We went to the zoo again today. Now that we are members, we get in for free, plus we were given some free parking passes and some free admission passes, so we invited Richard’s family along as well. Only his mom and his niece could come, since everyone else was busy, but the four of us had fun walking around the zoo, and counting how many ways the critters found to pee (I think my favorite was the tiger who spent a long time drinking from his pool, and then as soon as he was done, turned around and promptly peed right in his own water source).

Since today was the ‘official’ birthday zoo trip for Richard (since his birthday is tomorrow), I gave him one of his birthday presents early – a ring-tailed lemur. Or actually, I ‘adopted’ the lemur for him through the zoo’s adoption program, so now he has a little picture of ‘his’ lemur and is entitled to attend ‘Zoo Parents Day’ in June. It wasn’t a huge surprise, since he was home when all the paperwork arrived, in an envelope clearly marked ‘Zoo Adoption Program’, but at least he says he hadn’t figured out which animal I adopted for him (or if he did, he was just nice enough to lie about it).

While most times we go to the zoo, I come back with a dozen or so really nice shots of the various animals, today’s visit and last week’s visit didn’t quite work out as I’d intended. Last Saturday, we were at the zoo and I reached into my purse to pull out my camera, only to discover that I had left the memory card in my computer, thus rendering my camera useless for the day. This Saturday I remembered to check my computer to make sure the memory card had not been left behind. However, when I reached into my purse, I discovered that not only had I left the memory card at home, I had also left the entire camera. I had a moment of panic there, trying to figure out what I did with it, before I remembered that the last time I took a picture was when we were at home, and that I did not somehow manage to leave it behind somewhere else.

We’d originally planned to go to dinner at a restaurant in San Francisco, but we ended up finishing up at the zoo earlier than expected, so we waved goodbye to Richard’s mom and niece, and then drove back home and made reservations at a place in Sacramento instead. Conveniently, I happened to have a gift certificate for that particular restaurant, received as a recent Christmas gift, which covered pretty much our entire dinner check, with the exception of the tip. Rather a nice way to end the day.

Tis the season for Holidailies

I had grand intentions for today. The big project on my list was to try to tackle the attic, laying down more flooring so we’d have a little bit more storage space beyond the tiny little square that was installed when the house was built. But last night, as my dad and I were standing up there, surveying the space, it was determined that this was something we probably did not want to tackle on our own. I knew we would have to build up over the existing loose insulation up there, but I didn’t realize quite how high we would have to go. So if we’re ever going to extend our storage space up there, we’re going to have to pay someone to do it – and likely pay them quite a lot. Sigh.

So instead of tackling attic flooring, which would have involved trips to the hardware store, and nail guns and drills and crawling around in loose insulation with face masks, Richard and I spent the day doing pretty much….nothing. We’re overdue for a grocery run, but somehow we cobbled together three decent meals with what we could find in the cupboards – I made pumpkin cornmeal waffles for breakfast, Richard made cheese and (turkey) bacon omelets for lunch, and together we made salmon shortcakes for dinner. Tthe rest of the day we spent lounging about. We watched Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, which has been sitting on our shelf from Netflix for a few weeks, and determined that just because a movie has very cool CGI special effects does not mean that it does not need a plot. I read three books and spent a few hours working on the lace scarf. I think the only time either one of us actually left the house was when Richard walked down the block to pick up the mail.

I am a tiny bit disappointed that we did not get the attic flooring dealt with, like I had hoped, and there are other things we probably should have been doing today (like finishing a bookshelf, or organizing the library, or taking the mountains of recycling over to the center downtown), but it was a perfectly lovely, lazy day, and we get so very few of those any more, that sometimes, it is better to just spend a day doing nothing at all, just to have something to remember until the next time.

Tis the season for Holidailies

My little sister and her family flew back to Seattle today, where luckily they still have power (now that the blizzards have moved on to Denver and other places). They spent most of yesterday up in Napa, visiting with my older sister and her husband and the nephews, but because I was out most of yesterday with a group of knitter friends, doing a yarn crawl, and Richard was busy having fun with home ownership, we didn’t go with them. So this morning we went over for breakfast and stayed until when they had to leave for the airport, which was shortly after lunch. I have no idea how many games of Rat-a-Tat Cat we played with my niece, but it was a lot. There were also a few more games of table-top shuffleboard as well, and since she is sometimes a bit prone to drama, it was hysterical to watch. There were lots of hugs and discussions of upcoming visits, and my little sister and I chatted very briefly about ideas for where we might want to go for our 2007 Sisters Only Weekend, and we ate leftover Christmas cookies and chocolate pie and I promised to email them the directions for how to felt my niece’s very floppy pink and blue striped slippers, and then, before any of us were ready, it was time for them to go. And even though my parents are going to get to see them all very soon, since they are flying up in a few weeks so my dad can perform magic tricks for a certain soon-to-be-seven-year-old’s birthday party, I suspect that for Richard and I, it will be a lot longer.

It feels as if, now that my little sister has flown back home, and our tree has taken itself down, that Christmas is now officially over. There are still plenty of decorations around the house that eventually need to be put away, and I still do not have to go back to work until next Tuesday, but there are no cookies or fudge in this house, and there is no excited little niece to come bouncing over, wanting to read us stories (and I do not think I can even begin to describe how much I love what bookworms she and the oldest nephew are turning into), and instead of sneaking into the kitchen to steal some dark chocolate M&M’s or some cookies, we set up the EyeToy Kinetic and played games, because sometimes getting older just is not nearly as much fun as it is cracked up to be.

The rest of the day has passed in a quiet blur. I started working on a lace scarf I am doing as a sample piece for the yarn store, and we watched an episode of The Simpsons, and then we decided that we were finally ready to watch the amazing cinematic masterpiece that Richard put in my stocking this year, so he popped in Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter and spent the next hour or so alternately gaping in disbelief at the television, or giggling madly. Because I am not sure anything else could herald in the end of a holiday season so perfectly than a (extremely) low budget film with a tattooed, ear-pierced Jesus fights vampires and athiests with the help of a shiny rubber-clad Mary, and a masked Mexican wrestler, and did I forget to mention that every so often, they all also broke into dance and song?

Tis the season for Holidailies

Ever since we put up the Christmas tree, it has had a slight tilt. It wasn’t much to worry about at first, since the trunk itself was a bit warped, so it only looked tilted from one angle. But over the past few days I’ve noticed that the tilt seemed to be getting more pronounced. Last night, when we came home, I glanced over at the tree and made an off-hand comment that we probably ought to fix that tilt soon, before it gets worse. But we were tired and it didn’t seem all that important and so we went to bed and promptly forgot all about it. Until about 5:30 this morning, that is, when I was awakened by a loud crash, followed shortly thereafter by the panicked skittering of six sets of cat feet, tearing madly from anywhere they might have been in the house to somewhere else.

When you are a pet owner, and you are awakened by crashes, you learn, very quickly, to lie there and assess them. Does it sound like anything fragile? Does it sound like something that might be toxic to cats? Does it sound like someone breaking in? And the most important question of all, does it sound like it really needs to be cleaned up now, or can it wait until morning? I lay there and rationalized the sound and, because it was still so early and I was still so tired, I somehow convinced myself that it wasn’t anything important, and went back to sleep.

Alas, by the time the cats finally nagged me out of bed, about two hours later, I think you all know what I discovered downstairs, lying on the living room floor in a very prone position. In the cats defense, I doubt it was any of their fault. The only tree-related activity any of them have been involved in is when Azzie has tried to take out a little stuffed unicorn ornament (hung, on purpose, within reach of fuzzy paws because we have learned that the soft and unbreakable ornaments go on the bottom), but that was on a branch that was flexible enough so he could wrestle madly with the unicorn without disturbing the rest of the tree (usually while Richard and I sat within visual range and laughed hysterically, too). I think, in this case, maybe we have to blame Cthulu. After all, he was perched atop that tree with his team of degenerate servitor caribou, and everyone knows that ancient elder gods are never up to any good, despite the presence of sparkly gold horns of cheer.

I woke up Richard and between the two of us, we managed to pry off as many ornaments as we could find, and then clean up all the water and the pine needles. Luckily, only two or three ornaments broke, and those were ones we didn’t have any sentimental attachment to – all the others survived the crash just fine and the worse they got as wet. It was amusing, in a way, because we had both been considering taking the tree down a little early this year, just because it’s kind of in the way for when we use the EyeToy Kinetic. So maybe I am being too quick to blame Cthulu. Maybe he was just trying to be helfpul after all.

Tis the season for Holidailies

It is tradition for my mom and my sisters and I to get up early the day after Christmas and hit the after-Christmas sales. So this morning the four of us met in the parking lot at the Target in Vacaville (thus conveniently avoiding any actual shopping mall), and before the sun had risen, we were thronging into the store with dozens of other people, determined to score great deals on all the holiday things we’ll need for next year.

I found a few boxes of cards, and then picked up quite a nice selection of stocking stuffers for next year, and successfully avoided purchasing even a single roll of holiday wrapping paper (since we are currently swimming in it from a rather large wrap-purchasing fest during a similar post-holiday shopping trip a year or so earlier). Then, once my sisters and my mom were done in the holiday section, we meandered our way throughout the rest of the store, which meant that I managed to find parent-approved birthday presents for my niece and youngest nephew (whose birthdays are coming up in the next two months) and get some ideas for my mom’s birthday (which is coming up in a few weeks).

A quick detour to a coffee shop for sustance for my mom and sisters, since apparently none of them got any breakfast before they joined me at the store (while I, on the other hand, had swung through a local bakery to snag a bagel and an extra large cup of life-giving caffeine to sustain me through the shopping mania), and then we headed off to the next store on our list – Joann Fabrics. There I avoided doing anything more than glancing briefly at anything related to yarn, and instead focused on picking up a few more stocking stuffers for various family members for next year.

We hit a few more stores after that one, but by then we were all getting hungry and the early wake-up had started to hit me, despite the large coffee I had gulped down earlier, and it was far too early for lunch, so we all decided to go home and crash for an hour or two and then get back together later. I tried very hard to take a short nap, which thrilled the cats to no end, but it is sometimes hard to sleep when you are being purred out so enthusiastically by several felines who think that ‘napping’ really means ‘lying down and petting them’.

After lunch, Richard and I decided to hook up one of our new Christmas presents – an EyeToy Kinetic, and as we hooked it up and tried to try it out, we discovered a little problem. Amusingly, ever since we rearranged the furniture, we’ve noticed that the lighting in the room really isn’t very good, but it wasn’t until we tried to play with our new game that we finally broke down and took care of the situation. It didn’t take long to go out and procure two inexpensive floor lamps – one of which even has a flexible reading light which will be perfect for my knitting – and after that, the game worked perfectly. Basically, it’s a workout game, with a little camera, so that you see yourself on the screen, and the game can ‘sense’ where you are. You move around, trying to punch or kick or sweep objects off the screen, and it can track your movements and score you appropriately. There is even a program to set up a personal trainer, which will track your progress over twelve weeks and increase the intensity of your workouts as you improve.

I was busily ducking and dodging in front of the television, trying to protect a big blue orb from a bunch of little gold orbs by smacking at them when the phone rang, so after we both had a chance to do a basic workout with our new game, we inhaled a ‘healthy’ dinner of breakfast cereal and then picked up my little sister and her husband, and went off for an adults-only outing to see a movie – “Night at the Museum”.

The movie, athough a bit predictable, was just what we needed. It’s funny and entertaining, enough to make us laugh here and there, but not too complicated or intense, so that we could just sit back and have fun and not have to think too hard about it at all. We stopped for ice cream on the way home and sat in the store and chatted until we noticed they were starting to clean up and had turned off the ‘Open’ sign, so that was our cue to regretfully head back to the car and drive over to my parents’ house and drop off my sister and brother-in-law, and then come home.

Tis the season for Holidailies

It has been a very nice Christmas, all around. We slept in late, and had homemade pumpkin cornmeal pancakes for breakfast with pumpkin spice coffee, and then eventually made our way over to my parents’ house, to ooh and aah over my niece’s new toys. Richard and I actually opened our presents to each other on Saturday (because I am all about stretching out the present-fest as long as possible), we did the present exchange with his family yesterday, and today was the third day of present giving/getting, this time with my family. and among other things, he got me an absolutely lovely soprano recorder (I’ve been borrowing one of my dad’s). On Christmas day, there was also a tenor recorder under the tree from my parents, so now I am all set with my own instruments, and no longer have to keep my dad’s on permanent loan.

I finished the shawl for my little sister on Saturday night, and pinned it out to block on Sunday morning, so there was no early-morning frantic ironing of still-damp lace items, like there was last year. It turned out quite nice, and my sister seemed to really like it, which was what I was hoping for.

Not to say that there was not any hasty Christmas knitting at all, because while the shawl was done in plenty of time, the slippers for the kids were not. I managed to get the pink and blue striped slippers finished for my niece in time to stuff them into a gift bag and bring them over this morning (she thanked me by drawing a picture of her new slippers, which is very cute), but the boys’ slippers were not even started until today. Luckily, these slippers are to be felted (shrunk to fit), which means they knit up quick on larger needles, so throughout the day, when I wasn’t opening presents or taking pictures of other people opening their presents, or playing Rat-a-Tat Cat with the family, or eating, or watching small people tear madly around in the front yard, I knit. And before we left my parents house this evening, I was done.

Tis the season for Holidailies

Because Christmas falls on a Monday this year, that means Christmas Eve falls on a Sunday, and it just happens to fall on the fourth Sunday of the month – the same Sunday on which the recorder group traditionally plays. I asked the rest of the group, and talked to the minister to see if there was a better time to play, but it appeared that Christmas Eve was still the best option, especially since all the other Sundays of the month were taken with things like the cantata and the pageant. So I worked up an arrangement of “He Is Born” and figured that we would all practice directly before the service, then play, and then I would duck out directly after we were done so we could continue on with the rest of our regularly scheduled Christmas Eve festivities.

However, Richard somehow thought I was acting as the full accompanist for Christmas Eve, and agreed to be liturgist, meaning we would have to be there the full service, and not be able to get down to his parents’ house until another hour and a half later, to the great consternation of everyone involved. So yesterday while we were wandering the zoo I got ahold of my knitting mom, who is also in the recorder group, and she graciously agreed to act as substitute liturgist. Phew.

The recorder group sounded wonderful, and I was pretty pleased with how my first ever song arrangement worked out (usually I just transcribe music directly from the hymnal into the appropriate parts, but this time I did a few things extra, including writing in a descant). It was even more fun because my little sister decided to play with us, and she picked up the alto recorder – after not playing it for who knows how many years, and managed to do an amazing job with the part.

As soon as we were done playing I dashed out (quietly and unobtrusively, of course) and zipped home to pick up Richard, who had remained at home to finish getting all our stuff together. He met me at the door with a box full of all the presents we were taking, and then we were off to his parents’ house for the day.

There was the usual decorating of sugar cookies, turning the normal holiday shapes into bizarre and colorful creatures. Lunch was buffet style, since the rest of the family had to come and go at different times throughout the afternoon. We opened presents and emptied stockings and played with dogs and cat, but mostly, we just relaxed and enjoyed each others’ company.

My little sister and I were supposed to sing a duet for the 11pm service, but she’s been sick, and had pretty much no voice by the time I got home, so I sang it as a solo instead, and have thus ended this year singing as a tenor, alto, and now soprano. The only reason I will likely never complete the set is because my voice simply refuses to budge low enough to sing bass.

Tis the season for Holidailies

After a few years of discussing it, and debating whether or not it would be worth it, today Richard and I finally decided to join the zoo. The San Francisco zoo, to be precise. Because even if we only go two more times in the next twelve months, we’ll have pretty much paid for our membership – especially when you throw in the complementary free parking passes they gave us.

We joined the zoo today because it seemed like a good idea, seeing as how we were already there. I’d had an idea that the kids would probably really enjoy going to the SF zoo, and so this morning we picked up my little sister and my niece, and we met my older sister and her family at the front gate, and we spent most of the day at the zoo.

The kids had a blast – and we adults had fun too, both in wandering around the zoo, but even more in watching the kids get so excited about everything. My little sister hadn’t been sure how long my niece would last, since they’ve all had colds in the past few days, but we adults were tiring out long before the kids showed any signs of wanting to go home. In fact, at one point, the two older ones acquired maps, so that they could see immediately all the sections we had yet to go see, and direct us there post haste, in case we were in danger of forgetting to make our way there. One or both of them made sure to read every sign near each animal exhibit to each other, and there was a trio of excited squealing every time they saw something extra cute – like the incubator of tiny baby quail, or the meercats and the prairie dogs. And, it being the weekend before Christmas, the kids also were quite excited to be able to meet four of Santa’s reindeer (or rather, four of us ‘back-up’ reindeer) and to meet Santa himself, even though they were oblivious to the fact that Santa was being played by a young man who looked as if he could barely keep himself awake.

Tis the season for Holidailies

I was supposed to do a platelet donation this morning. In preparation, I got up nearly an hour early (wince) so I would be sure to get to the blood center on time. I made sure to drink lots of water so they could find my veins easily. And I tracked down a book to bring with me so I would have somethign to keep me entertained during the hour or so process.

But when I got there and they ran my tests, I was deferred. Seems the iron score has to be at least 38 and mine came in at 37, and despite the fact that I have donated successfully for years, by law they cannot let me do it if it’s even one point under the official limit. So they thanked me for coming and gave me some information on how to increase the iron in my blood and I scheduled a new donation appointment for the same time next week, with thoughts of making sure to eat something high in iron the night before. And then I looked at the clock and even though it was early yet, it made no sense for me to go home first, so I just headed off to work early instead.

Luckily this is the last day before Christmas, which means there was a distinct lack of urgency in the office. So I held off until lunchtime, but then I decided that that was enough, and I waved goodbye to the few remaining coworkers (half had already left ahead of me) and fired off a few last emails, and that was it – the last time I will be in that office until the new year.

I swung by two stores on the way home and finally managed to find the last Christmas present I wanted to get for Richard, and then promptly gave it to him when I got home, not even wrapped up first, because I knew it would make him laugh (I am never good about waiting to give presents – or to get them, for that matter). And then, while he kept on working for the rest of the afternoon, I sat down with my litlte sister’s lace shawl and started the edging, and lo, the angels sang and the stars shone, because the edging is not going to take nearly as long as I was afraid it would, and I think there is a pretty good chance I will have this thing done in plenty of time for Christmas.

A friend came by with presents for us, which gave us the perfect opportunity to pass on his (very belated) birthday present, and also gave us a chance to sit around and chat for a bit, until Richard and I had to send him on his way because we were expected at my parents’ house for dinner. And there, we were greeted at the door by a grinning six-year-old niece, down from Seattle with her parents for Christmas, and there was dinner and stories were read to us by the six-year-old, who is not only a very good reader, but also knows enough to put in all the inflections and exclamations as she is reading, so that it is always highly entertaining to watch.

Tis the season for Holidailies

It has felt like it should be Friday all day. But then that makes sense, considering that the real Friday is bound to be a very short day, and also today marked the beginning of the holiday celebratory festivities. It started with a card on my desk when I got to work, holding a cute card and a gift certificate for a nice restaurant in Sacramento, continued with the pile of homemade chocolate chip cookies brought in by another coworker, and continued on with our office holiday dinner this evening, which was the very best part of the day.

As I mentioned earlier, we’re a small office, so going out together for dinner is always a lot of fun, because it isn’t too huge a crowd. And this year, even though we are now up to six in the office instead of five, was no exception. There were twelve of us, total, at dinner, which was held at the Slocum House in Fair Oaks – a location a lot further away than most of us had realized (made even further away by the fact that traffic on the few evenings left before Christmas in that direction was nasty). It was raining, so we all came into the restaurant a little damp, hastily wiping water off our gifts and our jackets. But then they ushered us into a room in the back and the rain and the traffic and the time it took to get there just didn’t matter any more.

The food was delicious, and there was a lot of it, but the staff spaced everything out so well that my fear of not having any room left for the main course didn’t come to pass. The room was just big enough for the twelve of us and secluded enough that we could all hear each other, even at the other end of the table, without shouting. We did a sort of white elephant gift exchange, although there wasn’t a single swap or steal because all of us were quite happy with what we ended up with. In fact, amusingly enough, several presents seemed to end up with just the perfect person, as if they were selected for that recipient instead of a gift swap. There were jokes about how it was the most boring white elephant gift exchange ever, but I don’t think anyone minded.

And best of all, the entire evening was fun. I am continually aware of how lucky I am to work where I work, and to work with the people i work with, and this dinner was just one more big reminder of that. We were laughing so much our faces hurt by the end of the night. There were hugs goodbye and wishes of Merry Christmas and laughter about driving home in the rain, and it was wonderful.

Tis the season for Holidailies