I don't really mind the weather, but I do have that bit of nostalgia for September weather.
I got a lot of rest this weekend, and a few things done, but I can't help but think of all the chores and detours I could have accomplished this weekend, but failed to do. I will mail out today the meager portion of my xmas card list I got done. I'll try during the weeknights this week to get my nervousness exchange done and to finish another hobby project which has languished, literally one easy step from completion, since September.
But I'm grateful for the time off, even if I wish I'd made better use of that time. This week my list of things to do at work is long, but entirely do-able. I cannot believe that the next round of holidays is just two weeks away. This year will be Christmas in Kansas City, among my wife's people. Often there is snow--maybe this year I can take my 6 year old niece sledding. I think it is probably a good thing that I am childless by choice. My notion of being around kids is almost entirely "hey, can we go sledding?" or "hey, can we go fishing?" or "how 'bout flying a kite?". My siblings and friends tell me there is more to it than taking the kids hiking.
I was pleased to see that the too-conservative Democrat beat the way-too-conservative Republican in the Lousiana senate run-off.
This reminds me once again of that old canard about how all politics are local. I think that national political commentators are second only to AM sports talk radio hosts for most pompous and silly things said in the average half an hour. I finally had to stop using the local "ticket" sports station as my "fallback when NPR gets boring" station, because the number of ethnic slurs and sexist comments finally just got too much to take. I'm not much for being hyper-correct about such things, and do go off-color or off-correct from time to time, but pervasive moronic jokes, particularly ethnically insensitive things, get very old. I suppose I'm going to have to go back to listening to music while I drive. I heard an interview with the women who started Caedmon in the 50s, the company that did books on tape featuring readers like Dylan Thomas (whose snippet from 'A Child's Christmas in Wales' sounded rather more theatrical and toney than I expected), William Faulkner and Eudora Welty (who both sounded just as one might expect them to sound). I suspect that there are similar type of businesses waiting out there for creative people to start, which capture what matters rather than the constant drone of AM radio.