Thursday, January 31, 2008

Clusterf**k

I said it before, and I meant it. I mean it even more after reading this:

Suicides among active-duty soldiers in 2007 reached their highest level since the Army began keeping such records in 1980, according to a draft internal study obtained by The Washington Post. Last year, 121 soldiers took their own lives, nearly 20 percent more than in 2006.

At the same time, the number of attempted suicides or self-inflicted injuries in the Army has jumped sixfold since the Iraq war began. Last year, about 2,100 soldiers injured themselves or attempted suicide, compared with about 350 in 2002, according to the U.S. Army Medical Command Suicide Prevention Action Plan.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Obama

Okay, a little while ago I got a little defensive on behalf of Hillary - you know which Hillary - because I think she's a decent, resilient, accomplished woman who seeks to serve her country despite really nasty personal attacks. Sure, she's not perfect, but no one is. And if she somehow happens to become the next President of the United States, is there really any question that things are likely to get better? I mean, it's not like the country could be run any worse than it is today ...

For a couple of years after 9/11, I used to be addicted to U.S. politics. I read voraciously and followed all the cool blogs, like DailyKos, Mahablog, TalkingPointsMemo, and the great Whiskey Bar, which is no longer updated, though apparently online archives exist. I loved the way these writers could make me think and consider perspectives that sadly had never occurred to me. As well, being a total square my entire life, it was pretty cool (in a totally uncool, geeky way) to know ALL about Valerie Plame and the lack of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, etc. months before it finally - finally!!! - registered in the mainstream media. (My Uncle Ted did get a little prickly with me about the U.N. and weapons inspections there for a while, but these days he strangely doesn't mention it, perhaps because it's now clear to everyone that Iraq was a clusterfuck, and I use that word deliberately.) Eventually, though, after Bush was "elected" a second time (which still boggles the imagination, frankly), I just gave up. It was WAY too depressing to follow.

But things are turning around for the Democrats in the U.S. lately and it seems a little less optimism-depleting to return to those former blogging stomping-grounds of mine to read about the strong turnouts of voters to Democratic primaries and the strong polling numbers for their good candidates and just how good Republican candidates just don't want to be part of the Republican system long enough to get elected. [This doesn't mean that I think that all Republicans or conservatives are terrible people ... just their policies - especially those of the "neocons".]

But you know, probably the most interest- and optimism-generating feature about American politics today is Barack Obama. Say what you will about his inexperience and whether he's providing sufficient detail about what he'll do to enact his vision while in office, the man knows how to inspire and how to bring people together. Check out this video:


My favourite line is "I don't see black South Carolina, I don't see white South Carolina, I see South Carolina!") For some reason this is really powerful. I don't know if this man is overrated or not, to be honest, but I got goosebumps throughout this speech.

And tonight I read this anecdote from Bill Richardson, who at one time was also running for the Democratic nomination for president,

about how Obama saved him during one of last year's Democratic debates:

"I had just been asked a question -- I don't remember which one -- and Obama was sitting right next to me. Then the moderator went across the room, I think to Chris Dodd, so I thought I was home free for a while. I wasn't going to listen to the next question. I was about to say something to Obama when the moderator turned to me and said, 'So, Gov. Richardson, what do you think of that?' But I wasn't paying any attention! I was about to say, 'Could you repeat the question? I wasn't listening.' But I wasn't about to say I wasn't listening. I looked at Obama. I was just horrified. And Obama whispered, 'Katrina. Katrina.' The question was on Katrina! So I said, 'On Katrina, my policy . . .' Obama could have just thrown me under the bus. So I said, 'Obama, that was good of you to do that.'"

Barack Obama is a good man, perhaps even a great one. And now I can't help but watch and cheer him on.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Great blog posting

Kalisa just made me laugh out loud in her review of some film award fashion:

Diane Lane, easily one of the most beautiful women in the world, did herself no favors with this [dress]. When the space between your chin and your breasts is greater than two feet, you may want to rethink your undergarments.
Check here to see what she means. She's bang on!!! :)

Funny commercials

Thanks to Facebook and my high-school friend Fernanda:

Monday, January 28, 2008

Modern religion gone very wrong

From MSNBC:

The radical Baptist church known for picketing the funerals of American soldiers who lost their lives in Iraq has announced that they intend to protest Heath Ledger’s stateside memorial service because he played a gay character in “Brokeback Mountain.”

“You cannot live in defiance of God. He (Ledger) got on that big screen with a big, fat message: God is a liar and it's OK to be gay,” said Shirley Phelps in a statement sent out by the Topeka, Kan.-based Westboro Baptist Church.

Whatever happened to "Let he who was without sin cast the first stone"???

These people are hyenas in the guise of religious zealots. (And yes, I realize the hypocrisy of that statement. That still doesn't mean that it isn't true.)

Sunday, January 27, 2008

We need to get this message



For the full-length film (20 mins) please click here.

A modern-day barn-building, kind of

Today was the first day of a cool experiment. A few friends of mine and I had a soup/casserole exchange.

Living by yourself can have some definite advantages, but one of them is generally not cooking. Most recipes make at least four (or more) servings, which can become a bit tedious when you have to eat the same thing day after day, just so that it won’t go bad. Sure, you can buy frozen dinners from god knows where made with ingredients of dubious quality, but there’s the disposable packaging, not to mention that they really don’t taste all that great. So … five of us agreed we would each made a pot of soup or a casserole (vegetarian and dairy-free), divide it into single-serving portions, meet at my place, and divide the spoils.

I made a big pot of potato-leek soup, which we shared for lunch and then split the leftovers. Melanie brought a Quebecois tortiere, which I had for dinner tonight – it was sooooooo good!!! Alana brought a curried squash soup (it looks so yummy!), Lori brought black bean soup in Mason jars (which started an exciting conversation about canning, more on that in a bit), and the indefatigable Linda dropped off her sunflower seed loaf and lentil salad on her way to a cross-country skiing excursion!

As we were hanging out this afternoon, our canning discussion led to talk about shopping locally and organically (for our own health and that of the planet, of course), so I think in the summer we’re going to do some cooperative canning! I absolutely love this kind of collaboration. “Many hands make light work,” they say, and it is SO true. This is the kind of community I want to foster, and it’s the kind of community I passionately believe we need.

Saturday, January 26, 2008

I'm thinking ...

... that if chocolate could be counted as a vegetable, I would have such a balanced diet! :)

Friday, January 25, 2008

Watch with your speakers on

I'm betting it's a spoof

Thanks to Andrew, I have an awesome website to share: ConjugalHarmony.com. If you like The Onion, you will find this highly amusing. (Mom, don't even bother ...)

Thursday, January 24, 2008

I have to ask ...

... Is being single really worse than THIS????

- Eclecta, bewilderedly

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Grove Of The Druid


Grove Of The Druid
Originally uploaded by WordPainter.

Found on Flickr. Very cool. I love the contrast between the rich browns and the crisp blues.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Like Someone We Knew

I was paying at the counter of a store tonight when the clerk answered the phone and got some bad news. I couldn’t make out what it was, but she was shocked and sad, and after my purchase was completed she called a co-worker over. To my shame, my ears strained to hear as I strove to hide my burning curiosity over what might have befallen one of their colleagues or mutual acquaintances. Don’t ask me why I wanted to know this terrible news that made them so sad … I’m hoping it’s just human nature, the same way rubberneckers slow down traffic as they drive by an accident – you just can’t help connecting with those hapless strangers and their fate. Either that or I'm a real sicko. :)

Upon returning home tonight, I checked some of my usual web pages and gasped in shock at the headline that Heath Ledger was found dead today. I gasped in shock – like I knew him or something.

What is it about fame that makes you feel that you know someone? Looking back, I’m sure those clerks at the store were also talking about Heath Ledger as they talked about how sad and shocked they were.

He was a wonderful actor, as far as I can tell. I think I only saw one of his movies (Brokeback Mountain, which made me weep). And he was also a devoted father of his baby daughter Mathilda (okay, except for the name he gave her, which I think is a perfect name for a bulldog, not so brilliant name for a baby). I certainly knew nothing about him that should make me feel as though I knew him, and yet I am still sad.

In a way I guess it’s good to still feel sad when bad things happen to people you don’t even know. Empathy and such. Maybe famous people are famous precisely because they have the charisma or something that makes you feel like you can relate to them without ever having met them.

Rest in peace, Mr. Ledger.

Monday, January 21, 2008

Workers of the World Relax

Let me start off with my questions for you, my friends and Internet vagabonds, and then I’ll give you the background:

If you could choose to work 4 days a week (with a commensurate decrease in salary), would you do it? Why or why not?

If you did, what would you do with that extra day a week? And what spending would you be willing to sacrifice in order to afford that extra day off?

Inspired by Chris at TucoRides, I finally got around to reading the little book, Workers of the World Relax by Conrad Schmidt. (Isn't that a deliciously cheeky title for a book???)

Chris set the stage for an explanation of the book much better than I could:

A Vancouverite, Conrad was working away as a software engineer and driving his car to work, as so many on this continent do. Getting increasingly concerned with the environment, Conrad did some math and figured that the earnings from one day of his workweek went towards affording his car - therefore, if he gave up his car, he could give up one day a week of work. He talked to his boss, and voila, he was a man of three day weekends who was no longer sending CO2 emissions up into the air.

He did this for a while, and then his worries about consumerism's effect on the earth caused him to do some deep thinking about his job - "Even though I was earning a great deal, I wrote software and the software made junk, the junk went to landfills and the landfills polluted the planet. I quit my job."

In the book, Schmidt talks about the danger of consumerism to the planet (waste of resources, environmental effects of mining, lumbering, manufacturing excessive goods, etc.) but also makes points about how we often don't have enough time to be active, well-informed citizens and consumers, members of our local communities, etc., and how we have insufficient time to participate in the arts or music or parenting or cooking or gardening or any other form of self-actualization.

For example, Schmidt writes:

Education programs [regarding the impact of lifestyle and diet on cancer and cardiovascular disease] are not sufficient in addressing the problem because they focus on the symptoms of the problem and not ht ecause. Bad diets, high stress and lack of exercise are symptoms of high intensity lifestyles, where people do not have the time to prepare home-cooked meals, spend an hour a day exercising or getting involved in the community. It is impractical to warn people who are enveloped in stress to exercise more and prepare healthy meals on a consistent basis. There is simply not enough time … For us to realistically address the problem we need to make lifestyle changes a realistic option.

I would whole-heartedly recommend reading Workers of the World Relax. While I might not agree with every argument Schmidt makes, it’s very thought-provoking.

So talk to me: what do you think? What are your answers to the questions at the start of this post? :)

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Soupy Sunday

This weekend, in the interest of making my own food more often (rather than relying on frozen dinners, food courts, or take-out), I bought a new mini-freezer. Then I spent ALL DAY today cooking four different (and delicious!) kinds of soup (two of them double-batches) and then separating them into individual containers, etc. to go in the freezer.

(I must mention that it was also a great way to use up some produce I had in the fridge; apparently my grocery store only sells baby spinach by the trough now ... )

So, you know what I'm going to do for lunch tomorrow? I'm going to march right on down to that food court, baby, because I cannot stand the sight of soup again for a day or two.

LOL but it's still true!!! :-D

Cold Sunday Morning

The wind chills but the sky is blue
Pedestrians wince against the cold
You can see it even behind the scarves and turned up collars
I’ve returned from shopping
With vegetables, fruit, and
A sweet-smelling multigrain baguette
That I will devour soon with brie and chutney
The light outside is clear, gently golden, slanting, and gorgeous
It’s a good day to be at home.

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Loved the book, looking forward to the movie!

Comes out Feb. 29th!

A public service announcement

My friend Fern posted this video on my Facebook profile (yeah, she does that a lot ... :-D ) and I truly had never heard of inflammatory breast cancer before, so I thought I'd share here. It's very informative and I think it could save lives. So please watch - for yourself or the woman/women you love. :)

Friday, January 18, 2008

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Jenn P. was right

... 27 Dresses looks like a rental. But I actually found some of the reviews entertaining:

It's white-lace porn for girls of every age, and the way that it revels in that get-me-to-the-altar mood, to the point of making anyone who isn't getting married feel like a loser, is the picture's key selling point.
27 Dresses is an illustration of what can result when the filmmakers possess a solid understanding of the romantic comedy formula and decide never to stray from it by one iota.
The filmic equivalent of a baby: cute, pampered, craving attention, and somewhat smelly thanks to all the formula passing through it.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

An excellent cop-out for blogging



Many thanks to my dear high-school friend and fellow dreamer Fernanda for sharing it with me! :)

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

This made me laugh


DSC_0118
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

As seen from a random roadside over the holidays.

Monday, January 14, 2008

Winter afternoon


DSC_0126
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

Taken over the holidays. When I look at it, I'm drawn into its serenity and the pleasure of its crisp, slanting light.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Updated: THAT was an interesting choice of words ...

Inspired by Heather B. Armstrong, I decided as I was eating dinner tonight that I'd take a look at my own grocery bill from yesterday to see what weirdness I might find. I wasn't really expecting anything, but what I got was an interesting lesson in reproduction, veggie style:

I truly have no idea what the first highlighted item really was, but now I'm afraid to open my cupboards! LOL

UPDATED Jan 14th, 8:00AM - Obviously my subconscious was busy working on this mystery overnight, because this morning I realized that Item #1 (I can't bring myself to type it, for fear of the Google searches) is a bottle of V8, which is called a "vegetable cocktail". Knowing this, I am fairly certain that this computer entry was the amusement of some bored inventory clerk at Dominion. :)

Stop Loss (2008) Movie Preview

I saw this trailer last night when I went to see "Juno". I'm curious as to how it will be received in the U.S. and whether it will change any minds in either direction.

Kissing Cousins redux


DSC_0074
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

Weird, but when I posted this photo earlier and tried to mess around with the font so IT wasn't miniscule, but that apparently messed around with my sidebar, making THAT text too small!

So I deleted the whole damn thing and am re-posting it now. I think it's fixed the IE problem - please let me know if you're still having problems (though please refresh your page by pressing F5 first).

Anyway, this photo is cute enough to post twice.

Teeny tiny problem

If the text at the side of this blog looks really small (i.e., illegibly so) to you, don't worry about your computer. It is my blog, but only when viewed via Internet Explorer. I use Firefox, so I didn't really understand what Zen was saying a few days ago when she told me the blog text was really small.

Something weird is going on, so I've posted a request for help with Blogger, and hopefully they'll be able to wade through all the posts re. call girls in India to help me with this problem.

Thanks to my mom for calling me especially to explain this weirdness. Oh, and Aunt Carolyn? Joe's blog is here. :)

Juno

I went with several friends to see the movie Juno tonight. The BEST movie I have seen in a long time. I will definitely be buying it when it comes on DVD. The acting is just phenomenal - Ellen Page is utterly superb as the lead, and Michael Cera, Jason Bateman, and J.K. Simmons are all wonderful. Alison Janney kicks ass, once again. But so much of the movie relies on the counterpoint provided by Jennifer Garner, who gives the performance of her career. A really smart, funny movie with so much heart.

I'm not going to post the trailer since I think it gives too much away, and one of the many pleasures of this movie is its unpredictability. Don't read a lot about the plot of this movie, just go to see it if you haven't already.

Here's just a little teaser:

Friday, January 11, 2008

Last night at the clinic

I assured the three women (one instructor, two students) that drawing blood from my right arm was next to impossible, but they thought the vein looked better than the left side, so I let them try. To my surprise, it worked.

Afterwards one of them joked, jubilantly, about it having been a virgin vein. “No,” I said, thinking of the many other times that vein had suffered stabby metal intrusion, “but maybe this was like its first orgasm!”

They all laughed and agreed that it was a very apt comparison.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Suddenly I think a baby goat would make an AWESOME pet!



Do you think my landlord or downstairs neighbours would mind? I adore how this little guy springs up into the air with so little apparent effort.

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Ironic

Okay, I know I'm all bloggedly bloggy tonight, but that's really Zen's fault for blogging about Hillary here and getting me all up in arms. :) (Love ya, Zen!!!)

So now that that's all out of my system (well, not really, but it'll have to do for now), let me tell you what arrived in the mail for me today (woooo-HOOOOOO, soooo excited!!!): the complete three-season set of Arrested Development.

Now, like my brother says, Arrested Development isn't everyone's sense of humour, but it seems to appeal to mine. For example, the irony ... like when sweet, bumbling George Michael is initially horrified at his cousin Maeby's suggestion that they should passionately kiss in front of her parents in order to convince them that they've been wrong to not allow the cousins to visit each other more ... and then after she kisses him in a failed attempt to get her parents' attention, he suddenly becomes secretly and sweetly enamoured with her and tries repeatedly to get close to her, while never being able to come out and share his feelings with her because ... EW, THEY'RE COUSINS! lol Cera plays his character with such likability and sympathy that I can't help but feel sorry for him as he tries to control his feelings and his hormones when their parents blythely decide that the cousins will have to share a bedroom because the family is short of money, or when his father decides that Maeby will have to work with George Michael in the teeny tiny banana stand. Which ... banana stand???? [excuse me while I giggle like a 12-year old]

So I was super-excited to get this set. I'd also ordered a book online at the same time, and they arrived together. The book? Workers of the World Relax by Conrad Schmidt, which is a series of essays on how most of us are working rather meaningless jobs to earn more money to buy more stuff that aren't really going to bring us true happiness. I learned about this book from Tuco Rides, who wrote intriguingly about the book and the background philosophy here.

Anyone sense another level of irony happening here? (I don't know whether to smile or hang my head in shame!)

Just a little bit more on Hillary

Interesting comments I've read here that I'd like to share:

Quote #1:

Hmph. I'll tell you what my wife the repentant Republican said about Hillary's "tearing up" on camera. She hates Hillary with a capital "b*tch," but after seeing that long clip, Mrs Max said "that's the first time I've ever seen any real humanity from her. Maybe she's not a robot after all. Maybe there's a real person underneath all of this campaign schtick. I'd sure like to think so, if I'm going to have to vote for her in November." I think that moment captured a lot of undecided voters who want to vote for her but were just turned off by the Eveready Battery candidate they have seen for so long.

Simplistic? You betcha. But voters like real people. If Hillary can bring some real humanity into her presentation, she will be even more formidable of a candidate.

Disclosure: I'm an Edwards supporter, so no hidden Hillary agendas being pressed here.


Another voice:
When she teared up, and spoke through it anyway, she had a voice that reminded me that there's a girl in there. A girl, a female human being, and not just a highly programmed robot. It immediately became my all-time favorite Hillary moment because it was real. I'll gladly vote for a woman who can remind me that her essence is that of a girl. I'll vote for that over a robot every time.

A third commenter:
I think this is what a lot of people miss when they complain about the so-called "gender card." It's NOT about feeling sorry for someone because she's being piled on by the media, by the other candidates, or by the mean old Republicans.

It's that she fights her way back every time. No matter what they throw at her, she always fights back.

I'm not sure I'm going to vote for her - I live in Massachusetts and it will be all over by the time I get to the polls - but I sure as hell admire her.

Kindness

Absolutely refreshing to hear something that actually cuts Hillary Rodham Clinton a little bit of slack for being human. Brokaw demonstrates kindness here. Not kindness as in giving something that is unwarranted, but the sort of generosity you might show to someone who's had a hard time and deserves a little sympathy and understanding.

Some of these photos have really great light



I'll be honest, I'm not really into beefcake (I like muscular, just not frighteningly so ... ), but some of these portraits are really quite good examples of effective lighting. No, really ... I was totally geeking out looking at them.

If nothing else, this will make my lovely friend Kevin happy. :)

Thanks to my childhood friend Vicki for passing it along! :)

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

A contest!

Is this not a hideous chandelier? It hangs over my kitchen table because I rent my apartment, and I don't have the skills to replace it without fear of electrocuting myself.


So the challenge I issue you, dear friends and Internet vagabonds, is to provide me with a photo of a more hideous light fixture currently featured in your own home. It will be interesting to see the ugly light fixtures tolerated by your friends and relatives, and we can all have a good laugh at what was in fashion 35 years ago, but you will not win this contest unless it's in your very own home today. Which is still small compensation for living with crap, but when life hands you a lemon, make yourself lemonade, I say. Your butt-ugly light fixture can be made a distinction!

Include a link to your photo in the comments or send me an e-mail at noisypond at hotmail dot com.

Monday, January 07, 2008

Adam has learned how to levitate


DSC_0051
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

... He really is quite advanced for his age. ;-D

Okay, last photo from my family's Xmas dinner, I swear! :)

Saturday, January 05, 2008

27 Dresses

Is it totally crazy of me, or would it be completely awesome to go see this movie with a bunch of friends dressed as though we were going to a wedding?

Atonement



I went to see the movie Atonement tonight with Melanie and Pierre. It was quite good. I really like Kiera Knightley as an actress, and the way she lets you see the gears turn behind the eyes of her characters (Pirates of the Caribbean doesn't really count as acting, so just set that aside). The movie had a few quirks (the hairstyle? it never changes???), but it was engaging and interesting and at times very visually beautiful (and at others rather graphic).

In the end I think the real winner from this movie is the director Joe Wright, who also directed my beloved Pride and Prejudice (also with Kiera Knightley). And the casting was, in my humble and uneducated opinion, very good.

If you've already seen it, tell me: did you notice all the scenes in which there is some kind or sense of a tunnel?

Oh, and the typewriter? I loved how it was used throughout the movie.

Funniest title for a photo album posted on Facebook

"Rosaline's Photos - Peru - but honestly, only the Inca Trail, MP, and the Cusco area"

As if to say,
Oh, these little gorgeous photographs from an intimidatingly remote area on the other side of the world?

It cracks me up every time.

Friday, January 04, 2008

Thursday, January 03, 2008

Instant messaging with a bad speller

Boy #1 - i am working on the hole thing
Eclecta - LOL you're too funny. I think you mean the "whole thing"?

Eclecta - how are things going over there? Are you getting to spend much time working with Boy #2 and Boy #3?
Boy #1 - we are doing a hole day tomorrow
Eclecta - [snicker]
Boy #1 - lol

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

At a family dinner over the holidays

"Listen, we gotta talk about that piercing through your eyebrow ..."

Okay, so maybe Adam wasn't talking to Mitchell about his new hardware. He might have been telling him to diversify his stock portfolio, or to consider a career as an actuary. But he's sure sincere, isn't he? Not to mention cute! :)

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Remember your innocence

Please, please go visit this post at The Daily Coyote. You won't regret it.

Holiday goodness

Hey folks!

I haven’t been posting a whole lot here lately because dude, it was the holidays! :) Seriously, the sheer busy-ness and activity of the past year just seemed to catch up with me in December and demanded - nay, insisted upon - something different. So while I zoomed down to my parents’ place for a lovely dinner with my extended family, went to a wonderful Indian buffet for Christmas dinner, and attended a fun Kris Kringle party (where my little present went over FAR better than I’d expected!), most of my time was spent at home.

I did a lot of cooking. God, did I do a lot of cooking! And, thanks to the Internet, I can share most of the recipes with you!

“Cream” of Cauliflower Soup (vegan) – I didn’t actually eat this before I froze it or gave parts of it away, but it smelled wonderful, and the little spoonful I tried was very tasty!
Green Velvet Soup – ditto, except that it tasted like it would need quite a bit of salt.
Creamy Potato-Leek Soup (vegan) – awesome, comforting fare. Just add the rosemary to the pot far earlier than the recipe specifies.
Mediterranean Chickpea Salad – pretty good, but I think I would cook the canned chickpeas before adding them to the other ingredients, just to make them a bit softer.
Rustic Red Kale and White Bean Soup – cooking now

I also ate a lot of salad, taking a mixed salad from a bag, adding some young spinach from another bag, adding some honey mustard dressing, and then sprinkling some sunflower and pumpkin seeds on top. Absolutely fabulous!

I’ve also started eating baked sweet potatoes, thanks to my sister-in-law Lisa, who got me hooked on them when I last visited. Holy cow, how was I unaware of such deliciousness until only recently???

And then the bread … my goodness, the bread I’ve tried a couple of varieties of artisan whole wheat breads, the heavy kinds, cut off generous slices, and toasted it. Absolutely wonderful to dip in a little bit of olive oil, particularly if it’s rosemary-flavoured.

The last four days I’ve spent mostly by myself. Four glorious, recuperative days. I feel like I could go another week alone (hell, a month!) and not mind at all. I’ve slept loads, I’ve gone to the gym and watched the first two Jason Bourne movies and “Arrested Development” on DVD (boy, I love that show … all the irony.) My cat Cleo discovered that I actually can sit in front of the TV for more than 5 minutes at a time, so I had a built-in lap-warmer for much of the time. (If only she weren’t so heavy!)

I’ve spent far too much time surfing the ‘Net, but I also bought a Roomba online – I can’t wait for it to arrive! I also found a few more songs for my workout playlist, including Send in the Drums by James Asher. (Very cool – click on the link to listen to the MP3!) I haven’t done nearly the reading or the meditation that I’d hoped I would, but I have spent some time journaling and considering my goals for 2008, which is great. And today I spent some time watching snow fall – it was so beautiful.

K, folks, there’s a mess in my kitchen that’s not going to clean itself up, so that’s it for me for tonight. Tell me about your holidays! :)