One Dark Christmas Night...

I mean, really. It is one dark night out there.

Ms. B. and I enjoyed a lovely Christmas day today. A lovely Christmas week, all things considered. I mean, over the past couple of years, the world has set itself on one hell of a new and different course, at least for me. Mom died in 2020. My brother died earlier this year. Brugger and I got married and moved in together. We have five cats. There's a pandemic. Even since this time last year, the world feels like a wildly different — and oftentimes tougher — place to live.

This was the first Christmas that Brugger and I have spent together as a married couple, and the first I've ever spent in my own home in Greensboro. As a youngster, the family always spent the holidays with my grandparents in Georgia. Even when I moved to Chicago in the 1980s, I always came south for Christmas. After the grandparents all passed away, the family spent Christmases together at the old homestead in Martinsville. And so it has been even up to last year, when Kimberly and I celebrated Christmas at Pleasant Hill, just the two of us.

Christmas Eve sunset from The Vino Shoppe in High Point

This past week, we had several little celebrations to lead up to the big day. Wednesday, we went to dinner at GIA - Eat. Drink. Listen, which we hadn't visited since before the pandemic set in. Yesterday, for Christmas Eve, we drove over to High Point for an open house hosted by our friend Kelly, who used to work with us at the old office. Then, following longstanding tradition, Ms. B. and I went out for wine. Typically, we've gone to the Grove Winery on Christmas Eve, though this year, the Grove was closed. Since we were in High Point for the open house, we opted for The Vino Shoppe, which we hit on Christmas Eve a couple of years ago. The decent wine and all-around nice atmosphere made us smile real big. As a rule, for Christmas Eve dinner, I make either vegetable beef soup or beef chili. This year, we opted for the soup. I done good; it was much better than being slapped in the belly with a wet trout.

I made several outings to the Greensboro watershed trails this week to set up a new night cache, which I submitted to geocaching.com yesterday. As with many of my caches, this one is inspired by dark literature, in this case The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers. A night cache is specifically set up to be hunted after dark, with trails of reflective fire tacks to lead cache hunters to their destination. I put in some serious time and energy setting this one up, so I hope it will work out as well as I believe it will. Ought to be fun for the local geocaching contingent, I do believe. The cache is called "Have You Seen the Yellow Sign?"

Sunset from the Laurel Bluff Trail, overlooking the Lake of Hali... er, uh... Lake Townsend

For the past few years, our Christmas movie repertoire has steadily grown. For some time, we satisfied ourselves watching Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown! and A Christmas Story. A while back, we added National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. A year or so ago, we added Die Hard. This year, we also watched Die Hard 2 and Die Hard with a Vengeance, not that these were actually Christmas movies; we just kinda felt like watching them. Die Hard with a Vengeance turned out to be particularly fun, thanks mostly to Samuel L. Jackson. We also fit in Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which was one of my staples when I was a little kid. I don't know that it's going to become a staple in the adult years.

This morning, I cooked slapjacks for our breakfast. Then we opened presents. There were many good ones, for Ms. B. does tend to spoil me. The highlight for me, perhaps, was an S. H. Monster Arts Godzilla figure (from 1989's Godzilla vs. Biollante). Unfortunately, one of her gifts has not arrived. I just hope there's no problem with it at the source or with shipping. But all in all, we both made out rather splendidly. For our big dinner, I made Chicken Marsala, as I have on at least a previous Christmas or two. Happily, I didn't fuck it up.

After things settled, I set out for the trails again, this time to see if I might recover some very old cache containers from a long-archived cache I had adopted many years ago (see "Darkness Falls Restored," February 24 2014). I found one of the containers; the other, I did not. Then, I set out for Martinsville, figuring I'd put in a little holiday time (and some geocaching) at the old homestead. Just before I left Greensboro, I received notification of a new cache up at Fairy Stone Park, a few miles out of Martinsville. I knew it would be after dark before I could get to it, but the mood was upon me, and I figured I might be able to snag first-to-find if I didn't dilly-dally. Well, I didn't dilly-dally, and I did get first to find. I tell you — as I mentioned way up yonder in this blog — it was one dark night out there. The sun had been down for a little while before I arrived at the trail, so it's a good thing I had a very bright flashlight with me. It wasn't a long hike — maybe a half-mile round trip. But it was dark. Very, very dark. Even once I arrived back in Martinsville, it was very dark. Still is.

One dark Christmas night.

If you celebrate Christmas, I hope yours was as satisfying as mine. If you don't, then I don't reckon it was. But whatever, I hope your day didn't involve any wet trout and belly-slapping.

Au revoir.

No, there are NOT any toasted folks here. Not yet, anyway.

Another Decade Down

And... whoosh! There go the fifties. Age-wise, I mean. Overall, it was a fine enough decade for this old man, very possibly the most eventful of my adult life. Above and beyond all else, for most of these past ten years, Ms. B., the nice lady pictured above, has been my partner in crime, and all indications are that we're bound for that great big house in the sky, or wherever, still bound together, somewhere in that unforeseeable (and hopefully distant) future. Apart from my mom's ongoing health issues and a slight decrease in this old machine's agility, life has held itself together as well as could be expected, sometimes even better. Or not. Maybe. Sort of.

As for the birthday event itself—yesterday—it was fair enough. I didn't take the day off from work to go geocaching, as has generally been my custom since I began the activity (at age 49; who'd have thunk I might have been at it so long?). Since Ms. B. and I are saving up our vacation time for an extended holiday down the road, it didn't seem prudent to blow a day off that I might need later. However, after work on Wednesday, I met friends Robgso (a.k.a. Old Rob) and Skyhawk63 (a.k.a. Tom) and snagged a nice first-to-find on a new puzzle cache in north Greensboro. And for afters, Skyhawk and I met his wife, Punkins19 (a.k.a. Linda) at a brewery/beer joint called Gibbs Hundred, which I had never previously visited—or even heard of, for that matter. But as one who rarely drinks beer anymore, I enjoyed it immensely, particularly since friend Tom was kind enough to spring for mine as a birthday treat. Chalk up another one for getting old, I reckon.

Last night, Ms. B. took me out for drinks at Gia: Drink, Eat, Listen, one of our favorite dining/drinking establishments. For dinner, we hobbled next door to Imperial Koi for sushi, which I quite loved. Once back at her place, we watched The Silence, a new Netflix release based on a novel by Tim Lebbon. It was fair, at best. It lacked development and character motivation, which I more than half suspect the novel does not. At any rate, the evening offered some much-needed relaxation, which was most welcome as I've been dealing with an ongoing issue with my mom's daily care—which, to my dismay, is still not sorted out.

At least the celebrations for these little landmarks make for pleasant times and nice memories. There's certainly no excitement about yet another measurable tick on the lifeclock. I confess I'm a little sad to leave my 50th decade behind, as it provided most of the absolute best experiences of my adult life. Some of the worst, too, but at least those don't overshadow the good. Not by a long shot.

And off we go, to take another step in the walk of the unknown. Until next time, I'm your host, Damned Rodan, saying....

Happy Bloody Valentine's Day

Brugger and I once again devised a satisfying Valentine's Day experience: after work, we hauled ourselves over to GIA: Drink. Eat. Listen, which has long been one of our favorite wine & dine destinations. We don't frequent it as much as some others because the price tag runs a bit on the high side, but they do have half-price wine nights, which we have been known to enjoy on occasion. While they do have some mighty fine wines—and the chef and sommelier collaborate to present some excellent pairings—my favorite drink on the premises is a martini called the Tiny Cat (that's T-I-N-Y, mind you, not T-I-D-Y, as Ms. B. prefers to call it). It's Tiny Cat Vodka, Death’s Door Gin, Lillet Blanc, House Pimento Bitters, and Olives. I shouldn't have this concoction very often because it's so good it would way too easy to overdo it. Way. Too. Easy.

For dinner, we indulged in a couple of excellent small plates—spicy sausage, pepperoni, and yellow pepper schiachiatte for Ms. B. and Chicken Liver-Foie Gras Paté with daikon radish, prosciutto, honey, and toast for the old man. Heavenly from top to bottom, it was.

For afters, we viewed William Castle's original 13 Ghosts (1960), which I was due a viewing, since I will be playing Dr. Zorba in filmmaker Myron Smith's upcoming parody 39 Ghosts. We followed this with 1999's House on Haunted Hill, which didn't impress viewers in its day, but I've always rather enjoyed it. Geoffrey Rush is superb, as is Famke Janssen, and the supporting cast all seem to have a good time. The climax features an impressive otherworldly thingummy, and I like the ending. So I'm gonna stand out from the crowd and give this one overall high marks.

And that is how one celebrates a most romantic Valentine's Day. No shit.