My social calendar was quite full this weekend. Things got kicked off Friday with an invite to Bill and Sue's. They are both great hosts and Sue is an excellent cook. She had a nice array of hors d'oeuvres and drinky-drinks. The topic of blogging came up. "Why would you do that?" she exclaimed. "I tell my daughter, 'If you don't want anyone to find something out, don't write it down!'" Most of us present were bloggers; we told her that not everyone blogs about embarrassing trips to the doctor. Some of us treat blogging more like a newspaper column. We may blog about sports, or movies, or wacky incidents in our lives, without TMI. Bill was concerned that, by blogging, we might run out of things to say when we saw our friends in person. Now, this is actually a concern of mine, silly as it may seem. Since I can't say too much about work here, for instance, I always have stuff to chat about in "meat space".
Saturday night was Sid and Ken's big Yule dinner. She had quite a crowd, and served tons of food. (By the way, Sid, I've decided I have to make that pumpkin souffle dish for Christmas. Please send me the recipe, or, heck, post it here for everyone.) Other highlights were the ham, of course, lots of yummy white wine, and a dessert selection that included raspberry cheese (much better than it may sound), and too many cookies. Gamera brought a neat story-telling game, which I would have played if I had imbibed more.
The gift exchange was pretty funny. Seems Bri had drawn my name, only the slip of paper with my name went through the wash. Oops. So he had to pick a gift that anyone in our group would like - he went with food, excellent choice, a fancy mojo sauce and balsamic dipping oil, and an aerodynamic spatula. The way he explained his predicament was pretty hilarious.
I'm certainly not one to judge when it comes to gift exchange snafus; I drew Lunchbox's name, but I waited a bit late to order his gift, so it didn't arrive in time for the party. Silly me. As a result, he had the dubious distinction of being the first recipient of some of my Bad Art. I have recently decided that, for a while, anyway, that my homehade gifty items will consist of photography by Yours Truly. Now, usually that will mean that people will get photographs of themselves, usually at SCA events. That's not what I mean by Bad Art, because my friends are all good-looking, and it's a pleasure to photograph them. No, by Bad Art I mean photographs that I take that are supposed to be artsy, but are probably pretty bad. Well, I don't know, maybe it's decent work. I'm a bit paranoid about what is good or pleasing art and what is bad. I have recently seen someone laboring under the impression that his art is great, when it's really kind of, well...bad. (This is not referring to anyone who reads this blog, I assure you.) Anyway, Lunchbox was a good sport about it, and to make up for it he also got a couple of SCA pics. On a related note, I may need to get a new camera, just a basic SLR, if they still make them.
In between soirees, I took it easy for the most part. My pancreas decided to get off its lazy ass and do its job (it will do that on rare occasion) so I spent most of Saturday dizzy. I wrapped some gifts, stuff like that.
On a slightly more momentous note, I recently heard from a former professor, (the one I corresponded with a couple of months ago) who, after reviewing a draft of my analytical paper, has agreed to write some letters of reccomendation on my behalf for grad school. I cannot express how happy this makes me; it's a very big deal, and should be quite a boost. I sent him a packet with info like my undergrad transcripts, admissions essay, and, of course, addressed stamped envelopes to carry his letters to the various programs to which I am applying. My quest to apply to grad school is coming together. I've sent almost all my applications out; all that remains is the departmental materials, such as the writing samples. Soon all that will be in the mail, and I can just sit back and relax. (Ha!)
I hope all of you out there are enjoying the season. I am finally starting to get a bit of the spirit myself.
