Thursday night, 11pm, we caught the red-eye flight to Atlanta, Georgia for DragonCon.

On the way there, we had a layover in Chicago. To both mine and Richard’s disappointment, changing planes did not involve a trip through the psychedelic tunnel. I consoled myself with the amusement of the airport toilets which, along with being automatic flushers, come equipped with their own self-protection plastic toilet seat sheathes. You just wave your hand in front of the sensor and it slithers on another sheath. All very sanitary and charming.

Arriving at the hotel in Atlanta Friday morning, we collected badges and schedules, then huddled over omelets, waffles, and the program guides to map out our plan of attack for the next few days. It was obvious the Con was just starting by the sheer normality of the people milling around in the hotel lobby. By Friday night, the ratio of costumed to uncostumed was of a much more acceptable level. It isn’t DragonCon if you haven’t seen at least two contingents of Stormtroopers, a pair or three of Klingons, 15 or 20 people dressed in various levels of goth attire, and at least enough other characters (recognizable or not) to count on both hands and feet by the time you’ve finished eating breakfast each morning.

Last year, since I went with a handful of other people I knew from PernMush, I spent a majority of my time in that room. This year, however, I didn’t even make it to the Pern room once. I really had no desire to experience the ‘we’re better than you’ attitude of the fan-fic folks who host most of those talks (those of us who Mush just aren’t as good as the fan fic people, you see), and besides, there were just too darn many other things to see! Sessions on the sociology of online communities and the personality of those who use the internet. Previews and spoilers for the upcoming (and eagerly awaited) Fellowship of the Rings movie. A talk on protecting your local network – made for and presented by computer nerds (gotta love them!). The Women in Gaming session – always a fun and lively discussion. And this year I knew I couldn’t miss the Miss Klingon Empire pageant (I missed it last year due to conflicting dinner plans). The talent competition included the usual singing and dramatic readings, but our favorite was the one who demonstrated the making of blood wine – a presentation which involved the ‘death’ of not only a stuffed sheep, but also a small stuffed Barney dinosaur. She took second place (and the one who took first deserved it hands down – her Klingon costume was one of the few that actually looked ‘real’), receiving a plaque for her efforts instead of the first place prizes of crown, banner, plaque, and of course the requisite Romulan love slave (led – protesting – to the stage on a chain). It was well worth going.

There were a few sessions we missed, simply due to exhaustion (the combination of the time zone change, flying all night Thursday, and the fact that our neighbors had a party Saturday night til the wee hours of the morning meant neither of us got all that much sleep), but it all worked out. We even managed to stumble into a tiny room showing Terminator 2, and immediately decided to forego the session we’d intended to attend in favor of watching one of our favorite science fiction films. And best of all, a trip to the dealer rooms resulted in Byte II from Season 8 of Red Dwarf – the one season we have yet to see (Byte I arrived in the mail Thursday afternoon, just as we were about to leave).

Despite all the fun we were having (and we were certainly having a lot of it!), by the time we had boarded our plane this morning I was more than happy to be headed home. This time through Chicago O’Hare airport, we got that trip through the psychedelic tunnel. Arriving in Sacramento, it was a welcome change to step outside and not be nearly bowled over by the humidity. The cats were – as usual after they’ve been left alone for a few days – glad to see us, and after checking email and puttering around unloading suitcases, we curled up on the couch and watched the entire 7 episodes of Red Dwarf, season 8 because, despite our overwhelming exhaustion, we simply didn’t want to wait to see what happened next.

We really need to go in costume next year. We’re not exactly sure what we will dress up as, but we’re going to dress up as *something*. How can we resist? Out there, surrounded by the Klingons, Stormtroopers, characters from Star Wars, anthropomorphic cats, and Edward Scissorhands (which wins my vote for the most impressive costume, hands….er….blades down), ‘normal’ attire stands out. When in Rome, in other words. What more excuse do we need?

I don’t like water. I am sick to death of water. I am really, really, really tired of water.

I don’t mind being *in* it since, after all, I’m the one who spent a good number of years (when I was younger and more flexible) upside down in water, wearing colorful bathing suits, nose clips, and enough gelatin in my hair to double as a motorcycle helmet. No, it’s not swimming I am sick of. It’s the simple taste of the stuff.

I am just so completely sick of drinking water. Give me soda, milk, coffee, even Kool Aid and I am perfectly happy, but straight water just makes my lip curl. Problem is, plain water is best to drink, and because we’re on this ongoing quest to be healthier, this means that Richard and I have been eating lots more fruits and vegetables (well, veggies at least – we just won’t go into my whole fruit aversion issues today), and drinking a lot of water.

It’s not the hardness (or lack thereof). I’ve been drinking hard water now for over ten years – long enough so that the ‘un-fortified’ stuff tastes almost bitter. Despite what the bottled water companies would have you believe, there is not one thing remotely unhealthy about drinking tap water (well, okay, at least in my area). Besides, I don’t like the taste of bottled water either. It usually ends up with a faint sour aftertaste that sits on my tongue. And don’t even get me started on those hideously overpriced bottles of carbonated stuff. That’s even worse than bottled!

All the guidelines say you should drink eight cups a day. Ha. Easy for them to say. I’ve tried disguising the taste with powdered drink mixes, but those just end up making it too sweet, and if I don’t use the full mix, then it just tastes too sweet, but watered down, and in the end I’m always back to plain boring icky water. Eight cups a day. I’m lucky if I make that number, although I really have been trying. It’s just so darn hard, when you hate water as much as I do.

It’s good for me to drink all this water. It’s going to keep my body healthy and keep my skin from drying out as much as it usually does, and drinking water will help prevent those lovely headaches I already mentioned, and help promote weight loss and, and, and…

I can tell myself every reason under the sun why I should be drinking more of it. I can fill up my cup from the tap and hold my breath and gulp it down and think wistfully of the days when my normal liquid intake was either caffeinated, sugary and carbonated, or both.

It won’t change anything. It’s just one more reason why I’m just a little weird.

And I still really really really don’t like water.

The phone rang rather early this morning – my mom on the other end. My aunt called, she said. My uncle hung himself.

The first comment that came to the tip of my lips was the sort of thing you might say to someone who mentions the death of a stranger. “Oh. That’s too bad.” Then I asked how my dad was doing, since this was his brother – although I use that term loosely. We haven’t heard from this side of the family in years. For all we knew, he was already dead and no one had bothered to call.

The only reason my aunt called, it seems, is that they need money for the funeral. Small blessing that, as I think the unspoken question from all of us is whether she would even have called if not for the financial side.

There was a time, when my aunt and uncle were still semi-happily married, when we did get news. My sisters and I always knew when my mom had received another letter from her sister-in-law because we’d suddenly get lectures on ‘I’d prefer you not do it, but if you are going to have sex before marriage then by all that’s holy, would you at least have the sense god gave a ground squirrel and use protection?’ Our usual response was ‘oh, and which cousin fathered / birthed an out-of-wedlock child this time?’ It seemed almost to be a required rite of passage with that family that each child produce at least one illegitimate baby as soon as he or she hit puberty. But then things between my aunt and uncle soured, and since she was really the only one who ever wrote letters, we stopped hearing from them. We tried to maintain contact – phone calls and letters – but after years of receiving no reply, we all just eventually gave up.

It’s hard to imagine how someone could have so little relationship with their family that they don’t hear from them for years and years. Even if you don’t especially get along with all your siblings, you might at least care enough to want to know how they’re doing, even if it’s only via generic once-a-year holiday mass mailing. Am I just being hopelessly pollyanna about this, I wonder. Is life really far more complicated that just wanting to keep at least a tentative touch to your family, your history, your roots?

The funeral is this Friday and since my mom and dad are going to go, all I can think is ‘Wonderful. Who the heck can I get to feed the cats for us while we’re gone now?’ Yes, that sounds horribly callous, but I feel nothing for my uncle’s death. I felt nothing when my father’s parents passed away either, and I will feel nothing for any of the cousins when they eventually die as well. They are strangers to us – strangers with names we may recognize, but strangers nonetheless.

I have lots of excuses for why it’s taking me so long to make three piddly little curtains. Really I do.

The pattern is simple but it takes forever to sew. And cutting fabric by the yard requires me to crawl around on the floor, pinning the stuff to my handy little cardboard sewing pad so I can cut 2 yard into thirds as evenly as possible. Oh, and sheer material has a real lovely tendency to snag.

The pattern requires lots and lots and lots of pressing (did I mention ‘lots’?) and I have no idea where my iron is, so I had to borrow one from my mom. Every other instruction for these things involves the word ‘press’. I swear I’m not kidding. I have pressed more hems and seams in the past week then I really want to repeat any time soon (so I suppose I just shouldn’t think about the fact that next on the list are the two curtains for the computer room, and then the four for the living room. Whimper).

It took me longer to get the iron because the shower door was broken.

No, really, there is a connection. Honest there is. See, over the last few months, little tiny screws have been working their way loose from the shower door, to the point where the door was hanging a bit odd, and I finally gathered them all up and tried to put them back in, but they’d all been stripped. So I called the builder we used, who pointed me toward the shower door company, who came out, determined that yes indeedy it was broken, and left with our shower door in tow, promising to return it later. Because I had to wait for them to come back (and they gave me that vague ‘we’ll drop it off sometime today’ thing delivery people like to do), I couldn’t leave to go get the iron, so that killed a day or two too.

The main reason why it’s taken me so long, however, is that it’s been Too Darn Hot.

In order to do this undisturbed, I’ve been working in the guest room / sewing room, occasionally opening the door to pat Azzie on the head when his cries of ‘you’re behind that door and I can get to you!’ become too frantic, but otherwise shuffling fabric and pattern pieces around blissfully unencumbered by feline assistance. The problem is that with the doors to that room closed, even with the air conditioning on and keeping the rest of the house lovely and cool, that room has a tendency to get unbearably stuffy by early afternoon. And it doesn’t help that I’ve got bright lights and a hot iron to add to the mix.

But despite all these excuses and setbacks, I’m nearly done, and today we proudly hung our very first curtain in the master bedroom. This involved a trip to the fabric store to purchase a curtain rod, comments about one of us having to hold the other’s nuts (as in nuts and BOLTS, people. Ahem), copious amounts of snickering about the previous comment, and of course me standing back a few feet to do the ‘up just a smidge. No. In a little. Up. Down. In. Okay!’ thing to Richard, who was stuck holding the curtain rod at an awkward angle over his head.

It looks lovely. I’m realizing that my ‘oops’ of making it about a foot wider than I’d originally planned was actually a good thing, and for any future curtains I’ll probably add a few more inches to the length, but this one turned out rather well.

I’m just oozing domestic pride all over the place right about now. Today curtains, tomorrow, the….uh…well…hmm. I’ll figure that out later. After I finish curtains number two and three.

I am not a tea drinker. I have never been a tea drinker and chances are fairly good that I will never be a tea drinker either. In matters of caffeine, I prefer my drug of choice to be either carbonated, or mixed with milk and sugar in latte form. I don’t dislike tea – I mean, I’ll drink the stuff if it’s what’s been offered to me, and I’ll admit that I do have a secret fondness for orange-cinnamon-spice tea – but it’s never going to be on the top of my ‘things I most love to drink’ list.

However, should I ever end up with so much money I just haven’t a clue how to spend it, why then I may just have to break down and become a tea drinker – if only to have a good reason to purchase and use the tea set we found in one of those ritzy modern-artsy-fartsy sort of stores.

I am sooo not normally a fan of ‘modern’ style furniture / clothes / dishes / you name it, but this just called to me. It was made of silver, with little brass (or maybe they were gold-plated) feet, and it was just too cool to resist! Tea pot, creamer, sugar holder, pepper grinder, and even a little twin set of salt and pepper shakers all were in the shape of UFO’s. A whole tray of shiny round, semi-flattened silver spaceships with little gold landing-gear-feet. I kid you not.

This is not the tea set you had when you were seven – the real china tea set with flowers painted on the side. This is not your grandmother’s tea set made from porcelain so translucent that if you hold it to the light you can almost see through it. This is not your mom’s tea set – the one edged in gold that causes nifty arcs in the microwave when you forget about that gold lining and put in a cup to warm up the contents. This was a tea set for science fiction-loving off-the-wall-type nerds. Disgustingly rich nerds, to be sure (since the entire set cost about as much as we’re paying for our mortgage each month), but nerds just the same.

Man, I want that tea set. I’m just dying to bring it out all nonchalant and see how long it takes everyone to figure out that I’m pouring tea out of a silver flying saucer! This was, without a doubt, *the* most wonderful tea set I’ve ever seen.

We went out for dinner last night to celebrate our one-month anniversary. Okay, so it was a few days off, and the reason was not so much the anniversary as the fact that after I wrote that entry on food for the Top Five collab, I was having some mild cravings, but the point is, we went out to a very nice restaurant and had a lovely romantic dinner, and having a one-month anniversary made a darn good excuse for the occasion.

We started with the ‘compacted cheese plate’, which sounds somehow more medically uncomfortable than it actually is. Richard loves it for the slabs of soft and tangy cheeses, and graciously allowed me to eat his share of the pralined walnuts. I snickered about how the two lonely slices of kiwi on the plate allowed them to call this a ‘fruit and cheese sampler’.

Fast forward through the salad of baby romaine and parmesan croutons, skip by the salmon with caramel glaze and the filet mignon with perfectly cooked spears of asparagus, and we come to the best part of the meal – dessert.

Despite giving the menu a cursory glance, as usual, I remained a purist and chose my favorite – creme brulee. Richard succumbed to the lure of the special and got some sort of layered cake and cream concoction topped with a thick chocolate ganache and soaked in orange liquor. He liked it just fine until I let him have a bite of mine, at which point he decided that he really out to have opted for the creme brulee instead. I simply pointed out that this actually meant that I shouldn’t have let him have a bite of my dessert in the first place, but he didn’t see it in quite the same light.

Anyway, after all that glorious food, neither of us could finish more than half of our dessert (this after I packed up half the salmon from my own dinner), so we had them box those up as well, for breakfast. Yes, I said breakfast. Yes, it’s perfectly acceptable to eat cake and creme brulee for breakfast. All part of the plus of being adult, see, and getting to eat whatever you want for any meal. So there. But where was I?

The waiter returned with only one box, and we headed off. Upon reaching the car, I pried the box open, curious as to how they had managed to do this – a cake, a box, and a splotch of pudding, as it were. To my utter horror, they had committed a terrible sin!

See, his cake came with a few carefully placed slices of banana, and the waiter plopped those into the box too, which would have been perfectly okay had it only been the cake, but the nasty little things were *in* my creme brulee!!

I very quickly removed the offending fruit pieces and tucked them behind the cake slice, so as to protect my precious dessert from any further contamination and then realized, from the look on my husband’s face, that I must then explain to Richard the true evils of the banana.

When we were younger, my mom used to put bananas in our lunch bag occasionally, and I hated it – hated it to the point that should I even *suspect* the presence of a banana, I would extract it as soon as I left the house and find some means of disposing of it. Bananas have this unique and disgusting ability to infect any food in their presence with not only their smell, but their taste. Bearing in mind that I’m an odd person and don’t like most fruits, and only eat bananas when I’m in the mood for them (a circumstance which occurs possibly three or four times a year), it was always rather revolting to be faced with an entire lunch that not only reeked of the horrid little yellow offender, but tasted like it as well. As you can see, it’s scarred me for life. No, really. So it was because of this that I felt the need to rescue my poor creme brulee from Richard’s slimy little banana slice.

Richard graced me with ‘The Look’ – you know, the one that says ‘she’s nuts but I married her so I guess I have to humor her’ – and nodded, murmuring something like ‘yes dear’, probably figuring that I was all done and soon it would get back to what passes for normal around here. But of course that was before I got started on the whole reason why prunes (excuse me – dried plums – and exactly when it is that we decided that the word ‘prune’ is bad? Hello?) are even more evil than bananas. Should one of *those* disgusting little shriveled-up things have touched my creme brulee, I might just as well have thrown the whole thing away. Ick!

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials. –Lin Yutank

Whenever I read the description of a Gemini, I am often amused by a fairly common thread. Since this sign is the Twin, the Gemini is usually described as apt to get into a lot of things at once. Problem is, doing this means you don’t finish everything – you just keep starting new things and end up with a pile of half-completed projects that make you feel guilty every time you walk pass them. “Remember me? Remember how you said you’d love to work on me? That was before you got Mr. Sexy New Project, wasn’t it, and now I’m cast aside.”

I love to sew, but the hardest part of any sewing project I’ve ever undertaken is finishing it. I’ve got half a dozen started projects – counted cross stitch, rug hooking, even the pieces to stitch for a quilt – and they languish while I dive into something new. I finally had to make a stern promise to myself that I’m no longer allowed to buy new pattern books until I’ve finished at least one thing. My desire to sew comes in spurts – there are days when all I want to do is sit down with needle and thread and sew for hours, and then there are days when I can stitch for only a few minutes before I desperately need to do something – anything – else.

I have great plans for cleaning the house but get side-tracked halfway through scrubbing a floor. I write marvelous beginnings and endings for stories but can never force myself to work out what happens in the middle. I have plans for organizing things, and even sometimes go so far as to purchase the necessary items before I am haring off into something new.

Having cats has curbed at least some of my scatter-brained tendencies. After all, one cannot leave the pieces to a half-done puzzle out for days when one has furry creatures that find those pieces just the right size for carrying off and burying in between the sofa cushions. But it still hasn’t stopped me from accumulating a shelf full of notebooks full of scribbled themes ideas just waiting to be put together into something a bit more coherent than a few fascinating paragraphs interspersed with ‘insert more info here’.

I fully accept that I’ll be fighting this (sometimes losing) battle against my enthusiasm and the follow-through for my entire life. Do I think that this was predestined by my birth date – that I was prone to it by the very nature of being a Gemini? Not in the slightest. It’s my own nature and nothing more.

Heh. I wish, like the quote above, that I could find something noble in all my half-done projects (and don’t get me wrong. With the exception of all those undone stories, all my projects eventually get completed – it just takes time). But alas, for us more common folk, leaving things undone is just a simple sign that I need to work on my own self-discipline.

And who knows. Maybe one of these days I *will* finally finish one of those stories and (gasp) get it published. I wouldn’t hold your breath though. I’d get the letter to the publisher half-typed and then something would catch my attention (the state of the bathroom grout, for example), and it, too, would languish, ignored and alone.

I am in a state of limbo. Off vacation, I’m still awaiting my next sentence. I’ve requested short assignments, but I’m realistic enough to know that the possibilities of that are slim. I’ve done my part to be home at least through the end of this month – if only to be able to medicate the cats until they’re done with pills (antibiotics for the two most recent victims of tooth cleaning and extraction) – but it cannot last forever. I must make a decision soon – to stay or to leave. And leaving scares me. It wouldn’t be so bad if I knew that there was no hope at all, but this is not the case. There is this hint of possibility for a position that would be so truly ideal that it is almost painful to think of leaving when this chance hovers so gloriously out of reach. I wish for resolution, one way or another. I’d rather know that door was permanently closed than be left in this constant hope.

In the meantime I continue to job search. I spent several hours yesterday filling out the application and cover letter, and modifying my resume for exactly one job – one that sounds exactly like what I’d like to move towards. There are other positions similar to this one that I need to apply for, but I find myself almost reluctant to put in the effort. There’s this little childish voice in the back of my head that keeps whining that it’s not supposed to be this hard. I know better than that, but knowing and feeling are two different things.

So today I procrastinated. To my credit I did skim through the ever-growing list of job boards and want ads looking for new things to fling a resume at in the hopes that perhaps I’ll finally get lucky, but for whatever reason I had the itch to search for other things, and so on returning from the grocery store, I fired up a search engine and was lost in blissful abandon the rest of the afternoon going through recipes. I printed out a thick stack of likely candidates which will grace our menu over the next few weeks.

This is, of course, the last thing I should be doing. I already mentioned that little job-hunting thing, and now that the fabric I ordered several weeks ago is in, I’ve got no excuse not to get cracking on the curtains. 12 yards of pale yellow with a green vine pattern and 12 yards of cream sheer are sitting in patient rolls and pleats waiting for me to open up the sewing machine, spread the pattern pieces on the floor, and get sewing. After all these years I finally have a sewing room (no matter that it is also the guest room and partial library) that will forever be cat-free. I can lay out pattern pieces without fear of a cat deciding to take a running slide into the thin tissue. I can leave the pin box open without having to check it every few seconds to make sure that same cat isn’t trying to grab a mouthful of those temptingly shiny objects. I can run the sewing machine without (yes, you guessed it – same cat) feline assistance which mainly involves sitting and patting at the thread as it spins down to the needle, or making exaggerated gagging faces to let me know how much he hates the sound of the machine itself.

Tomorrow I’ll buckle down and fire off a few more of the more complicated applications which each require their own version of my resume. And tomorrow I’ll lay the stack of tempting new recipes aside and open out the fabric. Tomorrow is soon enough for now.

If you had to recommend any five eating experiences, what are they? They can be restaurants, something made in somebody’s kitchen, lists of comfort food, or a combination of all of these. Just tell us five ways food makes you feel good – Top Five Collab – August 2001< Creme Brulee: I associate creme brulee with decadence. It is not an ordinary dessert – something you find at mom-n-pop’s local diner. It is something to be had only on special occasions.

I don’t remember the first time I had creme brulee, but I do remember the best. It is served at a restaurant in Sacramento called The Firehouse, and comes complete with snooty waiter, lush and opulent surroundings, and quiet music. It is not to be eaten quickly – oh no, not this. This dessert must be eaten slowly, bite by lucious bite, every creamy bit savored and the bowl scraped clean until every last morsel is gone.

Doughnuts: I love doughnuts. Cake doughnuts to be exact, and they have to be good doughnuts too, not those greasy dense things you get in the lower-class doughnut shops, but the thick cakey rings that come in boxes at the store, dripping with powdered sugar, coated with cinnamon, or – my favorite – plain.

Cake doughnuts are a special treat, and they are better when eaten somewhere else but home. Stolen moments in a car, driving down the highway, leaning foward over the steering wheel so as not to drip powdered sugar all over my shirt. Gatherings with sisters, sharing coffee and a box of Hostess goodness while draped over furniture in some strange living room. A single doughnut, savored with chocolate frosting, or even a sprinkling of peanuts, in a little doughnut shop when you’ve been lucky enough to find a good one.

Homemade Pretzels: For as long as I can remember, there was one particular meal that was pretty common in our house when company came over. My mom would whip up a huge bowl of dough, and then after a trip to the grocery store for a selection of fruits and cheeses, we’d all sit around the table – guests and all – and make pretzels. There’s something about preparing food that helps to break the ice on conversation. We’d sit there, floured hands rolling pieces of dough into thick ropes and then twisting them into pretzels, and talk and laugh about all sorts of things. Even us kids were allowed to participate, just like the adults.

They are not the tough pretzels you can buy at ball games or in the mall. These are soft, pale brown knots. They are best fresh from the oven, when the bread still steams when you cut into it. The hint of rock salt on top combined with the fresh yeasty smell is truly divine. Slip in a sliver of cheese so that it melts from the heat of the bread and it gets even better.

Pretzels are still, to me, company food. I’ve rarely made them when it’s just for those of us living there – it’s always for when friends come over.

Pizza fondue: My mother had an old fondue recipe book, pages yellowed and stained. I’m sure there were other recipes in there, and it’s possible that when they were younger, my parents tried some of the others. But the only recipe from that book I ever remember her making was the one for pizza fondue.

It’s nothing complicated. Cheddar, mozzarella, pizza sauce, and a few herbs and spices, but when it’s covering a square of toasted bread, it tastes exactly like the topping from a pizza.

In my college days, D and I used to make a batch of this and cut up an entire loaf of french bread, and then eat until we were far, far past the point of full – continuing to eat because it tasted so good and not because we were hungry any longer.

Recently D came over for dinner to the new house and we made pizza fondue. It surprised me that I’d not made it for Richard – a bit of a shock to realize how long it’s been since I’ve had this. We sat around the table, spearing cubes of bread and dunking them in the cheese mixture. Delicious!

Christmas: There is something magical about Christmas. I’m not a religious person by any stretch of the imagination, but I adore Christmas for nearly everything else. The smell of pine, the sparkle of decorations, and of course all the Christmas baking.

My mom always did a lot of baking. Gingerbread men and pumpkin bread; thick soft sugar cookies decorated like Santa Claus with coconut beards, or cut into bell shapes and coated with brown sugar. Thanksgiving has its turkey and it’s pies, but Christmas has so much more. It’s more than just the food – it’s the memories around them. Gingerbread men were hung on the trees. Decorating the sugar cookies was a whole-family affair, and when we had boyfriends over, they were roped into service as well. The smell of pumpkin bread fresh from the oven always heralds the start of the holiday season. Any of these could just as easily be made year-round, but they’re not. These are special foods – just for Christmas.

The best part of Christmas, however, is my mother’s cinnamon rolls. Nearly every year she has gotten up early to make the dough and bake those rolls, and as we grew older and the promise of toys under the tree wasn’t so huge a lure, it was hard sometimes to choose between diving into our stockings and heading for the breakfast table where we knew there would be plates of fresh rolls, coated in caramel and pecans, or drizzled in sugary-sweet glaze.

I’m still job hunting, and the pressure has just gotten a bit greater. Only slightly more than one week of vacation left, so I am now back on the bench, off vacation, and available to be sent away on a project. Shudder. My boss is willing to consider short projects, and I’ve asked her if working 4-day weeks if I’m going to be on the road is an option but…

So in the meantime, I am worriedly poring over job pages, newspaper help wanted ads, and any other site I think could give me any leads.

And what fun stuff is out there! If I wanted to be a Pool Cleaner, I’d be snapped up – there’s a ton of ads for them. Now, apparently, is also a great time to go into Real Estate (at least this seems to be the common theme of those particular ads). My current favorite, however, is the position for Internet developer and Webmaster for a chain of adult bookstores.

If I knew even a bit more web-based languages, I would be sooo tempted. I mean, putting the morality issue aside here, the pay would have to be pretty good, and just think of the amazing stories you’d be able to tell friends and family. Uh. Or maybe not. But anyway. I’m not applying for that one, no matter how tempted I am. Really I’m not.