Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

We had a very quiet Christmas Day.

( Bearing Presents )

I did not take a picture of our meal, as it's mostly the same as Thanksgiving: ham, stuffing, mushrooms, corn biscuits, and deviled eggs. (Lisa made the eggs for Thanksgiving dinner but forgot about them so we ate them later.) I very much enjoyed what I did eat, but I find that the Ozempic that I've started taking for my diabetes is acting as an appetite suppressant, so I could only have a little bit of everything. We'll have leftovers for many days, but that is not a problem, as we like all of this.

After dinner, we went out for a walk. We can only walk around the block, because Lisa still isn't sure about her knee that she sprained when I was in Seattle, and I find that I need to stay relatively close to a restroom most of the time these days. But after making multiple laps, we were able to each have a slice of the pumpkin pie Lisa made, including the whipped topping she made from the heavy cream we bought on our last grocery trip.

With all of the food and exercise, we were all pretty tired and went to bed early. Good food and peace and quiet makes for a nice Christmas for me.

Because the minivan is parked holding the trailer full of wood, I had to walk to the post office in order to mail a card to my father. This gave me a chance to take pictures of the riddle (and answer) posted on the signs at the North Lyon County Fire Protection District.



( Answer behind the cut )

Well, I laughed at it.

After dinner tonight, Lisa and I drove over to the part of town where a bunch of homes put up a bunch of Christmas decorations to watch the light show. I like how they don't seem to closely repeat themselves from what I remember last year. One home that I remember having had a very large display is completely dark, but Lisa pointed out that this is because it appears to now be vacant.

We didn't go looking for other displays in part because I don't like wrestling the Rolling Stone through relatively narrow streets, but from past experience, we know that where we went tonight is probably something like 80% of the decorations in town.

Because we are are traveling for most of the month of December clear through to New Year's Day, we generally don't have time to do Christmas presents or even cards this year. However, yesterday we made an exception, and I gave Lisa a present that will cover Christmas and also her birthday in January.

( It Takes a Village... )

Lisa is very happy with this watch. She doesn't wear a watch very often, but convention travel is one of the times when she does so, and so this is just in time for our extended Worldcon trip.

This year we remembered to buy our Christmas tree early, so we had a better selection. We once again bought a live miniature spruce tree and will see if we can keep it alive over the summer. Lisa re-potted it right away this year in the hope that it won't get root-bound, and we've mostly kept it outside, bringing it inside only for the last few days.

( Tree Time )

The family room is at the opposite end of the house from the living room where the fireplace is, and it doesn't get too warm there. We'll put the tree back outside soon, water it regularly, and see if it will last until next Christmas at least.

This morning Lisa surprised me with an extra gift with which to decorate our living room.

( It's Always Train Time Around Here )

I think this goes quite well with our fireplace.

The icon picture shows that we do get snow here in Fernley, and indeed one year we got a snowfall around Christmas that led to my favorite photo of the house. But we're still a desert, and when it comes time to decorate for the holiday, you can't expect snow, so you make do with what you have, as our neighbors did this week.

( Improvisation FTW )

I'm fond of eggnog, particularly the really high-quality version made by Strauss Creamery, but it's so sugary that I shouldn't have very much of it. Thus I stick to the Strauss product, because it's expensive and the only place we can get it is Whole Food Market and even then, it runs out a lot. This limits how much I can have of it. Yesterday I finished off the very last bit of the last bottle. It wasn't enough for a whole glass (even the small ones to which I was limiting myself), so I contented myself with flavoring my morning coffee with the last drops. That's it until next Christmas!

As we did last Christmas Eve, Lisa and I walked up to the China King Buffet for a Christmas Eve dinner.

( All Steamed Up )

After dinner, we went out for another look at Christmas lights around town, in this case specifically seeking out one house that has a light show synchronized to holiday music broadcast on a very-low-power FM frequency. With the radio in the Astro partially disabled (the radio works but the display isn't working), Lisa brought a battery-powered radio to listen to the music as we watched the display. I'm not including pictures or video here because my camera doesn't work well in the dark; however, below is a picture of a different Fernley Christmas decoration that amused us sufficiently that I took a picture of it in the daytime.

( Tree won't fit? No problem! )

This evening, before our traditional duck dinner, Lisa and I opened our Christmas presents.

( Tree in Training )

I got Lisa some new tights, and she gave me a new leather holster for my mobile phone. She made the holster herself, and it's very nice and feels more secure (and thus less lightly to let my phone go shooting out the way it did more than once during the Iceland trip) than the one I previously had.