Amazing and Delightful

This has been an amazing and delightful period.

I was delighted to receive the gifts that I got -- a couple, I had hinted for, but one, I in no way expected; it was quite amazing -- and I was delighted to give the ones that I did. Each year, I hold back one or two, and as we went away on Christmas Day, I was actually able to give them two days later -- a chocolate brown turtleneck, and a tan suede-like blouse. I like surprising my wife -- and now she knows why I picked the necklace that happened to have those particular colors!

While visiting, I got to not only skim through a couple of novels -- eh, they were okay but not great -- but also to begin reading a book that my mother in law had, and found that I really enjoyed it. I'd read an earlier book on roughly the same topic by the same woman, and liked that, but its still a surprise to me to find that someone else is reading something I like. My tastes aren't unusual, but I don't run across many people who share them. In fact, a sister in law once said that she likes coming to our house because we always have something unusual to read -- and as she is a librarian (though a corporate one), I simply tell her that I'm stealing all of the good stuff from the local libe.

While we were in my MIL's area, my wife and I went to a Best Buy and generally agreed on the kind of big screen television that we're going to get. Not probably will get, but will get. Still dependent on needing one -- the current one's twenty-plus years old, and it's doing just fine, thanks -- but it was very nice to see that we agreed on what the replacement should be, when the day comes -- LCD, likely HD but ED is okay, about 36 diagonal inches, don't care if it has PC or other input. I think you have to make that kind of decision away from the showroom, or you lose track quickly on whats important and worth paying for, and whats trivial or of use only for the power user.

And I got an email from Muslim Apple. It was unexpected, and I liked it. She told me a little about her childhood.

So this has been a pretty amazing Christmas week.

Now, if it'd just snow.....