Game On!

NewWifey(tm) certainly knows how to decorate a dining room for Christmas, doesn’t she? Shame we had no one to share it with.

It’s probably for the best, though. Imagine sitting down in a festive space like that (and when we set the table we used those gold chargers in the china cabinet, Christmas themed china, crystal stemware, a Baccarat decanter for the wine, and the good sporks) and being served a wedge of Stouffer’s frozen lasagna (“with 2X the meat required by the Lasagna With Meat Sauce Standard!“) from a cardboard tub. The disconnect would be painful.

Oh well. It was pretty, the wine was good, we had a loop of cheesy Christmas carols bellowing from the stereo,  and best of all: the drunken after-dinner sex on/under the table didn’t startle our guests this year.

Then we opened presents. I gave NewWifey(tm) a Chia Head and an IOU. She gave me a chair to replace the ottoman I perch on when I watch porn on the computer.

After the insincere “Oh, you shouldn’t have!“s and the careful re-folding of  wrapping paper so we could use it again next year, we poured ourselves another Dr. McGillicuddy’s Butterscotch Schnapps and settled in to watch “A Muppet’s Christmas Carol”.

But just as the opening song came to an end and Fozzy was about to tell us that Marley was dead, to begin with, there was a knock on the door. NewWifey(tm) peeked out the bay window.

“It’s Bunny!” she said.

“Quick, turn the tree and the stereo off!” I hissed. “Pretend we’re not here. She’s an affront to god!”

“I HEARD THAT!” came a bellow from the other side of the door. “LET ME IN! I HAVE PRESENTS.”

Bunny, you may recall, is my very good buddy who I helped when she was transitioning from male to female. The one who’s vagina she insisted on showing me.

“Oh, alright” I said. “As long as you have presents. Honey, let the freak of nature in.”

NewWifey(tm) opened the door, and Bunny bounced in lugging a fur-trimmed red sack with a bunch of presents poking out the top. She smelled like cinnamon.

“You guys getting ready to watch the Muppets?” she said.

NewWifey(tm) pointed to the paused screen.

Bunny nodded. “Mind if I watch with you?”

“Yes, I do” I said. She plopped down on the couch anyway.

“Do you have any fruitcake?” she asked.

“No” I said.

“Dr. McGillicuddy?”

“Bunny” I said, “you said you had presents?”

“Oh yeah!” she opened her sack. Out came a large rectangular box and several smaller ones for me, and NewWifey(tm) got passed a large flat box…and several smaller ones. “Merry Christmas!”

We tore into them.

NewWifey(tm) got some typical girly crap: a Lenovo Thinkpad laptop computer, a Kindle, some clothes or something, and jewelry. You know, junk.

But I scored. Big time:

THIS IS BETTER THAN THE PONY!! *

“Dude” I said, “I know we’ve been bu -”

She stopped me. “I told you, it’s not ‘dude’. You’ve seen my vagina. I’m a chick. Make that mistake again and I’ll knock your teeth out.”

“Sorry” I said. “Babe, I know we’ve been buddies for a long time, but…what the fuck? I didn’t get this much stuff at my wedding!”

“Well” she said, “I really, really wanted to thank you for opening your home to me when I needed a place to recover after my surgeries. Plus, I couldn’t stand playing your goddam PLAYSTATION 2 that I can’t believe you’re still limping along with. If I ever have to stay here again I need a system that won’t make me feel like Lady Macbeth when I’m done playing.”

I gave her a hug, copped a quick feel, then brought her out a half pound slab of fruitcake and a mug of Dr. MacGillicuddy’s finest. Then we all sat and watched Michael Caine and Fozzie Bear and Rizzo (my spirit animal) and Miss Piggy and Kermit and a bunch of chickens, mice, and penguins (plus one dead goose and a dead turkey…some animals are more equal than others even in Muppetland, I guess) dance and skate and sing their way through Dicken’s moralist tale of –

Ah, fuck it. We watched “A Muppet’s Christmas Carol” and got blitzed on syrupy booze and fruitcake.

God bless us, every one.

G’night, kids. Figgy pudding.

.

Picture Supplement

I brought my camera and tripod to work with me Christmas morning and took a few shots out our kitchen window of the Manhattan skyline just before, and just after, dawn. Normally a setup like that would get in the way of announcers bolting in and out for life giving coffee and Little Debbie Cakes. But there was only a skeleton crew on that day, so I went for it.

I had to work Christmas morning and it sucked. But I do like these pictures.

Downtown, Freedom Tower and Battery:

Midtown, with Empire State Building:

Same:

It’s too bad I’ll never use my camera again. But I mean who would, when….

Ciao!

* That last item in the lower right will be the subject of a not-too-distant future entry. If you like stories about fat, middle aged radio announcers obsessed with Japanese girls in maid outfits who shred, you’re not gonna want to miss it.