kitchen

I'm happy with the kitchen these days -- my design anxiety has ebbed and I like cooking and baking in there. Three McCormicks came over today for lunch, and it was good to see them -- we mostly sat in the dining area eating soup and cookies, talking energetically about this and that, as we always do. I am sitting on the couch watching the sun go down. I'm not sure if I need to make dinner.

On xmas eve I went out to lunch with A and B and Garry and David. That was a lot of fun. Afterward, I spent an hour or so at the Asian Museum before I drove across the bridge. I mostly wanted to visit the snuff bottles. I was dismayed to see that the corner of the park closest to the museum was densely populated by older white homeless men and their stuff. I don't know if I'm just getting old and losing my capacity for empathy, but I hate seeing this sort of thing. Fortunately, the snuff bottles did not disappoint.

I stopped by the Bowl and it was not crowded. I guess a lot of people were out of town. When I got to N+T's there were preparations under way to get T's niece to the airport. I ended up riding along with N, which was nice because I got to chat with the niece on the way there and with Nola on the way back -- we got a little turned around while we were trying to skirt around the post-Raiders-game traffic, but you never really get completely lost in the cell phone era.

Anyway, I had a really nice, fairly low-key xmas eve/day. I got home before 5:00, after I dropped N off at the airport (she was going up to Seattle), and did next to n othing, except make the dough for the cookies, so that it could chill over night. Gene and Barbara were having people over for xmas and that involved a bit of music -- I think that was the first time I've ever heard any coming from their place. It wasn't loud, but I could hear the bass line, and so I thought, once again, about how much it might cost to insulate the shared wall. Then I put in earplugs and went to sleep.