Almost through with the season, current damage assessment is only four stress headaches and two tanks of gas.  Not bad.  I am certain that everyone is still busy making New Years preparations and taking advantage of the after-Christmas sales, so I will be brief.

Thursday I only had to work a 1/2-day, so we made it to the Brooksider a tad early for a little Christmas Eve cheer.  That bunch down there are quite the pro-Christmas lot; Nearly enough to put one in the spirit of the season.  We stayed an hour or so and then bailed out to make a nice dinner at home.

Christmas day we headed up to the Northlands for Christmas with Donette’s family.  The roads were a little dicey but the ol’ Honda handled pretty well.  I will have to admit one positive for that oversized, gas-guzzling, road-hogging behemoth.  We enjoyed what I guess would be considered a “traditional” Christmas;  Delicious dinner, enjoyed in excess, and a big gift exchange.  I got a nice haul, including one of those sweet flexible keyboards that you can roll up and stick in your laptop bag.  According to the roughly translated directions, I can even use it in the fog!!  Nice!

Saturday we originally had planned to be a bit…  Overextended.  Our calendar included a trip up to my Mom’s for Christmas, and then I was going to make dinner for my Aunt & Uncle from Des Moines.  As it turned out, though, the weather canceled both events.  We did a very little bit of post-Christmas shopping, hit Chipotle for lunch, and then hunkered down in the house for the rest of the day.  Since we already had a rib roast in the ‘fridge for dinner, we went ahead and cooked it up for dinner.  The Martins came down to help us eat it, and then we spent the rest of night playing some Wii.  (Of note, I had a perfect game going in bowling through the 8th frame, then fell apart under pressure.)  The rib roast???  Well, I’m glad it was “just” the Martins over for dinner.  It was OK but I overcooked it a bit.  According to the wife I shouldn’t have used the “convection” setting on the oven;  Oops.

Sunday the roads had cleared enough to make the trek to Mom’s, so we headed down there for lunch.  More food, more gifts, more Christmas!  We got more nice gifts and had more delicious “Christmas food,” including possibly the hottest cheese on the planet.  Of course I had to just keep eating it, sweating all over the place like I was going to pass out.  But it was good!  After that we ventured out for more shopping.  I wanted to use my Christmas money on a new game console, but good ol’ Costco let me down.  They didn’t have anything I wanted.  Quite possibly the first time I just couldn’t find anything to spend my money on at Costco.  We left empty handed and headed to 75th Street for a little dinner, then went home and watched football for the rest of the evening.

What exactly is it that makes Mondays so crappy?  I spent the majority of my time on the lunatic-filled, ridiculously slow, sour-smelling bus this morning contemplating just that.  While I didn’t come up with a definitive answer, I did narrow it down to a few possibilities, which I will ponder later.  Is it the fact that the weekend is over, compounded by the knowledge that I wasted most of it?  (Again?)  Is it the nearly overwhelming banality of another week staring me in the face?  Is it the bad vibes coming from everybody else around me, also despising the start of their week?  Those are just a few of the most likely culprits I came up with.  All I have to do is figure out which one on my list of 15 is the actual cause, remedy it, and BOOM, no more crappy Mondays.  Boy oh boy, what a wonderful world it will be then.  Until the official announcement of said problem resolution, please refrain from antagonizing me on Monday, and at least the first half of Tuesday.

The weekend started out solid enough.  It may have been one of those frequent scenarios where I hit it too hard, too early.  I had Friday off, burning the last of my excess vacation time, so my weekend technically started Thursday night.  Our friends from the Brooksider had assembled their annual bunch of merry Christmas Carolers, so we headed down there for happy hour to watch them perform.  They are a quite… errr… “festive” bunch of singers.  Yeah, festive;  And nothing if not energetic.  After their traditional opening performance at the ‘Sider, they always head out and grace a select few lucky homes and businesses with their unique style of entertainment.  I was supposed to go with them this year, in the capacity of “videographer,” but I bailed out.  Donette took my place behind the camera, and I headed home to take care of Gabe.  He seemed a little antsy, so we bundled up and walked up the street to Waldo and caught one of the group’s later performances.  Festive.

Saturday, after spending the afternoon running various errands, we again found ourselves at the Brooksider for their annual Christmas party.  It’s an event always worth showing up for, and I think this year was particularly solid.  They put out all kinds of food and assorted goodies, compliments of the house.  We got there early, about 3:00, and enjoyed several plates of just about everything.  We made it until about 4:00, when all the riff-raff started filtering in, then we bailed out.  For evening entertainment, we headed over to the home of one of Donette’s co-workers, for our second Christmas party of the day.  More good food, more merriment, etc.  Since it was actually hosted in the boundaries of our usual geographic circle, we even stayed quite a bit later than we normally would have.

Saturday we had yet another party, but this one of the birthday variety.  We crossed the street about noon for our buddy Graham’s big second birthday extravaganza.  He was in high spirits for the event;  Two-year-olds seem to enjoy such things.  All went well, maybe with the exception of his unfortunate decision to grab the (lit) candles off his cake.  Hey, live and learn, kid.  He bounced back from that quickly though, distracted by the absolute mountain of gifts.  After the birthday party we headed back home, where Martin was waiting to whip up a pot of gumbo.  He had amassed a pile of meat scraps over the last few weeks from various cooking escapades, so we gathered it all up and made a recipe of BBQ gumbo, so that he can take over the preparation at the American Royal next year.  That took up the remainder of the day…  We didn’t actually get to test it out until about 8:00.  Came out good, if I do say so myself.

Sunday doesn’t bear mention.  Donette woke up with some kind of flu-ish bug, and as for myself I just never got off the couch.  I made a turkey sandwich for lunch…  That’s about the extent of my Sunday entertainment.

I am home sick today, barely able to muster the strength to type.  I will fight through the agonizing pain and fever-induced hallucinations though, so Munkirs can read my 40-word summary of the weekend.  Woe is me, WOE!!!

As luck would have it, I really didn’t do much so this shouldn’t take long.  Friday, remarkably, I went to happy hour at the Brooksider.  It’s a good way to close out a week.  Didn’t really stay too long.  The “holiday spirit” is starting to ramp up, and it annoys me, so I left.  Humbug.

Saturday it was back to the Brooksider, for our friend Murray’s 68th birthday.  I honestly had no idea he was 68;  If somebody told me it was his 50th I’d have believed it.  I think he’s evidence that a low-stress lifestyle is good for you.  We had just a fine party, cake and all.  We stayed quite a while…  And that was it for Saturday.  Rounded it out with a night of bad TV and a few hundred games of solitaire.  Woo-hoo.

Sunday I got to wake up bright and early and go in for a bonus day of work.  It wasn’t bad…  Got fed at least, and didn’t have to watch the Chiefs.  On the downside it effectively killed my entire day.  Donette made a meatloaf and french fries for dinner, which was delicious.  Not that meatloaf is particularly notable, but I felt like I needed to throw that in there to get an additional sentence in this paragraph.

I think we may be about to be paid back for a rather temperate Fall.  Snow and ice in the first week of December?  Bad mojo.  Oh well, it’s not like I have to drive in it, I’ll let the bus drivers worry about it.  Speaking of which, I hate riding the bus on Mondays.  For some not-as-of-yet-determined reason, that thing is packed every Monday, coming & going both.  Freaking ridiculous, and it takes forever to get where you’re going.  Near as I can guess, everybody wakes up early on Mondays and catches “my” bus, then throughout the week wake up progressively later and later, hence catching later buses.  Who knows, that’s the best I can come up with.

That weekend was definitely a “down” schedule after the last one.  That’s just speaking for myself though;  Donette was rather busy, but then she’s not writing this.  Friday I actually had the day off, which I spent in a typically useless fashion.  Man, I hate burning vacations just to use them up.  Not as much as I hate losing them though, so I just have them sprinkled here and there over the rest of the year.  We did go to happy hour at the Brooksider, and that was about it.

Saturday we headed up to The Legends for some light Christmas shopping, stopping along the way for an early lunch at Amigos.  Lunch was delicious, shopping was…  Well, shopping.  To our credit, we had a very specific list of items to get, and we got ’em and got out.  After that, Donette went over to a friends house for the evening, while Gabe & I sat on the couch and vied for the “laziest male in the house” prize.  Gabe was declared the victor when I had to log on and do some work at midnight, which required a few mouse clicks.

Sunday we got up (relatively) early and went over to our friends Steve & Brenda’s house.  They had put together an auction to raise money for the tips hotline, to hopefully try and get some info in the death of our friend Ed.  (That’s actually where Donette was all night Saturday too, she went and helped put everything together.)  They did a great job with it, last we heard they raised over $2k.  They had a big party to watch the the Chiefs/Denver game, but we had to get back to Midtown because Donette was going to see Wicked with Kelly & Susan.  They hit the show, then dinner at Carmens with even more people.  They reported that is was just a wonderful show;  I’ll take their word for it.

If I go the short-post route (again) today, it’s not for a lack of material.  That was a rather hectic holiday, as I suppose all are.  I think I’ll start with a Wednesday recap;  As it happened, I went out Monday & Tuesday also, but nothing of note.  Anyway, on Wednesday Mr. Munkirs held his annual pre-Thanksgiving AKL Alumni luncheon.  This has been going on for several years at various locations, and this year the spot of choice was the Brooksider.  I was a bit thrown off by the transportation aspect of the event.  Since we’ve gone the one-car route and I got sentenced to work downtown, little things like “lunch with the guys” have gotten increasingly difficult.  This one, however, was easily solved by just taking the day off.  Not only could I then simply walk to the event, I was able to get there a little early & help Munkirs with the centerpieces, name tags, etc.  It turned out to be a particularly well-attended and festive event.  At one point I counted twenty guys there.  We had a fine Brooksider lunch, and then around 3:00 the “regulars” started filtering in so I hung around for happy hour too.  A fine way to spend a day off, if perhaps rather unproductive.

Thursday was, of course, Thanksgiving.  My Aunt Kathie drew the short straw this year and we all invaded her house.  This actually worked out well on many counts;  They have plenty of room, the house is reasonably close to us, and I didn’t have to have it at my house.  Not that we were in the running anyway;  I think our small menagerie of pets has taken care of that.  Between Gabe’s paint-peeling gas issues, and Kane’s habit of walking around the dining room table sticking his nose in everything, it makes for a rather unappetizing meal.  We’ve gotten somewhat accustomed to it, but not everyone is so acclimated to the situation.  We had a fantastic meal, it’s actually making me kind of hungry just thinking about it.  Turkey, mashed ‘taters, rolls, noodles, veggies, etc.  My Uncle smoked up several slabs of ribs too, and they were awesome.  I was well past full after my first plate but in the spirit of the season went ahead and piled on a second, a decision I would live to regret for a few hours.  We left their house around 3:00, still in a state of moderate discomfort, and headed on down to the Plaza to wait for the big lighting ceremony.  Our friends John & Susan had gotten a room at the Intercontinental for the night, and invited us to join them, so we didn’t have to fight the crowd.  We had an awesome view from the 11th floor, I’d say that’s the only way to go.  (Especially if somebody else pays for the room…)  All in all, an entirely tolerable holiday.

Friday was a work-day, bah.  I once again took a pass on the Black Friday sales;  Second year in a row, I think that tradition is a goner for me.  After work I headed to a few Dick’s locations with Mark, looking for a few stray deals, but everything was long gone.  Unable to waste my money on anything, I dejectedly (not really) headed home for a quiet evening of Wii.  Donette, meanwhile, went to a big highschool  reunion up north with all her sisters.  I will assume she had fun;  She didn’t wander back home until Saturday morning so it must have been a humdinger.

Saturday, we went to the big Border War game out at Arrowhead.  I had never been to one of these events, and I think I picked the right time to check it out on many fronts.  Our friends David & Jill were up from Dallas for the Holiday, and they worked the game in too.  We all met up at the stadium around 11:00 for a big tailgate.  It was a great time;  I don’t know how many people were in our “group” but it was a lot.  Martins, Frerkings, Downtown Browns, Doni’s family from Houston, and a lot of David & Jill’s family and friends.  It was a rather large party.  The weather was nothing short of ideal.  It may have been my one and only time going to that thing.  No sense pushing my luck.  As an added bonus (for us anyway) MU even won, and in an exciting fashion.  I rarely stay interested in an entire sporting event;  This one had enough back-and-forth action to keep my attention.  After the game, we made a half-hearted attempt at going out with David & Jill, but I think we were out of gas.  And, we were sorta looking to hang out and chat, but the bar (Kennedy’s) was deafeningly loud and crowded.  We stayed as long as we could stand it, then headed back home and played Wii games for a while.

Sunday, I guess all the events caught up with us.  Our plan was to head to Amigos, but by the time “one of us” got out of bed they had stopped serving breakfast so we scrapped that.  I wouldn’t have left the house at all, but finally Gabe and I made the two-block hike to QT and bought a paper.  Other than that brief foray into the outside world, I left the couch on precious few occasions.