Home is Where You Carve the Ham

So, I carved the ham at Meredith's New Years dinner last night while she spun around in the kitchen fussing over the 28 dishes she had prepared for us. I had a huge knife and just went at it.

Shelley set the table and made the drink glasses.

Colin, Joe, and Brian watched football.

We all had a great meal, during which Wrigley came in and got under the table. He still has no concept of how big he is. Brian had to sit on a stool because all of the dining room chairs haven't been painted yet.

Shelley and I cleaned up the table while Meredith did the dishes. I cleaned off the hambone so Wrigley could have it and Shelley dried and put away the dishes.

Colin, Joe, and Brian watched football.

Now, in all fairness, before dinner started Colin, Joe, and Brian did hang two new blinds in the living room AND Brian opened the wine bottle. All of this while they were watching football.

Later I mentioned to Meredith that I was considering (along with Kris and Rob) running the Cooper River Bridge Run this year.

She said: "What, you just run across the bridge? I'll go with you."

We watched that Ashley Judd movie Twisted with Wrigley lying on the bed. I was pretty sure who the killer was fifteen minutes into the movie, but Meredith and I still spent most of the time going "It's him...no it's him...maybe it's him...it's the little Chinese woman!" And, naturally, in the end, when it turned out to be the guy who was my initial guess...I pretended to have been right all along. We decided that we'd have made good home-icide detectives.

What's that line from Garden State? It's Zach Braff and he's talking to Natalie Portman when he says something like: "You know that moment when you realize that the house you grew up in isn't your home anymore?"

My mom called and told me that she wishes I had been able to come home and have New Years dinner "with family." How can I tell her that I feel like I did? How could I explain to her that it never occurred to me once, during the ham-carving and Wrigley-under-the-table and Brian-on-the-stool and Colin trying to convince everyone to see Napolean Dynamite and Meredith trying to get me to take some ham home...to feel like I was missing something because I didn't go back to the place I grew up for this holiday? Ah...growing up.

Here's to 2005.