I hope that you are all cozily tucked in with family, friends, cats, babies, and that there are lots of visions of sugar plums and mistletoe.

The Shortest Day

I love the winter solstice because it means that the days are going to start getting longer instead of shorter.

For short days, this week has been really long. On Wednesday, I had the final performance for the 7th grade residency of wallet-stealing fame, and it went surprisingly well. I had about six kids out of the 17 in the class who were really committed and excited- they wrote all their own material and rehearsed in extra sessions after school and brought in costumes for their scenes. One of these kids was someone who had been giving me grief all semester and it was extremely gratifying to get to praise him for really doing a fantastic job. I'm still a little unresolved about only having 6 out of 17 kids perform, but the ones who did really rocked it. I think that next semester the drama elective is going to need to have an audition or an application or a contract or something. Not to discern talent, by any means, but certainly to weed out those kids who are just signing up for the social hour and easy A.

Bright and early the next morning....wait, no, scratch that. It was dark and early. The alarm went off at 3:50am EST and we were in Oregon by 9:57am PST. The day was followed with lots of cuddling of my most specialist niece (don't worry- LOTS of pictures to follow), coffee with a colleague, dinner with family, drinks and trivia with friends, and some half-jet-lagged-half-buzzed midnight ramblings about how great NYC is before I finally passed out 24 hours after getting up. This wouldn't be so bad except that my sinus-unpleasantness has developed into some straight-up-unhappiness and I've been sniffling and popping my ears nonstop for a couple days. I swear that if I ever get a full 8 hours of sleep I will magically be better.

I have left the great Land of Ports for now, however, and journeyed into the desert to my parents' house for the next week. There will surely be many anecdotes to come. This house is madness, but it is beautiful.

I feel called to mention that the passing of this winter solstice also marks six years that ZPJ and I have been together. Which seems like a long time. But also like maybe not that long considering we've got another fifty to go. Do you remember that time? Back when I told him, in no uncertain terms, that we would NEVER be together and then had to eat my words when I realized he was the only person I wanted to be with? Remember when it all happened? I knew before we even kissed that once we did, we would be getting married. And here it all is, so many years later, and it seems a little silly that we ever disagreed. Of course, now we disagree about much more serious things, like bank accounts, and what movie to watch, and who won the last cribbage game.

So, in conclusion:

• I love Christmas
• I love ZPJ
• I love when the days start getting longer again

Reprise

I though I had gotten off easy with this cold thing- I was sick for a few days and then had a lingering cough. That lingered. And lingered. And lingered. And now has reemerged as a second cold. I'm all stuffed in my sinuses with plugged ears and post-nasal unpleasantness. Just in time, too. I fly out Thursday morning.

I have a long tradition of a Christmas Cold. I get sick two or three days before the holiday, right when I'm beginning my travels, and I gross out everyone in Portland who only sees me once or twice a year. They refuse to let me play with their children because I am ill. I sniff and sneeze and drink lots of tea. So I guess this resurgence of this lingering cold is quite timely.

Blaarrrg.

Midnight Marriage

ZPJ and I haven't been seeing much of one another lately. Between pressing deadlines and holiday work parties, one or the other of us has been out late every night this week. It's as though I'm single all day and then *poof* at midnight I turn into a married woman. I guess to some people that would sound about perfect, but I personally think it sucks. I actually like my husband, so I miss seeing him. I still get the benefit of listening to him snore in the mornings, though, and I don't mind telling you that it's pretty cute.

Saturday is almost here. We have no plans other than taking the cats to the vet, so it will be a whole day of marriage! Sunday we'll be back to being on our own. :(

I'm looking forward to Christmas break. 12 days on the west coast. Babies. Driving a car. Gorgeous.

As American As...

Both my grandmother and my great-aunt were sick over Thanksgiving, so we had the official family re-do this weekend out at Grandma's in NJ. I offered to bring out some food, but my grandmother is notorious for not eating anything that anyone else has cooked, so she declined my offer but asked me to bake some apple pie while I was out there. I went out this summer and made some pie and, according to my grandma and a couple uncles, it was "the best apple pie they've ever eaten." Yes, it was good, but anything is good if you put that much butter and sugar in it, so I was surprised that Grandma remembered and asked me. It wasn't even my recipe, it was my dad's, and I was so unfamiliar with it that I had to call him and ask for it when I got there.

Now, this wouldn't really be a story except that my great-aunt was there. Aunt Terri is known as the baker in the family and always shows up to events stocked with cookies and pies. This weekend, however, she decided to bring an apple pie. Her famous apple pie for which she won't share the crust recipe. Not even with family. But Grandma still insisted that I bake apple pie as well, so that we would have three apple pies for a meal with 10 people.

Obviously I have no idea what I'm doing, but this pie-off takes on the quality of a spectator sport and I spend a couple hours in my grandmother's kitchen (off-limits to all but the most favored female family members) with my every move being examined by her, my Aunt Tina, and most notably my Aunt Terri. Terri was helpful, in a slightly restrained and disapproving way, and although the picture below is fuzzy you can just make out her expression of suspicion and judgment.

I will say that my dad's recipe held up to the test, though, and even though Aunt Terri was heard to say at the table "Well, mine is definitely better", my Aunt Tina cornered me in the hall and confided that she liked my crust best. Overall, I would be happy to never be pitted against any other family members in an area with which I am so unfamiliar, but you have to admit that the end result looked fucking hot.

A Trail of Pictures

I thought I would share with you the most recent pictures from my cell phone.

They are, in no particular order;

1. Something I recently acquired
2. Something someone else recently acquired
3. Something I would like to get for Christmas
4. Something someone else would like to get for Christmas

Do you know which is which?

Words That Are Fun to Say Outloud

"Park Bar"

When you say it in your head, it is enjoyable. When you say it outloud, your mouth will delight. Do it. Now. I don't care that you're in your office- say "park bar".

Isn't it fun?

I'm A Real NY'er Now

I've been pondering why I haven't been blogging, and I don't have a good reason. I think it largely has to do with the fact that I'm not working from home anymore, so I'm not spending hours and hours at my own desk, desperately trying to procrastinate writing my thesis. Instead I'm sitting in an office and I've been feeling somewhat productive lately, so I don't worry so much about killing time, and I feel a little bit guilty about blogging from work.

BUT I've been having a lot going on recently, so I want to be better about reflecting.

One very interesting thing happened to me this weekend. I went up to my weekly residency in Harlem, which takes place Friday afternoons. The 1 Train on the way up there is terribly crowded and last week it was particularly so. I got to the school and, between classes, realized that my wallet was missing out of my bag. I checked the floor, I talked to the teacher, but it was gone, gone, gone.

I had Zach call the banks and cancel my cards and headed into the next class, and I have to say that I was pretty proud of the way that I handled things because I managed to maintain a pretty healthy perspective. Money is just money, it's not the end of the world to lose a little bit of it. Cards are irritating to reorder, but I have been blessed with joint accounts so I still have access to all my accounts until the new cards arrive. The three things which made me a little sad to lose were

1. my NYU id card, which is valid until '09 and gets me great discounts as well as access to clean bathrooms in the village and can't be replaced now that I'm no longer a student,
2. an H&M gift card for $30 which in itself is not such a big thing but represented my ability to go buy myself something guilt-free on a moment's notice, and
3. my Oregon drivers license which cannot be replace because of my lack of a Oregon address and the loss of which represents drastically increased difficulty in obtaining a NYS drivers licence.

But you know, it's kind of a rite of passage to get your pockets picked on a crowded train, and now I really feel like a New Yorker, so it's really not all that bad.

At the school the teacher I worked with asked me if I thought that there was any chance that the wallet had disappeared in the school rather than on the train, and upon reflection I decided that there was no reason to suspect that one of the kids took it and very good reasons not to imply that I did, so I made no report and didn't say anything to anyone other than the classroom teacher I was with when I found it missing and my director back at the theater.

BUT THEN YESTERDAY I got a call from my director who had gotten a call from the principal of this school saying that they had found my wallet inside a students' desk! I still don't know who's desk it was or what is left in it or anything beyond this, but it has been found and, presumably at least one of my IDs remains because they knew it was mine.

I am left with two emotions now. Firstly, I am relieved that there is a possibility that I won't have to take a NYS driving test and use public restrooms in the village. But, secondly, I am really sad to acknowledge that one of the students I've been working with all semester in my residency went through my purse and took my wallet. Do I say something to the class when I go back on Friday? What on earth would I say? But how can I not say something? At least one of them (and probably more than one because 7th graders can't keep their mouths shut) knows what happened and even though I don't care to find out who did what, I think it should be acknowledged.

One interesting but irrelevant detail to this story: When I went back to class on Friday after realizing that my wallet was gone, the students that I was working with, all of whom had been in the previous class, wrote a scene about a girl getting pressured into joining a gang and, to prove that she was a part of the group, she was told that she had to go steal a wallet from a woman nearby. And the "nearby" indicated by my rising thespians was the exact spot on the floor where my bag had been before I realized that my wallet had gone missing! Crazy world, huh?