Oh, yeah, December

I really have been busy busy, also somewhat laid low by allergies the last two weeks (TMI. You’re welcome), but I do need to catch up here, and then write an end-of-year wrapup which I can point to in my New Year’s cards, because of course I never got around to sending out Xmas cards.

Early December was about auditions – for me and my friends, and for both Blue Hill Troupe’s Pinafore and Savoynet’s Mikado. So there were coachings and audition tapings and such. And that all got wrapped up the second weekend in December. Some friends got the roles they targeted, some friends got other (but still nice) roles, and some friends didn’t get cast (*sadface*). I myself did not get the lead in Mikado I auditioned for, but was fine about that and am doing chorus for the show. That’ll be a lot of fun. I’ve conducted Mikado, but I’ve never been in Mikado. Also, as wonderful as my music-directing experiences at the festival have been, they’ve also been terrifying and a lot of work. ’Just’ being in the chorus is going to be practically like a vacation. Or, at worst, different work, but without the responsibility. Also, nice to see my name in a cast list again – I haven’t been on stage as an actor in over a decade.

Having at least gotten through First Christmas without Charles last year, I’d made a lot of notes as to what to do better this year. Again, I was hosting my father as a houseguest, and hosting Christmas dinner with close friends. This year I had every intention of starting Xmas prep (like bringing up the boxes) in November, but recovery from the heart thing and two trips out of town made that just not happen. So, aside from the audition stuff, I cleared the calendar for December.

Aside from gifts and menu planning, I needed to get the apartment together – and the big thing was the china cabinet in the dining room. We had been warned years ago that the new owners of the apartment below us were going to do major renovation, including knocking down the wall between their dining room and the room next to it (the ‘maid’s room’) – which means it would behoove us to empty the china closet that sits on our corresponding wall and move it out a foot or so. Well, that renovation didn’t happen until this fall (and is still happening, although the demo stuff is done), and I’d done that pretty much on my own. So I had to scootch the china closet back to the wall, then wash all the boxed china and put it back. That was a weekend, pretty much.

I also had decided to wash the dining room chandelier. This is something that C did every year, but I had never attempted. I wouldn’t have bothered except we’d both noted you could really see the difference afterward. So I pulled out the documentation and removed all the dangly bits. I thought I’d remembered C just using Windex to do the cleaning, but a quick internet search advised a solution of rubbing alcohol and distilled water, so I did that instead. And it wasn’t too bad, the deconstruction, the cleaning or the reassembly.

(again, I remain amazed that I am a person who owns a chandelier. And a grandfather clock. And a silver tea set. And and and.)

Then I could actually tackle Christmas. I’d made a big list, and it was daunting, but I reminded myself that somehow it all gets done, or discarded without fuss. I didn’t get to polish the piano or the entertainment center, but who cares? I did get the boxes up and assemble the tree and the lights by the time my Dad got here, but he had to help me decorate. (Dad, grumpily: “you should get rid of half these ornaments”).

Anyway, the actual visit and Christmas were terrific. Dad came up on Thursday and chilled while I worked, then I took him to a really fun funky restaurant around the corner, Fabrika. (that’s where I got the cosmo with the rubber duck) Every time someone asks me to describe the menu, my brain locks up – it’s really weird. (take a look at the website) But boy is it fun.

Friday, we went into town and went to the Museum of Arts and Design on Columbus Circle. That was really interesting, particularly the Shari Boyle exhibit. We did a quick buzzthrough of the Time Warner Center, then walked down to find a particular bar. Dad had sent me a list of bars from some NY Times article that we might want to check out, and this one was hidden in a 1 train subway entrance. We ended up not finding it (we did find it a few days later) and when I looked it up, it wasn’t open yet anyway. Back to the apartment for rest and relaxation, and out to Black Thai for dinner.

(we generally also watched TV together, usually MSNBC, but also the first four latest Reachers and first two latest Shetlands. He also watched football. and we took power walks when the schedule permitted)

Saturday, I took Dad to a drag brunch at Kween. (the same drag brunch I’d taken my brother to last month) After hearing my brother and me discuss drag stuff, he was interested enough to at least give it a shot. We had a good time! (see pictures) Different queens from last month (Norma Tears was hosting, and Gemini was the other one) and they sang live and did a lot of Christmas stuff, like Barbra’s whackadoodle “Jingle Bells” arrangement. I don’t think Dad would want to do that again, but he enjoyed himself.

Just because it was kind of on the way home, we then went to the cemetery. Dad had not visited since the funeral, and just wanted to see what the plaque looked like. I didn’t really get a ‘visit’, but did get to wish my man Merry Christmas, and I can go back any time.

I’d made reservations at the Queensboro for dinner, so we went there, each having pasta dishes which we ended up taking half home.

Sunday was just lazing around (for Dad) and prep for Xmas, plus I did laundry. And picking up various food orders for Monday. Dinner at Uncle Peter’s.

Monday was Xmas, of course. We’d been eating bagels for breakfast, except for Sunday’s frittata that I made, and Xmas breakfast was bagels and salmon, a Charles tradition. Exchanged gifts, and I did a video call with the niece’s family in Minnesota (all of them in matching PJs, it was adorable). Then cleaned up for our guests, who arrived at 2:00ish. We had Tessa, Susan and Renee, all of whom brought food and presents. (and all of whom are comfortable in my kitchen, so we all worked to get stuff together). Munched and drank and chatted until about 4-ish, when I started to get dinner together. Dinner was:

pork tenderloin (made by me, and I’d done a dry run a week or so earlier)
brussels sprouts and asparagus from FreshDirect, supplied by Renee
Garlic mashed potatoes (and also a cookie plate and buche Noel) made by Susan
Shrimp cocktail and salad supplied by the Queensboro. (I also ordered a lasagna, but we all agreed we didn’t need it. I’m eating my way through it now.)
bread

It was plenty. Most stuff just had to be microwaved, but the pork needed to be cooked and once I thought it was ‘done’, it wasn’t really done, so we served the more-done ends and I cooked up the rest some more. But it was all delicious. Last year doing this same job, I’d been a nervous wreck, and possibly pretty unpleasant, but was much more relaxed this time around. And it went great.

Afterward, present exchange and dessert and coffee and Bailey’s, just lovely.

—

Tuesday, the plan was to go into town and walk down Fifth Avenue from 60th and look at all the Christmas stuff. This worked well and was crowded on the sidewalks, but not terribly awful. From Dad’s list of bars, there was a place called Five Acres in Rockefeller Center on the lower level, and we checked that out, but couldn’t get in. Instead, we walked up to 56th St., which I remembered as the ‘regular people’s restaurant’ block from when i worked up there, but the ramen place I was targeting seemed to be closed. We went to a Chinese/dim sum place instead, where the food was really nice (great weather for it), but expensive.

Dinner was our leftover pasta from the Queensboro, plus salad with the romaine I’d bought for Xmas, but didn’t use.

Wednesday was lazing around in the morning, plus proto-packing for Dad, and then into town to see The Book of Mormon. I’d seen it way back when (it’s been running for 12 years now!), and had wanted to see it again, and Dad had picked that off of the short list of titles I sent him as possibilities. I’d not been able to get seats together, but they were just one row and one seat apart, so that was fine. We got chatty with the woman sitting by Dad, who’d brought her whole family, but they were sitting elsewhere – and she would have swapped with me, but it was fine as was.

The show itself remains a lot of fun and has far more heart than you’d expect from a South Park kind of thing. The music is deliberately derivative, but is really entertaining. Dad, unfortunately, missed a lot of lyrics and probably all the pop culture references, but he enjoyed it just fine.

Afterward, we went to another bar on his list, the one we’d tried to find before – Nothing Really Matters. You won’t stumble across it, you have to go in a very specific subway entrance for the downtown 1 (50th Street, south side, by the Duane Reed). But it’s atmospheric and very cool, we loved it. Dad had one of his rye Manhattan’s, I had a cosmo (no rubber duck, but I showed the bartender a picture of the other one I had). Then subway home.

We had dinner at Romeo’s, the nicest Italian restaurant in Jackson Heights. And then went to bed early because Dad had a 6:00 am flight and we had to get up at 3:15.

We’d set the alarm on the guest room clock (used to be C’s clock, and it was kind of nostalgic to hear it go off), but it didn’t wake Dad up. Luckily, I’d woken up and just walked in, turned off the alarm, and shook Dad awake. We’d prebooked a car service at 4:00 am, and waited in the foyer of the building (it was pouring rain), but it was 20 minutes late and of course didn’t show up until after I’d summoned a backup Uber, which I then had to cancel while I was juggling a large umbrella and helping Dad with his luggage. Anyway… Dad off to the airport for his miserably early flight, which didn’t even take him home – he had to wait around National Airport for hours for his second leg – and then my brother got a flat tire and couldn’t pick him up, so he had to taxi home from the RDU airport. But! Successful visit.

I didn’t go back to bed, but sort of faded in and out while lying in the recliner, until it was time to get cleaned up and log in for work. Luckily, there wasn’t much going on, because I was pretty zombified.

My every-other-week cleaning lady comes on Wednesday, but I’d gotten her to switch to Friday so Dad and I wouldn’t be in our way, so I went to the office on Friday (was one of maybe three people in on my floor). Did some actual work, some charity donations, and went out at noon to see if I could get a ticket to the Radio City Christmas Spectacular at 4:00 – which I did! (my office is 5 blocks south of Radio City). So at 3:30, I left my bag and stuff at the office and went up and saw the Christmas show, which I adore. I see it every few years, and most of the numbers were things I’d seen before, but boy, those Rockettes are impressive, and Santa was really good, and it’s just a hoot and a half. The audience was mostly well-behaved, but I had a very chatty little girl behind me, probably a little too young, who spent the last 15 minutes saying “over! over! Make it be over!”. Heh.

I’d thought about making this three day weekend about filing and office cleaning and stuff, but realized I could do that next weekend, and could make this weekend about seeing Xmas movies and doing stuff I wasn’t able to do with a houseguest. I have a ton of leftovers to eat, and can finally just enjoy my Xmas decorations. And I found out from my Minnesota niece that she and the kids are coming in to visit her parents (my in-laws) in the Catskills, and her sister in Beacon, so I’m going to go up to Beacon that weekend to see everyone, that’ll be fun.

Happy New Year, everyone! Hang on tight, I suspect this year will be just as bananapants as the last few.