Are You Kidding? Out for New Year's Eve?

I can't remember the last time we went out for New Year's Eve. We did this year. Admittedly, to the wonderful Yoshi's restaurant, which is...uh...literally across the street. And we took the last of the early seating, 6:45 pm. Four courses was fine, thank you. We had a debate about whether Fiddle really made Baked Alaska in flower pots for bridge club. We watched a bit of aging Dick Clark, kissed at EST midnight, and were off to bed. Happy New Year!

Girls and Boys

Our Christmas movie theme was "Girls and Boys." We saw Brokeback Mountain and Pride and Prejudice. More dialogue in the first three minutes of P&P that in all of Brokeback...

Christmas 2005

The theme for our household was Global/Warming. The Stowall family theme was spices.

We made chicken enchiladas for Christmas Eve, Stacey's Granny's Grits for Christmas Day, and Lamb and Potatoes for Christmas Dinner.

Solstice at Japonais

Ms. S. thought that the reds and oranges of sushi were in order for this year's Solstice. I'd seen a mention of the Floating Orchid cocktail at Japonais.

Perfect.

Dinner with Mr. S

Had dinner with my nephew, Mr. S. He'd been to Peru and was waiting to hear what medical residency would hold for him in the next year.

DollHouse

Ok, we never, never, walk out of productions...mostly.... But we were both dog tired and I was getting over being sick, so we did leave at halftime.

So, here's what the Tribune said: "Lee Breuer's audacious -- and that's putting it mildly -- Mabou Mines DollHouse grabs that social climber Henrik Ibsen by the scrawny skin of his Norwegian neck and shoves him right back into the scalding, populist stewpot of melodrama, sex, power and exploitation that was Victorian entertainment and lives on to this day. This is the precise opposite of pretty much every Doll's House you ever saw in your life."

A Bad Drive. A Very Bad Drive

"A snow accumulation as heavy as Thursday's 9.3" at Midway Airport has occurred in December only once every 9 years. The snow, which fell at 1-2" an hour--as much as 3" in the hour between 5 and 6 p.m.- -dropped visibilities under a quarter mile at times and created a nightmarish evening rush hour. Commute times from the Loop to northwest suburban Woodfield--normally about an hour--slowed to 5 hours. Road crews were forced to battle rush hour traffic as they plowed snow and dispensed road chemicals."

My commute, normally about 30 minutes, took two hours. Scary driving. And to make matters much, much worse, I was stuck behind this license plate...

Ms. S's workmates over

A goodbye to Ms. M from her therapist team.