Friends

( First, a shout-out to everyone who's on the Holiday Card List. )

( Second, I saw 'Avatar' on Sunday, and I'm draining my brain for your benefit. And no, there are no spoilers. )

In short, SEE IT.

( Oh, and I saw 'Brothers' last week, as well. )

Really, that's about all the news from Lego!land. Tomorrow is cranking out the rest of the holiday cards and finishing up the various boxes, Friday is cooking (because it's an excuse to cook, not b/c there's any particular tradition in this particular corner of the family), by the weekend I expect to be deep in the abyss of the 14 Valentines. Those of you who requested Beta-Filter status, I haven't ignored you, I just haven't been throwing stuff up there yet. Expect to pull out the pencils and MLA Handbooks by the end of the Gregorian Year.

For everyone else, I hope that whatever you celebrate this season, it goes well. If nothing else, if you're in the Northern Hemisphere, take a moment to celebrate the fact that the from here on out things get sunnier again. If you're in the Southern Hemisphere, remember that summer is finite, and enjoy what you've got and look forward to taking a breather.

Religious, Secular, or Somewhere In-between, change comes to us all. Good and bad, nothing is constant, so here's hoping that the balance tips favorably for a while.

Ugh, I think I'm actually finished with Christmas present shopping. At least, the sort that can't be done while sitting at my desk. Town was pretty horrible but not as bad as I'd expected, and the plus side of the eighty-seven people ahead of me in the post office queue was that I managed to wrap, package, and address my last parcel (and have a phone conversation with my sister) while waiting for my number to be called.

I got something for my nephew, which was the only present I didn't actually have a plan for; it's a sort of patchwork cow-thing made of all different fabrics with a scrunchy corduroy nose and ears and beans in the feet and a bell in the stomach. It's pretty sweet, actually, I'm thinking it's maybe wasted on a baby. I've been sitting here with it all evening, trying to persuade myself to put it back in the present stash - but it's so soft! It has an adorable little smile! Man, I'm jealous of him already.

Two concerts down and two to go; I was asked on Saturday night if I could cover the Sunday morning family Mass at church, so I got up just before 8am to go and do that before heading into town for rehearsal and then two concerts. It was a long day. And possibly the only day so far in which I have heard both "in persona Christi" and an entire auditorium full of people going "FSSSSSSSSSSSH" as joke punchlines. Titchmarsh also came out with the classic "What's grey and has a trunk? (an elephant) What's brown and has a trunk? (a mouse coming back from holiday)", which I don't think I've heard in about fifteen years and brought back all sorts of childhood memories of terrible jokes *g*.

Happy Sun-Return, guys. Or not, if you're in the southern hemisphere. What do we call that? Sun-Death? Sun-Departing?

It's 3am, I'm writing my Christmas cards, listening to the Hawks-Bruins game, and it's -7C outside. I'm not sure I can remember it being this cold ever before - the BBC website says that the record low for Birmingham is only -6C. It's going to be like this all week, too. I'm actually really enjoying it, in one way, but... it's kind of freaky. We had a mini-blizzard (heavy snow... for fifteen minutes) yesterday, and it's nearly all still on the ground!

Boring but productive day; I posted what I hope are all my overseas cards, which should hopefully arrive some time before New Year, got a watch-strap to replace the one I snapped the other week, returned something to Waterstones, and bought my first new pair of shoes since... I think since 2006, actually; they are excitingly almost exactly like the old ones, but my feet are so awkward to find footwear for that I'm long past caring on that one. Then I went to the library to do supremely exciting research for bible study group tomorrow.

Last week was quite quiet, so I was trying to get as much pre-Christmas stuff done as possible; inevitably, I failed hugely, and now my mother has a dozen things she wants to do with me this week, only now I'm out every evening and some of the afternoons, and by the weekend I'm into Christmas concert territory. She was trying to blame me for the fact that we couldn't find a time to get to the tip, but I did point out that I'm free every morning and most of the afternoons - she's the one who's busy then... You wouldn't think it was this complicated to find a free hour, but there we go. I daresay we'll fit the urgent stuff in somehow.

...yeah, this is going to be my life between now and Christmas. At least I'm warning you, right? I have half-written posts on "Fraser vs Manpain", "The Toews-face: Joke or Menace", "Booklog November 2009", "Frannie Vecchio as Feminist Heroine", "Techniques of Scriptural Analysis as Applied to Fandom", and "Structure, Meritocracy, and the Geek Social Fallacies" (although you know that they'd all end up with titles like "take these broken wings and learn to fly" by the time I posted them). Feel free to take bets on how many of them I am likely to post in 2009, or, indeed, 2010...

I wonder whether, back in the day, conflating Hades and Pluto, Neptune and Poseidon, Athena and Minerva was something offensive. I translate back and forth between the Greek and the Roman names without really thinking about it, and I couldn't tell you, generally, which one any given story is attached to. But presumably they were two independent (though similar) mythologies; was mixing Vulcan up with Hephaestus like claiming that Mohammed and Moses are the same person?

We have defrosted both freezers, made the cheese potatoes for Boxing Day, bought the Christmas tree and had it delivered, got the decorations down from the loft and ready for deployment once everyone arrives, got the church music planned for the rest of Advent... not doing too badly on the preparation front, right now.

Yesterday I found my first white hair! Right in my fringe, too, so it must have been there for weeks without me noticing. How cool is that? I wonder if there are more I haven't spotted yet...

156. ( The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Robert Heinlein ) So, yeah, there's certainly plenty to criticise in the book, but... I did actually quite enjoy it. And it's less offensive than the vast majority of Heinlein I've read, too.

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( The Great Georgette Heyer Re-read of Doom, part one ) These really push very much the same buttons for me as fanfiction, the same kind of stories told over and over with the same happy romantic endings, humour and just enough drama to give it all a bit of spice.