Belated Christmas celebration

My entire family met last Friday at the Mallory Hotel (Hotel Deluxe) here in Portland for three nights of Christmas celebration. Teri had arranged everything, and it worked out beautifully. The picture is of the family minus me since I was taking the picture and didn’t like the way my hair was looking at the time, or any other time for that matter. Cindy and family came from Tacoma, Teri and family from New York City and I came from the compound (my condo) which was not spacious enough for that kind of crowd. The accommodations were perfect, the food was delicious and the Driftwood Lounge out of this world!

We walked downtown – I was dragged through the snow – for dinner. We were joined by Rita and her family who live here – Rita is a long-time friend of Teri’s from high school and college. We had a good time and were entertained by Pat who showed us his finger where he’d sliced off a piece of it when he was trying to fix Cindy’s car. That was one of the high points of the evening. We could never have planned that type of entertainment! Reggie, Rita’s daughter, is about the same age as Harry and quite taken with him. She thinks he’s a studly, cool dude from Manhattan and even brought a couple of girlfriends over to the hotel the next day to spend time with Harry. Harry is only 13. He’s probably texting his new friends here in Portland right now from New York. Things have certainly changed since I was 13. Actually, I can’t even remember if I ever was 13!

When I went to bed that night, I couldn’t get to sleep because the flags in the entry-way of the hotel kept clicking together and I was situated right behind them. I finally went down to the lobby in my t-shirt that had big printing on the front that read, “I’d love to stay and chat but you’re a total idiot.” This was about 12.30am and the lobby was empty which was a good thing. I asked for another room and got one right away. I think they wanted me out of there!

The next morning I discovered the shower head in my tub was out of my reach, and it was facing the wall. So the water just sprayed on the wall, and I had to press my body against the wall and the water would trickle down on my head and body. It took a while . . . quite a while. Later that day I asked Mark to turn the shower head so it would spray on me. Mark is very tall and had no problem. It must be nice to be married to a tall man who can take care of all the tall things. But you wouldn’t have to be married to one . . . just have a cute, tall guy who made house calls occasionally and took care of whatever you wanted. But I guess that’s another story.

It was so good to have the family all together for a couple of days. That very rarely happens. I was able to get close to my grandsons which made me very happy. Just having the family together was the best kind of Christmas. I’ll write more about it in my next posting.