A run on the boat is an excellent thing. Sounds fun, and good company!!

I went out dancing with a friend, and shockingly the music was good and the place was hopping! Eventually though, it got too crowded, and we grabbed a slice of pizza and some frybread (from the Native American food truck), and chilled (literally) outside for a bit before taking off. Probably if we were 10-15 years younger we would just now be showing up at the bar, but c'est la vie. Good time anyway.

Am I really the first person to post today? WTF folks?

I have been there and back again. With there being Cheyenne to see Val and hubby. We had munchies at Texas Roadhouse and totally forgot to take pictures. But it did happen. So lovely to see the two of them together. Seeing happily married folks does my bitter heart good.

I suggested to CJ that he could invite a few buddies over for tomorrow night and he invited something like 10 guys (please let most of them have other plans) starting at 2pm in the afternoon. Oy!!! I was thinking more like 6pm. Teenage boys.

Jealous of Pix-ND-Laura fam time! And the boat ride! Sounds like so much fun. And Suzi got to see Val and her DH, love all these mini-f2fs during the holidays.

Nora, sending you lots of whatever ~ma will be most helpful to you.

I have been there and back again as well! Had a wonderful and talky visit with Ginger last night. There were some interesting dynamics between Mr. P and Frankie; they may have ended up frenemies. My darling dumbass dog couldn't stop snitching Mr. P's food, and he was rightfully displeased.

Am finally home, have unpacked a bunch of stuff and reorganized some things in the kitchen. Swept the kitchen floor, too. I think I'm running out of steam - going to do a to-do braindump for tomorrow, maybe eat some cheese toast, then shower and bed.

Apparently I have a line of good taste that cannot be crossed. At least, not without raucous laughter on my part. Tim is trying on shirts to go with his New Year's Eve outfit (a dark red velvet smoking jacket and tight [TIIIIIIGHT] black PVC pants), and...I think he has a figure-skater's leotard. It's all bedazzled and shit. I think I need to stage an intervention.

I cannot stop laughing.

(But holy god, THOSE PANTS.)

I think I need to stage an intervention.

Potentially, yes. And, yet? I am thinking pictures. Because there is also evilness in me.

Did we know pomegranate trees lost their leaves in winter? It makes them hard to identify until you find fruit corpses.

There was snow today at Joshua Tree Nat'l Park. It was swirly and thankfully failed to stick until after we'd driven out. But I think some campers are in for a gorgeous but chilly holiday. There were still a ton of visitors and climbers.

Bleargh. After a trip to the walk-in clinic, a diagnosis of bronchitis, and prescriptions for antibiotics (just finished day 4 of 5), pearls and an albuterol inhaler, I still feel like worn-out, beat-up crap, and just woke up with goop rattling in my lungs and a coughing fit that left my diaphragm aching.

I guess I feel a little better than before the visit and the meds, kind of? But I swear the last time I had antibiotics plus an inhaler the feel-better-instantly effect was nigh magical, and this time there's no magic at all.

Whinewhinewhine.

Oh, JZ, that sucks. I hope you are on the mend soon and that you're over the worst. Being sick is awful but being that sick through the holidays is especially horrible.

Aw, thanks. I feel extra-guilty because Matilda has been a big bundle of snuggles for the last few weeks, and now she's coughing intermittently. Not like I am, but a few weeks ago I wasn't coughing like I am now either. Best call the doctor's office tomorrow and ask for advice before her crap turns into mine.

As penance for the whininess, here's a story of minor coolness:

At my dad's house today, I spent a bunch of time with him going over a stash of old Life magazines he'd found in a corner of his garage and laughing/gasping in disbelief at the ads, the New Look fashions and the stories about GOP leaders making statements and pushing policies that'd get them staked in the heart and buried at the crossroads by today's GOP.

And in the 12/15/61 issue, I found a completely croggling article about a Smith College sophomore who was baffling her friends and family by being a nice, smart, pretty, ordinary, all-American girl who... liked to run (her mother said, "I don't know what she's doing it for, but she's out there every day"). Because US running organizations forbade women to run marathons, 5Ks (or whatever the 1961 version thereof was), or in fact any race longer than a half mile for fear the stress would cause their uteri to fall out, she'd made a habit of scoping out the routes of local "road races," hiding out a block or so past the start point and the scoldy race officials, and then jumping in as the first pack of runners passed by. The article's tone was horrendously patronizing, and baffled, and cheerfully, "Oh, those eccentric college girls! This one sure is weird, but what a cutie!"

When I got home, I Googled her out of sheer irritation at the article, all the while pretty certain I wouldn't find anything but some Smith alumnae class notes. I was so, so wrong.

Very cool, JZ!