Gatherings ~

We've been enjoying the fellowship of the church and community lately, beginning with a grand Sunday Holiday Jazz Brunch with our dining-out group at the Williamsburg Inn, followed by our Sunday evening small group at which we screened the excellent "Nativity Story" movie/DVD, a faithful retelling of the Christmas story from the Zacharia angel visitation to the visit of the Magi, filmed in authentic mid-Eastern lands and lovingly told.

Yesterday M headed off for various errands and I enjoyed jogging a lap of the golf course in partial atonement for the outrageous over-eating of the past few days. The temps hit the low 70's as I then gathered the leaves from the deck and mulched the back yard while a large red-tailed hawk watched me from a fencepost. I ran some errands on BluZu and then finally had success in wiring up new triple 12v outlets in the van.

Again last night I was up 'til after 0100 reading John Grogan's "The Longest Trip Home," a compelling and enjoyable coming-of-age memoir by the author of the smash "Marley and Me," the story of his family and its dysfunctional dog. Both books have been kindly passed along to me by Martha Nelle and Marley will be next on my reading list.

It was a rainy, cozy morning and the day was mostly spent at desk tasks, including finally writing this year's Christmas letter and beginning to assemble and caption the year's on-line photo album. This evening's Gourmet Club gathering was very enjoyable, which was something of a surprise for reasons we can tell you about off-line.

Tomorrow the Christmas Gathering gets underway in earnest as The RewCor flies east to DCA where we'll meet them at about midnight. Prior to that we'll see the musical adaptation of "Legally Blonde" at the Kennedy Center and then spend the night in an Alexandria hotel. The kids will head off to spend time with Corelyn's family and will then travel to Brentwood with me Sunday night/Monday in the A/Bus; M flies off to BNA on Friday so as to be there for J-Man's birthday party on Saturday, the day Caroline drives down from Chicago. Yes, it's Complicated.

But fun! Can't wait to get it all started.