So, that Christmas thing

I ignore it as much as possible, and this was a very successful weekend on that front. Yay me!

Technically, I had my one Christmas party on Friday. They called it a Christmas party, but no. I appreciate the desire of the company to put on a party, but there weren't many people there, and even those ones weren't in a party mood. The price of oil falling into a pit hasn't helped. Neither has the price of the company stock. It's public record that it opened 2014 above $9 a share, and closed last Friday at $2.50 a share. I'm sure glad I didn't buy when I started.

When I compare the number of people I actually knew to talk to this year, compared to in 2012 when I had barely worked there 6 months, there is much less than half. Many of them don't work there anymore. Lots of people that I do know, didn't attend. So of about 480 people or so, I knew 5 people well enough to chat to, and adding in the spouse of one coworker that has come to the last several parties makes 6. Then band fired up and killed any remaining chance of conversation. We bailed.

Saturday was a delightful day starting with coffee and treats. Cat cuddling. Working on my book. Reading. Relaxing. Watching it snow off and on. Watched a bit of DVD. Enjoyed not being out in the traffic.

Sunday was a bit more active. It started with a huge line up of cars trying to get into the Talisman center. I had to show my membership card to park. I've never seen so many people there. A swim meet will do that, I guess.

Michelle and I headed over to the training pool and found a lane to ourselves. I worked on some drill and technique, and gave Michelle some tips. Her swim has improved enormously! I really enjoyed cruising along, not really caring about time, but really focussing on water feel and trying to improve my catch.

After a nice coffee I was home looking out at a beautiful sunny winter day. I haven't run for about a month, and decided it was time again. That only lasted 2 K before I could feel my right leg being unhappy with me and decided to stop before I had to stop. A nice long stretch session after felt really good. What's that you say? My core streak? You mean the one I haven't mentioned for a few days? Well, yeah, there's a reason for that. Moving right along.

BBQ bison burgers for a late lunch, early dinner. Wine. Are you distracted yet?

After working on The Bone in the Digester for better than 20 years on and (mostly) off, I just figured out who and how it was done. Which means I have to rewrite. I'd always known I had to, some of it is pretty bad. But now I have a purpose. I'm going to have a busy Christmas buried in my laptop and I'm going to love it!

Lastly, cat photos!
Celina likes to snooze with her nose buried in her paws. She's a hard snoozing cat, even petting her doesn't wake her up. She just settles in more.

Curtis had just kicked the rival object (the laptop) out of my lap, and settled in with an air of ownership.

Both of them snoozing. It's hard to use a laptop at times like this.

One never knows when a paw will reach out and try to bring us down.

This was just as I got home from swim this morning. I woke Curtis up.

Celina just waking up from a snooze in the sun.

Celina is big on snoozing in the sun, and today was very sunny.