The Weekend is Upon Us ...

Once again I seem to be running on a treadmill.  Tuesday was my Ottawa class and errand day.  The rest of the week was spent dealing with things I'd left undone while writing and traveling.  The cedar siding is almost completely installed now and I love it.  But now I have an incredibly large mess to clean up.

Friday  morning I called Pat and learned that she will be released soon ... but not home as she had hoped.  She will be sent back to the Whittington Hospital as soon as they have a bed for her.  Her white blood cell count is very low.  Later I took my car in to have a number of small things done to it (small as in almost $800). 

Then I completed the little sweater and printed the Nanowrimo novel (I really have to start calling it something else.  Its working title was "Men of My Dreams".     Today I will start re-reading it ...  if I can.  A blog reader posted an interesting comment on the final Nanowrimo entry.

Friday evening Pat and Julie came bearing dessert ... and their wedding photos.  Before they left, Pat changed some light bulbs in my high ceilinged den so that I could see again while working at the computer.  I wish he'd arrived at the beginning of Nanowrimo month  instead of the beginning of December :-)

Christmas is coming ... I am not sure how I feel about Christmas this year.  One part of me still remembers how much I always loved Christmas.  The other part of me dreads it.  Christmas has not been a truly happy time for me since the Christmas of 1994 ... 15 Christmases ago. But I think it all began to unravel before that.

I remember it as a warm gathering together of everyone I love.  When everyone I loved was a small group of people it was easier to create that kind of Christmas.  As a kid, it was just my father and me.  Later it was my father, my Oma and me.  Still later my children became part of the circle.  And, when there were spouses, they joined the circle of love that surrounded me.  As my children made their own lives they created their own circles of love.

I have a feeling that once children grow  up and have children of their own who are not easy to transport, those Christmas circles become smaller again.  They shrink back to the original couples.  I hope that isn't true.  I would hate to think that Kenya and I will be toasting one another with tea and Dentistix on Christmas morning.

Good grief (she said with some asperity) get a grip!  December 25 is just another day on the calendar. And a few days after Christmas your house will be filled with Mud Mama's gang, and you will be wondering when they will finally leave so that you can hear yourself think again.

And, she went on, think about how lucky you are to be able to spend Christmas on Pike Lake with your dog.

Pat will likely spend her Christmas in a London hospital room with her partner, her sons and their families visiting.

Pat and Julie are planning to divide Christmas into neat little segments: Christmas Eve, Christmas brunch and Christmas dinner which they will spend in a variety of places. They are trying to reduce the amount of traveling they are forced to do on Christmas Day.  (The simplest way to do that is to have babies!)

Tamarak is not sure whether she will be in Trois Rivieres or Ottawa or Hull, and she doesn't know if  her dog will have four legs or three this Christmas.  She feels like hiding under a blanket till it's all over.

What are you all doing for Christmas?

You are all welcome to join Kenya and me for tea and Dentistix... or ... if I know in time ... for something a little more appetizing.