This is Hippo's last picture at my Dad's house during the Winter of 2005. She found a number of interesting little spots to lay in over the course of the month or so that we were back in town, most notably the Christmas village, which is well illustrated over at our new and deluxe Fickr site. I'm not going to attempt to bore you with the excessive details of the world since December 10th-ish. But I will supply the highlights:
--Blake: Tournament was good, hanging was fun. We had dinner with Karly and Kari on Thursday night at The King and I, one of the several high quality Thai dinners we enjoyed back in the land where Thai food doesn't suck. I bought Andy a birthday card at the Rainbow joint by the SuperAmerica and I would claim that it is the best birthday card ever purchased by anyone. If he wouldn't have briefly lost it, I think that showing it to Doobs would have been the coolest thing ever. This year's dinner for the Round Robin beat the hell out of last year's, seeing as I a) did not sprain my ankle and b) there was enough of some really good food. The fajitas were yummy and it contained the best mass produced flan I can possibly imagine. Debates were also good, I got to watch a high quality team from Greenhill, a woman with alot of potential and a cool argument from LeMars, and how can I forget the FOUR CONSECUTIVE DEBATES WHERE I JUDGED ROSEMOUNT LL. It was legitimately hilarious when they selected me to judge them in both rounds 3 and 4, though not nearly as funny as LaZ0r catching a pop tart in his mouth.
--Family: We spent a good amount of time with both our families. We were staying at my dad's, jobviously, and crashed at Katie's parents on Christmas eve and a couple other times. We had coffee and hung with my mom and Deb several times, it was weird to be at the house and see Chewie without Geezer around, but I was happy mom didn't have to worry about covering the couches with sheets quite so much. We saw both of our sisters a couple times, but my bro, of course, was occupied with monkies and the like in Lobpuri. I got to talk to him a couple times, a surprise call on Christmas morning (night for him) and Andy's brilliant decision to call him on the cell phone on New Year's Eve. I haven't gotten the update on how much taht call cost, but it was nice that the gang got to say hello.
--Christmas: I'm not going to go off on the joys of the Holdiay, the spirit of the season encompassed by friends and family, gathered together around the tree, the fire, the presents, the goose, etc. Those things were all true, well not so much the goose, but nonetheless. Even beyond the joys of being with Katie, with our parents, etc. Christmas has two connotations to me: 1) Hippo, who we met for the first time last Christmas eve 2) beef. Thats right: beef. We had four different types of steak over the two days that encompass the holiday. Prime rib, to kick things off at Paula's, where we also watched the NFL schedule on an enormous television and ate alot of some high quality apps. Most notable: shrimp cocktail, puff pastry filled with gruyere and proscuitto, and the greatest appetizer of all time, Bacon Wrapped Water Chestnuts. Dinner also featured the garlicy-delicious potatoes that Paula will always be famous for and a Stilton sauce for the meat, a requested repeat of last winter, that was wonderful. I should note the one negative aspect of Christmas eve, which was that I fell, attempting to stop one of the dogs from burying a drippy beef bone in a white sofa. Of course my attempt to save the sofa resulted in the half glass of wine I was carrying crashing to the floor, but I have been told that all signs have vanished. My leg was also a bit messed up for the remainder of the evening.
We waited just long enough to eat again and had some delightful fondue Kauf-style. The cheese was probably better than it has ever been and wow was there alot of it. The beef was similarly exciting, especially since the crazies can cook it as dark as they want while I still get it perfectly rare. The salad would be exceptional with any other meal, but it still deserves mention, since it features both bacon and eggs on spinach. Yumm. Everybody got presents they enjoyed, there were tasty beverages for all, and I still got to sleep at a reasonable hour. Had an impossible time finding a mass on Christmas morning, which, in case you were wondering, did in fact piss me off. As luck would have it, however, that was the time I got the call from my brother and had a very nice 10 minute convo. We had Christmas lunch, more steak, supplemented by a yummy pork roast, and a batch of Twice Baked Potatoes that were fabulous. Dinner was again in St. Paul, the final excellent piece of beef for the evening. This one was also perfectly cooked and served with a horseradish sauce that I could eat on an old shoe. There was also a potato mushroom gratin that I was too full to appreciate and some green onion cheddar popovers that I am without question going to replicate.
--New Year's: There were a couple of different adjectives we played around with to describe the NYE celebration that occurred to ring in 2006. There was "intimate" "calm" and "buttsex" among others, each was incredily accurate. It was still a hella good time, I drank 4 bottles of Champagne, smoked a cigar, and enjoyed the company of the men and women still in town. There were a number of familiar faces we missed that night, Wilking and Jen (who for some lame reason decided to celbrate in Galena), my bro and Melia (who for some lame reason decided not to fly home from Thailand), and Sanjay (who for some lame reason did not come home at all from Eugene). There are pictures on our Flickr of that occasion as well, sponsored by Andy J. If you were curious as to why so many of those pictures were of Kevin sitting in the corner, the basic answer is this: I was trying to steal his soul, which apparently, cameras can do. I couldn't find the "extract soul" mode, so I just went with "portrait." I think it worked out well.
Hippo wants everyone to know that, despite not having updated in a month, I should not attempt to overdue it. Instead, I should fill up her food dish. I think this is largely a self-serving decision on the behalf of my persian, but nonetheless, I obey.
Peace,
MB-K
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