Despite various jesting comments to the contrary, I really don't like having employees under me, it's just not my thing. Maybe it's because I never got to pick the people I wanted before, and had to just deal with whomever was already around / friends of the boss / cheap to hire.

Or maybe it's just time.

In any case, has only been here for about four hours, and already I feel more productive and less stressed. Already, I can tell we're going to have a phenomenal January, which will hopefully set the trend for the year. I'm so glad W. and B. finally agreed to let me hire someone /I/ wanted, and that timing worked out with the folks he calls the cult. And I'm glad that he was willing to come work here.

I feel bad that today, I don't have time to get him started on anything other than data input, but even that has saved me from having to input and actually PROCESS in one step, cutting my workload in half, at least.

I promise: Things will change, and he'll get more interesting and varied things to do. Really. Soon, even.

Hello everyone, I'm home.
I never got holiday cards mailed. They're going out tomorrow, and will be in various people's hands by Epiphany, maybe. Deal with it.

Within an hour of returning to our house in St. Thibery on Christmas Eve, I had fallen on my knees to worship the porcelain god with the nastiestied flu-ish thing I've ever experienced. Fuzzy stayed home with me but we sent my parents to the Christmas Eve Dinner at Bill & Ben's ANYWAY, because it seemed really pointless to keep a captive audience for /that/. Ugh.

I woke Christmas morning (Barely. It was 11:59 AM) feeling druggy and shakey, but definitely improved. Some of the folks from the party the night before had been out for a walk, so when I made it to the first floor, where the kitchen and dining room were, I found it filled with English people: Jackie, a linguist from Brighton; Paul, a jeweler; and Gordon, a barrister from London who (at a different party) finally settled for the American contingent how two attorneys from the same chambers can represent opposite sides of the same case. Also with them was Paul's boyfriend Jim, from Taiwan, who is working on his MBNA in construction management. They'd brought us presents from B&B: A plum pudding (with instructions) for “The Americans,” and chocolate praline snails (not real snails, just snail-shaped) for me, because Chocolate Cures Everything. They lingered over coffee, and then wandered off, and we made dinner: faux-filet, which seems to be the French equivalent of flank steak, and vegetables, and amazing pain de campagne – this really nutty chewy peasant bread.

We'd agreed not to do presents, since we all had paid for parts of the vacation (Fuzzy and I rented the house, my parents paid for our rental car), but we had small things anyway. I gave my mother a dress-form for her collection, and I gave my stepfather the latest Andrea Bocelli CD. I received 1/2 kilo of Brie, my favorite triple-cream cheese in live, and a purple pashmini (it's a wide fringed scarf), and Fuzzy was told he was getting his present later.)

Thursday, I still felt blechy, but we couldn't waste any more time, so we drove to the nearby town of Pezenas, which is smaller than Bezier, but has much nicer shops. French villages are all twisty-turny streets, with no rhyme or reason, and I kept thinking that any one of them would be a great maze for a video game. It was fun exploring, even if it was rainy – you'd follow an alley a while and pass the church, and then turn a little and there would be a cafe or a brasserie or a full restaurant, or a specialty shop. Like Napa, CA, Languedoc is the region of Wine and Olives, so olive-products were prominent, and more than one store was devoted just to such things.

We stopped for lunch at Brasserie Moliere (Pezenas makes a big 'thing' of being a place where Moliere stayed once – he was only there for a few days, though), where, for 13 Euros each we had three course lunch. The salad was tomatos and Roquefort cheese on a bed of red lettuce, the main course was roasted duck, with new potatoes, and pommes frites (fries were /everywhere/. You couldn't get away from them, but they're done with minimal grease, and with garlic, salt and parsley, and ohhhh, sooo good.), and the final course was a pear tart. We had coffee after, of course, and it was the best cafe au lait I'd ever had.

We wandered in and out of shops for the rest of the day, looked at Fabric and housewares, but didn't really love anything. (Sorry, , it was all Provencal prints, and I didn't think they were appropriate for what you'd mentioned.)

Minor note to the 7th Sea crew: The milk brand was Montagne, different spelling, but, it made us smile.

Friday, FUZZY was sick, so I mostly hung out and took care of him, and read a lot. It was kind of cozy, really, being in the 2nd floor lounge with the view of the street, drinking tea, and reading and watching the locals walk their dogs. Ira and I took a ramble around town after dark, over to B&B's to reserve spots for Saturday's dinner thing, and then over to the Abbey, which was built in 1509. It was an amazing building, so beautiful, and with the moonlight and the mist and the pigeons cooing in the bell tower, it was like being inside a gothic novel.

Saturday, our last day in France, was our busiest. I was up at dawn, and made breakfast: sausage and omelettes and more of that yummy bread, and then we went to Carcassone, which is a medieval walled city dating back to the Visigoths. It's the 2nd most-visited place in France, after the Eiffle Tower, and we were surprised when we got there to find that it wasn't just a museum and ruins, but an actual working city. They've modernized the rooms inside the walls – I dubbed it Castle Mall – and there are tons of nifty shops and cafes. We poked around in them for a while, then took a tour of the chateau, the castle proper – Christopher took about a zillion pictures inside – well, 250 – and then more stores, and finally we went to a cafe for cappucino and my new love Chocolate Anciennes.

Chocolate Anciennes is this: You get a pitcher of molten chocolate and a pitcher of steamed milk and a bowl of sugar cubes and a mug. You place one cube of sugar in the bottom of the mug, pour in the chocolate and milk at the same time, stir, sip, and totally bliss out.

We left Carcassone and made it back to St. Thibery in time to rest and change for the party at Montblanc, hosted by Bill & Ben, and Robert, the owner of Montblanc (which is another B&B). Most of the folks there were English ex-pats, and some locals. We were at the “cool table”, and the four of us were surrounded by Gordon, Paul, Jim, David and John (an English couple who gave up suburbia to move to a teeny French village and become potters) and, alternately as they rested between courses, Bill, Ben and Robert. The food was AMAZING, and David decided I was his date for the evening for some reason, which was a blast because he knew all the gossip on everyone, and we had fun doing fashion critiques and talking about baroque music. Gordon just started cello lessons, as did Olga, the woman who acts as caretaker of the Tall House, and David kept saying, “But none of you brought a cello. That's not fair. You were supposed to serenade me, darlings.”

There's TON'S more to tell, but we went from the party, back to the house to pack, and then directly to the airport for our 6:30 flight from Montpellier to Paris this morning. Paris time is nine hours ahead of California time, and at this point, nearly 5 PM Pacific on Sunday, I've been awake since 9 AM Paris time on Saturday, except for a five hour nap on the plane, and while I can't go to bed yet, I do need to go sit somewhere still, because I'm so dazed I feel like the chair is bouncing when I type.

Pictures will be webposted eventually. Probably on the 1st.

Hello everyone, I’m home.
I never got holiday cards mailed. They’re going out tomorrow, and will be in various people’s hands by Epiphany, maybe. Deal with it.
***
Within an hour of returning to our house in St. Thibery on Christmas Eve, I had fallen on my knees to worship the porcelain god with the nastiestied flu-ish thing I’ve ever experienced. Fuzzy stayed home with me but we sent my parents to the Christmas Eve Dinner at Bill & Ben’s ANYWAY, because it seemed really pointless to keep a captive audience for /that/. Ugh.
I woke Christmas morning (Barely. It was 11:59 AM) feeling druggy and shakey, but definitely improved. Some of the folks from the party the night before had been out for a walk, so when I made it to the first floor, where the kitchen and dining room were, I found it filled with English people: Jackie, a linguist from Brighton; Paul, a jeweler; and Gordon, a barrister from London who (at a different party) finally settled for the American contingent how two attorneys from the same chambers can represent opposite sides of the same case. Also with them was Paul’s boyfriend Jim, from Taiwan, who is working on his MBNA in construction management. They’d brought us presents from B&B: A plum pudding (with instructions) for “The Americans,” and chocolate praline snails (not real snails, just snail-shaped) for me, because Chocolate Cures Everything. They lingered over coffee, and then wandered off, and we made dinner: faux-filet, which seems to be the French equivalent of flank steak, and vegetables, and amazing pain de campagne – this really nutty chewy peasant bread.
We’d agreed not to do presents, since we all had paid for parts of the vacation (Fuzzy and I rented the house, my parents paid for our rental car), but we had small things anyway. I gave my mother a dress-form for her collection, and I gave my stepfather the latest Andrea Bocelli CD. I received 1/2 kilo of Brie, my favorite triple-cream cheese in live, and a purple pashmini (it’s a wide fringed scarf), and Fuzzy was told he was getting his present later.)
Thursday, I still felt blechy, but we couldn’t waste any more time, so we drove to the nearby town of Pezenas, which is smaller than Bezier, but has much nicer shops. French villages are all twisty-turny streets, with no rhyme or reason, and I kept thinking that any one of them would be a great maze for a video game. It was fun exploring, even if it was rainy – you’d follow an alley a while and pass the church, and then turn a little and there would be a cafe or a brasserie or a full restaurant, or a specialty shop. Like Napa, CA, Languedoc is the region of Wine and Olives, so olive-products were prominent, and more than one store was devoted just to such things.
We stopped for lunch at Brasserie Moliere (Pezenas makes a big ‘thing’ of being a place where Moliere stayed once – he was only there for a few days, though), where, for 13 Euros each we had three course lunch. The salad was tomatos and Roquefort cheese on a bed of red lettuce, the main course was roasted duck, with new potatoes, and pommes frites (fries were /everywhere/. You couldn’t get away from them, but they’re done with minimal grease, and with garlic, salt and parsley, and ohhhh, sooo good.), and the final course was a pear tart. We had coffee after, of course, and it was the best cafe au lait I’d ever had.
We wandered in and out of shops for the rest of the day, looked at Fabric and housewares, but didn’t really love anything. (Sorry, technocowboy, it was all Provencal prints, and I didn’t think they were appropriate for what you’d mentioned.)
Minor note to the 7th Sea crew: The milk brand was Montagne, different spelling, but, it made us smile.
Friday, FUZZY was sick, so I mostly hung out and took care of him, and read a lot. It was kind of cozy, really, being in the 2nd floor lounge with the view of the street, drinking tea, and reading and watching the locals walk their dogs. Ira and I took a ramble around town after dark, over to B&B’s to reserve spots for Saturday’s dinner thing, and then over to the Abbey, which was built in 1509. It was an amazing building, so beautiful, and with the moonlight and the mist and the pigeons cooing in the bell tower, it was like being inside a gothic novel.
Saturday, our last day in France, was our busiest. I was up at dawn, and made breakfast: sausage and omelettes and more of that yummy bread, and then we went to Carcassone, which is a medieval walled city dating back to the Visigoths. It’s the 2nd most-visited place in France, after the Eiffle Tower, and we were surprised when we got there to find that it wasn’t just a museum and ruins, but an actual working city. They’ve modernized the rooms inside the walls – I dubbed it Castle Mall – and there are tons of nifty shops and cafes. We poked around in them for a while, then took a tour of the chateau, the castle proper – Christopher took about a zillion pictures inside – well, 250 – and then more stores, and finally we went to a cafe for cappucino and my new love Chocolate Anciennes.
Chocolate Anciennes is this: You get a pitcher of molten chocolate and a pitcher of steamed milk and a bowl of sugar cubes and a mug. You place one cube of sugar in the bottom of the mug, pour in the chocolate and milk at the same time, stir, sip, and totally bliss out.
We left Carcassone and made it back to St. Thibery in time to rest and change for the party at Montblanc, hosted by Bill & Ben, and Robert, the owner of Montblanc (which is another B&B). Most of the folks there were English ex-pats, and some locals. We were at the “cool table”, and the four of us were surrounded by Gordon, Paul, Jim, David and John (an English couple who gave up suburbia to move to a teeny French village and become potters) and, alternately as they rested between courses, Bill, Ben and Robert. The food was AMAZING, and David decided I was his date for the evening for some reason, which was a blast because he knew all the gossip on everyone, and we had fun doing fashion critiques and talking about baroque music. Gordon just started cello lessons, as did Olga, the woman who acts as caretaker of the Tall House, and David kept saying, “But none of you brought a cello. That’s not fair. You were supposed to serenade me, darlings.”
There’s TON’S more to tell, but we went from the party, back to the house to pack, and then directly to the airport for our 6:30 flight from Montpellier to Paris this morning. Paris time is nine hours ahead of California time, and at this point, nearly 5 PM Pacific on Sunday, I’ve been awake since 9 AM Paris time on Saturday, except for a five hour nap on the plane, and while I can’t go to bed yet, I do need to go sit somewhere still, because I’m so dazed I feel like the chair is bouncing when I type.
Pictures will be webposted eventually. Probably on the 1st.

I am writing this from a net-cafe in Bezier, Languedoc, France, on a funky non-QWERTY keyboard (the most annoying difference is the 'q' being where the 'a' is on US keyboards. And you have to shift to use periods.

Our flights were all fine, all pretty painless – our row-mate, a woman from Rome, said we were brave to trust our luggage to Air France – we were half an hour late landing in Montpellier because of weather, and apparently they didn't feel like doing formal customs screenings yesterday, because we only had to walk through Immigration, where they give your passport the most cursory of glances, only.

After 16 hours of air travel, we were tired, and I have a cold, so my parents, who got here ahead of us plied us with onion soup, triple-creme cheeses, excellent wine, and cafe au lait, and then we went to bed.

The Tall House is seriously tall; with marble stairs that twist like the stairs of a lighthouse. Our room is on the 2nd floor, with the 'good' bathroom. The bathroom consists of a funky cast-iron tub with a hand_held shower, a sink, and a bidet; the toilet is in it's own room.

Today we breakfasted on fruit tart, cheese, and brioche, and then went to Bessan for money and gas. We stopped to take pix of a really cool castle, and then for cappucino and pear tarts. I speqk almost no French, but we're so close to the Spanish border that almost everyone speaks some combination of Spanish or English. The qdvent of the Euro has totally helped in shopping, because I don't have to have help making change.

We walked through a Christmas market on the way here, and bought chestnut torte for Christmas breakfast, and then through an open-air market where I bought aubergine and framboises (eggplant; raspberries), and was startled to find that the lobsters arrayed on ice were still squirming.

Tonight we're going to a dinner hosted by Bill & Ben, a gay English couple who own the bed and breakfast in St. Thibery, the town where we're staying. Tomorrow, we're cooking at home, and then going to the beach to bask in the frigid water of the Meditteranean in winter; and Friday we'll be exploring the ruins of Carcassone, the old Roman fortress.

Highlight of the day: Being more adept then my stepfather at reading French ATM instructions, and, despite my abysmal French, having the owner of the cafe compliment me on my accent.

Greetings, and Joyeaux Noel!

I am writing this from a net-cafe in Bezier, Languedoc, France, on a funky non-QWERTY keyboard (the most annoying difference is the ‘q’ being where the ‘a’ is on US keyboards. And you have to shift to use periods.)

Our flights were all fine, all pretty painless – our row-mate, a woman from Rome, said we were brave to trust our luggage to Air France – we were half an hour late landing in Montpellier because of weather, and apparently they didn’t feel like doing formal customs screenings yesterday, because we only had to walk through Immigration, where they give your passport the most cursory of glances, only.

After 16 hours of air travel, we were tired, and I have a cold, so my parents, who got here ahead of us plied us with onion soup, triple-creme cheeses, excellent wine, and cafe au lait, and then we went to bed.

The Tall House is seriously tall; with marble stairs that twist like the stairs of a lighthouse. Our room is on the 2nd floor, with the ‘good’ bathroom. The bathroom consists of a funky cast-iron tub with a hand-held shower, a sink, and a bidet; the toilet is in it’s own room.

Today we breakfasted on fruit tart, cheese, and brioche, and then went to Bessan for money and gas. We stopped to take pix of a really cool castle, and then for cappucino and pear tarts. I speqk almost no French, but we’re so close to the Spanish border that almost everyone speaks some combination of Spanish or English. The qdvent of the Euro has totally helped in shopping, because I don’t have to have help making change.

We walked through a Christmas market on the way here, and bought chestnut torte for Christmas breakfast, and then through an open-air market where I bought aubergine and framboises (eggplant; raspberries), and was startled to find that the lobsters arrayed on ice were still squirming.

Tonight we’re going to a dinner hosted by Bill & Ben, a gay English couple who own the bed and breakfast in St. Thibery, the town where we’re staying. Tomorrow, we’re cooking at home, and then going to the beach to bask in the frigid water of the Meditteranean in winter; and Friday we’ll be exploring the ruins of Carcassone, the old Roman fortress.

Highlight of the day: Being more adept then my stepfather at reading French ATM instructions, and, despite my abysmal French, having the owner of the cafe compliment me on my accent.

I've never met my birth father. While this has never caused much more than curiousity, it means that the line for Father's Name on my short form birth certificate is simply non-existant. When we started the process for going to France, we began accumulating documentation, but, then, we bought a house, and were half-convinced France simply wasn't going to happen.

Finally we decided we /really/ need the break, and so we bought tickets, but by that time it was too late to do the normal passport procedure of paying money and waiting a couple months.

No problem, we were told after calling an expediter, if you do A-B-C you'll get it in 24 hours. So we did A-B-C, well, after I finally got a LONG FORM birth certificate with the Father's Name line on it but blank, so that it would match when I wrote N/A on the passport form. And after Fuzzy got a long form of his birth certificate as well, since he didn't have an original.

(Note: You have to have originals. If you don't, they're useless.)

So we did the expedite thing, and while we could've taken a day off from work rather than paying the expediter to handle the paperwork for us, neither of us had a clear enough schedule to DO that.

Wednesday, we got email that our stuff had been received, and we had a FedEx date of Thursday. Close, but no problem. Thursday we got an email that they'd been sent, and a tracking number was provided. I looked it up Thursday night, and it said it wasn't in the system yet.

This morning, I checked tracking again, and the package had mysteriously arrived in Soda Springs, near Lake Tahoe. Um, yeah. Very helpful. We called the expediter, in case they'd provided the wrong tracking number. They hadn't. They read the address, and everything was right. So, after numerous phone calls made between FedEx and the expediter, all done by my far-more-polite-and-patient-than-I-could-ever-be husband, we were told they'd TRY to get them here tomorrow, but since there's massive SNOW in Truckee they can't get anything in or out, and they don't actually have STAFF in the Reno facility during the day to help, and our best bet was to go to SFO, and plead with the regional officers, w/o an appointment, if the guards would let us in.

Maybe it was because it's the holidays, or maybe it was just a Friday thing, but the guards were helpful, and the will-call guy was helpful, and they processed “replacement” passports for us without us having to pay any more money.

We did have to wait around in SFO all day, to pick them up between 3:45 and 4 PM, and it was rainy and blechy, and we were both tired and stressed, so that was less than fun. But, we have passports.

And of course, since we have them, the original documents will show up tomorrow, right?

Ah well, such is life.

If I don't update again before I get back on the 29th, may everyone have safe happy holidays, surrounded by loved ones.

It's been nearly a week since I last posted. I kept meaning to, of course, but it just never happened.

Last night I started an entry, writing on my palm while we were sitting on the ground behind the Century 21 theater waiting for the 8:00 PM show of The Two Towers, but I killed it after a few sentences, when the novelty of having Word at my beck and call had worn off.

Note to self: Must get keyboard for palm.

I won't post a review of the movie. If you want to read reviews I recommend and , for theirs are both well written. I will admit to falling asleep during part of it, and I will confess further that I had more fun watching the people in line, and the people in the crowd, at times, than I did watching the movie itself.

The folks who came in costume, for example, were hilarious, especially the hobbits, with their fuzzy feet flopping like giant beach-sandals on the cold pavement. There was a guy who I vaguely remember being one of the Klingons at the Enterprise premier we went to at the Chabot, who stood up and announced, “Ladies and Gentlemen, I have a cellphone. I am turning it OFF.”

And let's not forget the little kid sitting behind me who was so excited about everything – cheering during the fight scenes, booing the villains, asking typical kid-questions. He was adorable. He even cheered for Bob.

Bob was the person, so the theater manager shared with us just before the seemingly endless coming attractions, who started the line for the 8:00 PM Wednesday show. He started it at 10:00 AM Tuesday. Go, Bob.

Speaking of coming attractions, I lost count at fifty…well, maybe not fifty, but a significant number. Someone was allowed to make a prequel to Dumb and Dumber, which I thought was illegal, and if not, probably ought to be, for example. The only two that looked remotely interesting were the upcoming installments of Terminator and X-Men. The rest…DVD, maybe…but only if Blockbuster and NetFlix are both out of every other movie on the planet, including Psycho Sluts of Satan II.

In other news, our office Christmas party was held today at Benihana, and most of us had a blast with way too many shots of 100% agave Tequila, sake bombs, and more conservative drinks. I may be the only woman in my company, but I was not the only one drinking foofy drinks. Q. had a Tokyo Peach, as well.

It was an interesting party, and featured E. doing his best Stupid Human Trick, which consists of him eating a raw egg, shell and all. Sadly, he chews it, rather than swallowing it whole, like a snake. Ah, well.

And on that note, I'm leaving for France at Dawn on Sunday, and while there are people I wanted to invite over for a Holiday Drink, or Something, I don't think there's time. I still have to pack, and clean the house, and wrap and ship the pressies going to SoDak, and, and, and…

(End Xeni-Babble)

I've said many times that I love rainy, windy, stormy weather, and this weekend we've had that. I was fortunate enough to be behind the plate-glass windows at Atelier in Santana Row having a day of total self-indulgence during the worst of Saturday's weather. While I was having my hair cut and colored, having a facial and a manicure and getting my eyebrows waxed, and later, while I was playing with makeup colors I'd never have thought to wear, my poor husband was up on a ladder cleaning out the rain gutters, because they were overflowing.

We lost power, but since we weren't home for most of Saturday, we don't know for how long. I do know that traffic was scary in our part of town because all the traffic lights along Stevens Creek from Meridian to Winchester were out. Uncontrolled mall traffic. *Shudder.*

By the time we did get home, after driving through the storm-battered and unlit streets of Campbell hoping our favorite Chinese place would have power, and being bitterly disappointed, we were wet and tired, and not in the mood to drive all the way out to the Hayes Mansion for the party we'd been invited to.

And the dogs were freaking.

Zorro was a stray when we got him – we rescued him from the streets almost exactly four years ago, and he was drenched from being out in the rain, covered with fleas, and starving – and even now rain scares him. For days he's been hovering at my feet, and wearing a distressed expression, and that was before the suitcases for our impending vacation ever made it into the house.

Cleo, on the other hand, is a wuss dog. She barks, loudly, at anything she doesn't understand, as if deafening the threat will immobilize it. (If the threat is human, she'll then cower, and leak, but that's another issue.) We've tried every kind of training to break her of this, and nothing works. Still, even though she looked pathetic, there were elements of humor in seeing her cower from lightning flashes, or hearing her try to outbark the thunder.

But neither dog liked the howling wind, which sounded like a million angry owls descending on our house last night. And neither is going near the pool, usually the thing they run around all day, because the wind has made the water so choppy it looks like a water tank for a naval disaster film.

Yesterday, we spent the morning being completely lazy. (And I do mean completely, we finally stirred ourselves for showers and leaving the cozy confines of bed at about 1:30), and then did a marathon six-hour shopping trip – VallCo Mall (because there's always parking, and it's never crowded), Big Lots (where I can indulge my niece's love of all things Barbie for almost no money), and Barnes and Noble.

And today it's back to work, to finish out the pipeline, hopefully by Wednesday. Thursday the whole office is doing a foofy lunch, and Friday we're driving up to San Rafael to bribe the staff of one of the lenders we work with. I'm sitting here drinking mint tea and waiting for Fuzzy to get dressed, because I was up at seven despite going to bed at three, and thinking that storms are way more fun when you don't have to leave home.

Which Edward Gorey Book Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

On an unrelated note, I'm seeing Nemesis in about an hour.

, whom I “know” solely from LJ reading, has posted an entry about loving everything, and while I did mention some things in a comment, I thought I would do my own entry.

1.) I love days like today, when it's rainy and blustery, and there are autumn leaves scattered everywhere, and the sound of cars on the pavement has that rainslicked cadence. I love the smell of the air, and the taste, and I love even more than when I get home I can make a fire and cuddle with the dogs, and just groove on not having to be out in the rain, unless I choose to be.

2.) I love trips to foofy salons (I'm spending much of tomorrow at one), where they don't merely wash your hair, but give you soothing tea, and play mellow music, and massage your scalp, and where, even if you're PMSing, and thinking of the eighty-three thousand things on your TO DO list that MUST be accomplished before you leave for Europe, there's still that peaceful sense of time belonging just to you, because sometimes it's good to be self indulgent.

3.) I love that when I'm feeling really icky I get virtual snugs and hugs, because they do make things better.

4.) I love hot bubblebaths where the water comes up to your ears. I love them more when I have a good mystery to read while I soak, and even more than that when Cleo-Dog is curled up on the bath mat in front of the space heater keeping me company the whole time. (Zorro never lingers in the bathroom. He doesn't like water.)

5.) I love Christmas, even though in my family it's not celebrated as a religious holiday, but more of a neutrally spiritual one. I love the lights, and the smells of cinnamon and nutmeg that I associate with this time of year. I love choosing presents for people, and even though they're currently still taunting me because I'm very very behind, I love sending Christmas cards.

6.) I love that I can sit here in the middle of my work day, and take a few minutes to write this without anyone hovering over me and wondering what I'm doing, or how many loans are going out tonight (answer: ten) or why I'm not on the phone.

7.) I love my husband, who helps with the laundry, and cleans up when the dogs leave “presents” in the house, and brings me flowers every time he goes grocery shopping, and spends six hours finding the perfect birthday card, and calls me from stores to make sure he picks the right brand/color/size/flavor/whatever of whatever-it-is.

And you. All of you. In some fashion, I love you all.