contentWe'd agreed not to have a massive present exchange or anything like that - all three of us (Mom,
faintheart and I) are in the throes of trying to reduce clutter and winnow 'stuff'. But as I've remarked elsewhere, it just isn't Christmas without books! I can live without the stockings, I can do without the tree, but if I don't end up with my library expanded by a volume or two at the close of December 25th, it just isn't right. So I was delighted to be presented with a volume of classic SF and a gift card to Barnes & Noble, and entertained as well, as my gift giving had also fallen into those well-worn channels. [That reminds me - rechercher, check your email, you should have a present from me.] Heh.After brunch we played Scrabble, then hung out. Wackiest thing is, as much as I didn't care for Bremerton and visiting it, I wouldn't have put the locus of that distaste in my parent's house. But it was so much more pleasant for me, just hanging out in my mom's new apartment in Redmond, that in retrospect I sort of have to include the ancestral manse as one of the 'places of tension' or whatever. I didn't feel antsy, I didn't feel like I needed to be elsewhere (NOW), none of the things I usually associate with long stretches of holiday family-ness. So that was illuminating, and a pleasant surprise.
Then home, and puttering about, mostly. I didn't actually get my carcass to the movie theater to see Cold Mountain until this morning - I'll say more on that later, other than to remark that I enjoyed it.
And so it goes.
