Domhnach caite eile

Do bhí an ceiliúradh tigh mo dhearthár mar ba cheart go díreach: Bhí an iomad le hithe, le hól, le rá, agus le fanacht go mall agam. Ba inniu caithreamh aoibhinn lae. Do bhíos ag smaoineamh ar dhul ag spaisteoireacht le taobh an locha nó trí reilig (Cnoc Rós nó Tír na nGrást) chun radharc sneachta úir a bhreathnú. Ina áit sin d'fhanas beagnach an lá iomlán im leabaidh ag léamh Uí Eithir agus Yeats agus ag foghlaim ar Ghaoluinn i rith an ama ag ól an tae bháin bhláthaigh a raibh tabhairt dom ag Saf agus Amanda. Idir an dá linn, bhí monshu ag fanacht sa leabaidh, ach de dheasca cúinsí an-éagsúla: Do bhuail sé breoite!

"Live in uncertainty"

Kudos to bunj and e. on another wildly successful Christmas party. All their suffering through construction this past summer (and fall) paid off grandly. Three hours in, e. confided to me that she hadn't had to leave the kitchen yet: The party kept coming to her. The dining nook in the expanded kitchen really is ridiculously inviting. If not for the necessity of retiring to living room for the Great Unenveloping, I might never have left it either. After all, the view of the snow sifting over backyards was enchanting, the cool kids (i.e. the smokers) were all hanging out there, and the bar was less than a yard away.

The surprise favourites for the night were the Santa Clara brand rompope I brought--ladysophis2k8 showed the way by drinking it diluted to half with Bacardi and it was almost completely demolished by the end of the evening--and an incredibly girly near-kir royal (made with syrup rather than crème de cassis--kir réginal anyone?) Later, I switched to sprinkling cassis syrup into Persephone vodka tonics and then gradually eliminated the vodka after I got as messed up as I wanted to be.

That point came rapidly after I inaugurated a drinking game based on one of my new gifts, a picture books of 70s and 80s hunks given me by spookyfruit. I held up each page as I read aloud the names; if it was a pinup you fancied back in the day, you had to take a sip. I liked the fact that the hunks came in pairs, so the world will never need know if took that gulp for Donny Osmond rather than Patrick Duffy. There were some criminal omissions, however; bunj was as outraged as I over the lack of Gil Gerard and I don't have to have had a whit of interest in Leif Garrett or John Stamos to agree that no such compilation can call itself complete without them.

Because we're all men and women d'un certain âge, the festivities broke up before 11, but of course I was awake for another couple hours after that, still bathing in the lingering warmth of so much good food, drink, and company. I'm guessing lhn must've been somewhat sleepless, too, since the photos he took were up in his Flickr set (with captions!) before the night was over. (Hoffentlich findet der nibadi das Foto von mir und monshu so niedlich als ich.) Oh, and ladysophis2k8 didn't want links to the short films I told her about, so I'll just give the titles: No Béarla and Yu Ming is ainm dom. Bain sult astu!

Katzenjammerfrei

monshu and I each spent the day in bed, but for entirely different reasons. I just wanted to be lazy and read, but he poor thing has come down with his first winter illness. I'm just praying I don't get it before flying to STL Thursday morning. (Though, if that's really my concern, there are less foolish places to be than in the same room with him typing on his tainted keyboard. Call me a fatalist...) So his plans for a festive dinner have been shelved for a couple days. Who knows, it might yet work out for the best if it allows him to track down the duck he wanted instead of the lamb he settled for.

Is there anything like the coziness of relaxing under the covers with a view to the sun on the snow outside while you sip hot tea? Unfortunately, I was lured by its low-caffeine claims into underestimating the effects of two pots of white tea on my delicate nervous system and now, six hours or more after the last cup, I'm still a bundle of nerves. Oh, well; I can let my sleep schedule slide for at least one more night on account of an appointment with the dentist first thing tomorrow morning.

I'm finally about a third of the way through An Nollaig Thiar. At this rate, I'd never finish it before Christmas even without the distraction of the family circus that awaits me, but I'm pleased with my progress all the same. This is, after all, a language that I'd never read more than a few sentences of at a time (and those very painstakingly) prior to two weeks ago. I'm just now starting to reach that point of frustration where most of the morphosyntax has fallen into place and I'm spang up against my inability to memorise vocabulary effectively. I know there are words I'm looking up for the fifth, sixth, maybe even the tenth time now but I'm not sure what's the best way to nail them into my cortex. Start keeping a list and turn it into a Quizlet?