Welcome back, dear reader, to the show that never quite ends, but rather trips along in fits and starts. Here at Chez Merton Way, ’tis the day after the Big One which was, for the most part, an enjoyable occasion of appropriate festive cheer. The family assembled. I’d say from near and far, but we are a small number, so it was mostly from quite near and almost right here. Food was cooked, a festive beverage consumed, bad jokes were told, and everyone got at least one present that they seemed inordinately pleased with (I got very nice bottles of both the 16 yr old Lagavulin and the 15 yr old Laphroaig – yum). We’re not the type of crowd that turns on one another at Christmas, so it stayed fun and nice to the end. Perhaps most importantly, as the temperature raced to 41 degrees (about 103 in the old language) the air conditioning persisted.
In truth my favorite part of the Christmas experience is Christmas night. Pleasantly just slightly overfull, kids in bed, happy relatives waved off into the late afternoon, you can sit and watch some bad TV or these days a good dvd, and unwind. Didn’t quite happen this year, mostly because I had a terrible headache, and just didn’t feel like it. Still, when I went to bed last night all was quiet, and the dishes were done. This morning will be the start of the Boxing Day test match against India. Given my druthers, I’d sit quietly and watch it unfold on the new big screen TV, but that’s not the plan. We’re going to take the little ‘uns off to see Enchanted, which should be ok, and then the family is coming back because it’s going to be hotter than yesterday(!).
There’s much I should have blogged about. Seems Nebula nominations are hard to come by at the moment. If you can nominate (I can’t), do. If you can get work into the hands of nominators, do that. Whatever problems the awards have had of late, they have a long and important history and it would be a pity to see the fall on their faces. I do wonder, though, if it might be time for SFWA to consider making them a juried award.
Still, can’t quite get enthusiastic about the reading thing. Everything I’m reading, or have got to read, looks good. I just want to do something else. It’ll sort itself out, though. Almost breakfast time.