“Hon, I was diagnosed as an incurable nymphomaniac, I figure I might as well make some money.”

A few years ago, maybe 2006?, my sister and I decided that this whole buying Christmas gifts for our parents was totally crap, and we weren’t having any more of it. Instead we made the Christmas Dinner the gift. Until then we had always had turkey et al for Christmas dinner; now we put together a 7 course meal complete with wine pairings. I act as the chef, and my sister is the sommelier. Each year we pick a theme and base the menu around it; we’ve had a cheese theme, a seafood theme, and this year we decided on:

A Time for Luxury: 7 courses, 6 drinks, much merriment

The drink: Champagne

The Amuse Bouche – Mini escargot quiche

The Appetizer – Caviar on toast points

The drink: probably a Sherry, but really, whatever is good to soak chestnuts in

The Salad – Roasted chestnut, apple, and squash with Boston lettuce, warm goat’s cheese, and a vinaigrette

The drink: something with alcohol, who gives a shit by this point?

The Soup – Creamy mushroom soup with truffle oil (because as much as I love my parents, I’m not buying actual truffles)

The Sorbet – Champagne sorbet (though this time it’ll just be something cheap and bubbly)

The drink: some sort of white wine

The Entrée – Lobster Newberg with some sort of vegetable and either saffron rice or saffron mashed potatoes

The drink: Sweet warm milk with brandy

The Dessert – Chocolate 3 layer cake, vanilla bean cream, strawberry filling, dusted with edible gold

Should be yummy!

I grew up with my parents and my older sister in a small suburb. We lived within walking distance of a school so it is no surprise that there were a lot of children in our neighbourhood. On the straight stretch of the street I grew up on there are maybe 50 houses. As far as I can remember there were about 25 kids about my age (5 years older or younger) who lived there for a long while. I was aware of but wasn’t friends with everyone, spending most of my time with the girl across from us, but my parents were friends with a few other families on the street.

I’m 34 now and haven’t kept track of most of the people I went to school with, and even less so with the people who I shared a straight stretch of neighbourhood with. But of the people I know of: one family has a son a couple years older than me who died of cancer – I don’t know what type. They have a daughter who is maybe 5 years older than me who has either diabetes or an immune condition. The family who lived right next door to us has a daughter my age who died of cancer about a decade ago – Hodgekins I think, and a son a couple years older than me who was just diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis. Ulcerative Colitis is the auto immune disease that I was diagnosed with in 2007.

That seems like a lot of kids on the same street with serious diseases.

I’m going to put a list together of everyone else who grew up there, send a few emails, make a few calls, and see how far this thing goes. I have to admit, this freaks me out a bit.

The plumber came, we ran the laundry machine, the dishwasher, turned on every tap, flushed every toilet … and nothing. No leak. The conclusion? It wasn’t a burst pipe, it was the laundry machine. Despite the total lack of water near the machine, it was draining when the leak started, so it seems the only suspect. So I ran a load, nothing. Another load, nothing. A third load, and nothing. And now a fourth load. Why won’t the machine leak again? How did it leak in the first place? Why do our laundry machines hate us? I don’t put gross things in there. We don’t have orgies, we don’t mud wrestle, we don’t have pie eating contests, we shower daily – there’s no reason for our laundry machines to rebel against us. Now and again I’ve failed to fully empty a pocket and ran a laundry with a Werther’s hard candy or a Kleenex in it, but that couldn’t be reason enough, could it?

“But honey, you’re the one who told me I needed professional help!”