damont

Julia (of

sue_n_julia) was in town a couple of weeks ago, and we had the good fortune of eating dinner with her while she was here. I hear she's safely driven cross-continent to visit her folks for the holidays; I wish her (and Vandal) a safe trip back out West when the time comes.

It was nice to see

gorgeousgary and

the_sheryl on Saturday evening at Gary's birthday housefilk, along with

katrinb and

thelongshot (and their kid),

starmalachite and

stevemb,

museinred and

stevezeve (who arrived *after* I did!), and another Dave from GA who's on temporary assignment in the FedroSplat. (I gave him a ride back to the Metro when the party broke up.) It's too bad that [a] I don't have a portable enough keyboard and [b] I suck on guitar; my singing was, of necessity, unoccupied. someday I'll have enough time to rehearse

cadhla's "Evil Laugh" with someone so we can do it at a filksing.

Mostly it's been a very somber December though; too many friends are going through very serious loss. One close friend (whom I've known almost 20 years) just lost her father this week, and I found out about that just minutes after first hearing the bad news about Roana (not Rowan or Rowen or Rowena or

devreux, yes I know at least half a dozen people with similar SCA names in this range). That's on top of everything else, including at least three miscarriages, other deaths, hospitalizations, and unsettling medical news. As a bunch of us said on Wednesday night -- "Memo to Universe: CUT IT THE &^%$#@! OUT ALREADY!" I think Janina said it best; like her, I'm running low on cope. So I'm finding it difficult to get into the spirit of the season, as 'twere, and it's why I don't have much to say by way of updates. (I do have a couple of amusing old-timey computer stories involving punchcards that I might be persuaded to post.)

If you have something for all of us here to pray (or otherwise give support) for, or especially if you have a happier story to share with us, please do!

I was out of town, and offline for the most part, Wednesday evening and all of Thursday. I went to the Wednesday night gathering in Bowie, and then straight to the Northern Neck to crash. Thursday morning, my optometrist (who's down thataway) confirmed that yes, I do indeed still have eyes. I then *finally* found fresh rubber for my windshield wipers that fits (well, only sort of, but well enough). I am still annoyed enough that I intend to track down *some* place that sells the refills that actually fit just right... but these were good enough that the van passed inspection on Thursday afternoon. Yay! I then helped

ayrfield make eggnog and other holiday preparations, before heading home in what the radio was calling "patchy fog" the entire time I was on the road. "Patchy" my gluteus maximus. More like "constant fog with thickness ranging from 'somewhat impaired visibility' to 'you sure that's a traffic light there?'..." I've had worse trips before, but this one really did take an annoyingly long time to complete.

The weather looks like it's going to do a number on us again this weekend; we should have no trouble getting down *to* Richmond on Saturday, and it'll probably just rain down there all weekend, but getting home could prove a little *too* quaint and picturesque. OTOH, if we were going to Bhakail Yule, getting home would probably go beyond Q+P to "fun and festive"... please folks, everyone have safe travels this weekend no matter where you're going!

And on that note, what does your weekend look like?