.....Kleenex. Sorry, not snow, not this Christmas. Just getting over a nasty cold, not a nice time of year for this, but viruses don't care. Slowed me down a bit for my Christmas preparations, but I'm rolling again. Need to spruce things up a bit more than usual, as my mother arrives Friday for a few days - she's 91 but still pretty spry.
I did get the Christmas cards all out finally, some lights up outside, a few presents bought. And ideas for the rest, but still will need to wander the mall searching for inspiration. My kids know what I want (hopefully) so that's taken care of. Our routine normally is that the kids come to my place for Christmas Eve, and we have tourtiere and open stockings and some presents. Then Christmas Day they go to their mom's and repeat, and I join them after for a big dinner there. This year my daughter's having Christmas Eve at her new apartment, food and carols and stockings and all. And she's even making the traditional family tourtiere. I wasn't aware of this recipe, it's actually via my brother's wife's side of the family, but will be yummy. I went over there today to supervise and breath germs on it just for that added touch. It was a beautiful day out (for fall not winter), sunny and +10C. Looks like a green Christmas here, as it's to be above freezing every day.
I picked up a fascinating book today, just in case I had some spare time. I was channel surfing a few days ago and paused at a willowy blond being interviewed on Charlie Rose on PBS. And stayed to listen - fascinating talk of string theory and multiple dimensions. She was Lisa Randall, a theoretical physicist from Harvard (and MIT and Princeton), discussing her theories and her book, Warped Passages. Just started reading it, going well so far, and doesn't make my brain hurt. She's good at using analogies and illustrations to explain the concepts. On Thoughtcast there's a podcast of an interview with her, as well as a short lecture she gave in Boston.
Edit - Dec 18 - found another interesting talk on Opensource - check out the rest of the site too.
