Saturday was a very nice day: racketing down the coast with some work friends. I got up too late to make it to the goat farm, so I had to meet them at the kiwi-picking place. Then we headed eight miles farther down the coast to the farmstand for delicious honor-system soup and cider, and after that we were about to leave for the pie ranch when Meghan, who's about a year and a half old, somehow slid off a bench and landed on her face and cut her lip and there was blood everywhere. So she and her sister and parents zoomed off to Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz, and the rest of us drove inland to the biker pie ranch. Where, after we'd had our pie slices -- mine was apple/olallieberry, and after we all tasted around, I think I picked the best one -- we also got a pie for the others, and I drove it back to the hospital for them. Kiera, Meghan's older sister, had been heartbroken about missing the pie, so we thus managed to rescue the occasion. (Meghan's fine. Her lip is glamorously pink and swollen, with tiny almost invisible stitches.)

It was hazy along the coast and the water was startlingly turquoise. The pale spiky grasses with giant tufts -- the kind that are overused for landscaping in suburban Cincinnati, and look very silly there -- were sticking up all over the place like big bright exclamation marks among the dark coastal shrubs. I've been in California for long enough now that I occasionally forget just how improbably beautiful it is out here. It's good to be reminded.

After that I drove back home along 17, got Crosbie his dinner, took him for a walk, and then headed out to a party at the house of my former neighbor Sam. Sam now lives right around the block from mrcozy and mfh. It was a Christmas party and also a belated housewarming party; since his street is called VICTORY, he just referred to it as a VICTORY party, and that's what we toasted. Sam has a lot of really, really nice friends. They're almost as fun to talk with as you all. I was floored; in five and a half years I'd never met any of them. Mind you, Sam doesn't know more than a handful of you, either.

scrump and raar's new boy turned up as scheduled this morning. They've named him after a paranormal romance hero and a Portuguese dictator, among other things. Ostensibly he has curly hair, but you can't see it in the picture because he's wearing a tiny white hat. He has a placid expression.

I'm at work. It's been raining, so the sky is all nuanced. There are two skies, actually, because of the reflection in the salt ponds, and both of them look great.

Oh, and I forgot to add that I talked to Aisha yesterday. Bloomington people: you know they're back in that general direction, right? They're living in one of the 'villes. (Actually, by "Bloomington people" I really mean bluegraygreen and virtualschmelz -- I'm not sure anyone else who's reading this knows them.) And they now have four kids.

A vendor gave us some eiswein. The handful of us who are actually physically present in the office just had some. It was rather odd and very nice to be in California drinking Niagara wine.

The neighborhood's looking pretty good. I'm pleasd to report that the inflatables seem to be less popular this year, though Green Santa and Red Santa are once again guarding on my street from inside and atop their sphere. The same house has also added two lit-up animatronic white wireframe reindeer. They're like the high-tech edition of those Swedish twig reindeer; if you've seen Fanny and Alexander you know what I mean. One of them keeps putting his head down. I guess he's supposed to be eating, but instead he looks very Eeyore-ish and depressed, especially in contrast to the regal posture of the other reindeer, who's holding his magnificent antlers high and rotating them slowly, imperiously, like a royal handwave.

Conical-helix light structures seem popular this year, about human-size: wireframe conifers, I guess.

Chez scrump and raar is festooned with multicolored lights, the big bright ones; the new kid (due Monday!) will come home to a tangle of saturated color.

Botanically: well, as I've mentioned before, there's no across-the-board downtime here. Some trees drop leaves. Sycamores go first, and with very little show; they just crumple up and get dull and let go. The oaks along my part of El Camino look fantastic for about six weeks, but they're pretty much done. Some maples are still out and blazing. The landscaping trees at work -- prunus variants, I don't know what exactly -- are at different stages, but some of them are right now a deep woody burgundy color. Other things are still green, and yet others are bare already. Things with berries are popping them out everywhere. Flowers: roses, of course, but now also with calendulas and narcissus in a while there will be primrose and periwinkle. And the geraniums, which are always with us, are more conspicuous now that they're less eclipsed by everything else. One of my yellow Gerber daisies decided unexpectedly to bloom last week.

Often it's foggy in the morning. The fog only sometimes burns off mid-day; last week it stayed cloudy and drizzly most days, which felt cozy and introspective.

Last night I spent a little time with Denise and Alec, drinking wine and just talking. That was lovely. It was even okay that they shooed us out well before ten, as did all the neighboring establishments (People! It's approaching ten o'clock in Palo Alto! Why aren't you in bed?) Afterwards, strolling back down University past the Apple store and the busker singing Van Morrison and the huge rug store, I felt surprisingly festive, and I wished I could tell everyone I know how much I love them. Which I guess I'm doing now, at least for those of you who read this.

I'm worried because I've been trying for a few days to talk with Lisa in Modesto about Christmas plans for Crosbie. In theory we discussed this back in October, but I haven't been able to reach her. I'd really rather he not stay with Scott the landlord, if there's a reasonable alternative; last time didn't go well, through no fault of Crosbie's.

The health care thing is really freaking me out. As an artist who is frequently sick in one way or another, I'm on tenderhooks about the public option, but the allotment of coverage is really really scaring me. Especially because while the rights and money for women's care (including abortions and birth control) are being disappeared, meanwhile this health care bill will totally cover Viagra!
Aaaaugh.

Speaking of insane ladymedicine things, yesterday I received the single most disturbing piece of mail to ever cross my hands.
What list am I on that I get this kind of thing?

Every winter, my internet service gets cranky in the cold, so I finally got my service back this morning after almost a week. To fill my need to stare at screens while I was internetless, I watched movies. I doodled my way through Harry Potter 6-- You can see my silly drawings here: Harry Potter Doodles

I have a neat interview up over on the Hideous Energy Comics Blog. We talk music, books, all kinds of stuff!