I've notived a trend in my recent entries – mostly they fall in the “news from the stupid” or “america is going to hell” categories. I'll try and do better. Therefore, this entry.
Katy and I were in Leics this weekend for Katy's parents' anniversary and Stu's birthday. It was an ok weekend. Friday night was a bit rocky because we gorged ourselves at the pudding club. This was not a good idea. The meal in itself was lovely (I had cod for the first time and discovered that I like olives and artichoke hearts) but the sheer amount of fat and sugar we ate meant that both of us were so wired that we were still up at 4am reading a Kleeneze catalogue. Yes, it was that bad.
We managed to get a few hours of sleep and head to Leics without major issue. We spent a few hours in town gethering the last of our Christmas shopping and then headed to the in-laws. The weekend itself was uneventful. I attempted to teach the Grogans how to play cribbage, but since we didn't have a board, we had to rely on pen and paper to keep track of the pegging. Still, we managed to get two hands in and I think it might catch on when we finally do get a peg board.
We got home around 7pm and had the cat join us as a welcome wagon. He's cute when we wants to be. It's always nice to have him greet us when we come home. What's a tad worrisome though was that he came from across the road and greeted us in the driveway. Not a lot we can do about that – we can only hope he'll be careful about traffic.
I made a quick and dirty homemade tomato soup for a light dinner and that was pretty much the evening. We watched Top Gear and I had a shower while Katy watched a weird comedy/trama thing on the Beeb. I had a bit of trouble falling asleep last night and only ended up going to bed at 1:30am. It's been a bit of a long day…
We seem to have a lot on our minds these days. A lot of it revolves around Christmas. It's been stressful. If it wasn't for the fact that it's been “planned” for a year now and most of it has been paid and is non-refundable, I'd just barricade myself at home with lots of booze and wait for it all to go away. Katy and I have had to organize things from both sides of the ocean with two sets of parental units. My coworkers are pissing themselves from all the stories I keep telling. It can be funny from an external point of view. It can also be putting a large strain on the holidays and take the fun out of it. I'm sure it'll all go well with a minimum of drama. I'm sure we're making a mountain of a molehill.
Right now? I'd just settle for having a quiet weekend with Katy and having nothing to worry about.
WAIT- you mean there are CLUBS over there devoted to pudding? That's amazing :-O
Mmmyeah, family quality time, a lot of stress indeed if you're the one hosting/traveling/organizing, etc. Will your in-laws travel to Canada as well? Or is the stress coming from the fact that you have to divide time evenly between both parental units? I say relax and take it as it comes, you guys are doing your best to make both sets happy.
(http://livejournal.com/users/montreality)
They call it a pudding club but what it boils down to is that once a month, the pub a few doors away from us hosts a special meal. There is a choice of starters and main meals but the portions are smaller and lighter than the normal menu. This is, of course, to leave room for pudding (aka dessert in North Americanese). The new chef they hired a few months ago is a pastry chef and she's damn good. There is generally a choice of between 6 and 8 different puds. You choose small portions of 3 of them for a starter plate and once everybody's gone round once, you can have as many other samplers as you want. It's so good, but every time we go we get so wired from the fat/sugar/caffeine/booze that we generally can't sleep for that night. I think there's a reason it's only once a month :)
The in-laws are travelling with us. The stress comes from having to organize stuff on both sides of the ocean. Katy's parents are scary in the sense that everything needs to be organized, planned and filed away months before it actually needs to happen. Because of this, all the plane tickets, hotel reservations, train tickets between Ottawa and Montreal, events, meals and general activities have already been planned and mostly paid for. Oy vey. Then there was the fun of organizing a gift exchange across 2 timezones where everybody didn't really know what they wanted, let alone what they wanted to get for other people.
But the advice is generally sound :) What are your plans for the holidays?
(http://livejournal.com/users/talisker)
*drools at description of pudding club*
About the meticulous planning, it's stressful now but look at it this way: with the most important details of the trip including sightseeing, etc. already worked out, all you have to do is just enjoy your time and not worry about scrambling at the last minute to plan a visit somewhere or whatever.
My plans are to travel to Beirut in December, like I have been doing every year ever since I first came to Montreal. I haven't booked yet, however. I'm a bit wary because our presidential elections have been pushed to Nov. 21, and we're at our worst crisis since the civil war (I mean in terms of the country divided roughly evenly between pro- and anti-government opinion). I don't know if you're familiar with our [shitty] politics, but the president has to be a Maronite Christian and the Maronite Patriarchy has to give a list of 3-5 names of Maronite candidates that are realistic. And since the Christians themselves are split, we don't have the names yet. It's all so retarded. The point is, if the elections indeed happen (I guess they have to since the current dummy of a president's tenure ends on Nov. 24) then either a vanilla candidate nobody's heard of will be chosen, and everyone is not happy, or someone anti- or pro- gov. is chosen, and the other side will not be happy and shit is started. FUN TIMES!
(http://livejournal.com/users/montreality)
yeah, but the best laid plans will never stand up to the reality of the thing. So it's stressful *and* essentially useless.
Fun times indeed. If you're still around, I'd love to meet up for coffee if the occasion presents itself. Let me know what you're up to closer to the time.
(http://livejournal.com/users/talisker)
Sure thing, and I'd love to meet Katie as well.
I'm thinking of traveling after Christmas Day, the flight tickets may be cheaper and it's not like we celebrate Christmas, so I should still be here when you come :)
(http://livejournal.com/users/montreality)
cool :)
(http://livejournal.com/users/talisker)