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.

We are back in the (literally) frozen tundra of KC.  After 3 days of 60 – 70 degree weather, constantly listening to whines of “Why did you move me back to KC??!!!??” you can imagine my consternation when the plane landed and it was dumping snow at a frightful rate.  What luck.  Anyway, after the two-hour crawl from the airport, we’re back home.

We flew to Dallas on Friday evening to visit our friends David & Jill, and to celebrate Donette’s birthday.  It wasn’t quite as big as our celebration last year in Playa, but we didn’t need passports and still stayed at an all-inclusive resort (their house) so it was close enough.  We got to their house around 12:00 at night, which is generally about 3 hours past my bedtime.  But, there was a lot of catching up to do and we ended up staying awake until the rather unholy hour of 2:00.  Quite possibly the first time I’ve seen 2:00 in the morning that I wasn’t either in college or working.

Saturday was the “official” birthday, so we kicked it off at the crack of 10:00 with some omelets.  After breakfast, we loitered in the hot tub for a few hours, burned a few stogies, did some napping, listened  to some music…  Kind of generally enjoyed the afternoon.  Later in the day we headed over to their daughter Casey’s place for a somewhat impromptu wine-tasting, then headed down the street to her haunt of choice, the Knox-Henderson district.  It’s a cool Westport-ish little place;  Which is to say, too expensive and too young for the likes of me.  But, you know, “when in Dallas” and all that.  We started off strong with two enormous bowls of steamed mussels at Vickery Park.  I don’t think I’ve ever tried steamed mussels, but you can bet I’ll be dragging everybody back for more next time we’re in town.  They were awesome.  I thought about dropping a few in my pocket and trying to duplicate them at home, but I was afraid they wouldn’t travel well.  Immensely pleased with the beginning of the evening, we headed to Victor Tango’s next.  Now this place was definitely more “Power & Light District” than “Westport.”  They mostly featured “Scratch Cocktails,” described on the menu as “the precise rendering of vintage and modern cocktails using freshly squeezed juices, local herbs and fresh vegetables.”  I tried reading a few of them and then panicked and said “Uhhhhh, you got any draft beer?”  Dang Kansas Citians, what can ya’ do.  It was a lot of fun watching the bartenders though, they were some artists.  Last on the list, we hit Cuba Libre for some dinner.  Everybody went with an assortment of their tacos, which were quite possibly even better than the tacos back home at Jalapenos.  (That last statement is roughly on a par with saying “The steak at Capitol Grille is quite possibly even better than the steak at The Brooksider.”)  David had picked up a few fine CAO cigars to round out the evening, but towards the end of dinner Casey got mysteriously fatigued, so we headed back to the house and enjoyed them on the back deck.

Sunday brought still more food and hot-tubbing.  Hey, it’s what we like to do when we go out of town.  We finished off the left-over tacos from the night before, then headed out to Rio Mambo for some lunch.  We do like the Tex-Mex.  Bellies stuffed once again, we drove around and checked out the new Dallas football stadium, then it was off to my favorite shopping destination; Costco.  I picked up some rechargable batteries and some DVD burning software.  They looked remarkably similar to the ones at the Costco 5 miles from my house, but I’m pretty sure these were cooler since we were in Dallas and all.  David, meanwhile, picked up a few pounds of beef tenderloin and some cilantro-lime shrimp for the next round of gluttony.  (And a Christmas tree, but frankly I was only interested in the beef and shrimp.)  Thusly armed, we headed back to the house, fired up the grill, and…  See the end of the last few paragraphs for details on the rest of the evening.

OK I’m tired of typing, much as you may be tired of reading.  Monday we rounded out the feed-a-thon with oysters and gumbo at Pappadeaux.  After that, the girls went shopping while I snuck back to the house to read a book.  Spent the rest of the day hot-tubbing, snacking, and smoking cigars.  Some things I just don’t get tired of I guess.

We are on vacation;  I don’t want to post a summary or the weekend and possibly omit some tidbit of excitement that may happen today or tomorrow.  Thank you for your patience and understanding.