Thanksgiving

It’s my Thanksgiving break, so I stayed at home. Karin went to her job. I read all morning. I missed the armed robbery that occurred at IUSB. In the afternoon, I performed some chores and wrote in my dissertation. Ziva and Jasper were glad to have me with them.

In the evening, I watched Grêmio defeat Lanús, 1–0, in the first game of the Copa Libertadores’s final round. It wasn’t a beautiful game. I turned it off after the first half and watched Midsomer Murders with Karin. In that show, there was one especially nice camera shot. It was from the point of view of a murderous shovel.

For tomorrow’s holiday dinner, we’re planning to eat Greek food, not Chinese. Then we’ll go to Karin’s grandpa’s house to play Phase 10 for several hours.

I’m grateful, this Thanksgiving, for my wife and kitties.

Brianna tries sushi

For Mary’s birthday, we went out for sushi. I hadn’t done that in years. Robert, the chef, recognized me and called out from across the restaurant.

“I think you mean David, my brother,” I called back. But no, Robert meant me. I approached him afterward, and he was well aware of the distinction.

Waiting for our food, our group played “Authors,” the card game. I didn’t play (Karin & I arrived late). Instead, whenever someone asked, “Do you have A Tale of Two Cities?” (or whatever), I was like, “Oh yes, I have X copies of that book,” which probably got tiresome after a while.

Karin’s little sister, Brianna, was with us. She tried – but failed – to enjoy the sushi. She did hit it off with the waitress, who joked with her all night.

This morning, Brianna was a visitor in our still-not-tidy apartment. She was extraordinarily caffeinated. She set herself to shelving books. What I hadn’t accomplished in two weeks, Brianna finished in a few hours. As a bonus, she alphabetized my Agatha Christies. I told her to apply for a shelving job at the public library.

Holiday woes

You’d think that, during the holidays, I’d have found time to watch High Hopes. Alas, no. So far, my holidays have been as congested as my job days.

Today was the least taxing day in recent memory. Even so, I kept having to get in and out of the car. Karin & I traveled to:

(a) the doctor, for the removal of Karin’s stitches;

(b) the barber, for my haircut;

(c) Karin’s friends’ new house, for a tour; and

(d) Goodwill, for no good reason.

Yesterday, we drove to Michigan to go to church with Karin’s family members. They never showed up. It turned out, they’d gone to church in Indiana.

We were reunited with them at night. After the meal and the gift-giving, they asked us to stay for a quick game of Phase 10. This game did not end until three hours later. Phase 10 is supposed to be brief, like Uno or Skip-Bo, but last night it was more like Monopoly.

Between each hand of Phase 10, I loaded up a new plateful of crackers, cheese, and Christmas ham, in keeping with the seasonal gluttony. … Karin also has eaten a great deal these last few days. She has shattered her personal record of fatness. Today she began to address this plight. At Goodwill she bought a vinyl record of aerobics music, and, right now, she is marching in place while she watches the TV show My 600-lb Life.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

R.I.P. Carlos Muñoz. It’s the twenty-third anniversary of his death. I never will look much like “El Frentón,” and so today I decided to dress like Julio César Rosero, “El Emperador.”