there's more to life than this

Falafel.

Champagne.

Chocolate.

No-cheese pizza.

The hardest puzzle ever.

Poking the fire in the fireplace.

Crunching snow underfoot, exploding snowballs.

A picture of a kitty drawn by my 5-year old nephew (awwwwww).

Sooooo much food, and a buttload of laughter.

Crikey, I had no idea how long it had been since the last update -- 'til I just checked the date on the last entry.

Sheesh!

Well, that's the holidaze for you. So far this has been an unusual Solstice season for me, for many reasons -- but the obvious ones are that I am single during this gift-giving time of year (something that hasn't happened since uhhhhhh, 1989?), and that I actually took a decent amount of time off from work. I will go back to work tomorrow, and I will work past my excused hours on Tuesday, but I actually got my butt kind of out of town (still SoCal, but into the mountains and snow), and for a few days.

As I am far behind on chores domestic and progressively stinky, I will make this a brief update just to say that beyond the amazingly cool and thoughtful gifts I received this year of the material variety, I am just amazingly grateful for my friends and family.

I want to be Santa. I want to be able to visit all of my friends in one evening, give them gifts, laugh jollily, eat a bunch of cookies and soymilk, and have everyone anxious to see me again next year...