The Annual Post-Holiday Update

Prepare yourselves, folks. This could be a long one, but I will do my best to abbreviate it.

The Boy, The Beast, and I all headed north on the Friday before Christmas. We stayed with my parents in NY until Christmas day. While in NY, we chilled with the 'rents, visited with the family, and stocked up on good NY beer from Wegmans and Ithaca Beer. We also totally bought out the Lindt chocolate section of the grocery store. They had a wicked amazing sale!

After a loud and chaotic Christmas Eve and a tranquil and calming midnight mass at Immaculate Conception, The Boy, The Beast, and I went home to rest up for the short trip to Boston. We awoke on Christmas morning to open gifts with my mom and dad (Hoooray for a new microwave!!! No more sweet potatoes on fire for me!), and then packed the car to head east.

We arrived in Boston around 4pm, and The Boy's Momma had prepared us the traditional Italian dinner. And by traditional I mean A BOATLOAD OF FOOD! She repeatedly apologized for not having any appetizers ready, but she knew we would be hungry when we arrived so she went straight for the main courses. Yes, I said courses. The first course was cavatellis and chicken and sausage and other varieties of meat. The second course was two whole baked chickens and some roasted potatoes. The third course was antipasto. The final course was a spread of pastries and desserts that would give any reasonable human being a cavity just looking at it. Of course, me being me, I enjoyed the final course more than the rest! The amount of food was unbelievable. My mom laughs when The Boy talks about how his family cooks. I don't think she believes it. I should have taken pictures of it all. It was ridiculous.

The following day, we drove up to Gloucester. The Beast got to run free on the beach (despite it being friggin' cold) and enjoy the waves and the sunshine. She ran around with her dad and the other dogs (who were all very interested in her delicate parts) and really enjoyed herself. She is normally afraid of the waves, so I was really proud of her when she started chasing them and playing in them. Of course, I got no pictures of this. Perhaps when we return in the summer ... After we left Gloucester, we got some food from Kowloons (75$ worth of Chinese food for 4 people?!?!) and went home to eat. The Boy's auntie came over for tea and dessert, and then we all chilled out and watched Planet Earth on the new plasma flat screen.

(For those of you who are unaware, Planet Earth is my new obsession. It is a BBC production of hour long episodes detailing different aspects of, well, Planet Earth. The camera work is AMAZING and it reveals such fascinating and private aspects of animals and ecosystems from such places as caves, the poles, the oceans ... everything. It's a six disk set and each disk has 2-3 different episode. The best part is the ten minute "Diary" segment at the end of each episode. It highlights some of the troubles that the crew had to go through to get particularly difficult shots. They are hysterically funny because all these Brits are bitching about having to stand in bat guano for a month of pulling heavy ass sleds through the arctic. GREAT FUN! Needless to say, we bought a copy upon out return to the 'boro, and we are almost all the way through the series!)

We drove back to North Carolina on Friday (all thirteen hours of bliss) and unpacked the 3 cases of beer and two cases of miscellaneous booze from the car. Oh, and the rest of our luggage as well. We promptly got Thai food and then crashed. It was so good to relax and sleep in my own bed.

Saturday consisted of working at AT and then driving to Durham to hang out with our pals. Turns out, they are pregnant! Just two weeks ago, she told me that they had decided to quit trying and begin the adoption process. (This is the same family who lost their baby that I wrote about some many months ago.) It was a mix of excitement and trepidation, but they seem pleased.

We celebrated New Year's the Irish way last night with a 7pm toast at McCoul's. Because we are old people, we wanted to be home before it was too late. We were actually in bed by 10:45pm. All of our travelling had finally caught up with us. My last request to The Boy was to let me sleep in until my body told me to wake up. He did, and it was wonderful (although, I woke up a few times in the middle of the night because I had nightmares of leopards attacking and eating The Beast ... damn that Planet Earth!)

As of now, I am studying for my comps (or, I was until I decided to blog) and The Boy if doing laundry and cooking. Life seems to be back to normal. I am happy about that.

Happy New Year, everyone!