XMas Eve Eve

We celebrated Xmas Eve Eve early this year.  Normally, we celebrate on 12/23 (the Eve of Christmas Eve) but moving it up allowed us to have more things to chat about.  When we have three days in a row of hanging out with the fam, we’ve exhausted all conversation.

We celebrated with the traditional soups and bread.  And Mom brought along this fun decorating kit purchased at Trader Joe’s.

I made these white chocolate peppermint covered brownies for dessert, which were delicious.

Our decorated sweaters.They were great fun.  Good choice, mom!

White Elephant Gift Winner!

This year, I again scored Jane’s favorite songs at the Heidi and Kevin’s White Elephant Christmas party.  Jane is eight now, and our musical taste still hasn’t quite lined up.

That “Closer” song by the Chainsmokers is always on the radio.  I kind of like it, even if it’s fairly repetitive and a little too overproduced for my tastes.  Matt was really annoyed by the Kidz Bop Kids version of “Call Me Maybe,” I’m not sure why he cared that much, but he did.

Hopefully I will have a threepeat in 2017.

Three sentence movie reviews: Sleeping Beauty in 70mm

The Hollywood Theater showed this in 70mm, so it was the really big screen.  The colors were great, the music was great, and the volume of the dialogue was very very quiet.  It was so quiet that it seemed as if no one in the audience (not even the children) moved for the entire run-time, so great was our straining to hear.

Cost: $14.00, which was refunded when the theater figured out what happened.  Thanks, Hollywood!
Where watched: Hollywood Theater

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/1959/sleeping_beauty.html

Three sentence movie reviews: Star Wars Holiday Special

I’ve been living under the impression that I would have to wait for George Lucas to die before I could see this only-screened-on-TV-once feature.  But it turns out that this is the third year the Kiggens Theater has shown this film.  Now that I’ve seen it, I will have to spend the rest of my life un-seeing it, because it’s a terrible, terrible piece of the Star Wars world.

Cost: free
Where watched: Kiggens Theater with Matt

poster from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52RtCocVUzo

The weekend plan. And some ice.

Apparently there wasn’t much work to do during my work-from-home day.  Good thing I could fill the time with tasks.

That 11:00 list?  Library, x-mas stamps, grocery shop?  That was optimistic.  I thought the ice would have melted off by then, but it was just as slick as it was first thing in the morning.  I made it to the library and back home, but it was no 20-minute round-trip journey.  I made it to New Seasons, but Fred Meyer had to wait until the next day.  The Christmas stamps weren’t bought until the next week.

Here’s a backyard visual.  It doesn’t look bad, but man, it was tough to walk on.  I used my trekking poles and they kept me upright.

Three sentence movie reviews: Midnight Special

I liked that this was a sci-fi film that dropped me in and I had to make sense of what was happening.  I liked the performances, especially Joel Edgerton.  Everything isn’t explained–I had several days of, “hey, but what about…?” which added to the good cinematic experience.

Cost: $1.50 from Redbox
Where watched: at home with Matt

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2016/midnight_special.html

Cleaning out the wallet: $900 in TriMet Passes

TriMet monthly passes go on sale on the 20th of the month, so I always buy the upcoming pass while the current pass is still working.  This means I put the new pass in my wallet behind the current month pass, and then forget about ever removing the out-of-date passes.  

Theoretically, this is $900 of TriMet transportation.  But seeing as how each month is only valid for one month, and then becomes worth zero dollars, you are actually looking at a running total of $900, actual value: nada.

I think the first time I bought a monthly transit pass was for the T in Boston.  It was probably 1997, and cost $35.00, or maybe $37.00?

Soon these types of passes will go the way of the dinosaur.  TriMet is moving to a refillable card, something I’m not at all happy about.