ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS....

26 December 2002

...is a working dishwasher.

The elation I felt around 1:30 this afternoon when I realized that everything was ready for guests and that the guests weren't expected until 4 and that I could actually sit down and read with my mother kind of dissolved many hours later, around 11:30, when the family had left to go home, the kids had gone off in search of a poker game, and Walt and my mother had gone to bed. That was when I opened the dishwasher to put away the first load of dishes, which I'd so very efficient put in the machine while the presents were being opened.

Something was not right from the getgo. The were streaks on the inside of the door, and not all the soap in the container had dissolved. I had this ominous feeling.

As I began to remove the dishes I discovered that not only had they not been washed clean, but the food particles that remained had been baked on during the drying process. So instead of facing tossing one or two more loads in the machine to magically clean themselves while I'm blissfully sleeping, I now face scrubbing the first load to dislodge the caked on food and then washing all of the rest by hand.

This is not how I wanted to end this long day.

But other than that, it was a lovely day.

......and I'm finding it's difficult to write about it. Ned gave me a CD of a performance that Lawsuit did at a club in Los Angeles in 1996 and I'm sitting here (it's now nearly 2 a.m.) listening to Paul very much alive and performing and somehow...it's just difficult to write about a happy Christmas with no Paul and no David.

But here are a couple of pictures....what are the chances of two Olivias in the same house at the same time?

here's a champagne toast for Tom and Laurel's engagement