Christmas Day
Dec. 26th, 2005 06:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
billeylerDanny must have had fun all year shopping for gifts...he overdid himself for sure! A bunch of really wonderful thoughtful presents were under the tree, including fun stuff like a Symphonium with 10 disks, a gorgeous brocaded near-Mariachi shirt perfect for special calling gigs along with a monogrammed western belt buckle, a fantastic book on the Universe which I completely devoured yesterday, another one about weather, lots of literature...the big one was a beautifully composed postcard for an all-expense paid weekend trip anywhere I'd like to go in New Mexico! Oh, what fun to spend time opening up all this stuff.
Danny was like a little kid when he opened my big gift, a red Schwinn electric scooter! He immediately set in assembling it, but the big disappointment was that he had to wait over six hours until the battery charged!
We cleared up the luminarias in the early afternoon, and set off for Mike Staple's and Ric Gonzalez mansion in the NW valley for the one open house today. I've been a little trepidacious about this trip. Somewhere in the deep past I offended Ric and he's never told me what it was. Last year, it was HUGELY noticable that we were left off the invite list for the annual Christmas Day open house there, while all the other old time Wilde Bunchers were included. But this year, they were hosting our friends Bill and Ralph from Denver, and it would have been unthinkable not to invite us.
Anyway, they have the most fantastic view of the mountains, city, downtown in a panorama view. It's an amazing home, and even nicer than the 1.2+ million dollar homes we toured a couple of months ago. How many homes have a lap pool built into a villa-like enclave like that. My big question was did they win the lottery and not tell anyone?
The weather continues over 10 degrees above normal, so we were shirt sleeves almost all day, and it was wonderful on their deck with that view. Can I actually overuse the word "fabulous?"
But it was a good visit with several old friends there and them too. It turns out that Mike is on a CPAP machine for HIS apnea...in his two day test a couple of years ago, they found he woke up 92 times in one sleep session. He's going to hold my hand through this if I have to have that same machine after I do my testing in 2 nights time. They don't sleep together anymore, so I'm wondering about all that.
After getting back home, I saw at 4:30 that the battery had fully charged on the scooter, so Danny rushed it outside and took his first tour around the neighborhood on it. It was wonderful to see the little kid come out in him! He thought he'd have to wait until Monday morning to test it out. He gave it a thumbs up, but said that it's NOT like riding a bicycle. The center of balance is high and we'd have to get over the wobblies.
We whipped up (mostly Danny) a great Christmas day meal of spiral-cut ham, potatoes/rutabaga, brussel sprouts, stuffing, with a nice white wine. I made it a point not to overeat or drink too much, since I've narrowed that down to my late evening a-fib bouts. Danny had made a dairy-free chocolate cake earlier in the day, but he grumbles all the time about how the electric stove doesn't work as well as a gas one. Maybe true, but he DID put the ham on "broil" instead of "bake," so I'm wondering if that's what happened to the cake, too. It tasted good though!
A relaxing evening of just noodling around ensued after that...but by 10:30 I couldn't stay awake, so drifted off to dreamland while Danny was catching up on his BBC crime dramas. Tomorrow we start in earnest on the rewiring and drywall project in the rec room...
Oh, and that wonderful 4 panel, shimmery silk drapery set? Danny noticed yesterday morning that one of the panels was a full inch shorter than the rest AND less shimmery and a slightly darker shade than the others, so we'll have to take that one back to Lowe's. Jeez. That's our life with everything we try.
Danny was like a little kid when he opened my big gift, a red Schwinn electric scooter! He immediately set in assembling it, but the big disappointment was that he had to wait over six hours until the battery charged!
We cleared up the luminarias in the early afternoon, and set off for Mike Staple's and Ric Gonzalez mansion in the NW valley for the one open house today. I've been a little trepidacious about this trip. Somewhere in the deep past I offended Ric and he's never told me what it was. Last year, it was HUGELY noticable that we were left off the invite list for the annual Christmas Day open house there, while all the other old time Wilde Bunchers were included. But this year, they were hosting our friends Bill and Ralph from Denver, and it would have been unthinkable not to invite us.
Anyway, they have the most fantastic view of the mountains, city, downtown in a panorama view. It's an amazing home, and even nicer than the 1.2+ million dollar homes we toured a couple of months ago. How many homes have a lap pool built into a villa-like enclave like that. My big question was did they win the lottery and not tell anyone?
The weather continues over 10 degrees above normal, so we were shirt sleeves almost all day, and it was wonderful on their deck with that view. Can I actually overuse the word "fabulous?"
But it was a good visit with several old friends there and them too. It turns out that Mike is on a CPAP machine for HIS apnea...in his two day test a couple of years ago, they found he woke up 92 times in one sleep session. He's going to hold my hand through this if I have to have that same machine after I do my testing in 2 nights time. They don't sleep together anymore, so I'm wondering about all that.
After getting back home, I saw at 4:30 that the battery had fully charged on the scooter, so Danny rushed it outside and took his first tour around the neighborhood on it. It was wonderful to see the little kid come out in him! He thought he'd have to wait until Monday morning to test it out. He gave it a thumbs up, but said that it's NOT like riding a bicycle. The center of balance is high and we'd have to get over the wobblies.
We whipped up (mostly Danny) a great Christmas day meal of spiral-cut ham, potatoes/rutabaga, brussel sprouts, stuffing, with a nice white wine. I made it a point not to overeat or drink too much, since I've narrowed that down to my late evening a-fib bouts. Danny had made a dairy-free chocolate cake earlier in the day, but he grumbles all the time about how the electric stove doesn't work as well as a gas one. Maybe true, but he DID put the ham on "broil" instead of "bake," so I'm wondering if that's what happened to the cake, too. It tasted good though!
A relaxing evening of just noodling around ensued after that...but by 10:30 I couldn't stay awake, so drifted off to dreamland while Danny was catching up on his BBC crime dramas. Tomorrow we start in earnest on the rewiring and drywall project in the rec room...
Oh, and that wonderful 4 panel, shimmery silk drapery set? Danny noticed yesterday morning that one of the panels was a full inch shorter than the rest AND less shimmery and a slightly darker shade than the others, so we'll have to take that one back to Lowe's. Jeez. That's our life with everything we try.
