Unorthodox Christmas

Greetings to the first real blog of the new year.  Technically I did do a Karaoke Friday earlier this week, but for me a real blog is o0ne where I sit down and pound on the keys a little bit and see what happens.



Once again I am blogging while at the Squirrel Cage, it is my first visit here in the new year as well, and I am stopping by for my favorite, the cajun chicken sandwich and french fries, with a glass of iced tea to drink.  I have been here maybe three minutes, just long enough to sit down and before the laptop had even booted up, my iced tea had arrived and my order had already been taken.  That, my friends, is what we call service.

This is also my Christmas dinner in a way as well.  It would appear that the Christmas presents that I sent up north have finally arrived (after spending 15 days in the mail), so later on tonight there will be a webcam Christmas going on.  The gifts that my girl sent me arrived on the 23rd of December, so they have been sitting in my apartment for a little while now, but I refused to open them until the ones I sent reached her as well. 

I hope everyone had a fine holiday season, mine was okay.  It certainly could have been better, but it could have been far worse as well.  It could have been better simply because my time off for the holiday was somewhat abbreviated, I only had three days off, those being Dec 23rd, a Sunday which I always have off, Christmas Eve because I used my extra vacation day for working Thanksgiving and Christmas Day, which is one of the 5 recognized company holidays.  By the 26th I was back at work, doing whatever it is that I actually do.

The amount of time off really wasn't that bad, it probably would have fallen into that area of being home just long enough to enjoy the visit without getting sucked into all of the family drama that happens from sticking around too long.   Once again my family, especially my mom, went way overboard in the gift department.  Still, it wasn't all wine and roses, some things about the holiday were depressing.  My girl had to work over the holiday, she was pulling overnight shifts (7pm-7am) at her job on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, so the amount of time her and I got to spend together on the days recognized on the calendar as the true holiday (as opposed to our Christmas later on tonight) ws somewhat limited.  There was also the issue of the family get together, which has shrunken to the point now of being almost nonexistent. 

As I have mentioned in the blog previously (actually the blog on Multiply and before that Yahoo 360), my grandparents used to have a big family shindig at their place on Christmas Eve, but as my aunts and uncles grew up and started families of their own, and my cousins also started having kids, each little subset of the family starting pulling away from the big shindig to have their own version.  I would say smaller version, but that would belie my family's ability to procreate, which is something for an outsider to behold.  For my grandparents to get their kids, and their grandkids and their great grandkids under one roof to celebrate became a process much like herding cats, just not very likely.  When my grandfather and then my grandmother both passed away the glue that held the family together just started to erode.  My aunt Amy tried holding things together as best she could, but this year even that was widdled down to the point of the only one who was willing to go, besides her own family would have been me.  With my schedule being what it was, I had used most of my vacation time when my girl flew down to see me for a week in November (a blog which I am working on but have not finished, one of many blog ideas in my head right now), being able to see and spend time with everyone I wanted to was just not a realistic possibility.

I got to see some of my family on Christmas Eve, I was at my cousin Bobby's house for a while, and spent time with him and my cousins Scot and Amanda as well as their significant others and children, and my Uncle Mouse and Aunt Mary, so it wasn't like I spent no time at all with my family, it just wasn't the same is all.It was like a tradition was dying off, and I was just watching it happen.  That part of the holiday was the less than pleasant part.

Sorry, I stopped for a bit to eat, my food has arrived after all.  Anyway, after the holiday I found my schedule at work all kinds of bounced around, I am working in different stores, and on different shifts, some days I am on register at one place, other days I am back at my store, but on a different shift, and I am in charge of the place, all to fill holes in the schedule that were created when some of our employees also wanted time off for the holidays.  So I am still trying to get my bearings, getting my sleeping schedule back to something that is routine, and getting caught up on all of the work that I missed when I was bandied about from location to location and from shift to shift.

Sammy, my partner in crime at work, helped out immensely, helping with the ordering when I needed it and when I was sent away, doing his best to handle things the store that I usually work.  Because he has been busting his ass, I splurged a little bit the other night and took him out to dinner and a movie.  I say a little bit, because some of the stuff was things that I didn't so much as buy as opposed to share.  For dinner we went to Longhorn Steakhouse, but I had gotten a $25 gift card for there as one on my many Christmas presents, so I actually paid for about half of dinner, the other half was covered with the card.  Likewise the movie tickets were actually given to me by Marlboro cigarettes (for those people that want free stuff, you could do far worse than signing up at Marlboro.com), they sent me a voucher good for two free movie tickets (up to a $30 value) for any movie showing, including limited releases and no pass movies, so we went and saw "Jack Reacher", the Tom Cruise movie that was shot here in Pittsburgh.  Again long time blog readers will remember the Scientology jokes that appeared in the blog while that movie was filming, as well as the cases of the missing "Jesus on a Stick" guy and "Fucking Chicken Lady".  The good news is both of them have since been spotted, so the scientologists did not abduct them after all.

As for the movie, I will say it was good, not necessarily great, but good.  It was worth the price of admission, but then that was free, so that isn't saying much.  Parts of the movie were funnier than I had expected, and the shots of the city were very good, thumbs up to the cinematographers on that front.  If I remember when I get home, I will attach the movie trailer to this, just on case you hadn't seen it yet.  Like I said, it was a good movie, I would probably recommend it.  I don't have any misgivings about the movie, but I wouldn't sit here and say that it is a must see movie either.  It isn't Tom Cruise's bust movie (Jerry McQuire, The Firm, and A Few Good Men were better), but it wasn't his worst either, it wasn't Days of Thunder after all.

Tomorrow is the first Saturday of the new year, which means Sammy and I will have the third annual Sundae Saturday and Deluca's.  The first Saturday of the new year we go to Deluca's for breakfast, which is nothing unusual, I go there probably a dozen or so times every year, but on the first Saturday, we kick off the new year by having breakfast sundaes, that is, they make ice cream sundaes, but serve them on pancakes or waffles.  For example, the Granny Smith Apple sundae would be; cinnamon pancakes, vanilla ice cream, warm apple pie filling, whipped cream and drizzled with hot caramel.  Most delicious, and if ever you are wondering how I can keep the energy level I have some days, it is mass infusions of sugar such as that. 

Anyway, I am closing in on the end of dinner here, I have about a quarter of my sandwich to go (I am waiting on an iced tea refill because this sandwich is very spicy) so I should go ahead and put the finishing touches on this blog entry.  There will be more coming for from me hopefully in the new year, I have a plethora of blog things to get to, but time right now is keeping me from getting to them all.  Anyway, for now I guess I should just say toodles and call it a night, so "Toodles!"