That's Liff!

Did y'all have a good weekend? I did. Wanna hear all the boring details? Good! I knew you did! When last we left our heroine (that would be me, because it's my blog and if I can't be the heroine on my own blog, where can I be it?...her?...uh...the heroine?), we'd just learned that Li'l Sis, who had volunteered to host the fambly get-together this year had been felled by a vicious woman-eating virus. (Feel better, Sandy!) So there I was on Christmas Eve Day, with a big, ugly rum cake and no place to go. I did a quick food-supply check and decided that I could, in fact, pull together a last minute meal for a few extra people. So I called my dad and brother and asked if they and theirs wanted to come to my house instead. It's quite a bit further away for them than Sandy's house, but hey, I was offering to feed them! Plus they'd been planning to take stuff to Sandy's too, so Dad and Merle had a giant tossed salad and Mark and the kids had a pile of garlic bread, but nobody really had anything to go with anything else if they stayed home. So they said yes. I ran in, threw together a 500-pound pan of lasagna and tossed it in the oven, and while it was baking I tried to corral the most vicious of the dust bunnies so they wouldn't hurt anyone. (Every time I've mentioned that lasagna it's gotten heavier in my mind. It's like a fish tale about the one that got away. Only, you know...not.) I also had to put a bunch of coats away because there were at least a half-dozen draped over the backs of the bar stools that sit at the counter between the kitchen and dining areas. If I may digress for a moment (and really, who is going to stop me?) the coat on the barstool thing baffles me, despite the fact that I am one of the people who continues to do it. In our last house, we didn't have a coat closet, so coats, in theory, got hung in the regular clothes closet. Only of course, human nature being what it is, they usually didn't unless we were cleaning up for company. That house had a counter separating the living area and dining/kitchen area and that counter was immediately to your left as you walked in the door. So people took off coats, flung them over the back of a bar stool, and they stayed there for days, weeks, whatever. I actually understood that. But in this house, I thought things would be different. Here there's a coat closet to the immediate left as soon as you walk in the door, very cleverly placed in exactly in the same position as where the counter and stools were in the last house. The counter and stools in this house, on the other hand, are clear across the room. So that should mean that coats get put in the coat closet, right? WRONG! WrongWrongWRONG!! J and I BOTH walk across the room, take off our coats and throw them in the frickin' bar stools until there's a huge pile of them there and I get tired of looking of them and grab a staggering mass of them and carry them BACK across the room to the front door and hang them in the coat closet. I don't know if it's a hopelessly ingrained habit from the last house or if we're both brain damaged or what, but there it is. We continually walk 15 feet AWAY from the closet where the coats should go to throw them someplace else. For some inexplicable reason it feels faster and easier than hanging them up right by the door. We've both tried to stop and we both eventually absent-mindedly slide back into that habit. Go. Figure. But anyway, back to getting ready for the family unit to arrive... I was inordinately proud of myself that I figured out where some vaguely matchy, seasonally festive looking table linens were so the table looked pretty. I would show a photo except I forgot to take one. I didn't take any photos that day. Very unlike me! And I can't seem to stop saying words like "inordinately" because I've spent the last two nights watching the 1995 mini-series of "Pride and Prejudice" on DVD. Aaaaahhh....I love that show. But whenever I see it, or any other movie based on a Jane Austen book, or read Austen, I have this bizarre tendency to slip into talking like I think I'm in Regency England, only with a "y'alls" and "damns" scattered here and there. But I digress. Again. Where was I? Oh yeah...ok, family arrived, kids opened gifts, we all ate lots of food. It was fun! Everyone liked the lasagna and most people liked the ugly cake. Josh and Merle were neither ones huge fans, but that was ok because Mark brought along homemade peanut butter fudge. Yum! We mostly just hung out talking for a while (although J gave Josh a lesson in running a backhoe) and then Dad and Merle headed for home around mid-afternoon, while Mark and the kids stayed later and we all watched "A Mighty Wind". I've seen it several times, but it was the first time for them and they all liked it. And now, along with saying "inordinately" a lot, I keep finding myself singing "..I'm the cabin boy, call me Jim. His name's Jim...". I guess it's better than "Jingle Bells". Christmas day was just a nice quiet day at home for J and me. We exchanged gifts, I cooked a roast and some veggies for supper. We went for a walk in the afternoon. Very calm and relaxed. And so far there are no coats back on the bar stools. Heh. Speaking of gifts, let me show you a few of photos. Deirdre did what I had intended to do - made some fabric postcards to send out as holiday cards. I never got a Round Tuit, but Deirdre rocked 'em out and here's what she sent me: Thanks Deirdre! My friend Morven had sent me a package from New Zealand weeks ago but I saved the packages for Christmas Day. There were several fun things, including some fabric and a copy of "The Meaning of Liff" by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd, but here's a photo of some yummy yarn and a very cool book clip thingy for marking or holding open the pages of cookbooks: Thanks Morven! And on Christmas Eve Day, I got a super-nice surprise package from the Delightful Dee: Fuzzy socks in yummy colors, fabric, and a really interesting-sounding book by an author I haven't read yet. Thanks Dee! I will also mention that J was a good Santa this year. He bought me jewelry, including a really pretty necklace and watch, and he got me something I'd been wanting for a while but had never bought for myself - a portable DVD player so I can take movies on trips with me if I want. Thanks Johnny! Ok, this has gone on long enough I think. Hey! Wake up in the back! Yeah, you! Wipe the drool off your chin and get your stuff together! The show is over. Well, at least for today. Hope you all had a really wonderful weekend and that this coming week is good too.