J.P.

At Bonefish Grill.

Originally uploaded by DJSuperCub.

Earl and I joined my sister and mother last night for dinner. We went to a newer chain establishment outside of Syracuse called Bonefish Grill. It was our first time there and I found it to be somewhat akin to a PF Chang’s of the seafood set. The food was wonderful and we had an absolutely delightful time. I was going to go easy on the food and drink since I had my annual physical scheduled for this morning, but then I decided that if the doctor questioned why my cholesterol was high or whatever this morning, I would have just put my arms out and said “take me as I am.” Earl likes to call it the “Tango J.P.” So we had a full course meal, complete with beer on the side.

With the maddening rush of the holidays, it’s nice to be able to just calm down and spend some quality time with friends and relatives instead of just dazzling them with gifts. I feel as some other bloggers I read do, if I’m in the mood to give a gift, I’ll give a gift, regardless of the occasion. I find the kinship with others to be more important than exchanging a trinket or two.

We’re not going to get to see everyone we’d like to see this holiday season. This makes me sad. Unfortunately there’s just not enough hours in the day to accomplish all that we want or need to do. But I am looking forward to seeing family members and friends, enjoying some conversation and just hanging out during the holidays.

Even if we have to extend the season until January 14th or something.

Where’s The Birdie.

Originally uploaded by DJSuperCub.

Tom decided he needed a closer look as to what was going on today.

Then I took a look at Homer’s World and saw that he had a cat picture up on his blog today too. I guess great minds think alike.

Earl and I finally got around to putting up the Christmas lights outside. Even though the we’ve had warm weather on and off for the past couple of weeks (aside from the snow and cold weather last week), we decided to wait on putting up the lights until it was below freezing and it was completely dark outside. It adds to the merriment of the gesture by making it a really big challenge for all involved.

We’ve lived in this house for three years and have basically followed the same template when putting up the lights around the porch. For some reason we couldn’t figure out how we got the lights mounted around the front door. So we said the heck with that and tried something new. After getting all the lights installed securely, we found several bulbs were blown and needed replacing. Since it was a Sunday evening, we headed to Wal*Mart (Always White Trash, Always) to see if they had replacement lights. We wandered through the “Trim A Tree” section where there were no trees and no lights to be found. After being reprimanded by a surly Wal*Mart “team member” (Always Bitchy, Always) that the Christmas Trees, Lights and Decorations are not in Trim-A-Tree but rather in “Live Plants”, I abandoned the cart and made a call to K-mart to see how late they were open. Turns out The Savings Place is open until 11 p.m., time to head across town. I think we can all safely assume that my blood alcohol content level was entirely too low to spend any more time in Wal*Mart (Always A Mistake, Always).

I love K-mart, especially our local store. They’ve done little to update the interior, aside from replacing the cash registers every few years. It’s like taking a step back in time. It’s the same size as every other K-mart in the world but it still has it’s “Big K” sign on the outside. I was delighted to see that despite that “Big K” thing, some ads posted had a “Kmart” logo on them reminicent of the old days, except it was all red. I don’t know why marketing folks have something against turquoise, I find a red “K” with a turquoise “mart” quite inviting. K-mart should stop trying to be everyone else and start being themselves. They should take a cue from Kmart Australia and implement that logo.

We found what we needed, checked out via a friendly cashier and headed home without spiking the blood pressure too high. K-mart is The Savings Place.

December Walk.

Originally uploaded by DJSuperCub.

Today turned out to be such a lovely day that Earl and I decided we needed to get a little fresh air. We started the day by putting up the “little” Christmas tree, our white tree with green ornaments that we put in the front room. Afterwards, while in a somewhat festive mood, we both felt a little heavy after having a waffle and bacon for breakfast, so we decided to take advantage of the sunshine and go for a walk.

We ended up walking about four miles along the historic Erie Canal, which is not far from our home.

We encountered a couple of cyclists, a jogger and several hunters, some of which were on their ATVs. Everyone was friendly and luckily we were not shot.

After the walk I had a few work-related chores to tend to. Tonight we’re going to put up the “big” Christmas tree in the great room.

I think the walk did wonders for our well-being. We need to get sunlight more often.