Spending Our Time Off

Well, the holiday was certain to end. I’m not too bummed about going back to work; I have Thursday and Friday off and we got outside today, finally! We had a great time at Greg and Emily’s on Christmas. They cooked steak, baked potatoes, and a delicious zucchini/mushroom/squash mixture. We drank beer, ate, played a long game of Risk, and got to know some new friends: Todd, Katie, and baby Henry. Pete, Kelli, and Marin couldn’t come because Kelli wound up back in the hospital—but she’s much better now and Marin was a true champion, taking to the necessary bottles of donor breast milk right away. We were all scared for them, but our prayers for renewed health were answered.

On Friday and Saturday Dave and I bummed around most of the day, sleeping in, hanging out at the coffee shop, and seeing friends. We’re hosting an Indian dinner for eight in January—it was our contribution to the Rainbow Child Care silent auction. We wanted to try out our meal choice in advance, so Ben and Elijah came over on Friday evening to act as our guinea pigs.

We had a tub of molasses cookies left over from Christmas day, so it was a good idea to invite Ben over. He seems to exist on sweets and coffee, and he helped us put a dent in the cookies. The guys played FIFA soccer on the Playstation while I worked on dinner.

Dave ground spices and Elijah helped with the chapati, so I wasn’t completely on my own. I made chunky almond poppy seed potatoes, which were complicated by having to fry the potatoes first and then bake them with the dressing.

We decided that it would’ve been tastier to cut them up instead of cooking them whole and that it wasn’t necessary to fry them. I think I’ll probably make potatoes and peas for the official dinner, or something with spinach. More colorful and a bit nicer to look at—the other dish is delicious, but looks like potatoes floating in grease. We drove Ben back to Denver and saw his new place complete with furniture. We should really try to get down there more often! Christina was in Florida visiting her family, so we didn’t see her, but we miss dropping in on them at random like we could when they lived in Boulder. Christina seems to be enjoying her “real” job teaching at a Montessori school in Denver, so that’s a good thing.

Saturday I made some more noodles to bring to Jehanne’s fiftieth birthday party. It was a terrific party—I’d been looking forward to meeting her family and some of her other friends. They turned out to be smart and friendly, every last one. Although I miss my own family a lot, meeting hers around the holiday made me feel a little less lonely. Jehanne and I have been friends for five or six years, so I know some of the stories and it was great to put faces to names. Sisters-in-law Sue and Ann did a terrific job organizing and it was fun to see Jehanne enjoying entertaining the people she cares about. Alden and Tom were there—Alden is a friend of mine from Rowman & Littlefield, like Jehanne, and her twins are already three! Their energy and constant “why”s were a real pleasure, since I remember them as tiny babies. When we got home from the party, we pulled together our climbing gear, determined to finally get out for a trip on our last day of vacation.