Well, here's how it looked around here at about nine this morning:





It's extremely warm here - in the high 40s and low 50s - so what, in a perfect world, would be snow is turning out to be . . . rain. Yuck.

But at least we have the tree for illumination. I'm really, really happy about the tree . . . Emma and I bought it about a week and a half ago at my new favorite bookstore, Everybody Reads. The proceeds went directly to Habitat for Humanity, which seemed like a worthy cause . . . but the tree came bundled in plastic, so we couldn't really see what it looked like, and it was sort of past its Christmas-tree prime. When we unwrapped it, the branches stayed snug in to the trunk, and I was worried that since the trunk was rather impermeable (and don't even talk to me about sawing off the bottom inch; I can't even tell you what county our saw is in, let alone locate it), I figured the tree would never absorb moisture, the branches would never fall down enough to hold ornaments, and our $15 (half what we'd pay in That Other City for a tree!!) would have been a nice donation, but little else. And look at it! It's wonderful. I think Emma's design scheme - clear lights and blue and white ornaments - really made it awesome.

We're definitely slouching towards Christmas here. The semester is over, finally (yay!), and we have gotten through our early-December trials. Emma had her tonsils out on the 6th, more or less without a hitch. (She had a longer-than-anticipated stay in the hospital because, Drama Queen that she is, she was exaggerating her reported pain to the nurses, who thought it was uncontrollable . . . but we managed to spring her by 7 pm, just in time for me to get to German class for my end-of-semester skit . . . ) On the 11th the car went in for body work from the deer incident last month. Since we were down to one car, this meant that I hitched rides with a colleague for the week; she left at 7 am (!!) and returned home at 3. On the 12th, Emma had a tonsil bleed, which was mondo scary, especially since I was at work and didn't have a car to come get her from home (but luckily I have 6546563 colleagues ready to help) . . . we had to take her back to the ER, where they saw her IMMEDIATELY (boy, if you want quick service there, just go in bleeding from your mouth) despite the fact that the waiting room was standing room only when we arrived.

Turns out that tonsil bleeds are dangerous because that's a very vascular area, but they are easily treated. Emma got her tonsil cauterized (they do that with chemicals now) which didn't look like any fun, but it also didn't seem as painful as other procedures she's had done. Since then she's been on soft foods and liquids. Today we went back to the doctor, who pronounced her "almost" healed. I let her go to Ann Arbor tonight, even though she isn't 100%, because she's been extraordinarily good-humored and sensible about the whole situation.

On the 15th, I got on the train for Chicago, where my friend Barb and I went to the opera - twice!! On Friday we saw Die Fledermaus, which was perfect (or nearly so; the music critic for the Chicago Tribune found nits to pick here and there, but for us members of the Great Unwashed, it was ausgezeichnet). I didn't realize that large chunks of the opera are actually spoken, and I was thrilled to discover that I could actually, really truly understand some of it, even without the supertitles. (OK, so stuff on the order of, "Ich brauche deine Brille, ich brauche deine Mantel" is not sophisticated dialogue . . . but still.)

On Saturday we saw Romeo and Juliet, which I didn't like as well. We decided that Romeo was rather wooden, and I also thought that his voice didn't mesh with Juliet's all that well (and that opera contains lots of duets). Also . . . truth to tell, I just don't like the story all that well . . . maybe I'm hopelessly unromantic, but I have never been able to buy the love at first sight aspect. Ah, well.

We also went to the Christkindl Market, where (in addition to Gluhwein and potato pancakes) I got a CD of German Christmas carols, complete with a book with the lyrics. I was very happy about this! Now I can figure out what all those songs I've heard all my life actually mean . . .

I came home on Sunday and it seems I've been busy, busy, busy since then, although if I list off what I've been doing, it doesn't seem like much. (How do I ever find time to go to work, I wonder?) One thing that's been nice is that we've seen a lot of Charlie lately . . . that's a silver lining, though; he's been hanging around because the place where he was working went out of business, so he's broke. (We've been feeding him.) I'm sure it won't be long until he gets another job (there's great demand for delivery people around here), but this is a bad time of year for him to be out of work, since guess who's paying his rent this month?? But on the other hand, the other night we had dinner with both kids and Em's boyfriend, which was really nice . . . it was the first time we had five chairs around the table since we moved here.

Well, it's getting late, and I have some knitting to do, so I think I'll sign off now. Hope everyone is having a pleasant holiday season, too.