Happy Christmas! in Everyday Ramblings

Happy Christmas to you all as it unfolds around the world! And how cool is it that for now the diary is working and we can share these good wishes with each other both here and there.

I am working for a few more hours and then I am off until Thursday morning. This is a good thing because I pretty much have reached my work tolerance level and yesterday morning actually overslept. That is something I never do.

We have this air stagnation warning cold in the middle of a cloud fog hovering just above freezing but as Nora Ephron’s sister said in her New York Times Christmas Etiquette piece yesterday, “Thank God we are not in Toronto.” 40 hours of freezing rain, power outages, slick slick streets and sidewalks even for those hardy folks is a challenge.

My big ambition for the holiday is to get under a pile of blankets and read a murder mystery. I will open my presents in the morning but it won’t be the same this year without Stella’s assistance. Sammy could care less about ribbons and the like, though he is fond of the occasional pounce on tissue paper if he is in a frisky mood.

The correspondence with Mr. Fine China continues. The funeral went well. He not only used the music I introduced him too, he is going to buy copies of the CD to share with the families that were at the service and the pastor. So I know he was thinking of me while he was gone. Two of his adult children are with him for Christmas but we’ll get together soon.

I very carefully composed an email last Thursday morning telling him about my bout with cancer and surgery earlier this year and was fretting about if it was appropriate in context to share that with him, (He put his hand right on my scar when he was here, as if it knew exactly where to go, and we had been talking about healing energy and Reiki) during this challenging and sad time.

Then I didn’t hear back. The other night I thought to check my spam folder and lo and behold there was the sent email returned with a mailer demon. My Internet provider was not talking to his that day, so I re-sent it with a note and some tense changes and he responded an hour later kindly and in context. He uses emoticons a little too liberally in his flirty correspondence for my taste but oh well. I do use them. It is not a deal breaker. :)

I saw both Miss E. (with her nose constantly buried in her iPad mini) and my older sister on Sunday and that was lovely. We all even went for a brief walk and a short legged overfed sweet dog tried to adopt us as a unit. My older sister has trouble going downhill these days. I think it is post polio stuff. She had polio just bad enough to have some horrid hospital experiences as a child and minor structural problems as an adult.

We had yummy French toast and hand dipped chocolate covered pretzels and a photo session for my Planet Money T-Shirt. Miss E. was our lighting assistant. She put down the iPad for that.

Mr. New Guy continues to be remarkable. And Jewel is taking 7 days off now so we are looking forward to communicating in a relatively normal fashion during her absence.

Time to give Sammy fluids and finish up what I am working on…

Happy Happy Joy Joy (or at least not too bad a day…)