Here we go a-wassailing...

I finally learned why today is called Boxing Day, and I also learned that Americans do not celebrate it, or at least don’t call it that. It originated as a holiday in the UK, also celebrated by members of the Commonwealth, which makes perfect sense, and hearkens back to the days when the poor or the servants or the less fortunate were presented with food or presents or money in boxes on the day following Christmas, be it the leftovers from the master’s feast or clothing or money from the church poor box. Wikipedia has a very good entry about it, which is where I gleaned my information.

We did very little that had to do with boxes today. Instead, I phoned around to see if any restaurants were open, at least the kind I would want to go to, like the Vietnamese one or the Indian one in town, only to hear the phone ring forever at the other end. Our friends from Rachacha are here visiting the wife’s family and D. had arranged that they would come over today at around 4 p.m. and we would go to a restaurant after that. But since nothing was open, I decided to cook, and I’m really glad I did. This is my wheat-allergy afflicted friend. So I made a bean-barley-vegetable soup and a gorgeous rice pilaf with all sorts of fun things in it, a salad, and for dessert we snacked on the cookies that Buddy Boy had made in abundance.

This is the couple with the autistic son, who was much better behaved than I’ve seen him in the past, but you can see the toll it takes on his parents. He is seven years old and has to be watched all the time. His five-year-old brother, who is incredibly bright, can do things unsupervised, like watch TV. But the older one simply cannot be left alone, lest he destroy property or hurt himself. Our friend is the same age as us. It’s hard enough having kids when you’re middleaged, but to have an autistic one must be extra challenging and exhausting.

We did get some snow today, which promptly got washed away by more rain. I know I’ve always referred to it as white shit, but right about now, some of that white shit would be mighty fine.

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