There are many glorious things I have failed to write about... life has been a bit of a whirlwind for the past week.

Yesterday was pretty excellent, though!

1. I began listening to Peter Pan on my way to work. I had never actually read the original, though of course I've been exposed to the story secondhand many times - Disney's cartoon, Hook, Finding Neverland, and so on and so on. The book itself is just charming. I love the way Barrie writes about the parents, with childlike misconception-fantasy. The description of Wendy's mother:

She was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such a sweet mocking mouth. Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from the puzzling East, however many you discover there is always one more; and her sweet mocking mouth had one kiss on it that Wendy could never get, though there is was, perfectly conspicuous in the right-hand corner.

2. The discovery that Green Apple Bookstore is much closer to places I go every day than I realized. This is possibly the most wonderful used & new bookstore I've ever seen. My first visit there I found used copies of two volumes of poetry I had been seeking for over three years.

3. C., who is in town for the week! She is great for adventuring.

4. Bubble tea. Mmm, chewy tapioca bubbles.

5. Adventuring with C.: we drove down the curvy part of Lombard Street and looked out over the foggy city below. Then we wandered around the piers, visited the sea lions, found the fishermen's chapel, and looked at boats.

6. Back home, we played Bananagrams, which is essentially speed Scrabble. Words are fun.

7. Sleeping under my wonderful fluffy duvet again, warm and cozy.

home for the holidays

Happy New Year!

1. Cross-country skiing this morning, alone, in the sunshine. It's always a bit of a thrill to ski down the street (the street! where people drive!) to the park, and today was a beautiful, perfect day for a jaunt. The sun was out and sparkling on the snow, which was hardly touched. I thought again of Hobbes and his big white sheet of paper as my skis cut a track across smooth fields and along wooded paths. I saw very few people - a few dog-walkers and a car or two - and really felt almost alone in the whole wonderful world. As I shuffled along the path overlooking the big brown river, bells chimed the hour from a church across the gorge. When I reached the pond, I found it frozen over except for a small dark spot at one end, which was full of mallards quacking at each other and splashing in the icy water. Nearby, a flock of seagulls all sat on the ice in a clump, all facing southeast, a trail of seagull footprints leading from the hole in the ice. I stood and watched the birds for a while, feeling grateful to have another kind of home than an ice-cold pond. When I grew cold enough that I had to re-zip my jacket, I turned and headed back to that home through the wonderful white.

2. My neighbor's cheerful greeting on my return, and his obvious good mood even though he was shoveling his driveway again. It's that kind of beautiful day. And he's that kind of happy guy. He's lived next door since I was four or five, and has been a fantastic friend and neighbor for all those years. I was lucky to have such great neighbors growing up.

3. A very late lunch of dim sum with my mother... crispy scallion pancakes, salty edamame, gooey crab rangoon, springy spring rolls. Most of the restaurants in town are closed for New Year's Day, but not this one! When the waitress brought the check, she also brought one of those roll-up wall calendars, with a cartoony bovine to let us know that 2009 is the year of the ox.

4. I had coffee with a college friend who now lives in Japan, teaching English to high school students. I don't think I'd seen her since she graduated almost three years ago, but we chatted away in the Barnes & Nobel cafe (sadly, awesome independent coffee shops are also closed for the holiday) as though nowhere near that time had passed. It was great to see her and to hear about teaching in a very different setting. And, so sweetly of her...

5. ...she brought me a present from Japan: Moomin trinkets! Stickers of Moomintroll and Snufkin, a pencil case bedecked with Little My, and, incredibly, Moomintroll chopsticks! I was speechless. I have loved these books since childhood, though they are not at all well-known in the US. It is in their native Finland and in Japan that the characters were popularly received. When I was in Finland I bought many Moomin items... but I never saw chopsticks!

6. Finally watching Little Miss Sunshine. I now agree with all the people who recommended it to me. It was great.

7. The lights on the Christmas tree, blinking and sparkling. I love to sit on the sofa this time of year and watch the patterns the lights make on the ceiling, pink and green and blue. The long needles of the white pine make fantastic shadows, and the lights glint on all the ornaments that we have collected over the years. Those ornaments feel like old friends; so many call up stories and memories. There is no place like home.

it's nice to be home

1. Waking up all curled up in my featherbed. This is one of the things I love about coming home to my parents' house in the winter.

2. Breakfast at the bagel shop I frequented senior year of high school. They still have the same bagel I got every week - granola almond with honey almond cream cheese. Crunchy!

3. Spending the whole day with my sister - and her being as excited about this as I am.

4. Lunch at the Indian buffet with my mom and sister. We stuffed ourselves full of curries and naan and chai and other lovely things.

5. Finding black pants that fit and are comfortable and are good for wearing to work. Pants that go with everything make getting dressed in the wee hours of the dawn much easier.

6. Giant piles of filthy snow at the edges of the parking lot at the mall. I know it sounds not so glorious, but it's home. There are no piles of snow, giant and/or filthy or not, in California, and in a perverse way I miss them.

7. The noise the wind is making right now as it gusts around the house, rattling the windows and moaning through the big pine tree and making the naked maples shake. And then it is still, and the yellow streetlamp shines on the damp pavement and the snow that lingers on the curb. And then the wind again, whispering, wuthering. I hope it keeps up all night long.

(and a bonus: I just got an email from a friend I hadn't known would be in town while I'm here!)

a glorious resolution

It might be too much to resolve to make this list every single day in 2009. A year is rather a long time. I'll start with January, and go from there.

Yesterday's glorious things:

1. The wonderfully crazy dreams I had, all about flying air filters and swimming nutrias and teaching. I have an unusual memory for my dreams in general, and even more so if I sleep in a strange place. I almost always enjoy this other world that I get to visit while I'm asleep, and have a real fondness for my dreams.

2. Seeing all my cousins, from the oldest to the baby, at our annual New Year's get-together. We're rather different - they mostly live in farm country and vote Republican and can repair bulldozers; I live in California, am happy about Obama, and sadly don't know much about bulldozers. But we always have a good time, and it's great to be in a house stuffed full of family.

3. Eight kinds of pie. 'Nuff said.

4. The way the evening comes on in that farm country in January, chill and fresh and pale sky shining over bare fields crested with leafless trees.

5. My cousins' new house, which will actually have enough room for their two small children to be as exuberant as small children are.

6. The drive back home with my sister, talking in the dark.

7. Making pizzelle on my new pizzelle maker late at night - they come out beautiful and golden every thirty seconds, as lovely as the ones you can buy at the Italian grocery, smelling of vanilla and a hint of anise!