December 2016

-December 2 – This was Susan and my18^th anniversary and marks half of our lives being spent in a relationship together.  It’s hard to believe there was a time we weren’t a pair.  Virtually all of the major adult decisions I’ve made in my life have been considered with Susan and our shared future in mind.  While (of course) things haven’t all been peachy there have been so few real negative issues over the many years I would be hard-pressed to make a list (…well, it would be a very short list in any case ;)). 

-December 3 – We slept in and decided to see a movie (Arrival) before heading up to our anniversary dinner at Vesta.  We went to the closest 24 screen theater to our home where we were able to reserve our seats which was nice.  The seats were leather and reclined at the push of a button.  We liked the movie too which was a bonus.  After peeling ourselves off the comfy seats we trekked up to downtown Denver. 

As the Parade of Lights was that night we expected it to be busy but found the streets largely empty and parking readily available.  We were, of course, very early for our reservation so walked around several blocks to burn up time.  We briefly touched on the 16^th Street Mall which was enough for us (there was a guy loudly having a conversation with himself which convinced me).  Eventually we were back at Vesta and were seated in our customary table next to the front window.  I was worried a little about what our experience would be as they have a new chief chef and took the “Dipping Grill” out of their old name “Vesta Dipping Grill”.  I needn’t have concerned myself as the food was at its usual excellent levels of awesome.  They did pare down the number of dipping sauces but there was still plenty available to sufficiently excite our pallets. 

-December 4 – The WRX’s steering had been acting strange so we dropped it off for another alignment before heading up to BOB for a late breakfast.  It was busy busy and we were again seated in the same small table amidst the hustle and bustle.  The food and coffee were great as always and we left satisfied.  We swung over to Costco to buy a few things including beer for our upcoming Black Rhino.  Of course, almost as soon as we got home the alignment place called and said they were done with the WRX so we headed back out to get it.  The steering was still funky so I was to call the place I bought the steering rack from the next week to get their opinion.  Susan whipped up a portabella mushroom thing which she happily ate while I settled on my usual chicken and veggies. 

-December 5 – After work Susan and I eventually made our way to the Gothic Theatre to see Toh Kay.  It’s mostly a one-man act performed by Thomas from the band Streetlight Manifesto.  The show was general admission seating only which was great for us as we got there early enough to find a choice spot to sit (miraculously we were also able to find parking in the venue’s tiny lot too).  It was a more intimate show than we usually go to with the volume not so loud that I felt the need to wear earplugs (normally I do anymore).  The music was great as was the interaction with the audience (he played several requests) and eventually he was joined by a drummer and bass player who played a large upright bass.  The only downside was that the show started at 9:30 so we didn’t get home until after midnight on a Monday night.  Ugh!  Otherwise it was a great night. 

Here's Bella not dealing with the snow very well - https://youtu.be/wSyNp6Qn464

-December 10 – We had our Black Rhino on Saturday evening.  This meant that we were busy all day getting the house cleaned up and food prepared.  For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to go to breakfast at BOB before we got started which, while tasty, increased the time crunch.  When we got home we continuously worked on this and that and finished up just as our first guests were arriving.  I, of course, made way too much food.  In my defense we did tell everyone to come hungry so I was planning on lots of eating going on.  For the main course there was chicken tetrazzini and beefy pasta.  For sides there was salad, meatballs, spinach and artichoke dip, garlic bread, and onion dip and chips.  We picked up chocolate cake and ice cream for dessert and provided enough adult beverages for twice as many people that showed up.  In total 11 souls were in our home (two bailed at the last minute) which was a good amount for the gift exchange though I believe we had at least a couple of week’s worth of food left at the end of the night. 

In attendance were Susan, myself, Alvin, Kari, Todd and Valerie Briley, Tristan, Randy, Ken, Jeff, and Nick D’Antonio.  Everyone ate until bursting and I think the food was largely accepted as decent.  Most of the wrapped presents were in large boxes piled on the couch by the front window in the living room.  Susan painted corks with numbers for us to draw for the order of present-openers and we were off to the present-opening races.  Everyone brought thoughtful gifts and I think the exchange went smashingly.  I tried to goad Susan into stealing the gifts we bought but she wasn’t having it.  The most interesting gift was a miniature cannon Jeff contributed (Tristan got it).  After the exchange we ate dessert and played a new game called Joking Hazard in which two cards with cartoon panels are laid down and everyone uses their cards to add the punch line to the comic strip.  It was similar to Cards Against Humanity and we all had fun.  I think everyone left around 10:30 and we packed up the leftovers and hit the sack ourselves soon after. 

The next day I woke up feeling like I was going to die.  Too much rich food and drink for sure.  After a time I convinced Susan we should get breakfast.  We stopped at Urban Egg which was slammed so went up to BOB which was also busy.  As we called ahead the wait wasn’t too bad and we had an invigorating breakfast.  Since we were both tired from the day before we hung out at home the remainder of the day.  I only got up to help Jeff’s dad hook up our car trailer (he’s borrowing it for a few days to dispose of a Suburban).  Twas a good weekend. 

-December 14 – Susan brought home a foster pug named Pugsly.  Notwithstanding her terribly unimaginative and dumb name this 13 year old little black pug was quite a sweetie.  She was trained to do her business outside and, apparently, many other tricks although we couldn’t get her to do any for us probably due to her almost not having any hearing left (because of this I decided a better name for her would be Paisley and I called her by that name most of the time).  The story was her original owner was moving to Florida and didn’t know if she could survive the trip.  Sure.  I was only ok with us taking her in on the condition that we have her no more than a week before another foster home would take her.  Our other pugs are so used to stranger pugs that they hardly reacted at her arrival in our home. 

The next day I came home to a smelly pug-mess after work.  Tweetie had lost control of her bowels in her kennel sometime during the day and her and Sophie were filthy.  Ugh!  It was too late to take her to the vet so I decided to take the next day off to bring her in.  No problem but I found that Sophie began exhibiting the same symptoms after I got home from the vet with Tweetie.  Since the vet prescribed a lot of pills for Tweetie we simply started giving some to Sophie as well.  Wouldn’t you know it but the pills worked to quell both of their upset tummies. 

On Saturday morning we braved the snowy roads (it snowed around eight inches the night before) and brought Pugsly/Paisley up to Loveland to drop her off at another pug foster home.  Tweetie and Sophie getting sick reinforced my belief we are not in a position to foster pugs at this time and Susan was kind enough to reach out to the rescue and find another foster home for Paisley.  There were cars off the roads all the way up but traffic wasn’t too terrible and we actually made great time.  After meeting at Barnes and Noble to pass off the pugger we caught breakfast on the way back down to Denver at a place called Delectable Egg.  I ordered a green chili skillet and Susan a southwest thing and we enjoyed the food and coffee immensely.  My back muscles were screaming in protest from shoveling snow in the morning and I hobbled between the car and the restaurant.  We also stopped at Costco and Target to get other stuffs before finally heading home. 

The rest of the weekend had us working on a couple of different jigsaw puzzles on the kitchen table while we tried to assuage Sophie’s constant need to be held by Susan (cute but tiring when puzzling).  Besides going out to pick up Domino’s on Sunday we didn’t leave the house again. 

-Christmas weekend – We volunteered to have a holiday meal at our home on Christmas day this year.  To get in the holiday spirit Susan and I painted on Friday night (her two Christmasy trees and me a fallen ornament).

Saturday had Susan and myself cooking and preparing the house for guests.  We did go out and had breakfast at Village Inn in the morning where we found that a lot of people were there buying their pies.  There was a table topped with pie boxes and a separate line at the registers to accommodate.  We had no idea this was a thing.  There was a wait to be seated but once we finally sat, ate, and were coffeed we decided the payoff was worth a few minutes of watching people buy pies.  Of course, we needed a few last minute things for the Christmas meal so we headed over to Wal-Mart.  The parking lot was very full but we were able to acquire what we needed without much fuss and then we headed home to cook.  We premade twice-baked potatoes, parmesan potatoes with caramelized onions, and onion dip.  Susan helped out quite a bit and it was a pleasure having her in the kitchen questioning the recipes and stirring the onions as they caramelized (they took well over an hour to make).  Our kitchen was a big mess and we regretted not documenting the devastation with a picture.  In the evening Susan experimented with melting spearmints in a star-shaped cookie mold.  The critical improvement came when Susan tried not using cooking spray which was leaving a brown stain on the final product (the mold was silicone and the candy didn’t stick regardless of whether cooking spray was used).  The results were pretty neat!  We also painted snowmen (Susan’s came out great and mine was ok). 

On Christmas morning we got up earlish to prep the turkey and start it roasting.  The internet said it would take around four hours to cook our 16 pound turkey but in reality it was finished in around two and a half.  Whoops!  Susan turned the roaster to “warm” for the mean time.  We also prepped stuffing and put out snacks and whatnot.  I called Mom and recorded a little ditty of me singing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer for Stu and Lee (no, I will not be posting it here). 

Around 1:30 had our first guests arriving (John and Karen).  In all we had 11 people in our home - Susan, myself, Karen, John, Kari, Alvin, Marykay, Craig, Emily, Kevyn, and Emily’s son.  The menu ended up being vast.  There was turkey, ham, stuffing, twice-baked potatoes, parmesan potatoes with caramelized onions, two sweet potato dishes, green bean casserole, orange jello, rolls, and a can of cranberry sauce.  We had to pack the oven to fit all the dishes that needed heating up but made due.  It’s times like this I wish our house had a larger kitchen and eating area.  There was room for everyone but just barely.  The food was all tasty and we were collectively stuffed after the meal.  As is tradition a game of Cabo was played while stomachs settled before dessert.  John was clear winner of the few rounds played though it was close (everyone is getting pretty good).  Karen provided a homemade cherry cheese pie and a Marie Calendar chocolate pie and we also had ice cream on hand.  I combined a slice of chocolate pie, ice cream, syrup, and milk and mixed myself a dessert porridge which is my normal thing to do.  We discussed my dessert predilection when I realized that I first began mixing together desserts at a dinner at John and Karen’s home not long after Susan and I started dating.  For some reason I asked for a bowl and Susan’s family got to watch teenage-me mash my cake and ice cream together with some milk.  I’m glad they didn’t judge me too harshly for it.  After dessert half of the guests left while Alvin, John, Karen, and Kari stayed to talk about this and that.  Around 8:00 and the house was back to just Susan, myself, and the pugs.  While it was heck-tick at times Christmas day went great.  We were both off the next day and spent it recovering and eating leftovers. 

-December 31 – Our morning started late and we decided to try getting breakfast at Urban Egg.  The plan was to go to Village Inn if the wait was very long but we were lucky and were seated almost right away.  Our waitress actually remembered us from our one other visit which I found amazing (Susan not so much).  After breakfast we went to Wal-Mart and then Costco to pick up last minute stuff for the evening.  Both stores were very busy but we made good time at each.  Unlike Christmas and the Black Rhino our preparations were relatively simple as the food was mostly premade and the house still clean from the previous weekend.  We agreed this was a good thing and spent much of the day relaxing before people came over around 8:00.  We did utilize the star-shaped silicone molds again, with Jolly Ranchers this time, to make candy stars (they came out great!).  The gathering was originally to be a small one but in the end 11 people made the trip to our home besides Susan and me.  Alvin, Kari, Ken, Randy, Jeff, Tristan, Patryk, Robin, Nick, Melissa, and Chris. 

Earlier in the week I had a spark of inspiration that we should combine Cards Against Humanity with Pictionary and we did to create Cards Against Pictionary.  Oh course, I Googled it and someone else had already thought of it so we piggy-backed on their rules.  Basically the game was Pictionary where we attempted to draw cards from Cards Against Humanity.  We hung up a board on the back of the kitchen closet door to tape large pieces of paper to draw on.  Everyone who showed up was given numbered wine corks so we could split up teams via evens and odds.  There were many pictures drawn that were NSFW and much laughter was had.  Cards Against Pictionary went over quite well and we’ll have to play again in the future. 

Midnight came pretty fast and most of us made it.  As per tradition I popped a champagne cork (which we all signed) and we made a ruckus on our back porch with party favors for the first few minutes of 2017.  Everyone departed soon after and Susan and I only stayed up for a short time longer before cleaning up some and heading to bed.  The next morning was tough as I perhaps imbibed a bit more than necessary the night before.  I took care of the pugs and let Susan sleep in all morning.  We ended up having a wonderful non-productive New Year’s Day and ordered delivery from our local Chinese restaurant for dinner (JP’s). 

2016 may have been a tumultuous year for the world but overall was a wonderful one for Susan and myself.  On to 2017!