An O'Brien Christmas

[akirlu]

We never did get the tree up. It's still out on the deck. We bought it comparatively early -- well before Christmas Eve this year -- but I blithely presumed that the tree stand was down in the garage somewhere, and never checked on that. Ho. Ho Ho. God alone knows where the tree stand is. Probably in the storage space in Redmond. Anyway, this discovery was made late on Christmas Eve, long after the stores and the storage space had closed. Poot. I was too tired at that point to come up with a cleverly kludged up alternative tree stand.

Ah well, perhaps I can get a good deal on a spare one, now that the post-Christmas sales are on. And I might still put up the tree if we do -- heck, the tree is supposed to be up at least until Epiphany anyway, and that's a while yet. Especially if you go by the Eastern Orthodox calendar...

We opened our presents together on the living room floor, sans tree, but fortified with a glass each of the lambrusco that had been cluttering up the bottom of the fridge. Pretty tasty, I thought.

I made out like a bandit, loot-wise. Hal had observed me closely when we were at Northwest Fine Woodworking together, a while back. He'd gone back and picked up a set of inlaid wood coasters, and a stunning hand-turned burlwood bowl that I had admired. Also a trio of framed prints in this series by Sam Hamrick, a local artist. (I returned the favor by getting Hal the color Don Quixote...). And as if that weren't enough, there were also all three seasons of Deadwood on DVD. Woo.

Christmas Day we got up early enough to run up to Bartell Drugs in search of a tree stand (no) before going up to Great Wall Mall in search of dim sum (yes). There was a chestnut roaster outside the mall, which was very cool, but I don't actually like roasted chestnuts that much, so I just beamed beatifically on the vendor and walked on. Dim sum was nice enough, the main restaurant had sustained flood damage during the recent rains, and were only serving out of their cafe, which meant smaller space and far fewer carts than one might like. Still, it's good to have dim sum just up the road.

After breakfast, we came back to Kent Station and caught the first showing of Charlie Wilson's War, which was really marvelous, full of the sort of smart dialog I adore, and all Aaron Sorkin fans should see it.

Then home again, home again for a bit more DIY -- taping up and painting the trim in the livingroom, mostly. My living room is green with white trim. Caloo, callay! It's almost done! Hal is already starting to talk seriously about a house-warming party.

Comments

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

Christmas Day here in the UK the only places that are open are some restaurants, churches, a few corner grocery stores, cab companies, some pubs at lunchtime and maybe a few fast food places (predominantly run by non-Christians).

Oh, and I bought my mum's christmas tree on the 24th, about 4pm ... it was the last one from the supermarket, and they sold it to me for 1p (about 2 cents!)

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Most of the U.S. shuts down on Christmas Day, too, including most restaurants, virtually all grocery stores, and a great many fast food restaurants as well. But movie theaters are always open, so going out to a matinee on Christmas Day is A Thing with a lot of people, not just us. Chinese restaurants are also usually open, and I'm thinking of trying to organize a regular Christmas Day dim sum outing, starting next year. I think we're not the only ones not doing family things on der Tag.

One of the things I do miss about Los Angeles was having a 24-hour Jewish deli restaurant in town, because (1) it makes a change from Chinese, and (2) I quite like the idea of eating kosher on Christmas -- Jesus did. Hum. Now I want pastrami.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I'll take this opportunity to once again plug Roxy's Deli in Fremont, although it isn't open 24 hours anytime, let alone Christmas. Good food though, I think. On the other hand, I guess jerrykaufman doesn't agree, and maybe he knows better than I do. Anyway, Mazal Tov!

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Deli is definitely something that reasonable people may disagree about. I'll have to check out Roxy's, so that I, too, may disagree. (Well, I'll have to disagree with one of you, at least, won't I?) But reasonably, naturellement. Thanks for the tip!

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I'm watching Season three of Deadwood on DVD now!

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we finished Season Three via Netflix not that long ago. It totally sucks that the series wasn't picked up for a fourth season.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I was sorry about that, too. Last I heard, there will be a couple of movies, but you never know.

Deadwood!

[u-must-b-joking.livejournal.com]

Woot. My daughter is working her way through the whole series again, which means I'm all twitchy as some of the DVDs are out of the house. And I watched Director's cut of Blade Runner yesterday, and there was William Sanderson... He's ALWAYS looked beatup. It's really quite remarkable.

Still haven't coaxed my 72 year old mum to watch it. She's not liking the 'language issue'. Has anybody but me watched the interview between Keith Carradine and David Milch as part of the extras? double woot.

Re: Deadwood!

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've watched the Carradine/Milch interview -- will have to check it out.

The language issue will be a hard hurdle to overcome for someone who objects to cursing. The cursing is impressive, even to those who don't, particularly. Admittedly, like with a foreign language or accent, after a while it does drop into the background, and the sheer wonderful Shakespearean complexity of the dialog gets to shine through.

Re: Deadwood!

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

William Sanderson looked beat up on one of the Newhart shows -- what was it, Larry, Darryl, and Darryl?

I'm not used to that kind of language and I sort of adjust my mind when I put the DVD in.

[cluefairy-j.livejournal.com]

Let me know when the house-warming is!! :-)

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

How much lead time do you need? When works for you? :)

[cluefairy-j.livejournal.com]

:-)

Prolly 2 weeks lead time. We go to New Zealand Feb. 16-March 1.......just FYI. :-)