20061227

Spent Christmas with some of my family, which was nice enough, though Moulsari, not speaking Dutch, felt a little left out as much of the conversation was in Dutch. I always respectfully ask people to speak English if they can so that Moulsari can also understand what’s going on, but invariably they’ll shift back to Dutch…even I do that if I don’t pay attention. Luckily, about halfway through the evening, when I went to drop someone off by car, and I visited my father afterwards with Moulsari, things had definitely improved. My aunt, emboldened by a few drinks, found herself speaking English more easily, and I think Moulsari started having a good time, too. Soon after, we had food. A lot of food.

I made a Boxing Day resolution to look into the options of swimming in the mornings, before work, because I have been getting a little soft lately. Having someone around that you have to consider when making plans is wreaking havoc on my Kung Fu schedule, so I’m going to see if I can supplement it by swimming.

Of course, I slept terribly bad the two nights we were over at my mother’s. We have relatively comfortable bedding, now that my old matress was moved there after I changed apartments, but we’re forced to sleep in the living room. All but my brother smokes in the family, and my mother has fourty million pets. With the irritation. Not so much with the rest.

I had bought my mother a DVD player for Chistmas, which was something she was sorely lacking for a while now. Let fate have it that my aunt thought exactly the same thing! A bit unfortunate, so we decided that we’d go and see if we could return the DVD player. (Hell, we’ll be able to find someone for it. Perhaps I’ll use it myself, since my DVD player is getting on in age quite a bit. Though sadly it’s not region free, like my old DVD player is.)

Spent Boxing Day with Esther and Ed. Ed had made dinner, we watched Kill Bill and played with the cats. I had a good time and got to see a part of Amsterdam I normally don’t get to see. (Czaar Peterstraat and surroundings.) Good fun.

Jim will be coming over the day after tomorrow. Looking forward.