Something. Anything!

An exasperated reader wrote to say: "I'm tired of seeing the Christmas greeting. Post something!"

Uh. Well, OK. Today I saw a deer in a friend's backyard. It stood about 50 yards away, so stock-still I thought it was a sideways tree trunk, but it was darker than anything else in the snowy woods, and when I finally clucked my tongue a couple of times, sure enough! It bounded gracefully over a fence and away.

Xin (above) has been spayed. I didn't know when she might go back in heat. The vet said only a warm spell could trigger it -- that as long as the weather stayed cold, I was safe. But I couldn't take that chance; her last episode was really bad. I picked her up today and they'd given her a muscle relaxant to help with post-op pain; unfortunately, it seems to have made her completely loopy! I think she's stoned!

What else......... I had a wonderful birthday with my family. The brothers made the long drive in from Ontario and we all reunited in the Eastern Townships. I won't go into detail but it was all so nice! Best birthday EVAH!

The school breakfasts resumed this morning and it was a difficult early wakeup. I'd been getting slowly but surely later and later in my habits since the Christmas break began... so going back to hitting the 6 a.m. alarm clock wasn't easy, but I managed it! And it was nice to see the kids again.

Other than that, got some steady translation work (into French - a real mind-bending exercise) and basically back to the usual routine. (An unusual break today, however, in the form of midday brunch with people wayyyyyyyy out in the countryside. That's where I saw the deer. And we also sighted lots more a few houses down the road... deer all over the property, up the hills around the home, lying under trees, hanging out. Obviously they're being fed over there!)

Happy now, Reader? Can you stand to look at that photo of Xin until, oh, Valentine's Day? Kidding. I'll try to update with something before the end of the month.