Same Thing, But Different

Friday, December 28, 2007

Chemical traces of an update

1- Boxing Day Brunch was a colossal hit. I learned the wisdom of a brunch as a means of entertaining from the extremely lovely and wildly gracious Poppy -- who also turned me on to Nueske's bacon in the process -- since the overwhelming majority of the foodstuffs are make-WELL-ahead, set-and-forget or thrown together at the last picosecond. Photos to follow once I can be bothered to rummage for the wire thingy. Panettone french toast seems impossibly posh stuff, and is an ideal use for the ones which rain upon me every Christmas. Tell people that you'll be feeding them "panettone french toast" and they will think you're training for your own TV cooking show. Throw in life-changingly creamy scrambled eggs, flutefuls of champagne, kickass espressi and cappuccini* and life is splendid. The only thing I planned to serve that I didn't was the salmon/blini thing, which I may save until New Year's, in case we throw a bash and not go out. Which has not been decided yet either way.

I'll go into this a bit later, but I want to address the "Why Boxing Day?" murmurs. The short answer is that Boxing Day is a day which fails, spectacularly so, to blip the Iberic radar in general and my family's tradition-meter in particular. That is, if Boxing Day were generally considered a big deal, then I'd have to suffer fools gladly YET A THIRD DAY in a row. Two days is, let's be blunt, the maximum adult dosage. My aunt A. was as insufferable as ever, compounded by the fact I am aging and therefore less inclined to deal with her. My cousin M. is still oblivious to the carnage and wreckage she has been leaving in her wake since early puberty (she's now 51) and she thinks she is beloved...behaving as if this hallucination were a law of nature. My sister is, well, there. She shines in comparison to all the other inmates but the self-evident truths of her parallel universe sometimes don't harmonize seamlessly with our world.

Anyway, since to that section of humanity Boxing Day is colossally devoid of meaning or import, it takes on great important at Uncle Joke's. The basic "feel" of our bash is that of a midmorning cocktail party. Drop in, nibble on something breakfast-y, knock back some festive fluids, compare toys and tales of woe** and otherwise just decompress.

2- Santa Claus as usual, behaved in a "minimum contractual obligation" way. People -- God bless them -- give me things as if the only knowledge of me they posessed came from friends of eyewitnesses and a slightly astigmatic police sketch artist. That said, I did get a couple of good ones: A watch winder and some Japanese kitchen knives and a few Williams-Sonoma gift cards. The stuff at which I hinted loudly...crassly, even...made no splash.

The hardest part of Christmas for an ruggedly independent consumerist harlot such as I am is not buying the things I like when I see them. I try to give those people who cry out I am "impossible to shop for" a fair shot. Not that many of them get it, but there you go.

3- Tiny Trapeze marshmallows make crack addiction look like a mild longing.

4- Nobody got a new car. Or an old car, for that matter.

5 - I have chosen sides in the HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray format war.

That is all for now.

-J.

* This is the same espresso machine we currently have!
** The big point of friction this year was whether NOS ought get "Guitar Hero III" for the Wii. I wasn't so bloody crazy -- not admant, but hardly enthusiastic -- about the Wii last year for him and it took more explaining than she'd now admit without embarrassment to my beloved on the matter of why a 10-year old boy oughtn't be listening to delusionally toxic lunatics such as Rage Against The Machine. Instead he got THE CHEAPEST LAPTOP -- it was +/- $300 at Best Buy -- and a few innocuous sorts of games.

Posted by Joke at 1:35 AM

2 Comments

Kim posted at 6:39 AM, December 28, 2007
I adore Boxing Day for the mere fact it means the whole schlock of Christmas is OVER.

As a family we used to have a tradition of going to North Beach at Wollongong for a family bbq/day at the beach, which quite frankly was as exciting a prospect for me as dental work without drugs. It was at one of these gatherings that my aunt commented on my rolls of fat to the chortling of the rest of the family. I was 6 I think. 'Nough said.

So this year I was going to do EXACTLY what you did - a brunch type drop-in scenario - complete with ham slices pan fried with maple syrup, pancakes and maybe some sort of fresh fruit concoction.

But my life went to hell for the ENTIRE MONTH OF DECEMBER and I didn't get the chance to even CALL anyone I really wanted to see, let alone extend invitations.

At this stage I'm contemplating a New Years Day brunch as most of our circle of friends gave up staying up to midnight on NYE years ago.

Stomper Girl posted at 11:11 PM, December 28, 2007
My aunt and uncle throw a fantastic boxing day casual drop-in bash, and I was very sad to miss it this year.

I wish you'd explain the two sides of the DiViDe to me, as I have no idea what to make of it.