Family and Football

I slept so late, I ended up having breakfast for lunch. Made Mint Chocolate Chip Pancakes while listening to Christmas music. I wanted to put on records, but I barely got through the first half of Mickey's Christmas Carol before the needle broke! I don't have the money to replace it now.

 I ended up switching to CDs. The first Disney Christmas Collection has some decent material, including Jiminy Cricket's charming rendition of The Night Before Christmas...but I have no idea what's with that strange Chip n' Dale carol medley that ends the recording. Christmas With the Chipmunks has Alvin, Simon, Theodore, and their guardian Dave singing everything from "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" to "Silver Bells," as well as introducing "The Chipmunks' Christmas Song (Please Christmas Don't Be Late)."

Messed around online for an hour. Called Dad and Jodie; got Jodie. I wanted to make sure they would be home today before I went over there. Yes, they would. Dad evidently had an emergency hospital trip last Sunday. Probably a bad reaction to his new medication, Jodie said. At any rate, he was fine now, and they'd be having food and people over.

I went over around quarter of 2. Jodie had tons of food there! She'd made both ham and cabbage and chili. There were pigs in a blanket and tons of cookies - chocolate chip, Reeces Pieces chips, character print butter - all from frozen dough packages. I had the ham and cabbage while watching the Eagles play the Redskins with Dad and, during the first half, Craig. He had to leave for work (Rose was also working), though Khai remained. Jessa was there (Joe was working as well). The neighbors showed up later, with Chloe and her brother to play with Khai. Evidently, their family is going to Disney World by train starting tomorrow, and they wanted to say good-bye before they left.

(The game was better than it has been the last few weeks. The Eagles tried hard, but they finally came up short, 27-22. And why is it every time I watch and Eagles/Redskins game on my day off, there's a fight in the fourth quarter? The Dolphins did better, just getting by the Arizona Cardinals 26-23. At least none of them had to play in a snow storm. The Steelers and the Bills had to deal with Buffalo's stadium being in the middle of a blizzard. The Steelers finally just outran them 27-20.)

After I went home, I did some re-writing on my story to bring Palpatine in earlier and put the focus back on Luke. Luke and Ben watch as Palpatine comes out, wanting to count his gold. He orders Vader to bring him his bags of gold and his golden egg-laying hen. Ashoka drugs both, turning the gold and hen over to Luke and Ben.

Finished the night with a fried egg wrap with sauteed mushrooms and Lego Star Wars. I finally got through "Darth Maul" and finished the Super Story for "The Phantom Menace" in well under an hour (more like a little over 40 minutes, actually). Tried "Retake Theed Palace," but that one's kind of complicated, and I didn't get far.