Happy New Year

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, Christmas. One of the happiest Christmases ever.

The embarrassment of material bounty and food and drink is too much to list here, and I hadn't been able to bring myself to update you all about it, given what we are seeing on TV from Asia. Now that a little time has passed and we are seeing relief reach those poor people, it seems a bit less unseemly to thank people for the embarrassingly huge and lovingly-chosen haul I've gotten this year.

Yes, I cooked Christmas dinner and it came out splendidly if I do say so myself! I genuinely surprised myself and had a wonderful time trying my hand at being Martha. "L'il Gobbler", as the bird was dubbed, despite being only about eight pounds, lasted long enough to ensure our eyes glazed over at leftovers.

Got a lifetime-special gift... when I graduated from University, I was not only dirt-broke, I was tens of thousands of dollars in debt from student loans. I watched as my friends snapped up formal grad photographs, yearbooks, class rings, graduation dinners, and so on. Most of that stuff didn't really matter to me, though, although it "twinged" - except that I always regretted not being able to own my class ring, that token of the achievement, that badge that you have made it through the ritual of a degree. I would look at my friend A's - we did several years of Uni together and lived together for a couple of them - and feel a tinge of regret.

This year, I opened a small box, my last Christmas present, and found my class ring.

It has my degree on one shoulder and my year - 89 - on the other (I didn't even know you could get retroactive class rings!!) It has the crest of Memorial University in gorgeous burgundy against the gold. And inside it is engraved, "[Ronniecat], with love, [Husband]".

Now how's that for a Christmas present?

I burst into tears when I opened it up, which I think was most appropriate and, I hope, gratifying for him :)

Dear Husband also got me "Half Life 2" which alone would've made my Christmas. And in a perfect synchronicity, on Christmas Eve my new laptop computer, the one designed to help facilitate communication for me, arrived. It's a monster - a 17" Toshiba - but it can pretty well run the space shuttle.

Very Very Cool deaf-related gifts included a portable whiteboard with attached marker (no more piles of paper on my desk from ten notes written on ten scraps of paper!) and excellent ASL software, again both from Husband.

Funniest gift? The book "Bad Cats" from a close friend. Published by the good folks who run http://www.mycathatesyou.com, it had me and Sis in hysterics for an hour last night.

Blessed with abundance in all things, I am. I hope your holidays were as happy.

ronnie