The Voyage of the Dawn Treader was my favorite of the Chronicles of Narnia. But I'm not going to see the movie (nor did I see Prince Caspian). And I don't remember the White Witch being in it at all. Have I forgotten? _

There was, apparently, an election in the Ivory Coast today, which wound up erupting into violence. Because, well, of course it did. They're not stable. And all I can think, really, is that I almost wish America weren't so complacent about election results. If the Bush/Gore thing had happened almost anywhere else there would have been a much bigger mess. And then Bush might not have been our president at all, wouldn't that be nice?

(Of course, rationally, I think living somewhere where there are dangerous riots when there's an election would be bad. But. Still. It shows people care.) _

Fretting about the Yuletide thing, and bouncing ideas off Tracy...(sigh)

I had a very cool idea, which would be very cool, but I would feel obliged to do research into Shakespeare's players before writing about it, and I'm not actually sure I have the the will to do that. _

My other favorite thing about the winter that broke the bridge is that there is still a monument to the feat of human engineering on one side of it _

I love being able to say things like "the winter that broke the bridge" and have people know what I'm taking about. _

And hot chocolate. I have hot chocolate. Or at least, I had hot chocolate, until I drank it. Perhaps I'll make more. It's a good night. _

Sam and I are back in Somerville, with Ellie the shit tzu in tow, because she really wanted to take a car ride with my brother. The original plan had been that Chris would drive his mom to the airport and take me and Connor home en route, but they decided instead that he's going to take the bus from Dartmouth to Boston tomorrow and get the car. So, I have Ellie on one side, and Sam on the other. And silly TV on the show. _

Whoo! Replacement iPod is here! With tons of accessories. _

As I predicted yesterday, because I ran around Borders desperately trying to get an apparently out of print comic book last night before going to see Harry Potter, we are closing early. Oh well. I'm sure if I hadn't shopped, we wouldn't close early. _

The metal end bit of my phone cord/USB charging thing snapped off in my phone this morning. There was about half an inch of metal sticking out, but my fingers were to slippy and I couldn't get it out. I took it to the Sprint store where I sort of begged and pleaded with them to please please please just try to take the thing out for me. I felt kind of bad for the guy, because they're not authorized to do repairs there and if he had broken my phone, he would have been held responsible for it. I think I had that holiday stressed out look on, and he took pity on me and did manage to get the thing out of my phone, and he checked to make sure that port still worked with a store charger. And then they had no chargers. I sulked, but of course there was nothing he could do, and I'm about to head off to Vermont, the land where cell phones don't work, so I figured I'd find one on Amazon for $1 and when I get back it would be in my mail box. He suggested I try Radio Shack across the street. "Don't go to them for repairs, but they might have the USB cord you need." (Fair enough.) So I went to Radio Shack. I handed him my mini USB broken bit and said "I need a USB cord that has one of these." He couldn't find one, and wound up suggesting that I upgrade my phone. I sort of snapped. I have had my phone for about a year, maybe less. It's a nice phone. They are still selling them for more than $100 across the street at Sprint, thank you very much, and besides having a broken power cord, it works just fine.

At this point, I was probably already running late for making it to Harry Potter with Moss and Julia, and I figured if I banked on Connor not getting off work at 5 and doing Will's birthday shopping tomorrow, Connor will get off at 5 and then I will have no present. And neither will my mom. So I went to Borders, having decided to get Will Season of Mists and the first four Books of Magic. This seemed perfectly reasonable. Borders had all of Sandman except Seasons of Mist (I think they are slowly redoing the covers again, and only the first three have new covers, and they are selling out of the old covers), so I picked up Doll's House instead. (I don't particularly care for the first book, and I don't think it's necessary.) And then I couldn't find Books of Magic. I was standing there, with American comics in front of me and Manga behind me and I was freaking out, I had no idea what to get him. A friend's husband had suggested Bone, but I know nothing about it at all. I thought of Death Note, and Nausicaa, and...ah. I asked for help. I got some nice blonde girl who was absolutely thrilled to know that Neil Gaiman had written more comics than Sandman, but neither one of us could find it, even though the computer said it was supposed to be there.

So, I called Tracy. When in doubt with comics, I call Tracy. (Or I try to get information out of people in the UK.) They only had Death Note 13, and I don't actually like Miyazaki, so I got him the first issue of Hikaru no Go, and checked out. I apparently earned enough points at Borders to get $10 off my bill. Who knew. Very nice.

I called Julia on my way out, decided that rather than going to her house I would meet them at the theater, got the bus number that runs from Harvard Square up Mass Ave, and got on the train. My bus was late, and then, I swear to god, made every possible stop between Harvard and the Capitol theater, and hit no lights at green.

But, Harry Potter was fun, and far less rushed than the earlier movies.

And then when I came home I found in my drawer of techy stuff, a USB cable that is exactly what I'm looking for. _

I could get away without any more grocery shopping before Thanksgiving, since I'm going to make a giant pot of lentil curried lentil soup for dinner tonight (advantages of Indian roommate: lots of Indian spices in my spice cabinet) and Kelly has invited us for dinner tomorrow before Trivia. But I promised my sister a Trader Joe's trip for almond flour and vanilla Joe-Joe's. And so. I am going to stumble over to Trader Joe's for treats for my sister, and since I'm there I'm going to get some frozen naan. And some sort of delicious cookies are likely to invariably leap into my shopping basket. _

And I have replaced the iPod I lost on Halloween, used on eBay. I haven't used eBay in years. This is the lost iPod's clue to reappear. _

Sam is in Vermont, since my parents were driving through Boston last weekend post-Zeb's surprise birthday party, and it seemed like the best way to guarantee that he'd make it to Vermont for Thanksgiving. My mom gives me occasional updates, when they got back to the house in Vermont, the other dogs were more excited to see Sam than to see the people, that he is doing the thing he does in the woods, where he runs in giant circles just on the edge of your sight (I do wish there were somewhere I could walk him off leash near here. I suppose I could take him to Fresh Pond, but the roads between Alewife and Fresh Pond make me a little nervous as a person, and I'd rather not deal with them with the dog.)

And it was nice, on Friday, when it was 11 and I wound up just sleeping in Moss and Julia's guest room, that that was an option. But I still miss coming home and not having a small white fuzz ball come running to greet me, I miss dog kisses in the morning, and warm dog cuddles while i knit and watch TV.

I guess I will see him on Wednesday. _

I'm fairly sure my step-nephew is turning 15 on Thanksgiving. His mom said he would like cool graphic novels or mangas. Is 15 too young to give him Sandman? I'm sure I was 15 when I started reading Sandman. _

Okay, I have just spent hours trying to compare information from two different spreadsheets to find out what is different. I have it color coded. I have True=False Statements. They are color coded. And, I think I am about to go blind. I have no idea what to do with my true and false statements.

Fortunately, it is nearly 5. I can go home in a minute. I can stop at Shaw's and get a loaf of Iggy's bread and make potato leek soup and watch something silly on TV while working on the purple sweater of ridiculousness. _

Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are Undead is available on Netflix. Hm.

I should restart the Hamlet project. _

Victory is mine. I got my landlord to replace the drain in my kitchen sink. It drained fine, but there was almost a quarter inch lip and it collected water and it was so gross.

Next up, getting him to fix the faucet so it doesn't spray when you turn the water on. _

Two years ago was my brother's brain cancer surgery. And today I got a reminder email from Evite about my stepbrother's birthday party this weekend (his birthday is also today), and the ad at the bottom was from the American Cancer Society, "the official sponsors of birthdays."

((shudders))

This is more public than I usually get about my brother's cancer, or that he does either. _

When I was little, we lived in an old farmhouse. We had a barn. It was brick red, and it had hex signs on it. My best friends also lived in an old farmhouse, with a similar barn.

While I realize that outside of Reading PA barns are all sorts of colors, I will see them in fields and they don't hit the brain register of "barn."

Yes, I realize this is weird. This was inspired by the pot pie conversation on Julia's blog. _

I made puff pastry vegetable stew pie for dinner. It is delicious. And I made way too much filling, so I have frozen it for some other time when I have puff pastry again. _