2006-12-26 
 

how I ate my way through christmas vacation

Didn't want to post this all as it was happening since there's been a few robberies on my street over the past few weeks. I doubt the theiving parties stop in here, but still no sense in shouting from the computer tops that we were out of town.

Saturday/Sunday: Redeye into Logan where Dad met us. First cup of Dunkin's coffee and a chocolate donut. Yum.

Spent the day recovering from flight and had a lovely dinner with the family. Barbecue pork. Yum.

Monday: Shopped the Derby Street mall and then headed over to Dude and Dudettes for a wonderful evening. Saw M and K for the first time in ages and had a great time catching up with them and baby J. One of the happiest tykes I've met up with in a long time. Ate hoards of good food. Bacon wrapped scallops, mini pizzas, wine and cheeses of the world...and weejuns of course. Yum.

Tuesday: Spent morning recovering from evening's festivities in front of D&D's TV and then headed back to Weymouth. Met up with J&C at Dunkins for coffee and donuts. Yum.

Wednesday: Spent the day shopping and hanging out with Mom. Ended up eating a delicious chicken dinner with the family. Yum.

Thursday: Went into town to poke around and saw For Your Consideration at the Kendall Square Cinema. (Fun, in a hollywood insider type of way.) Catherine O'Hara was fantasically tragic. Ended up meeting J and C at the B-Side for Guiness and Calamari. Good times! (and Yum.)

Friday: Made some pies, shopped and then went to dinner with Parentals and Gram at the Hearth and Kettle. Yum.

Saturday: A day of relative rest, though much shopping and wrapping did occur. Broke my long standing boycott of McDonalds and tried one of those new Wrap Snack things. Oooog! Didn't taste too bad, but I felt as though I'd swallowed a live fish and it was slowly making it's way through my digestive tract. Yuck.

Sunday: Another pie was baked. Spent most of Christmas Eve with the family. Dude and Dudette are officially engaged! So exciting to finally get to talk about it since I'd been keeping it a secrect all week. Even more exciting to have her as sister. Yay! Had a dinner of beef fondue with fancy dipping sauces and a nice wine. Yum!

Monday: Christmas Day over at Aunt J's. More food, folks and fun! Yum!

Long story short: I'm very ready for a dieting resolution next week.

Labels: dose of mikey, looking eastward

* posted by me at 9:44 PM

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2006-12-19 
 

2006...briefly

Got this little meme from peace of cake: Post the first sentence from the first post from every month of 2006. Thought it was a fitting thing to steal since February's first sentence was about him.

January: Only it's not my hands feeling balloonish, it's my head.

February: I met Brian in college.

March: When you let all the air out of a balloon, it seems to loose its beauty.

April: In a surprise announcement today, the Bush administration admitted that the past six years have been all about pushing personal agendas and not at all about the will of the American people.

May: Trabby pointed me over to this Monopoly site where you can vote on updated properties.

June: Spent most of this week doing some minor copy writing at work and some pretty major document creation/manipulation.

July: Well, vacation's officially over as I'm back at work as of today.

August: Dust.

September: I'm tired of being a renter.

October: Decided to venture out into the 33rd annual Castro Street Fair.

November: The title for the day references the odd movements my legs have been making this eve, not the Disney Halloween Movie that aired the other night starring Tia and Tamera.

December: LED Christmas lights are a bit like Lite Brite in 3D.

Labels: memes, memory lane

* posted by me at 3:31 PM

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2006-12-16 
 

flying

Last night, I walked home with Frank Sinatra in my head.

Fly me to the moon
And let me play among the stars


I'm in a good mood.

Labels: dose of mikey, looking eastward

* posted by me at 5:50 PM

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2006-12-14 
 

money changes everything

Overheard:

Businessman 1:I think that he's lonely.
Businessman 2:What, he can't afford anyone?

Labels: seen and heard

* posted by me at 10:35 PM

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2006-12-13 
 

deflate...but in a good way

Been worrying about the presentation I had to give today since right after Thanksgiving. Truth be told, I've been worrying about it on some level ever since they told me I'd have to do it back in August.

Went pretty well. People who've known me for a while said I looked nervous for the first few sentences, but that I smoothed out afterwards and rocked the room. Even got a few laughs here and there, but found out afterwards that one of the things I was directed to say halfway through ended up pissing off a pretty important person in the room. Sooooooper.

Anyway, after several weeks of belly stress, I left work today and felt my shoulders relax for the first time in ages. Like a balloon with all the air slowly leaking out.

Labels: dose of mikey

* posted by me at 11:51 PM

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2006-12-08 
 

706...707

I finally updated to the new Blogger interface and should I choose, I can go back and add tags to all 706 entries...well 707 including this one. Not a huge number considering I've been at this since 02, but still.

You know I'm gonna do it. I'm a sucker for stuff like this. See you in a week.

Labels: blogging

* posted by me at 8:33 PM

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2006-12-07 
 

a visit from nikolaus

As a child, one of my favorite parts of the Christmas season was December 6th when Nikolaus would come to visit, a tradition my mother kept alive for us after we came to the States.

For the most part, my memories are vague and hazy. I do seem to recall one day in particular as my favorite, but truth may be that it's an amalgam of several years that I've crafted into a neatly tied bow. That happens quite often around Christmastime.

A cold night, with snow falling. Dad ran out to pick up something at the market before the snow would keep us trapped inside, and a short while later, there came a knock on the front door and the jingle of bells.

A knock on the front door was always a bit surreal to me. No one ever knocked there except for Amway reps and other odd folk who didn't realize that the proper entrance to our home was at the side. I usually avoided knocks at the front door and let Mom bear the brunt of the sales pitch, but the jingle of bells and knowledge of the day had me bold enough to go see who it was. Oh okay, bold enough to drag my little brother along to open it with me...with Mommy close behind.

There he was, wrapped up in a warm woolen coat and wearing a knit cap over his white hair. Leave the artificially bright red to Santa. Nikolaus was the real deal, clothed in shades of wintry grey and brown. His sack wasn't trimmed with fluffy fur either, but made of rough burlap that made the presents inside seem even more special. In fact, the only fluffy thing about him was his beard. I remember running my hand over it and being amazed at the softness.

He carried an impressive walking stick and spoke to us in a jovial, but gruff voice. We'd get various candies and Christmas oranges, that I now know to call mandarins. There was a new game for us to play and some small toys. We sang a song or two around the advent wreath with Mom playing along on the guitar and, of course, we fed him cookies and cocoa. I felt warm and safe.

Then he had to go. I asked if he could wait a bit and meet Dad, but he had other children to visit still and traveling through the newly fallen snow took time.

Even for a child, it's pretty easy to tell when a hug comes from a sense of obligation or a place of love. When Nikolaus gathered my brother and I up for our goodbye, I knew it was real, and it made me sadder that he had to leave. But leave he did and not more than five minutes later, Dad got back with the milk he'd gone to pick up. How did they keep missing each other? We ran up to tell him all about the visit and he gave us both a big hug and smiled over at Mom.

That was the day I realized my dad gave hugs just as good as Nikolaus.

Labels: memory lane

* posted by me at 2:09 AM

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2006-12-05 
 

hints of home

Walking by the row of Bank of America machines tonight...you know, the ones at Davis and California? The ones I can't use right now because someone tried to buy a 2700 dollar computer using my debit card info?

Anyway, walking by, the air was suddenly and inexplicably filled with the scent of Dunkin Donuts...and it felt like home.

Later, I became so engrossed in some article filled with irrelevant pop culture information that I sped through Castro Station without even noticing that the doors had opened.

Got off at Forest Hills...a name right off of the T's Orange Line and encountered another scent. Not a stomach yearning one, but not entirely unpleasant. The deep, subterranean smell of a well worn New York subway station. Not something I'm used to encountering out here on Muni.

Oh, the nasty grinch mentioned briefly above was soundly thwarted by both online retailer and bank. I came home tonight to a minty fresh bank card with new info...and a promise to myself that I'd never let another cabbie or retailer use one of those ancient swoop machines that leave carbon copies laying about for grinches to use on a shopping spree.

Labels: dose of mikey, looking eastward

* posted by me at 10:32 PM

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2006-12-04 
 

lite brite

LED Christmas lights are a bit like Lite Brite in 3D.

I like 'em.

Labels: dose of mikey

* posted by me at 10:30 PM

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2006-12-01 
 

surreal cell

Seen downtown:

Homeless man who regularly holds up sign reading, "Money for FOOD", talking loudly but quite politely into a shiny silver cell phone.

I told you, I've got a meeting that afternoon, but if you move it to the third Sunday in January, I'll see if I can make it.

Labels: seen and heard

* posted by me at 1:03 AM

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