| Monday December 9th, 2002 This weekend featured a massive - okay, fair-sized - effort on my part to accomplish all my Christmas shopping in 'one fell swoop', and I nearly succeeded. Only three or four more items to track down, none of which should be especially difficult, and I'm done. I'm having a bit of fun with LA. We seem to have a personality clash where Christmas is concerned, since she wants to know everything up front and I want everything to be a surprise. I'm contemplating leaving her gifts in the care of her parents, just to be on the safe side ... :) I'm also having a bit of fun with my parents. Sooner or later they'll realize I haven't asked them what they want for Christmas this year. I contemplated making an effort to do so but I figure I'm too late now to pull off a proper ruse. So I guess I'll just let each of them try to figure out what's up. I'm somewhat appalled at the cost of Christmas cards. I would never go without them, but I always thought of them as relatively cheap. That illusion has been thoroughly put to rest, since my bill at Hallmark was larger than pretty much everywhere else. I have a computer and a printer - maybe I should start getting creative next year ... I haven't purchased a single Christmas decoration item yet, and I'm not certain I will. I won't be hosting anyone for the holidays, just visiting other people; and I don't trust my own tastes in decoration. I've the odd feeling that whatever I chose would inevitably look tacky and awkward, so I'll wait until there's a woman in my home again to assist me. I've already found just the person for the job (hint! hint!). A most welcome Christmas gift would be a last visit with the lawyer so my ex and I can get our paperwork cleaned up. All I'm waiting for now is a statement of my current pension amount - which unfortunately is considerably more work than it sounds. I had severe trouble just figuring out who to ask; now I've joined the queue of people waiting for our friendly neighbourhood pay advisor to respond. What are they waiting for ... Christmas? Okay, that was a very sad clich�, I apologize. Tonight is my first meeting with the new critique group I've joined. Hopefully it's a good bunch and will put me back in a fiction-writing frame of mind. |