In a situation that feels eerily similar to the tyranny that TiVo used to exert over me–when I was unwilling to give the thumbs down to its suggested programs that I didn’t actually hate but didn’t really want to watch–I think Amazon.com has intimacy and control issues. Specifically, the Gold Box (also known as “Thom’s […]
Here’s what I received for Christmas this year (in no particular order): From a co-worker, a boxed set of four pairs of beautiful hand-crafted chopsticks and rests from Pier 1. From another colleague, a very attractive red tin (with an almost enamelized appearance) of delicious French “cr
Among the other precious, more positive moments of the last few days while I was visiting my family: Waking up Christmas morning to discover a dusting of snow on the ground and having flurries off and on throughout the day, despite an earlier forecast for rain, giving us a semi-white Christmas. Walking out on to […]
On Christmas Day, 28 members of the extended family decided to go in together (at $5/couple) and have someone drive to West Virginia to buy lottery tickets for the big Powerball jackpot; someone said that if we won each couple would get about $8 million pre-tax. I’d already spent a fair chunk of my half […]
Christmas Eve continued to be relatively peaceful and uneventful. The traditional family get-together at my sister’s was surprisingly drama-free and a genuine treat. Afterwards, my oldest nephew–he turns 18 in three weeks–and I stayed up talking until the wee hours of the morning, which was somewhat evocative of the times I would come in when […]
Yes, I’ve been a bad boy and haven’t posted much lately; it’s been an extremely hectic couple of weeks, with a fair number of evenings away (for example, we saw the extended versions of Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers at the Uptown before seeing The Return of the King Monday night at […]
Some years ago, I became involved with a straight married man. After the relationship ended, though, and our paths no longer regularly crossed, I never heard from him again, despite my attempts to contact him and even though he had claimed even after we stopped “dating” that he would never be the one to let […]
As long as I’m ranting about the contents of today’s mail, let me also note that I’m not surprised that cable rates seem exorbitant (disclaimer: I subscribe to DirecTV rather than cable), as apparently the cable companies need all your money for their direct mail campaign. Today alone I received two separate (and different in […]
Just got home from work, and found in today’s mail The Citizen, Arlington County’s official quarterly publication. This one is labeled “Fall 2003” and includes a calendar of “Events Just Around the Corner,” the first page of which runs from the Lonesome River Band’s performance on Saturday, November 22 to the Metropolitan Chorus’s “A Season […]
Over at Pixie with a Crash Helmet today, Cornelia asks “What was the best thing your parents ever did for you during Christmas?” This dovetails with a conversation I had earlier today with a colleague about family idiosyncrasies vis a vis Christmas gifts. In that conversation, though, we were discussing some of the less positive […]