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resonantWhere the hell did all these people come from? I was all alone in the coffee shop, except for one guy working with his face two inches from his laptop screen and carrying on a really annoyingly loud work-related conversation with his cell phone set on speakerphone, and now all of a sudden there are eight tables full of people. And they all seem to know each other. It's nine o'clock on a Thursday morning! Where did all these people come from?
The kidlet has nine presents under the tree, nine! The other night they were dancing about singing, "Nine! Nine! And think of the presents that haven't arrived yet!" and then they stopped and said in a confidential tone, "The Great Present Frolic has begun."
There's a tradition in our family, started by my late beloved Aunt Bet, to send a few presents with tags on them that say, "Open me now!" So my parents have sent the spouse and me a book called "Christmas At the New Yorker," which is full of depressing short stories by people who hate Christmas, and the kidlet has a little canvas bag that Mom bought at the botanical gardens, which has their first name on one side and something fairly similar to their middle name on the other; I hadn't realized that both of those names were so botanical!
They're deeply bored, though, and inclined to misbehave. Their misbehavior tends to take the form of making longwinded legalistic arguments instead of obeying. (For instance: "You're not allowed to eat popsicles upstairs. Please take that downstairs." "I'm not eating it. I'm just holding it." "Take it downstairs." "I just want to --" "Take. It. Downstairs. Now." "But let me finish! I'm just trying to tell you ...") My mother used to sometimes tell me she hoped I got a kid exactly like me, and I need to tell her it's really not nice to curse your children.
I think I'm going to take the kidlet to the gym this afternoon and write porn while they swim.
We've eaten almost all the Christmas cookies -- there's nothing left but some molasses cookies which no one in the house likes but me. The spouse ate all the black forest cookies, curse him -- he has high cholesterol; he shouldn't be eating all my cookies! I'm resisting the temptation to make more, though, because there'll be stocking candy, and there'll be a cake for Christmas, and then the kidlet's birthday is January 8 so that's more cake ...
Because no one cares, here's what I'm cooking for Christmas dinner:
Turkey (currently thawing in a big box taking up an entire shelf in my refrigerator)
Stuffing (homemade by the Joy of Cooking recipe, with celery, onions, and raisins)
Mashed potatoes (going to attempt a neat trick where you make these the day before and reheat them in a crockpot)
Cranberry chutney
Going in when the turkey comes out to rest will be:
Rolls
Brussels sprouts with apples and bacon (which the spouse won't eat because it has bacon in it and the rest of the guests won't eat because, you know, brussels sprouts, so I expect to get all of this one)
Roasted asparagus
And for dessert, a Yule log cake. I've never made one before, but I have made jelly roll, so I expect it to be ok.
This is a strange one; when I went looking for recipes, they all had all sorts of complicating factors. Whipped cream isn't a good enough filling; make pastry cream! No, make buttercream! Make two different flavors of buttercream! Make homemade praline so you can mix it into the filling! Maybe it's a recipe that nobody makes unless they want to dirty up every dish in the kitchen, and people are disappointed if it's too easy? But you'd think that the traditional meringue mushrooms would satisfy that craving.
Anyhow, I'm skipping mushrooms in favor of glazed cranberries and mint leaves, and I'm going to follow the Joy of Cooking recipe, even though it's annoyingly vague (for instance, it calls for "3 to 6 eggs"), and on the recommendation of the kidlet, who has pretty sophisticated taste for almost-seven, I'm going to put a layer of raspberry jam between the cake and the whipped-cream filling.
We don't have any family in town -- lucky us! The Tech Goddess is coming with her family. Her older son is bringing his girlfriend, who has the same name as me. Fortunately, her younger son is not bringing his girlfriend, who has the same name as the kidlet, and who, moreover, is roundly disliked by everyone but him.
edited 2020 to retroactively correct the kidlet's gender pronouns
The kidlet has nine presents under the tree, nine! The other night they were dancing about singing, "Nine! Nine! And think of the presents that haven't arrived yet!" and then they stopped and said in a confidential tone, "The Great Present Frolic has begun."
There's a tradition in our family, started by my late beloved Aunt Bet, to send a few presents with tags on them that say, "Open me now!" So my parents have sent the spouse and me a book called "Christmas At the New Yorker," which is full of depressing short stories by people who hate Christmas, and the kidlet has a little canvas bag that Mom bought at the botanical gardens, which has their first name on one side and something fairly similar to their middle name on the other; I hadn't realized that both of those names were so botanical!
They're deeply bored, though, and inclined to misbehave. Their misbehavior tends to take the form of making longwinded legalistic arguments instead of obeying. (For instance: "You're not allowed to eat popsicles upstairs. Please take that downstairs." "I'm not eating it. I'm just holding it." "Take it downstairs." "I just want to --" "Take. It. Downstairs. Now." "But let me finish! I'm just trying to tell you ...") My mother used to sometimes tell me she hoped I got a kid exactly like me, and I need to tell her it's really not nice to curse your children.
I think I'm going to take the kidlet to the gym this afternoon and write porn while they swim.
We've eaten almost all the Christmas cookies -- there's nothing left but some molasses cookies which no one in the house likes but me. The spouse ate all the black forest cookies, curse him -- he has high cholesterol; he shouldn't be eating all my cookies! I'm resisting the temptation to make more, though, because there'll be stocking candy, and there'll be a cake for Christmas, and then the kidlet's birthday is January 8 so that's more cake ...
Because no one cares, here's what I'm cooking for Christmas dinner:
Turkey (currently thawing in a big box taking up an entire shelf in my refrigerator)
Stuffing (homemade by the Joy of Cooking recipe, with celery, onions, and raisins)
Mashed potatoes (going to attempt a neat trick where you make these the day before and reheat them in a crockpot)
Cranberry chutney
Going in when the turkey comes out to rest will be:
Rolls
Brussels sprouts with apples and bacon (which the spouse won't eat because it has bacon in it and the rest of the guests won't eat because, you know, brussels sprouts, so I expect to get all of this one)
Roasted asparagus
And for dessert, a Yule log cake. I've never made one before, but I have made jelly roll, so I expect it to be ok.
This is a strange one; when I went looking for recipes, they all had all sorts of complicating factors. Whipped cream isn't a good enough filling; make pastry cream! No, make buttercream! Make two different flavors of buttercream! Make homemade praline so you can mix it into the filling! Maybe it's a recipe that nobody makes unless they want to dirty up every dish in the kitchen, and people are disappointed if it's too easy? But you'd think that the traditional meringue mushrooms would satisfy that craving.
Anyhow, I'm skipping mushrooms in favor of glazed cranberries and mint leaves, and I'm going to follow the Joy of Cooking recipe, even though it's annoyingly vague (for instance, it calls for "3 to 6 eggs"), and on the recommendation of the kidlet, who has pretty sophisticated taste for almost-seven, I'm going to put a layer of raspberry jam between the cake and the whipped-cream filling.
We don't have any family in town -- lucky us! The Tech Goddess is coming with her family. Her older son is bringing his girlfriend, who has the same name as me. Fortunately, her younger son is not bringing his girlfriend, who has the same name as the kidlet, and who, moreover, is roundly disliked by everyone but him.
edited 2020 to retroactively correct the kidlet's gender pronouns