Good on you, Mac!

Hello, Karl!

Yikes, Kate.

We have had a totally chill day, and it has been wonderful. Stockings after pancakes and eggs. Then opened a present every once in a while until about 5p, when we had our Chinese food and started Wonder Woman. I am now making my mom's fudge recipe while DP naps. Zoomed with family at 2p. Oh! And didn't get out of bed until after 9a, which was great. My niece normally wake us all up at 6a (mind you, she's 22 now. Doesn't matter. )

Happy Christmas, Christmas-keeping people! We had my brother come over for dinner. It's been almost a year since we could see him in person. (Ryan was very glad to see one of his uncles again, and has concluded that the two of us are really weird.)

My other brother was off to Canberra, but we'll catch up with him in January.

Karl! So nice to see you.

Caught up here! I've been busy enough at work that I'm all spirited-out. R arranged for a heat-it-yourself turkey dinner from Whole Foods which was quite nice and we had a sit-down dinner.

I haven't heard from any relatives. That's not helping my mild depression any.

Jealous you can have people over, billetea!

I cruelly abandoned the dog for about an hour, to go rescue friends whose car had broken down (and who had their dog with them so couldn’t get an Uber, and mine wouldn’t fit with all them). He was very relieved when I came home. And barked a lot while I was gone.

It feels a hell of a lot later than 430

That’s really wonderful msbelle. And Karl! Lovely to see you as always.

Seriously craving trout dip right now.

We did not have the Xmas we were planning (who did, really?) but it’s been okay. With my dad in the hospital and no real idea for how long we had to go retrieve his dog and then decided just to move Xmas there anyway. We’d already planned to have a traditional Canadian tourtiere that my mom used to make for Christmas Eve, and he was going to get Indian takeout for Christmas Day so I went ahead and made the pie on Tuesday and picked up the Indian food yesterday and then we loaded up gifts and decorations and everything and moved it all lock stock and barrel to Wisconsin.

Highlights: He got sprung! He came home about 2 o’clock today. His dog and mine are just over the moon to have him back. We’re pretty chuffed too.

The food has been great and just the level of comfort we needed. The new Xmas addition to the cabin is an electric fireplace with a mantel which is just so soothing and mellow so we’re all blissfully crashed out.

We’ve rolled with the punches and dropped what needed dropping and it’s been real good.

.

Oh, that’s good to read, brenda!

Oh god, except for this. All’s well now but Mozzie had an adventure last night and Hilary and I both lost a year off our lives, probably.

It was 7 degrees and dark and we realized we couldn’t see him anymore so we ran around the yard with flashlights and then H spotted footprints leading out on to the new ice in the creek.

We’re both completely freaking out and then I spotted him coming towards us in the neighbor’s yard. He ran across the ice to the end of their dock and then thank dog turned and went back to land. I grabbed his collar and basically flipped him up and over the fence and carried him inside while my sister hyperventilated behind us.

Holy jeebus dog. I went and looked at the footprints again this morning and started shaking all over again. He was pretty shell shocked too, probably from our reactions and being yanked over the fence. (The fences go down to the water line so the only ‘go around’ option is on the ice/water. Very very glad it didn’t come to that.)

Mozzie! No!

Meep

Mozzie! Yikes!!

Merry merry, everyone. I Zoomed with friends from Minneapolis (the host's birthday is today, so he moved his usual bar celebration to Zoom), we went down to see Lee and give her presents from 6 feet away, and now we're going to have the Trader Joe's Beef en Croute, for the novel experience of not really cooking on Xmas Day. (Heating things up from frozen does not count.)