So I’m ending the annual tradition of reminiscing about Christmas Break a couple days later than last year. Sorry, I didn’t expect 1988/San Diego to be an overwhelming mess I should’ve written up sooner; it’s much like that tumultuous year in my life from start to finish. Recovering from New Year’s Eve burned up most of New Year’s Day too. I barely drank anything, I just stayed up much later than I’m accustomed to in my advanced age. An additional, late morning nap was required after I fed the quartet of ungrateful cats around 7-8 AM; we fed them before turning in around 130 AM hoping to appease them: Felines 1, Primates 0.
Without further ado, here’s the conclusion to the 2008 edition of The Six Days of Christmas. Personally, I’m glad to be done with the year 2008. I think it will go down in history as one of the worst years since 1968 and 1979 which were also plagued with nothing but crappy news.
Besides 2003 being our first Christmas together as a married couple, it was a minor reunion because Somara spent 2002 in Florida with her sister’s family and I had the house, PS2, DVD player and cats to myself. I got the better bargain since the weather was a bust in Florida. As for Break, I probably worked through the Christmas week while Somara visited her parents in Georgetown. I needed New Year’s week off to go to Houston, which I’ll get to later.
After Christmas was the more memorable time. Once I concluded working on the 27th, I was free until January 6th. First was our day trip to Dallas on Monday to see the Flyers. Previous plans for tickets via a friend fell through (not his fault) but I really wanted to go. Somara agreed to tag along so we hauled ass and ended up arriving pretty early; I overestimated what rush hour in Big D would be like. The game ended in a tie (this was the NHL before the changes of 2005) yet I didn’t care. I saw the Philly lineup that was within inches of winning the 2004 Stanley Cup under Hitchcock: LeClair, Primeau, Recchi, Handzus, Esche, Gagne, Desjardins, Amonte and Roenick. Believe me, if they got past the Lightning, this team could’ve easily clobbered the Flames’ clutch-and-grab game for the Cup.
New Year’s Eve was quietly “celebrated” at home with the Adult Swim marathon.
New Year’s Day was much cooler. We packed up and hit the road again for Houston to attend Sonia and Philippe’s wedding. The weather there was gorgeous despite it being overcast. I wish I brought my jams from Vegas so I could swim in the pool. We weren’t completely bored, when we weren’t eating or taking advantage of the Internet access, Somara and I became more acquainted with Hey Arnold on Nickelodeon; I swear it was the only thing on TV besides Attack of the Clones.
On the following day, we went to the (nearby) Houston Galleria to visit Jeremy at his Mac Genius gig. He had time to do lunch and fix the wireless antenna on Somara’s PowerBook G4. We killed the rest of the afternoon walking around, exchanging stories about what the mall was like in the Eighties.
Saturday evening was the big wedding. Sonia was radiant and it was the biggest amalgamation of language I had attended in years: Spanish, French and Polish were the primary conversations. The Giraudet anniversary is tomorrow so I’ll save the details for then.
Sunday afternoon we got together with Jeremy and Tina. We met them at their apartment, attended an Aeros game and had dinner. Things were looking pretty good for them but I know I was hoping they’d come back to Austin for numerous reasons; playing D&D with us was a minor one.
Monday morning we wrapped it up by hunting down both of our old homes on Houston’s southeast side. My recollection of the route was terrible. How we found the Sagemill house from 1983-4 must have been a miracle; now it would be a piece of cake thanks to my iPhone’s GPS! A neighbor, who was taking out his trash, was nice enough to tell me all about what had happened after my family moved away. We didn’t get as close to Somara’s last Houston address. Either the neighborhood had gotten rougher or something, I’ll have to ask her. Somara’s former high school (Dobie) had been gutted and slated for demolishing since the tollway ran over it. I don’t think she was distraught over this. Visiting Clear Creek was put aside for another day since we wanted to get home at a decent hour.
A nice, relaxing Break I should’ve enjoyed more because 2004 morphed into a mess during the second half. How I wish I could forget those few months.
That’s it until next year. Thanks for your patience and I do hope some of you will share favorite holiday memories. I don’t like my site being a complete top-down “conversation.”