Merry Christmas 2006

You never know how the year it going to end. I have been looking forward to the Christmas break that I will have this week. I was suppose to be off work last Friday and not have to be back until 3rd. Well, because of the work load I agreed to work Friday and Saturday. It wasn't a big deal, more money for us and I will still be getting a pretty long vacation span of 10 days.

The plan today was to head to Riverside Casino around 4:30 and meet a couple of friends , have dinner, gamble a little and then head back to Cedar Rapids. Then we would stop at one of the local gay bars for a drink and then head for Midnight Mass. I have been doing the gay bar stop, Mass thing for the last five years.

The day was kind of changed when last night around 9:30. Daryl started heaving his guts out because he has the flu. I wasn't sure he was that sick until this morning around 4:30 when I got up and went down stairs to check on him. He had slept in the basement last night on the couch. He wanted some 7up so I made a run to the store to get him a couple of cases. After that I headed for bed again. Four thirty is way too early to be up on a vacation day unless your just heading for bed!

Later on this morning around 9 Am I got up and started doing laundry. I wanted to get the bedding cleaned and the rest of the house cleaned. If the dreaded flu was lurking around our house, I wanted to wipe it out before it decided to jump on me.

Then around 10 we got a phone call from Daryl's mom, the family was heading for the hospital as his brother-in-law had just had a heart attack and they were flying him to St. Luke's Hospital for surgery. Man, and I thought having the flu on Christmas eve was bad! I stopped by the hospital and Checked on Mike this afternoon and visited with the family. The surgery had worked and Mike is on his way to recovery with his artery's opened up again. Thankfully, it looks like he will be just fine.

Christmas Eve is always a time when I reflect on the past year. I'm very thankful that I have had another year with the people I love. Once again, the year has gone by very fast. We never seem to have enough time to see everyone we want. God willing, I will have this next year to touch base with everyone and spend some more time with them.

Merry Christmas!

hunting week

This week Daryl is hunting with his family, an event that they do every year. Yesterday he got a deer! Here he is doing a reenactment of the kill.... without the gun. The Above picture is the deer and Kyle, Daryl's nephew.

mom's clean for 15

Should you drink at a sobriety party? Obviously the person who gave up drinking shouldn't, but should the invited guest?

Daryl's mother has given up the drink for fifteen years now. She invited us all over to celebrate by providing a chicken dinner with the fix-in's. It's not like they had a kegger and open bar or anything like that, everyone had a couple of drinks. I just thought it was kind of strange. I didn't really expect it. His mother's attitude is that she gave up drinking, everyone else doesn't have to.

I am extremely proud of her! I know it was very important for her to mark this day in her life. Daryl found a card that said, " Time to celebrate you own personal holiday!" I think that sums up how she felt....and how we feel.

good sale gone bad

I received my first bad mark on Ebay the other day. I sent out a set of dishes that I had for sale and apparently a couple of pieces were damaged. Man, I'm not sure how I could have packed it any better and she did get the other fourteen pieces! People are so quick to complain.

I sent her an email saying that I wished she would have contacted me first before leaving a remark and I would offer her the money back. After all, I got the dishes for free, so I really would only be out $1.40 for listing it.

I guess I'm going to have to request that they should put on insurance and I'm not responsible for damage by the postal service.

It kind of sucks because I did get $26.00 for them. Easy come, easy go I guess.

wine tasting at Benz

We met a few friends last night at Benz for their Hearty Reds & Champagnes tasting event. We sampled wines from several different regions (Spain, France, Italy, California,Argentina, New York, Australia) of the world. The prices ranged from $9.99 to $40.99 a bottle.

This was only my second wine tasting and my first time at Benz, so I'm no expert by any means at all. I just have a couple of little complaints. For the amount of people they had, they should have put out a little larger sample of food items. I was the last person to sample the Whitehall Lane Napa Valley Cabernet 2003, CA that evening. With several people standing around they said that they would not open another bottle as it was $40.99. I thought that was very rude! I think if your offering samples you should have enough for everyone to try it no matter how much the cost.

I was very impressed by the wide selection of wines, liquor and specialty food items they have. It is really a nice place to shop and I will be going often I think. I'm sure we will attend another wine tasting event again. We did have a very good time sampling and meeting new people.

After we went to Gringos for some food and another drink. I had the seafood enchilata dinner as I usually do. Very good eats!

ugly ornaments and B.L.F.

This is the ugly ornament I received at the party last week. She sure is a looker isn’t she? She kind of looks like a drag queen dressed up for Christmas.

Daryl (my partner’s real name, I feel like I’m cheating with this Ethan guy. It was exciting, but I’m over it.) killed a tree over Thanksgiving. He decorated it and put it in the house…you know that thing we do to celebrate the birth of Jesus! I guess they had one next to the manger or something. Anyway, we have one and it’s really fun looking at it if you like shining things like that.

Speaking of shining things, Daryl had a jewelry party last weekend too. He had a really good turn out with around 30 people or so with them purchasing around $800 worth of stuff. I’m not sure why he had a party as 99% of the stuff is women’s items.(?) Who knows, I may be getting a brooch and long dangly ear rings for Christmas. I have had worse gifts. Anyway, it’s the thought that counts.

I’m trying to get by with not eating so much this year over the holidays. I’m not doing so well. I think I have crossed the line and became B.L.F. (Border Line Fat). Oh well, remember I start my training in January, I might as well eat some more!

World AIDS Day