As the family made Christmas cookies in the kitchen and dining room at Jamie and Chris’ house, I took a few moments to myself with a glass of wine by the fireplace.
J.P.
Holidays.
We are over at Jamie and Chris’ for annual Christmas cookie formulation. Normally this would be a large gathering but that doesn’t happen in 2020. The four of us are still having a lovely time.
Jamie and Chris have the apartment decked out for the season. It’s festive and perpetuating my search for the spirit.
2020 will definitely be one for the history books. I’m happy that we are still able to have joyful moments.
McRib.
I know, I’m one of those basic Americans that gets excited when McDonald’s blesses us with the McRib. They’re not quite the same as I remember years ago; there’s a much stronger “ketchup” taste with the barbecue sauce than I remember in the past, though to be fair, I’ve never had a McRib in Chicagoland before.
My husband and I drove to the burbs in search of a McDonald’s in the rain and hints of snow. It was a good way to kick off the weekend. As per the times, we blessed a drive thru with our presence and then found a parking spot to enjoy our meal. We are pros when it comes to eating in the car. With the weather as it was, I found a place to park so we could see flights into O’Hare descend out of the clouds just a few moments before touchdown.
McRibs and airplane watching, yep that’s a snappy Friday night date in my book.
Weather.
It’s nearly 60ºF on the 10th of December in Chicago, Illinois. I’m out on the balcony in a light jacket. Truman is investigating the Christmas decorations we have strung along the railing. The mood is pleasant, the air is calm, the snow is coming this weekend.
While the usual White Christmas vibe is not happening as of yet, I’m starting to feel the spirit of the holiday season a little bit. I needed to do a few things to kick myself in the mood. Unlike many folks, Christmas and related holidays are not my favorite time of the year but I still find them to be quite pleasant. The trick is to still fit in my clothes when it all calms down come the first of the year. So many goodies.
Despite the absence of winter weather usually found in these parts at this time of the year, and the concerning reasons for this sort of thing, I’m liking the warmish vibe we have going on. I’m also really enjoying the Christmas lights. No LEDs out here; these are good old incandescent lights a la 1978. Finding C9 replacement bulbs in a bit of a trick here in the 21st century, but we’re thankful to find anything on Amazon.
Classy.
One of the reasons I like television shows from the 50s and 60s was to see how folks were portrayed back then. There was a certain amount of class and charm in the characters that we don’t see today. I’d love the opportunity to have a reason to wear a tux again. I haven’t worn one, outside of a wedding, in a few decades. I’ve owned only one tux in my life, and that was a requirement when I was in music school just out of high school.
When the pandemic is over and we’re all going out again, I’m going to take my husband out for an impressive dinner where formal wear is required. I’m saving up for the event. I might even fix up my flat Central New York (Inland North) accent for the occasion.
Uncle Arthur probably won’t be there though. And I can assure you I will not be wearing ruffles.
By the way, in the screen cap from the third season episode of “Bewitched” seen above, standing behind Dick York as Darrin is Melody McCord as a party guest. You’ve seen her plenty of times, but almost only from the back. She was Elizabeth Montgomery’s double, and was often in a black wig playing the backside of cousin Serena, or in her natural hair playing the backside of Samantha when Lizzie was playing Serena.
Trees.
Truman is more attentive to the Christmas trees last year versus his level interest last year. We don’t have all the trees up yet as we’ll be picking out and putting up the real trees this coming weekend. But on several occasions the white Disney tree has been rattling around the dining room courtesy of Truman’s new found interest. Once in a while we’ll find a couple of branches removed from the tree and hanging nearby. There’s a couple of ornaments with bells and they get his attention when he starts rattling things around.
He’s decided that the tree skirt is quite comfortable and is often found napping on it. I’m happy that he’s enjoying the COVID Christmas 2020 as much as we are.
Artificial Horizons.
As a pilot I don’t have much success in flying flight simulators like X-Plane 11 or Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. The software is amazing; today’s technology provides a level of realism at a price we would barely even imagine a dozen years ago. Nevertheless, I’ve found the experience to be less than ideal.
With the pandemic all the rage and me not being able to get up and fly as often as I’d like, I finally decided to invest some money into a decent flight simulator setup and take to the virtual skies. I bought Chris’ old Alienware desktop gaming PC with lots of upgraded components, finally got my hands on a set of USB rudder pedals and a yoke and throttle quadrant and downloaded the dozens of gigs of data from Microsoft to get the software installed.
I’m having fun with the setup.
I’m not a fan of carrying out various functions (deploying flaps, retracting gear, etc) via keyboard commands, so I’m going to add more switches and buttons and baubles to the setup, but for now I’m able to take off from any airport in the world all via computer.
I chose my dad’s old home airport as the runway to depart from on the sim. The data for this private airstrip is a little off, it has the runways listed as 18 and 36, when in reality they are 16 and 34, but otherwise the landmarks and topography and the like are all very accurate. As a certificated private pilot I’ve never flown an airplane out of dad’s airport (I’ve always been along for the ride) but I felt a certain amount of excitement when I flew the sim computer out of the strip for the first time. It made me appreciate the amount of skill my dad and his fellow pilots based at that airport had. With a gravel bed at one end, and trees and power lines at the other, you have to be on your game trying to get in or out of the small field in Upstate New York.
I’m looking forward to giving it another simulated try this weekend.
Christmas, Again, continues.
The filming of “Christmas, Again” in our neighborhood has continued over the past couple of weeks. They’re slated to wrap up production here at this end of this coming week. I hope they leave the decorations up on the houses surrounding the home they’re using as a set.
In the shadows you can see some rented lifts. They have cameras and the like covered in garbage bags for the off hours. Security personnel have been patrolling the area since the cast and crew moved into the neighborhood nearly a month ago. I’m anxious to see the finished product next year!
Water!
I’m very impressed with this water feature at one of the new terminals at LGA LaGuardia Airport in New York.
LaGuardia Terminal B Water Feature | Behind the Scenes from Evoke Collaborative on Vimeo.
