The fancy restaurant down the street from me occasionally serves cabbage rolls stuffed with beef, pork, rice, and tomato sauce, and they are incredibly good. Better than all their other dishes except maybe braised leg of lamb.

I thought I spied Aurelia—. If you are here, I think I remember that you work for The Guthrie? The costume designer for The Little Prince (Olivera) is someone I have worked with at the UR. Those are some fun costumes!

Wrong midwest regional starting with a G. I'm at the Goodman.

Travel plans are now cancelled. I did get my car back with the window repaired and I probably could get there before the bomb cyclone hits, but I don't think Gilda can do 8 hours in the car. So I'll get some groceries in the morning and hunker down.

We are supposed to fly out Thursday mid-morning, and the other options don’t really work well so we’re riding the knife edge and hoping the storm trends late rather than early.

Wrong midwest regional starting with a G. I'm at the Goodman.

How embarrassing!

The forecast for Christmas day here is a high of 61, which means we break out the parkas (if we owned them). This is kind of a bummer because the kids won't be able to go to the beach. I plan to make my bedroom into kid zone with the tv for YouTube or movies or whatever. I have a huge beanbag and will have lots of pillows so they can sprawl wherever. There are only 5 little ones so it should be okay. They just want to play on their devices anyway.

It is supposed to be 47 here overnight on Christmas Eve!! Exciting stuff. It means iguana drop which is amusing and freaks out the tourists.

Toddson glad you’re doing ok!

It means iguana drop which is amusing and freaks out the tourists.

It's the spirit of the season!

Frozen reptiles tumbling to earth, that's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

I got all my xmas cards out! Some of you will receive Krampus stickers, and others Vintage Travel Posters (in stamp form) on your envelopes.

I need to do more xmas shopping tomorrow and I'll need to actually get in the car. Bah.

My entire fam is a bit off and wonky right now. Emmett's been stressed and down, Matilda has been sleeping 16 hours a day since break, and JZ has mystery abdominal pains which are putting her off her kibble.

On the plus side, inspired by Kiki's Delivery Service, I've decided (against all common sense) to make a Fish Pie for xmas: [link]

Lemon dill cream sauce leeks and mushroom.

I'm not doing Kiki's Herring & Pumpkin pie: [link]

Timelies all!

Hi Todd!

Well, today went better. No meltdowns. Let's hope this continues, although I only have one more day of wrangling Mr. S for a while.(Gary works from home Thursday and has off from work Dec 23-Jan 2.)

Fish pie sounds great!

I'm invited to my nephew-in-law's extended family Christmas Eve party, which is a seven-fishes feast. I don't recall ever seeing fish pie, though.

Stay warm, y'all! It's been in the high 30s here at night, which is hella cold for us; if it got down into the teens I would likely never leave the house.

I have so much wrapping to do, but I don't know about boxes: I grew up just wrapping the thing, so all my gifts look kind of weird and lumpy.

Bubble wrap for the lot of you. Pix, I hope that knee heals up right -- reminds me painfully of my left elbow.

Appropriate expressions of affection and solidarity all around, naughty or nice as you prefer. It's been a hard three-years-in-one for so many of us; it gladdens my heart to read about us taking care of ourselves and each other.

Thanks for being here, Buffistas.