I'm glad you like it, Ouise! (The pencils, btw, are from this teeny store in Florence that makes hand-marbled paper. At one of the museums in Florence, I saw similar paper on a telescope from the 1600s or 1700s.)

Hope you feel better soon.

The final piece of my santee's gift finally arrived last night. I will mail it tomorrow!

So. 2006. It was not, on the whole, a complete waste, by any stretch. There was much love, happiness, joy, and other pleasant words, had in 2006, but I still can't say I was sorry to see it go.

There was also a lot of pain, scary stuff, stress and sadness, both for myself and people I love. Pain and scariness nobody should have to go through. I certainly went through things that placed enormous strain on my relationship, and I and other loved ones were tested hard by events in the world and in their lives.

The world, which seemed to be spiraling out of control, maybe took a tiny step toward sanity, though the spiraling is still going.

I still live with the woman I love, and I coninue to be surrounded by beautiful friends and family. I am still managing to scrape out a living in a (vaguely defined) career I love, in a city that I love (one that can be capricious to people in my line of work).

2007 has already started to show some teeth, so it may have it's own ups and down, but I continue to hope it will treat us all better than 2006 did, in the balance of things.

(The pencils, btw, are from this teeny store in Florence that makes hand-marbled paper. At one of the museums in Florence, I saw similar paper on a telescope from the 1600s or 1700s.)

Wow! That's so cool! That makes an excellent story for showing them off.

I just slept all afternoon and am moving to the lying-on-the-couch-with-tea-watching-dvds portion of my day. Thanks again!

My santee's gift went out yesterday, at long last. I'm going to India tomorrow (er, make that today) and won't be back until the 31st, so, to my secret santa: no rush!

Woot! Picked up my secret santa gift at the post office yesterday, where they'd been holding it as a suspicious, possibly explosive delivery from Canadian terrorists. Sue sent me a hockey trivia game, a hockey day calendar, Bruins stickers, some yummy Canadian candy, wonderfully fragrant puck-shaped soap (I love the On Shanti scent!), and a scary-ass boxing Santa pen whose evil red eyes haven't stopped glowing since yesterday.

Thanks very much Sue, it's all great!

Oh, Matt, I meant to post earlier about this: I went to Ottawa over the holidays to spend Xmas with the in-laws, and who was on our 40-seater commuter jet from Boston but Zdeno Chára! I has no idea who he was, but at 6' 9" he's hard to miss. While waiting in line at Canadian customs, I saw a couple take a photo with him and so I later asked them who he was and they told me. One of the in-laws thought that his girlfriend still lived in Ottawa.

I'm glad you like it Matt. As a Canadian I felt I had to represent the hockey.

Santa really does exist, and is named Kate P. Thanks, Kate, for a wonderful gift that was worth the wait!! In my box, I got the most wonderful book that I have been drooling over since I discovered the author, "Knitting Without Tears," by Elizabeth Zimmerman. As if that weren't enough, I also got the Serenity comic that's a prequel to the movie (I'm not usually into comics, but I will make exceptions for just about anything related to Firefly, and have been green-eyed over this book as well). Then there were adorable kitty and penguin stamps and ink pads (the really nice kind). And chocolate. You just can't go wrong with chocolate. Plus, there was an adorable card. I can see that I'll have to celebrate Groundhog Day this year, perhaps with a completed knit project and that chocolate (or, what chocolate remains by then - some is already gone)!

It has been wonderful. I started soaking up Ms. Zimmerman's great tips and droll humor last night, and can't wait to go home this evening and keep reading. Who knows. Perhaps her great tips will result in a sweater or hat or some such for my sekrit santee next year!

Thank you so much Kate!

You know what sucks? when you don't know your Santee very well, but you collect some fun stuff, and some kind of general stuff that you think that they might like. You wait for the final item, you get ready to send it out, but THEN, the idea for the perfect gift hits you, but it's January 20, and it will take a while to make it happen! Grrrr.