I hope everyone had a great Holiday season full of cheer and good will and of course consumerism. I know I sure did.
It was great to get to go home and see the family for two whole weeks even if it rained for most of the time I was there, and was c
ould enough to shatter a T-1000. Your only respite from the bitter cold was the steaming hot dog poop you could pick up while out walking the three stooges dog troop my parents and sister own. Truthfully I only used the brown hand warmer twice, but just watching others doing it gave me the shivers which also served to keep me warm.
I was not there for Chanukah as it was two early this year, but Christmas was fun. I got some great gifts, such as an empty bandaid tin, a GPS that went out of it’s way to select what ever was farthest from the button you pushed, and a 1000 page, 20 lb hard back book. (Perfect for airplane travel.) I did get some great and thoughtful gifts but what’s the point to telling you about those. It wouldn’t be funny.
My sister and I also took some time to make “graham cracker” houses, which I will never do again. graham cracker is one of the most brittle and un cooperative building materials we could have picked. Building it required a lot of patients, praying, and an occasional swear. All in all I though it went well. Rachel’s also turned out well in it’s own special way. Her Necco wafer roof was inspiration for mine.
One of my gifts to my dad was a recored player that helped to turn records into mp3’s. It was a great spending time with him helping him to convert his old 45s. Because you have to convert these in real time, I got/had to listen to all of these singles, and it was like being transported back though musical time. Some of his music – which I had never heard before – was strangely morbid. Other records where fun and catchy, and others were just strange. Then there where some that I never remembered having heard and somehow still new the words to. I though to myself, “My god. I was brain washed!”
We also got to go out to a fantastic steak dinner, which was one of the things on my gift list. I ordered a 1 lb New York steak cooked medium rare and it was decent. Then I went to the bathroom and came back. Five minuets later I needed to go back. Then came stomac
h pains and shivering even though I was hot, along with respiratory problems. YAY food poising!!! My sister thinks it was the movie theater pretzel I had while watching avatar earlier that day but I still don’t know for sure what caused it. All I know is it took all night and part of the next day to fully recover.
Towards the end my sister and my friend Eric went to GameWorks which is a giant arcade, and spent played to upstairs carnival games which all spit out tickets and teach our youth that gambling is fun. Rachel got a Hello Kitty purse, Eric got a Giant turtle plush, and I walked out with five shot glasses which I later learned wear covered with led based paint.
The last thing we did was go a new sports store my parents had heard about called Cabelas.
I was mortified.
I was expecting and REI like store, but this was not the case. Everything in that store was all about killing animals – something I would hardly consider a sport. Ironically most of the shoppers in there where overweight and stuffed 
into camo sweats hats and pocketed vests, and looked about as far removed from the word athletic as one could get. I guess if you consider sitting in a boat, or tree, or camo tent with a twelve gage and beer a workout then these were some of the most fit people on the planet. I’m just surprised the non-Tea party democrat alarms didn’t go off as soon as I walked in the door. Every square inch of the place had dead stuffed animals hanging, or displayed either in whole form or just portions. Mabey the local shoppers thought they were alive. Why else would they be wearing camouflage in the city?
All in all it was a great Holiday break. Hope your’s was too. Have a great 2010!!!
