The happy holiday season is upon us! The reindeer are pawing at the roof, Santa is scheduled to clean the soot out of the chimney, and the sugar plum fairies are dancing. Not to mention the silver bells clanging, yule logs burning, holly decking halls, and snowmen dancing and playing (just like you and me!). Needless to say, I haven't even begun to shop, decorate, mail, or celebrate.
Some of my family will be here to experience a New England Christmas. They're hoping for white powder on the ground. (No, not anthrax, snow!) With the weather as warm as it's been for the last couple months, we were beginning to worry. But it's cooled down a little, and there's an inch or two of snow on the hill. Perhaps we'll have a White Christmas for our guests after all.
I got a life bird last weekend. They're getting harder to come by. This one was #632, an Iceland Gull. Karen had already seen this bird, but I had been looking for it. We were down at Cape Ann in Massachusetts on a local Audubon outing, and we stayed the night in Rockport. A very picturesque town. We got the impression that it's a zoo in the summer season, but it isn't too crowded now.
We went to a lichen workshop a few weeks ago. It's the new frontier -- squinting through hand lenses at poorly understood tiny lifeforms. If you find us out in the woods standing with our noses against a tree trunk, it won't just be because we're nuts. It'll be because we're nuts and looking at lichens.
Other than that, it's been work, work, work. Karen's big project is going live over the holidays, so she won't have much time off. I've been juggling a lot of smaller projects, so between us we haven't had much opportunity to surface and get into the spirit of the season. (If our projects go poorly, we may just get into the spirits of the season!)
So, I wish you peace and good will for the holidays and beyond.
Terry 12/13/01
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