December. Season of cold weather, snow, Christmas carols, ginger cookies, and tinsel. Except in California the weather is still reasonably mild; it gets nice and chill at night, and sometimes foggy, but rarely actually cold. There's a Christmas tree in the lobby of my building here at work, looking very incongruous in front of a window looking out on sloping bright-green lawns and trees in various seasonal states. We've got everything from firs (green, but they're supposed to be), to various deciduous trees still fighting to change colours, to trees which are springtime green and determined to stay that way.

Living in California is sort of confusing.

I ought to talk about Thanksgiving. Earl and I went to Oklahoma to see my father & stepmom (Mary). My stepsister (Ann) and her husband (Adam) were also there.

Wednesday we flew and flew and flew, arriving in Tulsa around 2320. We found my father, got into a car, and rode the two and a half hours to Enid. The car conversation was fairly eclectic and gossipy, which was amusing enough that I forgot how tired I was. Upon arrival we made sandwiches, wandered briefly around the house, then collapsed. My sister and her husband had taken the smaller room with the daybed, which left Earl and I the waterbed. She's a nice sister.

Thursday we woke up around 9:30, which meant something like six hours of sleep. After a quick breakfast we got back into the car and spent two and a half hours going back to Tulsa for Thanksgiving dinner with my stepmom's family. The dinner itself was delicious, but I was pretty uncomfortable socially. Too many people who were related to each other and didn't really know me. I solved the problem by falling asleep until it was time to go home.

Once we were back in Enid (another two and a half hours -- by this time I was sick to death of moving, even if I did get to hear all of Dylan's Blood on the Tracks in the car on the way back) we all collapsed in various ways. I checked email. Earl read. After a while we regrouped in the living room and watched Back to the Future. It's a much better movie than I realised. Earl and I had a brief but spirited discussion about whether or not the movie romanticizes the 1950's (yes, it does, but only incidentally), and ate some more, and then went to sleep.

I woke up too early on Friday and had a hard time getting back to sleep. The afternoon was mostly spent playing Riven with Earl -- my father had just bought the game but hadn't gotten around to opening it yet. We installed it and explored merrily for several hours. Dinner was barbeque chicken (a childhood favourite), and I managed to eat a lot of it. Afterwards Adam and my father went and watched basketball on the smaller television, and Earl curled up on a couch to read The Riddlemaster of Hed in German. I hung out in the kitchen with Mary and Ann, making fudge and listening to CDs at high volume. It was arguably the best part of the weekend -- loud music, cooking, sugar, and a lot of silliness. The red wine we'd had before/with dinner probably contributed.

Once the fudge was made we played a game of Monopoly -- Mary had gotten the StarWars version for her birthday and was really excited about playing with it. Hair was in the CD player (which the guys made us turn down), so Ann and I sang along gleefully; this earned us some odd looks from Adam, especially when we got to the more explicit songs. I went bankrupt early on, so wandered upstairs to send Jim email while Earl marched on to victory. A short amount of amusing conversation ensued, then everyone wandered off to bed.

Saturday was much more of the same sort of thing. We went into town (such as it is) and bought Earl new sneakers to make up for the dog having chewed on his current pair. Mary bought Ann and I some new clothes -- I have two more pairs of jeans, a reddish fuzzy sweater, and a soft brown velvety vest-like thing. Then we went to Hastings, which is the local Borders equivilant, and I bought a copy of Heroes of Might & Magic II. I think this makes me an official addict.

Saturday night a bunch of my father's friends came over. I hid upstairs and played Might & Magic. Earl hid with me, reading. I think people thought I was sulking or something -- which maybe I was. I don't know. Too damn many people, too much travelling. I was ready to be home.

Sunday was another ten or so hours of driving and flying and driving, culminating with our arrival in SFO around 2230. We drove home. I said hello to my newly acquired housemate. We fell asleep.

Now you're caught up. Diane and Ceej are so much better at this than I am.