I'm absolutely down for golden girls and guys.

I need to get more social with my condo neighbors. This year I hope to have a regular time I go to the gym and pool to connect with the same people regularly. Also, I want to start a book club. There is a condo bulletin board for organizing such things. When we do have social gatherings here I always enjoy the neighbors, and when we share the public areas everyone is always nice. It is a wide variety of ages and nationalities. 2024 goals - be more social and embrace my inner extrovert.

Merry Christmas and/or magnificent Monday to all!

Well the perils of a golden girls situation is you might have a night like tonight where we all suggested Christmas movies, voted on them, turned the first one off an hour in for being depressing, turned the second one off ten minutes in for being awful, and then everyone either wandered off or fell asleep when we picked a third one…

This was us last night! We picked Netflix movies that were supposedly most liked and so forth. The first one was just bleak and awful and bad. The second one was considerably better, because song and dance, but is never going to be a classic. I thought we would try something new, but I think we may have to go back to Miracle on 34th Street and A Christmas Carol next year! Maybe White Christmas too. Something to be said for the classics.

My dip into the MonsterVerse was the right call yesterday. Didn't demand anything from my brain and enjoyable enough. Slight throat thing is staying slight so far.

Merry Christmas to those who are Christmassing today!

This is my first non-Chtistmas Christmas, and I'm pretty much not trying to make it otherwise, because that way lies the blerghs.

Listen, having spent Christmas 2019 in the hospital, I can cope with this! Funnily enough, that Christmas was actually more Christmassy, because my friends had decorated a tree in my room, and there were other decorations, and people visited Christmas Eve and Day, and family came in the 27th for an in-room Christmas, and the nursing staff had given me this super huge "VIP" room when they consolidated wards a couple days before because it was so empty and I had been with them since, basically March, so we were pals.

I remember noting at the time that it was a weird privilege -- I got to see more of my loved people than I usually did on around Christmas. And there was a light at the end of the tunnel with a much hoped for "fix it" surgery coming up. Wouldn't want a repeat, but there was much good there.

Being surrounded with love is absolutely the best way to spend the holiday, even if in the hospital. Nice that it is a good memory now.

My son and GF are visiting for his birthday in January so I booked an Airbnb on a houseboat in Marathon the 20th, and got tickets for the Florida Symphony in Key West that evening. I had wanted to go to that performance here on the 17th, but DH had a basketball game that day and when I looked for other dates I saw the one in Key West. So the Tennessee Williams theater it is! Excursion time. Son's birthday is the 19th, but DH has a game against Marjory Stoneman Douglas that night so we'll be going to that game.

Skipping and skimming to wish y'all who celebrate happy holidays, my weird internet fam. Thank you for sticking with Nilly and myself in the parallel war universe we found ourselves in in the past months.

I think about the two of you constantly. (Having an office near Tel Aviv means I have coworkers there, as I've mentioned. It wouldn't be far from my mind anyhow, what with you and Nilly and other friends, but somehow, having both friends and teammates adds an extra layer of feeling the need for awareness. And worry.)

Susan, OMG! That's horrible. I'm glad you all could wrangle things, but oh no!

Santa Emmett. What a great surprise!

Karl, babe... no need to be anxious; think about how lucky they are to see you!(of course, I'm biased in that, as always) Tep, tough break. Shir, we think of you a lot.

Merry Christmas/Solstice/etc to all! I'm down here in Houston with my folks and feeling very lucky to have both of them. We've reached the point where more of the presents under the tree are mine for them than the other way around.

Merry Christmas everyone! I got in a run in the redwoods, and a hot shower (how are we so lucky to have hot water on demand, think of that!), and ate a custard bun, and now I'm on my way to my sister's to start working on the turkey.

I do not understand all the people who can spend most of Christmas day reading the Yuletide archive: my holiday is always quite busy!

I have made my dutiful Christmas Day phone call, and now if all goes well I won't have to speak to another person until tomorrow. ::fingers crossed::

Turns out this is almost certainly not food poisoning, because now Tim has stomach woes as well. This is probably some kind of gastroenteritis, which blows. We're going to do a drive-by to drop off presents for his family, and then come back home and eat bland food.

We did take Covid tests just to be sure, because Covid can have gastrointestinal symptoms. Tests were negative, so at least we've got that going for us.