Sunday, December 25, 2011

Christmas meal for four humans and a dog

H has the turkey in the oven, stuffed with sausage and cornbread stuffing. I have my stuffed mushrooms ready to go into the oven later for a first course:
oh those or-durvies, ain't they neat; little piece a'cheese and a little piece a'meat
as we used to sing at Thanksgiving after too many Ramos gin fizzes. At any rate, I have a selection of two, crab-stuffed and a nut mixture stuffed (walnuts, pecans, macadamias, shallots), 19 mushrooms for four folks, should be enough. They are large mushrooms.

I don't know why I'm in a holiday mood. I usually am down on Christmas (it reminds me of how un-Christian many Christians are the rest of the year), although I used to like the bar scene on big holidays, everybody was buying everybody else drinks, lots of sentimental histrionics, felt like being in a Cheever short story. Maybe I appreciate the holidays because I have so few left.

Got a phone call from L. in L.A. She often calls on a holiday. But with the cheer was bad news, her cousin and son of my long-time friends down there, got arrested late last night and may have relapsed. He's a film editor with an on again, off again, drug problem. I knew him when he was a kid. At about 8 he got a kid's typewriter for Xmas because he wanted to write books. He's also gay, which the traditional family had to come to accept, which they finally did in flying colors. He's a great guy and I hope he actually didn't relapse and there's another reason he got arrested (someone was with him in his car). L. is worried, though, because he's been "out of sight" lately and disappearance from the family often means bad news. And the family traditionally hosts the large extended family Christmas dinner -- so it's a bad time for something like this to happen. He'll miss dinner because he's in jail.

I went to Starbucks for an iced coffee and it was a zoo. I was 18th in line! After a few slots forward, a barrista recognized me, mouthed "same?" to me and I nodded, he made my drink and opened a new register, gesturing me forward. I was in and out of there like a, well, like a regular. Merry Christmas.

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