Food, Wine and Shoot 'Em Ups

About a week before Christmas I sent my Dad an email outlining what I had purchased for the family with the money he had sent. He winters outside Panama City so it's a bit tricky for him to do the shopping himself.

"Try not to act surprised when you call and they thank you for the presents," I had written at the very end of the email.

On Christmas Day my Dad called just after dinner while the family was all still here.

"Thanks so much for the presents," Bro told him. "Just what we needed."

"Good stuff! Good stuff! I'm so glad to hear that," said Dad. "What did I get you?"

We arranged for a video chat later that night, which I completely forgot about until almost an hour after the fact. Finally we hooked up online and waved our gifts in front of the webcam for him to see.

He spent Christmas on a beach, drinking with friends. We spent it running around like chickens with our heads cut off, but all things considered I'd rather be here and apparently so would he, but only for the one day. I suppose it's hard to compete with a tropical beach when there's a half foot of snow in the driveway.

I'm pleased to report the turducken turned out perfectly as promised, but I can't say as I'd ever drop a hundred bucks for another one. The turkey is nice and moist, much more than a regular turkey, but I'm not a fan of duck or the international dressing which has the consistency and flavour of ground duck, and if there was an actual chicken in the damned thing I never did find a piece of it.

"Tur-DUCK-en," Bro repeatedly corrected me. "What the hell is a tur-DUNK-en? There's no dunk in the middle of that thing."

Pity. I'd prefer a Dunkin' Donut in the middle of it to a duck. I like donuts at least.

Zee made the most amazing cherry cheesecake which will take me a full week to eat and then a full year to get off my ass. I'm not sure what size cheesecake she thought we needed but we were only feeding four adults and one child and not a small army of elves besides.

Luckily we have guests coming over tonight and I fully intend to fob some off on them in hopes of avoiding further weight gain, at least MY further weight gain. I don't really care about theirs.

Da Nephew made out like a bandit and got into the whole paper tearing thing, helping to open everyone's presents. At two and a half he's finally old enough to get excited about the whole thing and there's nothing to compare with an excited kid at Christmas.

He loved everything and with the exception of the little red tricycle and the tiny electric guitar his mother took the whole works home with them. Enjoy the bike horn Zee!

On the way to taking three bags of garbage and a car load of boxes out to the apartment waste bins Mom took a header down the back stairs. She face planted into one tile covered step and frankly scared the hell out of me, but other than a few bruises she seems none the worse for wear. She consoled herself with liberal glasses of sangria.

I took to playing my new PS3 game Skyrim, which is a fantasy quest game. When Bro came up we switched for a bit to Call of Duty, wherein we tried to achieve goals such as running a course or holding a fortified position.

I seemed to take heavy damage and couldn't locate the source of the fire, so I backed up and fell off a ledge into enemy territory. Realizing my soldier was about to die, I pulled a pistol and walked up to an enemy and emptied a clip into his head before getting mortally wounded myself.

"Bleeding out!" kept flashing on my half of the TV screen until a final bullet ended my misery.

Bro started laughing. "Oh my God I just killed you! It says Guest2 dead! I saw this character on the ground rolling around and he was still moving and I kept shooting."

"You shot me?" I roared in righteous indignation.

"You shot me in the HEAD last round!"

"Yeah but you lived didn't you? Look I'm dead on the ground over there."

That was the end of the joint game play.

"Don't trust your brother," Mom advised once Bro had left the room.

Gee, ya think? I switched back to Skyrim after he left, but once I got devoured by the giant poisonous spider that was the end of the day's gaming.

Meanwhile Mom spent a lot of the night complaining about her bruises and playing her facebook game. Despite all our rushing around, her first priority every time we came home was to dash into the den and collect her free points.

"You're sick, you know that?" I told her.

"I know. And you are going to stop sassing me in the New Year," she said.

"Really? You going to beat it out of me or something?"

"For a start."

"I doubt it," I said, walking away to start unpacking my purchases. "It seems to be genetic."

Hope you all had a lovely, happy holiday folks!

Twas the Madness Before Christmas

Last night I had the house to myself around as Mom and Bro took off to do some last minute shopping for Da Nephew. I took a look around and divided everything into two categories: Stuff I Should Be Doing

And What I Am Actually Planning on Doing.

It has been one of those weeks.

Every year I promise myself I'm going to get ahead of the game, start off Christmas shopping in October and just put my feet up and relax when the actual holiday rolls around. I even managed it one year, but I got bored and felt left out of the whole hoopla.

Half the fun is the half hour in line for some D batteries, griping at other shoppers about the half hour in line to buy some D batteries and I didn't even know toy manufacturers built toys that still used D batteries until last night. The other half is the look of pure delight on the kid's face when he opens the toy.

Our particular madness this year started Wednesday night after midnight, when Mom and I roared out of the Canada Post parking lot. The rain was coming down in sheets.

"You really want to go grocery shopping in this?" Mom asked me.

"No," I said. "But I'd like less to include it in my schedule tomorrow morning when I have other shopping to do before work and when there are 3000 more people in the stores."

We got the food, went home to the usual news that the Habs lost and compensated with a nightcap. Mom had hopped in the tub while I had shed my clothes and was relaxing in my pyjamas. She came out to play her slot game, raising her eyebrows as she spotted her desk.

"Whose bra is this?" she asked, pinching one teeny corner of the fabric between a thumb and forefinger. She moved her hand 3 millimetres to the left and let go, dropping it on the floor.

I thought the 16 year old disgusted valley girl impression was spot on, and couldn't stop laughing. "Well it's just you and me here and you took yours off in the bathroom. Whose bra do you think it is exactly?"

The next morning we charged out into the fray again. I won't tell you the bar tab at the liquour store, but you can probably get an idea from the photo above. Not included in that photo: the fully stocked wine racks and a 5L bowl of Sangria.

"I don't know how to make a small Sangria," I told Mom.

"Go big or go home," was her reply. Mom likes my Sangria.

Speaking of which, we had decided on a turducken this year. We just couldn't find one until we called my brother, who had seen a butcher shop in Eastern Passage advertising them on a sign. Mom and I hopped in the car and drove across the harbour.

"Doesn't he live in Pittsburgh?" I complained, eyeballing the usual signage. Every single entry into Eastern Passage, Nova Scotia has a sign declaring itself as the Home of Sidney Crosby. Hey, you want to impress me? Try being the home of Larry Robinson. Just saying.

We hustled into the butcher shop and claimed our 15 lb turducken, which is apparently the only size the thing comes in. Mom got cooking instructions and I got heartburn.

"One store, one purchase, one hundred dollars, for one meal!" I complained bitterly. "We don't even know if we like turducken yet."

"I like chicken. I like duck. I like turkey," Mom assured me.

That night we begged off work two hours early and re-did the grocery store thingy, picking up snacks aplenty as it appeared my invitations to co-workers to stop by were going to be accepted.

"This is YOUR fault," Mom told me, but she was smiling at the thought of guests. Part of the problem with living away from Newfoundland is not doing the rounds of relatives and mooching food and booze or having them do the same to you. We like our traditions.

The next morning I got dressed, glanced out the window and braced myself for another accusation. "It's not my fault!" I hollered in a preemptive declaration of self-defense.

"Oh. My. GAWD!" Mom roared, charging to the window. "This is your fault! You're a witch! You wished for snow and look at this mess!"

Shopping also did not start out promising. We hit Toys 'R Us and I had to pause to suck in my breath as soon as we entered the store.

"Justin Bieber Christmas balls," I said, in wondrous horror. The bag of six red tree ornaments had his toothy grin smiling up at me. "This is proof positive this planet is going off the rails."

Despite all the madness we got our treasures and headed home. I was yawning my head off after 10 hours straight shopping, and Mom was having none of it.

"I just need to sit," I told her.

"You may not sit," she said. "Sitting is not permitted at this time."

But she and Bro took off back to the store and I curled up in the rocker recliner anyway, managing to catch a few zzz's.

Today we picked up Da Nephew and took off to the liquour store AGAIN. I had done this last year and promised never again to visit a liquour store on Christmas Eve. Given a choice I'd rather be stood against a wall and shot. Twice.

But Mom was driving, with Da Nephew in the back and I had no choice apparently.

"Oh my God," I sighed, eying the crowd rushing into the just-opened store. I hauled ass out of the truck and charged through the crowd, muttering apologies the whole while.

The store workers were dressed in festive Santa hats and just coming down the stairs. There were at least a half dozen of them, and they all had the same reaction upon seeing the patrons. "Holy BLEEP!"

I grabbed a bottle of wine, a bottle of Carolans, and beat most of the crowd to the checkout. At the checkout one of the clerks was talking to a supervisor.

"It should even out after this first rush," said the pimple-faced boy who did not look old enough to work for the liquour corporation.

"Doubt it," responded the supervisor, hands on hips, as she peered out through the windows. "They're circling for parking and it looks like a good 50 people are waiting out the initial crowd in their cars."

I headed back to the truck and we peeled out to Wal-Mart, grabbed some stocking stuffers, and then headed over to buy lobster. It's lobster season here, and the fishermen are selling it for five bucks a pound for premium hard shelled lobster.

"I want 4, maybe 5," Mom told the fisherman. "Two pounds or more each, and no more than fifty dollars total."

"Here," he said, handing her a bag of lobsters. "I threw in an extra one for you, so there's six. Merry Christmas!"

And Merry Christmas and safe and Happy Holidays to you too, my loyal readers. Thank you so much for your support this past year. Please know that I really do appreciate the wonderful gift of your valuable time that you take to read my rambling posts.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Grinchmas

Our Christmas tree.

I was sick last week while Mom was back in Newfoundland. I got better but she came home and promptly got sick herself.

"It's your fault," she said, giving me the Evil Eye while swiping at her nose with a kleenex. "You gave me the plague."

"The PLAGUE? Pretty sure I didn't give you "the plague" Mother."

But she's not happy with me today, and she's also not particularly enthralled with the tree topper either.

"It looked harmless enough in the box," I told her, hands on hips as we stood in front of the tree, gazing upwards at it.

In the box it looked like a pretty white crystal snowflake. We hit the demo button and it lit up nice and pretty and white for a millisecond. We got it home, plugged it into the tree, and realized we bought a psycho disco ball snowflake tree topper.

It flashes in brilliant colours at high strobe light intensity. Bro was sitting in the living room watching a Habs game and complained that it was giving him a headache. Apparently the bad TSN feed last night didn't help either. He was texting me game scores and highlights while I was at work.

Pic doesn't even begin to do it justice.

"I can feel an epileptic fit coming on," was one of his favourites. Thankfully the feed cleared after several minutes. "Seizure averted."

Mom and I sat down to watch the PVR'd game after work, and avoided the disco ball strobe light flickering off the TV by throwing back some rum and coke. When she declined a refill due to her cold I called her a pussy, so naturally she decided she wanted one.

"I'm not a pussy! Get me another drink. You can tend on me for a change. I'm sick over here, what with you giving me the plague."

Did I mention she's on facebook now? I suppose I should take it easy on her on these blog posts, but I like to live dangerously.

Speaking of living dangerously, I sent my Dad an email about how I can't sleep anymore because I'm so afraid to fly what with not having any natural feathers growing out of my skin and all, and that I keep envisioning my own death via a fiery plane crash and am convinced I'll never make it back to Canada if I go to visit him in Panama after Christmas.

He wrote me back saying my fears were silly and that it was just my first international flight and to read a book or something during the flight. He really only finds it tough because he's a smoker and when he gets to jonesing for a ciggy he tends to find the flight long.

I wrote back and said how I was too cheap to cancel the whole thing so I'll come regardless and he replies that he's glad I got over all that silly fear.

Uh... that's not what I said. I said I was a cheapskate and I'll suck it up and get on the plane and try not to embarass myself. That's as good as it's likely to get. I'll resign myself to my fate. Que sera sera.

Speaking of fate, it smiled on me last night for a change instead of merely tormenting, and I got the last spot on evening shift at work. This means I don't have to go back to midnights, which tends to unleash Uber-Cranky Roz.

I went over to my supervisor. "I don't see you doing a happy dance since you got news you get to keep me on this shift. Where's the excitement?"

"I did it in private," he said in his snooty British accent, then sent me into coding mail for the third time that night. I swear he hates me, but he told Mom he sends me in there so much because I'm really good at it.

So if I'm good in bed, does this mean I should be a call girl?

We gave our friend, Little Red, her Christmas present. She was delighted by the bottle of Newfoundland wine, but totally tickled by the wee Toronto Maple Leafs gloves designed for hanging off car mirrors. We've had a Habs one for years.

"Don't tell anyone inside I bought Leafs gear," I warned Mom as we headed back into work.

To make myself feel better, I did buy something Habs related to compensate. Last season I gave Geoff Molson close to $1000 of my hard earned money. This year I've spent maybe $30. It's not that I'm making a statement here about his crappy hockey team. It's more like I don't really care.

At work the mail is piled through the roof and I got stuck in mail prep with The Gimp, a co-worker recently returned from knee surgery. He tried to smack talk me and Mom about returning from Newfoundland with our usual feed of moose, and it didn't take long for me to get disgusted with him.

"For God's sake," I told him. "That wasn't even a good attempt. Don't you know how to smack talk properly?"

I turned to Mom. "You'd think he was a Leafs fan or something."

He is a Leafs fan BTW. He also is usually first out of the parking lot at the end of the night, but I was determined to take him. The second we clocked out I got behind Mom and started literally shoving her up the stairs.

"Hurry! We can beat him! He's handicapped!"

The Gimp was ahead of us and trying to pull away, but I was relentless. Being a Habs fan I don't like to lose, particularly to a Leafs fan. Behind us our coworkers started laughing, agog that I was manhandling my mother up the stairs.

I launched her out the front door and The Gimp peeled off to the right to fetch his car from the secure parking lot while I dragged Mom to the guest parking in the front of the building. She jumped behind the wheel and burned rubber out of the lot.

They call us Thelma and Louise now.

"I'm not doing that again," said Mom when we got home. "I'm too sick. You gave me the plague."

Merry Christmas Jim Rutherford

Gill's facepalm in Halifax, since I don't have a shot of my own.

I'm home sick tonight and on some mighty fine drugs sucking on a hot lemon (actually hot lemon water but it's pretty much the same gross thing), so naturally (not really) I thought I'd address the elephant currently parking its sizable butt in the middle of the Bell Center and settling in for the next 2 years.

Welcome to the Montreal Canadiens, Tomas Kaberle. And goodbye Jaroslav Spacek, a truly likable, natural comedian type of guy.

I'm trying hard to like this deal.

Kaberle has been an effective PP point man in the past when he was with the Leafs, who dealt him to the eventual Cup winning Bruins for a nice first rounder.

The problems I'm having with this particular elephant are the following "bombs" he's about to drop all over the ice:

He was pretty much a non-factor in the Bruins cup run. He did not help their power play troubles, but suddenly he's the magic bullet for the Habs power play woes? Colour me skeptical.

He hasn't done much in Carolina either for the Hurricanes. With only 9 assists and his last goal scored way back in February / March 2010, and he's a complete "turn over machine" according to TSN. Kaberle's recent track record is hardly impressive when it comes to instilling confidence in his ability to quarterback the power play in the absence of Andrei-my-knee-is-a-running-joke-Markov.

Also not helping a whole lot with my ability to like this trade is Jim Rutherford, the Carolina GM who knocked Kaberle for being out of shape at the beginning of camp and stated that he should have known better than to sign the former Bruins defender to a hefty 3 year contract.

But the nail in the coffin is Rutherford's assessment of Kaberle's hit on his cap space, and how offloading him will allow for flexibility next off-season.

I guess then, that same cap flexibility is not as important to Geoff Molson or Pierre Gauthier. Never mind the fact that PK Subban, Josh Gorges and Carey Price all need to be resigned after this season and that they will demand healthy raises and represent the core future of this team.

It's all about the playoff revenue for Molson, who apparently was only paying lip service with the whole fandom schtick, and still another patch for the always leaky roof. And in patching the leaky roof they are taking yet another Cinderella fairy tale road to the whole Stanley Cup playoffs.

Money doesn't just make the world go round, it's apparently the center of the Habs universe.

The optimists among the fanbase tend to remind me that Kris Versteeg benefited from a change of scenery, and that Kaberle may do so also. But the fact is that there's no guarantee that Kaberle will be a Versteeg and not a Benoit Pouliot, who had a nice little time for himself at the first in Montreal but eventually reverted to his non-fulfilling form and wandered off into the sunset.

Kaberle won't be wandering anywhere for another 2+ years and that is a long time to own a high-priced underachiever, since we seem to have a plethora of them on the squad right now as it is.

The optimists are also saying that if Kaberle's numbers go up, he may well be dealt after this season, as will Scott Gomez. To this I say - not bloody likely.

If I am a GM of a team that needs to make the cap floor, Scott Gomez is still going to be one of my very last resorts. No fan will appreciate that albatross of a contract for a player who has struggled as mightily and as publicly as he has the past couple of seasons. Unless I can't buy anyone else, I'm not even going to glance in Gomez's direction.

And when's the last time the Habs waived a veteran player to the AHL for cap relief? It's just not going to happen. If the new CBA has a no-penalty buy out clause perhaps Gomez can be bought out, but I'm not convinced Molson is willing to drop a few million just to buy cap space he will have to pay to someone else.

Jim Rutherford is snickering publicly at the Habs and Pierre Gauthier and thanking Santa for the early Christmas present. TSN is openly laughing at the Montreal Canadiens organization on the air. None of the mainstream media who are close to the team and whose opinions I value - Dave Stubbs, Mike Boone, Eric Engels, MA Godin - think this is a good deal for the team.

Perhaps Kaberle will fix the power play. And perhaps he won't.

This whole deal strikes me as a Hail Mary play to get this team into the playoffs so Geoff Molson can reap some big money in the post-season, and a desperate last ploy by Gauthier to right the ship instead of going down with it. That does not strike me as the actions of an organization that is determined to build a legitimate Cup contender.

My brother said it best: "Send us your tired and aging, your overpaid, your underachieving, the wretched refuse of your hockey teams. The Montreal Canadiens are becoming a retirement home for aging, washed up players."

I wrote recently that Molson may have had no actual faith in Gauthier, since the latter wasn't wheeling and dealing like last year when all the injuries hit.

First of all, sorry about that. And second, it seems Molson has plenty of faith that Gauthier will show him the money so to speak. And I have lost pretty much all faith that anything is going to change for the better within this organization under Molson's ownership.

We're going to own Kaberle and Gomez until 2013-2014. I guess 18 years of mediocrity just weren't enough.

Merry Christmas Jim Rutherford, signed Your Not-So-Secret Santa.