Saturday

Listening to "Year Without a Santa Claus" while writing this.  Walked around the lake just now, it was this luminary event the neighborhood does every year.  Technically, it was over, but they hadn't extinguished all the lights, and there were still crowds walking, so I went, too.  Saw a shooting star.  The sky is very clear tonight, the air still, water reflective, and it was in the 40's, so, also not too cold.  A good night for walking the lake.  I actually thought it happened last week, but saw a sign for it this morning.  There was no moon out, so lots of stars.  I sat on a bench for a while and star-gazed, miss being able to see them.  There's usually too much light.

We had our annual concert/Finnish Christmas dinner earlier today (which was why I was late walking the lake), and clown jam right before that.  Added a fourth person to mine, so I'll have to figure out how to write that, as one person said, "Get all the air out of it."  I'm not sure what the game is, and because we added the fourth person, which really changes the dynamic and focus, we just played with it, so I'm not sure where we are.  I'll probably write a couple of versions this week, as some form of outline.  Still working on my personality, too (though, I'm flirting more, so that's progress.)  I need a map.

Earlier today, I walked over to Starbuck's (yeah, yeah, yeah, I frequent many coffee shops) and while waiting in line, I saw that I could get a free $5 gift card with the purchase of that Via instant coffee, so I grabbed some of that, it'll probably save money at some point, I'm often feeling lazy in the morning.  When I got up to the register, the man rung me up, and I asked if he'd charged me for the coffee, and he said someone else had paid most of my bill (via an anonymous gift card.)  I had been meaning to use the gift card to pay for the coffee, but forgot about that, at any rate, since I didn't end up paying for the card, I gave it to the man selling papers outside (I didn't have any cash to buy the paper.)  I didn't really have any plans for it.

Then I went to the grocery store and was looking at Christmas cards and thinking I should write some and send them (before the New Year.)  I walked back on my way out and decided I would splurge for these cards with an odd Finnish-looking character on them.  They didn't say they were on sale, but they rang up for half price.  And then at the Finnish dinner, I paid my way (we always have to pay even though we are hosts, though we get a discount)...a little while later, someone handed my money back to me saying that someone else had wanted to pay for my dinner.  I do always seem to be broke, but I wasn't today.  It was a nice run of that though.

Down to 9 1/2 library books (not counting Dickens) and five movies (there are more now because I stopped by Scarecrow Video on the 2/1 night, you get those for a week.  Oh, the guy gave me a discount on that, too.  I think because he couldn't find one of the movies, and I had to switch it.)  Been kinda' stressed out over everything, was thinking Christmas was this week for some reason, but I was wrong.  The Finnish choir only has one more gig and then we have almost a month off.  The other choir doesn't get any time off (except for the holidays that fall on rehearsals.)

Most of my waking thoughts, and every dream I've had recently have involved theatre somehow.  Got a lot I need to get done, and soon.  Outer commitments are slowing down, but have all that stuff I have to make happen now.  Cheers.