We had a lovely Christmas Eve with our old friends, the H's. Mrs. H. is my Italian buddy, and treated us to homemade Manicotti Madness.
I tried every trick I could to get just ONE secret ingredient out of her and her daughter about the sauce. I even tried to sell off J-Boy as a future son-in-law. But, as Mr. H. would attest, the married-in's aren't privy to the information. "You've gotta have Nona's blood flowing through the veins to get it." If I keep pushing J on her, maybe an heir to the recipe will be produced and I can lure it out of them. In the meantime, my plan is to embellish our family recipe with some secret ingredients of my own to taunt with. Not that they would care; what they have is that good.
As the deliciousness was cooking up, I foolishly challenged their son, Bobby Fischer, to a game of chess. (Let it be known that, while it's been a while since we last played, this kid's father has actually brought me to tears during "recreational" matches of Bridge that became overwhelmingly stressful for me.) I was marked as easy prey.
J-Boy had planned to play winner, but smartly changed his mind. Thinking I was pretty on top of my moves, you can't imagine the devestating drop in confidence when Bobby quietly placed a piece and announced, "Four more and I'm done." He meant with his "opening". My opening was sitting down, moving out my first pawn and saying, "anyone wanna play a round?" We obviously have different coaches. Anyway, once the dinner bell rang he cut me some slack as his priorities shifted. He quickly finished me off, but left me with a couple of pieces still on the board. Thanks, kid. You're a gentleman.
Hey, J-Boy!!! Don't look so happy that I was spanked! "Oh, sorry, Mom. Here..."
That's more like it. Now lets get some of that manicotti before it's all gone.
Maybe we'll move up to the Big Table if that arranged marriage ever takes place. For now, however, we enjoyed the honor of being at the "Good Friends" table, and meeting these two for the first time:
You'd never know it, because she looks so sweet and has all her teeth, but this babe is a Derby Darlin', as in Roller Derby.
You know who loves me, looks out for me, saves me from my own self?
Big Daddy. When I started musing about a last minute addition to my Christmas list (ie: a pair of roller skates) he gently recommended a stadium seat cushion instead. He's so sensible. I love you, honey! Thank you!
