Christmas Recap - Part 2

The week leading up to Christmas here in San Diego was characterized by highly atypical rains which resembled nothing short of a biblical attack on the city. For three days straight it poured like a jungle scene in Lost and every mundane event became a major undertaking, from driving to work (45 mph tops some days, water flooding various highway lanes) to walking the dog (who hates rain and is fickle about picking her potty spots - turns out 25 mph winds and waves of pelting rain don't help the process).

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.

Christmas Recap - Part 1

Christmas has come and gone and here's how things went down in our neighborhood.

In my last post I detailed the Friday the 17th where Gwen and I went out and gorged ourselves on delicious beast flesh. The following night was our annual "Holiday Party" with our local group of San Diego friends. But as the term 'Holiday Party' is so generic, and at the risk of being labeled un-PC jerks, we went ahead and claimed our party as our own, naming it what we really felt:

The Mon Mothma Kwanzaa Blowout Celebration 2010.

"Many Bothans died to bring you the best damn holiday party of 2010!"

Many Bothans died to bring us that party - hell we killed a few just naming the event come to think of it. In fact turns out whole multitudes of Bothans were slaughtered again and again in the planning, execution, and clean-up phases. So high was the body count that eventually even that joke was killed. Barely. But it was worth it, to get together with friends and celebrate our deeply rooted African heritage.

The party was as usual a blast. Gwen and I hosted for the first time seeing as how Eryn and Trisha conveniently skipped town permanently to London to avoid hosting. There was no trash-talking Crossbows and Catapults sessions, as in years past, but there was the annual Secret Santa gift exchange complete with international web-cam Skype sessions straight to London. Iwan turned out to be my Secret Santa, and he got me the Predator "Ultimate Hunter" Blu Ray DVD with the didn't-really-need-to-be-said caveat that "When something comes in an "Ultimate Hunter" edition, I buy it for my friends because that's my policy" - a proper sentiment by all accounts. I also got a "Big Cheese Pizza" T-shirt deservedly making fun of my pescatarian ways, and a Best Buy gift certificate which I intend to use to purchase something to help me waste more time, because I need that.

The majority of the party was a delightful affair characterized by delicious, if too much, food, good conversation and warm company. It was, as it is every year, a marvelous time. By the time most decent people left it was down to Iwan, Little Buhr, and myself, and the real drinking began. We ended up playing the Wii until all hours of the night after doing shots for Gwen's official birthday which arrived at midnight. We played Super Mario Bros. Wii on the cooperative setting, though the the term 'cooperative' was misleading as we were quick to flagellate one another when someone screwed up. At some point a "shots for failure" policy was initiated, which eventually took its toll on all of us.

The night ended when we decided to switch up games and play some NBA Jam, only I couldn't quite exchange the discs because it was frankly too hard at that point in my alcohol consumption and fatigue cycle and I preferred to simply pass out with the process half-way finished. I collapsed onto the rug with the NBA Jam disc still in my hand as if I had been shot by a sniper while trying to make the switch. Iwan likewise clocked out on the couch, and Justin, left awake and staring at the lifeless bodies of his two friends, quickly followed suit. It was perhaps 4 am.

I woke up at maybe 6 am with a face full of carpet and hauled myself upstairs to bed. When I awoke again at 7:45 am, freaking out because it was my morning to walk the dog, I was still fairly intoxicated. I ran downstairs but Gwen was already up and out with the dog - she had, bless her, sensed my imminent uselessness that morning. I trudged back upstairs and went back to bed.

The next time I awoke it was 11 o'clock and all I could think was, "Oh God, I'm missing football - I'm missing Giants vs. Eagles!". I ran downstairs, slightly less drunk but infinitely more hungover and assumed the position in front of multiple TVs.

The Giants were up 24-3 or something, late second quarter. Hey, this wasn't going to be half-bad. Nice work boys, let's wrap up the NFC East! Well, it didn't turn out like that, and over the next few hours the second half evolved into one of the three worst losses I have ever experienced with my G-Men (thank God we had the 2000 Super Bowl as a buffer), as Michael Vick "activated" like a Tecmo Bowl player and went ape all over the field, amassing 21 points in 6 minutes or something ridiculous. Neither the dog (on principle), my dad (Tom Coughlin is expressly forbidden from ever entering our house) or I were happy with the result.

By the time DeSean Fuckface Jackson returned that dreaded punt for the final touchdown, my hangover had reached its apex and as he crested the goal line, skirting near it but not crossing it, and as he pumped his fist in celebration, each pump hit me like a hammer to the temple and a dagger to the heart.

Desean Jackson - Talented Receiver, Full-Fledged Asshole

The Eagles won, and the rest is history. The next few days, despite being in the middle of what is classically known as "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year", I was in a funk. As bad as my gameday hangover was during the game, it actually protected me in some bizarro fashion by limiting my ability to process what I had seen. The next few days things got worse. I couldn't believe the collapse - it literally depressed me - and I had to tune out all football.

My normal routine of NFL blogs, websites, and podcasts was shunned and I just sort of went through the week in a fog wishing that the football season would just be over. But alas, it wasn't, and frankly the Giants weren't yet done sucking.

The week dragged, but I slowly climbed out of it, and then Christmas arrived.


Continued in Part 2 Coming Soon!