Friday Evening

Friday turned out to be a sunny, cold day. At 5PM the temperature had fallen to 23°F (-5°C). The low temperature forecast for Friday night is 8°F. I'm gonna be burning dinosaurs and kilowatt-hours, and a fire-log or two.

Nuria warned me that the fruit on the rum cake was soaked in rum. She doesn't want me to get hooked on rum cake alcohol. I used to drink a liter (about a quart) of vodka every day. I did that for years. I chose to quit drinking alcohol. I don't think eating a tiny piece of fruit soaked in rum is going to turn me into an alcoholic. There is probably no alcohol in rum cake anyway—just the flavor of the rum. What concerns me more than the alcohol content is the calorie content. There's a diet in my future, and it's getting closer every day.

I just lit a fire log. There's Christmas jazz music playing in the room. Nuria is sitting on the sofa behind me, phone in hand. She's sending a message to her sister in Costa Rica. 

Time passed. The fire burned. The temperature outside continued to fall. It's 16°F now. 

Nuria and I watched It Happened One Christmas starring Marlo Thomas, a 1977 remake of the 1946 film It's A Wonderful Life starring James Stewart. We ate more of Nuria's pumpkin pie, which is delicious. In two more hours, Christmas Eve will arrive with the midnight hour. I have nothing exciting to relay to my readers. We're homebodies now, Nuria and I, until Christmas is behind us. There's too much traffic and too many last minute shoppers for us to be driving around. We've already lost one car this Christmas season. Auto-wise, we're now down to my '95 Jeep. But it's a reliable workhorse. Nuria has begun looking at used car ads. Before, long, we'll be a two-car household again, I think, and hope.

"¡Feliz Navidad!" as José Feliciano would say.