Happy New Year, everyone!

Let's keep those mets shrinking, BB, and don't forget to let fephy know if you could use a larger afghan. She makes good ones. ;-)

I hope everyone else can enjoy themselves, despite the cold and/or the weather -- funny how that happens in the winter.

News in the News

Majel Barrett Roddenberry died this morning, at the age of 76. The National Post (Canada) put together the top five scenes with her or her voice -- you recall, she was the voice of the computer throughout all the Star Trek shows and movies. She had just finished work on the new Trek movie, in fact.

She was well known in fandom as a very nice person, as well as a good actress.

Post-Thanksgiving Recovery

We are back home after our trip to NY for turkey and family. We left early Thursday am, with the dogs, dropped them at the kennel in PV -- only just made it before they closed for lunch, too -- got to Mom and Dad's for a quick cuppa, and then we repacked ourselves in Mom's car for the trip to the cousins in Ardsley. The Israeli branch was in attendance this year, so it was a packed house with lots of babies and lots of noisy conversation. The food was great, the house was cozy, and the time flew by. We didn't even need anything later.

Pat and his family arrived Friday around lunchtime. Since Thursday was also his younger son's birthday, we'd brought a few presents, so little B got to open presents from his grandma and his aunties before we had turkey. Lunch was quieter but just as delicious, and this time we had not just Mom's pumpkin pie, but also my pecan pie. We stuffed ourselves and voted on just having dessert later. The boys did what boys like to do: play computer games and run around with the cars.

Saturday we had blueberry pancakes, made by Grandpa, and then everyone trooped off to the park for some exercise. I picked up the dogs from the kennel -- and they were suitably excited to see me -- so they could go to the park too. We threw the tennis ball and took them for a short walk around the senior center, then went back to the house for a last lunch while the dogs enjoyed the hospitality of the porch. The only disadvantage to putting them there is the lack of bathroom facilities for them, so we'll have to come up with something else next time.

The trip home was slow; everyone seems to have decided on travelling early and the highways were congested all the way home. We stopped at Exit 8 for a brief trip to the diner for a potty break (dogs and humans), then kept on going. We did wave hello to Auntie Em before we left though.

We got home late, fed the animals, and put ourselves to bed. It was good to be home. Now it is cold and rainy out, so we are in no rush to go anywhere. We do have to make a fresh pecan pie for our neighbors, to thank them for bringing in the paper while we were gone, and we will consider doing our neuro surgery later, but I have a feeling we won't be inclined to go out at all today. Even though the crawlspace is dry, the weather is nasty.

Hope everyone else enjoyed their turkey, etc.

Shh! It's a sekrit!

Today I am copying all our music CDs to iTunes, for M's new present, a brand-new iPod. She doesn't know about it, so I have to do this late at night or when she's at work. I sneakily took this week off, and am busy copying stacks of CDs while at the same time waiting for pies to bake. I've been copying as much as I could already, so even before this morning I'd managed to put on nearly 24 hours worth of music. I'm also charging (or re-charging) the battery, and then I pack it back in its box, which I shall wrap in holiday paper and put under the Channukah Bush (aka Christmas Tree).

So far, two pies baked (both pecan), one delivered, one to be delivered this afternoon -- along with a green bean casserole that M volunteered to make, only guess who's actually making it? It's a 6-letter word, beginning with "G" and ending in "r", in case you're not sure. These will go to the YMCA After-School Program at DJ's school. I have to make one more pecan pie for tomorrow, and then we pack up everything except the cats for our trip to NY.

The dogs will be riding with us. We decided on this for two reasons: (1) they have a tendency to scare the dog walker/sitter with their attitude, and (2) they have a tendency to eat pillows and tear apart things that are not clearly labeled as "dog toys". To keep them out of trouble means putting them in a kennel, and having them in a NY kennel means we could potentially visit them in between feasts. Plus, they ride nicely in the car, so we would be keeping them out of any trouble.

Our pillows are thankful. These would be our new pillows, as they already destroyed some old ones.

The cats can stay home, which I'm sure they'll appreciate, even though it means a diet of strictly dry food for a few days.

OK, another CD done, and then I have to run to the store for the condensed soup for M's dish.

Boring Stuff

No chocolate, so I guess I'll have to work for my reward here. I also have an LJ by the name of [deleted for now] so feel free to drop in any time and peruse my silly blog.

Today, Saturday, is nice and cold -- cousin Brian won't want to be outside in this weather -- and I took this opportunity to try to fix the insulation in the crawlspace under our bedroom. Nothing like a cold floor to remind you that the insulation needs fixing! I'd bought the replacement rolls a while back, along with a heavy duty (i.e., manly) stapler and staples, so after dressing appropriately for the job (two layers of sweatpants, sweatshirt, hooded sweatshirt, thermal vest, hat, headlight, face mask, gloves, two pairs of socks, and heavy boots), I entered the dark domain. It's a dry crawlspace, and now that the "dead bodies" are gone, it's not smelly at all. There were a few spiders near the doorway, so I cleared them out and crawled in. After figuring out how to use the manly stapler -- just needed to squeeze harder than I thought -- I started trying to staple up the new layers of insulation, only to find that my staples were not long enough. Or the insulation is too thick. I need new staples, in any case. I managed to staple up the remnants of the old insulation, which is much thinner in the fluffy part and has a thicker shiny part. This was hanging down from the beams in a few places, so I put those back up. I discovered why the bathtub is so cold: the insulation under it had been pulled down, probably by some of the cable people.

I need to get more longer staples and put the new stuff under the heating duct as well as the bath tub. Then eventually I'll fill in most of the room, which will help us stay a little warmer in the winter. Our room is one of the coldest anyway, as we're around the corner and a room away from the thermostat, so the temperature is based on the front room, not ours. We are dressing warmly for bed, adding quilts and blankets, and wearing socks to avoid walking on a cold floor. It would be nice to have a slightly warmer room.

When M gets back from dropping D at the Scouting project today (someone's working on an Eagle Scout project), we'll go over to Home Depot and Costco for some shopping. In the meantime, I'm hanging out on the computer, waiting for my ride.

::tap, tap:: Is this on?

I'm only here for the chocolate. Somebody said there'd be chocolate.