Today is Saint Andrew's day. St. Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland, like St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland. So it surprised me a lot, when I first came to the US, to learn that on March 17 everyone becomes Irish, but on November 30, no one becomes Scottish. Ah well, tonight I will drink a small whisky and think of my countrymen.

This was what I wrote to friends about what I expected Thankgiving to be like -- it wasn't far from it :-)

09:00 am Wake up, get Chris to make me breakfast, coffee and get papers.
10:30 am Take a shower, paint toenails.
11:00 am Try on 5 different outfits...eventually find elasticated attire!
11:30 am Think about what I'm going to take to Luries; Salmon Kedgeree and Caramel shortcake
12:30 pm Make Kedgeree.
01:30 pm Small snack - really!
02:00 pm Leave for Luries.
02:30 pm Arrive at Luries (add 15min if Mandy is driving), open bottle of wine.
03:00 pm Drink wine, eat snacks, open bottle of wine and talk with guests while Luries run around fussing.
03:30 pm Open another bottle of wine, sit down to eat.
04:00 pm Open another bottle of wine, keep eating.
05:00 pm Take a break from eating, rest on sofa, chat with guests, open another bottle of wine.
05:30 pm Offer to help clean up, but Luries profusely refuse any help.
06:00 pm Tidy up wine bottles as they are scaring Elvis and impeding his route to cat bowl.
07:00 pm Think about a snack as guests ponder tofu sandwiches, open another bottle of wine and drink it with coffee.
08:00 pm Food coma set in, get Chris to drive me home.

I have been having some really weird dreams lately.
The weirdest yet was about fingers. My fingers were jointed like long beads threaded on elastic (this seemed normal in my dream) and, for some reason, I decided to remove a link from each of the fingers on my left hand so all the fingers were shorter. After looking at my stubby hand I decided I had made a mistake and tried to put the links back in. This was painful and when I was done the elastic didn't work quite as well and my hand looked really nasty. It was at that point I woke up, and for the rest of the day I clenched my hand to make sure the links didn't slip off. I am very sure this is not a good thing to dream about!

Since my company cut our salaries we have all been taking every second Friday off, the pay cut hurt but the three day weekends are great. I could totally work a 4 day week; 4 x 10 hour days would be fine. Well, yesterday was my Friday off, had lunch with a friend (they paid), dyed my hair and went on a 15 mile bike ride before the snow arrives. I think I used my day-off time well :-)

I'm blue today, not sure why... I dreamed about cutting my hair which is supposed to be a good sign for the future.
Also, am I too old to blog? How old is too old? May be I'm blue 'cause I'm feeling old. Wonder if Santa would bring me some botox for Christmas? :-)

Well, after spending way too long trying to set this up on my website I gave in and posted it to the blogspot server -- it worked like a charm! May be one day when I'm an expert blogger I can get it set up on my server, but for now this will work nicely, though I do feel like a looser for not having the technical ability.