We seem to have survived the holiday without catastrophe, AFAICT. A few presents in the morning, dinner for five (four and a half, actually) just after sundown, and this morning it was all clear and cold outdoors. Most of the “presents” L and I got were checks, which had to be run in with the household expenses, but there’s not much help for that. L’s grandmother renewed our New Yorker subscription, Moon gave me a subscription to Old House Journal (one old-house nut to another), my BIL sent a book on George Booth, and my MIL sent a tie (quite a nice one, but as a practicing IT geek, I practically never wear ties any more).
As is pretty much usual, dinner wasn’t very complicated. Because I’m still out of work, we decided not to buy a goose this year (goose runs about $2.50 a pound), so I made squash soup with cheese and apples, a field-green salad, Aunt Pearl’s Holiday Turkey (just about the best turkey I’ve ever had anyplace), and gingered cranberry relish, with pecan pie and coffee for afters.
This morning I ran T over to an appointment with the medical research firm where I’ve been a guinea-pig for years in asthma studies; they have a four-week cedar-fever study she wanted to try out for. (The company refuse to “waste” me on allergy studies, because I’m much more valuable to them as an asthma research subject.) As expected, she qualified without any trouble, so she’ll be taking either Flonase or Singulair for the next month, and will be paid $200 for her time and bother in keeping the symptom diary and office visits. T didn’t mind the $200 part of it at all; she took right to my philosophy of “if I’m going to be sick anyway, I might as well turn it to profit and get some free medicine, too, out of the deal!”
Attila the Hun plays a piobaireach on the intimidated sea urchin. Fnord.
