MB and I had a lovely Christmas.
Christmas Eve MB made a yummy pasta dinner with a spicy puttanesca sauce and spicy Italian sausage. Afterward we just bummed around. Watched a few episodes of the Ghosthunters marathon, as well as The Empire Strikes Back and part of Return of the Jedi. Too much TV! MB crashed around one, but I had had Vietnamese coffee in the afternoon so I was up till almost three.
In the morning, we called my parents. My mom liked the Snuggie though it’s a bit big for her, and sounded happy and not worried for once. My dad thanked us once again for the wine, then kept MB on the phone for quite a while, just chatting, which makes me laugh because he’s not usually a big talker.
I was also delighted to find out that my father is reading my copy of The Secret History. I was surprised since he doesn’t usually read contemporary literature. Such a good book! He said at first it was boring, but now he’s very interested in unraveling the mystery.
In the afternoon MB and I saw Sherlock Holmes at the Sundance Kabuki theater. It was packed! I guess the movies is the place to be on Christmas Day. The movie was fun but not amazing, not like Avatar. Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law were great, as were the sets, but I didn’t find the storyline too exciting.
My popcorn was delicious though. Splurge!
For dinner MB cooked up a couple of cornish game hens. They were smoked but he also bisected them and fried them in peanut oil. As well there was wild rice and shitaake mushroom stuffing and a lovely arugula and tomato salad.
Everything was yummy. Those little hens have a lot of meat on them. I was only able to eat half of one.
Later in the evening, we wanted some dessert. We expected to find nothing open, but quite a few restaurants were, surprisingly. We stopped at the Vietnamese place near us – where we get our evil and delicious cafe filtre – and MB got fried banana a la mode. By then I decided to be healthy and just had some yogurt instead.
Today most places are open again. I worked out – yay! – then we had lunch at Mel’s, this kind of cheesy, ’50s style diner on Van Ness. The food was decent though. I had pancakes, a fried egg, AND bacon – oink! Now we’re back at one of our favorite cafes, Wicked Grounds.
I applied for a job this morning. This art school is looking for a marketing writer. The idea of doing marketing again isn’t ideal, but it’s writing copy as opposed to developing bullshit strategy. I’m also going to apply for a temporary librarian job at SFPL. That may be a better fit for me: it’s no more than twenty hours of week, and I’d be filling in at whatever branch needs a substitute.
Today I need to:
Revise Corporate Celebrations article – For my freelancing gig. After several years of scheduling a variety of celebrations at my old company, I have plenty of material.
Revise “The Beautiful Girls” – For The Nervous Breakdown. It’s about my junior high/early high school years, and the friends I had then.
Revise/submit “Buzzed: My Love Affair with Coffee in Nine Parts” – For another publication.
Getting to work!
How did he smoke the hens? Or were they pre-smoked?
Next time you go to Mel’s you have to try the fried rueben balls. Not sure if the Van Ness one has those, the one that used to be in SOMA had them. Also, the chicken fried chicken is yummy.
Merry Christmas!
they were pre-smoked.
thanks for the recommendations for mel’s! i’m sure we’ll go there again.
Wa-hey, I love reading Christmas eating roundups! That stuffing looks marvelous (I didn’t really grow up with stuffing so I’m still learning). Merry Christmas (belated) and Happy New Year!