Cravings satisfied

Been a while since I updated you all on my social life. Went out with the Marine a lot last week. Did the Tuesday night dinner club at the Mexican place. On Thursday, went with him to his annual holiday dinner with his golf club buddies. That was interesting. First time I met that group.

There were not one, but two, Baptist preachers at the table. Everybody showed up dressed in Christmas colors, except me and John. I was dressed in black. The wives all wore Christmas sweaters and Christmas jewelery. One showed up with blinking Christmas light earrings. I was clearly the youngest one there. And the only one who didn't bring any presents for the ladies exchange. Who knew? John didn't tell me a thing.

They were all freaked out that I would feel bad about not getting anything. I didn't care at all of course. But somebody cribbed a stuffed bear in a tin from someone else's gift bag so I wouldn't leave empty handed. John foisted off one of his gifts on me later. Which was actually pretty good. A fleece throw with reindeer on it. Can never have too many fleece throws. That's probably all the gifts I'll get this year. Which is okay too. Don't really need more stuff.

So then yesterday I got roped into going to the Baptist church for their cantata. Don't believe I've ever seen a Christmas pageant put on by adults dressed in costume. Not at a church service anyway. It was actually pretty good. The singing was anyway. But the church was pitch dark. I crashed into the pew trying to sit down. And they used red lighting for the actors. For the whole show. Gave it a kind of hellish glow.

Still, the sermon was mercifully short. Not even a sermon really. More like a call to be saved by the baby jesus. You were supposed to raise your hand in the dark if you wanted the pastor to beseech God to save your soul. I didn't do it. On the way out, they gave up plain brown paper bags with fruit and candy in it.

John then decided we should drive 35 miles north to have lunch. At a chain restaurant. To be fair, it's not a chain they have around here. And the food was good. I had some pot roast and a piece of fried chicken. Both of which I've been craving forever. Not craving it anymore. Think I'm still digesting it all today.

And it was a lovely day for a drive as long as you have a good heater in the car. Beautiful scenery in the mountains. Went on roads I've never been on before. And the highlight was the family of wild turkeys that crossed right in front of the car. We had to stop on the road to let them go by. Pretty lucky there wasn't any other traffic at the time. Road so curvy and the locals drive so fast, we probably would have been rear-ended. But accidents were averted and I got to tell John the story about how my sister killed a turkey for Christmas dinner, with a bus. So there's that... [photo credit]