Wow. That went fast.

Let's try and recap the holidays, fast forward style.

After work in Denver I was home with the folks in Sacto / Nevada City for about 5 days before heading to LA for work and then the Santa Ynez wine country (found a second white I love in '07 - a viognier, the first being the pinot from Franschoeck) and then Santa Cruz island. Back to NorCal for the Christmas times, then off to NYC via the aforementioned Chicago.


Last Friday was Jason and Julie's wedding which was a whole barrel of monkeys fun. Nice ceremony followed by incredible hors d'oeuvres and a nice dinner with a bunch of the old crew there. Everything seemed to go really well and then they were off on their honeymoon leaving me to house-sit for the week.


The next morning I headed off for DC in a 'stang and managed not to have a run in with the 5-0 for the whole trip. It was Sarah's birthday and there was hiking and bouldering and Irish pubbing and movie-going and burgering and game-playing and game-watching and movie-watching. It was a good, long day. Gretta has grown HUGE since I saw her last, she's so big now.


After church on Sunday Jack and Rebecca cooked a truly awesome fritatta brunch for us with lots of bacon and these cool toast things with tomatoes and goat cheese YUM. And they got me one of my favorite Christmas presents - one I've been wanting ever since I saw it on Rebecca's blog. Also I found out that almost all of Hopper's best pieces are currently being exhibited at the DC Art Museum and my Moleskin with my as-yet-uncompleted sketches sits back in Africa on my desk, useless. Bah.

Once I got back it was already almost New Years Eve. There was like no sleep this past weekend, basically. Had spiced wine at Nicole's pre-party / housewarming thing at the coolest apartment that any of my friends have. That, plus walking around the village this afternoon, pretty much sealed where I want to live when I come back. I love that nabe. Anyway, headed over to Jen's apartment to pre with the Daves and Chris (Negrin's little brother). Then we caught a cab down to the party that Amber and Erin et. al. put together in a loft in Tribeca. Had the bitterest, angriest cabbie ever. The party was good, saw a couple old faces, met some new ones, all of a sudden it was midnight and soon after we shot out of there for the bars, ended up in the West Village (where else) at some bar I had never noticed there before, even though it was on Hudson. I turned into a pumpkin a couple hours later and headed home. Hoboken was, as expected, insane.

New Years day I watched a lot of football, then headed over to Dave's folks place to help them clean up Christmas leftovers, his mom makes the tenderest turkey ever. Caught up with his parents and Jon and Ann Marie, then Dave and I saw Sweeny Todd, which was more gory than Sin City, I'm pretty sure. But the musical parts were actually quite nice.

This week has been catching up on sleep, cleaning up the various computers and discs etc. in preparation for the great back-up of '08 (I ponied up for a 1.5 terabyte - having officially left the realm of GB - when I was back in CA. Merry Christmas to me.), which begins shortly, when I stop procrastinating.

Today started my social-catch-up with the NYC folk who I didn't connect with yet, brunch with Nicole and then dinner with the guys at Arthur's tonight, which will be exceedingly fattening. I think I have lunch tomorrow with someone but can't remember who, and then dinner with Bo. Then more people and meals and hopefully catching a showing of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly at the Angelika - one of my favorite cinematographers ever. Sunday will be church and youth group and seeing all the kids again, plus meeting the newer leaders. Monday I'm at the Cookes' but might hit the office, then I think its either Tues or Weds I'm back to good ol' Zed A.

So that's what I've been doing. Should be returning to more frequent blogging shortly, including more retro-blogging, also story time, as well as my inaugural annual list of things I didn't get for Christmas (hint, hint, birthday present buyers).