One morning I had to sit for a full 10 minutes before the rain died enough to allow me to get from the parking lot to the building without being absolutely soaked, even with umbrella in hand. This is not a common occurrence in Southern California. I thought a bunch of my patients would no-show or cancel on the bad days but to my shock every 84-year-old in sight still made it to the clinic to demand their viagra, a scary thought indeed because it means they were also out on the roads on those days.
Adding to the apocalyptic feel was the fact that I resumed commuting with books on CD this particular week. (I gave up on Sirius NFL radio and football podcasts for the year because of the Giants' collapse the Sunday prior. Not wanting to hear about the "greatest punt return in NFL history" or the "worst fourth quarter collapse in NFL history" over and over again, I opted to just focus on something else and pretend it never happened.) The first book on CD I rented from the library was "World War Z", which carries the subtitle "An Oral History of the Zombie War". It's a great book, and well worth the read/listen, but with its creepy background music, talk of a black sky, and gruesome post-civilization feel it definitely added to the sense of end-times while I was driving through monsoon after monsoon on my way to work and back.
I worked all the days leading up to Christmas but was off for Friday Christmas Eve and the weekend itself. This year Gwen and I opted to relax, not travel and do absolutely nothing for Christmas. Our weekend was very mellow and mostly entailed me playing online Madden, fretting about my fantasy football teams, and us watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy and drinking, all annual traditions in our house.
The Lord of the Rings Extended Edition is not yet in Blu-ray (The cinematic edition IS, but once you go Extended, you never go back) and I eagerly await its appearance. The standard-def DVDs are pretty solid, but certainly not Blu-ray quality, and it seems we are only watching things in hi-def these days. This viewing marked the first occasion where we watched on the TV's natural setting of 120 Mhz (we turned that feature off last year). The higher frame rate clarifies things but also cheapens them somehow, making things more realistic, like they are happening outside your window, but less cinematic. In the end it looks more like high-quality video then film, and honestly I'm not sure I'm a fan of watching everything in this setting. Some films are probably best viewed with a slight hint of non-reality covering the proceedings and the LOTR trilogy might just fit into that category. From my perspective the jury is still out on the matter.
My Christmas bounty this year included included many fine gifts, chief among them a ping-pong table! I have been jones-ing for one ever since we moved in, with visions of precise attacking-style ninja shots in the setting of serious ping-pong alternating with visions of high arcing cannonballs bashing the rims of red party cups amidst raucous laughter in the setting of beer pong. Now both fantasies may be entertained.
Gwen's presentation of the gift cannot be ignored. The first gift I was made to unwrap was a heavy rectangular object which I couldn't quite figure out. When the paper came off it revealed a 12-pack of Coors Light. Within seconds all became clear, and the next packaged handed to me was a set of paddles, followed by white balls and other ping pong supplies, and finally a walk out to the storage garage where she had hidden the self-assembled table. Strong work from Gwendolyn, who has proven time and time again to be a shrewd gift ninja, able to hide large objects from me under my very nose. Well played, madam.
We are looking to get a grill this spring and then my plan to turn our house into barbecue ping pong dance party central in time for summer will be complete.
Soon to be our house!
And thus ends the Christmas Recap. Stay tuned for New Year's Weekend Recap coming soon!
Until then, some pictures of Mon Mothma Kwanzaa Blow Out Celebration 2010.
3 comments:
First... Gwen told Diana (who told me) that she got you a ping pong table. Diana asked where she was hiding it, and Gwen apparently said something along the lines of "Oh, just in the other garage. He never goes in there."
Awesome.
Second... being a hard working employee for 12 years has earned me a second sabbatical. I'm taking most of July and August off, with very little in the way of plans at this point. So you should probably just expect me to be at your house every day when you get home for a game of ping pong. :)
Present ninja. I like it! I'm apparently not ninja-worthy in any other way, so I go with my strengths.
I should state for the world that Mike got me a sapphire necklace and earrings as my big present, and they're gorgeous. I feel all glam.
First, NEITHER of us goes in there very often. It's storage.
Second, game on.
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