2008 Pre-Christmas portraits of John

What can I say? As you can see, it was a fun pre-Christmas holiday season. Russell managed to show up and stayed almost a week. Unheard of! Typically Russell will threaten to visit for weeks on end, then, at the last moment, call and express regrets – he’s concerned that he was recently exposed to a cold at the supermarket and, well, anything might happen, so too bad, he’s not coming.

This time he arrived and somehow was convinced to stay for days. We probably won’t see him again for years. But at least we had fun this year.

An amazing aspect of this Christmas season was that Nicole and I got our first Christmas tree. Been married two and a half years and never got a Christmas tree. The amount of ornaments I used to have were enough for the little tree (on the table in the background) that I used every year. Had to buy some bulbs for the big boy tree.
I think Russell showed up on Friday night after he went to see “The Nutcracker” at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion downtown. I took a picture of him without the flash and it came out all blue.

Next night Russell picked out “The Last Picture Show” at Videotheque. Yes, that is Wallace Shawn standing behind him in the picture. I had recently read the book because the movie was on the schedule for The New Beverly cinema. I didn’t finish reading the book in time to watch the movie, but now I’ve read it. The movie didn’t feature the scene in which the teenage boys made love to the cow.

Somehow we went back to Videotheque and I picked out “Two-Lane Blacktop”. Warren Oates becomes more brilliant each time I watch it. Russell liked it too. You can see me standing in front of the screen (wearing my Billy Graham Training Center t-shirt) while he was watching the supplementary material disc. I brought a projector home from work and we projected the DVD onto the wall.

After church on Sunday, we went to Ernie Jr.’s for lunch. Nicole and I were clearly in a good mood before I ate clearly too much chili con carne. I was thrilled to notice that Anne Rice was sitting in the booth behind Russell. After all that chili con carne…well, I felt unusual.

I don’t remember what day Russell and I went to Starbucks on Lake Avenue in Pasadena. I had a peppermint mocha latte; it was out of this world! My passive expression doesn’t convey the thrill of a caffeine fan enjoying Christmas peppermint wonder in coffee form. I think Russell got an eggnog latte.

After lunch at Ernie Jr.’s, we took Russell to Forest Lawn. Nicole and I had been there a few weeks ago for my Uncle Gary’s memorial service and Nicole fell in love with the place. She recently visited the Billy Graham Training Center in North Carolina (she won a radio contest) and it was there that she heard about the largest oil painting in the world. It’s about a hundred feet long and about forty feet high, depicts the final moments before Jesus’ crucifixion. It’s housed in its own auditorium at Forest Lawn in Glendale. Once an hour there’s a presentation that includes a documentary about the painting’s history. After the presentation we took some photos behind the building. Looks like I disputed with Russell over one of them.

Somehow we ended up at North Woods Inn. Appetizers in the lounge. Terrific Christmas decorations. Nicole looks so beautiful looking sideways with dimples! We don’t see that face often enough. Many pictures of John apparently in conversation. Posed or candid? Can even I distinguish? I performed my party trick of drinking alcohol. I wanted to order something seasonal, festive. I ended up with some kind of vanilla chocolate blah blah blah. Ridiculous. Turned out to be basically a White Russian. I seem to be pleased with myself nevertheless.

The last stop was the supermarket. Picking up supplies. The only essential item for me was eggnog. And not eggnog lite. I swear I paid for it. At the check-out counter, and later.

2008 Thanksgiving boiled in oil shrimp

Nicolette and I had Thanksgiving in Illinois this year. The turkey was boiled in a deep fryer. Dixie provided vast quantities of food, and Nicole's dad provided us with a shrimp ring. This is a ring of cold shrimps that you dip in cocktail sauce. The weather was cold too. I like my shrimps hot, so I asked Dixie for a wooden skewer. She had one of course. I skewered the cold shrimp and plunged it into boiling oil. Kept it there. When it had had enough, I took the shrimp into Dixie's house and showed it to Nicole's dad. I told him that I eat the whole shrimp complete with its tail, and he was surprised.

Gosh, I ate a great deal this Thanksgiving. It all began with that little shrimp. And the holidays were only beginning.

Siberia

“…the need to populate Siberia and to mine its ore drew out a deepening river of deportees, and by 1753, when the death penalty was abolished in favor of lifelong labour, the variety of offences punishable by exile had grown bewildering. Prize-fighting, wife-beating, begging with false distress, illicit tree-felling, vagrancy and fortune-telling might all condemn a man to Siberia as well as the European innovations of taking snuff (exile was accompanied by ripping out the nostrils’ septum) or driving a cart with the use of reins.”

- Colin Thubron In Siberia.