What's been going on

1/3/08

The trouble with not posting for a while is that you wind up with a long list of stuff you want to post, which makes it that much more onerous to actually do it, which makes you put it off even longer, which etc.

So here’s the executive summary. In the past few weeks I’ve:

  • hosted the worlds fastest and most violent virus (from feeling perfectly fine to shivering, bawling, emergency room visit, back to feeling pretty much okay again, all in the space of about six hours)
  • had the two easiest and hassle-free cross-continental flights since they invented the no-fly list (no weather delays in Chicago, even!)
  • walked on the beach, looked at butterflies, and flown a kite in late December
  • Spent good time (and eaten great meals) with families on both coasts
  • Had a house full of friends I don’t get to see often enough
  • Missed seeing some other friends I also don’t get to see often enough (you know who you are)
  • Helped make sausage out of venison, bacon, and aged gouda
  • Learned that that old parable about laws and sausages is, in fact, absolutely true (The grinding isn’t so bad, but the stuffing is, um, disturbing)
  • Helped make the most delicious chocolate ever, from scratch (ok, all I really did was shell a few of the cocoa beans, but boy was it tasty after everyone else did all the work)
  • Eaten haggis from a can, for the first (and last!) time
  • Improvised music with a punk rock drummer and a Fulbright scholar (among others)
  • Soaked in a hot tub, sweated in a sauna, and raked snow off the roof
  • Realized with some awe that we’ve been doing this New Years Tribecon thing for nine years
  • Spent lots of time in our new almost-completely-finished sunroom (He’s coming back to putty over the last few nail holes on Monday)
  • Passed on a head cold to (probably) many of those friends listed above. Sorry about that
  • Seen the entire population of my town standing together in the firehouse
  • Participated in small-town democracy, by seconding the motion to dispense with the reading of a proposed bylaw into the record
  • Voted on that bylaw by placing my ballot in the “ballot bucket”: one of those 25-gallon hardware store buckets that somebody had cut a slot into the top with a keyhole saw. (Diebold, eat our dust!)

That brings us pretty much up to date, I think.