It is the holiday season. So people start throwing holiday parties. My wife’s family has businesses and business partners so there are a surprising number of parties that I needed to attend. Surprisingly, my own company is not doing anything for me to celebrate.
The first party was for my wife’s family business. This involved going to the Cheesecake Cafe for a lunch. (Note: I don’t actually like cheesecake. But that is my cross to bear.) Last year, I ordered the filet mignon, because why not? This year I asked for a recommendation from the waitress and instead got chicken Madeira. According to the menu, it had more calories than the filet mignon. From looking at the dish, I’m guessing that all the calories were coming from the heaps of mashed potatoes that were piled on everything.
A week later was the real test, and there were three parties in three days.
Thursday was a business partner throwing an extravagant party at a Brazilian Steakhouse. I have now learned that this is essentially an all-you-can-eat meat place. There is also a salad bar, and they are honest that it is there to fill you up on cheaper food. Same story for the bread. I checked the website for the cost of a dinner there and it is quite high, so we were being treated well. However, I don’t think I would ever pay for that for myself. Some of the meat was better than others, and frankly, the salad bar was really good; if forced to go back I would only order the salad bar. Unlimited avocados and tuna. A bit of a damper on the whole experience was that the parking lot got changed into a valet parking lot when we arrived; it felt like a needless money grab.
The next day I had a meat hangover for most of the morning.
On Friday evening it was off to the Christmas party for the hospital that the family owns. This was held at a brewery so as much beer as you could want to drink. For the record, I still don’t like alcohol, beer included. There was a pasta buffet dinner catered from a local restaurant. It was nice that there wasn’t much meat there. But actually there was a lot of candy that was free for the taking. The arcade machines were fun too.
On Saturday was the final party: A friend of my wife’s was having an open-house party to show off a house he was putting on AirBnB. The caveat was that this was in Galveston, which is about an hour and half away from where we live. We went early so that we could walk along the beach. It was not a Caribbean beach, and the water was a muddy brown, but it was nice enough. Afterwards, my wife went to the house, and I did my daily run, this time along the ocean Seawall. It was good to have a different area to run around, and I’ve missed the Vancouver Seawall. I ended the run at the house in question. At which point I learned that it was actually a hundred year old mansion. It very well renovated, but I don’t think I could afford to stay there. Besides, it wasn’t on the beach. I tried to limit the amount of appetizers I ate that they had laid out.
And the next day we rested.