nags of a similar ilk

This holiday season, Kris and I have pretty much made no plans. No, that's not quite right, we've made some plans. In particular, we've planned NOT to travel for the holidays. This is a big break from my family's usual plans of gathering for Thanksgiving, which typically leaves Christmas open for Kris' family gatherings in December. However, with all of my travel this year, and finances being as iffy as they are, we've decided not to join the mass migration to other parts of the country.

Besides, how would Kris be able to play World of Warcraft from his mother's computer? I mean, really?

So, when Megan let us invite ourselves, er, invited us over for Thanksgiving, we jumped at the chance. I enjoy big family gatherings, and the Smith family qualifies for both big and family. Besides, the new house needed proper family christening, and what fun would that be?

LOTS!

Since we were heading over hill and over dale to the Smiths' house, and hills crush Kris' car's gas milage, I drove us up to the house. When I arrived, I noticed that the parking pad next to the house was empty. After checking that the other easy parking spots were full, I circled back around to part on the parking pad. That was when Kris spoke up.

"You're not going to part here, are you?"

"Yeh, I was planning on it."

"Can't we park back up there?"

"No. Look, there are four parking spots here. Dinner is in like an hour, we're probably the last people here. I'll just park here. Besides, Megan said they put in an extra spot."

"Why aren't you parking on the side?"

"Because the tenant parks on the left."

"Eh?"

Take that, gravity!

Megan later confirmed that EVERYONE avoided parking on the new parking pad, so I had better have parked there! I made sure Kris heard her, complete with a confirmation that he had.

So, you know that Calvin and Hobbes strip where Calvin is just walking along in one panel, and in the next there's this blur with a tail on one side? Yeah, the one where both Calvin and Hobbes are in a heap in the third panel? Yes, that one.

That was us, when we approached the front door of the house. Together, Kris and I were Calvin. The part of Hobbes was played by Kevin, who came rushing us from the side of the house and tackled the two of us, to much merriment and greetings.

The tackle just set the tone for the whole evening, which was marvellously spectacular. I managed another bear hug from Matty, and lots of chatting with Kevin, and Mark, and Mark's parents, and Megan's parents, and TWO grandmothers (which is crazy! Mirabelle and Meter have a good chance at long lives). I wanted to help Megan out with the dinner, but, well, she was done.

The meal, holy moly, I swear must have taken Megan all day plus two, even though she denies it. She made the entire meal a Smitten Kitchen recipe meal (which could have ended disastrously when SK's monthly bandwidth quota was exceeded this morning and everyone was locked out of the site, except that Megan is resourceful and used the Google cache to retrieve the recipe details she was missing), which meant it was completely Kris friendly.

Think lobster, and you're close to how wonderful the meal was.

The house is looking fabulous. I really like the design choices they've made with the house. I need to ask about the flooring. Thinking of putting it in at the Indiana house.

So, when people ask us what we're thankful for, I'll say with no hesitation that having friends like the Smiths is one of the biggest blessings in our lives and we're incredibly happy for their presence in our lives. I'm glad I don't need a big holiday to know or remember this.

How many engineers does it take to get gas in a rental car on the way to Tampa Bay airport without getting lost?

From today's experience, more than 4.

Mark, Megan, Mirabelle and Meter came over today for dinner. Well, make that with dinner, as Megan brought over all the fixings for a tasty mushroom pie, then made the pie for Megan, Mark and me.

Mirabelle hadn't had an afternoon nap when she arrived, so the typed "baby" and "mirabelle" on my computer, then went off to the guest room for a nap. I'm glad we have the happy yellow room for naps and guests, and that we can get our small house to sleep seven if it has to sleep seven, though, I guess the floor would actually allow us to sleep even more if less comfortably.

So, while Mirabelle was sleeping (more or less, with "less" being more accurate), and Meter was crawling around playing with electronic devices and power plugs and batteries (mmmmmmm, tasty batteries), Megan baked a pie, Mark came over and eventually Kris came home, too.

We celebrated Mark's birthday by melting pink candles in his birthday pie.

Yeah, I can honestly say I didn't realize that the candles would melt in the pie when I shoved them into the pie. Megan pulled them out a few minutes later to light them, and managed to pull out only the wicks. She pointed it out to me, and, well, I was pretty much mortified that I had just added wax to Megan's labor of love.

We ate around the wax. The pie was awesome.

Happy birthday, Mark!

I borrowed Andy's jigsaw from him about three weeks ago. I had intended to have it exactly one day, but, for reasons I really can't explain, I continue to have his jigsaw. Determined to return it today at practice, I pulled out the shelves I was intending to jig, and started cutting away, expecting each shelve to take about 5 minutes, realizing quickly that the 25 minutes I had alloted myself before practice was about ten minutes too short. I'd have to hurry.

I was half way through my first fig when I paused and went into the kitchen to get something. As I entered the kitchen from the garage, I realized that someone was rattling on the front door, following our open door policy: just walk in. If the front door is unlocked, we're not having sex on the living room floor, and all friends are welcome to walk straight into the house, no doorbell or knocking needed. Andy has a similar policy, and honestly, even when he's expecting us, it's still hard to just walk in without knocking. However, it keeps the dog barking to a dull roar when visitors don't knock. Sometimes said visitors can actually manage to enter the house without a dog noticing. Said visitors are rare and usually named "Megan" or "Mike."

My visitor was having little luck with the front door, however, as I hadn't unlocked it after the morning tryst on the living room rug. I looked to see it was Mark, and hurried to unlock the door for him.

A few hours earlier, Megan had called our home phone, the one I rarely answer since the only people who call the number these days are telemarketers, political auto-dialers and people with whom I have a professional relationship but who mistakenly believe calling my home number is okay. Well, and people I really like to talk with, like Megan, Jessica, Mike and Andy. Which, honestly, is why I keep answering that phone in the first place.

So, Megan called, asking if the new medical facility over by our house had emergency care. I told her it wasn't emergency, but rather walk-in, urgent care, open from like 9 to 9, but yeah, it had walk-in health care, what was up?

Turned out, Mark had possibly broken his hand and needed it x-rayed, could I recommend the new facility? Except for the devastating environmental impact of the facility and the overwhelming inconvenient traffic patterns the infrastructure created, yeah, I could recommend the facility. So off Mark went.

After his xrays and cast and paperwork adventure, Mark stopped by to visit with us. He had, indeed, broken his hand, his fourth metacarpal bone with both a break and spiral fracture, caused by the power tool that had caught when Mark was doing electrical work on his house, spun his hand around and slammed it against the nearest wall. He might need surgery, but was out of commission for at least two weeks.

Oh, and he hadn't eaten today, could I feed him?

Uh...

Minor panic, sure.

We don't exactly have "snack" food in our house. I haven't been eating many wheat products as of late, having neither the particular desire for large amounts of bread or posta, much less bought any wheat products, as loaves of bread will go stale or moldy before we finish it. Kris has his own crackers, but I haven't bought any in over a year or so. Uh... what could I feed him?

Apple and peanut butter? That's been my snack for a while now, more so now that I can walk outside and pull an apple off the tree to eat.

How about yogurt? Plain or vanilla?

A glass of juice! Yes, that will get sugar into your blood stream quickly.

I then remembered that Mark likes avocado, so I pulled out the second half of the one I had started for breakfast that morning, sliced it up and poured balsamic vinegar over it.

After about 10 minutes of eating and chatting (only brieftly with Kris, who hadn't gotten up from his WarHammer game, WarHammer, the new World of Warcraft), Mark turned to me and declared, "Ahhhhhh... I feel human again."

Except the broken hand thing, I think.

Yeah, so, that tightrope of nylon webbing/straps... some of Mischief were more brave than others. In particular, Doyle and Mark.

And maybe Andy.

I know Shirley tried, too, but I don't have any pictures of her attempts. Being the lightest of those who attempted to walk the tightrope, Shirley appeared the most graceful of the bunch.

I'm just glad that no one fell off and hit the 2' rock that was only a meter from the rope/webbing/strap.