Christmas Remnants

My Christmas is over, but, unbelievably, it is still Christmas.  I have cooked a delicious turkey dinner, given my mother presents (she took me at my word that we were not exchanging this year), eaten dinner, and had after dinner drinks.  I drank egg nog all morning, and now, with the first scotch, I am sleepy.  My knee has given me fits, and at one point, I could not get it to "unlock," and as the muscles tightened around the joint, the pain was excruciating.  This lasted for what I think was ten minutes.  I don't know.  I was making deals with God.  I thought I would have to dial 911.  Finally, after lying on the bed, I was able to get it calm.  But since then, every step I have taken has been dangerous.  I screamed out in pain many, many times while my mother was here.  Calls for sympathy?  Nope.  Sheer, unmitigated, terrorized agony.  

This shit's going to be bad. 

My mother and I agreed that the buttermilk brine turkey was the best we've ever had.  I'd like to thank the person who inspired the recipe. . . but I can't.  

Scar the Feral Cat showed up this morning. . . thank goodness.  

I fed her a can of food and some warm milk.  After dinner, she got turkey juice with her dry food.  She is good and fat for winter.  

My mother and I drank a bottle of Vouvray and had some chocolate after dinner and were just too full to eat the pecan pie she had brought.  I packed up take-home food for her, and she left in the late afternoon, just as some of you might have been sitting down for a family meal.  

Now I am alone.  It is too cold to sit outside, and I am not able to walk, so. . . I'm kind of stuck.  I have had a semi-cold all day long, so I will take something to relieve the sniffles tonight that will help me sleep.  Early. While it is still Christmas. 

But I have had enough of that now.  Let's have some Lonely Planet music.  I want to be inspired to do something if I am ever able to walk again.  Dry January is coming and some sort of knee surgery I am sure.  I must get ready for Spring.  

Isn't that what they say?

But I will meet up with someone soon on a romantic island.  We will go to an enchanted bar and sit tete a tete.  We must.  I swear it could be true.