Ciao, 2007! Bring it on, '08!

Had a lovely Xmas up here in Binghamton with Will's family, and started out the season's travels with a visit to my people up in Massachusetts where an equally lovely time was had.

As far as Loot with which we honor the birth of the Savior, I was gifted some pretty neat stuff: (in no particular order)

• The Book of Vice: Very Naughty Things (and How to Do Them) by Peter Sagal, the host of NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me! (as if I needed a How-To guide on this topic! But seriously, a really fun read.)
• a nice new day-planner (this was the hands-down favorite of the OCD geek that lives inside of me)
• a crock pot (to Will's dismay-- he loathes the name and demands it be called a "slow cooker". Do you see what I go through?! Secretly, though, I can't wait to start a-stewin' with this gift from his sister and her boyfriend)
• a crock pot cookbook, a soup cookbook and Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking (anyone want to come over for dinner? I've now got a great recipe for brains...)
  
• a new yoga mat and bright shiny satchel in which to carry it
• some big, dangle-y and very fancy handmade earrings
  

Will scored guitar 2 ways: Guitar Hero (to be played on the Wii that never arrived... we've got a trip to the Nintendo Store on the horizon!) and an acoustic number I got him so he could become proficient in real life as well as in video games.

After all that über-stimulation, we've had over a week of delicious tuning out: no cell phone, just a smidgen of internet, not knowing what day it is... Lots of reading. Watched the director's cut of Blade Runner (which I had not yet seen), 3 out of the 5 Planet Earth discs (the caves are gross but the mountains are Rad!). Did lots of thinking about just how I'm going to organize things for 2008.

Big Plans, my friends. Good stuff.

Also, we just saw Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. Fun. Funny. Blatant. Oddly, in the later parts of the movie, John C. Reilly spent a lot of time looking like Tim Robbins. Lots of funny cameos. Eddie Vedder looks just as dreamy at I thought he did when I was 16. (think what you will, my formative years were the 1990s)

We're back in the city tomorrow. Got to clean out the old apartment, have one last 2007 party blast, then back to work.

Happy New Year to all.