Drunken Owls and Other Delights

It's been a busy couple of days here, with not one but TWO holiday-themed events! On Thursday we headed over to the Botanical Garden in GGP for LightScape, a truly breathtaking show of lit-up plants, trees and sculpture. I went in thinking it would be kind of fun and enjoyable, but it ended up surpassing my expectations! I'd say my favorite two moments were walking past the Moon Viewing Garden with an actual (inflated) moon in amongst the tiny lightning-bug-like lights that gave it a starry-night look, and the Perennial Garden with several tree light scupltures in the shape of cherry blossoms. I'm glad I went, because apparently it's been selling out!

The other event was of course our yearly trip to the Opera House to see the Nutcracker ballet. As I'd said to A, every time I hear it I'm reminded just how brilliant and wonderful Tchaikovsky's work is. I've always been a fan, but the more I listen, the more I discover what he was trying to do with all the parts of the music. Again, it's the 'I can hear the math' in me, heh. I have to say their production this year was top notch, which is saying something since I always like going to it.

Later on, we were wondering what other holiday stuff we need to do. We'll need to watch Terry Pratchett's Hogfather, of course, which has become one of our favorite Christmas Day events. We've also watched some corny Hallmark holiday romcoms, of course, and I recently thought about watching While You Were Sleeping, which is one of my favorite sort-of-Christmassy movies. We'll have to think of a few other things to do, of course...

 I was extremely lucky to get yesterday off from work -- I honestly don't remember the last time I didn't work Christmas Eve Day other than the last couple of pandemic years -- so we spent yesterday going out for brunch and then going to see Little Women (the 1994 version with Winona Ryder) at the 4Star around the corner, then spending the evening watching Hogfather (the Terry Pratchett film that's become our annual tradition). Today, post-presents, we went for a walk through the neighborhood to one of our favorite greasy spoons for lunch, and now we're just chilling for a bit before our big roast dinner. (I of course am spending time doing laundry anyway because why not.)

I'm only working four days this week (I'm getting paid for today, yay!) so other than the next two midshift days, it'll be smooth sailing. I'm expecting it to be slow and quiet the entire time save the 31st, so maybe I'll even be able to sneak in some novel-note-writing time while on shift! On one of the days off I'd like to head up the street to Green Apple so I can get my calendars (no Moleskine notebooks this time, I'm stocked up). Otherwise I don't have much planned other than to finish up my blogs for the year!


Hope everyone's having a good holiday season!

Well, I did manage to get some work done last week, so I don't feel too bad about that. I've been using the 750 Words to play around with some outtakes for Theadia, and that's helping me get a bit closer to the story. This one's turning out to be quite unlike anything I've written before, so it's taking me some time to figure it all out.  And this is why I'm working on multiple projects at once. I've a feeling Theadia is going to take a lot of time, so in the meantime I'll be trying my hand at the fourth Mendaihu Universe book (aka MU4). That one is still a little twitchy, but I'm gaining more ground on that one. 

Meanwhile, it's now Christmas week and this is the first time since my school days where I've had the end of the year off. I'm just going to roll with it and enjoy it, because come January I've got some major things I want to embark on. We've got all our gift packages out and it seems the only two that haven't gotten to their destination is my family and one of our friends, but we're okay with that...as long as they get there in one piece! And yes, we have now embarked on the holiday movies, documentaries and whatnot. Yay!

Hope everyone has a lovely holiday!

Hi all! Hope everyone's having a fun and happy holiday! I'm currently typing this on my new toy--a Samsung tablet with a 10.1" screen that A gave me! :) It's bigger than my Nook, which I will now use for reading purposes...this puppy will be dedicated to my writing when I'm not at the PC or on a laptop. Yay new toys!

Unfortunately the package my family sent us got delayed by the Great Dallas/Fort Worth Bottleneck somehow, so hopefully we should get it in the next day or so...

Other than that, it's been a quiet and relaxing afternoon here...it's back to work for me tomorrow, but I figure it'll be an uneventful last week of the year. Will try to get my end of year music posts up in the next few days.

...was the very first album I ever owned, framed for hanging. Not a copy of it--the worn and scuffed up original my mom bought for me for Christmas in 1978. My sister Kat sent me this as a present, and I have to say I'm just tickled pink by it. :)

It's hanging up above me in Spare Oom at the moment:




The frame also holds the ticket to the Paul McCartney show I went to in Boston in 2002, and there was an envelope containing a copy of the Worcester Telegram story about George Harrison being spotted at Solomon Pond Mall . Here's a closer shot of it:



This means that I've received this album three times for Christmas--the first one in 1978, the CD issue in 1993, and the original again today!

Thanks, Kat! :)

As one commenter said on YouTube, one of the most baddass Christmas songs ever. :p

Hey all, long time no post. I've been busy with work-related things and writing-related thoughts and life-related errands, so it's been a quick and event-filled week all around. Added to the fact that I've been bravely fighting a cold since last weekend. All things considered, I'm happy my head is no longer as Comfortably Numb as it was on Monday and Tuesday, though the occasional stuffiness is annoying.

That said, various and sundry things over the past week or so...

--The work-related move went well, as I managed to avoid most of it by being on vacation. My instincts were correct and I was able to pack my entire belongings into three boxes in twenty minutes. My work area is spartan that way; always has been, or else I wouldn't be able to find a damn thing. I'm in a smaller cubicle in a smaller floor space, but on the plus side I'm about twenty feet from two different doors for ease of escape if need be. It's quieter and cleaner too, not including the ridiculous amount of moving boxes still sitting around.

--Lots of packages mailed over the last week to parents, family and in-laws for Christmas, so stuff that wasn't ordered straight from Amazon or elsewhere is now on its way or already at its intended destination. Most packages have reached us, but we're still waiting on a few.

--Later today we'll be heading into town to see a musical version of Neil Gaiman's Coraline, which Emm purchased tickets for. Interestingly enough, the music and lyrics were written by Stephin Merritt, he of The Magnetic Fields. Should be interesting! I'm just hoping that the weather will behave, as it's been rainy and windy over the past couple of days. Such is Bay Area winter, though...

--Forgot if I mentioned this, but we both decided that the best way for me to celebrate me becoming an old man turning 40 is to go to Disneyland. We plan on also going to California Adventure across the way as well--this is the section that has the Muppets--so this will further prove that though my body's getting old, my brain is still that of a kid. :)

--With the end of the year being about two weeks away, it's high time I started up on my Year End Music Review. I may post it this weekend or next weekend, depending on if I have the time. Looking over the past year, I've heard quite a lot of nifty songs that I think will make the top 20 or so on my personal list. More on this soon!

--Oh! Also, and I'll put this in bold so skimmers will see it: The Great Book Purge of 2010-11 is coming soon! Been awhile since we've done these, and we're starting to accumulate piles of books again that we've read and don't want to keep (or never read since buying years previous and gave up on). This will probably take place after the first of the year once the holidays are over, so I'll let you all know when it starts.


...and that's the State of JoncWorld at the moment. We should be achieving normality sometime soon. Have a happy and safe holiday season, kids! :)

And of course my favorite scene from one of my favorite Christmas movies, While You Were Sleeping:

(come on, who of you in New England hasn't had this happen to them? :p )

Reporting from the Haight-Ashbury section of San Francisco (a few miles away from the quiet Richmond area where I live), Booksmith on Haight has A Kidnapped Santa Claus set up in a nice mid-store area surrounded by other classic Christmas-themed books. Why yes, I did in fact buy one! :)

Unfortunately, both emmalyon and I woke up at aroudn 5:30 this morning because neither of us could sleep (and we'd both been partially awake since about 3:30), so we both made do with drinking coffee and watching morning television--really, why is it that all these channels we have show paid programming overnight, when we know they have 24-hour programming??--and generally trying to wake up.

On the plus side, we made our way down to the farmer's market at the Ferry Building to buy random foodstuffs (including golden beets! yum!) and taking a few neat pictures before my camera battery started dying on me:

A picture of the skating rink at Justin Herman Plaza, just across the street from the Ferry Building:

(For you music fans, it's the same place where this scene from Rattle and Hum was filmed.)

And a cool shot of the Bay Bridge engulfed in fog:



After dropping our food off at the apartment, we went for lunch at Pat's Cafe up the street, where I had some banana and granola pancakes that were huge and more tasty than they had any right to be. As said to Emm, this was a dish where I thought, now why did I think of this?? And now we're back, being lazy and watching college football.

Tomorrow? A bit of Christmas shopping in Daly City (I know, we should know better) and not much else. We're doing most of our shopping online, so this is mostly for random stuff we can't find elsewhere (and throwing in some random stuff we may need around the house as well). This shopping season is disturbingly calm for us...

Right now I probably should be writing (and Emm is being creative by knitting, so I have no reason not to be), but I just finished cleaning up my computer, which did need it...but now I don't have anything else to distract me, so off I go! :p