So It's Come to This...

The end of the year. I'm sitting at my desk in the editorial department, waiting for stuff that's not going to show up until Tuesday. As with every other workplace, ours is rather disorganized, as everyone has rushed off to have a wonderful holiday and left all the loose ends for others to deal with. I am one of those others today, and I'm trying not to grouse about it, since I'm taking tomorrow and Tuesday off, and people will be in here then, grousing about all the stuff I've left undone (though I'm trying not to let that happen).

Christmas was very quiet and low stress. Steve and I spent it together. He got me a new shaver (my old one was coming up to its 10-year anniversary), a really nice sweater with a T-shirt dickie sewn right in and, of course, socks (which are my most favorite Christmas gift: Thanks to holiday givers, I haven't bought a pair of socks for myself in about two decades, save the wild, artsy pair I bought for myself in Paris this last year). I gave Steve an automated cat litter box, since I don't clean the manual one (is there such a thing as a manual cat litter box?) I also gave him a pair of mocassins so his feet can be toasty when we sit out on the patio this winter, and the two Harry Potter movies he didn't already have. He gave me season 3 of "Lost."

My sister Kittie and her husband David gave me a sign for the patio that says "Bite Me," and gave Steve a bizarre rock person, also for the patio, that kind of looks like the central object in a Stephen King novel. I still feel like I'm being watched when I go out onto the patio, but I'm hoping that sensation will fade once I'm used to the slightly demonic stare of its glass eyes and the akimbo dentition.

Christmas Day I cooked a beef roast in the roasting pan we bought after last Thanksgiving and have not used since. I figured we had to either use it or donate it, and I didn't want to give it away. Baked potatoes and asparagus went with the dinner, which was quite nice (though I cooked it about 10 minutes too long).

Since then, we've watched lots of Harry Potter (because I had only seen the first one and had two to catch up on) and eight episodes of Lost: Season 3. Good Lord, the story just keeps getting weirder and weirder. Like my friend Gerry Hiken said about the show: "It's just wonderful: They can make up anything they want and it doesn't have to make sense" (I paraphrase him here). And I'm starting to look toward this upcoming weekend, when we will be taking down the tree and putting away the decorations and getting back to the real world. Still, the last two weeks have been quite pleasant, with two work days, three days off, one work day, two days off, one work day, two days off. It has been kind of confusing, though.

So, wishing everybody who stumbles across this post a Happy New Year. And, for God's sake, somebody leave a comment!