Merry Tuberculosis!

Beck and I had a nice Christmas Eve - she got home at about 3 after a partial day at work and started preparing things for tonight's Christmas dinner. We went for an early dinner at Giuseppe's, a local Italian joint, and it's a good thing we did as they closed up shop pretty much immediately after we left at 6:45. Christmas Eve smack in the middle of a largely mass-going population turns out to be not the busiest time for dining; bonus for us, because we had the entire place to ourselves. Nice. (This is actually the second time in a week where we went out for a date and "had the entire place to ourselves" - last week we watched Bolt in a theater all by ourselves. We are either highly exclusive or really lame). Really good if small portioned food (or maybe their portions are normal, and Vinny T's has wrecked my sense of scale) - bruschetta for appetizers, Beck had ravioli, and I had olive oil seaping mac and cheese. Yum. We stopped by the Block on the way home and rented some flicks for a quiet evening.

After my failings, Beck managed to find Chanukah candles at her Super-Fry's. Turns out they were not in the Holiday section, nor were they in the candles section. They were in the Hispanic / Jewish food section, between the matza and tortillas. You know, because Jewish people eat candles. Perhaps a topic for another post, but I HATE GROCERY STORES and their WACK ORGANIZATIONAL PRINCIPLES. It is a scientific fact that I have wasted 4.72 days of my life wandering around grocery stores searching for products that should have been in obvious places but were not. Oh, charcoal? That's not next to the hamburger buns, it's next to the Liquid Plumber. Jelly, you say? As in peanut butter and? You say you looked in the bread, peanut butter, and fruit aisles? Silly boy, that is clearly a canned vegetable! ARGH. Anyways, Beck to the rescue, and we had a nice four candle menora setup for traditional Christmas Eve ambience. Many stoichiometry problems were solved. At least in our heads.

We watched Hancock; I'll review it later. Surprisingly dark and short. Unsurprisingly stupid. Actually, scratch that; the first half was pretty cool. Things fell apart after his transformation. I won't ruin anything else. Anyways, a reasonably pleasant way to spend the holiday night. Beck and I then tackled the NYT Crossword puzzle and kicked its BUTT. Finished a Thursday in something like 16 minutes. Huzzah! We listened to Elvis's Christmas Album while doing it (which explains the King appearance in the previous post); just a nice homey scene. I'm surprised there aren't more Norman Rockwell paintings of people with menoras and Hancock on the TV and Mac laptops listening to mp3s on their other computer. All we needed was a fireplace to complete the picture. Sigh. Capped things off with an episode of Ugly Betty, a show we've been told is good but smacks of predictable lameness to me thus far. Perhaps I am not the target audience. ANyhoo, it was then on to bed, as Beck has to work at the ER today. :(. (She does get off at 2, though). I stayed up reading 100 Years for a little while; I've got about 100 pages left.

So I'm home alone on Christmas morning with the dogs. But it's okay. You know why? Because it's a VERY JIMI CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Now playing: Jimi Hendrix - Voodoo Child (Slight Return)