Tag: Holiday

The Long Weekend Awaits

Today is going to be rough. Mostly because I convinced myself that yesterday was Friday when it was only Wednesday.

I put up a post yesterday listing off all of the things that were going well at that moment and wondering what was coming along to spoil the vibe. Nothing did. I was worrying about work, but it stayed quiet and all was well. Only my brain trying to skip over today was less than happy.

Today’s a little different. Nothing bad going on, just not quite as 100% positive as yesterday. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. I know I got a lot more than the 4.5 hours my watch registered, but still not a lot. I think I was a little under six hours. Okay, but not great. I woke up with a bit of an upset stomach. I feel a lot better now, but it is sort of like getting off on the wrong foot.

Now there is just a single 8.5 hour work day standing between me and a long weekend. New Years Day is a holiday for us and since it falls on Saturday this year we “celebrate” it on Friday, which means we get New Years Eve off. I love it when the calendar works out that way. It’s like a nice little bonus. The downside is that our holiday schedule is changing as of 1/1/22 and we don’t have another holiday until Memorial Day in May. Yikes! We have floating holidays now in place of the non-national holidays we used to have, so we don’t lose any time off. We just don’t automatically get the non-national days off anymore.

Okay so in summation, yesterday started as a good day and stayed that way all day. Today hasn’t been quite as good but it’s already starting to look up.

Oh, and both kids are here. So it’s going to be a good day no matter what.

55 minutes until I have to punch in to work.
Nine hours and 55 minutes until the long weekend.

Hang in there, boys and girls. We can get through this day together.

Dabbling in a New Tradition?

When I was in college (the last time) I had a radio show on the campus radio station, 91.5 FM WUML Lowell. For a stretch of time we did a 30 minute segment with the school’s men’s basketball coach. I don’t remember how we got on the subject, but there was a time when we were talking about Christmas for some reason. It was probably just before the end of the Fall semester and we probably all had Christmas break on the brain. Whatever.

The basketball coach (whose name is escaping me right now, I’m old and this was nearly 20 years ago after all*) was telling us about his Christmas tradition. He is Jewish, so he and some family members would spend Christmas day going out to eat at a Chinese food restaurant and then going home and watching Star Trek. I don’t know about the rest of you, but that sounds like a fantastic way to spend a day to me.

I joked with Jen the other day that, with Christmas day essentially being called off for us, we should follow the coach’s tradition. We laughed about it. Then we started planning what to do for Christmas dinner and we moved on with our lives. This morning, Jen changed her mind. We’re going to try and get some Chinese food for Christmas dinner. I don’t know if we’ll be able to get it delivered so it might not happen, but we’re going to take a shot.

That got me thinking. Is Chinese food at Christmas really a Jewish tradition? I know exactly one person who does it, but television and movies make it seem like they all do it. Do they? To the Google I go!

Why Do Jewish People Eat Chinese Food On Christmas?

So there you have it! NPR says it’s real so that’s good enough for me. That means we are officially stepping on the toes of a major religion’s (unofficial) Christmas tradition. I hope that’s okay with everyone, what with us not being Jewish at all.

I’ll let you know how it goes. Fingers crossed for delivery options.

*It was Ken Barer, the winningest coach in UMass Lowell Men’s Basketball history. Now that I have read this over I am starting to doubt that story a little. I am 90% sure that he was the one who shared this with us, but my usual sense of crippling doubt is making me question if I have the details right. It doesn’t matter to the post, really. I just like getting the facts straight.

One Down, Two to Go

What do I have to accomplish this week?

I need to cook dinner tonight. I’ve got one or two gifts to wrap. We need to figure out a Covid safe way to see Spider-Man. I need to bring the Christmas gifts we got for my niece and nephews to them. Not sure how/when that can happen. We never cleared the snow off the cars on Saturday and now they are covered in blocks of ice. We need to figure out what we are going to eat on Christmas Eve. We need to get Bellana home (though really she’s taking care of that one), I still have some tunes to finish, we have to make sure the kids are all set with their Christmas shopping, we have to not catch covid (omicron persei 8).

Yeah, that’s a start on a to do list.

Damn.

The Next Day

Hey Rob and Jen, what are you having for lunch on this festive day after Thanksgiving?

Left overs, babie. Left overs.

Also, episode two of the new Beatles documentary. I find watching the Get Back rehearsal footage amazing, purely from a gear perspective. George playing Lucy the Les Paul. John playing the Epiphone Casino. Both of them playing through silver face Twins. Then there’s Paul playing that shitty Hofner through that frigging amazing Bassman stack. Drooool, babie. Drool.

Tree Plans

My step son suggested that this year’s Christmas tree should come from a Christmas tree farm where we actually cut it down ourselves.

We are doing it tomorrow morning. Then the kids go to their dad’s. On Sunday, just before they head back to school, they will pop over here to decorate the tree.

I would still rather get into the month of December before putting up the Christmas tree, but given the scheduling difficulties this year I’m going along without snarky comments. Or at least with a minimum of snarky. Insert shit eating grin here.

HoHoHo and all that.

A Wonderful Thanksgiving

The kids are here. Dinner was spectacular thanks to my beautiful, brilliant, amazing wife. We watched the first episode of the new Beatles documentary and it was everything we hoped it would be. We’re about to hit the dessert table really hard and then watch Home Alone. I spoke to my parents, they are both hurting today but are otherwise okay. I texted my family and friends and wished everyone a Happy Thanksgiving.

Now I am wishing all of you a Happy Thanksgiving too. If you are celebrating today, I hope you’re having a great day. If you are not celebrating today I still hope you’re having a great day.

Thanksgiving is the best. You all are the best. I love you guys.

A Weird Day So Far

My prediction of this being the slowest work day of the year hasn’t really come true, though there is still half a work day to get through. Lots of customer stuff has come in today. Nothing really involving my application directly, but we’re involved in a sort of tangential way. Lots of questions, lots of updates, lots of discussions. It’s enough to keep the perception of the day moving, and some of it has been a tad annoying, but these are good things compared to staring at the clock and watching it not move.

Two odd health-type things to note for future reference. First, my back hurts. Usually my back pain flares up when I’m moving around or being somewhat active (as active as my gargantuan fat-assed self gets at least) but today it’s pretty much constant. That’s annoying. The second thing is more sporadic, but equally annoying. I sort of feel like my left calf is constantly on the verge of a charlie horse. If I’m walking around and I put my left foot down in just the right way, bang – charlie horse. If I am standing in just the right way, bang – charlie horse. It only lasts a few seconds at most and then I correct whatever I did and it’s gone… but it’s always there. Stupid charlie horse.

As I mentioned in a post last night, I came up with a really simple musical idea to add to the November music thing, now that we’re down to less than a week and still miles away from finishing. Today I came up with another one. Now I just have to wait for my MacBook Pro to get home from that fact finding mission to Guyana. I’m sure everything there is fine and it will be home soon. I hope to spend some quality recording time this weekend.

Okay, folks. We’re half a work day away from a four day weekend. Let’s get to it and get through it and at around 5:30 tonight the sigh of relief you hear will be me.