ASTRONAUT TAKOYAKI. OMG WANT.

Having fun in Sechelt! Mom & Pop have been spoiling us with gourmet meals. Mango salmon with spaetzle and roasted mini-squash! Prawn, blue cheese, and pear green salad! I am promised a Julia Child omelet party in the morning. <3

Dad has a collection of rocks that look like potatoes, which he collected on the beach in a manic fervor with their last house-guest. He swears they weren't drinking or smoking anything but cannot explain exactly how they came to go on this quest. I have composed the Potato Rock Reel for him. "Potato rocks are a specialty item! The look like food but you shouldn't bite 'em!" (It goes on at great length, but that's quite enough I think.) He and mum are going shopping for gum boots and have signed up for a bird-watching course. I can't decide if they've been assimilated by the Sunshine Coast or are just going through all the possible coast-er activities as quickly as possible before getting bored and moving back to the Mainland. Mom says I am too cynical, but we'll just see!

The Safety Llama, which mom has taken to calling the Dalai Llama, is displayed prominently on their front stoop. The neighbours still look more ridiculous. One side: a tiny pine tree with 18 or 19 giant bows on it. Other side: a plastic wasp and a Norwegian flag. Well, maybe I could make a tiny tiara so Safety Llama would stand out.

OKAY NO

Off to Sechelt for a couple days! Well, just overnight, actually, but I have a giant stack of luggage because I'm bringing my jola to play for mom and dad, and then that means I bring a rolly suitcase because wearing another backpack along with the backpack banjo case is too tricky, and then as long as I have a goddamn SUITCASE I might as well cram it full of extra books and my favourite blanket and some stuffed toys so my laptop doesn't feel like it's in a rock tumbler, and in short order I'm a one-woman caravan. Joe's coming along this time too, and he, by contrast, has a one-third-full daypack, plus a gameboy in his pocket. (Really! Though he says he is also happy to see me.) I think I could have fit all his stuff in my purse, and then folded him up - he's very foldable - in my suitcase to save on ferry fare, but then I'd have a terrible time on the escalator, and besides, I have a BC Ferries gift card anyway. (This was the HINT HINT HINT present from Santa, who has recently moved to Sechelt as I understand it.)

I love crossing the Lion's Gate Bridge! (Or is it the Lions' Gate Bridge? Or the Lions Gate Bridge? All three versions seem plausible. There are two lion sculptures being all gate-y, and then the bridge is sort of a gate to The Lions, two mountain peaky items, and then it depends how possessive all these creatures are feeling, and perhaps how hard they growled at the municipal registrar and/or the Queen.) The majestic view of the port cranes and the sulfur piles!!! And I suppose Stanley park, the mountains, the Pacific ocean, the gulf islands, and the forest, yawn ho hum. NEON YELLOW SULFUR PILES!!!

Curses! I cannot find the words to Frenobulax! It was my earnest desire to torment my husband by singing this haunting anthem in the car, but instead I shall have to sing over and over the opening lines, which are all I can remember.

We're on our way home from our dear friends' annual wine & cheese party, where I heard the most wonderful toast:

"To absent friends! And to absent-minded friends! Actually, that's probably why they're not here."

What's! On! My! Camera!

Mostly christmas dinner.

I had a morning latte with my parents, after almost a week of no coffee on account of illness, and felt Very! Energetic! upon my return and determined to mount on the wall the lovely framed photo of Joe & I they gave us for christmas. All of the hammers in this house have gone in to hiding. If I needed a plumb bob, a mitre box, an enormous vise, a mason's pointing trowel, or a metric wrench, no problem, but the hammers are off taking their stat holiday in Cuba I don't doubt. Anyway, after a frustrating but ultimately fruitful half hour in which I employed the services of a copy of the Merck Manual, a can of soup, a 1.25lb dumbbell plate, a butter knife and finally a piece of dental floss, I succeeded in mounting the picture. As I stood back to admire the placement, I knocked the neighbouring photo, my favourite wedding photo (Joe is pretending to be a zombie eating my brains and I look quite sad about it) on to the slate floor and the frame shattered. ARGHH! But I had a spare frame of identical design, and after a bit of sweeping up and confiscating bits of glass from the cats, the front hall looks very dapper and I feel terribly accomplished. Now I think I will have a bit of stollen and try to stop wiggling quite so much.

I sent my father home with a guitar! He is keen to pick it up to be able to jam along with me when I visit! ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥!!!!! He plays violin and flute, (in a "I was in a local symphony 30 years ago but only pick them up once or twice a year these days" kind of way) but we've never played together. (I don't think he knows any guitar, but I have pictures of him playing mandolin in the 70s. I'm sure he'll pick it up right quick.) He was SO happy when I took up first guitar and then banjo. I had years of piano lessons as a child and we had a lot of tearful "I want to quit!" "Noooooo" "Okay maybe six months more" exchanges until I finally gave it up. He despaired of having any musical children, (I was in choirs on and off, but it's not the same, see) mourned over it, and then out of the blue I fell in love with the banjo. I'm so excited to get to play with him soon. I think this is my best christmas present, much as I am in lust with my new hat.

I am MUCH better! Amoxicillin, kiss kiss! Well, no kiss kiss yet, I might still be infectious, but tomorrow perhaps.

My parents and Joseph and I are watching "one last episode," (the tenth today) of Black Books, which I was given for christmas - yay! Mum and I are laughing ourselves stupid and I made a new icon while we ate some christmas chocolate.

Joe and I hosted xmas dinner at our house for the first time, and both of our families came. Ohhh the eatings. We made: braised rabbit with pancetta & fermented black beans, wisconsin-in-a-pan (taters, onions, kielbasa, thick-sliced bacon, and rather a lot of heavy cream,) broccoli & cheese sauce, creamed onions, a million mashed potatoes, a cheese plate, lemon meringue pie, grumpy punch, and a green salad. It was such a Lunderville event: the evening ended with Tom, Ben & Dad driving off to my sister's apartment to fix the fuse box and rewire some things. Hee hee hee. (Well, that makes it Such An Abbey Event too. I just really, really found the right family to marry in to.) It feels so right to fill our house up with people and feed them way too much food. (Speaking of which, are you all coming to our New Year's Eve party?)

Joe and I made a safety llama! My parents moved to Sechelt a couple months ago and all their neighbours have hideously ugly lawn ornaments - buoys, driftwood sculptures, plastic animals (the neighbours have a wasp,) etc. Except for mom and dad! They're outcasts! We had to remedy this situation. Seph bought a wicker reindeer, pulled off all the christmas bits (which made it look rather less like a deer) and spray-painted it orange. I made a jaunty sequined scarf and a shiny rainbow-checked-lycra saddle blanket for it. It's very, er, subtle. Now I just have to make sure it actually leaves the house with them tomorrow when they go back home.

I got the most awesome hat from santa. It's the same style as my beloved burlap cap which I lost in Seattle last February (I blame the space needle,) but soft brown fabrics with a wee embroidered bee and some crazy honeycomb hexagons. Traditionally mom & dad give me a really ugly bee ornament of some kind, but this is actually quite tasteful and I may not take it off for the next week. <3

Merry Christmas! I am so grateful for each of you. This is truly the best Christmas ever.

MY THROAT DOESN'T HURT! Oh god time for KD stat. I am putting on PANTS and eating SOLID FOOD without crying in pain! Still super dizzy, so I think some frisky strep are taking a nap in my ear canals, but Admiral Amoxicillin should evict them pretty soon. Despite being too dizzy to stand up for more than a few minutes on end, I've had to be talked out of going to work twice so far. Wanna be at worrrrrk! At this point there's so little left of the work day that I think I'm resigned to not going.

Bacon permeates the air here. Joe and I watched the star trek episode with the soliton wave, which looks like SPACE BACON. Then I proofread a short story in which a *spoiler* *spoils* a pound of raw bacon, and exclaimed "BACON!" Joe poked his head in my room to announce "There's a bacon probability cloud in the fridge! There are two regions in which P=1!" This morning I am going to collapse the probability cloud by observing it. Inside my belly.

I got here in my semi; finding a parking spot that would be safe for 7 days that wasn't on a hill that wasn't too far from the labyrinth and where the truck wouldn't get mired in beach sand was tricky, but I managed. I took out all of the furniture, ran it through the conveyor belt, and put it back. Everything is topsy turvy and will need a lot of rearranging later, but oh well, this only happens once a year. The sky is blue blue blue, the grass is green, the goal posts are white, it's time to enter the house of transdimensional amazement! This year it's a series of rooms. You have to solve the puzzle and choose the right door to exit. Everyone has a headband which alters the correct answers to their puzzles. Mine is orange, made of flagging tape. I'm doing quite well! I run in to vixy a lot in the maze - she has a purple leather headband, but we're on the same track a lot. Eventually we are in the lead! But then we and everyone else get stuck in the s00j puzzle room. You have to remember very clearly the details of the first s00j book to pass it. Tiptoe along the tightrope, chanting happy birthday, then the bell rings the number of times of how old she was in that book and you are left with the correct length of rope to lower yourself to just the right door to exit, and there are a dozen doors to choose from. Well, we both read the s00j series as proofreaders and they changed the age for legal reasons and we just can't get it right and it's SO annoying. Vixy frowns and puts on a fox mask and decides to be an alarming gargoyle enhancing the atmosphere if she can't win anyway. I go through the wrong door, again, in to the intermediate level of ladders and river stones and candles and sand, which loops around back to the start, and use my pocket knife to cut a hole in the canvas walls. They are having a picnic with birthday cake and so many strawberries in the centre of the lawn and that sounds better than the grand prize to me. I can't even remember what the grand prize is. Strubberies! I save some in a napkin for vixy when she gets done being a rampaging fox gargoyle.

Which is to say: still have a fever!

Blech, called in sick for tomorrow too and (here is how you know I really am sick) cancelled tonight's banjo lesson. There were gonna be banjo cookies! But none for me, boohoo.

I'm on antibiotics now, though, so I should be on the mend soon. My doctor is on vacation, but she has The Most Irish Locum Possible in her place. I was charmed out of my socks. (Well, no, my socks stayed on. Charmed on to a tongue depressor?) His eyebrows were like 3 inches tall and oh the incomprehensible brogue! It matched his terrible handwriting. "Aren't you a bit old to be havin' strep throat, my dear?" But I do, more's the pity. Since he is about a hundred years old, he isn't one of these silly young doctors who prescribe macrolides at the drop of the hat when amoxicillin would do perfectly well. Which is an issue I feel vaguely strongly about in the abstract, but am quite adamant about in my personal health care. Because chewable amoxicillin (at least, novo brand) is quite tasty and all the liquid macrolide formulations are really disgusting.

I'm on christmas vacation now, I suppose! Having called in for tomorrow, I'm not back at work until the 30th. Here's to, er, being able to stand up for more than a minute without getting dizzy, hopefully in time to cook christmas dinner. Joe is on vacation too as of today and is out shopping for our feast. I'm making rabbit with pancetta and fermented black bean. (And some without this last, don't worry allergic brother-in-law.) And I will eat it no matter HOW much my throat hurts. Because BUNNY. BACON bunny. I win.

Now I will go lie down a lot.