Merry Christ(***BLAT***)mas

A stomach bug for an entire family does not make for a Norman Rockwell-type Christmas. My 8-year-old declared it the "worst Christmas ever!". But then, she's only had 7 that were better. So, the optimist that I am, I delcared it a top-10 Christmas! Right?

Least she got a shitload of loot! I got an e-reader. Its sooooo cool.

Long Weekend

Long weekends are always cool, of course. But they're even cooler when your birthday falls on the holiday allegedly being celebrated. Yup. My birthday fell on Labor Day this year.

What a great weekend.

Friday night the entire family went to see Avatar. We've seen it on DVD but not in the theater with the entire 3-D experience. Its truly a stunning movievisually, even if the plot is basically the Pocahantis story. I must have become desensitized to violence, thought, until I watch it next to my seven-year-old. But then, she said "cooooooooool!" a few times during some mayhem and let out a "guess that guy won't be using that head again" during a fight seen. I suppose she's unaffected by it all at this point. Is that bad?

Its also funny when people come by picking out their seats and notice an infant. You can hear the whispers and watch them slink away to another part of the theater. They just don't know how awesome he is. He stared that the lights for an hour or so then drifted off to sleep the rest of the time. Not a peep from him.

I golfed the next morning and played awesome if I do say so myself. Best round of the year. Just in time to tune it up for my annual Cape Cod trip/tournament.

Then Saturday night we took in some chilly minor league baseball courtesy of some tickets we won at a fundraiser. We had a blast and ate all kinds of bad food. Our team even won for a change. Plus their were fireworks afterwards. Our little boy took it all in. Easy peesey night!

I golfed the next morning and played less than awesome, but still played ok.

When I arrive home, my little girl was away with her aunt for the night so Mrs. Nouveau took me out to a nice seafood dinner. We both dressed up a bit and had a nice, but not great, meal. What struck me that night is how little people care what they look like! I understand wanting to be comfortable but flip-flops, cargo shorts and a white tee shirt for a Saturday night dinner? Put a little effort in please? Its not Macdonal's. Are we all that lazy that we can't put on a button-up shirt and some khakis? Perhaps I'm becoming a curmudgeon. My little boy was awesome again! Not a peep except for some smiles when patrons stopped by to say how wonderful he is.

I golfed the next morning. Actually played 27 that day, since it was my birthday blayed way less than awesome! Too much of a good thing I suppose.

And that night, after my little girl came back, my in-laws wanted to take me out to dinner. Since it was the holiday many restaurants were closed but we ended up going to a family place up their way. Originally we were just going for pizza, but all ended up getting meals. A decent chicken parmagian was my choice. The portion was huge!

Guess what? My little boy was awesome again! As we were leaving I could hear people in booths nearby commenting how they didn't even know there was a baby in the place. By the way, our little girl is pretty awesome when out too just to be fair. But she sure wasn't this easy when she was nearly 4 months old.

Oh and my birthday score? Some quite expensive golf spikes from the Mrs., a UCONN tee shirt and hat from my daughter and a gift card to Home Depot from my in-laws.

A great birthday weekend!

Christmas Tale II

I did a bad thing. Perhaps more accurately, we did a bad thing. My younger brothers and I, that is.

My mother is and always has been really gung-ho about all things Christmas. She loved to decorate and plan and host Christmas Eve parties and spent extravagantly on presents for all six of us.

Pursuant to her being so fired up for Christmas, she would frequently do much of her shopping early even going so far as to wrapping the presents and have them under the tree by Thanksgiving weekend.

One year, I got the bright idea that if we carefully snipped the the tape at the end of the box gifts we could see what we got. Soon, it evolved into actually taking the toy out of the box and playing with it. Sometimes for weeks. I would then return it to the box shortly before Christmas.

We owned an Intellivision gaming system. This was the state of the art computer gaming system at the time and all my Atari friends were rather jealous.


Naturally, many of our "group" gifts were games for the system and said games came in a very distinguishable box that was obvious as to its contents even when wrapped.

So one Black Friday I slit the tape, slid out the box and found Pitfall! Yes!!

Pitfall represented The Game that we wanted that year. As excited as if we got a an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle with a Compass in the Stock (ref), I opened the box, grabbed the cartridge and slid the empty box back in its packaging. We had that the cartridge in the system in a matter of minutes and played for hours on end, day after day.

Soon we were expertly navigating rope swings over crocodile pits, ladders into sub-terranean passageways and stinging scorpions. In fact, we played so much on our ill-gotten game that we even began to grow bored with it.

Flash forward to Christmas Eve and I expertly slid the cartridge back into its box packaging and placed box back in the undisturbed Christmas wrapping with a fresh pad of tape.

The next morning we opened our gift, feigned surprise and pretended to eagerly await its play. As my youngest brother easily moved through level after level without so much as losing one guy, my mother remarked, "Its amazing to me how quickly you guys get the hang of these games."

If she only knew.