so spoiled

hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! our christmas was great. after presents in the morning, we all (including picabo!) went to hang out with the pseudo-family in springfield. there was a lot of good food (another capon) and many classic moments involving adults playing DDR (loc dancing with his six-month-old son, loc dancing by himself like a maniac, and the two moms/my-chaus competing against each other). the only damper on the day was the crazy quintuple murder/suicide in our town, in tuti's neighborhood. how nuts is that?



the day after christmas, we went up to the riverhouse, since mv and i haven't seen it since it was furnished. it was gorgeous of course, and we can't wait to come back when it's a bit warmer.



after spending the night there, we drove up to new york, just to hang out for a couple days. of course we did a lot of shopping and ate LOADS of good food. we even managed to squeeze in a show, "the 25th annual putnam county spelling bee," which stars jose llana, one of my sister's friends from high school. we've been following his career for a while, but seeing him sing a song entitled "my unfortunate erection" has been the high point so far :)

part of the show is based on improv, because they took four people from the audience and had them participate in the bee. at first, they gave them pretty easy words. for example...

doug panch: the word is "cow."
little boy: could you use that in a sentence please?
doug panch: all right. "please spell 'cow.'"

doug panch: the word is "mexicans."
tall guy: could i get the definition?
doug panch: the plural form of many a mexican.
tall guy: M-E-X-I-C-A-N-S. mexicans.
doug panch: that is correct.

the words got harder and harder, and the audience participants kept getting cut, until there was only the little boy left. he was probably no more than 8, with the hugest mohawk i've ever seen in my life. it was clearly his time to leave the stage, so the guy who was reading the words gave him a pretty tricky one (i misspelled it). the poor kid guessed, and after a stunned pause, the guy said, "that is...correct?" everyone was shocked. the kid then went back to his seat on the stage, but they called him up again immediately and gave him an impossible word so he had to go back to the audience. it was hilarious though. maybe that kid has a future in spelling.

after the show, we went to visit our mom's cousins at their new apartment on the upper east side. it was SWANKY. the best part was that we got to hang out with their two-year-old son, revel (tina's nephew) for the first time. he's very cute, but he is in a definite "NO" phase right now, and everything he says is an order and has to be yelled. one of his favorite things to say is "don't interrupt! stop interrupting!" i thought it was highly amusing. here were some choice moments from the visit...

revel: [holding out a temporary tattoo] this is a tattoo. you can have it.
me: oh really? i can have it?
revel: NO, YOU CAN'T HAVE IT!!

revel: [holding out a toy] this is an airplane.
me: ooh, airplane!
revel: [pauses] not so fast. DON'T TALK SO FAST!!

mv: revel, can i come in your tent?
revel: NO! STOP IT! YOU ARE BAD BOYS!!

his mom can't wait for him to outgrow that phase, but i got a kick out of him trying to boss everyone around.

now i'm back home, for the remainder of my vacation. i'd better enjoy the rest of my time with home-cooked food, my dog, and cold weather. hope the rest of 2005 is great for you all!