boxing day

Didn’t get out of bed until almost ten, although I was up reading around 9; finished Bob Wilson’s Bios, an sf novel about an extremely poisonous planet.

Paul is frying turkey sausages for the stuffing, and cutting up onions. Pretty soon I have to go downstairs and liberate the turkey from John’s fridge (there was obviously no room at the inn in OUR fridge, and we weren’t leaving it on the back deck…) and clean it, stuff it and toss it on the oven.

I am trying to develop enthusiasm for anything but it’s as if when I’m not at work I’m an unwound clock.

In about 15 minutes Jan and Jim will turn up (presumably with Carly in tow) and then I get to hang out with some of my favourite people.

Katie and John bonded last night over Buffy. Sigh. John and Katie have not had the best uncle niece relationship ever, but it has improved quite a bit since the summer, and that is a relief. Don’t know exactly what triggered the shift in Katie; John is the same as he ever was, only more so, if you know what I mean, and if you know John you know exactly what I mean.

It was wonderful seeing my folks yesterday. Paul’s mum Phyllis called while we were there to let us know she wasn’t spending Christmas evening by herself. I was relieved about that, too.

I imagine Keith is having a great time sitting around in his underwear playing games at Jeff’s. Must start on the books Jeff gave me. The new Coupland looks lovely and it’s set in Vancouver…. the other one is about how men are going to disappear in 125000 years. Is that nearly soon enough? I personally think mass human extinction is a lot closer than that, in fact I may be a participant, but I will examine the evidence.

Have a lovely boxing day, and try not to spend any money.

boxing day more

After a lovely turkey lunch care of my mother we visited with Barry and Jackie and Bonnie and Rani in the sun room, while watching all the birds at the feeders and then we watched quite a bit of Lord of the Rings III on Adrenaline and now we’re about to jump on the boat and come home. All in all a fine visit. Keith’s off to Jeff’s. Sigh. Wonder if I can talk Paul into doing the Pacific Buffet on the boat? Kids made out like bandits, and I got books for xmas, big surprise. Happy Boxing day everybody.

Christmas Greetings
2004-12-25— Posted by: allegra

Have yourself a medicated Christmas

As your purse allows,

Numb your brain cells, then sit in a chair and drowse

but have yourself a medicated Christmas now.

now we’re home for the holidays

they’ll be squalid days

I know…..

etc.

Got on the ferry at 7 am; Katie slept not at all, Paul was up at 3 am and I slept like the big baby I am until about 5, when Paul came back in. To my utter astonishment Katie came for a hug, so I already got my Christmas present. For me Christmas is about food and family. The ever heightening Mutually Assured Consumption drives me batty; Paul and I deked around Christmas presents for each other with no difficulty, and considering what a curmudgeon he’s being I am so glad. Wouldn’t give me a penny for coffee on the freaking ferry this morning! I had to go back down to the car deck and shake the Subaru out for change, dadgum it. Found and reported a suspicious package but I guess nobody wanted to believe that it was a bomb, so it was still there when I got off the boat. Keith wanted to touch it and I told him not to.

Ate a fantastic meal at Mike’s place last night. Tori gave me a self-portrait, which is a)very fine and b) still there, because in my haste to depart (to get enough shut eye, and get Keith out of there because he was feeling a little under the weather, etc) I left it on the mantel like a dolt. Had to phone back to apologize, but I’ll be back to collect it Monday or Tuesday.

Also Tori had a couple of mixed music playing-off-the-computer music loops which were tasteful and appropriate. Paul and I were really impressed, a solid & eclectic mix of music.

Still can’t believe what happened in Toronto with respect to travel. Paul and I and the kids would probably have been able to get in, but travelling around Toronto would have been a nightmare and flying/renting a car to get to London would have been one of those You Could, But Why Did You Bother stories. Hope to heaven Lexi and her hubby got to Europe and Bonnie got to Victoria – I will phone her sis shortly to find out.

Last note. I am so mad I could take up carpeting with my face. Yesterday Katie logged on, or tried to, to her MSN account and found out it had been hacked and she no longer had access, although the password clue had been changed to If u want ur mail talk to demos_love_all. Using her brother’s account, she checked the profile and demos_love_all@hotmail.com purports to be a man living in Egypt. Anyway, he – or whoever – told her if she wanted her mail back to contact him, and Paul and I immediately said no, and then made a panicked call to Mike, who promptly emailed us something to scan our system with. Katie then was the freaked out recipient of a lecture about computer security (above noted scumbag had not actually messed with her profile) and told to use Mozilla instead of Internet Exploder. Then we checked to see if there had been unauthorized access to anything else on the hard drive, and apparently not. Needless to say we’re all really shaken and cheesed off, and Katie is scared all of her friends will think any nasty emails that demos_love_all writes are really from her. Also, she never wrote down anybody’s email address, so she’s flying blind – apart from her non-bf and a couple of other people she’s no idea what the addresses are of all of her friends. I have memorized everybody’s email for anybody that matters to me so I don’t have to go through this kind of crap if my hard drive crashes. When my hard drive crashes. Heavy sigh.

Much Christmas Joy and Hugs to you.

more boxing day

After a lovely turkey lunch care of my mother we visited with Barry and Jackie and Bonnie and Rani in the sun room, while watching all the birds at the feeders and then we watched quite a bit of Lord of the Rings III on Adrenaline and now we’re about to jump on the boat and come home. All in all a fine visit. Keith’s off to Jeff’s. Sigh. Wonder if I can talk Paul into doing the Pacific Buffet on the boat? Kids made out like bandits, and I got books for xmas, big surprise. Happy Boxing day everybody.