Friends like these

You're probably wondering why things have been so quiet at kurttrue.com lately.

Well, whatcha gonna do? We had a family emergency. Tony's dad went into the hospital right before our Christmas party.

Had to cancel everything at the last minute.

Well, except there was no way to cancel everything because, number one, we didn't have time to call everybody, and number 2, I had a 23-pound turkey defrosting on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator.

Not only that, Jeffrey and I had made granola for all our guests. You know, to take home, in festive little canisters from Joanne's Crafts.

So we just posted our friend Deirdre and her granddaughter Ashley at the door, and told them "Give everybody who shows up a bottle of Champagne and a cannister of granola. Take the turkey out of the oven around 8. If you get bored put on the Del Rubio Triplets CD and decorate the tree."

When Tony and I got back from San Leandro Hospital, the tree was decorated, the house smelled like turkey, and we even had some presents.

Lisa, I can't thank you enough for the combination napkin/candle holder. This time of year, you really can't have too many fire hazards in your house.

And the best present of all was our friends made a little guestbook with some paper from the fax machine, and everybody wrote us a nice little note.

Just about a week after the party, Tony's dad died. His funeral was yesterday.

I spent this morning rehabilitating this beautiful Fokker triplane he made back when Tony was just a kid. (One of the wheels fell off the last time we moved.)

Ed made the most beautiful model planes. Not from a kit or anything. Just from scratch. The man was so talented. He was like the Bernini of balsa wood!

In fact, I regret we never asked him to make us a little airplane Christmas ornament. Wouldn't that be cute? A Santa in a Sopwith Camel or something? I would try to whittle one myself, but it would probably come out looking like the Jolly Green Giant on a surfboad or something, not that our friends haven't given us stuff that's even weirder than that.

Kurt "big daddy" True
18 december 2005