A Few Last Hurrahs
Some quality family time. The molerat shows her true colors!
We were fortunate enough to close out 2022 with three consecutive days of time spent with family...
Thursday
My cousin Pete tried to get everyone together for a late family Christmas dinner Thursday evening... But, it turned out that his parents and siblings all had prior plans; so, it ended up just being my parents; Kelly, Steve, Olivia, and Hannah; and Athennia, Riley, and me.
So, Pete and Alissa kept it casual and we just hung out and had pizza for dinner. I didn't get a whole lot of pictures, though I think the few I took are pretty good.
Here's Athennia and Riley getting a few smiles out of Hannah...
Then there's this gem...
I wanted a shot of Olivia trying her hand at eating pizza without Steve having to cut it into bites first. It was only later on that I realized what a godlike shot I had snapped of my cousin Liam!
As Athennia put it,
Liam looks like he's seen some things...
This one's pretty fantastic as well: Clearly the best slice of pizza Steve has ever had in his entire life...
After dinner we sat around the table just hanging out.
I was about to get a picture of all of us when Liv decided to swan-dive off the back of the sofa or something in the other room; so, everyone dispersed before I got the chance. <shrug>
Friday
Athennia woke up for work Friday morning to discover that virtually no one else at the company was coming in; so, she decided not to go in either. She, Riley, and I had breakfast together...
...And then I got my first tattoo!
What can I say? Apparently I'm a HUGE fan of the Avatar franchise.
I handled it like a champ. It didn't even hurt!
Coming off though? That hurt quite a bit. I'm not sure what's in that adhesive, but I ended up taking an extra 12 minutes ripping half of my arm hair out in the shower to get that stuff off. Good times!
Later in the afternoon, we had an appointment with Comcast...
Verizon has been playing hardball with Athennia for quite awhile now—jacking up their pricing while giving her crappy bandwidth, piss-poor connectivity, and even worse customer service. And of course, the problem with playing hardball is, sometimes you throw your meanest fastball at someone and they unexpectedly smash it out of the park.
That was our play this time: We told Verizon that the Hell's Angels said get bent, and we kicked them to the curb to take advantage of a deeply-discounted promotional offer from Comcast for the next two years.
Not much to report on there, other than the fact that we're now paying half our previous internet bill for more than twice the speed.
Also, the Comcast tech who came out happened to be the same guy who had come out to my parents' house a couple months ago. So, I felt obliged to point out that, by me being at two different locations he's been assigned, I'm officially the closest thing he has to a stalker.
And, we made the no-brainer decision to purchase our own modem-router combo instead of paying Comcast literal thousands of dollars to rent one from them indefinitely for the rest of our lives ;)
I was inspired to get a bit philosophical with our SSID, too...
I link; therefore I am.
— Routér de KART
Alas, I did forget to show Comcast Guy my super-awesome tattoo, which is regrettable.
To help me heal from the resulting mental anguish, Athennia and I took Riley to Friendly's for dinner.
(Nope, this had nothing to do with celebrating the anniversary of the night Riley and I first met when Athennia introduced me to the kids last year. It was entirely due to my being rejected by the Angels and then forgetting to show Comcast Guy my tattoo proclaiming how much I love three-hour James Cameron environmentalism propaganda films.)
Friendly's was delicious, albeit a tad demanding...
The molerat ordered chicken tenders, which looked really good; so, after I finished my burger, I asked her for a bite.
She was so generous...
You're so amused with yourself; aren't you, molerat?
It's a bold strategy for someone who has a birthday coming up in just over a week... I guess we'll see if you get any presents!
Once we were stuffed to the gills from dinner, it was time for dessert (as per the pledge on the front of the menu)...
Then, Athennia and Penny watched a movie together while lounging on our freshly-laundered but unmade bedsheets and a pile of my clean clothes.
...And some textbooks.
Saturday
And finally, we ended 2022 by inviting my parents over for dinner on New Year's Eve.
You might have expected 31 December to be a blustery winter day in the northern hemisphere; but, you'd be wrong: It was a humid, 60-degree hellscape straight out of a Silent Hill game...
Lame!
But, dinner was fantastic anyway. Athennia cooked a chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, broccoli, and homemade drop biscuits from scratch.
She baked a pumpkin pie for dessert, and my mom brought a creampuff pie she likes to make.
For my part? I made sure we had some killer smooth jazz going all night: First, Larry Carlton's 1989 masterpiece On Solid Ground, and then Four 80 East's excellent album Nocturnal from 2001.
After dinner, my parents said they've been watching Cheers reruns lately; so, I pulled up the entire series on my HTPC and streamed a random episode :)
And that's about it for 2022.