In Which Our Heroine Is Not Ready For This

27 November 2005

Mark goes back to California tomorrow, but at least he doesn't have to get up at oh-dark-thirty this time. It's a civilized flight, largely due (we suspect) to the fact that other people bought out the red-eye flights to get home from Thanksgiving trips.

It's been a very quiet Thanksgiving weekend around here. Tonight we're having LeftoverFest '05, I think. That's what I've been told, anyway. It's now the time of year when the sun porch can be used as an auxiliary fridge, so leftovers can abound even more than usual.

We're also using the back porch to store some furniture we're either not sure we're done with or haven't gotten someone to haul away yet, because our new library furniture arrived yesterday. Yay, library furniture! It's big and blue and very comfortable, and someday I will show you pictures. Ista is very excited by the whole business, jumping up on the cushions just because she can. She's having some difficulty getting herself and her squeak dragon perched just so on the cushions (Dragon is big for one of her toys), but she perseveres.

I'm currently reading Dorothy Dunnett's Caprice and Rondo, the seventh book in the Niccolo series, and I have the eighth book on hand, so I should finish out the series before Christmas. Which will be the last of the historical Dunnetts, and I haven't tried the mysteries.

I have drafted a version of a Christmas letter. In the last few years, I haven't done a letter -- I've written inside the cards by hand. The problem with that is that it takes forever, and I end up saying the same things over and over, except where I forget to tell one auntie what I told the other, so this year. So this year I'm sending a letter with basic amendments to people I don't talk to much. I'll still send cards with quick notes to people I hear from/talk to often. I don't have the cards yet, and I've barely started addressing the envelopes for the letters. It's still November. I have plenty of time.

I've also got my Christmas shopping started, which is to say that there are things in my Amazon "shopping cart." I'm not sure if I'm going to make two orders (one with only CDs/DVDs/etc. and the other with whatever books I can't find at Uncle Hugo's and Uncle Edgar's), or if I'm just going to wait until I've been up there. I haven't really finished off my shopping list, even: not sure what I'm looking for in most cases. So that's on the list for the week. You know you're a list person when making another list is on the primary list.

Someone whose livejournal I read (who will remain nameless for her own wholly undeserved protection) got a Christmas song in my head. The song will also remain nameless, this time for your protection. I've been biting my lip on it so Mark and Timprov don't have to hear. The last few years I've learned the verses for old carols in order to have an antidote to the smarmier songs I hear on the Muzak at Byerly's or the mall or wherever. So I am trying very hard to let the Coventry Carol drown out other Christmas options. Very, very hard.

A Canadian friend said on e-mail that she thought it would be very weird to have Thanksgiving so close to Christmas, and I really think it makes it all one season for us down in the south here. But at this point, moving Thanksgiving earlier, to somewhere in the neighborhood of the Canadian celebration, would just mean a month and a half of Christmas instead of a month. Ah well. We deal with what we've got, and not everybody can be Canadian. I mean, so far as I know. I think they'd take me, but I'm not sure about the rest of you.

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