Wow, was Christmas intensely intense this year. On all fronts. It was one of those holidays that made me think, Next year, I want to be in Maui. Or something like that. You know, just someplace incredibly different.

But now the energy has changed and I feel like the world is creaking its way back to normal.

Christmas Eve was really wonderful, I have to say. I hope yours was equally merry, gang, wherever you were. I have been dating someone new and she really keeps me on my toes. (I don't always like to be on my toes, but that's a topic for another day...) We had plans galore for Christmas Eve. All of which fell by the wayside, alas. We wound up being very "self-involved" -- by candlelight, with wine. We missed the dinner reservations we had at one of the nicest restaurants in town. But we did manage to find ourselves at an out of the way Japanese restaurant later that night. It was totally zen and austere and lovely, with shoji screens peppered hither & yon for privacy (although it didn't block out the one guy talking on his cell phone really loud, but alas, it was Christmas Eve so who really cared?). We had green tea and vegetable dumplings and sashimi, etc. It was nothing like what we'd had planned but it was absolutely perfect.

And now life goes on... Mom has more surgery coming up, just in time to ring in the New Year. And after that, I have more writing projects lined up for 2009 than you can possibly imagine. So, onward, gang!!

Have a good Saturday, wherever you are. Thanks for visiting. See ya!