My Christmas was lovely.
How was yours?

Reina is leaving tomorrow and she'll be gone for a week.
Brandon is leaving on Monday and he'll be gone for months.

*insert sad-faced Kathey*

Happy Sunday!

Rain, rain, rain.
Better than snow, snow, snow, I suppose.

Anywhoo.
The Youth Christmas party was Friday night.
I went and helped Reina who had volunteered to help Bethany.
We ended up washing dishes and all that jazz and I roped Brandon into assisting us.
To go from launching grenades in *reverent hushed voice* The Field *end reverent hushed voice* to washing dishes... What a shock for the poor boy.
*mwahahaaaa*
He showed me a bunch of pictures of *reverent hushed voice* The Field *end reverent hushed voice* and people I don't know in Idaho.
I gave him the Army ornament this morning and the card almost made him cry.
*tear*

Work is crazy, but I've probably said that already.
People.
They're dumb.
There are some nice ones here and there, but still...

I'm trying to decide if I want to have a Christmas party.
I'm thinking Tuesday or Thursday night. Gotta find out schedules.

The parents are home.
Mother got out of the car and her diamonds almost blinded me.
I picked up her hand and looked at the solitaire and said "Uh, is that bigger than it was before??"
The answer is yes. It's big. Not like gaudy big, just big enough that you notice it's big. Like a carat and a quarter big. But it's beeeuuutiful. And big. She said something this morning about it poking a hole in her gloves. Did I mention that it's big?

I've got to take a picture for the Christmas card so I can send those out.
Don't worry, they're coming.

Time for dinner!
See yaaaaa!!

I got a Vermeer calendar.

It's totally rad, dude.

And there's no other junk on the actual picture, so I can frame them.

Woohoo.

I love Vermeer.

He was a genius.

Statistics final went fine.
Work is crazy.
I'm poop-ed.

Merry Christmas.

My Grandma

Yesterday, Grandma Gooch said to me "I can't wait until you get married and have a baby."
I said "I can!!!"
She said she wonders what it will be like.
She tells me that she's proud of me.
I hope she lives long enough to see my husband and kid(s).

Tea and Sympathy

For all you poor people who are buried in snow and getting slammed with these storms, I am so sorry.

*hugs the state of California*

D - “There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil--a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome.”

E - “And your defect is a propensity to hate everyone.”

D - “And yours,” he replied, with a smile, “is willfully to misunderstand them.”

Jane Austen

Becca told me today that I should go into literary criticism.
I think I'm going to be content as a professional amatuer in the field.
:)

To Bach or not to Bach

After not giving a specific answer to that question on the survey about goals for the coming year, I thought of one.
I want to go to a performance of the Concerto in D minor for two violins by Bach.
This particular piece is on an ancient video we have of Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman and Zubin Mehta at Lincoln Center. It's one of my first memories of classical music.

Now, after I thought of this, I realized that choosing one piece of music from all those millions that are out there and hoping that it will be performed soon in my area is a bit of wishful thinking.
BUT!!!!
Guess what the San Francisco Symphony is doing on February 4????
You guessed it!!!
However, Joshua Bell is doing a recital at Davies the Saturday after that.
Ach!
Such decisions!!!!
What ever shall I do????
The Bach concerto or Josh???????
If I choose Josh, I decided I can't do the terrace seating. I gotta see the guy, even if it's from the nosebleeds.
The problem is then that I don't know what he's going to be playing. I think it might be Tchaikovsky, which isn't exactly a favorite, but JB can make pretty much anything enjoyable.

I was in the car the other day and I turned on KDFC and I knew right away that the piece playing was Vivaldi. It just couldn't have been anyone else.
I love my Vivaldi.
I feel like I grow about two inches when I hear his music.

The parents think that the Messiah we just went to was better than the one two years ago.
I think not.
The bass was blah this year. We saw Nathan Gunn in 03. Helloooooooo. Need I say more?
But the conductor was better this year. He could probably sing the entire score in his sleep. He was the most animated that I've ever seen. We got to the "and his name shall be called" bit and he sort of looked like I felt.

Davies is a great place to people watch. There is everything from twentysomethings in their jeans to old ladies with two inches of face powder who reek of alcohol, the latter of which are infinitely more entertaining.

Sheesh, it's cold!
In the 30's last night!
That's cold for us!
All you people who are three feet deep in snow can just stop rolling your eyes right now!
Dry cold and wet cold are two different things!
So there!

Anyways.
Been sick.
Yucky.
Been tired.
Work.
Busy.
But out of the blue, I was told that I got a raise at work.
Very timely, since my nice parents are still paying my health insurance and it went up again, so the raise will probably go towards helping that bill.
We make more money to pay for more things to make more money to pay for more things.
Endless cycles.

Found out that Grandma Gooch has more tumors. They can't operate because the tumors are too close to her heart. Don't know if they are b/m or what yet.
Steven Ray is probably going to come out this week.
Guess that means I need to spiffy up "our" room.
I love my uncle. He's a peach.

The parents are leaving Friday night for their cruise.
This means a week alone with the sister.
Yay for me.
Dad tells me to think of easy meals while they are gone.
I said Uh, we can cook ya know...
He cracks me up.
When I was sick and woke up in the middle of the night with the fever and was having bad dreams, he found me crying in the bathroom. He asks what's wrong. I say I think I have a fever - need medicine. What does he do? He goes and gets Mother. I bet Adam went and got Eve the first time one of their kids had an owie.
It's very interesting to note that in general, mothers are the ones who fix bodies and fathers are the ones who fix things. Dads are the ones who hear about the clogged toilet. Mothers are the ones who hear about your skinned knees.

I am sooooo ready for this blasted Statistics class to be over.
Only one more week of regular classes. Yippee.

You know those Christmas cards that are a picture and just have some type on it that says Merry Christmas (or what you will) Love, So and So?
I hate those.
So insultingly impersonal. No signature, no nothing.
I have nothing against the picture thing. My cards this year are a photo holder.
But those mass produced ones where all you do is throw them in the envelope...
Don't like them.
They disturb me.
If I ever get lazy and want to do one of those, I'm going to remind myself of this post.

I've been thinking about something.
Jane Austen did not write real people. She wrote caricatures.
The Brontes wrote real and dreamlike people.
Elizabeth Gaskell wrote real people.
If we randomly selected a Joe Shmoe off the street, I think it's safe to say that he would know the caricatures, not the real and dreamlike ones.
Why is that?

Becca went to a conference put on the JAS across the pond and one of the speakers theorized that period re-enactments (when done by anyone other than the JAS) are morally wrong. He said it's the equivalent of painting yourself black and pretending to be a slave.
That guy has way too much time on his hands.
He needs more cookies.