Christmas Weekend part 6: Recovery

On Boxing Day I woke up super early to say goodbye to Connor. He left at 7 so he could get some stuff done before he had to check in on base. It was snowing when he left and he had to drive through some pretty heavy rain on his way home.

When I really woke up a few hours later, there was about an inch of snow on the ground. I was worn out from all the celebrating and managed to make it as far as the couch with my pot of tea. Kevin came down shortly after and we proceeded to play every single game we'd received for Christmas with the exception of Dixit which doesn't work with only two people. I even won a few games, which doesn't happen often.

We had plans to go see The Hobbit with Kevin's mom in the afternoon, but after the snow turned to rain and everything got gross we decided to cancel those plans. We'll have to find another time to see The Hobbit, although I'm becoming somewhat less enthusiastic about it. I'm sure I'll see it eventually, but I don't understand why it has to be so long. In the meantime, I'm glad I was able to spend almost an entire day on the couch.

Christmas Weekend part 5: Presents!

On Christmas morning I actually woke up fairly early. Early for me, anyway. Then we had our slightly awkward Christmas tradition of Kevin watching me open the presents form my family. This year Connor got to watch, too! Then Connor went for a run with Kevin's sister and we made pancakes and bacon for lunch. I was going to do scrambled eggs, too, but a rotten egg sort of ruined that plan. Then pancakes were delicious, though.

After breakfast Kevin proceeded to beat everyone at Settlers of Catan because that's how Christmas goes.

In the afternoon we went over to his mom's to open presents with his family. They even got Connor a few things so he wasn't just an observer. Then it was time to make guacamole and head over to some other friends for Christmas dinner.

So many books!

We had leg of lamb for dinner and spent some time arguing about whether this was blasphemous (since Jesus is the Lamb of God and this is supposed to be his birthday) or just a stand-in for Communion (the wine helped make this argument in more ways than one).

After dinner we played Dixit, which is a fantastic party game. Then we played another round of Cards Against Humanity, this time making sure that the adults didn't know what we were up to. There are some things, like gloryholes and smegma, that you just don't want to have to explain.

Once again, Kevin was falling asleep before me, so we didn't stay out too late. Connor volunteered to drive home because he's a pretty awesome little brother.

Christmas Weekend part 4: The Day Before Christmas

Every year, Kevin's mom performs with the Choral Arts Society of DC in the Kennedy Center. The first year I got to attend this, I was really excited to get to see anything at all at the The Kennedy Center. Although some of that initial excitement has worn off in the past few years, I still love attending concerts there.

The concert is always sponsored by a different ambassador and the director includes some carols from that ambassador's country in the program. In the past two years these countries were Belgium and Russia, which exposed me to Christmas music I'd never heard before. This year the chosen country was Canada, which didn't seem that novel at first. But since the new director chose a lot of modern music, there ended up being a few new songs. One of them was actually premiered at this concert, which was interesting.

There was also an incredibly strange song called Epitaph for Moonlight that I'm still undecided about. Parts of it were enjoyable and other parts were downright weird. Although I'm not sure what else I expected from a song that was apparently inspired by a 7th grade class's made up synonyms for "moonlight".

After the concert, we went to dinner at the house of some of Kevin's family friends. We had ham this delicious cranberry-sparkling wine. Then we played Cards Against Humanity and had to explain concepts like road head to the older generation. Slightly awkward, but still a lot of fun.

My brother spent most of the evening with an 8-week-old boxer puppy chewing on his hand. He seemed pretty content to let him, even if he was covered with scratches by the time we got home.

Christmas Weekend part 3: Hail to the Redskins

There's a bar in Chinatown that has tables with taps in them. Kevin and I have gone a few times, and we were always disappointed that you needed a reservation for the special tables. So when we were invited to watch the Redskins game at that bar with Erin and her friends, we were pretty excited.

It turns out the concept was a little over-rated. The beer pricing during football games means that it's a lot cheaper to order drinks from the bar than it is to take advantage of the taps on the table. Add in the fact that our taps hadn't been cleaned, giving the beer a distinct yeasty flavor, and we didn't make much use of the taps.

The game itself was great, though. Watching it in a bar full of Redskins' fans made our victory over the Eagles even more fun. The bar played Hail to the Redskins when they won and everyone sang along.

Connor was disappointed because the Steelers ended up losing. But there was at least another Steelers fan at our table, so he had someone to commiserate with.

After the game, we went to a bar to play skee ball and shuffleboard. We only played a few games before heading home, since Kevin was still feeling a bit under the weather. They were fun, though. I definitely need to play more shuffleboard.

Christmas Weekend part 2: Catching up with Friends

On Saturday morning, we went down to Clarendon to meet some college friends for brunch. I had expected my brother to arrive some time in the afternoon, but the military has killed his ability to sleep late. He drove up form Camp Lejeune and was able to meet us at the restaurant at 10:30.

Brunch was delicious; it didn't hurt that the restaurant we went to had $3 mimosas that they served in pint glasses. And it was fun to catch up with college friends who were in town for the holidays.

After brunch, Connor and I made a double-batch of Cowboy Cookies to take to parties and then Kevin beat us at Settlers of Catan three times.

Saturday evening we went to a dinner party hosted by Kevin's sister's friend. She made delicious food, including a pot roast and really cheesy potatoes. For once, Kevin was ready to leave before me. But that's just because he was getting sick. Thankfully he wasn't so sick that he couldn't enjoy the rest of the Christmas festivities.

Christmas Weekend part 1: The Vindictive Spirit

I'm a huge fan of Christmas, and I like when the festivities stretch over several days. I don't mean that I start celebrating the minute Thanksgiving is over, but I do like the extended holiday that Christmas can turn into. This started in middle school, when having divorced parents and a big family celebration meant that Christmas usually lasted for three days. And it continued this year when I managed to get five days of celebrating in.

Kevin's mom is a member of several choirs in the DC area, and Christmas ends up being a pretty busy season for her. All of her choirs perform several times in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

Every year, one of her smaller choirs sings carols in the lobby of the Willard Hotel for an hour or so. Since the hotel is only a few blocks from my office, it's easy for me to head down to see the performance after work. Then Kevin, his mom, his sister and I go out for dinner afterwards.

The concert is in a hotel lobby, rather than a theater, which gives it something of an informal air. People are wandering around, chatting, ordering drinks at the bar. There's a small audience that sits through the entire set, but most people wander over for a song or two.

Because of this, Kevin and I were having a quiet conversation. We were trying to organize a brunch for the following morning and coordinating with my brother who would be arriving at some point. I also giggled through the entirety of Hark the Herald Angels Sing because Kevin was forcing all the rhymes. That song attempts to rhyme "come" with "womb" and "peace" with "righteousness".

All of this added up to a lady in the audience glaring at us. We were clearly destroying the magical concert for her by having our own fun. So I decided to be naughty and join in on the next couple of sing-a-longs. People who know me know why this was such an evil move.

I cannot sing. I couldn't carry a tune if you put it in a bucket with five handles, as my high school friends were fond of telling me. I can't even hit notes. Not that this has ever stopped me from trying. I performed in two musicals in high school (they needed people who could tap dance and just refrained from giving me a mic). I even took singing lessons one summer where I was told that if I used my diaphragm a bit more, I'd ever a better chance of hitting notes.

That advice backfired, because it led to me getting louder any time I heard myself straying too far from the people around me.

By the end of the concert the lady looked like she wanted to kill me. But if the choir invites everyone to sing along, I don't think you can really put restrictions on that. Everyone should be allowed to join in.

After the concert, we got dinner at the Old Ebbitt Grill. The wine list had a shiraz-viognier blend that was surprisingly delicious. Everything was good, though the Irish coffee at the end wasn't my best idea ever.

Books and Charities

Earlier this year, after much prodding from various friends, I discovered Patrick Rothfuss' books The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear. Around the same time I also discovered his blog, where he was wrapping up a big fundraising event for Heifer International. I discovered it too late to get involved last year, but I was pretty excited to see it come back around this year.

Heifer International is a charity I actually remember donating to in high school. One of my friends did fundraising for them as part of her community service for National Honor Society, and it seemed like a really cool charity. Your donations go to buying livestock for impoverished families around the world, which helps them become self-reliant. Chickens provide eggs. Goats and cows provide milk. And when the animals start having babies, the gift multiplies.

I did actually do some research into the charity this time around, and they aren't perfect. A smaller percent of their proceeds go to actually buying animals than that of similar organizations. People in general seem pretty split, either loving or hating the charity with very few people feeling lukewarm about it. I can see where they have some problems, but mostly they seem to be a force for good in this world.

Rothfuss is certainly a fan, which is why he organizes this big fundraiser every year. And it's because of his fundraiser that I decided to make a donation this year.

Every $10 donation you make through Rothfuss enters you in a drawing for one of hundreds of fabulous prizes. And there are seriously a ton of prizes. Rothfuss is compiling a master list on his blog. There are advanced copies of books from nearly every major fantasy and sci-fi publisher. There are collections of books from various authors. There are signed books. There's also an auction, in addition to the lottery, where you can bid on items you really want. Or you can just buy something from Rothfuss' store, the proceeds of which will go directly to Heifer International.

I've donated in order to enter the lottery (and because I do think the charity is doing good work), and all in all I'm feeling pretty good about myself. They actually calculated the odds last year and determined that a $30 donation gives you slightly better than a 10% chance of winning something, which are not bad odds at all. Not to mention that $30 can buy a family some honeybees or a flock of ducks, or contribute to a bigger animal. The odds will probably change slightly this year, but there are seriously a lot of prizes to be won. I'm really hoping I get an interesting book that I haven't read yet.

Halloweiner 2012

This is over a month late, but we hosted the most successful Halloweiner ever this year, and I wanted to at least get some of my picture up before I forgot completely.

We got a whole bunch of different kinds of meat this year, including some pretty exciting sausages. Here's a picture of everything on the counter

We also got some lobsters, which was a first for Halloweiner. It helps to have kitchen with a stove in addition to the grill. We get to cook a lot more things.

The lobsters were actually kind of sad. I think they were out of the sea water too long before we cooked them. But the octopus was thoroughly exciting

That last picture shows our lovely serving area, with all sorts of tasty morsels out to try. I believe the lobster, rabbit, and octopus are all on display there. Those were some of the first things to come out. As you'll see, it's important to get the interesting stuff out early in the evening.

I was pretty proud of the serving area. We made fancy signs and everything. But then the meat was so staggered that we barely needed them. At least we got to use our new serving dishes.

The rabbit came out so good last year that we decided to do two this year. They were delicious again, and we had twice as much stuffing that last year, which was a definite plus

As I mentioned, we also had a bunch of exciting sausage. There were so many that I decided to use the wrappings in the pictures to keep them straight.

However, it appears that this plan did not last long. I very quickly became to distracted to get pictures of everything and too drunk to care.

Of the unpictured things, the veal shoulder was the most delicious thing of the night. Alligator remains fishy and chewy, and I don't think we'll be getting it again. All of the sausages were delicious, though my favorite was something we dubbed "duck, duck, brandy". It was made of duck breast, duck liver, and brandy. And it was brought by a friend of a friend who I now remember only as jerk-face. I think we had an altercation during a drinking game that left me belligerent.

Surprisingly (though perhaps not, given my stunning lack of pictures) we finished the keg around 6:30. Some sober people went to get fancy beer, and a (sober) friend and I went to Safeway to pick up Coors Light. By the time we got back, the meat was mostly cooked and the drinking games were about to begin.

I only stayed up until 11 or so. I played a final game of beer pong that I think did me in completely. But that may have been in my best interest, since the next morning was relatively pain-free for me. The rest of the party kept going until the second 2:30 in the morning (gotta love Daylight Saving's time) and they were really feeling it in the morning. We are none of us in college anymore, and parties like Halloweiner make me wonder how we survived at all.

I'm already looking forward to next year.