I had Christmas “dinner” today at my mother-in-law’s retirement center at 11:00 o’clock this morning.  The choices were filet mignon and duck l’orange, and I got the duck. It was delicious.  This is definitely an upper-middle class place, as you could probably tell from the menu.  Oh, and we started with a shrimp and crabmeat salad.  This definitely wasn’t Meals on Wheels.

This was the third “Christmas” event I’ve been to already this year, and we’ve got three or four more to go to before December 25th.  We’re going to have three more at our house, and, frankly, it’s getting to be too much.  I understand the impulse to entertain at Christmas, but enough is enough.  I only have one red dress shirt, and I’m about to wear it out.  I mean, how many times can you wear and wash a shirt in a month?

ED

I have nothing ironic to report today.  I delivered Meals on Wheels, as usual, and everybody on my route was fine. I had lunch with two friends, and they were okay, too.  This was a pretty ordinary day.

ED

I found out this morning that one of my Meals on Wheels clients died last Friday.  He was 93, and, apparently, his death was about as easy and peaceful as death can be.  He just kind of slipped away into eternity.

This man was something else.  He’d always be waiting for me in his back yard, and I’d pull up to his gate.  His house is on a corner lot on a busy street, so I’d pull up to the gate on his side yard.  He was always outside working on his truck, cutting grass, or doing something.  He seemed to always have his work gloves on, which came in handy when I handed him the hot meals for him and his wife.  The last five or six weeks one of his sons got the meals for his parents, so something must have been going on.

The man was a brick mason all his life, and at age 90 he built himself a brick mailbox that is truly something to be proud of.  And he was.  He was always cheerful and always ready with a smile or a laugh, and, over the six years that I’ve been delivering meals to him, I really got to like him.  We’d tease each other the way men do, and we’d both laugh.  I didn’t know him all that well, but I liked what I knew.  I didn’t have a meal for his wife today because their children are taking care of her.  I looked in the paper today for an obituary, but there wasn’t one.  Maybe there will be one tomorrow.

Good bye, my friend.  You enriched my life and inspired me by knowing you.  I pray that you’re reaping your reward in heaven, but I pretty much know you are.

ED

This morning, while I was at church praying for my family, one of my daughters was on the phone with her mother saying I have to take down those awful pictures of Liza that I posted last night.  She told her mother it was an emergency and that Liza looks fat in one of them.  I went back to the 30 or so pictures I took of Liza yesterday, and I found these.

Liza isn’t fat, and my sister said today that she has beautiful hair.  I had never really noticed Liza’s hair, but I guess it is pretty nice.  I love this last picture because I think it communicates her awe and wonder at the world, but it also kind of gives away her impish personality.  Listen to me.  It’s a snapshot, and I’m writing criticism like it was a work of art.  I tell you, it’s the English major in me.

ED                            

We tried to get an appointment with the professional photographer we’ve used several times in the past, but it just didn’t work out.  Beth and I knew that we had to take Christmas pictures of Liza today so we could send them to her other grandmother and to relatives is various places, so I took the pictures again this year.  Taking posed pictures of a four year old isn’t easy, and we spent a good hour on this project.  Liza dressed up in her Christmas dress, and here are a couple of the results.  I looked all over for the tripod I got for Christmas last year, but I couldn’t find it.  So, these are pictures from a slow hand-held camera.  Anyway, here are the pictures.

It used to be easy to upload pictures to Xanga, but it isn’t anymore.  I don’t know what happened.  Anyway, these are two pictures of Liza in her Christmas dress.

ED

I went to a holiday breakfast this morning at Meals on Wheels headquarters for all the volunteers associated with the Council on Aging.  There were probably 75 people there, but there were only a handful of MOW volunteers.  I ate at their table, and there were some very interesting people.  We had a Board meeting right after that, which is the only reason I got up early enough to go to the breakfast.  They gave each of us a live poinsettia and a bag filled with stocking-stuffer things.  I thought that was pretty nice.

On a totally unrelated topic, Catherine called us tonight to see if we had a large coffee maker that she could borrow for a catering they have tomorrow.  We don’t have one, but I thought I remembered that one of Catherine’s godmothers had one.  I called her on my cell while we were talking to Catherine, and it turns out she has two of those things.  I put my cell phone on speaker, and we had a very nice conversation to work that all out.  This is reason number 1,276 why Catherine and Mike were smart to move back here after Liza was born.  Their ”bench” is so deep as to be almost incomprehensible.  They have a thriving business that they built with help from their vast extended family, and Liza has grandparents, a great-grandparent, and lots of aunts and uncles who all think she hung the moon.  This little girl is going to have an AWESOME Christmas, and the adults are going to have an awesome time with her.  Christmas night her “cousins” are going to be here, and those kids are going to have a fantastic time playing.  They always do.

I really do have a great life, and I think the rest of my family does, too.

ED

A lot of things happened today that had an element of irony, so I think I’m going to take them in chronological order.

1. I got up this morning and had a couple of glasses of water.  I tend to sleep with my mouth open because of nasal congestion (I know; TMI), so I always drink water first thing in the morning.  Then I went downstairs and got a couple of cups of coffee.  Then I brushed my teeth.  Then I almost threw up.  The water from the tap in my bathroom was SALT water, saltier than the Gulf of Mexico, even.  We have a Culligan water filtration system, but evidently it was malfunctioning.  I didn’t shave this morning (imagine shaving your face with salt water!).  This being Thursday, our housekeeper was here.  Beth was long gone, so I left to go buy lunch for some friends and take it to them.  I left the garage door open for the Culligan Man.
2. I left my friends’ house around one o’clock headed home.  About 1:10 I got a call from the Council on Aging.  “Are you teaching the computer class this afternoon?”  Oh, my!  I had completely forgotten about that.  I felt so stupid.  I immediately turned my car around in some family’s circular driveway (thanks, guys) and headed back to the Council on Aging.  When I got there, the activity center/computer lab was locked, and nobody was waiting for me.  They had evidently gone home, as I would have.  I mean, they were standing outside, and it was cold.  Again I felt like a complete fool.  Students miss classes, NOT teachers.  I called all three ladies in the class, and I was able to leave messages for two of them.  I’ll call the third lady again tomorrow.
3. Culligan fixed the problem with our water this afternoon.  I made the mistake of asking the repair guy what was wrong, and he told me all the technical details.  The only word I knew that he said was “piston,” and I didn’t really know what that meant in that context.  I was standing outside in a short sleeve tee shirt at the time, and I was freezing.  Not really freezing, but “Florida freezing,” which means it was about 53 degrees F.
4. A couple of weeks ago I wrote about a complaint I lodged with the Red Lobster Corporation about my wife and her mother having trouble with their salt and pepper grinders.  Beth was in a cast on her left hand at the time, and her mother, at 91, is fairly weak.  I said they needed “handicapped” saltshakers.  Well, today I got a letter from Red Lobster apologizing for any inconvenience their experience might have caused.  It said in the letter that they had instructed their stores, when they first put in the salt and pepper grinders, to have on hand traditional salt and pepper shakers for those who requested them.  Well, the store Beth and Jane went to didn’t have them.  They said they would work with that store to correct the problem.  It was a real nice letter, and they sent us $25 worth of gift certificates.  This sounds to me like a happy ending to an unfortunate failure to anticipate the needs of all their guests.

That’s it for today.

ED

Tonight we went to the Holiday Party for the Council on Aging.  All of the Board Members and staff got door prizes, and I chose a box of Belgium chocolate.  Beth told me not to open it because she intends to re-gift that stuff.  I had a momentary flash of rebellion and wanted to open it on the spot, but I quickly relented.  She actually told me to open if I wanted to, but the look in her eye told me I really didn’t want me to.

Liza’s Kitchen catered the event tonight, and they served Caribbean pork roast, baked chicken breast with glazed onions, roasted red potatoes, carrots in butter sauce, and fried green tomatoes.  They also had a salad.  The desserts were ugly but tasty.  Liza’s Kitchen didn’t provide the desserrts.

This is the third or fourth time Liza’s Kitchen has catered an event for the Council on Aging, and every time they do that my heart swells with pride over what my daughter, and her husband, have accomplished.  They fed 95 people a fantastic meal tonight.  They gave the Council on Aging a special price because of me, but they made a profit tonight. And you can’t get much better than that.

ED

During the Christmas Parade Saturday night, Liza needed to use the potty.  He told her grandmother of her need, so Grandma took her to the potty at the back of the store we were in.  Once Liza was situated, she said, “Grandma, would you mind stepping out.  I need my privacy.”

Liza’s four years old, and she wants privacy.  I think it’s hilarious that she even knows that word.

ED

I just heard a report on our local news that there’s an outbreak of TB at one of our local high schools.  I thought that was a disease we had conquered decades ago, but apparently not.  I think TB is eminently treatable, but still.  Who gets TB these days?  Ironically, that particular high school has only a handful of minority students (who would be the usual suspect for something like that), most of whom were recruited under the “freedom of choice” policy to play football.  It’s a very middle, to upper-middle-class institution, and it’s the last place I would expect to find tuberculosis.  Who knew?

ED