Dear Santa,

I know I’m leaving this until a little late this year, what with it being the day before the big event and all, but I figure you can still manage. After all, Christmas magic, and all that.

This year I want the following items. Most of these don’t have to be wrapped, so I’m making it even easier for you. See how thoughtful I am?

1. Please bring me a dragon. A small one, preferably house-trained. Must get along well with cats. Larger dragons would be fine but I’m not sure if our yard is quite big enough, so smaller is better. I know I asked for this last year, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask again. One cute little scaly dragon?
2. I would like one of the regular networks to realize just how idiotic Fox really was to drop Firefly, and to immediately call Joss Whedon and ask – no, *beg* – him to resume the show, giving everyone big raises and signing them all on for a contract for at least a few years. Also, it needs to do so incredibly well that the network can then thumb its nose at Fox and do a networky version of the ‘Neener, neener’ dance. Also, Fox would be so ashamed it would stop making those brainless ‘reality’ shows. Okay, so maybe the last one is a little too big even for you. But really. Firefly. Bring it back. For that I might even have to break down and get cable.
3. I would like a little visit from some of the cast of Lord of the Rings. The guy who plays Aragorn is to come and serenade me, and can you arrange to have that echoy thing going on while he’s singing? Also, Orlando Bloom – but only in his Legolas costume – can come and perch on my porch and give me soulful looks. I’d ask for more, but I am, after all, a married woman. So I will settle for the serenading and the soulful looks. Although if you were willing to bring along a baby Ent or two, that would be extra cool.
4. I’d like a new pair of sinuses please – a pair that doesn’t get all clogged up every time the weather changes or I catch a case of sniffles. Also, if you could arrange to do that before I fly home from Seattle so I do not have to endure the stabbing needles of death behind my eyes during take-off and landing due to changes in air pressure, I would be ever so grateful.
5. And lastly, or perhaps more importantly, there are some people in my life that want and need things, Santa – want and need them more than anything. One of them wants a baby, and she’s an awesome mom, Santa. Surely you could drop a little bit of your magic her way this year to help her get her wish, and get it soon. Some other friends need jobs – truly awesome jobs that challenge and excite them and give them something to look forward to every day. I know this economy’s been pretty bad lately, but see what you can do.

Thanks very much, especially if you can swing that last one. Give my regards to all the reindeer.

love,

Jennifer

Last night as I was sitting at my computer I heard a rather impressive crash from behind. Richard had been putting away all of our gaming gear, including a huge stack of books and our green Tupperware bowl (that may have, at one time, been meant to actually store food) in which we store the majority of our dice.

Like all good gamers we have quite the collection of dice, accumulated throughout the years by buying individual sets, or by purchasing ‘Dice by the Scoop’ at various gaming conventions. I have picked through all the dice and selected out the prettiest ones because if I’m going to be a nerd with a hefty bag of dice to my name, by golly at least they’ll be swirly, pearly, girly, sparkly dice. Richard, being a guy, could care less how ugly his dice are so he tends to end up with all the boring speckly ones. Long-term readers may recall my feelings on speckles (which has nothing whatsoever to do with dice, now that I think about it, but oh well). And in order to keep our dice separate, mine all live in a grey cloth bag that is carefully tied shut to keep the dice from escaping. The dice in the green Tupperware bowl, however, are free to roam as they wish, should the bowl ever tip over. Or, perhaps, be dropped from a great height.

So in case you haven’t figured it out, the crash was the container of dice, landing on the floor. Dice skittered out of the closet where the gaming stuff lives, and a cat or three took off for parts unknown in wide-eyed terror from the attack by small numbered monsters. It was quite exciting there for a second or two.

However, the dice on the floor weren’t really what made this all so gosh darn funny. You see, the closet in which the gaming stuff lives is also the closet where the litter boxes are. And Richard managed to drop that bowl of dice so the majority of the spillage went directly into…uh…a pile of nice soft granules made from all those bits of corn that are left over once they take out all the edible parts and stick them in cans, which we use because the clay litter tends to clog up the Littermaids.

I couldn’t help it. I started to snicker. Despite his protestations that it wasn’t funny, eventually he joined in. There we were, crouched down over the litter boxes, eying the dice. It didn’t help matters any when one of us (it might have been me) said something to the effect of “Look Hon, the cats have laid us a nice fresh crop o’ dice” in her best redneck drawl, followed by another of us (quite possibly him) adding, “Hey, I need another 20-sider. Call in the cat!”

As for the aforementioned dice which were littering the…er..litter boxes, well.. After all, they are Littermaids, which means that they are self-scooping, and judging from the pristine quality of the bed on which the dice reposed, they had recently self-scooped. And after all, we were talking *dice* here, and no self-respecting gamer ever lets go of any of his or her dice. No matter how ugly or speckly they might be.

Today was the day the over-the-counter sinus medicine I’ve been taking finally stopped working at all. Thus, today was the day I gave up. There are only two days left until I am supposed to climb onto a plane, and the last thing I want to do is arrive in Seattle and promptly throw up on my poor brother-in-law when he meets us at the airport. So today I finally called the advice nurse and made an appointment to see my doctor. It probably helped my cause that my voice still has not completely returned, so I was cracking and squeaky on the phone.

I suppose, in retrospect, I should have given up earlier. But the problem is that half the time I go in for a sinus infection, I am told that it’s a virus, there’s nothing they can do about it, so just go home and suck it up. This, despite me telling whoever it is I am seeing that I get these in waves and that the only thing that reliably makes them go away is antibiotics.

Today, however, was a piece of cake, but that was probably because I actually got to see my regular doctor, and not whoever was on call for urgent care. I told him how long I’ve been sick; I noted my tendency to these sorts of infections, and I also noted the impending plane flight. The nifty thing about this guy is that, unlike the other doctors I’ve seen there, he actually has this habit of *listening* to what his patients are saying, and asking pertinent questions which makes it obvious he’s paying attention. So before I knew it, I had a prescription for antibiotics with nary a fuss at all. Phew. They may be huge horse pill antibiotics and they may come with slightly unpleasant side effects, but if they can make this stupid thing finally go away and let me handle my plane flights without worrying about whether or not my head might explode, I don’t care.

It’s been another long and (mostly) lovely day. We got up early, with all good intentions of making it to the church with plenty of time to get everything set up for the coffee hour after the service, since we were hosting it. Those plans were waylaid only slightly by the discovery of yet another trail of ants inside the house – this time, of all places, one of the litter boxes. Naturally this meant I had to dump the entire box and wipe it down, since I didn’t want the cats scrabbling around in ant-spray-contaminated litter. Bearing in mind that we have been cleaning up at least one infestation of ants daily for nearly the past week, can you blame us for – later in the afternoon – putting ant stakes directly into the paths of any ants we could find around the outside of our house. I am getting so incredibly sick of dealing with them, and I’m starting to get a little nervous. I hate dealing with ants in my own house and I do not want the poor pet sitter to have to deal with them while we’re gone!

Despite the ants we managed, somehow, to make it to the church with just enough time to arrange cookies and fudge on trays, start the coffee, and mix up a few pitches of lemonade. Then it was off to the sanctuary for a few hours of practice before the service, during which we finally sang the cantata.

I am so used to singing cantatas that are nothing more than barely disguised Christmas carols with sappy readings stuck in between, so when the director introduced the music to us this year, it was a nice surprise. Some of the words of the songs were familiar, but few if any of the tunes were ones we knew, and the readings in between all seemed to convey the meaning and the intent of the piece without being overly saccharine. Such a nice change!

I hadn’t been sure how well I’d do after a week of coughing and sniffling, but I took some sinus meds when we got to church, tried to hold back when the entire choir was in unison, and saved my voice for the times when the tenor part was most needed. The accompanying celloist was marvelous; the duet between bass and soprano was lovely, and even though they’d have loved us if we’d stood there and croaked simple children’s songs at them, still it felt good when the congregation gave us a rousing round of applause at the end.

In a way I was glad that we were doing coffee hour today, because that meant I could sneak into the kitchen directly after the service and busy myself with coffee cups and spoons and trying to find where they keep the sugar in the church kitchen, and I didn’t have to make much in the way of small talk with what remained of my voice. We got a lot of compliments on our cookies, and most especially on our fudge. My mom and I split the last gingerbread man, divvying up arms and legs and body parts between us, and my dad – home from Germany for a few weeks – helped corral the used dishes and bring them to the kitchen for me to load into the dishwasher. There were hugs for friends we won’t see until after Christmas and cheerful wishes for holiday travel, and then we were done. We did lunch with my parents and talked about the bible study that all of us (except my dad, since he’s been in Germany for months) are involved in, and discussed what Ezekiel really saw in those wacky visions of his, or who Isaiah really might have been referring to, and then they followed us back to our house to ooh and aah over all the new additions to our backyard (yes I will post pictures one of these days, honest I will).

After lunch Richard and I sat down and figured out who we still need stocking stuffers for, since the really cool stocking stuffers we’d ordered nearly a month ago never showed up, and then we set off in our own cars to finish the last minute shopping for those missing stuffers, and for each other.

We’ve strung out the opening of Christmas presents for each other over the two days previous to Christmas in the years past, but since we’re heading down to his parents’ place on Tuesday night and flying out to Seattle on Wednesday night, we either had to do our gifts to each other tonight or Monday, or wait until we got back. I am too impatient to wait that long, and tomorrow night will most likely be crammed full of last minute packing and cleaning and (I am sure) killing of ants. So we first decided to open our stocking presents, and after that it didn’t take much before we were opening our under-the-tree presents as well.

I feel hopelessly spoiled this year with Christmas. Richard got me some beautiful skirts and tops, proving once again that he knows better than I what clothes will look good on me. There was a bag of some of my favorite cookies in my stocking, and a nice stack of books for me to read – lots of short story compilations I’ve been eying and one of Judith Martin’s etiquette books since she always makes me laugh with her oh-so-polite humor toward manners, and lots of little goodies, and for some reason, a whole handful of bright orange practice golf balls, which I spilled immediately onto the floor because even though he claims they are for me, we both know who they were really for. The cats were extremely interested in the whole process, since after all the unwrapping of presents always means lots of boxes and paper to play in, so the bright orange balls were batted and skittered across the floor within moments of them touching down.

And so now we are lounging about lazily, unwilling to let the weekend be truly over, munching on an oh-so-healthy dinner of Christmas stocking goodies – cookies and chocolate and peanut brittle. Next week is Christmas, and in only a few days I will be on a plane to Seattle. This winter cold I am battling shows no signs of wanting to leave my sinuses and I am starting to panic, ever so slightly, but for now I am doing my best to remain optimistic. Because really, if I need to panic over something, better to do it over the ants.

What with being sick and tired and lacking any energy I have been seriously lacking in getting all of my Christmas baking done. Since we are hosting the coffee hour after church tomorrow I knew I couldn’t put it off any longer. So this morning I got up, and after coffee and breakfast, I stirred up the dough for the gingerbread men while Richard made a trip to the grocery store.

By the time he got back I was halfway done with the gingerbread cookies and had the first few ingredients in the pan for the first batch of fudge. Unfortunately the can of evaporated milk turned out to have been lurking in the cupboard for far too long, so off he went to the store again while I stayed behind to finish the gingerbread men and stir up the dough for the teacakes and the cookie press cookies. Back he came, this time with fresh cans of evaporated milk, and he set to making both batches of fudge while I continued with cookie duty. Then he and I traded off using the cookie press to squish out little almond-flavored white snowflakes and green trees onto the pans.

The cookie press I now have used to be my mom’s. A few years ago I got one of those new types that works somewhat like a gun, with a trigger, and I hated it. I could never get it to work right, since I am just enough too short to get the right kind of pressure on it from above, and usually had to have Richard crank them out for me. I think it was last year or perhaps the year before that my mom mentioned how much she really wanted one of the newer cookie presses because she didn’t like hers. My ears perked up, and when she got her new one, I got her old one. I love this thing. It’s metal instead of plastic, and the cookies come out with just an easy turn of the handle at the top. No squeezing; no having to stand on a stool to press down on the pan. Just a little turn and poof – out comes the cookie. They don’t make them like this anymore.

Fudge mixed and poured, cookies pressed and baked, and teacakes baked and rolled twice in powdered sugar – once right when coming out of the oven, and again right before packing them into a tin – and we were finally done. The house smelled deliciously like chocolate and cookies. There were one or two of each kind that broke, or didn’t come out quite right, which meant we each got a few nibbles as they cooled. All of these cookies, however, are all best when they’ve been allowed to sit for a day or two, to let the flavors meld.

And then, once all the cookies were packed away into the lovely metal round tins I bought last year, we finally went off to see Return of the King . The theater was packed, but that was no great surprise. There was applause when the introductory credits started to roll in the beginning. There were wild cheers and raucous applause at just the right moment in the heat of the battle. And there was even louder applause when it was all over. There was the pretty elf boy to sigh over, and poor wretched Gollum to pity, and creatures horrid and nasty enough to make me cringe, and then all the endings which wrapped up all the stories, one after another. I cannot believe that this was the end.

It’s been a nice day. I got all the baking done. I finally got measurements for my nephews’ heads so I might finally be able to finish their hats. We saw the final episode of one of the biggest fanboy/girl trilogies ever to be put onto film. And we finished all that off with a pivotal episode of season 5 of Buffy. Neither the dull ache of sinus pressure building up in my head, nor the fact that when we got home we were faced with yet another incursion of ants wandering aimlessly across the floor in three rooms can make it any less of a nice day.

Yesterday morning I woke up with a throat that wasn’t quite sure what it wanted to be. So I went to work anyway, since aside from the throat and a voice that sounded as if I’d been a pack-a-day smoker for most of my formative years, I was feeling fine.

I worked on some graphs and some papers and I felt pretty good – mostly. I brought the satsumas with me and ate one as a mid-morning snack and it was marvelous. Then we all piled into cars and went off to the Firehouse in Old Sacramento for our office holiday lunch, and it was there that it all started to hit me that maybe I wasn’t in as good shape as I’d thought.

Lunch was fun – the food was, as usual, delicious, and we had a little gift exchange, with marvelous gifts provided by one of the managers. I left with a DVD, free movie tickets, and a gift certificate for more DVD’s, and the beginning of a splitting headache. By the time I got back to the office I knew it was only going to get worse. I finally zipped up a few files I could work on from home, emailed them to myself, and then left. By then I could barely breathe through my nose and the pressure in my sinuses had reached epic proportions.

I spent a good amount of time last night on the verge of throwing up from the pressure in my head. I tried eating dinner (such as it was – the last satsuma) but after one tiny section of orange I realized I’d better not risk any more food. We watched a few episodes of Buffy but eventually I gave up. I called and left a message for the choir director letting him know that neither of us would make it to practice that night, took some sinus meds and crawled into bed. So much for being on the mend.

Today I’ve spent pretty much in bed. The only meds that seem to keep the congestion and pressure at bay are the ones meant only for nighttime, which means that I spent the day feeling more than a little bit dopey. It was okay for some of the work I’d brought home to do, like data collecting and editing, but meant there was no way I could form a coherent original thought for the two new articles I’m supposed to be writing.

This evening I am feeling cautiously optimistic that this bout of winter cold/flu is finally starting to wane. My head no longer seems on the version of exploding, and I can (mostly) breathe. My voice is (mostly) back to normal. Tomorrow I have nothing more strenuous than doing a little baking, and maybe taking advantage of those free movie tickets to go see Return of the King. Here’s hoping that I can manage to hold on to this upward trend.

I’m doing better today – much better. For one thing I’ve got almost all of my normal energy back, and it didn’t take any more than the usual amount of coffee to get it there. My throat is still a bit iffy, and as the day wore on my voice started to crack. Plus what remains of the winter crud is now hanging tightly to my nose, since what winter could possibly complete without inflicting Jennifer with at least one nasty sinus infection? I am eying the fact that in less than a week, I have to climb on a plane and deal with changes in air pressure. I’ve flown with clogged sinuses before – a journey that culminated in me making a dash for the tiny airline bathroom during the descent because the sinus pressure made me puke my guts out. It was an experience I’d prefer to not repeat, especially over Christmas. However, I am forcing myself to be optimistic here, since after all there is almost a full week for this to clear up. Surely it will be gone by then. Surely it will. Surely.

In the meantime I am scarfing on healthy food. The produce stand by the freeway exit I take to get home had the most amazing grapefruit – thin skinned and so juicy, sweet enough they didn’t even need any sugar. I had one with breakfast yesterday morning and another for lunch today along with my green beans and a container of sweet potato crack, which meant that I managed to fulfill my required servings of fruits and veggies for the day in one meal. Go me. So tonight on the way home from work I swung by the produce stand again and bought a few more. I don’t even have to share them because Richard does not like grapefruit. I might make comments about that except that up until now it was the only citrus fruit I actually liked so I really shouldn’t talk. Ooh. Was that foreshadowing?

While I was at work my boss started talking about these little lumpy orange hybrids that he called satsumas. I know Richard likes oranges and he’s been even sicker than me this week. So while I was at the produce stand I picked up six of them and brought them home with my grapefruit. I gave one to Richard, who promptly said that it looks, peels, and tastes just like a tangelo. I have no idea which is actually the right name because I have started to get really confused about oranges – after all, people everywhere are gushing over clementines, which apparently are the same as mandarin oranges, and then there are tangerines and by the way kumquats look just like oranges only a whole lot smaller, and since I have never liked any of them, I have never much cared what any of them are called anyway. Anyway, on a whim (because even though I really cannot stand most fruit I still keep hoping that this will eventually change), I decided to give them a try. And the amazing thing (family members reading this, you may wish to sit down. The shock may overwhelm you) is that I *like* them! I normally cannot deal with oranges because there is all that nasty white pulp and no matter what you can never get rid of it (and do not get me started on orange juice because you should not have to chew what you are drinking and just the *thought* of pulp in my juice makes me cringe). But these! These are so easy to peel and the nasty pulp comes right off and there’s no mess at all and they’re sweet and they pop right into my mouth and I can chew them up and swallow them before my brain even can figure out that it’s a fruit related to an orange and maybe I shouldn’t like them after all. This is so exciting! How convenient that we managed to plant a tree in our backyard that will grow these.

The few remaining little satsumas/tangelos left will be gone by the end of work tomorrow (because I intend to take a handful as snacks and I expect Richard will want to do the same) so I’ll be making another stop by the produce stand tomorrow night as well, I expect. They sell these things in ten pound sacks. I think between now and when we leave for Seattle for Christmas, one bag should hold us. Well, that and maybe half dozen more of those grapefruit.

By the time I woke up this morning the awful pain in my throat had finally subsided. All that was left was this annoying feeling that there was something stuck in the back of my throat. I know it was only because my throat was so swollen, and frankly it didn’t bother me so much because at least I could finally swallow without wincing in agony. Along with the icky throat I’ve been a little bit stuffed up, and also lacking any energy at all. Richard’s been sick too, so we’re quite the sexy pair, sitting listlessly on the couch side by side, him hacking and wheezing and me blowing my nose. It is kind of amusing though, considering that we’re both so drained of energy that a simple task like cleaning up the latest insurgence of ants can leave us both exhausted.

We both got flu shots this season. I don’t know if this is just some version of the yearly winter crud that has been passed around among everyone we know, or if those flu shots are actually doing their job and we are experiencing a sort of “flu light”, wherein we get the lightning round of the bug and get to miss out on the worst of it.

Richard went in to work for an hour or two to take care of a few things but I’ve just sat at home, alternating between poking about unenthusiastically on the computer, knitting hats (like that’s any big surprise), and napping. Both Firefly and season 5 of Buffy showed up today, which was marvelous timing for two people home sick, but this lack of energy meant I didn’t want to try to watch anything I actually wanted to pay attention to. Luckily the latest batch from Netflix included four more episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation – including an episode I had actually never seen before, despite years of watching the late night reruns on TV. We ate leftover pizza for lunch because it didn’t require any effort. Dinner was steak, sweet potato crack, and steamed broccoli, with an entire head of roasted garlic to spread on the meat. If the hacking and the sniffling and the wheezing weren’t enough of a deterrent, we can now add in a massive amount of garlic to the reasons why we’re simply not fit company to be around.

This does, of course, mean that our tentative plans to catch the midnight showing of Return of the King tonight have been dashed to pieces, but ah well. That’s what the weekend is for.

By the time I got home from work this afternoon my throat was seriously hurting. An hour or two later it is on fire. It hurts so much to swallow that I wince every time I have to do it, and I cannot talk at all – the simple act of trying to force out sound practically has me in tears. So in lieu of an entry I am sharing with you the letter we sent out to our friends and family this year. I would put in all the cute graphics Richard included in the letter we actually mailed out, but I am too tired and hurt too much to bother with them right now.

Dear Friends and Family,

Once again, it’s been a blast. Somehow, 2003 managed to slip past us while we were busy with other plans, and a lot has happened to the Crawfords since last year.

At this time last year, Richard and Jennifer were both working for Benthic Creatures, traveling up and down the state of California teaching public assistance recipients how to use their new benefits cards, and teaching social workers how to administer the cards. It was surprisingly grueling. In fact, it’s safe to say that by February, we both hated the job with a mild passion. Neither of us actually enjoyed the work, and the constant travel was wearying, and the benefits were miniscule. Finally, in March, Jennifer switched jobs to work as a research associate at a construction cost consulting firm in Sacramento. She loves it there, since she gets to read a lot, write a lot, and surf the web looking for important information about how much it costs to build things that are ecologically friendly. She also gets to play with databases, which makes her happy.

In April, Richard decided that even working as a temporary clerical worker at UC Davis would be better than Benthic Creatures, so he gave the Temporary Employment Pool a call, and within two days had landed a position as a database administrator and Solaris systems administrator for UC Davis Extension’s Distance Learning Campus. This was pure luck, but Richard loves his new job as well. If all goes well, Richard will soon be hired on to this job permanently.

Our back yard, meanwhile, has slowly been transforming itself. Over the summer, we bought about five tons of rocks and built a circular wall with them; then we bought about six tons of dirt and filled that circular wall with it. Yes, we did it all by ourselves, by hand. Yes, it was hard. And yes, we hurt afterwards. But now we have a circular wall full of dirt in our back yard, and soon we will be planting things in it. Meanwhile, we’ve also had landscapers come out and lay down some sod, spread some decomposed granite into nice paths, and plant a bunch of nice trees. Already birds have found that the trees make a nice place to rest and taunt the cats in our house, providing endless amusement for the humans watching them. It’s a win-win situation all around. Pictures and periodic updates on the house and yard can be seen at http://www.stonegoose.com/house

We’ve both been in good health this past year. Richard had a bout with diverticulitis, which entailed a visit to the emergency room at about 1:00 on a Saturday morning, but that’s about the worst of it.

The cats haven’t fared as well, unfortunately. Rebecca was diagnosed with thyroid tumors and given a treatment with radioactive iodine. Richard was excited about the prospect of having a cat with super powers (or at least one that could glow in the dark), but all we got from that was a healthier cat. Unfortunately, she also suffers from kidney problems, and had to be put on a special diet. Another of our cats, Rosemary, came down with bladder stones, and now she has to be on a special diet as well. All of the other cats — Allegra, Azzie, Tangerine, Sebastian, and Zucchini — are doing well. None of them have jobs yet, and none of them are going to school, although Jennifer has not yet given up hope that she can persuade at least one of them to learn how to operate the vacuum.

Richard is still in library school, and enjoying it immensely. He volunteers at the Davis Public Library, and has been appointed to the Library Commission of our town. Jennifer is enjoying the power and prestige that come with being married to a local politician. It’s not as thrilling as she had imagined it would be, though. While Richard has been off doing library things, Jennifer has kept busy as well, working out at Curves (which she loves), learning to knit (with seven cats ‘helping’, no less), and wandering around trying to find things to photograph for our newest joint endeavor, an online photo log (http://www.stonegoose.com/catseyeview). Both of us are still active in the choir (where Jennifer has the distinction of being the entire tenor section this year) and other musical ensembles at the church.

So 2003 was relatively busy for us, but a very good year overall. Here’s hoping that 2004 is a healthy and prosperous year for all of you as well.

Last night’s game was one of those sessions that reminded all of us just how much we had missed playing these past six months or so that the game’s been in limbo. We alternated between laughing until our heads were on the table and frantically rummaging through player handbooks because most of us had forgotten all the little important details, like how to roll for spells and fights and such. And it was nice to just get a chance to chat with the other players, aside from the gaming itself, just to catch up on what they’ve been doing. Despite all of our best intentions we didn’t end the game until far later in the evening than we’d planned, and it was after midnight before I finally got to bed.

This morning, after getting up and tossing all the cats into their respective rooms for their respective foods, I called the friend with whom I was supposed to coordinate the words to a song for the food drive at church yesterday. We were supposed to get together on the phone yesterday at some point to finish up the song – now that we’d finally managed to track down the music. Except that apparently both of us completely forgot until it was far too late at night (or in my case, far too early in the morning by the time we were done with the game), so she hastily whipped something together and scribbled it out for the rest of us when she got to church. Our only saving grace was that at least she and I had done this song before as a trio, so all we had to do was recruit an alto to cover the middle.

The song got the laughs we expected for some of the more clever lines, and I can only assume it’s been working because the food drive has been quite effective this year. I will note, however, that I am extremely glad that next week is the last week of it, because I think my friend and I have pretty much tapped out our creative energy for reworking well-known hymns into songs about the food drive for the year.

There was a marathon two-hour choir practice before church since we’re doing the cantata next week, and then the children’s pageant was during the service. I brought one of my hats to church with me since a few of our friends have children who could be used as head models for my niece/nephews. Turns out it was a good thing I did because even though the hat is stretchy enough to fit an adult head, it only looked good on the little one-year-old. So I gave him the completed hat and I think I’m going to take apart the second one and use the yarn to make a bigger one. Ah well. I suppose I could be upset about having spent all that time on hats that are too small, but there’s something rather comfortingly mind-numbing about just sitting there knitting, so I don’t mind so much having an excuse to do more of it.

After church we zipped home, poked around on the computers, changed, and then headed down to Richard’s parents’ for his mom’s birthday dinner, and also to help them decorate their tree. Last year we happened to be there when they were decorating and I volunteered to climb behind the tree and do the hard-to-reach branches, which worked so well that I immediately climbed into the corner this year too and had them hand me things while I did my best not to run face-first into the guide wire they used to attach the tree to the wall. Then there was chicken stew and pumpkin spice cake with ice cream and peppermint and chocolate fudge, prompting me to realize that there is less than two weeks left for me to get with it and do the necessary baking, and also maybe this year I should try not only making some of that peppermint chocolate fudge for us, but also fudge with a peanut butter swirl. At some point this week. In all my spare time. When I am not knitting hats.