Weekend highlights

Karaoke - Freddie's was not a full as it normally is on a Fri night, so there were fewer karaoke singers. I got to sing 5 times during my 2 1/2 hours there! I had a good time visiting with my buddies Chris and Sean.

Parade - It was really cold for the Manassas Christmas Parade, but at least it wasn't windy. We had a lot of fun and I ate too many sweets.

Dinner - Spouse wasn't feeling well so he didn't go with me when I met up with Susan, her boyfriend Gerry, Clara, her husband Sivan and their son Kai. We had a really nice visit, chatting about politics, work, quality of life, and holidays. We ordered Greek food from a nearby restaurant and ate at Clara & Sivan's. Afterward they surprised me with a birthday cake and sung "Happy Birthday" to me. It was sweet.

Brunch - Spouse, his mom and I picked up my aunt Mary and we had brunch at Ireland's Four Provinces. I had selected brunch as my meal of choice for this year's birthday, and Mary recommended the venue, which we all enjoyed a lot.

Lights - On Fri I strung the wrap around porch with white lights. When I plugged them all in, I saw an 8' section of lights that were out! I replaced the bulbs at the beginning and end of the un-lit section, but it didn't help. So, I unhooked that string, unwound them from the railing, and re- strung another string in its place. That string also had an 8' section that didn't light! What was particularly distressing was that I'd just bought these lights last year. After spending 2 1/2 hours wrapping and wiring the whole thing up, I decided to just leave the lights as-is, with the hope that the non-working lights would magically start working just as mysteriously as they had stopped working. I began to feel jinxed after remembering last year's outdoor holiday decorating debacle.

Then on Sun when we returned from VA, I decided to string the Christmas tree with lights. I got the 1st 3 strings tested and put on. When I tested the 4th and final string, I found a big section of lights that didn't work, so I threw them in the trash. I'll buy another string of lights this week to finish lighting the Christmas tree. Its just kind of weird that we decorated our house and tree for years in our old home and never had any issues, but our 1st 2 Christmases in our new house have been accompanied by lighting issues.

DVDs - Last night Spouse & I watched the 2nd disc in the 3-disc DVD set of HBO's miniseries "John Adams". It was nominated for a bunch of awards, and we've been enjoying watching it. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in history, like Spouse. I'm enjoying it to, and I'm not particularly interested in history. Add it to your Netflix queue and be surprised how much you enjoy it.

***Update***

Video - I can't believe I forgot to mention the wonderful video that fellow blogger Gallus made for my birthday! He included all my favorite stuff, and really made my birthday special. Check it out here.

Crush du Jour: Steve Zahn

Friday fragments

Last evening Spouse & I walked over to Second St (the main commercial street in town) for the merchant's holiday open house. Typically the non-restaurant merchants on Second St close at 5pm, but on this night they all stay open until 9pm and provide snacks for shoppers. Second St is closed off to car traffic, and the local high school jazz band plays Christmas carols. We only stayed for about 1/2 hour, but did run into a few neighbors. The historic street looked charming all decked out with lights, garlands, ribbons and bows for Christmas. Unfortunately we will miss the Christmas parade on Sat.

I have the day off work today. Since my company doesn't allow us to carry over unused leave I realized I needed to use 4 days before the end of Dec. So I'm taking Fri off each week before Christmas, and then taking Wed, Christmas Eve off, too. I worked a 2 days the week of Thanksgiving, 4 days this week, 4 days next week, 4 days the following week, 2 days the week of Christmas (we get Thurs & Fri off), and 3 days the week of New Years (we get Thurs & Fri off). Pretty sweet, eh?

Last week when I took off Wed, the day before Thanksgiving, I made a long 'to-do' list for myself that included stuff like housecleaning and making up the guest room beds. But today is just going to be a fun day. I'm going to make a deposit at the bank, maybe have lunch out, get my hair cut, put up white lights on the wrap around porch, and get caught up on blog reading. No vacuuming, no scrubbing - just fun! Work has been so busy all week I haven't been able to read my favorite blogs, so I feel like a junkie jonesin' for a fix!

This evening we're going back to VA for the weekend, and have we ever got a full weekend planned! After dropping the dog and Spouse off at his mom's, I'm going to meet a few friends and sing karaoke at Freddie's.

Sat morning we'll take Spouse's mom and my aunt Mary to the Olde Towne Manassas Christmas Parade. We do this every year because our friends live on the parade route and host a big parade-watching party. Sat evening we're meeting up with our friends Susan and Clara & Sivan for dinner, whom we haven't seen in quite a while. Susan and Clara and I worked for the same company about 10 years ago, and have remained friends since.

Sun morning we're going to brunch with my aunt Mary for my birthday. Then we'll pack up our drag and head back home. So it will be a full, but fun weekend.

Crush du Jour: Jeff Wilson