New Ears.

Yep, I've got 'em, and they're lovely. Just the thing with which to enjoy the new year. (My old ones were always too ready to jump ship, anyway, straining horizontally in their stick-out fashion.)

The rush and exuberant pageantry of the past few weeks have trickled away, leaving me with only the steady stream of more common life to give. All of the snatches of conversation, good humor, thoughtful words, and the like refuse their setting down today.

We celebrated Christmas, or the part of its 12 days that we spent in Nanticoke, in good company. I was too busy relishing the chaos of brothers and sisters and nephews and nieces to take pictures, but if you can imagine 24 people in a small house, surely you understand why I have few to share. My poor Mopsy had to relearn the enjoyable nature of bedlam and then adjust to its immediate absence, all in one abrupt weekend.

We have a new downstairs neighbor, identity unknown, but she has a fiery red car.

I bought 10 large plastic bins in order to save the environment. (My logic is sound. I'll use them to organize all the children's clothes in storage before Baby Blueberry appears, and will keep using them until I'm 95, at which point I'll bequeath them to my heirs. This, therefore, ensures that a careless American won't buy them only to toss them in a landfill a few years from now.)

Last night, John and I played one of the board games he gave me for Christmas. He squashed me 96 to 1.

(And that same pair of too-smart whupping pants received his cumulative GPA for his Master's degree. It's officially a 4.0. Four point. Oh! Perfecto.)

The uniformity of gray swallows the spark, and I must be off to doodle a few thank you notes. In a few days, perhaps a real post will appear. Climb the crow's nest and watch with sharp eyes. Until then, enjoy the laundromat! (Because we sure didn't. Oh, what a morning we had!)