Winding Down

Ah, the sun's going down on a beautiful San Diego afternoon in late December. It was very cold today...possibly 65 degrees. I had to wear a jacket in the shade--I mean, that was not negotiable. Freezing in just a t-shirt. Seriously. A bit of an inconvenience, that. I'm sipping coffee, but I won't dwell, since I think my entire next post is going to be about coffee. I'm feeling sort of peaceful because I had a refreshing nap earlier, albeit one that cost me $8.50. I took this nap during a matinee of Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel. Despite its many twists and turns, I just couldn't keep my eyes open.

Jarrah's on a two-week school vacation, and it's been hard to blog. Not so much because Jarrah won't let me--on the contrary, I can't tear the kid away from the new paper doll kit she got in the mail (Thank you, Teresa and Gina!) It's the best thing since rubber Disney princesses. It's more that it seems to be a blogging wasteland out there at the moment: people aren't updating very often, or checking very often, and they're certainly not commenting very often (at least not for me.) I know, I'm being a whinger, but it's made me realize that I'm much less motivated to post when I might not get a single comment for over 24 hours. Wah wah wah. Apparently, people have family, and visitors, and fudge-making, and tree-trimming, and all sorts of distractions from my blog. How truly bizarre.

We have been having some fun here and there. The photos are from a delicious outing with Mary, Paul and Joy on Sunday to Balboa Park to see Steam Powered Giraffe, a group of...mimes? folk musicians? comedians? performance artists? All of the above, I'd say. They were lovely people, very funny, great singers, creative and charming. The girls loved them, but I was enchanted and had to become their fan on Facebook without delay.

We also had a latke party for the last night of Chanukah, since I was totally absent for the first weekend, and wearing jingle bell antlers to add insult to injury. I think that was the most children I've ever had in my house at once, and I was discovering little lumps of partially-chewed food in every nook and cranny for a couple of days. Also, there seems to be a sort of math equation accurate for every convocation of children in one's home: they will locate whichever toy has the most and the tiniest pieces, and will distribute said pieces with greater efficiency than helicopter seed pods. Still, I think they all had fun--there was a great hue and cry (in a good way) during the dreidel game, and they all went home with chocolate gelt for their troubles. And their little faces were sweetly shining during the menorah-lighting. Ah, the innocence of youth.

The adults seemed to be having fun, too, and they certainly didn't go home hungry. There was brisket, latkes, apple fritters, salad, tzimmes (a traditional Jewish dish with baked carrots and dried fruit) jelly donuts (you're supposed to eat fried stuff) and cookies. Funny thing about the brisket. Turns out if the package says "corned beef brisket," this isn't just a serving suggestion. It means when you have painstakingly chopped, measured and mixed your 14-ingredient sauce, you will discover that meat has been brined before you browned it. Oops. Most people were too polite to say anything, and it still tasted alright. As for the grating, chopping and frying, I had two experienced chefs on my team (Hi, Calvin and Robyn!) so I could take a back seat there. And if I had to pretend I didn't know how to grate potatoes just to hear Robyn say it was lucky that I'm smart and pretty, so be it. I do what I need to do.

Since the weekend, I've been working overtime to make sure we're not too bored. There was the aforementioned movie and lunch date today with Robyn and her boys, and yesterday Grace and Julianna accompanied us on "the Asian experience" (we skipped the foot massage part) with a Vietnamese lunch and leisurely browsing at the Japanese dollar store. We also might have spent two hours trying out massage chairs, but no one seemed to mind.

Hope you're all enjoying a peaceful and joyous holiday season. Tune in soon, when I hope to have my blogging mojo back to my near-daily posting of the past few months. If you're eager to hear about coffee and wedding dresses, you're in for a treat.