Yep. Google Translate. At least I recognised it as Polish! 
So 
is closed today and tomorrow, but the dispo right up the street has the capitalist good sense to be open today and tomorrow.
Stopped by the Corner Sto’ on the way back, and the lady in front of me in line was getting herself some pink champagne. (And Tito’s vodka.) Which reminded me … hey, it’s Christmas, dammit!
… so I got myself some rum.
Rudolph ain’t the only one gon’ be lit tonight!
Got the diacritical marks right and everything!
What a colorful combo! I’m sure it’ll look very festive.
The “pink champagne” lady in front of me also mentioned that the higher prices at the Corner Sto’ were worth it, and told us how long the lines were at the local Meijer. Apparently, they’re snaking into the produce section … that’s a shitload of people.
So my meals for the Eve and Day are gonna be … whatever I’ve got on hand. If that’s canned beans and noodles, so be it. Or canned sardines … ooh, I think I have a fresh(ish?) lemon in the fridge!
I do have a Christmas spiral ham, that Monkey and I have already busted into. Pretty sure bean soup is in my near future. Fartfest to follow. (Good thing the kitchen at work is so noisy!)
Bring the kids with you. They’ll be good influences wanna help pick out the newest Fish Family member.
Not even, like, any cheese or wine to go with the crackers?
(I got what you meant, eventually, but for a moment I really was picturing a very sad plate of Ritz, all alone on a table.)
That is hilarious!
And I shall stop in, and nosh!
Hittin’ the good stuff before bedtime, I see.
Whelp, it’s almost 3:30 p.m. and as usual, I’m running late on Shoe Time.
First Call Of The Night:
“Hi, can I get a pizza with X, Y, Z, and elephant ear garlic, please?”
We have elephant garlic, yes.
This is elephant ear. No garlic is involved.
I assume the caller was either a gardener, or a zoologist.
Everyone Has The Same Name In This Town
Two “Wright” tickets, two “Jones” tickets. The Wrights showed up back-to-back. Luckily their orders were different enough to make it relatively easy to keep them straight.
Then two “Brown” tickets, who ALSO arrived back-to-back in line, except they had the exact same damn pizza order, only one also had onion rings.
This is why we need first names AS WELL, people!
This Is Why There’s A (half of a) Box Of Milk-Bones By The Drive-thru Window
Lotsa dogs, most notably a pair of perfectly matched brindle whippets, one with a pink collar, one with a blue collar.
The regular with the Great Dane also came by. That dog thinks it can fit on his owner’s lap and make it out the window. (He can’t, but he does try.)
Sad Tombone Noise
Guy picking up a small, I ask if he needs any plates or napkins.
“Nah, no napkins. Well, maybe a plate. Just one plate, please. Thanks.”
Drove off into the darkness, alone.
I told myself, maybe the hordes of in-laws are descending tomorrow and this is his last night of peace’n’quiet.
But somehow, I don’t think so.
You Hafta Say This One Out Loud To Get The Joke
Two frozen pizzas, pre-ordered a day ahead.
Customer name: “Freese.”
(I saw the credit card slip. That was, in fact, their name.)
All I Want For Christmas Is … A Metric Shitload Of Olives
Guy picks up a large deluxe with double green olives added. There’s a little girl, maybe 7 or 8, in the passenger seat.
I always call out the order when ringing them up, to confirm that we got everything right (or Wright .. see above!) and when I got to the “double olives” part, he got this weird sheepish look on his face, gestured towards what was clearly his daughter, and said to me quietly, “She really likes olives.”
That girl leaned over and, no words, simply beamed up at me with just the biggest smile on her face!
D’awwww.
“Santa … ?” “Um, Don’t Think So, Honey”
Guy walking down the sidewalk in the pitch dark, across the street. More than a bit bedraggled. Not unusual.
But this one was in full-on Santa gear. I call over a couple of crew who happened to be nearby sitting on their asses dicking around on their goddamn phones and they all took turns hollering out the drive-thru window at him.
“SANTA!!”
“Yo, Santa, where ya goin’ tonight?”
“… wow, he ain’t in a good mood.”
Guy never turned his head, though he moved a tiny bit at the first catcall so I know he heard them.
My Sweet Manager was like, “He could be some homeless homicidal maniac!”
We’ll never know.
But “Santa” was clearly having a not-good night.
Yes, I Showed My Boss My Underwear
In the spirit of the season or some shit like that, I wore my candy cane underpants, under dark green pants. Very Christmas-y.
But I knew nobody would see them, so towards the end of the night, I kinda went to **Sweet Manager, ** “Psst. Look! Check it out,” and pulled the top of my pants over my hip just enough for an inch of the red-and-white striped fabric underneath to peep out.
“See? I have Christmas spirit. I just keep it close to my … umm … heart.”
'Twas a thong.
‘‘Twas well worth the wait.
Thank you! 
Google Translate is pretty good!
Afternoon all. At the hotel in a nice warm room (they moved me when they couldn’t get the heat working either}, Brother and family have gone to church and I, being the solitary heathen of the family, get a few hours to watch tackleball ('Boys and the Fins). Nice and warm so far outside too, 58F currently but chance of snow showers tomorrow morning, so maybe a little White Christmas.
Shoe, some great stories, thanks for the grins and thoughts.
.Nettie, hope Buddy doesn’t have any more tricks to teach.
Real Fish, best wishes for your Dad and his family.
nellie, that Kitty Cantina sounds like a great idea.
FCM, sounds like the kids had a lot of fun. And you’ve definitely earned chillage.
Think that maybe nappage is on the agenda, so take care all.
Howdy Y’all! Deheathenization part one got accomplished. This included a very adoreable over the top cute performance by the kiddies. Anyone who desires can head on over to the book of faces and search for St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church Albany, GA to see the cuteness. It’s toward the very end if’n y’all prefer to skip over everything else. My ugly self is a fair amount of the everything else as I was Presider for the Morning Prayer part. So, that got over and it was back to da cave for a sammich and nappage. Then I got productive and made up the company smashed N.O.T. for tomorrow’s feast. It’ll just need the oven part which is to heat it up and get the cheese all melty. Part two of deheathenization starts in a little over four hours. Methinks I shall need caffeine via coffee with hot chawklit to fortify myself.
RealFish sorry your dad didn’t get sprung today. However it appears he’s in good spirits about it, so there’s that. Also, can’t remember if I said this or not, but really enjoyed the song.
shoe enjoyed the stories. Hawt chawklit with a good slug of rum makes for a fine adult beverage. Just sayin’.
Nettie Buddy is just bein’ a good little brother.
MOOOOOOM love the popsicle stick frames and the hand prints. Definite grandparent keepsakes. I have a handprint I did in kindergarten. It’s almost sixty-four years old! An antique!
And Tobias has a fever. Dammit. We’ll figure out what’s going on in the morning.
I cleaned. Packers pulled out a win, but the entire division has given me angina today. But I’m enjoying a Wisconsin Old Fashioned, and wishing I had stolen an AED from the hospital last trip. 
Yippie Ki Yay!
We’ve secretly replaced the barley in our rye mash bill with magic mushrooms. Let’s see if dogbutler notices - Knob Creek Distillery
Well then it was close to the heart. Of your bottom. 
And love the stories. Reminds me of some of the stories from my 30 years of retail.
{{{Tobias}}}
Feliz Navidad. 
I made shrimp cocktail earlier. Local bottled cocktail sauce. I wish the shrimps were bigger, but the ones I got were all I could get.
We’ve just had the escargots. Since I had to open a bottle of white wine anyway, I had a glass of white wine with it. (Normally, the only time I drink white wine is if we’re out of red… which we never are.) I bought some Cask Strength Maker’s Mark bourbon. Mrs. L.A. opened it, so I had to have some too. I’ll have some more after my wine.
Johnny L.A.'s Bourbon Cocktail Recipe
Ingredients
- 3 oz. bourbon
Instructions
- Pour the bourbon into a glass.
- Serve.
The Missus had hers with Angostura bitters 
and ice.
Not sure if there’s a dedicated room, but there’s a cat cafe on Music Valley Drive, close to Smart Art. Wesołych ŚwiątWesołych Świąt dla Ciebie też (yeah, Google Translate is pretty easy)
Went to SIL’s for Christmas eve lunch. My nephew was the chef de jour and made a spinach, cranberry bleu cheese stuffed poke loin, fart blossoms sauteed with pancetta and chestnuts, a fancy-schmancy version of mac and cheese and a nice salad with mandarins, romaine, red onion, candied pecans and cranberries). My now-adult great niece and nephew wanted to do mutant candy cane reindeer, per tradition, so we did that and dirty Santa this afternoon. Now, I’s tah-red.
Feliz Navidad, joueaux noel and merry Christmas to all!
Happy, happy, y’all. Looks like dinner with nephew, nephew-husband, my lovely wife, and sister-in-law, plus two dogs, is going to be spaghetti squash. Tomorrow is ham. ETA: and chocolate, of course.
I’ll leave y’all with a little Christmas Eve giggle from my god daughter.
Goddaughter to her best friend: I can read your name on your stocking, even though it’s in curse words!
Goddaughter’s mom: The word you are looking for is cursive.
Henceforth, whenever I write in cursive I shall refer to it as writin’ in curse words.
Vaguely reminiscent of my old chief’s recipe for rum and Coke:
- Fill an eight-ounce glass with rum.
- Show the glass a picture of a bottle of Coke. (CAUTION: Don’t show it a real bottle of Coke – that will dilute the rum too much.)
- Drink.
Right, like whispering, “Vermouth” to the gin to turn it into a martini.
As I’ve said before, our church must be doing something right. This morning we had greeters across the street from the Westboro Baptist Church. In the pouring rain.
Church this evening was great, we had a guest musician, a guy I know. He plays all sorts of insturments but is best known locally for his harp music. I have one of his CD’s. I met him at the library when I worked in the building. In 2009 I hired him to play at my grandmother’s nursing home, for her 105th birthday. Of course all the rest of the residents were invited to hear him.
It’s still raining and somewhat chilly but I am glad it’s not colder or we would have ice coming down.
This afternoon I made dinner rolls and a mince pie, and now I need to get myself in gear to prep the potatoes au gratin for tomorrow. I got a recipe online and have gone all fancy, as I will have a cream sauce with gruyere cheese.
It’s tomorrow that’s going to be the big deal as dinner will be here. So I’ll get up early, throw the potatoes in the oven, then the ham. Got to set up the tableware and fill the candy dish. It’s a family heirloom, and this is it’s 100th anniversary. It was given as a gift to my grandmother in 1923, and I recall it at her house in my earliest memories. Of all my possessions, if I had to run from a fire or whatever, and if my pets were safe, this is the thing I’d grab. My sister will be over early, around 11:00AM, to help with set up and slicing the ham. I’ve done a lot of turkeys but as old as I am this is my first ham on my own.
susan, as much as I like chocolate I don’t have a box out for this year.
Waves! Hey everyone! I’ve been reading, but I hate posting on my phone and haven’t had much time to sit in front of my desktop.
Go @Baker’s church! We used to ride with the Patriot Guard and we all practiced singing really LOUD in case we were lucky enough to have a confrontation with those horrible people. Didn’t happen because they were too cowardly to picket Veteran’s funerals out this way.
I managed to get some cookie making done yesterday and I am learning how to use my new stand mixer. The Russian tea cookies I made yesterday were much better than the last batch and tonight I watched almost all of them leave with BFF’s daughters…despite them all laugh/complaining about getting covered with powdered sugar.
A few days ago, when we were delivering our Christmas Angel gifts to the fire department, hubs noticed that there were still four cards left, so we did end up going to the mall again. It sucked. Thankfully the handwriting on the cards was clear enough that we didn’t have to guess about sizes, so that was helpful.
Today Hubs cousin and husband, two adult kids and two almost adult grands showed up earlier than expected, but not really. I’ve been married into that family for almost 40 years, I expected them to show up early or late but not on time, so I was happy that they showed up on the day I was expecting. I fed them a nice brunch and then we convoyed to their super cute B&B in the Prescott Pines area.
Once we pointed them to the dispensary and the booze sto and were sure they were happy, we left them to unwind and headed to my BFF’s place for dinner and prezzies.
We got our fill of littles ripping paper off gifts and had an adult exchange. I came home with some adult sippy mugs and chocolate milk bombs. I made hubs keep the scented candle he got and it is now in his bathroom with a lighter.
I was able to unload an unneeded calendar, I ordered one that day when it was a Mumper topic of conversation, but then our housekeeper brought us one from her last cruise. It was super funny when I was explaining why we didn’t need the one I had chosen cause all of those young mothers were nodding their heads about how of course I had to use the one I was gifted so housekeeper could see it.
So…looking at the time, I’m guessing someone will be starting a new MMP shortly. That someone won’t be me, there is relaxing to do before we head to Prescott for the Christmas touristy stuff and then to a dressy dinner. I bought hubs some Christmas suspenders with blinking lights. As long as I wait until he’s dozing on his recliner, I will be able to replace his boring suspenders with some nice remote controlled ones. No reason to bother him with putting yet another gadget in his pocket, I’ll just hold on to it for him.