Ever Bethany

初夢

The first dream of the year has a significance in  Japan (and probably other Asian countries). I can report my last dream this morning was a fun, adventurous one, not a nightmare, but some mash-up of Sungkyunkwan with some war  going on, all of which I only vaguely remember...

Typical.

Japan celebrates New Year according to the Gregorian Calender, since their traditional year didn't match up with the Chinese calender originally, either, but they do track the zodiac, and some of the cutest greeting cards I've ever seen involve plays on words, or art using the animal to create the number's shape...

Some of them are also just freaking cute.



I don't have mochi and tangerines to eat today--I think we're going to a friend's, who is serving tacos.

明けましておめでとう！ Happy New Year!

View my brother Dan's Christmas window display:

so pretty after dark, and a clever way to use Christmas lights he doesn't like because they have the dark green wires which look bad on walls.

It is so amusing, because he is mostly not gifted in the fine arts--he's a musician. But he has the skill of Christmas decoration, which he does not enjoy at all, and has acquired this task for the jewelry store every year.

Yesterday after work we had the OSFW Christmas Party  (that is my local SF/F writers group) but I managed to get a few photos of the displays. And I thought that would be the biggest complication of the evening, getting out the door from work with the best clothing possible, but NO.

random image from my Rouen Castle project on the sky here

- Dan was feeling ill (Sonic Food Poisoning? which sounds more epic than what I mean)
- and then after some rigamarole when we set out from Claremore, his car was making ominous stomping sounds
- which made me forget to acquire a pie for naamah_darling , though I'd thought about it all day. Instead, she got The Thief and The Queen of Attolia, in their most beautiful paperback covers, though not for keeps.
(Please god someday there will be frameable art versions. Then we shall all T_T with joy)

I had made 2 batches of no-bake cookies, the second with standard sugary peanut butter from the Dollar Store to try and solve hardening issues, which turned out right...and then at the actual party someone had brought some from a store. EPIC FAIL RED but I contributed something. Plus, the bad batch and some leftovers I brought back will make my likkle siblings happier than they should be just for sugar, cocoa, and peanut bu--no, you know what, that makes me really happy, too. 9_9

Speaking of happy, I love presents, and I love laughing, so the nerd-core Dirty Santa swap (back home we called it the Yankee Gift Swap, but we were all Yankees, so~) is my favorite part of the year, in a way.

I got the very last number, and this is what I stole
I have been using it all day, pretty much



Since I look cute with Nerf artillery he has no intention of fighting off the invaders, marccarlson  gave me the weapon from his Alien Invasion Survival Kit which makes me happy because I love presents too much because it looks like the Millennium Falcon:



Batteries included (that's the brown paper sack). Yeah baby.

Tune in next for an introduction to Himitsu no Hanazono! A Japanese show I'm pretty sure none of you will want to watch... >,<