'Tis the season, again. Time to start working on the Christmas cards. We've been making our own for years. Coffee draws the picture, Noodles gathers quotes and writes original thoughts for the insides and I turn the whole thing into something we can photocopy, fold and mail out. Of course, we haven't done that for the past three years. In '05 and '06 we were in China and last year we sent out a family newsletter instead. But this year we're back to the basics. Sort of. Things have changed. In the past, we came up with an idea and asked little Coffee to draw us a picture. This year, I inquired about using a drawing she had already made. She politely declined, pointing out that said work was a charcoal drawing that had yet to be fixed. She didn't want it to get smudged on the scanner. She did offer, however, to sketch out a few variations on the theme and then render a final version of whatever sketch we liked. When did my kid grow up? When did the creative tyke become a commercial artist? Is this the little girl I carried? Is this... ahem. (Sorry. Sometimes my inner Tevye slips out.)

Getting the Christmas photos taken is another process that has changed. We started shooting out own Christmas pix before China, but it used to be I'd load up a 12 exposure roll of film, shoot all 12 frames, then rush down to Paradise Studios to get the film developed. Hoping, of course, that one of the shots were good enough to use. This year, I again shot a dozen pics. But I headed down the stairs rather than down the hill. I looked at the pictures on the laptop, found the photos a bit lacking, and then went and shot another handful. We went down to Bartell's for the processing (Paradise, alas, has gotten out of the photo processing business.) and were able to walk home with a big pile of prints, ready to mail out. Very nice. (Well, except that the digital prints are slightly inferior to the old C-41 prints.)

I wonder what surprises await me when I try to print out the actual cards. Of course, we still have a bit of work ahead of us before we find that out.

Labels: Christmas, family, life, nostalgia

I don't know what to write. I was so desperate I grabbed my old journals from the '80s off the shelf to see if I could steal material. Do you realize that I only had one entry from November the 14th? Do you realize that it was about five lines of totally boring drivel? I shudder to think how much of those writings I would excise if I were to go through and edit my ramblings. I never was one for content. I did have a few creative page headers, though. Maybe that could be my next fad--grab a new set of markers and start writing in a spiral bound notebook again. Maybe I'll do that for December.

Labels: nostalgia, writing

Well, how about this? I've got some time to kill and am somewhat inclined to blog. These days it seems like a rare combination. Let's see... of what shall I write?

Objectivist no more: There was an internet death in my life the week before last. Nick Otani was a fellow that I had "met" back when message boards were my craze. I qualify the "met" because, of course, I never spoke to the man in person. We conversed via the boards. Anyway, I had dropped out of his circle. First I started spending more online time reading blogs rather than message boards, then, when I went to China, I avoided his board lest one of his opinionated posts offend the Chinese authorities reading over my shoulder. So the other week, when I had lots of time to kill at work, I clicked on the link to his board and discovered in a post from his sister that he had died in April. I really had been away for a long time. I was saddened and wanted to make a memorial post. It was a bit hard to write. What could I say? "I'll miss him?" Well, yes, a bit, but obviously I hadn't missed him enough in the past half year to visit his board. "He's in a better place?" Well, he was proudly atheist. If my beliefs are correct, he--barring a last minute conversion--is not in a better place. And if his beliefs are correct, then he's just... not. In the end, I just said that I liked the guy and left it at that. The odds of someone actually reading it is slim, anyway. What an ephemeral thing, this internet.

Leave me here, Scotty: On a lighter note, I cruised by Sherri's blog the other day and saw that she had taken a quiz. It was a reincarnation quiz and her results showed her as being reincarnated as a Starfleet crewperson. Rather cool, I thought. This motivated my inner geek to try the quiz myself. I went through the process and I found myself scheduled to be reincarnated as... a Gypsy. (Actually, I'd prefer to be called a Rom, but what can I expect from you outsiders?) I was immensely pleased with that particular result. But then I had to take a step back. I prefer being a Roma nomad, living an itinerant life of relative poverty and great dance music, rather than being a crewman exploring the farthest reaches of the galaxy? I truly have changed since my younger days. Who would have thought?

Okay, I guess I didn't have that much time to kill...

Labels: nostalgia, obituary, potpurri, quizzes