December 25, 2005

December 25, 2005

Yuma, Arizona

YEAR 2 DAY 191

 

Merry Christmas

 

Turn your speakers up for this. <http://www.reuters.hu/card_dom/index_content.html> With thanks to E.D.

We realized the other day that this travelling lifestyle precludes us continuing some old family Christmas traditions. We've decided we are going to establish some new traditions for ourselves. We can't continue the long held practice of my family, of having waffles for breakfast on Christmas Day. We'll establish a new tradition of having fresh fruit salad for breakfast on Christmas Day, and another new tradition of going out for a waffle breakfast on new Year's Day. So, this morning we had fresh fruit salad for breakfast, then began opening out gifts. We let Bo start. We gave him his wrapped gift, and laughed uproariously at the result. He grabbed the gift, jumped up on the couch, and proceeded to methodically tear the wrapping paper off his new tug toy, Lambie. We laughed and laughed. He obviously has unwrapped gifts before. We didn't know that. Last year we got him shortly before Christmas, and I guess we didn't have any wrapped gifts for him last year. Next was Teddy. He doesn't unwrap his own gift. We helped him. We opened our own gifts to each other. I got a Navajo sweater purchased at the Pow Wow we went to in Pahrump, Nevada, and 3 new magic tricks from Houdini's Magic Shop in Las Vegas.

After opening gifts, we phoned our sisters, and wished family members a Merry Christmas. We cleaned up the wrapping paper which we left all over the floor for Teddy to play with. I took a short nap while Joanne prepared our contribution to the communal Christmas dinner. She made a wild rice dressing. Wild rice is ridiculously expensive down here, so it's not likely anyone else will contribute anything with wild rice. We have lots of wild rice, purchased last summer between Winnipeg and Kenora, likely the cheapest place in North America to buy wild rice.

When I woke from my nap, I went outside to do preventive maintenance. The sun was shining brilliantly, and the temperature was 82. I changed into a bathing suit and headed for the swimming pool. AHHHHH ! ! ! Floating around a pool heated to 86 degrees, on a sunny, hot Christmas day. One of the best Christmas Day experiences I've ever had. I returned to the trailer, showered, and dressed for the Christmas dinner in the clubhouse at 3:00 P.M..

We went to the communal Christmas dinner. It was nice, but not quite as "family" feeling as last year at Rainbow's End in Livingston, Texas. Last year seating was at tables of eight. This year seating was at long tables, making it feel a teensy bit institutional to me. Sort of like the wealthy, old folk version of a Union Mission Christmas dinner. I performed one of my new magic tricks twice after dinner. I had only practiced it a bit this afternoon, and my execution was still a little rough around the edges, but I still managed to pull it off. I even got an invitation to perform a magic show on New Year's Eve, but we're not staying here that long. After dinner we chatted for awhile with a Vietnam veteran, discussing the U.S. "involvement" in Iraq. Suffice to say he and I don't see it the same way. God bless America !

We returned to the trailer as the sun was setting, and changed into bathing suits. We went to the pool and hot tub for a twilight dip. Joanne sat in the hot tub, and I floated around the heated pool on a couple of foam floaties. Eventually, as the air got cooler, I joined her and another couple in the hot tub. We chatted with them for a long time. They're from California, and have been full timing 2 days less than us. They "left home" on June 20, 2004. Finally, about 8:00 P.M. we reluctantly returned to the trailer, to feed Teddy and Bo. I downloaded and processed a couple of photos I took this morning, did today's accounting, and worked on today's journal entry.

DSK