Another Christmas

I bet your holiday didn't start the same way mine did. Of course every day really starts with sequential bathroom stops: first mine, then the dog's. Other than a couple brief commands to the dog, I usually don't say anything on the way to getting those done, even with noting that Steve was already up and in the living room, witnessing lights on in the living room as I breezed through the kitchen to the door.

My first words as I came back in were. "Merry Christmas! It's raining!" followed shortly with "But just a sprinkle, not enough to keep her from going out." Because that's been such a problem. Well, not in frequency, as it's only rained once before since we got her, but she refused to go out for hours that day. This time she popped out, and in half a minute back in again, just enough time to be sure she used it well. The rain was actually a gentle sprinkle, just enough to say it had, and then gone again. Still, good news.

It was a quiet day. I kept busy with yard work, a combination - over short periods scattered through the day - of raking rocks and cutting up pruned branches to be hauled away in the garbage. Other than that, mostly I was working with our new Hopper 3. For those unacquainted, this means we switched from Direct TV to Dish Network. We switch periodically, depending on prices and contracts, and both satellite dishes remain on our roof. Each switch is a learning curve, as fingers have habits not necessarily helpful on a different remote, and occasionally things change. 

Setting timers on programs we wish to keep watching on a regular basis is a particular challenge right now since it has to be done off the "guide" which shows the upcoming schedule for everything for the next 9 or 10 days, but very little is being shown of regular shows, at usual times if at all, and not even always with the same titles. I was smart enough to write down all our timers from Direct before the switch, and I'm checking them off as we finally locate something to set a timer on, but there's still a lot to go.Then there were the new shows we found to set timers on as well, so the number of set timers is just as long as the old, with more to go. I do like the set-up on Dish where we can designate which shows go into which person's folder, when it's something the other doesn't care to watch. Steve's folder will be filling up with "Chopped" and "Lone Star Law" while mine will accumulate "Stephanie Miller" and some choices off PBS for example. Shows we both like will be watched together when we can find mutual time for it.

There are still glitches. In trying to solve one, getting the voice command function to work without telling us we are not subscribed to a channel that everybody knows perfectly we are subscribed to, the tech support guy disconnected ("unpaired") one of our two remotes. Steve got it back, but now mine won't control volume. So I still have to know what he did with his the last time he used it.

Decorations were unique this year. We do not do outside lights, though we enjoy others' displays. However, I do love the wreath on the front door, all multicolored large sleigh bells. And no, it doesn't make noise when we use the door, just when it gets put up and taken down. Still... sleigh bells.

There is no tree this year. Last year we decided the 7 foot artificial one, while in great shape, took up too much of our space. So we found a local small charity who took it and many of our old decorations, including way more strings of lights than even it could hold, to pass on to others somewhere who could appreciate them. Some of the decorations we'd already boxed up and sent north to our family members who do trees for the kids, leaving us just a few. But those were the most important few, like the wreath, and strings of Steve's MUST HAVE decoration for every year, bubbler lights. Don't get me wrong, I love them as well. In fact, it was a great happy surprise to him when we combined decorations years ago to find that I also had my own bubbler lights. But with the pandemic, this year we'd just not gotten around to finding that new little replacement tree to put them on. How to hang them?

Rich came up with the solution, after much thought and several tries of different combinations of things to find what worked. First he located a long garland of what I can only call "fake tree", the kind of thing you wrap around the trunk of a fake tree so you can pretend it's not just a pole with holes in it to plug the color-coordinated-by-size branches into. Then he located some suction type industrial strength grippers to cling to the glass face of one of our display cabinets and hold the garland  in the shape of one trunk with three branches. More or less, anyway. Wires were used to keep the bubblers upright, since gravity wanted them all to point down and who cares when you can't even see the bubbles? So now each "branch" has a cluster of bubblers, and the glass acts like a mirror, so 6 or seven lights appears to be a lot more. Add in the fact that the back of the cabinet is an actual mirror, and our "tree" really brightens up the house. Oh, did I mention that Rich found a floor switch so we don't have to bend way over and search for prongs and fit them in outlets to turn them on/off, but just step on a little knob? Barefoot even. There was a bunch of fuss and bother when each plan leading up to the final solution was found wanting, but who remembers that now?

It's Boxing Day (hey, I finally found out what that actually means, boxing things up to give to others) and we are still waiting for Christmas dinner. It's not turkey this year and I'm not the cook. Rich is. If you've read "Bad Habit" you know what part of the problem is: he worked so long and hard that he collapsed into sleep just minutes before he was to start the cooking. And neither Steve nor I could step in to do the grilling. Nor wake him.

Over a month ago, we'd talked about having a gas grill for some outdoor cooking. Say, maybe by Christmas, eh? We'd gotten a teeny charcoal type months earlier, the kind that sits off the ground about 5 inches, and had used it twice. Not ideal. Rich looked through the local "free" ads and found one to bring home, and this time it was a gas grill, nice cover, two wheels, a couple of shelves to hold stuff, and needing a propane tank. So he checked more ads, locating a used, nearly empty tank for a fraction of what bying an empty would cost. He hooked it to the grill and it had just enough propane in it to be sure it worked safely. We then took it as a swap on a filled tank, paying only for the propane, the way the new tanks work these days. (For you younger folks, we didn't recycle tanks back when, so they started manufacturing new grills with new hookups so only the new recycleable tanks would fit. No more filling the old tanks. You could, for a time, turn in the old ones for new as an even swap. Use it or lose it.) So far, so good on our "new" grill.

Thing is, the new tank didn't get hooked up before Rich zonked out, and we don't know how to use the grill in Rich's absense. That lesson will come, but not yesterday. We'd taken all the frozen hamburger patties in the house out to thaw. Rich could start on those while he himself got familiar with how the grill cooked. Hot spots? Cool ones? Does it cook slow or fast? This way, if anything burned, it was just hamburger. Christmas dinner was to be steaks! Actually, fillet mignons! It all had to go back in the fridge overnight.

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Post Grilling:

Yummmmm. Yummmmmmmmmm. YUMMMMMMMMM! Of course there were a couple more snags. We don't have a grill utensil set, for one, so there was some scrounging for something usable, for now, as a fork and a spatula. Proper utensils will be on somebody's shoppping list, but not immediately.

There was also the need for a proper gasket for the gas line. The first time Rich turned it on with the full tak of propane, he heard a hissing in the joint in the gas line. Stopping immediately, he jury-rigged a new rubber gasket for the joint, though reminded us it would work for now but needed to be replaced soon with the right kind of rubber for a permanent fix. This seems to be the only thing wrong with the grill, but if it came to us free for want of a gasket, well, hooray.

Rich whipped up some packaged mashed potatos to go with the steaks, adding butter and garlic. Once on the plate, soaking up the steak drippings, couldn't have been better. As for other side dishes, who had room? All the hamburgers got packaged up for the fridge or freezer, depending on whose they were and their plans for them: eat promptly? Or freeze and pull out to nuke one at a time later? You still get that great smoky grilled flavor.

So now, you think the holiday is over? Hardly. We still have two packages arriving in the mail that we know about. One has been mailed. The second is waiting on something needing to go inside arriving in the mail to the person sending it to us. We might still be celebrating for our anniversary!