Big Friday night kicks

Where would this world be without Lou Reed and Isaac Hayes, I ask you?

That's what's been spinning today in the ride and the home juke, along with disc two of this and disc one of this. It's good to be a cultural dilettante.

It's also good to have a self-styled three day weekend ahead after a 45 hour week of cube life. It's really good to have an August trip to Chi to look forward to, and an anniversary sojurn to Newport in June. We got married in Seattle. A year later, we celebrated our first anniversary in Coney and the Village with this gibone. The theme presented itself, and we're now on a tradition of being somewhere else for each anniversary. Yes, this means that we have another 48 to go, and that will include stops like Little Rock, O.K. City and Omaha. But life is all about doing stuff that you don't want to do. I can live with that.

Bed, wake, clean, straighten, read the paper, drink in the new year, lather, rinse, repeat...

Navigating the valley between Christmas and the New Year

Alastair Sim's 1951 portrayal of Scrooge is definitive, I still have a major boner for Donna Reed, and I love cooking with Cuisinart. There. Goodbye Christmas 2005.

So this is how 2005 started. In a two room apartment, with plans to move to Seattle. The car was breaking down: we couldn't afford to keep putting money into it, so we got a new car. We couldn't afford a moving van, so we got a house. I don't analyze it, I just go with it. That might be the problem. Then again, I can't argue with results.

I'm looking forward to the new year, and returns to Seattle, Chicago, hopefully NYC, and an unknown anniversary locale. It's good to be here.

Won't you roll away the stone

Jesus.

At least she got it out of the way early this year. Last year's kidney stone came on Christmas Day. I suppose we're making progress.

And I got some Dewar's and a trip to Bull Moose (right, babe?) out of my 2:00 am hubby-to-the-emergency-room duties. Now THAT'S what I call payoff.

I have pictures on the way. Not of the stone itself, as that has yet to present itself. But, y'know, just in case you ever want to know how to use a toilet hat and a urine strainer...

Pleasant

Life is rather pleasant right now.

My Pats have a 21-0 lead in the third and clinch the AFC East with a Miami loss tomorrow.

The 'rents came over for a lunch/dinner (would that be Lunner or Dinch?) today. Darling wife made her specialty dirty risotto with sausage and pancetta, and we had plenty of my favorite chard and a lit Christmas tree and swingin' platters from Bing and Frank and Nat King Cole and Brenda Lee and et al on the juke.

I'm alive and, if not filthy rich, at least able to cover the bills. The bills of our new house.

Can't complain.

No one here gets out alive

I got stuck in the car wash this morning.

Trapped, really. I go to one o' them touchless auto wash dealies in the winter. Drive in, let the jets do the work, drive out, life is swell. I pulled in today, went through the wash. The green "Forward" arrow came on, and with it the piercing beep of the end of the wash.

And the door didn't open.

The green "Forward" arrow came on again, and with it the piercing beep of the end of the wash. And the door didn't open.

The green "Forward"...

As I sat there, my incessant honking adding to the cacophany, I was struck by several thoughts, not the least of which being "I'm stuck in a car wash." Not bad. That line ranks up with John Candy's "We're in a truck!" from the Blues Brothers. Continuing my Hollywood jag, I saw my situation straight out of Spinal Tap, when the cocoon wouldn't open. It ocured to me to get out and try to open the door myself. This thought was quickly thwarted by the thought that the instant I gout out of the car, the door behind me would have opened, the next car would pull up and I would either be crunched between car and (unopened) door or caught in the middle of a scalding car wash. I briefly thought of the cop trying to keep a straight face while telling my wife that I had died trapped in a car wash. I thought of my dead sea monkeys...

I was stuck for at least five minutes. Seemed like a hell of a lot longer.

Note to Natalie Cole. Just between you and me, okay? Would you please, please, pretty-pretty-pretty pleeeaaasssseeee never do another duet with your dead father ever again? Please? It's ghoulish, is what it is. Tacky, unnerving and painful come to mind. And I love your father, and I want to hear his originals untainted. M'kay? Can't we all just get along on this one? Okay, thanks. Call me, babe. We'll do lunch.

We're getting a shitload of snow tomorrow, and I'm driving into work. I'll post updates, hopefully not after driving into a ditch or telephone pole...

Santa's view after a few nips

Santa's view after a few nips,
originally uploaded by Westbye.

Dig those retro bulbs

Dig those retro bulbs,
originally uploaded by Westbye.

Our first-ever tree takes it's first baby steps to standing

Our first-ever tree takes it's first baby steps to standing,
originally uploaded by Westbye.

Bitchslappery. It's what's for dinner.

We were driving to the Christmas Tree Shop *, listening to The Classical Station. Copland's familiar masterpiece Rodeo was playing, and my darling wife said the almost inevitable: "I can't hear this without thinking of pork."

Take THAT, beef council!

Right church wrong pew, I guess, but it's somehow nice to know that some weak barrier still stands between our brains and total infiltration by Madison Ave.

We were getting a few stocking stuffers later on, including a chocolate lump of coal. Seen those? It's chocolate, wrapped to look like a lump of coal. Pretty damn clever, those lumps of coal are. Our darling register fawn was scanning away, and she half dropped said lump of coal. She picked it up and asked "Is this really coal?" (sic) Um, did you see a diamond bounce out? Is our grocery chain suddenly in the coal and home heating services? Yeah, I'll have a half pound of capicola, fifty pounds of coal, a half pound of provolone, hundred pounds of peat... I don't get it. I just don't get it.

Line of the day: on the Imus show, my man Mike Barnicle, refering to the Bushies swift-boating of Jack Murtha, stating that White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan "looks like he bathes in fabric softener." Ah, if only I'd come up with that one...

Tree shopping and decorating await this weekend. Pictures soon...

*Oh, the Christmas Tree Shop. Don't do it. If you must, don't even think of doing it on a weekend, or even a weekend extension (i.e. Thursday or even Monday). Do it on a Tuesday or Wednesday, be prepared for an unbelievable amount of assholery and overwhelming dime-store pine fragrance and lines and lines and agony. Sure, you can get a deal on wrapping and $5.00 office Christmas swap crap, but the price exacted on your soul is steep. Just be ready, all I'm saying.