It's minus 9 (C). Which is as cold as I have ever heard of it being in this country. I'm glad I bought a new hat and scarf yesterday.

Congrats to lisah!

In diamond shoes news, I want to go everywhere and do everything when we go to England in May and I am ovewhelmed by the options.

You should go everywhere and do everything. (But feel free to ask for more specific destination-based advice than that.)

I should not have to deal with either wisdom teeth or grey hair at 30! And certainly not both at the same time!

At 32, I have a lot of grey, and have had two wisdom teeth come through. Embrace the graceful ageing, Hil. (Or dye your hair red like I do.)

Daisy Jane, your post made me want to go to India. Keep having fun!

(As a side note, to a person, everytime we told people we were American, the first thing they said was "Obama!" He is a great man!"

What a lovely shift from how Americans used to be perceived abroad. Good to hear.

Feel better, smonster.

Home now from opera, and the joys of loading it out, and prepping for next quarters shows that happen first week the students are back. This was the first full opera I've ever been to. Sad to say, it was blah. Hansel was played by a girl (don't know if that is common). All the ladies vocal ranges sounded the same, with the exception of a couple high note kinds of things. Hansel & Gretel sounded the same vocal tone, only Gretel could sing louder. Which made it harder to understand what they were saying. And the orch sounded ok, but LOTS of wrong notes. I don't know the score, and I could hear it was wrong at times. eh. It's a student production.

DJ, welcome home! So happy to hear you had a great time. I'm sad that I'm not in Dallas to properly debrief you on the fab trip. But appreciate the stories in here. Glad the folks on the train exchanged e-mails with y'all. Such a great story! Is Jon feeling better? give him a howdy from me.

There was more. But too tired to remember it all. Can't wait for Saturday. There will be NO alarms on Saturday. Or Sunday.

I saw a production of Hansel & Gretel at the SF Opera but I barely remember anything about it.

Kicking off my holiday nostalgia by watching "Holiday Inn". I can't believe people know "White Christmas" and don't know "Holiday Inn". It's one of the few times I can think of where the sequel is more popular than the original.

Brrr cold. According to the weather forecast, the next time it will be above freezing here will be Friday.

I need a hat. I had a hat, but I'm not sure where it went, and I've not been buying a new one because I know that, once I buy a new one, I'll find my old one, but really, I need to get over that and just buy a hat.

I have a scarf. It matches my hat, which I can't find.

It's minus 9 (C). Which is as cold as I have ever heard of it being in this country. I'm glad I bought a new hat and scarf yesterday.

We had about the same temperature for a high yesterday. This early in the winter (wait, technically, it isn't even winter yet) we aren't ready for that kind of cold. So it feels worse. Driving home from work yesterday, I saw a woman walking by the side of the road, not near any homes or anything worth walking to in that cold. I decided it was too cold to leave her there. So I stopped. Turns out, the poor thing was trying to get to the pharmacy before it closed. That was far enough away, she might not have made it. So I happily drove her there, and then home again. She rewarded me with a nice hot cup of coffee, and we had a nice chat about cats and dogs, and moving (she was in the middle of a move, and her car crapped out).

Kicking off my holiday nostalgia by watching "Holiday Inn". I can't believe people know "White Christmas" and don't know "Holiday Inn". It's one of the few times I can think of where the sequel is more popular than the original.

Wait, I'm confused, I thought the movie "Holiday Inn" was the same movie as "White Christmas", it's just that the song is so popular that people got mixed up. Huh. Turns out, I was mixed up. Well, in that case, I'm glad to have been straightened out.

I need a hat. I had a hat, but I'm not sure where it went, and I've not been buying a new one because I know that, once I buy a new one, I'll find my old one, but really, I need to get over that and just buy a hat.

It's winter in Pennsylvania. You need more than one hat anyway. And more than one scarf, too. See also, mittens or gloves.

I have plenty of gloves. The skin on my hands starts cracking and bleeding sometime around Halloween if I don't wear gloves.

Sorry, I was feeling kind of mother-y there.

I have a warmish jacket that got me through several winters in DC, but it's already getting too cold for that jacket here. My mom is sending me a new jacket from LL Bean as a Chanukah present.