yesterday was a fine one indeed.  after his pre-dawn feeding, my beloved brought the baby to bed and we slept peacefully until 8 am when stacky's cousin decided to send a text message to the world wishing us a merry christmas.  the sound of her phone going off startled everyone and was the end of our slumber.

so i drug myself out of bed, popped the cinnamon rolls (from scratch, of course!) into the oven and started up the coffay.  after breakfast my family called and i chatted with them a bit.  it was good to hear from them all.  they were holed up at my uncle's place in the norther hinterlands with nothing but cheese plates, fresh fruit, steak, sea food and champagne to sustain them.  i can only hope that they survived.

after my phone obligations were met, i attacked the turkey (a 20 pounder!) with my electric knife.  i have said again and again that technology has brought damned little to my life (wife and child aside) but that electric knife?  awesome.  the key is that the blade can bend to follow the breastbone.  i cleaned that carcas down to nothing.  it will likely be a stock soon and gumbo after that.  my wife rocks!  the downside to the knife is that it's like trying to operate a greased chainsaw after a while.  one must keep paper towels handy so that the fear doesn't set in.  the turkey itself which was roasted using a new-to-us method from the cooking porn (cook's illustrated) family cookbook was delicious.  everyone seemed pleased with the results.

with the bird cut into bits we loaded the car to head off to auntie's place.  the dude was not pleased.  seeing his grandmother and her twin in his face at once caused some sort of segfault in his mind that led to screaming and clinging to daddy.  he didn't even want to go to mommy.  let's face it, if you think the world is ending, clinging to the biggest thing in the room is just good instincts.  he got better after a snack and was able to circulate through the crowd (stacky's mom's family is big) without any total meltdowns.  but after about 5 or so hours, he was done and we bade farewell to our hosts.  once home the dude was quite pleased.  he was with his puppy and all of his stuff.  we proceeded to watch pbs and drink some beer (not the dude).  a fine holiday all told.

work?  i don't talk about work.  but i am the skipper of the ghost ship this week.  3 days on and 4 days off.  that's my mantra.

i did not play my geetarz yesterday.  i will fix that tonight.  i will also bake some f'n bread so i can have a sandwich for lunch tomorrow.  i am a moron.  a moron with a very feeble lunch.

i'm reading ralph steadman's memoir on hunter thompson and it's actually sad.  there's a lot of recounting of stories people who were rabid readers already know...but from a different point of view.  what grabs me from time to time is the little bits of theraputic release.  it's as though he looks up and realizes how much he misses his friend.  it makes the suicide of HST even more tragic because we're hearing about him from the voice of someone left behind to deal with the exit.  sad stuff.  but a good read. 

i don't remember what is next on my queue.  i have a few items that i need to sort through.  i still have a bio of edward abbey to tackle but every time i read about him i want to ditch all of this crap, get off the grid and live with my family like nomads on the open plains.  that's probably a good gut feeling to follow, but i'll ignore it for now.

tomorrow night is my beloved's birthday.  she wants me to cook something but she's not sure what.  this leaves me in a bit of a bind.  at least her gift has been acquired (a new backpack which she can't touch until tomorrow...i know how it taunts her and that amuses me).  all of this means that i might need to hit the grocery tonigh.  meh.