(no subject)

Today we have a pause in the weather. Gentle rain. Pleasantly overcast skies. A glorious lack of impending storms.

I should be using this time to work furiously, but instead I'm using it to remember what living gently is like. I'm trying not to focus on the missing space in my mouth which yesterday was inhabited by a half-molar. I'm ignoring the bag of potatoes and onions that tell me Chanukah is ever-closer. I'm doing my laundry (one more load to go!). Mostly, though, I'm drifting round my flat filled with a sense of wonder - no pain, no nausea, just me and my body.

I'll be honest with you, I will get some work done today. I almost always do. Jut not much and just not yet. You see, it's PMT time of month and I ought to be fuming and hurting and listing my design flaws. I ought to be all kinds of foul because of the weather sensitivity. Except I'm not. There's a pause in the weather and my fridge is full of fresh market goodies and my stomach rather likes the fact that lunch was dark chocolate and pear brioche. Anyone who drops round today (after ringing first, of course) will get my very best tea and my very best chocolate (but no brioche - I only bought the one piece and it's safely inside me).

And tomorrow? Tomorrow Donna and I are liqueuring cherries.

(no subject)

Christmas advertising got to me today: I have rebelled.

I have now decorated my flat for Chanukah earlier than it's ever been decorated before (*days* before the festival). I have a bowl of golden chocolate coins, just waiting for gambling later in the week.* I have potatoes and onions and oil and salt and lots of eggs (of the very best quality, from my favourite local farm), all ready for starving hordes. I have silver paper for traditional papercutting. I have my one page description of the festival, hidden on the computer. I guess I ought to find out where it's hidden, one day.

yasminke has dropped hints of goodies in the mail. My niece says she has sent me a present this year, too, which has my sister bewildered. All I did (note the innocent look) was stir my niece a little. And 50% of my own present to myself has arrived - sticky labels saying "From the warped brain of Gillian Polack" for anyone who makes the mistake of thinking that learned notes from me have a degree of sanity to them. This means I have presents! (Given how much I like presents and food and old scripts, I can only conclude that I must be a Baggins.)

My intention from here when Christmas overwhelms me is to sing maotsur very loudly, in public, often. This is fair warning - some of you may wish to avoid me in public until after Chanukah.

Actually, I'll be fine from the 10th, because I have a party on the eighth, and a shopping trip on the ninth and on the tenth (all going well) a personal ghost tour of Canberra by a local expert (who just happens to be the next chair of Conflux).

Have I said how fortunate I am in my friends, recently? And how wonderful they are? What can be more perfect and antiScroogish in a long weekend as a very foodie* Chanukah, with added ghosts?


* overseas Jewish friends/colleagues/chocolate addicts, send me a street address by Tuesday night your time and, after teaching on Wednesday, I shall post you a bag of Australian currency chocolate coins. I may add a piece of trashy tourist gimmicky, just because I can and because Australia really needs to earn back its reputation for the worst souvenirs in the southern hemisphere. If you've lost my email address, send your address to the spec fic carnival one, because Philologa also needs some Chanukah joy (though she has 2 entries for the carnival this time!): philologa(at)gmail(dot) com. I promise Philologa will respect your privacy.

** my contribution to foodie lifestyle this Chanukah will be on my other blog. I'm going to try to find eight doughnut recipes, one for each day. You will know my readers by the size of their hips.