Friends

1. It is snowing again in Northern New York.

2, I have battling a rotten cold this week but I still have gone to the gym twice (and last night to aikido class, where we had a pizza party afterward.)


3. Speaking of aikido, I have been watching "Steven Seagal, Lawman"--basically "COPS" with Steven Seagal as one of the cops --which follows him on his job (which he's had 20 years) as a reserve deputy for the Jefferson Parish, La. Sheriff's Department in the New Orleans area. It's more interesting than I thought it would be. I wouldn't want to be stranded on a desert isalnd with Mr. Seagal, but I respect his talents as an actor, a blues musician, an aikido expert (especially) and, now, as a police officer.

4. I have this week off work--except Christmas night.

...But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight...

"THE HELL WITH THIS NOISE! I'M RETIRING TO MYRTLE BEACH!!"

Just doodled this with a felt pen while sitting on a bed. May try to draw it properly later.

Merry Christmas to all
...and to all, a good night.

katie had her first taste of xmas snow this morning - & when she ate a snowflake earlier it made her laugh...! - i wasn't expecting it to snow today ( - was it forecast in the london area? ) - & i didn't think it'd settle when we were out but now thru the window it looks much heavier so maybe it will - whatever, it's made me feel really quite christmassy

we didn't take our camera out with us today so no snow pics but here's reindeer katie instead






i wanted to get her a christmas pudding outfit & her granny annie favoured a pink fairy gostume so this was the gompromise chosen by her mum

katie's december pics so far
http://www.flickr.com/photos/worldofagwu/sets/72157622886738251/

& i don't think i ever got round to posting a link to her november pics
http://www.flickr.com/photos/worldofagwu/sets/72157622780336737/

featuring several pics of katie vs bashful benjamin grimm the loveable blue-eyed thing including this 'un





thanks very much to katstevens who knitted katie's thing toy

just in case i don't get another opportunity, A VERY HAPPY CHRISTMAS & A GREAT NEW YEAR to all our livejournal friends & anyone else who reads this - & a big THANK YOU to anyone who's taken the trouble to leave us a gomment this year - it really is much appreciated

Due to bad weather, life as we know it has been postponed.

Actually I thought of that intro a few days ago. It's sunny now, but the streets are still covered with the Christmassy-looking residue of Thursday's onslaught of snow and sleet (at one point it was coming down in little chunks; I could see them on my glove) that canceled a lot of events including a couple of songfest shows that Kim had planned with some of her students.

Some updates: I have signed a deal to buy the shiny, red 2006 Chevy Cobalt (the former rental car of which I wrote in an earlier post.) Paying for it will be tricky but my mother-in-law has kindly promised to help out until such time as I am out from under the lease of this apartment, when I can use the rent money to increase the car payments. Bit of a funny story: the car was still being rented last week, to a customer who'd taken it to Tupper Lake, about 100 miles north of here. The customer needed it longer than originally expected (extended car repair trouble of his own, apparently) but the salesman kindly drove all the way to Tupper Lake to bring the renter another rental car and bring the Chevy back to us.

So we now have two cars for the first time in over a year. I got the Elantra back from the shop (its check-engine light had gone on again! Grr!) after a taxi ride yesterday afternoon out to the car lot on Route 11. (Kim and I were going to go there together in the Chevy but I decided to save her the trouble.)

Yesterday (Friday) I could have driven to my 8:30 a.m. part-time job at the gym, but I decided to walk (45 minutes in the cold and wind, through ankle-deep snow on many unshoveled sidewalks) a) for the exercise and b) to avoid a repeat of the previous night, when six very neighborly fellow employees pushed the Chevy out of a huge snowdrift in which I was stuck in the Watertown Times parking lot. (By the time I got home at midnight I had to use the snowblower on our driveway to get the car into the garage.) Yesterday morning was clear, as it turned out, but I didn't want to take any chances. These sneaky lake-effect squalls can pop up out of nowhere very quickly and cause all kinds of havoc. We avoided picking the Elantra up from the shop on Thursday, even though it was ready on Wednesday, because of Thursday's nasty weather. The sheriff's department had issued a no-unnecessary-travel advisory.

Right now it's clear and sunny. I bought our usual baklava and sweetbread from the annual Greek pastry sale at St. Vasilio's Church (at the end of the street where my apartment is.) But a guy there said the forecast is for another snowstorm tonight.

Last Saturday, "Kim's Kids" did perform during a craft fair at a school in the village of Chaumont, NY (it's French--lot of French heritage in the region--and pronounced SHUH as in shut and MOE as in Motown.) Unfortunately the tail end of the gig coincided with the vendors packing up their booths to leave because the craft fair was over; the show should've been scheduled earlier, IMHO. And it was during the approximately half-hour drive out there from Watertown that the check engine light in the car went on again.

Everything seems Ok now. The Elantra, as I mentioned previously, is what we bought with the insurance money from Kim's recent accident.

I just hope I can pay for the Cobalt before the use of internal-combustion engines becomes obsolete.