Diary: December 2011

Sigh. Cards didn't happen. I was thinking they'd be New Year's Cards. Now I'm wondering if I'll have time for St. Patrick's Day cards.

December: We went to Vegas. This year we stayed at the Encore. Wynn has the best "courting the gay dollar" website I've seen for the major resorts, so I've been wanting to try there. The Wynn/Encore complex also has the most vegan-friendly menus I've seen at any of the resorts. I really liked it, and would definitely go back.

Work continues to be the biggest thing in my life, and as I'm not comfortable writing about it in this context, I hope this goes partway to explaining why I don't post as much as I used to.

I did get a Xmas tree this year. This was the first year I've ever had my own "real" tree. In college, I used to have a plywood tree with cuphooks screwed into it that I could hang ornaments on. It was cute, and space efficient, but I wanted the smell. Grayskale was out of town for a business trip when I got it, so I got to set up the tree as a surprise. I covered it with black and gold ornaments, and put a tinfoil Stanley Cup on top so it was our Bruins Tree. It made me happy.

New Year's Eve found me out at a "drinking" party, which I haven't done for New Year's in quite a while. With the waffle party planned for the next morning, I typically don't indulge much on NYE, but this year I discovered that cognac isn't that bad, after all. I also looked up the words to "Auld Lang Syne." I didn't realize that the opening line is an rhetorical question: "Should auld acquaintance be forgot?" I had assumed this was "should" in the sense of "If it is forgotten", not "should you forget about this?" That was an entertaining surprise, as was the bluegrass rendition of Auld Lang Syne that I cued up to play at midnight. Didn't realize that was bluegrass. It was jarring.

The waffle party is technically in January, but is part of my holiday tradition, so I may as well cover it now. This year's challenge was Gluten-Free waffles. I think they came out OK, but could have been better. The cocoa-Teff were probably the biggest hit, although I liked the pumpkin-cornmeal ones a lot. However, all the gluten-free waffles lacked a certain wafflosity that I plan to keep working on.