holiday eccentricities

Even though my BMW wasn't repaired in time for December 25, the holidays turned out to be considerably better than expected. 

I met Daniel* earlier in the week as I had done his charitable shopping for him. When I brought him his angel tree gift, he surprised me with two Amazon.com gift cards worth $100. One for my birthday and one for Christmas. For a few seconds I felt rather bad as I hadn't bought him anything, but then I found myself extremely amused: an ex-boyfriend had spent more on me than the current models.

For the first time in three years, Ian* bought me some flowers. He had even asked me what sort of lingerie I'd like, but I told him I was abstaining from new lingerie purchases until I lost a little weight. The flowers were/are quite pretty.

Rachel* bought me a Frank Lloyd Wright calendar she had noticed me coveting at a book store. 

After a dinner at Buzzbrews Christmas Eve, Rachel noticed a lonely Fraser fir standing outside the local garden center with a FREE sign on it. So of course we snagged it. Now all I have to do is to find some ornaments for it.

We even managed a Christmas dinner that we all decided was much better than the usual turkey and stuffing drill. Since Rachel was driving Deepa (another friend, more about her later) to the airport, Deepa insisted we stop at a vegetarian Indian restaurant, Saravanaa Bhavan, a few miles from the airport. I confess I stuffed myself with pirotta and biryani. Even the madras/chicory coffee was superb. 

* See The Usual Suspects.