Happy Merry Ho Ho Ho
The Lab where Rich has been working is closed for the last two weeks of the year so Rich is home and we can have lunch together. Monday he went down to the chiropractor, then called me and we had lunch at our favorite diner. We haven't been able to do that very often for over a year.
We went into the City for dinner Monday night to a "21st Century Cafeteria" called Plutos. Yummmmmm. It was quite good (and now we know where to go to get real turkey.
We shared a huge salad mixed greens with whatever "crunchy things" we wanted in it. We wanted blue cheese, walnuts (gorgeous!), chopped green apples, green peas, yellow corn, diced tomatoes, jicama, and balsamic vinaigrette. There were lots of other options – pickled mushrooms, grapefruit pieces, beets, … Then we went through the hot food line for two orders of dark meat of turkey (yum), butternut squash, brussels sprouts with ham (tasty), stuffing (unusual with bits of tomato and quite good) and real gravy (very good). We also had iced tea. Afterwards we tried three deserts a pecan tart (lots of pecans without a lot of goo), a chocolate and oatmeal bar (the sort of thing I really like 🙂 and a funny cookie thing with chocolate marshmallow fudge on top. The cookie part of that was pretty much so-so. It held up the fudge. Everything else was very yummy and nothing was particularly expensive either. I expect we'll go back.
It's been one year since I started keeping a Journal again.
I kept a "real" paper journal all through College and the first year of Grad School but then I stopped. I can't even think of using a paper journal again; my hand cramps too fast if I write with a pen. But I can type and I enjoy keeping a journal.
I try to write something every day. Some days I forget or don't get to it, although I usually go back and fill in what I can remember.
I'm using a great little Mac OS X application called NoteBook; it looks like a "real" paper notebook but it's on the computer. I like it a lot. I can do things with it I couldn't do with a real paper journal, such as re-organize the pages or add to an already long page.
Mezzaluna's Anniversary was this week. She's been part of our family for four years. What a sweet girl. We celebrated with a late afternoon nap and lots of cuddles and rubs 🙂
Friday was a company holiday so I got a three-day weekend. Most pleasant and relaxing. On Christmas Day we went out for Dim Sum for brunch and Peking Duck for dinner. The nice thing about a large cosmopolitan area is there are lots of Chinese restaurants open on Christmas day.
Saturday night, Rich and I opened Christmas presents. Bill sent us a wonderful "gargoyle" winged cat sculpture he's meant to hold a votive candle which causes his eyes to glow red. Rich drilled a small hole and wired him for a bulb to work as a nightlight. That's much safer. I'm entranced. I had seen this in a catalog and fallen madly in love with it.
Ed & Georgina sent a wonderful lizard lamp he's got metal head, feet, and tail, with a yellowish glass "body" and a lamp inside. Rich had seen this at the Botanical Gardens in SB and liked it a lot; Georgina bought it and sent it for Christmas. Rich put a dimmer on the cord and it's now on the lower level of a two-tiered table in the living room. Raven thought it was quite neat last night and was sitting on top of the table leaning over and batting at the "thing".
Our friend Bari sent the kitties some jingle balls and feathered mice. Bebop carried a mouse around quite a bit last night. Raven found a jingle ball and batted it around the house until it hid under a table. Everyone enjoyed the wrapping paper.
Much of Sunday has been spent (although not interactively) backing up and reshuffling hard drives. Our friends from Forestville are still having computer troubles so they drove the computer down here and we're putting in a new (larger) hard disk, installing a new copy of Mac OS X, and (we hope!) finally clearing up the problems.
Johnson's First Law: When any mechanical contrivance fails, it will do so at the most inconvenient possible time.
I finished In the Still of the Night and Someone to Watch Over Me, by Jill Churchill as well as Kris Longknife: Mutineer a "space opera" by Mike Shepherd. Ignore the "mutineer" part of the title. It's a minor part of the story and just there, we think, as a teaser. Pretty good story; interesting character.
In between and around the rest, I've had several good naps, several good meals, interesting conversations with Spouse and friends, a few chats with my Dad, and plenty snuggles with the cats.
It's raining. I love the sound of rain on the sunroom roof.
Onward and Upward.
Slightly Off KIlter 