Weekend!
The last weekend before Christmas.
When I was just starting out, that meant that this was going to be the craziest weekend of the year. I would have to work, customers would be frantic, hours would be a lot longer than usual, and the only upside would be that tips would be especially generous.
A couple of decades later, things are just as frantic but I get to actually stay home the weekend before Christmas. If I end up going out (and I’ll probably end up going to my favorite little deli), I’ll make sure that I’ll tip especially generously. (Always be really nice to the people who handle your food and doubly nice to the people who measure how much wine you get in your glass by eyeballing it.)
With that said, though, this weekend is chock full of events of one kind or another. We’re going to have gaming on Saturday night (Oh, crap! I need to get gift cards for everybody!). We’re going to the sister’s on Sunday (Oh, crap! I have to make bread!). Then, while I have Monday off, we get to go over to Mom’s for Christmas dinner (I think we’re good for that one).
The good news is that the building at work is shut down and only “essential services” are allowed to show up. So I get to go to work when nobody else is allowed to be there.
Which will be like a mini-vacation after the whole Christmas thing.
Merry Christmas to all you and yours, of course. Unless you’re doing something else. In that case, I hope whatever you’re doing is good for you.
So… what’s on your docket?
(Image is “Play” by Clare Briggs. Used with permission of the Briggs estate.)
I’m off work until the 2nd, so tomorrow is running some errands and working out, weekend is getting some stuff done around the house. Christmas day we are visiting family in Olympia (and going past the site of the Amtrak derailment – I should do a post about PTC).
Next week is kinda open.Report
I just spent an hour and hundred bucks in a “gormay” grocery store, trying to track down the various bits and bobs my wife, the “foodie*” has taken pictures of. Weird sea salts, Cthulian chilies, Norse god roasted peanuts (excuse me, goober peas…) looking like an idiot wandering around with my cell phone in hand, perusing the mustard aisle.
Will be spending Xmas in Todtown, cornish game hens being the course, not to mention a bottle of Midleton Irish.
* holy cow does she hate that term, but it fits in the current patios.Report
@Jaybird my dear, both your sister’s-mother-in-law’s and your mom’s are on Monday. Sister’s is happening at mother in law’s b/c sister is moving.
Upside for you is that Sunday you don’t have to go anywhere.
****
Meanwhile, I’m so very much looking forward to two weeks off and a day off, and thinking back to how different things were when I worked retail.
Tomorrow I’m doing nothing that involves leaving the house and/or physical labor. Saturday gaming, Sunday I’m going over to Dman and C’s house for a bit, Monday see the first part of my comment and…. who knows what I’ll do on Tuesday? Whatever I feel like doing I guess.
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee.Report
Oh my gosh, this is such good news.Report
I’ve got all of next week scheduled off, but based on the days I’m going to need off come January and February I’ll likely not take the whole week. The guy who makes the schedule told me he’d just leave the days marked as “off” for me so I’ll have the freedom to do as I wish.
And from the “sometimes project leads DO listen” department, the lead who wanted to schedule an install verification with our customers next Wednesday changed it to the first week in January after I advised him that we were going to be short-handed (regardless whether I show up for work or not) and that it wasn’t a good idea.
Otherwise, it’s maybe a second trip to see The Last Jedi tomorrow, gaming Saturday, and all the Christmasy stuff on Monday.Report
The highlight of my weekend will be going to see the Chicago Jazz Orchestra perform Ellington’s arrangement of the Nutcracker Suite. I’ve been waiting years to hear this live, so I’m really looking forward to this.
Merry Christmas Leaguemates!Report
I’m envious! Love Ellington’s suites.
Merry Christmas to you, Slade.Report
@maribou Same to you and @jaybird
The CJO kicked ass. They played it so uptempo, I told my wife they’re playing it like they have somewhere else to be. Full Nutcracker Suite, followed by some really great big band arrangements of Xmas standards.
This coupled with seeing Matt Wilson’s Christmas Tree-O last Saturday at the Green Mill, has made it a really jazzy Christmas here in Chicago.
Here’s Wilson, et al. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7tz0MPz2QEReport
Haha, glorious – we used to play both the straight and the jazz versions as fast as we could and see what our bandleader would let us get away with.
Thanks for the link!Report
Christmas season rolls on. For a number of reasons, I’ve been able to seize greater control over the holiday festivities this year, including hosting Christmas morning and (finally… maybe?) getting my family to pull back on the gift giving with the boys. They’re also older now and we were able to engage in some meaningful tradition-making, which has been fun. We’re taking a bit of a unique approach to it, but have managed to make it fun, festive, but not overwhelming. We’ll see what the next two days brings. A plus is my mom is taking the boys while I attend a family friend’s big birthday outing in the city, which will be a nice little respite.
I’m also off for the next two weeks, but so is Mayo (he attends my school new so if I’m off, he’s off) but Little Marcus Allen will have his daycare open most days.Report