Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas.

James Brown died this morning. That is a shame. We all have our time to go. Peace be with you, James.


Christmas is low-key this year. It turned out to be very quiet, which I think I probably needed more than I realized. I slept in four days in a row. Some kind of record, really.

I have this week off from school, so I’ll be enjoying my evenings at home, even though I’ll be working on homework projects due when I return to school.

My family was together in Alaska for Christmas, unfortunately I was not able to be there, the expense, and timing of school made that mostly improbable. I miss them, but since Derek wasn’t going home either, we just decided to play it cool around Portland. We are similarly not going to party it up for New Year’s either.

My family thinks somehow I’ve gone off the deeper end since my attitude is mellowing. Doesn’t all good aged booze mellow if you leave it in the barrel? Not that I would dare to compare myself to a fine aged booze, I’m more like a bottle of Jägermeister, dark, thick, strong, and needs to be keep chilled.

Aren’t you supposed to mellow as you grow in life? This year some of my gifts didn’t arrive in the mail. No big deal, it happens. When you take into account the volume of things going back and forth, and the sheer reality that most people leave things until the last minute, I’m surprised I got as much mail as I did. Everything will show up in good time. I’m glad that I don’t work for UPS of Fed-Ex. I’m also glad that I’m no longer a front-line worker in retail. Yes, I still work in retail, technically, but I don’t have to work in a store. Until maybe next year. Ugh.

Yes, next year may be the year that I wind up returning to work at a store, in a retail environment. I am going to have to keep current on my certification, and the best way to do that is to keep current by working in the field that I’ll have my degree in. It makes sense, it will just be scary to be out in the world again, starting back as low man out on the totem pole.

It is raining in Portland, typical Oregon winter. I’m glad it didn’t snow, that would have made going to work tomorrow pretty horrendous. Although a lot of people have tomorrow off, I gather.

Making a ham for dinner tonight, and Derek bought me new Calphalon Fusion cookware, which I will be trying out. Ham, Potato Lyonaisse, and I’m not sure what else. We’ll see what I feel like cooking.

I’ll be cooking in my kitchen, playing music on my AirTunes, which I’ve plugged my i-Dog into (thank you Eric and Kelli). The i-Dog is interesting, he’s basically a tamagachi type device, he needs attention, and feeding, etc. We’ll see how long I can keep him happy and alive. Although, since he really wants music, that will work out well, I have plenty of that.


Merry Christmas to everyone, I hope that you were able to be with someone you love, and enjoy the spirit, tradition, and festivities that you are accustomed to.