Woke up early this morning, and found my parents up already, swilling coffee and noshing on cranberry bread made by a colleague of mine. Offered them eggs and bacon, which they jumped at — I chopped garlic, red and green peppers, mushrooms, and fresh herbs (rosemary and basil), and then cooked some bacon. Once the bacon was done, I sautéed the mushrooms, garlic, peppers and herbs, and then added scrambled egg batter to that. Voila, breakfast.
Dad and I went over my financial statements for November; we’ll do it again in January with the December statements. The economy is picking up, at least with the stock market numbers, and while there’s still lots of people out of work, the value of my small investments is up — provided that mutual funds don’t tank in 2004.
Mom walked me through my kitchen, to see what I needed and what I didn’t. We also discussed having me come down to Sarasota, to her condo, to hang out for a while this March, during spring break. Of course, this is the time everyone goes to Sarasota and Florida, so it may be too expensive for me to get there this year.
I went for a walk with Mom and Dad, and just got back from doing that. Dad is on the phone, talking with business colleagues in California — I’m having a hard time imagining how happy those folks must be to hear from him the day after Christmas, at 7:30 in the morning, more or less. It sounds urgent, though. Apparently they’ve got a possible deal in the works that they’re trying to conclude before the New Year. So if it earns them lots and lots of dough, then maybe that’s worth getting woken up at 7:30 am on Boxing Day.
In other news, my Christmas present to myself was a weigh-in of 246 pounds on Christmas Eve morning. Of course, this morning I’m up to 254 because of all the bread, pie, cake and cookies I’ve eaten in the last two and a half days, but that’s ok. bruceb has pointed out that once you’re in a good pattern of eating, it’s easy to drop sudden weight gains like that. I’ll be back to 246 in a few days as my body works through the weight it put on, and I go back to normal eating patterns that don’t involve two slices of cranberry pie with vanilla ice cream.
My parents in theory are leaving in the next hour or so to go to a lunch with their friends down in Stonington, CT. They’re running behind, though, what with showering and looking for their glasses and finding all their loot. It’s been a lot nicere having them here than I thought it would be, though, and I’m actually looking forward to having them come again. It’s as though having them in my house put them on their best behavior. I am looking forward to getting my own bed back, though, and before I have them come again, I’m going to buy a fold-out couch or a futon for my extra room, so there’s a place for me to sleep that doesn’t involve taking over a student room for the night.
