![[General]](http://www.christopherstreetjournal.com/topicons/general.jpg)
The Salty Man Cometh
Today, I watched a man do a very odd thing.
I met John and some of his coworkers at Fuddruckers for lunch. [As an aside, I have been wanting something to eat for a week now, only I couldn't figure out what it was that I wanted. I thought that it might be popcorn, but that wasn't it. I thought that it might be candy corn, but that wasn't it. It also wasn't oreos, or macaroni and cheese, or nachos. What it was was a baked potato. Yummmmmm. :)]
Anyway, Fuddruckers. We're sitting there, and I catch a glimpse of a man salting his burger. He salts it for a very long time. A really, really long time. I would venture to say that he salted the burger for a solid 30 seconds, every once in a while hitting the shaker so that the flow would be more efficient. But, see, I could see the salt pouring out from across the restaurant. It was plenty efficient. It was also a lot of salt. In ancient times, enough salt to buy a donkey.
Then he stopped and started working on the half of the bun with the lettuce and tomato. And he salted. And salted. And salted. He salted another 30 seconds on that side. He salted so much that I could see the salt from across the room, laying there, clinging like new snow to the lettuce and the tomato. In ancient times, his donkey has just been upgraded to a horse.
But the best was yet to come. He stopped salting for a second, surveyed his miniature salt-lick and then, just before he put the two halves of the sandwich together, he gave just one more shake to the burger side. Just a small shake, a trickle, a pinch, a modicum. Compared to what had come before, really, an infinitely small amount of salt. Apparently, the salt balance was out of whack. At this point, John and I couldn't help ourselves--we had to laugh.
The lesson today is that, sometimes, people are very, very odd. And there's some guy in MD that really, really likes salt. And when I want something that I can't quite put my finger on, I should try a potato.
![[Nanna]](http://www.christopherstreetjournal.com/topicons/nanna.jpg)
Christmas
I know that this is wicked late--so late, probably that there isn't anyone left that cares about my Christmas. But, I just didn't feel like updating till today, so sue me. :)
I had a good Christmas--we decided relatively late that we were going to go home for the holiday, which is what we usually do, but hadn't planned to do this year. With money so tight, and presents so light, I guess we thought that it would be easier to just hole up at home and be depressed. In the end, though, that seemed, well...depressing, so we decided to go home. We left later than we wanted to on Christmas Eve and arrived in Pennsylvania ahead of the snow and in time for Christmas Eve dinner. We had gotten almost no sleep on the 23rd, so after a little last-minute wrapping, we headed off to bed insanely early. This means that I was up, bright-eyed and jonesing for presents, by 7:30 on Christmas morning.
As an aside--am I the only adult that still can't sleep on Christmas Eve? I have never been able to sleep through the night. Just too excited, I guess.
Anyway, Christmas itself was good. It was just my parents and my brother and John and Joann, which was a little odd--my Grandmother didn't really feel like participating this year and my Aunt got stuck elsewhere. But that was OK--it was fun, just the 6 of us. We opened phase one of presents early and then had another round when Lee and Joann arrived from Pittsburgh. Then Lee and Daddy and I settled in to watch the LotR:FotR extended edition while John napped and Joann and Mom hung out by the tree. My mom and sister-in-law, not so much with hobbits, I guess, and John had just seen the movie about a week before, so I guess he thought that sleep was a higher priority--and really, is there any nap better than a Christmas nap? Later in the evening, we retrieved my step-son from his grandparents, and had another round of presents. It was a smaller Christmas than usual--my unemployment + parent's retirement meant that we had to be careful with money in a way that none of us are used to. Still, I got a couple of interview outfits, and some CDs and a couple of DVDs and a couple books, so I have nothing to complain about.
Christmas night, Wayne and Jerry came by for some cocktails. Wayne signed books and Jerry tried hard not to laugh--he had recently had some surgery on his shoulder and was in some considerable amount of pain. We showed him absolutely no mercy, though, and were brutal with the jokes. We're bad friends. We drank some rum --(note to self--buy some real liquor before next year)--and stayed up way too late being nostalgic.
We spent the rest of the week hanging out with my folks, watching TV, napping, shopping, reading new books. We also got a chance to visit John's grandmother and were pleasantly surprised to find our niece there as well--we haven't seen her in a couple of years. She and I had a great deal of fun making fun of the cat. There was also some sort of joke about an albino cousin, the details of which are forgotten. Still, good to laugh with her. It had been too long.