A Quiet Pandemic Christmas

If there was anything everyone in the world will remember about this Christmas it's obviously that we're in the midst of a pandemic that had gotten worse most likely because people ignored it and got together for thanksgiving anyway. And so when you hear that people are being urged not to get together today, you KNOW a lot of people would still ignore it. Which makes me concerned about 2 weeks from now.  Heck I'm ignoring it myself and spending the morning at Lisa's to have breakfast with mom and Johnnie. Better to be in contact with them now rather than AFTER they hang out with her family later. And Lisa had a surprise for me this morning actually. She had found corned beef canned that her dad had given her to try. And it wasn't that cheap $2 corned beef you get at the grocery store either, it was the expensive kind. And so I was excited to prepare it and eat it too. CHRISTMAS CORNED BEEF THIS MORNING WHOO HOO! And so Lisa and I had the corned beef and eggs and Johnnie had eggs and pancakes. And loose leaf Earl Grey hot tea from Lisa's brand new teapot. A fine Christmas breakfast it was. I washed the dishes and actually promised to watch Johnnie while Lisa got in a little bit of practice. But she changed her mind after about 15 minutes and decided they'd go early to Joah's house and she'd practice there. That's Lisa showing off a bit and that is perfectly ok. By the time I helped Johnnie get dressed it was already 11 AM anyway. I had almost spent the entire morning with them. So I did get to spend a little bit of Christmas with Johnnie after all and that was more than I could ask... even though technically it was my turn this year since Lisa had him for a couple of weeks last year. Just had no reason since we're all hunkered down by the pandemic anyway.  Off I went home to watch the lineup of NBA basketball Christmas games, including the Lakers later on. And even though I'm by myself, I was still going to keep a bit of tradition and cook ham and stuffing, knowing full well I'd end up with enough food for the next few days at least.  I actually knocked off for a nap right after lunch. Who knew that Gobbler Quesadilla from Trader Joe's would fill me up?! And when I woke up it was already nearly 3 PM! And all I could think of was that I barely had 1500 steps to this point. It's like when we go anywhere for Christmas and I haven't had any opportunity to walk around and/or get some steps in. But I wasn't worried only because I knew I could get everything done inside of a couple of hours. I made my glaze for the ham and then put it in the oven... this time hoping to get some practice in with regards to the glazing of the outside of the ham. And then while the thing was in the oven, I popped one of those YouTube videos about getting x number of steps in. And so I spent the next 45 minutes doing aerobics via YouTube. And I got caught up on my steps in a hurry. So much so I was up to 6000 steps before the Laker game had even started at 5 PM. And so i finished my cornbread stuffing and... voila> A ham Christmas dinner for me, solo though I may be tonight. I spent the next couple of hours watching the Lakers totally dismantle the Mavs. Funny a year ago the Clips beat the Lakers on Christmas day totally spoiling my Christmas. The Clippers were a force then and it wasn't until months later that the Lakers would finally turn into the 2020 World Championship Lakers. Yeah, it's early in the season. It's only Game #2. I also wanted to find a way to watch Wonder Woman 1984 tonight. Christmas Day is when all the good movies come out normally. But this year we only have that one. The rest is on Netflix or Amazon Prime and that's fine by me. The good thing was that I did find a site where I could download WW1984 and so right after the Lakers game, it was on to movie night. Sadly, I can't say that I would recommend the movie. In fact, I would have been totally disappointed if I had shelled out $19 for this on HBO Max. With that said, my search for the movie actually led me to a site that had an open directory to the entire web. And this site had thousands and thousands of movies from the 80s and 90s! One by one I started to discover movies in my old VHS collection that I had kept in the hopes of one day seeing them again. Not anymore. I downloaded and downloaded until well past midnight. And by the time I was done, it was like I got the BEST Christmas present I could have ever hoped for. Almost all of the best movies in my old VHS/DVD collection is now on digital copy! YES YES YES!! It was only a couple of days that I spent a good hour looking for a couple of old funny Patrick Dempsey movies from the 80s (Can't Buy Me Love and Loverboy) and not only did i find these, I found a whole lot more! I even ended up watching Tristan and Isolde the romance from 2006 that I remember watching back then, right about the time before I got together with Lisa. Funny about the things you remember. I also remember Christmas 2005 when Lisa uttered those famous words "you made a dent in my life". Who KNEW back then that she simply misspoke and used the wrong words?! I laugh about that now. Anyway it turned out to be a pretty good Christmas after all. And I didn't even get to bed until almost 3 PM. That's how late I stayed up watching all these movies I got!