Long winter's night

It's 5:15 p.m., and I'm in my pajamas. I'm not ill; it's just that my pajamas are fleecy and warm. It's been cold and drizzly all day—not really raining, more like a fat fog that can get you as wet as a real rain if you stay out in it long enough. I walked downtown a bit ago to have tea with Alison and Allan, and now that I'm in for the evening, getting into my pajamas seemed the perfect wardrobe choice for a cold winter's night. Plenty of things to read (my accumulated mail came with a couple of new magazines and about six catalogs, and I'm two-thirds of the way through Richard Ford's The Sportswriter, which I'll probably finish tonight), not to mention my recently acquired cable TV hookup, which may actually have a decent movie on it somewhere (or a marathon showing of Law & Order: [insert spinoff subtitle here]. And I'm pretty sure there's some wine around here. Summer will be here soon enough; right now, I'm enjoying winter.

Home again

Back home. SoCal was cold and dry; Davis is cold and damp. I prefer the latter, and so does my hair. I had a good visit with my family, got caught up on events and states of mind, delighted in my granddaughters' exuberance and sweetness. Glad to have gone, glad to have returned; the best kind of journey, I think.

From spin class to Canter's

Went to the YMCA this morning with my cousin to do a spin class. It just takes one of those to remind me a) how out of shape I am and b) how much I hate spin classes. But it was good exercise, the most I've had in weeks, and if a little sweat is good, a lot of it must be even better.

Then, needing a dose of Jewishness to balance the Christmasness, we got in the car and drove over to Fairfax Ave. and Canter's Delicatessen for corned beef and coleslaw on rye. Delicious.

Heading home tomorrow . . .

How little we know

Watched the Kennedy Center Honors on TV this evening. Brian Wilson was one of the honorees. I loved the Beach Boys' music, still do, but I haven't paid much (read: any) attention to the pop music scene in years. So I missed hearing about Wilson's struggles with mental illness, drug abuse, weight gain, loss of the creative spark that made him such a seminal figure and his comeback in recent years. None (or very little) of this was mentioned on the show, but he looked so uncomfortable, so stiff and wooden, almost like he'd had a stroke, that I couldn't help noticing. It took my cousin's telling me about all of it to make me aware. And what I thought was, we go along taking pleasure in things created for us by others, blithely unaware (and not wanting to be) of what their lives may feel like, what the giving takes from them. We just want more of what we like. Made me sad for him in a way I can't be very articulate about yet, and that I owed him an apology.

SoCal Christmas

Another beautiful Christmas Day in Southern California, both inside . . .



and out . . .

A beautiful day, period.

Lights! Lights! Lights!

A house a few blocks from my cousin's, lit to the teeth and synchronized to Christmas music, and so over the top it's good . . .

The night before the night before Christmas

To Torrance and cousin Joe's yesterday evening; I'll be here through Friday. The kids brought me down and stayed for dinner: enchiladas and tamales and a green salad, preceded by chips, dips, etc. etc. etc. It was all delicious, as usual, and anyone who went away hungry has only him- or herself to blame. We were nine at table: Joe, Debbie, son Alan and wife Elizabeth, cousin Sue, my 88-year-old aunt, Marie (Joe and Sue's mom and my mom's sister), Fred, Jen, Shannon, Courtney and me.

My auntie and my granddaughters. My mother died when my sons were very young, so I'm happy to have Shannon and Courtney be with her sister, even for these brief visits.