right with a trip to the gym.  We worked out for an hour or so, then replenished our systems with a 2500-calorie trip to their brunch buffet.  (I thought I heard the cook remark that he’d never had to replenish the sausage gravy so many times in one day.)  Thusly stuffed, we pretty much hunkered down at home for the rest of the day.  Football season is coming to a close rapidly and I intend to waste every possible remaining day watching the rest of the games.  That was really about the whole day, other than a good hour and a half of Rock Band later in the evening.

Well here we go.  Back to work and hopefully some normalcy to my schedule in general.  After the last several weeks of holidays, 1/2-days, etc, I have a feeling this is going to be a long week.

It seems like a long time since last Monday…  We did a LOT last week.  Nothing anyone would be interested in though I imagine.  New Years Eve was something of a bust;  Nobody seemed very into it this year.  (Or maybe just not into celebrating it with us…)  For that matter, we weren’t either, so we went down and said “Happy New Year” to everybody at the Brooksider, then went across the street to Carmen’s and picked up some takeout.  Went home, ate our delicious dinner, then played Rock Band for a few hours.  That got us to about 10:30, and then we popped in a movie.  “Tropic Thunder” was the show for the evening.  As has been the case with any other movie I’ve tried to watch lately, I made it about five minutes into it and fell asleep.

Friday we were absolutely beat down.  I can’t recall exactly what the reason was for our extraordinary fatigue, but neither of had any interest what-so-ever in doing anything after work.  We had every intention of hunkering down, maybe playing a few games, and going to bed at 8:00.  That plan lasted until John & Susan called us and said they were up in Waldo for some happy houring.  We were so set on our original plan that they had to work on us for like 20 seconds, but eventually we relented and walked up the street to join them.  We hung out in that area for the rest of the evening.  We played a few bajillion rounds of  “photo match,” the rather kiddish game where you look for the differences between two pictures.  I’ve always found it oddly entertaining though;  It could well be the only arcade-type game I’ve ever fed a quarter into.  After a while though, John got us started on “Buck Hunter,” and I have to  admit it was a bit more entertaining than the picture game.

Saturday was pretty nice out, so we started on our obligatory New Years fitness program.  I fully expect it to last around 8 days if the last few decades are any indicator, but you never know.  Donette read somewhere or another that she is supposed to be walking 10,000 steps a day, so she picked up a pedometer, leashed up Gabe, and off we went.  We walked all the way down to the grocery store, did a little shopping, and all the way back home.  (Roughly 2.5 miles.)  Then we drove out to the ‘Dotte and hit Nebraska Furniture Mart, which is a fair amount of walking too.  We couldn’t find anything to waste our money on there, so we walked from there to Cabela’s, where remarkably we couldn’t find anything we “needed” either.  After that failed shopping expedition, she coicindentally got a hot tip that the ‘Dotte Walmart had Wii Fits in stock though, so our long drive wasn’t wasted.  We (or at least I) were a little disappointed to find that all that hiking around only added up to about 6,000 steps.  Good grief, exactly how far is 10,000 steps???  Farther than I care to walk in a day, that much I have determined.  For dinner, we tried out a new recipe I spied the other day, chorizo-stuffed poblanos.  It was a reasonably successful recipe;  I was a bit thrown off by the heat of the poblano peppers.  I don’t know if it was because they are “out of season” or what, but they were a lot hotter than I anticipated.  Matter of fact, they tasted like chorizo-flavored pain.  But, at the same time, oddly tasty pain, so I sat there in a puddle of sweat and mowed through them.  After dinner we watched “Hancock.”  It must be a pretty good movie;  I made it about 15 minutes before I fell asleep.

Sunday we once again walked Gabe down to Brookside and did a little grocery shopping.    I don’t know if all this walking will do us any good but Gabe is liking it.  We sat around the house for most of the afternoon, then the Martins came down and saved us from total boredom.  Chris and I went down to the Brooksider and watched some football, and the girls stayed home and did whatever they did.  Probably talked bad about us.  We headed back home for dinner, and made some kind of lemon-garlic-scallop linguine.  It came out pretty good;  Much less painful than the previous evening’s entree.  After dinner we made them join our band and play some Rock Band II.  That was the first time we’ve been able to play with all four people at once;  Martin on bass, Donette on guitar, Dakin on vocals and I tried to play drums.  I’m pretty sure Martin will be defecting from “Guitars For Christmas” to join the “Physco Tabby Pitbulls” in the near future;  He recognizes our vast potential.

One more week and the holidays are over.  And it’s a short one to boot.  I see the light at the end of the tunnel.  And a voice saying “Come to the light Phil.”  Hey, wait a minute…

Well, it wasn’t as bad as I built it up to be.  Never is, yet I dread it more every year.  Matter of fact, I have every intention of being in Mexico at this time next year.  Or Hawaii, or Cuba, or some such place.  We’ll see what the year brings.

Anyway, I’m generally disinterested in this today.  I’ve got the day off and plan on using it wisely.  So, in summary, I got all kinds of good stuff, ate to the point of misery on more than one occasion, and even had some fun.  The entire week is documented chronologically on the photo page, so you can re-live my Christmas experience there.  A picture is worth a thousand words, you know.

The title of this posting has absolutely no meaning or relevance what-so-ever, it just jumped into my head.  Quite possibly from playing the song of that title about 6 times in our Rock Band game over the weekend.  Or maybe I was just thinking about Scotten;  That was his nickname in college.

Relatively low-key weekend.  Who wants to go out in this crap.  Plus, I was oncall so I was obligated to take it easy.  Friday we did make an unscheduled trip to the Brooksider for Happy Hour.  It was their “Customer Appreciation” day or whatever they call it.  Not sure what they call it, but I do know they put out free food and I was hungry, so I went.  It was worth the trip;  I got full, plus they put out some free swag so I loaded up on new hats and shirts.  (If anybody gets a Brooksider shirt from me for Christmas, you now know where I did all my shopping.)  After that our friends David & Brooke came over for some Rock Band practice.  Wow are we good.  We have yet to come up with a catchy band name though.

Saturday I worked off and on.  Tried to take the dog for a walk but I didn’t make it very far.  It was too chilly for me, and he wasn’t too excited about it either.  We goofed off all day, and then for evening entertainment went over to John & Susan’s for their annual Christmas party.  I think this event marks the official beginning of the holiday season for me.  It also marks the end though, so I’m done.  Yeah, 5 hours of it is about right.

Sunday, yeah, football and a couch.  Those days are coming to a merciful end pretty soon though, so I figure I’ll stretch it out while it lasts.  I did put on a pot of gumbo, so that took up a good part of the afternoon.  The original plan was for David & Brooke to come over and we were going to smoke ribs.  The more we watched the forecast over the weekend though, the more unlikely that scenario became.  So, the alternative menu kicked in;  Gumbo and hot dogs.  Not just any hot dogs…  Some kind of super premium dogs they buy at a butcher shop in Topeka.  Really.  And, if there actually is such a thing as premium hot dogs, I guess these would be them;  They ARE good.  I believe they may even have meat in them.  We did fire up the smoker and put a little apple smoke to them too.  The smoker actually heated up, much to my surprise, although it took a prodigous amount of charcoal and wood to get it there.  After dinner, we fired up the Wii for a while to work off some calories, and called it a weekend.

Merry Christmas to everyone, stay warm and be safe.  Here are our family Christmas pictures we took this weekend;  Please print out your favorite one, and sign the back “Merry Christmas from Phil, Doni, Kane & Gabe.”  Just in case we don’t get around to sending out cards this year.

Wow, welcome to winter.  That was a quick and harsh change in the weather there.  Hopefully it will be short-lived too.

We kicked off our weekend with a few dinner dates.  Thursday we met the Munkirs at the Blue Moose in lovely Prairie Village.  In truth, that really doesn’t qualify as a “weekend” event, as I had to work Friday, but since they are one of six people who actually read this I have to be sure and give it mention.  We had a fine meal and fine conversation, at least when we could get in a few words between James’ nonstop blathering.  (He DID actually speak though;  To the waitress when he ordered his meal.)  Friday we went out with the Martin and Wilcox gangs.  We met up at the Brooksider to say hi to that group, mostly because we haven’t been there in a few weeks and needed some face-time.  Satisfied that nothing had changed there while we were away, we walked down the street to Carmens for some dinner.  It was awesome as always.  I even branched out and ordered eggplant parmesan, which I don’t believe I’ve ever had.  After dinner everybody came over for a Rock Band party.  Yeah, that’s pretty much what we do anymore.  Keeps us out of trouble and so far hasn’t gotten the least bit old.

Saturday was pretty low-key.  We did a little shopping in the afternoon.  Big sale at Microcenter!!!  I picked up a copy of Guitar Hero, because you just can’t get enough rockin’ at our house.  I thought the guitar that came with it was compatible with our Rock Band game, so that was my main reason for getting it.  Turns out it’s not, but I kept it anyway…  Because it’s fun.  After that we went across the street for a big 1-year-old birthday party.  Now there’s something I don’t find myself invited to very often.  This was the little boy that Donette babysits for though, so I guess we were obligated.  It was fun I must admit, and there was plenty of delicious food to occupy me.  For evening entertainment, we stayed in and played Wii games all night.  We played Rock Band for quite a while, then we ended up playing Mario Brothers well into the night.  I really think that game is gonna pay for itself sooner or later;  We tend to just stay home and entertain ourselves with it rather than go out.

Sunday got off to something of a rough start.  I put on my shoes to go out and get the paper, and quickly made the disappointing discovery that somebody had peed in my right shoe.  That falls pretty squarely in the “you know you’re going to have a bad day when…” category.  I lined everybody up against the wall for a harsh interrogation, but nobody was fessin’ up.  I did catch the cat nosing around the scene of the crime later, with a rather annoyed look on his face like “Hey, who moved my litter box?”  So, at this point he is my prime suspect.  However, Donette was pretty upset that I beat her in Mario Brothers, and Gabe doesn’t like going out in the cold much, so I haven’t totally eliminated them as the culprits either.  Remarkably, the day shaped up to be not so bad after that rather unsettling beginning.  Donette made some delicious breakfast burritos, and then we headed down to the Brooksider to watch the weekly debacle at Arrowhead.  Donette’s Mom & nephew came down and joined us for the Steelers after that, so we effectively made up for our recent absence at the ‘Sider by staying there all day.  After football was over, yep, you guessed it, we fired up the Wii and gamed all evening.  Good stuff.  I can feel my brain atrophy a bit every time we turn it on.

When I wasn’t playing video games, I  (finally) got around to putting up a few donated pictures from the American Royal, so check those out.