It would not be terribly difficult to make the case that I am in Scrooge mode. Not that I'm being stingy, I just seem to have a serious lack of whatever spirit it is I'm supposed to have. Or maybe it's that people are pissing me off. Yeah, that's the ticket. It's not me, it's them.
I did my errands this morning, including the supermarket for a few things. When I got home, R was up and getting ready for work, and we concocted a scheme for her to make espresso for the Hubs after dinner tonight. Back track. His parents gave him a really nice espresso pot for Christmas about five years ago, and a sealed, brick-like bag of espresso. Like every other gadget and/or Christmas gift he's ever gotten, he's never used it. Although he loves espresso. But now that R is employed as a barista and knows how, we thought she could make it for him. She tried out the pot, and when I asked if she thought fresher espresso was in order, she said it wouldn't be a bad idea.
So I waited until K was up to see if she needed anything, and then I headed out to the upscale Whole Foods not far from here. Well. Every empowered yuppie in north Jersey was there, and every one of them thought they owned the parking lot. Holy cow. One woman actually stopped right in the middle, blocking traffic both ways, and rolled down her window so she could have a conversation with a friend she glimpsed who was parked along the side. Everyone there was just an asshole. (The amusing moment was when I noticed someone walking back to his car wearing SHORTS, of all things; it was about 34 degrees, and I thought now there's someone with a serious lack of reality perception, and then I saw it was my brother-in-law, The Keeper, and my sister was walking right next to him. Yes, I rolled down my window and said hello, but I wasn't moving anyway, so neither of us was blocking anyone.) I was in and out of the store in less time than it took to park, I got the espresso, I came home.
I should point out that last night the girls were saying about how they weren't going to wrap their gifts this year, just give them out to us tomorrow morning. Oh really. I took the trouble to wrap their gifts, you'd think they could be bothered. But noooooo. I don't wrap fancy, I just use matching paper, which is available for everyone, and I even tell them which paper matches what I've used (as if they can't see the gifts under the tree, but they wouldn't notice) and which paper is for outside the house. But the gifts I get never match. Generally they are pulled from the Target or Best Buy bag and handed right to me. I'm sorry, I just think that's tacky. Who raised these people, anyway? (I didn't raise the big one, at least, but he doesn't wrap, either.)
I took a nap and woke up realizing that I had forgotten to get one of the essential items for tonight's Christmas Eve dinner. I'm going to share this with you, and hope that no one is offended because you've been eating it since your ancestors stepped off the Mayflower, but this is the goofiest food I've ever heard of, and I've eaten at Christmas Eve dinner now since 1977. It's orange salad. You trim the rind off oranges, slice them, arrange them on a plate, drizzle olive oil over them, and sprinkle pepper on it. Does anyone else eat that? I can't tell you what culture this comes from, but I've gotten the impression that it's like the only traditional food my mother-in-law ate as a kid that anyone still eats. I don't know why they would have, olive oil probably not being a big ingredient in Irish-American households, and she -- a good cook, by the way -- only makes traditional foods she learned from her own Italian mother-in-law, so I don't know what this is. But it's always seemed bizarre to me. They serve it first, like a salad, before the appetizer. And everybody but me is always like "Ooooh, the orange salad!" and I think, what the hell, these are oranges on a plate! Anyway, I FORGOT TO GET THE ORANGES! Heads will roll! Okay, my head will roll! The Hubs doesn't seem to think it's a big deal (and the only thing he'll eat tonight would be the oranges and the pasta, no shrimp for him, as shrimp had faces), but K seemed really disappointed, and I imagine R will be too. Well, they can just suck it up.
Humbug. Hmm, maybe I should have made a nice roast humbug for dinner. That'd show them.
Happy Christmas, to those that enjoy the holiday. I'm spending tomorrow on the Garden State Parkway, with a five-hour break in the middle for dinner at the ILs. I'll report back on Sunday.
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I'm watching Ellen
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