Beverly - that was my favorite part of cards this year. C would ask how I knew each person as he signed cards. After all the answers of "Buffistas" he stopped asking. But it made me giggle. I had explained my Buffy friends to him a while ago, so he knows about my imaginary friends on the internets.

Not that I know of, Beverly. Nikolais, Olegs (I forgot about the multiple Olegs), Vsevelod, Igor, Boris, but not even a Vladimir. Unless my brother's cat counts.

(I just wanted an excuse to put y'all and Wolodimr in the same sentence) We have two Borys-es, a Bohdan and an Ihor, several Natalias, and an Effie June, a Lula Mae, a Lillie Belle, and a Maud Eliza.

The Wolodimr/y'all juxtaposition did not even strike me as unusual, which is amusing me now.

Oh, yeah, Natalias, Irenas, Melania, Shirleymae, Weed, Reno, several Minors (family name), I forgot about the multiple Barrys, too. Quite the variety.

You know, I'd say goodbye and good riddance to 2016, except I'm scared of what 2017 will bring.

Yeah I keep thinking I want to write a summary but this year? My goodness.

The good: took Megan Walker to Hawaii where we had lots of fun and even snuck in a visit with Debitesse and her awesome boyfriend; house renovations all complete; drove around New England visiting people I love (VW, SJ, Jesse! And lovely spouses and babies), seeing beautiful trees and states number 48 and 49 - all I have left in my "Fitty before Fitty" quest is Alaska; two wonderful visits by Joanna and Sean and Noelle that proved that some houseguests actually don't stink after 3 days (they stayed nearly a week for 4th of July and Thanksgiving).

The bad: pretty much everything else. First time in my life suffering from very bad sleep, anxiety nightmares, etc. Realizing that I love being single and independent maybe a little too much (because my stridency about my independence pushes people away and isolates me at times) and while I have friends all over the world, my closest friends have all either moved away or are unavailable. It's very strange that I can pack a week full of fun friends doing fun stuff when I travel, but friends who will go to movies and hang out and confide in me locally are scarce. It's a little depressing.

OK, my Secret Santa box hit the mail today. All is in the hands of the fine people of the US Postal Service.

I got a package from S Claus comtaining flat things including nerdy socks and the first vol of Lumberjanes (which I've been wanting to read for AGES. And best of all, a hint of more to come, which I hope includes a proper reveal so I can properly thank!

The second part of my gift came and it was the third volume of The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories (aka one of JGL's HitRecord productions). PERFECT. My Secret Santa rocks. :-)

WONDERFUL