Woke up this morning and prepared the coffee maker for brewing, pressed the start button, and, well, the light came on but no coffee spirt inside. Dead. Dead I tell you. The coffee maker just died. The warming pad wouldn't heat up and the water stayed in the reservoir.

It had a good, long life. I got the coffee maker FREE from Gevalia around five years ago for trying their coffee. I didn't like Gevalia's coffee. Still don't. But that coffee maker served me well. RIP.

We bought a Black & Decker coffee maker later in the day. It'll do the job. Sometimes I think I want a sophisticated coffee maker with all sorts of bells and whistles, but you can spend only so much on a coffee maker. I used to have one that beeped when the coffee was done brewing and Ximena would say "The coffee maker is backing up" because that's exactly what it sounded like. This new one doesn't have that, and it's white (not black like the Gevalia one). Some people name their laptops. Maybe I should name my new coffee maker. Manna From Coffee Bean or Coffee Brewster. Heh.

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Busy week coming up. We have a employee Christmas party to go tomorrow and that would be Ximena's fellow employees at Jacko Plumbing. Wednesday, the youngster, Drillbit, gets fixed, but around here we like to call it "edited." Kitty will get caught up on her shots that day as well.

Tuesday night is the big Wordo holiday reading. One night, the last workshop of the year, everybody writes a thousand word (or shorter) story and all we do is read our stories outloud. No critquing. There's snacks and a big crowd because sometimes family and friends come, as well as former or infrequent members. I hope to hammer out mine within the next couple of days.

Saturday on Xmas eve we're having friends over for the usual dollar gift exchange, another story reading (generally christmas ghost stories), and cookies, chocolate, coffee and other fine beverages.

I also want to write a story for that evening.

Kind of a shame to switch gears from the novel to short stories just when I seem to be approaching novel momentum again. However, producing and finishing stories are always good. It'll be a great week if I can make those deadlines.

I think it's time to have a cookie . . .