it was quite a day. morgan has been having wisdom teeth trouble and needed to see the oral surgeon to have them out, so that's what happened this morning. three of them came out (one was buried too deep so they decided to wait with it). we were fortunate the surgeon was available. and then chanda was on a pilgrimage for the booster shot, but of course everyone was doing the same, so there was a long wait. we were finally in the car and driving uptown on eighth avenue to pick chanda up at the london pharmacy (the same place i was with janet for her booster on monday) at 3 pm. greg, morgan and i first dropped off two bags of clothes and three bags of books at the salvation army on eighth, and then luckily found a parking spot so i could run in and see how chanda was doing. i couldn't believe that she was just finishing up (i was worried there would be a whole lot more waiting going on) . . as we were leaving we noticed they had rapid tests to take home available (so many places are sold out) so we stopped at the cashier to pick up two boxes. however, the price had doubled since i last bought them at CVS and they wanted $43! so we just got one box instead of two. (chanda can be tested at school before we go see my sister at christmas, or she and morgan can run to the city md and greg and i will do the at home test. something like that . . it's late as i'm writing and i should go to sleep soon. . where to pick up this story . . . ) so we grab our expensive rapid test and head out to the car. the problem now was . . would we be on time for cutting down a tree at our regular christmas tree farm which would close at 4:30? we didn't think we would make it, so as we headed north we looked up another farm that was open until 5:30. they wouldn't let us cut one down, but at least they wouldn't be closed (of course chanda is now moaning about why then, are we driving all this way if we can't cut down a tree when we can just pick one out on the street at home? which, of course, does make a lot of sense.) anyway, we drove and drove and drove and got stuck in some traffic off and on until finally the traffic was so bad we had to take a detour . . which took us right past our regular tree farm! (we did not expect this . . and hadn't realized the detour route would be in the same neighborhood) it was 4:28 pm!! two minutes before they closed! we pull up the long driveway and after a heated discussion about how we were going to politely insist on chopping down our tree even though they were closing, morgan jumps out with me following and as we walk towards the main barn and see one of the owners coming towards us, morgan says, "is it too late," and the guy answers, "you're here, ain't ya," and we laugh and grab ourselves a saw and a tag.
it was the quickest we ever picked one out. we had a tree within three minutes. it was a spiky blue spruce.
on the way out the guy helped us carry the tree to be baled and mentioned that he remembered us always having a picnic by the fire afterwards. well, we had our picnic ready in the car (morgan had made sandwiches and hot chocolate and packed everything up), but we didn't have it at the farm, instead we drove to the rest area on the road home and had it there after using the bathroom and gassing up.
morgan had a vision of how the tree would look decorated and was busy making a special paper chain garland to go with the envisioned nautical theme of boats, seashells, angels and gold and white ornaments.
we had a take out dinner of sushi, vegetable tempura, miso soup and green tea. greg put on the christmas music of italian opera songs and we sang figaro to figaro.
buon natali.
