M.O.T.

Christmas Eve I had a lovely dinner with my children and that was that.  I would have preferred more presents, but hey.  And besides, it's the spirit of the thing, right?  I mean, the lamb shank I had (a slight change from my traditional Christmas osso buco) was a dream.  And my daughters were beautiful, in every sense of the word, even though one was a bit under the weather.  So what's not to like?

Having dutifully dispensed with Christian rites, I celebrated Christmas Day as if I was Jewish.  Which is not so unusual, really.  I've always been of the school that says if you live in New York City long enough you become, as a function of simple osmosis, at least part Jewish.  You find yourself using words like oy.  You refer to the presence of cream cheese on your bagel as a schmear.  You're eating a bagel in the first place.  These are all parts of the process.

So Christmas day, joined by my actually Jewish friends, I went to Katz's Delicatessen and had hot pastrami sandwiches and pickled tomatoes for breakfast (I like my pastrami with mustard and a slice of onion).  Then we went to a movie.

You could argue that eating Chinese would be more characteristically Jewish New York Christmas behavior.
You could, I suppose.  But Katz's was fine.  Besides, it was within walking distance of the Angelica.
We know the area well.  What did you see?
Silver Lining Playbook, with Bradley Cooper and the girl from Hunger Games.
How was it?
I liked it better than my associates.
You've got a cast iron stomach.  Maybe they were experiencing some blow back from all that pastrami at 10:30 in the morning.
Maybe.  Although "blow back" isn't a very gracious term.
No, it isn't.

Anyway, by two in the afternoon I was positively kvelling.  If the Knicks could have managed to squeak out that game against the Lakers it would have been the perfect.