It's been a lovely long weekend. Thanksgiving--as usual--was wonderful, despite all the frantic cleanup necessary beforehand. One of our friends brought along an elaborate and luscious Esterhazy Torte (layers of rum-soaked cream, dessert wine, almonds, grapes, and even more cream!), which she had baked to celebrate the latest round of Masks & Shadows rewrites--so cool, so yummy and so perfectly appropriate to the novel! ;) It was just a wonderful evening of hanging out with good friends, drinking good wine (I had some of the gold-colored dessert wine that had gone into the cake--sooooo good!), eating delicious and alcoholic cream cake and chatting until nearly midnight. (I know, I know--that's not considered "late" for cool people. But for us...) I loved it. Thanksgiving means a lot to me, despite all the complications both historical and culinary (being a vegetarian, after all, takes away the turkey tradition), and it always makes me happy. And as an added Thanksgiving treat, Patrick sold his story "The Western Front" to The Third Alternative just before our first guest arrived! What a great bonus.

Since then, we've just been relaxing. We'd originally talked about going out for exciting touristy fun, but when it came right down to it, we're both tired. So we've been lazing around, doing a bit of writing (I'm halfway through Chapter Eight of Music of the Stars), hanging out at the local bookshop, and playing with Nika. I'm feeling better than I have in a long time. There are more job applications coming due, papers coming up for December conferences, lectures to prepare...but not just yet. This is our weekend off. And it feels good.