- November 14 – New York trip, Our Native Daughters review, midterm elections
- December 7 – World Cup, doctor visit
- December 29 – Holiday Party, Allie and Perri visit Maryland, Christmas
- December 31 – More holiday eating and photos, New Year’s Eve
November 14
I’ve missed a couple of weeks of journaling but I’ve been working on recapping our short trip to New York (still working on the post about the trip itself) to see the Carnegie Hall reunion of Our Native Daughters. I pulled together my notes on the concert along with a YouTube playlist based on the set list and posted them publicly on Billzdaze. I mainly wrote the notes for myself and for Laurie, with the possibility that Maggie and some of Laurie’s line dancing friends might also like them. I am dismayed that there has been almost no mainstream coverage of the concert. I think it was a noteworthy and enjoyable event celebrating important musical and cultural trends and four remarkably talented women. The world should pay more attention.
In a tiny nod to help spread the word, I took the step yesterday of putting a post linking to Billzdaze on Facebook, my first public post in three or four years. It occurs to me it’s a bit like putting my message in a bottle and tossing it into the ocean. I don’t expect the world to beat a path to my door, but I wanted to at least dip a toe in the social media water and faintly hope that someone in the Our Native Daughters camp notices. We’ll see.
I’m still deeply ambivalent and in fact mostly afraid of putting very much of myself or my world on social media. I like Ian Bogost’s recent article in The Atlantic, “The Age of Social Media Is Ending” which makes a distinction between social networks and social media, arguing that the two should not have been conflated. I’d almost completely weaned myself off of Facebook over the past few years, lurking occasionally on my personal/family account and my robotics account to keep loose tabs on family and friends. Just before the pandemic I started my Billzdaze Facebook account to focus more on music and local events/restaurants and I admit I’ve been checking that more frequently in the past few months. There’s an undeniable value in social networks to stay in touch with specific communities, but social media such as Twitter (especially since Elon Musk bought it), Instagram and TikTok are highly suspect for me and I don’t use them at all.
The NY trip and aftermath helped distract me a little from the anxiety-inducing midterm elections. It has been gratifying to see the forecast Red Wave crash on the seawall of actual votes, and a relief that there was no actual violence or disruption in the voting. As of now, a week after the vote, there are still a number of races undecided with counting still underway. It’s not clear if the Republicans will win a majority in the House but if they do it will be a narrow one. The Senate will stay in Democratic hands. This is all a big relief.
We are getting into our winter/holiday mode. Before we left for New York, I got all Barb’s aloes and jade plants down to the basement. I’ve made arrangements for landscapers to come this week to tidy up our flower beds and such. Barb spent her Veteran’s Day holiday Friday baking up dozens of apple cakes for her office and other folks. Sirius/XM is playing holiday music and Barb is actively tuned in. Her Hallmark channel has switched from Murder She Wrote at night to an endless stream of holiday movies which even Barb can’t stomach, so we are reduced to watching Friends at night — which is always harder for me to get to sleep to.
We’re getting ready to welcome Allie and Perri to Maryland this Wednesday, then Allie and I will head to Denver for Thanksgiving and I will have more to write about. As we start to deal more directly with Betsy, Sara and Kristen about the trip, Barb is increasingly happy she is not going. But Allie and I are looking forward to it.
I had a nice lunch yesterday with Leslie at a new-ish Indian-Nepalese restaurant, Curry & Kabob. We were supposed to go see The Banshees of Inisherin afterward but the lunch came out slowly and we were enjoying ourselves enough that we skipped the movie.
While I was with Leslie, Barb was with her friend Sheila at Maggiano’s, grilling her about membership in the Hilton Grand Vacation Club. Sheila confirmed our feeling that the Club made little sense for us, helping Barb settle on a final decision to shut down that little line of inquiry that arose during our New York trip…details forthcoming in that trip report, which I need to go ahead and finish. So that’s enough of this entry for now.
December 7
Happy Pearl Harbor Day! I guess that’s not really an appropriate greeting, but there it is.
I have to admit, somewhat ashamedly, that I’ve become a full-on World Cup junkie. I’ve spent most of the last two (three?) weeks watching an ungodly number of soccer games. In the first week there were four games per day and I watched at least three of them each day. This past week it went down to two games per day and I watched most of those. Today and tomorrow are thankfully a break before the quarterfinals. The games have been sporadically exciting and mostly meaningless but I’ve felt compelled to watch, and found that I couldn’t do anything else while the games were on. So it’s been an unproductive couple of weeks and I’m feeling the weight of my inactivity, psychically and physically. I need to get back on the horse and do some stuff.
To add to my guilt, I visited my doctor for my checkup today and, as I feared, I’ve slid backwards on my health. I’ve regained some weight and my other numbers have ticked in the wrong direction from 9 months ago when I finished my Wegovy regimen. Nothing is especially serious, but several indicators moved south, mostly related to my weight. My doctor said he had some good news on Wegovy pricing – it is now “only” $450/month rather than over $1,000. That’s still quite a disincentive. My doctor seemed excited that Wegovy has been “all over the news,” now recommended by folks like Kim Kardashian and Elon Musk. Neither of those endorsements are positive ones, in my book. So, once again I resolve to lose some weight on my own by trying to eat a little better. I started today with a homemade tuna salad (no mayo, just vinegar and a little oil). I’ll push matters by making a stew tonight that I can eat for a few days. We’ll see how things go. I’ll give myself a few months to do better. If I don’t improve, I may bite the bullet and go back on Wegovy for a while. I know I would be healthier if I lost another 20-30 pounds. On Friday, I will take the first of two introductory pickleball lessons. I hope that may become another regular activity to get my bones moving. We’ll see about that, too.
Allie and I had a nice visit to Denver for Thanksgiving, plus Allie and Perri stayed with us in Maryland for some bonus time. I have a bunch of photos, some of them good, and need to work up a post about that trip. It was great seeing the Embreys, especially Emmy. So, rather than belabor this journal entry, I will start working on that post.
December 29
I have fallen well off my journaling wagon and I feel guilty about it. The World Cup really did me in for more than a month. Since it wrapped up a week ago – go Messi and Argentina – I’ve been getting into Christmas mode.
Backpedaling to an episode earlier in the month, Barb held an office party for her staff at Diana’s apartment building in Baltimore Harbor on December 13. Planning for the party consumed Barb for several weeks before the event and I got roped into some of the efforts. Barb wanted a nice giveaway and decided on custom blankets with a logo that I helped design, “CMSD PR Group: Just. The. Best.” Barb assiduously tied a ribbon (which also involved several shopping trips to procure) around each one and gathered them in baskets in our “staging area”. It did make for a nice giveaway. I also became the main shopper and runner for the food and snacks, involving many days of planning, shopping and fetching several party trays from Costco. After all the worrying, the party went very well and we ended up with a mountain of leftover food which I worked through for several weeks, adding more pounds to my holiday weight gain.
We welcomed Allie to Maryland on Thursday, 12/22. We made her switch her evening flight to midday to avoid the worst of a big winter storm that walloped the East Coast that day and the next, snarling traffic nationwide. Her original flight on Southwest would have made it later in the evening but it was nice to have her and Perri safely at home before all the rain descended on us.
For the sake of notes, here are the activities and meals we had while she was here.
Thursday, 12/22: We got Allie a BLT sandwich at Jinnie’s Cafe on the way home from the airport. Allie liked Jinnie’s; we can go back. For dinner, I fetched a variety of dim sum items from Nan Xiang Express on this rainy evening. The soup dumplings actually transported home pretty well, beef noodle soup was pretty good, steamed shrimp dumplings and sesame/spicy wontons were decent. Barb liked the crispy noodles with vegetables well enough. I’m the only one that thought the scallion pancake with beef and extra scallions was edible.
Friday, 12/23: The rain continued through the morning, then the winds blew and the temperature plummeted more than 30 degrees in a few hours. I went to the grocery store in the morning to get items for our Christmas dinner, first encountering a downed tree across Pfefferkorn and then getting pelted by falling branches when I went the other direction.
The girls had 1:30pm reservations for tea at the Kate Pearl Tea Room in Westminster, MD. Barb was hesitant to drive so I agreed to be their chauffeur. We made it there without incident and I killed time at the Rare Opportunity Bakery. I had a tasty ham and cheese with apples on whole grain bread, a kale and bean soup, and some hot apple cider while I killed time doing my crosswords. The girls greatly enjoyed their tea and were pleased with the reasonable price. Barb might go there more often.
After tea, Allie and I decorated the little tree I had found a few days earlier. It was the first time in quite a few years that we pulled out our ornaments and had a tree. I quite liked having the little tabletop size. We kept fingers crossed that Manny and Perri would leave it alone (they mostly did).
For dinner, we hunkered down with dim sum leftovers on the coldest night of the year and watched Glass Onion, the new Knives Out mystery. It was an adequate diversion but hardly a great movie.
Saturday, 12/24: I had to make one more run to the store for milk and eggs. The girls huddled in the bedroom watching TV, reading and puzzling. I drove Allie to have lunch with her GCS buddy Jordan, in from Seattle for the holiday, at the Food Market in Columbia. I prepared mashed potatoes for the next day. Around 5pm we drove the hour to Mary Diamond’s house for Christmas Eve. We had a very pleasant evening with the Diamond family and John’s girlfriend from Chicago. It has become a very nice tradition, in the footsteps of Jessie O’Neill’s Christmas Eve gatherings. Next year we have to remember to get a gift card for John O’Neill’s son, Benny. John has dutifully been giving Allie gift cards for years and we’ve never given Benny anything.
Sunday, 12/25: We celebrated Christmas at home with Allie and the kitties. Santa was good to all of us. My top gifts were pickleball rackets, underwear, and lots of food and wine. No complaints. Barb made her traditional breakfast casserole and we didn’t even have to watch the Disney parade.
Leslie came for dinner around 5pm, sans Emery. We had our roast beef, mashed potatoes – both plain and loaded, and green beans with ginger and scallions. It was good but after two helpings we were all well stuffed.
Monday, 12/26: We had a fairly low-key Boxing Day, with lots more TV, puzzles and reading. Betsy Pelovitz came over around 4pm for a full reprise of our Christmas dinner. We over-ate all over again. This time, Allie actually felt sick and went to bed very early. Lightweight.
Tuesday, 12/27: Barb went back to work. Allie slept in and took a sick day from work. She lingered in the bedroom much of the day. I played Scattergories and got an update on family celebrations across the globe, including some much-appreciated photos. First off, Susanna shared some creepy photos from Halloween where she was Beetlejuice and Amila was Lydia. Susanna said, “I don’t like looking gross it turns out.”
Laurie sent a shot of Nico with his very impressive gingerbread house (I’m guessing he had some help) and Laurie’s new pup, Luna.
Keri sent a nice set of shots from Gainesville.
Jill sent photos from the Galapagos.
Sara (not on Scattergories) sent shots from Colorado where Emmy got her Christmas gift of books specially selected by Allie.
That evening we watched Spirited, a new musical adaptation of the Christmas Carol with Ryan Reynolds and Will Farrell. It was not nearly as clever as it wanted to be but I fear it may become a holiday standard within a few years.
Wednesday, 12/28: Barb worked at work, Allie worked at home but was mostly done by midday. The weather was decent enough to take an afternoon walk outside, so we did. Allie and I went to the Columbia Mall in the afternoon where we had an early dinner at Chicken + Whiskey. We had some nice happy hour cocktails, shared some very good wings (in that she had one and I had four). Rather than a full dinner, she had a single arepa and I had chicken and corn soup. We left without feeling stuffed which was a pleasant change. We drove home via the Merriweather neighborhood, seeing the skaters at the ice rink and noting that the Peter Chang restaurant looked nearly ready to open. The Medium Rare space still has billboards up, so it is still a few months away, I reckon.
Barb made do with one more round of leftovers, mostly mashed potatoes, potato chips and cookies. Dinner of champions. We watched the Great British Bake Off holiday episode with the Derry Girls cast from a couple of years ago. I hope it gives Allie incentive to watch Derry Girls, as it did for us.
Thursday, 12/29: Barb worked at work; Allie worked from home at least until the Maids came at 11:30am. Allie and I hied off to the EC Diner for lunch – it was very busy but we grabbed two seats at the counter. Allie got a crabby cheesesteak while I successfully avoided getting a patty melt, going for a Greek chicken wrap instead. We each ate only half of the sandwiches, bringing the rest home for leftovers. On the other hand, I ate lots of french fries, so virtue was not entirely mine.
We went to Facci for dinner so Barb could get a decent meal and probably have enough for leftovers. We shared a special seafood salad starter – fresh shrimp, octopus, clams, mussels, crab in a lemony vinaigrette with butter lettuce. Barb got her Sophia Loren pasta with walnuts on the side. Allie and I shared a pesto gnocchi with sausage that was quite good, with added walnuts. Sharing the two dishes with Allie was just the right amount of food for us and was easily the best meal I’ve had at Facci. Barb questioned the music and atmosphere that Facci was striving for; Allie and I decided that it’s a cruise ship vibe.
We returned home and watched Disenchanted together. It was a mostly awful movie but we had a pretty good time wondering what went wrong with all these talented people involved.
December 31
Friday, 12/30: I went to the grocery store for our New Year’s provisions. Allie and I went for a late lunch to Lime & Salt Taco Bar where we shared Ceviche Rallado, two tacos (the chicharron was even better than the chicken mole), and a barbeque lamb sope that was a pleasant but kind of goopy plate of cheese and sauce.
I sent a Wine Country gift basket to Betsy and Joe for the Embreys to share. It was due to arrive before Christmas but no one was home the three times UPS tried to deliver it. Joe tried to get the package at their local UPS store but UPS lost track of it. I reported the lost shipment to Wine Country and they said they would send another shipment at no extra charge. The new basket was delivered today and Betsy sent exuberant thanks and a photo. The basket was clearly much bigger than what I’d originally ordered. I looked on the Wine Country website and it was an $1,100 (originally $2,200!) sleigh full of wine, champagne, and most every munchie in their catalog. I doublechecked the email Wine Country sent me about the delivery and indeed that’s what they said was shipped. I guess it was like winning the Wine Country lottery, though I would never impose 10,000+ calories on anyone. Betsy reported that both she and Joe had to wrestle the box up their stairs. I hope all the Embreys and everyone they know got some enjoyment from the haul. Betsy later sent photos of Emmy and Nora enjoying the sleigh.
We inflicted a borrowed taco outfit on Manny. He wore it for a few minutes with grudging resentment. I think he kind of liked that it kept him warm but he also couldn’t walk very well with it on, so we took our photos and relieved him of his humiliation.
That evening, we had various leftovers for light dinners. Allie and I enjoyed watching Sr., the offbeat and ultimately poignant documentary by Robert Downey Jr. about his filmmaking father.
Saturday, 12/31: This was a very rainy and foggy New Year’s Eve day and night, even if it was warm. We all went to Mikey & Mel’s for breakfast and picked up bagels and whitefish for the next few days. Barb had eggs and bacon, Allie had shakshuka, I got a hot kippered salmon platter that was not hot but was tasty and felt relatively healthy until I finished Barb’s latke and bacon. At least I didn’t eat Allie’s home fries, but we brought them home for leftovers.
Allie finished her 60th book for the year, reaching her GoodReads goal. Congrats to her. I worked on a big batch of Hoppin’ John which ended up being more of a gumbo with black eyed peas but it was still pretty tasty.
We subjected Manny to another round of photos at Allie’s insistence. He was a patient little lumberjack.
Allie went to Evan Schlick’s house for New Year’s Eve dinner and festivities with a few of his Dartmouth friends and his brand new fiance, Amanda. Allie may end up in their wedding, as well, sometime in 2023 or 2024 if it fits in her busy calendar.
I came back home to prepare what I hoped would be a nice New Year’s Eve dinner for Barb. We had shrimp scampi as an appetizer in lieu of lobster. I attempted a Steak Diane with a proper sauce of shallot, cognac, mustard, cream, mushrooms and other bits. The pan seared steak was good but the sauce came out a little gloppy. I have a second steak and will try again in a couple of days after Allie leaves. We also had some asparagus but I let it sit in the oven too long and it came out overcooked and woody. Not as great a meal as I’d hoped but not bad.
Barb retired to her room for the evening. I made do hopping between various New Year’s Eve shows…all of them pretty awful. Barb and I counted down the New Year and kissed. She then promptly went to sleep while I waited until 2am to go get Allie from Evan’s. For the whole evening I had two glasses of wine which was probably the best decision of the day.
Adios 2022. You were better than the previous two years, but that’s not saying much. Still, it’s been a happy year for me personally and for our little family, capped off by this very nice, relaxing staycation with Allie and Perri.
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