St. John the Evangelist Day Follies

Well, I hope all y’all had a wonderful Christmas. We did; we had two Christmas dinners (one early, one late) after a fabulous surf-and-turf at Ruth’s Chris downtown on Christmas Eve for Sally’s birthday. (The surf was Sally — king crab legs special — and the turf was me, my usual petite filet, medium, with extra butter. We shared the scalloped potatoes and had the chocolate cheesecake for dessert. Fabulous. Our server was Sarah. And yes, full disclosure, we are stockholders.)
In between we stayed downtown at the relatively-new Hilton Garden Inn, which is significant for two reasons:

• The hotel is a renovation of the old Fletcher Trust Building, and the renovation faithfully preserved most of the early-1900s interior elements wherever possible. It’s a gorgeous building and Hilton is stewarding it very well.
• Because we were just about the only Hilton HHonors program members staying that night, we were upgraded to a suite on the 15th floor for free. Very nice. We’re definitely going back, and we recommend the hotel unequivocally to anyone traveling to Indianapolis. One block east of the Circle on Market.

Boxing Day, I did home repairs…fixed the toilet in the master bath that hasn’t worked for a year and a half since I broke off the supply line in an attempt to replace the valve (who knew the damn thing was attached to a copper pipe sweated into the main supply rather than to a 1/2″ pipe nipple screwed into a wall elbow — you know, the kind with ears that let you attach it to a stud or other solid surface for stability — like all the rest of the supply valves in the house…except, I now suspect and assume, for the one serving the toilet in the hall bathroom), and repaired the roller on the sliding door that had come loose.
Oh, and for those of you saying “but copper doesn’t look like steel” — you’re right, when it doesn’t have six or eight coats of paint on it applied over the last 50 years, and when it doesn’t actually terminate in a threaded connection.
Today is the Feast of St. John the Evangelist, which is a day celebrated in Freemasonry since St. John the Evangelist is one of the two patrons of the modern Craft (along with St. John the Baptist, the two are “perfect parallels” in Masonry). Since my bro Chris Hodapp is enjoying the fine hospitality of the Indiana Heart Hospital this day, I have to run downtown and set up the sound system for this evening festivities. Which is cool because I have to run downtown anyway and visit the County Recorder’s office.
I am otherwise enjoying my week off work. Whee!